On the basis of this type of argument, you should consider Judaism more: the mass revelation argument for Judaism https://youtu.be/VarUODJ9uPo?si=RQaN773xBODJz3pT, survival despite threats to end (a low probability prediction made in the Torah), going back to the land of Israel after a lot of years (also a prediction made), small nation becoming the successor to the two largest religions in the world, and more.
I also have some sympathy for elements of Hinduism (as did C.S. Lewis, as does David Bentley Hart). But a few scatted thoughts (in the order I had them, rather than the order in which the relevant parts appear in the piece):
"Not all Hindus are vegetarian, but about 4 in 10 Hindus in India are, and 8 in 10 place some restriction on meat in their diets."
Unfortunately, this is probably net negative (as vegetarianism promotes egg consumption, maybe the worst thing from an animal welfare perspective, and the dietary restrictions discourage beef consumption, probably the least bad thing from an animal welfare perspective). Hard to know exactly how to think about this, as the underlying principles are good and the bad consequences are maybe because of things unique to modern conditions.
"Also, if you buy the highly convincing anthropic argument for theism—an entailment of which is that God has created every possible person—it’ll turn out to be the case that, in all likelihood, for every Hindu minor deity, there exists a person God has created who is both (a) equal in power to that deity, and (b) has the precise character traits the deity is said to have."
I don't see how this is supposed to follow, assuming (as I think you think?) that what's essential to me is my haecceity rather than my power level and character traits.
"Christianity which, while not incompatible with pre-existence, doesn’t have a pre-existence doctrine at the core of its tradition, or even on the periphery."
The part about the periphery is false (Origen, etc.).
Re: karma, it seems to me that the idea of post-mortem punishment serves the same function re: desert while also avoiding potential counter-intuitive/repugnant moral implications (is the starving kid starving because they're being punished? should I therefore not help them? etc.).
"The best move here is to revise moksha a bit"
Idk, I think the revision is awfully important--so important that it really kind of calls into question whether the doctrine can serve the same purpose. The problem of evil seems much easier to me to solve if this present darkness is an infinitesimal blip at a beginning that's leading somewhere else than if it's the same damn thing forever. It does seem like, wherever it's leading, this life doesn't always do a good job of leading there--you can fix with either purgatory or reincarnation. But on the Huemer view, it's not leading anywhere over the long term.
Re: religious experience, I think Hinduism may have some advantage here insofar as it's more naturally inclined to some sort of pluralism. But the monotheistic traditions still have angels, archons, spirits, fae, etc. I think you could get a lot of the same stuff in that framework. (Think of Lewis' space trilogy, where the Roman gods basically do exist and rule planets--they are just something more like angels and demons.)
Thanks for the comment! I’m listening to Hart’s “Being, Consciousness, Bliss” book right now—icl it’s pretty bad so far, but I think he moves on from the Classical Theism stuff in a chapter or two.
> vegetarianism
Yeah, on one dimension it would be more evidence for Hinduism if the dietary restrictions were perfectly suited to cause Hindus to inflict the least harm under modern conditions, just as it would be more evidence for Christianity if Jesus’ teaching on charitable giving were more specifically geared towards EA causes. But I think in both cases we should put more weight on the principles themselves than on their fruits.
> anthropic argument/the existence of the gods
It doesn’t follow strictly, but I think it’s probable that if every soul of every degree of power exists, there’s at least one with the character traits of Shiva. (Since the only souls we’ve observed belong to people [are people] with a wide diversity of character traits, then it seems likely that if there are infinite souls, there’d be one whose character was pretty Shiva-like [granted, probably not one who did the things Shiva did or look the way he looks.])
> pre-existence on the periphery
Yeah, it’s true there have been Christians (Origen, Augustine at points, Bulgakov, David Bentley Hart) who believed in pre-existence, but there’s never been a sect (discounting Mormonism) where the idea actually caught on (as far as I’m aware). Not even on the periphery was an exaggeration, but still, if pre-existence x Christianity are true, the Holy Spirit must have some reason not to want it to catch on in the church. (Those reasons could be whatever reason God had for wiping out memories, so I actually don’t think it’s a huge mark against Christianity—but it’s at least kind of surprising that it’s not been more of a big deal.)
> Karma
Yeah, John Buck raised that puzzle, and I don’t see any way out of it. I came up with a few ideas, but none of them are as straightforwardly predicted by theism.
> Moksha
Yeah, I agree it’s a huge revision—probably equivalent to replacing trinitarianism with unitarianism. But I suppose the difference is that Hinduism has no conciliar statements anyone is bound by, so you can probably afford the occasional radical re-think.
I agree the problem of evil gets way harder without Moksha. I think what Hindus should say is: the anthropic evidence/evidence for theism is INSANELY STRONG—we know they’re both true; so there must be some theodicy that works. I have a few thoughts, but none of them are independently very plausible.
> religious experience
I agree with you about the size of Hinduism’s advantage over Christianity (depending on the Christianity.)
I was at the point where he was talking about philosophy, atheism, the evolutionary argument against naturalism, his first cause argument, etc., but obviously not quite grasping the material, anticipating any of the right objections, etc.
Yeah, Hart is bad whenever he talks about philosophy. Better/more interesting on religious and theological questions, imv.
"I think it’s probable that if every soul of every degree of power exists, there’s at least one with the character traits of Shiva"
But how does the anthropic argument imply that a soul with every degree of power exists?
(Maybe this is already kind of hinted at in the post, but there are sort of referential problems here: unless the individuals from the stories are causally responsible for the stories, then the god won't exist--it's just that it will turn out that someone very much like the god exists. I don't really why that would be much of a better outcome.)
Interesting--from reading a bit about it just now, it seems like there are variations in whether vegetarians in India eat eggs? But you're right that a lot don't--I didn't know that.
I'd guess vegetarianism to be net positive. It's true that it increases the amount of eggs eaten, but eggs aren't much worse than chicken if they are worse at all, and the reduction in overall animal product consumption is probably enough to outweigh.
//I don't see how this is supposed to follow, assuming (as I think you think?) that what's essential to me is my haecceity rather than my power level and character traits.//
If you think that there's a good reason to create worlds like ours, then that implies that the best world for a person is diverse such that the ideal world for me is very different from many other possible souls. But then it's decently likely that the ideal world for some souls will be in Hindu worlds.
Re: vegetarianism: the thing is that chicken and eggs are so much worse than everything else that's commonly eaten (except maybe seafood) that a meaningful increase in chicken product consumption will probably swamp everything else. Anecdotally, my experience is that the vegetarian I know best eats *lots* of eggs. But admittedly I don't have data on that.
There might be something to the last bit. There's still the problem about reference that I noted in my response to Amos above, though.
I'm dubious that chickens swamp other stuff. Fish is pretty bad as is Turkey and pork (pigs are probably a bit more conscious). I'd guess chicken is only maybe 4 or 5x as bad as pig. I'd guess vegetarians eat less chicken+eggs than meat eaters also, but I also don't have data.
I don't know if I buy that view of reference, I'd have to think more about it. But also, I think you should obviously be an error theorist about these more exotic God stories.
You could be right about vegetarianism--I might be overupdated on my one vegetarian friend who eats a *lot* of eggs. Maybe a safer criticism is just that there's no perspective from which it makes sense to be a vegetarian who consumes factory farmed eggs. It isn't the morally best option, but it also doesn't make sense from the perspective of any weighting of moral vs. self-interested considerations. Maybe that's not a problem for Hinduism, though.
I think it's not too controversial that this is the right view of reference for proper names, which "Shiva" (etc.) is. I guess, more broadly, there's also a question about the point at which this stops being Hinduism and just becomes theism + animal rights and a weird form of reincarnation, or whatever. Like, if Shiva doesn't exist, but there are infinitely many beings kind of like Shiva, but none of them have ever interacted with us and none of them are particularly special in any way and this is just a consequence of the fact that there's a person fitting ~any conceivable profile... Similarly, the more we need to revise, the weaker the evidence for Hinduism. Like, reincarnation is one of only a couple broad views about the afterlife, and the claim here is only that it got the broad category right.
I guess that's a worry for any sufficiently liberal/revisionary religion. But then I guess the worry also comes in degrees.
It's cool that you're interested in this type of thing. I recently got my Ph.D. in Theology and Religious Studies, where I did my dissertation on the problem of evil from a Hindu perspective. I've also published various papers on Hindu philosophy of religion. I'd love to talk more about this with you if you're still interested in exploring Hindu theism further - Hindu philosophy of religion is growing and there's a lot of promise in the field. I don't know if I'll check this comment thread much, but my email is akshayg95@yahoo.com if you wanted to chat more.
I think most of these work better for Sikhism (the most true religion!) Also, the Sikh conception of God and scriptural canon is a lot more organic and congruent with a rationally derived theism.
Nice post, I also recommend you look into Hinduism’s sister religion, Zoroastrianism. Both are surviving examples of the Indo-European religious family that once spanned India to Iceland.
Somewhat OT, but as a substance dualist, what do you see the role of the brain being?
Wouldn't some version of Neoplatonism be a better fit? It also has reincarnation and ethical vegetarianism, both God and minor gods, and is even more parsimonious than Hinduism. Neoplatonists also were explicit fictionalists about classic pagan myths.
Good post! Though FWIW, Huemer's proof works if you either accept SIA or think the future is infinite in the past or future (you don't need both--if there will be infinite people, the odds I'd be around now are zero).
On the basis of this type of argument, you should consider Judaism more: the mass revelation argument for Judaism https://youtu.be/VarUODJ9uPo?si=RQaN773xBODJz3pT, survival despite threats to end (a low probability prediction made in the Torah), going back to the land of Israel after a lot of years (also a prediction made), small nation becoming the successor to the two largest religions in the world, and more.
Message me for more. I have many arguments of this type.
I also have some sympathy for elements of Hinduism (as did C.S. Lewis, as does David Bentley Hart). But a few scatted thoughts (in the order I had them, rather than the order in which the relevant parts appear in the piece):
"Not all Hindus are vegetarian, but about 4 in 10 Hindus in India are, and 8 in 10 place some restriction on meat in their diets."
Unfortunately, this is probably net negative (as vegetarianism promotes egg consumption, maybe the worst thing from an animal welfare perspective, and the dietary restrictions discourage beef consumption, probably the least bad thing from an animal welfare perspective). Hard to know exactly how to think about this, as the underlying principles are good and the bad consequences are maybe because of things unique to modern conditions.
"Also, if you buy the highly convincing anthropic argument for theism—an entailment of which is that God has created every possible person—it’ll turn out to be the case that, in all likelihood, for every Hindu minor deity, there exists a person God has created who is both (a) equal in power to that deity, and (b) has the precise character traits the deity is said to have."
I don't see how this is supposed to follow, assuming (as I think you think?) that what's essential to me is my haecceity rather than my power level and character traits.
"Christianity which, while not incompatible with pre-existence, doesn’t have a pre-existence doctrine at the core of its tradition, or even on the periphery."
The part about the periphery is false (Origen, etc.).
Re: karma, it seems to me that the idea of post-mortem punishment serves the same function re: desert while also avoiding potential counter-intuitive/repugnant moral implications (is the starving kid starving because they're being punished? should I therefore not help them? etc.).
"The best move here is to revise moksha a bit"
Idk, I think the revision is awfully important--so important that it really kind of calls into question whether the doctrine can serve the same purpose. The problem of evil seems much easier to me to solve if this present darkness is an infinitesimal blip at a beginning that's leading somewhere else than if it's the same damn thing forever. It does seem like, wherever it's leading, this life doesn't always do a good job of leading there--you can fix with either purgatory or reincarnation. But on the Huemer view, it's not leading anywhere over the long term.
Re: religious experience, I think Hinduism may have some advantage here insofar as it's more naturally inclined to some sort of pluralism. But the monotheistic traditions still have angels, archons, spirits, fae, etc. I think you could get a lot of the same stuff in that framework. (Think of Lewis' space trilogy, where the Roman gods basically do exist and rule planets--they are just something more like angels and demons.)
Thanks for the comment! I’m listening to Hart’s “Being, Consciousness, Bliss” book right now—icl it’s pretty bad so far, but I think he moves on from the Classical Theism stuff in a chapter or two.
> vegetarianism
Yeah, on one dimension it would be more evidence for Hinduism if the dietary restrictions were perfectly suited to cause Hindus to inflict the least harm under modern conditions, just as it would be more evidence for Christianity if Jesus’ teaching on charitable giving were more specifically geared towards EA causes. But I think in both cases we should put more weight on the principles themselves than on their fruits.
> anthropic argument/the existence of the gods
It doesn’t follow strictly, but I think it’s probable that if every soul of every degree of power exists, there’s at least one with the character traits of Shiva. (Since the only souls we’ve observed belong to people [are people] with a wide diversity of character traits, then it seems likely that if there are infinite souls, there’d be one whose character was pretty Shiva-like [granted, probably not one who did the things Shiva did or look the way he looks.])
> pre-existence on the periphery
Yeah, it’s true there have been Christians (Origen, Augustine at points, Bulgakov, David Bentley Hart) who believed in pre-existence, but there’s never been a sect (discounting Mormonism) where the idea actually caught on (as far as I’m aware). Not even on the periphery was an exaggeration, but still, if pre-existence x Christianity are true, the Holy Spirit must have some reason not to want it to catch on in the church. (Those reasons could be whatever reason God had for wiping out memories, so I actually don’t think it’s a huge mark against Christianity—but it’s at least kind of surprising that it’s not been more of a big deal.)
> Karma
Yeah, John Buck raised that puzzle, and I don’t see any way out of it. I came up with a few ideas, but none of them are as straightforwardly predicted by theism.
> Moksha
Yeah, I agree it’s a huge revision—probably equivalent to replacing trinitarianism with unitarianism. But I suppose the difference is that Hinduism has no conciliar statements anyone is bound by, so you can probably afford the occasional radical re-think.
I agree the problem of evil gets way harder without Moksha. I think what Hindus should say is: the anthropic evidence/evidence for theism is INSANELY STRONG—we know they’re both true; so there must be some theodicy that works. I have a few thoughts, but none of them are independently very plausible.
> religious experience
I agree with you about the size of Hinduism’s advantage over Christianity (depending on the Christianity.)
"I’m listening to Hart’s “Being, Consciousness, Bliss” book right now—icl it’s pretty bad so far" why?
I was at the point where he was talking about philosophy, atheism, the evolutionary argument against naturalism, his first cause argument, etc., but obviously not quite grasping the material, anticipating any of the right objections, etc.
It got better though
Yeah, Hart is bad whenever he talks about philosophy. Better/more interesting on religious and theological questions, imv.
"I think it’s probable that if every soul of every degree of power exists, there’s at least one with the character traits of Shiva"
But how does the anthropic argument imply that a soul with every degree of power exists?
(Maybe this is already kind of hinted at in the post, but there are sort of referential problems here: unless the individuals from the stories are causally responsible for the stories, then the god won't exist--it's just that it will turn out that someone very much like the god exists. I don't really why that would be much of a better outcome.)
Just on the first thing here - in India, vegetarianism includes eggs. Eggs are considered non-vegetarian.
Interesting--from reading a bit about it just now, it seems like there are variations in whether vegetarians in India eat eggs? But you're right that a lot don't--I didn't know that.
I'd guess vegetarianism to be net positive. It's true that it increases the amount of eggs eaten, but eggs aren't much worse than chicken if they are worse at all, and the reduction in overall animal product consumption is probably enough to outweigh.
//I don't see how this is supposed to follow, assuming (as I think you think?) that what's essential to me is my haecceity rather than my power level and character traits.//
If you think that there's a good reason to create worlds like ours, then that implies that the best world for a person is diverse such that the ideal world for me is very different from many other possible souls. But then it's decently likely that the ideal world for some souls will be in Hindu worlds.
Re: vegetarianism: the thing is that chicken and eggs are so much worse than everything else that's commonly eaten (except maybe seafood) that a meaningful increase in chicken product consumption will probably swamp everything else. Anecdotally, my experience is that the vegetarian I know best eats *lots* of eggs. But admittedly I don't have data on that.
There might be something to the last bit. There's still the problem about reference that I noted in my response to Amos above, though.
I'm dubious that chickens swamp other stuff. Fish is pretty bad as is Turkey and pork (pigs are probably a bit more conscious). I'd guess chicken is only maybe 4 or 5x as bad as pig. I'd guess vegetarians eat less chicken+eggs than meat eaters also, but I also don't have data.
I don't know if I buy that view of reference, I'd have to think more about it. But also, I think you should obviously be an error theorist about these more exotic God stories.
You could be right about vegetarianism--I might be overupdated on my one vegetarian friend who eats a *lot* of eggs. Maybe a safer criticism is just that there's no perspective from which it makes sense to be a vegetarian who consumes factory farmed eggs. It isn't the morally best option, but it also doesn't make sense from the perspective of any weighting of moral vs. self-interested considerations. Maybe that's not a problem for Hinduism, though.
I think it's not too controversial that this is the right view of reference for proper names, which "Shiva" (etc.) is. I guess, more broadly, there's also a question about the point at which this stops being Hinduism and just becomes theism + animal rights and a weird form of reincarnation, or whatever. Like, if Shiva doesn't exist, but there are infinitely many beings kind of like Shiva, but none of them have ever interacted with us and none of them are particularly special in any way and this is just a consequence of the fact that there's a person fitting ~any conceivable profile... Similarly, the more we need to revise, the weaker the evidence for Hinduism. Like, reincarnation is one of only a couple broad views about the afterlife, and the claim here is only that it got the broad category right.
I guess that's a worry for any sufficiently liberal/revisionary religion. But then I guess the worry also comes in degrees.
It's cool that you're interested in this type of thing. I recently got my Ph.D. in Theology and Religious Studies, where I did my dissertation on the problem of evil from a Hindu perspective. I've also published various papers on Hindu philosophy of religion. I'd love to talk more about this with you if you're still interested in exploring Hindu theism further - Hindu philosophy of religion is growing and there's a lot of promise in the field. I don't know if I'll check this comment thread much, but my email is akshayg95@yahoo.com if you wanted to chat more.
I think most of these work better for Sikhism (the most true religion!) Also, the Sikh conception of God and scriptural canon is a lot more organic and congruent with a rationally derived theism.
Nice post, I also recommend you look into Hinduism’s sister religion, Zoroastrianism. Both are surviving examples of the Indo-European religious family that once spanned India to Iceland.
Somewhat OT, but as a substance dualist, what do you see the role of the brain being?
Wouldn't some version of Neoplatonism be a better fit? It also has reincarnation and ethical vegetarianism, both God and minor gods, and is even more parsimonious than Hinduism. Neoplatonists also were explicit fictionalists about classic pagan myths.
Good post! Though FWIW, Huemer's proof works if you either accept SIA or think the future is infinite in the past or future (you don't need both--if there will be infinite people, the odds I'd be around now are zero).