[robertcorey]

I would recommend reading through the entire blog archive, all together it's about the same length as a book. You can skip over articles on things that aren't interesting to you, for example I don't care about real estate.

My personal philosophy is a combination of all the different sources I have been exposed too. My main influences would be the mustachian thought sphere (MMM, The Magic of Thinking Big, Stoicism), secular western buddhism (Buddhism Plain and Simple, In the realm of hungry ghosts, The magic of tidying up) Game theory probabilistic thinking (Poker background).

When I first started reading MMM I was already a very tribal person. The us vs them mentality really appealed to me because I was used to strongly identifying with minority tribes (atheist, vegan). After I started studying buddhism I've been able to let go of some of the tribalism of mustachianism , but the frugality and the powerful self belief have remained. This is an example of my personal philosophy forking from a monolithic belief system.

I also have a couple dieties I worship. MMM is the god of frugality and not being a wimp. RNGesus is the god of accepting random bad stuff. I'll spin up/down dieties to put on my altar depending on my current priorities/ needs.

I know recommending you a bunch of books isn't really a proper response, but a proper definition would be the length of a book and I haven't written that yet.

What I would recommend to everyone is to study different belief systems and roll your own religion. Our brain is designed to consume faith-y belief systems. It's arrogant to believe those mechanisms in your brain won't latch on to something. It should be something your consciously decide on and design.

[lovich]

How do you go from atheist to creating your own deities that you add and remove at will?

[robertcorey]

I am 25 so I grew up online during the golden age of internet atheism. r/atheism was still a default sub, 'The God Delusion' was released in 2006 when I was 14. What I came to realize is that I was essentially worshipping my logical analytical mind and believing that if I had a enough processing power I could think my way to any solution. Eventually what I came to realize is that the logical conscious mind we are always aware of isn't necessarily making the decisions, nor does it ever have a complete picture of reality. Once I believed that my logical mind was n't capable of truly capturing reality I felt comfortable training myself to believe in things that weren't "true" since nothing as perceived as the conscious mind is really "true".

And there you are lighting incense to an action figure with a mustache on it to help contemplate doing your own bike repairs (: .

[yazaddaruvala]

> creating your own deities that you add and remove at will?

This is likely a miscommunication. Deity is a bad word, but I have a feeling the parent poster was just using it for emphasis.

The parent poster may just mean they respect and believe in the ideas collected together by a specific symbol. As soon as that symbol diverges its ideas from the parent, or the parent diverges is value function away from those ideas, then the parent poster no longer holds that symbol "in regard" (i.e. a deity).

I don't know about the parent, but to give you my perspective: I consider myself a poly-ideologist. It comes across very similar to what the parent poster describes.

I try and give all ideas merit, regardless of my prior thoughts. I usually give the most respect to ideas which are in my best interest (i.e. follow my value function). Sometimes this is hard because it goes counter to other ideas, and I have to internally find an equilibrium.

For example, how do I reconcile that I want to be financially independent, to do so, maybe I need to rent-seek, but also I believe all humans should be considered equal and treated with respect? By some definition of rent-seeking I am not respecting the people paying me money. As such, clearly it isn't binary I need to find an equilibrium and as time flows that equilibrium may change. To give fake but concrete numbers for the sake of explanation, lets say: I have a 65% belief that all humans should be respected and considered equal, however, 35% belief that I am not considered equal with all humans, I am superior. At every instant in time, I flip flop. I flip flop so fast between both that it is indistinguishable from believing both even tho they are contrary. Knowing this side of my human nature, it helps me reconcile how much I am willing to exploit other humans in order to become financially independent. (For the record its a hard thing to type out, because of social stigmas against recognizing certain ideas. rent-seeking/not treating people equally are some of the slightly more appropriate of all possible inappropriate ideas.)

Another example, if you asked me do I believe in god or am I an atheist? Those aren't binary questions for me, I'd give you a percentage. Today, I'm 20% sure god exists, 20% an atheist, 60% sure that it doesn't matter to me today. On a different day, say I was in the hospital, I may find myself giving more merit to believing in god, and that ratio might skew 80% believing in god, but still 20% sure that its total bullshit. Or I say a child with cancer and on that day I'd be pretty sure god doesn't exist.

I don't know.. I'm just kinda weird. Perhaps its not possible for me to explain myself yet.

P.S. All percentages in this post are not accurate. I have no way to measure how much I believe a particular idea.