The bad reasoning is what makes me uncomfortable. Most of the time it doesn’t matter, but sometimes it matters a lot.
It’s the “if you have a problem with fundamentalists, maybe there is something wrong with your fundamentals?”
When otherwise smart people go on about god it makes me uncomfortable - a little like talking to a delusional person. When something there is broken anything can be rationalized. The specific religion doesn’t matter, they all share this flaw (along with woo like astrology).
“Some philosophers have been much confused by such scenarios, asking, “Does the claimant really believe there’s a dragon present, or not?” As if the human brain only had enough disk space to represent one belief at a time!
Real minds are more tangled than that. There are different types of belief; not all beliefs are direct anticipations. The claimant clearly does not anticipate seeing anything unusual upon opening the garage door. Otherwise they wouldn’t make advance excuses.
It may also be that the claimant’s pool of propositional beliefs contains the free-floating statement There is a dragon in my garage.
It may seem, to a rationalist, that these two beliefs should collide and conflict even though they are of different types. Yet it is a physical fact that you can write “The sky is green!” next to a picture of a blue sky without the paper bursting into flames.”
It’s the “if you have a problem with fundamentalists, maybe there is something wrong with your fundamentals?”
When otherwise smart people go on about god it makes me uncomfortable - a little like talking to a delusional person. When something there is broken anything can be rationalized. The specific religion doesn’t matter, they all share this flaw (along with woo like astrology).
Though what’s broken is often more complex.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CqyJzDZWvGhhFJ7dY/belief-in-...
“Some philosophers have been much confused by such scenarios, asking, “Does the claimant really believe there’s a dragon present, or not?” As if the human brain only had enough disk space to represent one belief at a time!
Real minds are more tangled than that. There are different types of belief; not all beliefs are direct anticipations. The claimant clearly does not anticipate seeing anything unusual upon opening the garage door. Otherwise they wouldn’t make advance excuses.
It may also be that the claimant’s pool of propositional beliefs contains the free-floating statement There is a dragon in my garage.
It may seem, to a rationalist, that these two beliefs should collide and conflict even though they are of different types. Yet it is a physical fact that you can write “The sky is green!” next to a picture of a blue sky without the paper bursting into flames.”