For what it’s worth, consider the claim “The Judeo-Christian God, the one who listens to prayers and so on, doesn’t exist.” I have such high confidence in this claim that I would absolutely state it as a fact without hedging, and psychoanalyze people for how they came to disagree with me. Yet there’s a massive theology literature arguing to the contrary of that claim, including by some very smart and thoughtful people, and I’ve read essentially none of this theology literature, and if you asked me to do an anti-atheism ITT I would flunk it catastrophically.
I’m not sure what lesson you’ll take from that; for all I know you yourself are very religious, and this anecdote will convince you that I have terrible judgment. But if you happen to be on the same page as me, then maybe this would be an illustration of the fact that (I claim) one can rationally and correctly arrive at extremely-confident beliefs without it needing to pass through a deep understanding and engagement with the perspectives of the people who disagree with you.
I agree that this isn’t too important a conversation, it’s just kinda interesting. :)
For what it’s worth, consider the claim “The Judeo-Christian God, the one who listens to prayers and so on, doesn’t exist.” I have such high confidence in this claim that I would absolutely state it as a fact without hedging, and psychoanalyze people for how they came to disagree with me. Yet there’s a massive theology literature arguing to the contrary of that claim, including by some very smart and thoughtful people, and I’ve read essentially none of this theology literature, and if you asked me to do an anti-atheism ITT I would flunk it catastrophically.
I’m not sure what lesson you’ll take from that; for all I know you yourself are very religious, and this anecdote will convince you that I have terrible judgment. But if you happen to be on the same page as me, then maybe this would be an illustration of the fact that (I claim) one can rationally and correctly arrive at extremely-confident beliefs without it needing to pass through a deep understanding and engagement with the perspectives of the people who disagree with you.
I agree that this isn’t too important a conversation, it’s just kinda interesting. :)