Very interesting and likely quite accurate observation. :)

Dissonance is an incredibly powerful motivator after all.

Have you ever noticed that many of the people and institutions who say you need hope, meaning, and purpose to live a happy and fulfilled life are also selling their version of them?

Hmm.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Very real possibility.

And don’t get me wrong, I value Meditations above almost every other philosophical text mainly because it seems like (we can’t really know for sure) some thoughtful old guy’s notes to himself on how to find joy in his life rather than something intended to impress his philosophy inclined academic buddies.

I just disagree with the notion that life is this special beautiful thing most people tell themselves because they are afraid or haven’t found a way to be joyful without such a notion.

I disagree with life being a privilege. To me, it seems more like a curse versus never having existed in the first place.

That said, none of us had any choice in the matter thanks to our parents, so I’m damn sure going to keep making the best of it. When it’s my time or if things get bad enough though, I’ll have no problem going back to nothingness.

Religions hate this one simple trick:

Humans don’t need hope, meaning, or purpose to experience joy and happiness throughout their lives. None of those things are real anyway and all depend upon someone/something else defining them for you.

“But I was promised joy and happiness in an eternal afterlife if I just believed this fairytale strongly enough!”

Lol. I’ll have joy, happiness, and agency in my life now thank you very much, instead of the promise of it in some imaginary plane of existence I’m just supposed to trust is waiting for me when I die.

Aaaand let the self-soothing mental gymnastics begin.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

You seem to be saying that because science cannot explain everything, there must be a God.

Why can’t there just be things that we don’t/can’t understand? Why are humans so unbelievably afraid of the unknown?

Are there things a dog can’t understand? Is the SHA-256 algorithm evidence for God to cats everywhere? Oh wait, God only exists for humans right?

Darn, now that I think about it, I’m not supposed to be having any of these thoughts at all. Questioning the existence of God is in itself a big no-no for the faithful correct? And, just checking, God will never provide any actual evidence for their existence since faith is all that is needed right?

I can’t imagine any flaws whatsoever with that kind of belief system.

JFC. Believe whatever fairytales you need to tell yourself to make it through your life but just know that it is entirely possible to live a happy and fulfilled life without such nonsense. By being susceptible to this kind of shit, you’re just making others rich and yourself weak.

Peace be with you.

Super random thought: why haven’t I heard more about planets as “living” things?

I mean the earth, as an example, has analogous systems for breathing, has a circulatory system, organelles, memory, immune system, microbes, viruses (Ie: us), etc.

It even shares fractal similarities with other forms of microscopic life.

Anyway, if anyone has any good material along this line of thought (even sci-fi) I’d be curious to explore this idea more.

And yes, I realize Avatar was kind of touching on this subject, but I’d ideally be looking for something a little more developed than that.

And no, I don’t (sadly) do drugs. :)

#grownostr

#asknostr

Anonymity is the single most valuable thing any of us have and yet most will throw it away at the first opportunity.

Sure, fame may get you laid once or twice or give you a few extra dollars (gross) in a bank account. But almost every famous person I know ends up spending most of their time and money trying to regain their anonymity, which is sadly impossible.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

You’ve been reading my mail. :)

The corollary is “you don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep the world warm”.

God to me seems to be the term anxious humans use to explain what they are unable to.

Rather than simply acknowledging and accepting that there’s stuff we haven’t figured out yet and maybe are incapable of comprehending altogether because of our biologically limited perception, these anxious creatures have to resort to magical thinking, aka faith.

This would be all well and good, but some smart but terrible people long ago figured out a way to exploit this anxiety by claiming to know which version of God (ie: the unknown) was the real one (or ones).

Since faith by definition means belief without evidence (or belief with only evidence the faithful can perceive - lol), it was really easy to sell people on their version of God and then get the faithful to do all manner of crazy shit in defense of their beliefs.

Such is the nature of man, sadly. We are willing to wage war, elevate rulers, and sacrifice all manner of freedoms so long as we don’t have face the unknown or admit when we are wrong.

Pathetic really.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

You seem like a thoughtful person.

For this reason, I would like to suggest that instead of pursuing single truths, you pursue as many options for the truth as possible, and focus instead on the ways in which each may be flawed.

The concept of a single truth is often very limiting if your goal is knowledge or wisdom.

Just a suggestion, not a criticism. Of course, feel free to ignore.

This is me as well.

My universe begins and ends with my experience of the world. I think this is true of everyone since shared consciousness is not possible.

Altruism, which is the most generous interpretation of the “want to be part of something greater” mentality, is just another experience that some people find enjoyable. It turns into selfishness when put into in practice, just like everything else, or else people wouldn’t behave that way.

This explains why it is very easy for altruistic tendencies to devolve into preaching or imposition type behaviors.

Also, that our social conventions and cultural programming value “altruism” is the first sign that something is not quite right about it.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

“It is a true giant who makes others feel as tall.”

-Me.

This time my vote will matter dammit. This time will be different.

Right??

If you consider yourself to be right about something but can’t bear to hear opinions that differ from your own, you are like closed source software ie: fragile.

Be open source instead and let your core beliefs become truly vetted and battle tested.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Alternatively, perhaps civilizations perish because humans were never suitable to being civilized in the first place.

We were meant to be free. We were meant to have our own space and plenty of resources to live comfortably.

Now there are just too damn many of us which has inevitably led the few to exploit the many.

I recommend “The Dawn of Everything” for a nice discussion of this issue.

Cheers!

Ok - I’ve got some time. :)

So first off - thank you again for taking the time to think about something that often results in only a knee jerk response. While I am certainly not the appropriate judge of anything, I nevertheless really also appreciated the fact that what you wrote started with a very insightful review of why someone may disagree with your position. I mean, wow, I have come across very very few people who have the capacity to reason like that. It legitimately made me excited to read the rest of your reply and I’ve genuinely been looking forward to it for the last day or so while I’ve been busy with other things.

That said, I’m hoping you won’t mind clarifying your position on faith relative to Bitcoin. Are you saying that faith is similar to Bitcoin or Fiat? Because I see faith and fiat (they literally are the same word) as much more aligned. As a result I have many of the same issues with faith based reasoning as I do with the fiat economy. Fiat and faith alike seem to me to solve a problem that I’ve never had nor perceived. Clearly lots of other people do find value in them though given how pervasive both are. So I definitely concede to having a minority opinion.

In your next paragraph you seem to be saying that your belief in Jesus helps you with the negative feelings that can come from making mistakes. If that’s the case, I can understand the perceived value of that, but couldn’t you also just forgive yourself for being imperfect? I believe that we are all immensely flawed creatures and when I screw up, I just try to accept/admit my fault and learn from the experience of failure. I don’t see how religions answer to this problem could result in more personal growth than my approach since mine deals with entirely intrinsic factors as opposed to (at least some) extrinsic ones like Gods will, etc.

Your next section gets to the issue of who or what is responsible for us being moral creatures who have the capacity to treat each other well or badly.

Religion to me seems to like to take credit for the good in people while blaming the bad on a lack of faith. This is very problematic line of reasoning for me, who, as an entirely non religious person has dedicated my life to helping others. God didn’t put the good in me and not did the absence of faith cause me to do the bad things that I have done.

If history tells us anything, it’s that religion and faith can be dangerous in the wrong hands (as you started out by so insightfully saying).

So my request of you would be to please just think about this a little more. If for no other reason than to try out a different perspective, consider that you may just be a decent person who has learned from your mistakes like me. Of course if attributing this to a God is your version of humility or if it still brings you other forms of comfort/contentment then great. Just consider that all the positive feelings you describe above can be achieved without belief in things you cannot explain. And by extension, you can be just as happy without subjecting yourself to the risks associated with blind faith in something.

Thank you so much for a great and fun discussion. :)

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Thank you for this. I promise I will get back to you. Just busy with travel for the moment. :)

We are all very entitled to live our lives how we see fit and I am certainly in no position to say I am right and you are wrong. But what you wrote makes no sense at all to me.

If you are up for a good hearted (not heated! :)) argument, please ask yourself why you need faith and what utility it has. As someone who has no faith and is still subjectively very content and fulfilled, I see no utility in believing in (what I see) as fairytales.