In Catholicism, priests are considered sacred chosen instruments by and for god, to mediate between him and lay people. If a given priest is bad, that throws into question whether god has poor judgement, but god is almighty so he doesn’t make mistakes. (Even more so if the pope is implicated, as his word is the direct word of god). Therefore probably he doesn’t exist.
Only later denominations conceptualise faith as primarily a direct relationship between you and god, in part as a response to this dilemma. But if you’re Roman Catholic, your whole religion is thrown into question by widespread priest criminality, and it seems reasonable to have a more modern response than Martin Luther starting a whole new religion, and just conclude that god actually doesn’t exist.
Yeah this is all right, but I see EA as being since it’s founding, much closer to Protestant ideals than Catholic ones, at least on this particular axis.
If you had told me in 2018 that EA was about “supporting what Dustin Moskovitz chooses to do because he is the best person who does the most good”, or “supporting what Nick Bostrom says is right because he has given it the most thought”, I would have said “okay, I can see how in this world, SBF’s failings would be really disturbing to the central worldview”.
But instead it feels like this kind of attitude has never been central to EA, and that in fact EA embraces something like the direct opposite of this attitude (reasoning from first principles, examining the empirical evidence, making decisions transparently). In this way, I see EA as already having been post-reformation (so to speak).
Later denominations which conceptualize faith as primarily a direct relationship between an individual and God came because humanity began to rediscover the truth in the bible. During the Dark Ages (a period lasting between 500 to 1,000 years), Roman Catholicism did not permit lay people from possessing or reading a bible, so much of the truth of the Gospel was lost during that time.
A reasonable response (regardless of its modernity) to the question of God’s existence should first and foremost consider what God has to say, and the only record of that is in the bible.
In Catholicism, priests are considered sacred chosen instruments by and for god, to mediate between him and lay people. If a given priest is bad, that throws into question whether god has poor judgement, but god is almighty so he doesn’t make mistakes. (Even more so if the pope is implicated, as his word is the direct word of god). Therefore probably he doesn’t exist.
Only later denominations conceptualise faith as primarily a direct relationship between you and god, in part as a response to this dilemma. But if you’re Roman Catholic, your whole religion is thrown into question by widespread priest criminality, and it seems reasonable to have a more modern response than Martin Luther starting a whole new religion, and just conclude that god actually doesn’t exist.
Yeah this is all right, but I see EA as being since it’s founding, much closer to Protestant ideals than Catholic ones, at least on this particular axis.
If you had told me in 2018 that EA was about “supporting what Dustin Moskovitz chooses to do because he is the best person who does the most good”, or “supporting what Nick Bostrom says is right because he has given it the most thought”, I would have said “okay, I can see how in this world, SBF’s failings would be really disturbing to the central worldview”.
But instead it feels like this kind of attitude has never been central to EA, and that in fact EA embraces something like the direct opposite of this attitude (reasoning from first principles, examining the empirical evidence, making decisions transparently). In this way, I see EA as already having been post-reformation (so to speak).
Later denominations which conceptualize faith as primarily a direct relationship between an individual and God came because humanity began to rediscover the truth in the bible. During the Dark Ages (a period lasting between 500 to 1,000 years), Roman Catholicism did not permit lay people from possessing or reading a bible, so much of the truth of the Gospel was lost during that time.
A reasonable response (regardless of its modernity) to the question of God’s existence should first and foremost consider what God has to say, and the only record of that is in the bible.