If one is a secular agnostic (like me) who doesn’t believe in God, Jesus, salvation, or an infinitely long, infinitely blissful afterlife in Heaven, then the Catholic Church over the last couple millennia probably looks like a net negative (arguably).
But if one believes in all these things, then insofar as the Catholic Church ‘saved’ hundreds of millions of souls, it’s been an enormous net positive.
We EAs need to be a bit more epistemically humble about these religious issues.
After all, many of us believe in the Simulation Hypothesis, which would imply that almost any conceivable theology that any human has ever believed, has a non-zero probability of being true—and our assessments of total utility generated by any particular person, movement, or organization should be modulated accordingly.
I didn’t vote it down, but I think giving the Catholic Church the “benefit of the doubt” is off-base. You could say the same about anyone doing bad—“Maybe they’re right on some level.” The Catholic Church has simply done tons and tons of bad. And I think I’m saying this not just because of my personal hatred of the Catholic Church. https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
Matt—I’m not arguing that we should give the Catholic Church the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Only that if—big if—their theology and metaphysics are correct, and if they actually managed to ‘save some souls’ (switching their fate from infinite suffering in hell to infinite bliss in heaven), then their net consequentialist impact in the afterlife would totally swamp any evil they’ve done on Earth.
You may think there’s zero % chance their theology and metaphysics are correct, but their beliefs are basically a variant of a Simulation Hypothesis, in which human actions ‘in simulation’ (during mortal life) determine rewards ‘out of simulation (in the ‘real’ afterlife).
There’s obviously a variant of Pascal’s wager that raises some thorny problems here. And it applies equally to every other religion that posits reincarnation or an afterlife....
Nick—strongly agree, esp. regarding the Vatican.
If one is a secular agnostic (like me) who doesn’t believe in God, Jesus, salvation, or an infinitely long, infinitely blissful afterlife in Heaven, then the Catholic Church over the last couple millennia probably looks like a net negative (arguably).
But if one believes in all these things, then insofar as the Catholic Church ‘saved’ hundreds of millions of souls, it’s been an enormous net positive.
We EAs need to be a bit more epistemically humble about these religious issues.
After all, many of us believe in the Simulation Hypothesis, which would imply that almost any conceivable theology that any human has ever believed, has a non-zero probability of being true—and our assessments of total utility generated by any particular person, movement, or organization should be modulated accordingly.
PS Folks who disagree-voted with this comment—I’m genuinely curious why you disagree?
I didn’t vote it down, but I think giving the Catholic Church the “benefit of the doubt” is off-base. You could say the same about anyone doing bad—“Maybe they’re right on some level.” The Catholic Church has simply done tons and tons of bad. And I think I’m saying this not just because of my personal hatred of the Catholic Church. https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
Matt—I’m not arguing that we should give the Catholic Church the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Only that if—big if—their theology and metaphysics are correct, and if they actually managed to ‘save some souls’ (switching their fate from infinite suffering in hell to infinite bliss in heaven), then their net consequentialist impact in the afterlife would totally swamp any evil they’ve done on Earth.
You may think there’s zero % chance their theology and metaphysics are correct, but their beliefs are basically a variant of a Simulation Hypothesis, in which human actions ‘in simulation’ (during mortal life) determine rewards ‘out of simulation (in the ‘real’ afterlife).
There’s obviously a variant of Pascal’s wager that raises some thorny problems here. And it applies equally to every other religion that posits reincarnation or an afterlife....