Truth still matters.

What is truth in a collective dream?

Belief in God isn't the problem. Institutions that abuse that belief to hijack your free will are the problem. Mormonism is full of blatant lies. That is a clue.

"Belief in God isn't the problem. Institutions that abuse that belief to hijack your free will are the problem. Mormonism is full of blatant lies. That is a clue."

COMMENT: Belief in God *is* indeed the problem if people act upon such beliefs by advocating unjust and constraining social and political agendas based upon such beliefs. Irrational and/or false religious beliefs of a majority, an aggressive minority, often result in irrational, unjust, counter-productive, and unnecessary social policies. (Look around!)

In general, people who hold religious beliefs--even institutionalized religious beliefs-- have *not* had their free will hijacked. Rather they are simply exercising their free will in a context of limited (and often false) information, coupled with their choice between alternative and competing values. Although there are certainly examples of excessive indoctrination and 'programming' of religious beliefs, free will is always behind the scenes as a mental resource of human nature to free a person from such circumstances. (IMO) RfM is evidence for this personal opinion!

The fact that Mormonism is "full of blatant lies" tells you nothing about free will---except that a committed Mormon might consider further exercising their fee will by divorcing themself from Mormonism, as many have. Of course, even when faced with such 'blatant lies' they may choose to stay. But, again, that is a choice, not a hijacking of free will.

Finally, free will itself is undermined when you insist that anyone disagreeing with you (for whatever reason, or no reason, or an irrational reason) has had their fee will nullified or rendered of no force or effect. Free will is truly hijacked only when one is *physically* prevented from doing what they otherwise will to do. Notice that even the dictates of the law do not hijack free will; only incarceration after such law has been violated.

What about the case where circumstances "all but" require a given action, for example, when death is threatened upon disobedience? As long as there is a choice to act one way or another, free will remains intact as a metaphysical component of human nature, which allows humans (and perhaps other animals) to initiate first (physical) causes through acts of will. (Again, IMO)

Isn't free will in the eye of the believer? If you believe your morality has been decided by inspired church leaders, where is your free will? It is stymied by dogma. Giving one's power to church leaders, cult style, is sowing the wind. This is where leaving the cult is a big advantage.

However, painting all religions with the same brush doesn't necessarily work. There are good religions. Call them useful mythologies. Myth is there to teach what science cannot.

bradley Wrote:
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> Isn't free will in the eye of the believer? If you
> believe your morality has been decided by inspired
> church leaders, where is your free will? It is
> stymied by dogma. Giving one's power to church
> leaders, cult style, is sowing the wind. This is
> where leaving the cult is a big advantage.

People trapped in cults choose to suspend disbelief for some imagined future reward, eternal life, surviving death, which is magical thinking and completely irrational, but most of us believe in God, who is a great invisible sky Daddy magician who will make it possible for us to live a magical life after death, and most of those in positions of power are Christians, who subscribe to an apocalyptic narrative.

> However, painting all religions with the same
> brush doesn't necessarily work. There are good
> religions. Call them useful mythologies. Myth is
> there to teach what science cannot.

I agree, there’s a spectrum of religions, from the more dogmatic (Cults) on the right, JWs and Mormons to less dogmatic, pantheist religions Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, Jainism, Epicureanism on the Left, that do not subscribe to any kind of a personal God, or life after death.

But no one would probably care!

Even if truth didn't make your life better, that wouldn't make it false.

By necessity of definition, yes...a truth is not false.

True, but not everybody is looking for the truth. Many, if not perhaps, most of us, would prefer "comfort food" that confirms our beliefs rather than factual information that might force our shelves to crumble.

How is a good life not true?

The old style true, from carpentry or archery? Maybe 'true' came to be equated with 'factual' with the Enlightenment. By the old definition the church could be 'true' independent of being pure BS, given enough mental gymnastics.

Churches aren't true, people are true. Ideally.

I put my faith in the people
But the people let me down
So, I turned the other way
And I carry on, anyhow



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2023 12:41AM by bradley.

...on how you define the "good life." For example, a very good case could be made that Al Capone lived the "good life,", though certainly his means for obtaining it were destructive and based on lies.

Much better to keep believing in God but leave the Mormon church.

I tried atheism for some years. It blends into nihilism.

I'm an atheist and I think sometimes it can make me skeptical of traditionally accepted values. But as for meaning and purpose in life, it's actually opened up a world of possibilities for defining my own identity and living according to my values and desires. It's also taken this weight off my shoulders where I felt like I was only allowed to have one purpose for my entire life and if I didn't want that, it was viewed as failure. As an atheist and skeptic, I can accept the reality that new information presented to me, new experiences can change my perspective and I can grow with those revelations and change my goals as I mature in age and knowledge.

Also, as an atheist, I sincerely doubt there is anything after I die, so, it makes everything here, right now, more rich and impactful. Every decision matters and the time I spend and what it is spent on, have to be appreciated for their brevity.

I think atheism can make people nihilistic but in my experience and from my individual point of view, the values that I have selected for myself and chosen to live by, I've become more humanist. I am an animal on a dying planet with other animals and my allegiance is to my species(which, since the ecosystem is so interconnected, automatically means all species benefit).

I felt much more nihilistic as a Mormon. Nothing mattered because it was all a part of God's plan. The world is ending? Good. Christ is coming again. I can't prove it, even to myself, but you'll see. Any minute now. As the earth kills more people because she's choking on her last breaths. Just before it all sets on fire from the foretold nuclear wars, we'll be saved. There's no stopping it. So why fight it? I'm not in charge.

I very much like and appreciate your perspective here. I just have a couple of comments:

"I think atheism can make people nihilistic but in my experience and from my individual point of view, the values that I have selected for myself and chosen to live by, I've become more humanist."

COMMENT: What makes the scientifically minded atheist 'disposed' toward moral nihilism is the lack of any scientifically identifiable moral foundations. An atheist can still insist on some vague notion of moral objectivity, but if God is denied based upon lack of scientific evidence, or a commitment to scientific materialism, arguably so must other metaphysically questionable assumptions, including any objective metaphysically existent morality.

Since you are an atheist, but presumably not a nihilist, you might ask yourself what moral authority --other than your own moral intuitions -- demands that you to act in accordance with your own moral values? Like the nihilist, you are now faced with your own metaphysical quandary. And, as an atheist, you are in the same boat as the nihilist--except you are (apparently) willing to subscribe to some personal moral illusion, where the nihilist is not. Yours seems to be a sort of pragmatic morality, but as a theory of moral truth, or moral objectivity, it is entirely vacuous, leaving you without recourse to make moral judgments outside of your own behavior.

Moreover, your view does not fit into what is generally identified as Humanism. Humanism insists that human beings (individually and as a social group) have free will to genuinely change things--their own lives and society--for the better, and that some actions are objectively morally right and others morally wrong--even though they have no underlying philosophical commitments to support such a view. The fact that many atheists are also self-proclaimed "Humanists" seems inconsistent. Atheists reject God because of its metaphysical commitments, and the lack of scientific evidence. Nonetheless, they subscribe to a Humanist morality that also is ultimately lacking in scientific evidence. In short, it is a hard logical walk from atheism to morality, and thus to Humanism. That's why most scientifically minded atheists are moral nihilists, or at best hard-core relativists, which to my mind amounts to essentially the same thing.
_________________________________________

"I felt much more nihilistic as a Mormon. Nothing mattered because it was all a part of God's plan."

COMMENT: Religion is a constraint on "what matters." But certainly "God's Plan" in a religious context still matters a great deal. (Unfortunately for us atheists!) In Mormonism, the "Plan of Salvation" is centered on individual choices between what is deemed morally right and wrong within the Mormon worldview. Again, such choices (and agency) matter a great deal, even though Mormonism constrains such choices.

Notice the trade off when one's atheism is based upon scientific materialism (scientism) where the metaphysical constraints deny morality and free will altogether, making the human moral sense, and all human actions based thereon, illusory as to any genuine moral content. These implications associated with scientific atheism can be a tough philosophical pill to swallow.

Priorities Wrote:
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> Much better to keep believing in God but leave the
> Mormon church.
>
> I tried atheism for some years. It blends into
> nihilism.

I went straight to nihilism after 9-11, which I found far too dark and cold place to dwell for too long. I had to find an alternative, for my own well being. For me that search started with a wise man saying,”Live everyday as though it is your last day on Earth. Learn everyday as though you will live forever.” And “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Which was enough to give me purpose and a goal worth pursuing. I rejected all forms of tribalism, which led to 9-11 and every other form of cruelty against ‘others’. I looked instead to find common ground with my kin, neighbors, and community. I looked to those wise men, and women, who led meaningful lives without subscribing to bogus myths, like any kind of an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent ‘God’, which was a myth that was thoroughly debunked by 9-11 and the fact it was carried out in His name.
I read the biographies of Deists, like Jefferson and Franklin, Pantheists like Einstein and Sagan. The History of Doubt, the works of Stoics like Aurelius and Epicureans like Epicurus and Lucretius. I came across the 4 part cure, Tetrapharmakos,

1. Don’t fear the Gods
2. Don’t worry about death
3. What is good is easily obtained
4. What is terrible is easily endured

And I’ve used that 4 part cure ever since.

Gods are no more real now than they were when Epicurus came up with the 4 part cure, in 400 b.c..

Nietzsche would agree. Modern Christianity is a form of nihilism. It is extremely dangerous to civilization, as WWI and WWII demonstrated. Putin's orthodox Christianity may be leading us into WWIII. You don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin'?

Manifest Destiny based on the Book of Revelations seems a little dicey.

I don't think Putin's religion is sincere in the least. He likes orthodoxy because it sways 10-20% of Russian society, but that's just a marginal concern.

Also, I reckon China poses the greater threat of a world war. There the "religion" is nationalism, which is virulently xenophobic and supports expansion at the expense of other countries.

How exactly did WW1 and 2 demonstrate how religion is dangerous? The decline of religion in Europe, the Christian religion, lurched into decline in major ways as a result of WW1 and that declinbe was compounded in many ways by WW2.

Looking through the eyes of Nietzsche. He did seem to go off the deep end in later years. He could have been a critic looking for a rationale. Being too smart has its downsides.

He said God is dead, and we killed him. Nationalism filled the vacuum. God is the antidote to othering. The antidote lost its potentcy, which I think was his complaint.

There are approximately 10,000 gods. All gods are equally real.