Essay talk:The Inherent Immorality of Religions

Response to delete request
Pardon me, you seem to have misunderstood something in my introduction. The essay itself does not appear in Reddit, it was simply written for the Reddit community.
 * In any event, our essay-space is not generally meant to hold material that is also hosted elsewhere. A link to the essay on your user-page would be more appropriate. 08:47, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm deeply unimpressed by the dogmatic elitist attitude you display. Does the fact that I had not considered RationalWiki at the time I wrote the essay in any way diminish its value? And if it's valuable, why should it not be here? NukeThePope (talk) 08:52, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The objection concerns not the "value" of the essay, but the fact that it is hosted elsewhere. 09:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree that this should be a criterion, but of course it's "your" site much more than "mine." If you're supported in this request I will accept this as an indication that this is not a site I would be interested in contributing to in the future. Everybody wins, sorta.
 * Just out of curiosity: my blog is a pathetic little affair with just a handful of posts and a tiny readership, so I'm not particularly invested in it. If I were to delete the essay from my blog, would you continue to advocate deleting it here? NukeThePope (talk) 09:20, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not going to pursue this very strenuously, as the precedent is in place to keep non-contributing editors from spamming us with self-promotional works. But, to give fair warning, if you have a thin skin, you might not enjoy editing here; our discussions are no-holds-barred style. 09:37, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair nuff! I agree with you that in the general and high-volume this is definitely something you wouldn't want. The 'net is full of blogs where people pump out one moderately interesting essay every week, and anyone interested can go see those at the site of their origin. This essay is something I consider "one of a kind," I consider it my best work ever in anti-religious argument, and also "worthy" of inclusion in a page of rational-minded discussions of religion. I'm not aware of any other article that goes as far as I do in specifically linking religions (in general!) with immorality. If I were to write anything comparable in the future, I would publish it here exclusively (or try to).
 * That said, I'm much looking forward to having these perhaps inflated notions examined by folks who are critical, merciless and (here's hoping) qualified in terms of knowledge and intelligence. I hope to see comments that will help me tighten it up and make it more compelling. If I were thin-skinned I wouldn't be active on Reddit ;) I look forward to seeing a similar level of ruthless honesty but with less of the lowbrow poo-flinging and trolling I see over there.

Oh, what's the harm, really... how much space does it take up on the server? It could be worse; instead of copying one essay here from elsewhere, he could create 555 entirely originally essays on this website. 09:47, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * As a "proper" anti-theist I would be obligated to create 666 essays ;) NukeThePope (talk) 10:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree with W. K. Clifford's "Ethics of Belief"
I hold to a very different ethics of belief — namely that, in certain circumstances, we can have a moral duty to believe something, independent of any evidence for or against the proposition. My wife is accused of murdering her mother; she insists to me she is innocent. I believe her, not because the evidence justifies that belief, but because I feel a moral duty, on account of our marriage and relationship and love for one another, to believe her. This obligation is not absolute — presented with convincing evidence of her guilt, I have to accept that she is indeed guilty; but it applies even if the weight of evidence is in favour of her guilt, so long as that evidence is merely strongly suggestive rather than clearly convincing. 09:52, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I see your point, but I think it's mistaken. Here's why: the fact that she's your wife is evidence! Assuming you didn't marry her yesterday in a Las Vegas drive-thru chapel, this is someone you know well and have some reason to trust. You are, for all practical purposes, her character witness. It's not loyalty or love that causes you to assume her innocence, but the evidence you have of her mental sanity, trustworthiness and morality (incidentally, these are also among the reasons you love her). That being the case, you're not basing a belief on "no evidence" and you're not in conflict with Clifford. NukeThePope (talk) 10:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't agree. You see my belief in her innocence as being justified by my knowledge of her character; I see it as something which exists independent of any evidence — indeed, to reduce it to a mere weighing of evidence is in my view to sully it. But, at the end of the day, you can't prove your position right and mine wrong, neither can I prove my position right and yours wrong. Ultimately, questions of morality or rationality must be accepted on faith, for no evidence is sufficient to justify them. 10:09, 25 November 2011 (UTC)