Abstract
Religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic
benefits. But religious communities tend to frown on it. A salient reason is that, whereas
scientists should be neutral toward the topics they discuss, religious believers should be
loyal to God; and religious disagreement, they argue, is disloyal. For it often involves
discussion with people who believe more negatively about God than you do, putting you at
risk of forming negative beliefs yourself. And forming negative beliefs about someone, or
even being open to doing so, is disloyal. A loyal person, says the objector, should instead
exhibit doxastic partiality, doing her best to believe positively about the other party even at
the cost of accuracy. I discuss two arguments from doxastic partiality that aim to show that
religious disagreement is typically disloyal. I argue that even given doxastic partiality,
religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. But then I argue that
doxastic partiality is false. A superior form of loyalty is epistemically oriented: concerned
with knowing the other party as she really is. This opens up new ways in which religious
disagreement for the sake of learning about God can be loyal to him.