[ExI] Theological arguments

[Keith Henson]

On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 8:07 PM,   Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

snip

> There is also a fundamental problem with lack of tools for criticism.
> How many can make a good theological argument these days?

That's a good point.  I tend to bypass theology for biology,
particularly evolutionary psychology and reply to theology questions
with the meta question, "Why do humans have religions at all?"

The tentative answer is that religions are xenophobic memes.  Some
xenophobic meme seems to be required to dehumanize the people on the
other side during wars.  Why wars?  Population growth in excess of
economic growth.  You simply don't have wars unless the population is
anticipating bad times a-coming.

The selection for psychological mechanisms leading to wars _when
appropriate_ has been intense, as well as the accurate detection of
"when appropriate."  It does genes no good to take a huge risk of
being wiped out while fighting unless the alternative is worse.  First
pass simple model, war is better (from the genes viewpoint) when
facing a 50% starvation by something like 37%.  Same kind of war, same
viewpoint, it's 45% worse for genes if starvation is not in your
future.  These are strong selection drivers!

The genetic payoff matrix (from the viewpoint of genes) depends on the
young women of the defeated tribe being taken as mates.  There is a
graphic description of this custom in Numbers, chapter 31, verses
7-18.  (End note 11,
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296)

So part of the answer to the question of why people have religions at
all seems to be that the young women of a defeated tribe were
considered booty--for long enough to have genetic consequences.  This
set up a selection for behavior (i.e., genes behind the psychological
mechanisms) that we see as wars and religions.

> The problem is
> that it is not enough to be good at pointing out theological problems,
> the other part also has to be able to make a cogent argument, otherwise
> it will just be an emotional response. So it is easier to stay away from
> it (like politics and sex - not a good topic for the thanksgiving dinner).

The EP selection argument for wars and religions is does not seem to
be a good dinner topic either.  Not very many people have the
background to grok it, not even here.

> I made some arguments here:
> http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/08/freezing-critique-privileged-views-and-cryonics/
> about why religious views on immortality get a free pass that cryonics
> doesn't get.

The meta question here is why religions get the free pass.  I
certainly am not going to argue with you on the point that they do.
Claim it's religion and they get away with outright criminal
activities, corruption of the courts and governments.  This is
something I have experienced personally.

Keith