I agree that when you first present EA to someone, there is a clear limitation on how much nuance you can squeeze in. For the sake of being concrete and down to earth, I don’t see harm in giving examples from classic EA cause areas (giving the example of distributing bed nets to prevent malaria as a very cost-effective intervention is a great way to get people to start appreciating EA’s attitude).
The problem I see is more in later stages of engagement with EA, when people already have a sense of what EA is but still get the impression (often unconsciously) that “if you really want to be part of EA then you need to work on one of the very specific EA cause areas”.
Some quick impressions and thoughts:
1. I like historical anecdotes and forgotten/underappreciated pieces of history. I enjoyed learning about the Quakers and some of their achievements.
2. I agree that a lot of the discussion on whether religion is good or bad is incredibly superficial. Nowadays it’s popular (among secular elites) to slam religion, but I’m quite certain that religions have played important roles in many positive developments (and, on the other hand, in many atrocities). Of course different religious groups are very different from one another and I think it’s very likely that some have been net positive while others net negative (it likely also depends on what you’d consider the counterfactual alternative to religion, given that it’s been so prevalent throughout most of human history).
3. It’s not entirely clear to me what you suggest in this post. Do you think that EAs should embrace a more religious attitude in general (and what would it mean practically, given that religions are so different)? Or do you specifically advocate for Quakerism? (Again, what would it mean in practical terms?) Or should we just be more open to learn useful lessons from historical groups wherever they happen to present themselves? If you just intended for this post to provide some inspiration and didn’t have clear action items in mind that’s also perfectly fine (I just left the reading with some uncertainty about what you really tried to say).