[MilanoCookie]

To offer an alternative viewpoint, have you watched Sam Harris talk about religion on YouTube? He even debated Jordan Peterson about topics such as morality. I like Peterson a lot, but similar to Ben Shapiro, when they talk about religion...all logic, rationality, and objective truth seeking goes out the window.

The so called spirits you talk about are merely emotions.

Religious beliefs are prevelant in Western culture for historical reasons, such that it has become a tradition. Can you imagine the anger, sadness, existential dread, and perhaps violence that would occur if all religious folks found out that their beliefs are perhaps false?

I heavily disagree with you saying that it reveals “deep truths”.

[squirrelicus]

I absolutely have. The four part series between the two was enthralling.

I'm not sure how you could you think logic, rationally, and objective truth seeking go out the window in Jordan's case. I know that sentence is a shibboleth of the secular community, I've said it myself. But it's just inaccurate.

With Sam it's funny. He says he wants to extract the good from the past and in the same breath rejects the good in religion explicitly because it has all this baggage that Jordan explicitly rejects.

I have merely accepted Jordan's assertion that within religion are rational, logical, objective truths about ourselves and human psychology that are not found anywhere else.

I await with bated breath the day Sam can write a story as powerful as Job, teaching the principle that when tragedy strikes it will feel like God and Satan are plotting against you; but the Right Thing to Do when tragedy strikes you is not to reevaluate your foundation, as we are wont to do. There are many other stories in the Bible about what to do you are suffering because of your own choices.

The Bible is merely psychologically profound.

[MilanoCookie]

I’m glad you watched the series.

It’s iffy, I think religion is a good bridge to morality, with the storytelling, metaphors, and whatnot. I just don’t buy this as “truth”. We have to consider that morality is not real and it’s a human/social construct to encourage desirable and cooperative behavior. I’m happy that we did create moral and ethical values though, it’s an excellent way to further the human race and ensure future survival without having to constantly worry about chaotic behavior, similar to (good) government laws.

I take the practical and actionable approach. When tragedy strikes I feel sad. That’s it. We can certainly describe the feeling in different ways using our wonderful literary methods such as metaphors, similes, etc. but at its basic core is the emotion of sadness. But what do you mean not re-evaluate the foundation? When tragedy strikes we should probably figure out how it happened and then take steps to prevent it from occurring again, a simple cause and effect analysis.

[squirrelicus]

One more thing: there's an important distinction I should make more clear: tragedy and hell.

Tragedy is your environment. Its the tornado, or whirlwind [in which the God of the story of Job appears]. It's car accidents and health problems and kidnappings. These can lay you low. But the wrong thing to do in the despair of tragedy is to blame your foundation for them.

Hell, you create. You own it. You acheive it. It's your fault. And your foundation is the cause. Reevaluate when you find yourself in hell. It's the only hope of a way out.

You know, people, including myself before I understood, like to cite Matthew 19, the famous "eye of a needle" admonishment, as evidence that Christ wants you to be ascetic and Christians aren't real Christians. What a careless and ham fisted reading. When I returned to that scripture with the eye of (a) first taking it seriously, and (b) taking it in context that scripture teaches me about myself, it became very clear.

A rich man comes to Christ and asks, more or less, "I believe and am doing the things you said but haven't acheived peace yet. What should I do?" Christ says to sell your riches and try again. The teaching of this scripture is that if you find yourself approximating Hell, look into yourself and find your highest aim. If that aim, your highest ideal, is not God, strike it down. It's not working for you. Reevaluate. When it's your fault.

[geitir]

People with empathy naturally don't want to inflict unnecessary pain on other people. Sure, you could argue that empathy is a human construct, but then you might argue that the very nature of our reality has been evolutionarily hewn to maximize our species survival. And you'd probably be right. But does that allow you to escape the nature of our reality? No, not if you yourself are human. Being able to offset our perception in this way is extremely powerful and is in the roots of the scientific method and what has led us to be such an advanced society. But continuing to apply this perception to every aspect of your life is essentially nihilism. What makes us who we are can't be shoved under the rug like that and every emotional attempted to be processed analytically.

[MilanoCookie]

Nihilism may be too extreme, but we need to discern what parts of society are man-made (laws, ethics, morality...all principles that we generally converge and agree on to be civilized and orderly) vs. objective reality.

Calling laws, ethics, and morality absolute or divine truths only serves our own ego. It’s dangerous and misleading when religion defines human constructs as truths, since they are only characteristics of our society.

We definitely should acknowledge who we are, that’s why the study of human psychology and human nature are fascinating. We should also take a third-person view of the world and deeply analyze actual, natural phenomena.

[squirrelicus]

I don't quite take your point. There are truths about being a human. Psychological realities of how the human brain works in ways that are distressing to someone who assumes they have control and are capable of being objective when they think they are being objective.

Then there are ways of dealing with those truths. They cannot be right or wrong, because the fitness of those ways depends on what you're optimizing for. And there are many different things to optimize for which have no objective way to weigh them as such.

I can say to you that the best society is one that emphasizes maximally the consequences of what you choose, while deemphasizing maximally that which you do not choose. I can point to Christianity and capitalism and the West in general as systems that align with that aim and, empirically, have the highest standard of living.

But that's not objective. All I can do is say what you should do in my estimation of what I think will maximize your fulfillment in your own life in the long term.

The Bible is a guide built on thousands of years of people trying to figure out what our aim should be, and how we should act in accordance with that aim.

It's fine to reject it. But there is no objective discovery to be made in this realm. You must choose your subjective values for yourself. And if the world is just, you must experience the systemic consequences of that choice in your own life.

[MilanoCookie]

Could you list some of the truths of being human? Also give some examples of psychological realities of the human brain?

The only ones I know of are biological in nature, as we are living, breathing, conscious, sentient organisms. I used to think us humans were all skeletons, but in reality we're just brains. And our brains, like all matter, are made out of atoms. The body parts are just the physical layer. Think about that next time you talk to someone face to face, you're two brains communicating with each other.

See, the above statements are what I mean when I talk about seeking objective reality. I analyzed us as creatures and stripped it down to the bare bones characteristics, no metaphors involved.

When you speak of fulfillment and having an aim, it's an attempt to rationalize a meaning to life. But the premise may be false, that people assume there is a meaning to be found in life in the first place. And supposedly the answer to what our aims should be are found in a book known as the Bible, which we should interpret as deep, grand metaphors.

Religion and the Bible give people an easy way out of asking the tough questions about the nature of our reality, preventing critical thinking and logical thoughts. It provides comfort for the aimless, lest they have to confront existential dread.

Laws, ethics, and morality are human/social constructs that are characteristics of our society. There are no divine, absolute, or deep truths to be found there. It just defines basic human behavior so society remains civil.

[squirrelicus]

There are better ways to address tragedy than merely feeling sad.

Religious tradition and ritual is full of psychologically useful things. In the LDS tradition, priesthood blessings are getting many men together in solidarity with the victim, stating the problem out loud, and asking the spirit of God what the right thing to do is. In Catholic tradition, family and friends get together set aside time, and do their prayer beads and chants. It's a vehicle to bring people close together in times of tragedy, and let the victim know that their loved ones are there for them and on their side.

[MilanoCookie]

Sadness is the response to a tragic event, not how we address it. I said that we can address it by being practical and seeing what caused the event and how to prevent it in the future.

In terms of the human who experienced the tragic event, yes they are probably traumatized and will have to reflect on it.

In your second paragraph, all you’ve described is a coping mechanism, which makes total sense because humans are social creatures.

[rohit2412]

> The Bible is merely psychologically profound.

Sure, I think everyone agrees that some wisdom is to be found in ancient texts. Along with a whole crock of false claims.

When you say you believe in God, you are making claims which are unproven, such as recurrence of souls, heaven, and hell. You also are making claims that are verifiably false, such as Earth being 5000 years old, Noah saving species in a boat etc. Finally, you are choosing to ignore a lot of harmful dogmas in these texts, such as homophobia or killing of non believers.

All this because a 2000 year old book says so.

[squirrelicus]

I do not make any claims about souls or afterlife. I explicitly stated that the Bible is metaphor. Almost nobody is a young earth creationist anymore, including myself. Almost nobody who isn't Muslim believes in killing non believers anymore, including myself.

Empirical data man.

[websitescenes]

> “Almost nobody is a young creationist anymore... Almost nobody who isn’t Muslim believes in killing non believers anymore...”

Wow, not sure where you live but come check out rural Texas. I’ve lost friends to Christian extremism here. These guys are stockpiling weapons and organizing. Also, I’m sure you caught the last presidential election? Even if they don’t directly believe those things, they support someone who does. It’s a serious situation when people use belief to disprove science and empirical data man.

[squirrelicus]

Strange claim. From what I can tell Trump has likely never practiced and would probably be an "agnostic" if not for seeking the Republican nomination. He might be the first atheist president actually. It's hard to tell.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-religious-tal...

As someone who "stockpiles" weapons and ammunition and with a large number of religious friends who also do so, I can say religion plays no part. It's about readiness to defend the country against totalitarianism.

That being said, I'm truly interested in what you think the demon is here. And I'm also interested in the mechanism behind losing friends to Christian extremism. I don't doubt that it happened, but I have no reason to believe you were innocent in the exchange either.

[websitescenes]

The issue for me is that both Trump and his followers operate off of belief. In my opinion, belief is the most dangerous force in the universe. It leaves infinite room for manipulation. No amount of evidence can change the mind of someone that just believes and that’s truly terrifying. Sure, Trump may not actually believe everything he claims to but his followers absolutely do and that makes them easy to manipulate and control. When I say “I’ve lost friends to Christian extremism”, I mean that I’ve watched them slowly lose there cognitive abilities and become vantriliquist dolls spewing whatever they hear on Fox News without question. I prefer to talk to people that can have their minds changed based on new evidence. These friends used to be capable of this. This happened when they started identifying themselves as extreme right wing Christians. These used to be decent people but are now entirely consumed by a perceived attack on race and religion. Christianity in itself is not bad but what it enables is: Belief.