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Saladin comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2010-2011) - Less Wrong
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Hello.
I've only been checking this site for a short while and after reading all these interesting thoughts I posted something myself.
I'm interested in objective, rational thoughts about the ultimate reality of our existence (and Existence itself) and coming from a religious family - I also try to rationalize the notions I have about God.
I see that modal realism and Plantingas ontological argument don't go down well in here and I concur - by themselves they are underwhelmingly weak.
But what if You combine these two views, based one assumption alone - that Existence (whatever exactly it entails) has to be past eternal.
It's not an irrational belief - it's even possible by some theories. I posted something in that line (shouldn't be hard to find - there aren't many posts about God here) and I would very much appreciate any valid comments.
It's a simple theory, but I would very much appreciate some feedback. I have no idea if I'm talking rubbish or if it does make for a coherent logic.
Thanks in advance.
Saladin from Slovenia.
Yep, looks like rubbish. Sorry.
In general, looking to justify your existing beliefs doesn't work. Say this to yourself: "If God exists, I want to believe that God exists. If God doesn't exist, I want to believe that God doesn't exist."
Well, it's not that I believe in a Posthuman God - but I do believe in a past eternal universe (multiverse, Existence,..).
"Believing" just in that is IMO a rational belief (until proven otherwise, of course).
Past eternity neccesarily leads to a kind of modal realism - all possible worlds are (or have been) real worlds.
If there is a possible world that allows for a God (to evolve) - then it is neccesarily true.
So the only guestion left is "is there a possible universe where God (-like entity) can evolve"?
That's complicated - but I noted one oversimplified idea that "might" show such a possibility.
i'd like to discuss this in more detail.
Bad epistemology.
If a completely trustworthy person rolled a normal six-sided die, and told you the result is an even number - is it "rational" to believe that the result was 6 ? After all, it hasn't been proven otherwise. No, the ONLY rational belief in that situation is assigning an equal probability to 2, 4 and 6.
If you go around asking "am I allowed to believe this?" for things you want to believe, and "am I forced to believe this?" for things you don't, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
I cannot imagine what evidence you could have for such a belief.
Tentatively offered--- check out Spinoza. He came to the conclusions that God is completely identical with everything that exists, and that everything is determined.
To put it mildly, Spinoza's God isn't what most people are looking for when they want a God.
You don't fight confusion with confusion.
You shouldn't fight fire with fire either, but humans seem to use the term anyway...
Begone!
Don't bring up you're religious beliefs here or you will be voted to hell, like me. Just saying, as I am sure this comment will cost me a few more votes X(
Yes, there is a lot of hostility to religion here. Folks here are into "rationality", and they have somehow gotten the impression that much religious thinking is irrational. "Somehow gotten the impression". Ok, lets be honest here. They got that impression because a lot of religious thinking really is irrational. You will have a tough job convincing folks here that your own religious thinking is any different. So, I think that "Just lay low" is pretty good advice. There is a lot to be learned here, stuff about how to think clearly and about why we don't always think as clearly as we would like to. So, I bet it will do you, Saladin, some good to stick around. But I don't think you will get much useful feedback regarding your thinking about a deity or eternal first cause. There are probably better places on the web for that.
That's an interesting question, actually. I would have been inclined to agree - I agree that a lot of religious thinking is irrational - but when I tried to think of places to send people, most of them are communities like the FRDB. These are not precisely dispassionate.
Did you have an Internet community in mind?
No, I don't, though Googling is always worth a try. Using search strings containing words like discussion, theology, agnostic, first cause, and apologetics, I found a variety of resources and communities in which at least the spelling, grammar, and punctuation were tolerable.
In trying to work your way through these kinds of questions, you obviously need to avoid sites where a consensus exists that "The truth is already known". But, I suspect that you also need to avoid getting too deeply emersed in communities like this one where the consensus is that "The way to the truth is known". In my experience, people who believe they know the way are even more passionate, evangelical, and just plain impolite than are the self-satisfied folk who think they have already arrived at the truth. Which, of course, is not to say that passionate impolite evangelists are not worth listening to occasionally.
I would recommend totally eliminating your impressions of "the kind of people who think X" from your considerations about X, unless the X-ites are actually torturing babies.
By paying attention to their personal characteristics, you're essentially guaranteeing that your opinions will be hijacked by how socially comfortable you feel with their group, which has nothing to do with truth. New agers are great people to hang out with, very... undogmatic, but I wouldn't recommend swallowing any of their truth claims.
If LW thinks it knows the Way to the Truth, then the thing to evaluate is what exactly our way is, and why we think it leads to the truth.
Oh, I agree. I am busy evaluating exactly that. But I will point out that a large fraction of the techniques taught here have to do with how to communicate clearly, rather than simply how to think clearly. One presumes that the reason we wish to communicate is that we wish to be understood. If certain "personal characteristics" (I mentioned passion and etiquette) either promote or interfere with successful communication, then I think that both sender and receiver have some responsibility to make adjustments. In fact, in a broadcast model, with one sender and many receivers, the onus of adjustment lies mainly on the sender. [Edit: spelling]
I was raised a believer and I never thought about it being irrational or not until I met the creationist crowd. After debating enough of them, mainly over the internet, I was appaled at their ignorance and butchering of science for some IDiotic predetermined conclusion. I still believe, but I certainly respect the atheists for trying to be rational. I have heard some pretty convincing evidence of stuff in the bible, but after meeting the creationists I had to think twice as to whether that is objective or not. I was going to go do some research on it and never got around to it because I'm lazy.
Most people in a crisis of faith find themselves especially lazy when it comes to seeking information that contradicts their (preferred) beliefs, and surprisingly diligent when it comes to seeking evidence that reaffirms them.
(This isn't just about religion, but it happens pretty clearly there. A religious friend of mine recently went through a crisis of faith, decided that he needed to study more to decide on the truth of Christianity, and only read books by traditional Christians until I convinced him to add a few more, only one of which he read. I believe you can guess as easily as I did how his crisis turned out.)