180. Andy Norman — Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think
The Michael Shermer Show
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Is Religion a Good Idea?
i think we need that any comprehensive assessment of whether an idea is a good one or worth believing has to attend both to its relationship to evidence and logic, and also pay attention to the causal consequences. So i'm enough of a pragmatist and enough of a jamesian to think that downstream consequences matter also. But i think it's true of many forms of delusive ideation that they provide a short term psychological or social benefit at a long term collective cost. And if that's your reason for believing in, say, god, i think your reasons are fundamentally selfish and mean to be re examined.
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