all 17 comments

[–]StillLessons 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (12 children)

Objective truth still exists.

One truth is that the human instinct to obey authority is greater than all other considerations in ~90% of the population. My guess is this relates to evolutionary advantages to herd behavior in our species. So people must follow, according to our deepest instincts for survival. Unfortunately, as the leaders have commanded larger and larger herds, their interest has become completely dissociated from those they "lead". In other words, the leaders believe they and their fellow leaders represent a population with which they no longer share any common experience. The same is true in reverse: the population believes their leaders come from "the herd", when in fact there is nothing about their experience which permits "leaders" any true understanding of what the life of a "herd member" is actually about.

Whatever events happen in response to the actions of either group (leaders or herd) are perceived entirely differently by the two groups, and thus it appears "objective truth" is gone, because there are a minimum of two fundamentally different perspectives on whatever happens.

The events are still unique, so the truth exists. But the multiple perspectives on those events prevents most humans (either leader or herd member) from recognizing it in its simplest form without the layers of subjective meaning attached.

Orwell is absolutely correct to note that lies become history. What people write about what happened in the past need have no relationship with what actually happened. Probably the two have never been related.

We live in a world which will always be fundamentally unknown to us. If God has created a life after the one we know for when we die, perhaps we will learn the truth then. But there is no more way of knowing if that afterlife exists than there is to know the objective truth about our time and history during this life.

Be kind. Nobody knows more than you do, and nobody knows less.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

And you as I are ruled by five small chemicals in our inherited brain. So don't play this like you got any control.

You just wanted to contradict and THEN scratched your head about it.

This is saidit.

If you want more magic in just two characters (notice the detail of the number two here), you are very alone and even more locked-in than I am.

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Okay, I've tried to understand your comment about two characters, and I have failed. It sounds to me like you're on to something good, but it's gone over my head.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

You can read all that online. Oxitocine, dopamine, serotonine and two more. Excuse me for having a senior moment here. There even is a book about how our brain developed, I believe.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

Afterlife and God are myths. There is ZERO proof for either.

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

As to afterlife, there is no proof that one exists. I agree on that. There is also no proof that one does not. I don't think it matters much. One way or the other, it gets sorted out upon death. It's over or it's not. Nothing we can do about it which we shouldn't be doing whether there is an afterlife or not, i.e. treat all the creation around us decently and follow the behaviors all religions have recognized forever as beneficial. Doing that is net positive whether there is an afterlife or not.

God. Ah, God... The word God is shorthand. To say "God" doesn't exist is to say that whatever image you have in your mind of what constitutes God doesn't exist. But there are infinite visions of what God is, probably as many as the number of people who have ever lived. For me, God is a word to represent the source of all this beautiful organization in the universe when there is absolutely no rational reason for any of it to exist. One person's random chaos is another's beautiful creation; the difference is whether one sees "God" in the picture. Perhaps we can agree that any book, person, ideology which attempts to define a particular God with set likes and dislikes is inherently limiting what by nature will never have limits or definitions attached. The major religions all fail to greater and lesser extents by attempting to create a "picture of God".

I have no idea what God is, but I see a tremendously beautiful creation around us (which includes all our wars, violence, "ugliness", psychopaths, disease, death, etc, and all our attempts to rise above these insanities). The word "God" is my way of saying I do believe there is a reason for it. None of us within the boundaries of this lifetime will ever know what that reason (structure, schema... pick your word) is, but I sense one there. So I try to contribute to creative, unifying pursuits rather than destructive, divisive ones.

And too often, I fail. But seeing God lets me see when I fail, recognize it, and work to do better next time.

God.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

There's no proof there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars right now. You can't prove a negative.

Afterlife is wishful thinking. Why fear being turned off permanently? You didn't exist before you were born. Didn't hurt. Won't hurt after. Suffering is only for the living.

If you think ants have small brains, look at humans from 30,000 feet. There's no reason why we should possibly be able to fathom the entire Universe or even a fraction of it. Completely understanding nature is an admirable goal, but impossible. Adding on some "purpose" to it all is again, a limited human tendency.

IMO, /s/Buddhism and existentialism are better as they don't need to have spirits in the sky judging you, or excusing violence upon non-believers.

You can be an existentialist and appreciate the wonders of Nature and vast Universe without adding spirituality to it.

Look up the Epicurean paradox. You do yourself a disservice by crediting God with your own achievements. You are your own God.

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Look up the Epicurean paradox. You do yourself a disservice by crediting God with your own achievements. You are your own God.

You're projecting your perception of the term "God" on to what I've said. You state that I credit a God separate from myself with my achievements. You've misunderstood me. There is no God separate from me, because I am included in God; I'm part of it. But then you say I am my own God. That construction leads in narcissistic directions. To say I am God suggests I have the capacity to comprehend/direct the entirety of reality. Really? That's way above my pay grade.

We could go back and forth on this all day because as I said, God is undefinable, and argument about it is just spitting in the wind. But there must be some satisfaction in batting it back and forth, or I suppose we wouldn't be spending this time doing so.

How about, "This is God." Or "We - everything that exists - are God." You like those better? But of course the infinity of things that we can imagine that don't exist are also God.

As to looking up the Epicurean paradox, it gets back into trying to define a structure to "make sense of it." Of one thing I am confident, each of our relationship to God (which includes myself, but I am not God, perhaps we might say we all are "of God") is unique. I understand God from crazy amounts of time explicitly coming to terms with this insane life we all share. While my experience includes lots of sources, no single source has any better knowledge of what God is / is not than do you or I. Each of our relationships to this source is unique, and to try to adopt the perspective of any other is only to confuse even more supremely what must always by nature remain an incomplete understanding.

We're trying to put an intellectual envelope on an experience. We might as well be trying to answer the question "What is the sound of the wind?"

But as I said before, I confess to loving these conversations, leading nowhere, enjoyable instead in and of themselves.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

If you're not using the "normal" uses of the word "God", then you're not talking about God. If you have overwhelming bliss and/or existential wonder at the Universe or Nature then you're not talking about God. Atheists can have that too. If you're talking about your own spirituality you're not talking about God. Whatever it is that you are having difficulty expressing is not God as everyone else knows it and you're just confusing yourself and others. I'm not saying you can't have those feelings or try to express yourself - or even say you can't use the word "God" (I won't censor) - but I think it's more than just problematic to bring "God" into it, for yourself and communicating it to others.

Fuck God. Be real, judge yourself, be firm but don't guilt yourself too much, as you are only human doing the best you can in the moment without your limitations. There is no authority over you and fuck anyone who says otherwise. Being a good person means not harming or deceiving and trying to help others. This is Natural Law, end of story.

Look up Marc Passio's lecture on Natural Law. Too long but too good.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Natural Law has more to do with eucatastrophe and hope than existential dread and denial. There are non-physical beings who interact with physical beings, and life doesn't end upon death, it is only the termination of your physical body. In nature, there are beings who humans have mistakingly referred to as being gods and spirits, but these words are bad, and there is rarely anything holy about these beings.

You can experience much of reality if you are willing to go through the necessary steps. Those steps must be in accordance with Natural Law, or else you won't really get anywhere. That's why most of our religions and sciences fail us so often with these big questions, and why most folks who really want to know something reach out to conspiracies and foreign belief systems.

Mark Passio does a good job explaining a lot of things, but he is a really angry guy and he also clearly puts a lot of importance on whatever he learned whilst a member of the Church of Satan even though he now speaks against the Church. Good reference, a friend of mine was introduced to the whole idea of Natural Law through Mark.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

eucatastrophe

Great word! TIL. My /s/BittersweetSeeds story doesn't shy away from a bad ending for the protagonist/martyr with a sort of happy ending with at least a questionable future for humanity (bittersweet).

Natural Law has more to do with eucatastrophe and hope than existential dread and denial.

I don't see it having to do with any of that. I just see it as a existential fact that we must cooperate as members of humanity and Natural Law is the fundamental foundations of coexisting. You simply cannot walk down the street if you fear getting stabbed in the neck, scammed, or lied to.

Further you don't need an authority in the sky or on Earth to tell you what you fundamentally know is true - unless you've been brainwashed with dogma to believe so.

Mark Passio does a good job explaining a lot of things, but he is a really angry guy and he also clearly puts a lot of importance on whatever he learned whilst a member of the Church of Satan even though he now speaks against the Church. Good reference, a friend of mine was introduced to the whole idea of Natural Law through Mark.

10,000%. Perfect summary. Saved.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Bittersweet is a good way to describe true eucatastrophe anyways. What's funny is that every keyboard and computer I've had tries to tell me eucatastrophe isn't a word. Fuck em.

I agree concerning the authority bit. You are your own authority, and a society should be set up with that in mind. It's what actually happens in life anyways, people will take advantage of others who have no self-authority, and those who have some will simply live their lives as they see fit. I don't see why a society can't set itself up with that in mind.

It would make dealing with actually fucked up criminals a lot easier.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Where you are searching at nowadays?

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Still on DuckDuckGo, but we have plans for a decentralized YaCe among our new platforms.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Excuse me for asking this personal one. Who is "us"?

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Cassandra Team. /s/Cassy