Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

> The idea that people are divided into rational and irrational is just plain wrong.

Who even made this claim? Obviously there's a spectrum. Perfect rationality is uncomputable; the best we can do is approximations. As Isaac Asimov cleverly put it:

"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

> I am agnostic, not because I believe any religious texts literally, but in general the very nature of my own consciousness leads me to believe that we are here for a purpose, and I believe that purpose could be communicated to us from "a higher power", and if that were the case, of course the tool of choice would be through parable digestible by the masses within a given culture. If God exists, he is certainly not comprehensible by our limited brains, and so of course a metaphor like a bearded man in the sky is the closest we're going to get anyway.

Those are some pretty non-obvious claims. Are you sure that parables of a highly anthropomorphic god would work better than, say, a straightforward (albeit complicated and confusing) explanation? How do you know that thinking of a "bearded man in the sky" is the best we can do?

> At the meta-level I feel like the intolerance of religion today is no different than the intolerance of atheists from generations past.

At a meta-meta-level I feel that statements like this are usually an attempt at social signaling rather than a properly thought-out factual claim.

Does private beliefs have an official definition? What I mean is, if you make public a belief, is it no longer "private"? Especially in a teaching position, where your personal beliefs directly contradict what your teaching?

Do as I say, not as I do?

> If your beliefs, religious or otherwise, are not affecting your job performance, I don't see how they're relevant to hiring and firing decisions.

Except things that aren't directly related to job performance are used as an excuse all the time. So we come back to the question: why special treatment for some beliefs and not others?

Don't we all do such things all the time?

I'll frequently to a friend and say "that movie would have been more interesting if they'd followed the subplot and showed how character X finally did Y".

Here I'm starting with a model of the universe, projecting the givens that we were shown, and extrapolating a theory about something else that might happen in that model. And all of it is false. I'm just playing with a model of the world as it might be. And that's all the scientist in the OP was doing, in his mind.

The only difference is that I'm saying that the model is fictional, whereas he believes it. But that doesn't make the projections he might make from his model any better or worse than mine.

> "The game's up for organized religion as soon as people see that there's more than one, and that those other believers aren't evil."

OK, millions of people have known that there is more than one religion for thousands of years. But you are asserting that most people are not aware there is more than religion. This is completely contrary to reality.

You also have a suggestion that after becoming aware there is more than one religion, people will then become aware that some of the adherents to the other religion "aren't evil". This is also completely contrary to reality. If there is someone who believes that everyone not in their religion is "evil", it must be an incredibly small fringe group along with flat earthers and apollo mission deniers. I've certainly never met one in real life.

Yet you assert this is a majority belief.

This means you are irrational and believe in things that are demonstrably false, does it not?

Therefore, under the thesis being promoted by Mr. Dawkins, you should not be allowed to hold any positions of responsibility in society or university or government. Anyone holding any irrational beliefs that are known to be wrong should not be allowed this and not allowed that, that's the argument.

Ah but it won't apply will it. Only certain specific types of unsubstantiated or irrational beliefs are to receive the blacklisting.

> But you are asserting that most people are not aware there is more than religion.

I'm not sure why you believe that. I did not write that anywhere in my post.

> You also have a suggestion that after becoming aware there is more than one religion, people will then become aware that some of the adherents to the other religion "aren't evil".

No. These are independent phenomena. I did not write that the one leads to the other.

> This is also completely contrary to reality. If there is someone who believes that everyone not in their religion is "evil", it must be an incredibly small fringe group along with flat earthers and apollo mission deniers. I've certainly never met one in real life.

Here, we're looking at different time-scales. I'm talking about the past 200 years, or so. "Evil" is an exaggeration, but let's say "immoral" or at the very least "misguided".

The point I was trying to make is this:

1) The primary vector for religious belief is parenting. Yes, people sometimes adopt a faith later in life, but this dwarfed by those who practice the faith of their parents. 2) This vector depends on the child having other adults and mentors (a community) around them who are also religious, or at the very least a community that doesn't mock religion as ridiculous and/or insane. 3) As more and more respectable people who are not obviously "other" are un- or anti-religious, it's harder to get kids to believe their religious teachings 3b) Or at least, it erodes their authority from Religion (capital R) to mere tradition.

> Yet you assert this is a majority belief.

Where? Where are you reading this stuff?

> This means you are irrational and believe in things that are demonstrably false, does it not?

Try again. Your argument is based on false premises.

I can only assume that because this is a sensitive topic, I've hit your auto-rant button, and you failed to actually read my post.

> Ah but it won't apply will it. Only certain specific types of unsubstantiated or irrational beliefs are to receive the blacklisting.

Well, since you bring this up -- why should certain irrational beliefs receive deference.

For instance, if someone tells me that they believe the biblical creation story, admittedly contrary to all evidence, why should they receive any more protection than if they tell me they believe the creation story from the Silmarillion to be true.