TimFreeman comments on Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don’t Implement Themselves - Less Wrong

32 Post author: calcsam 10 May 2011 07:15AM

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Comment author: handoflixue 11 May 2011 10:36:07PM 1 point [-]

Speaking solely for myself, I've found that my spiritual / religious side helps me to set goals and to communicate with my intuitions. Rationality is simply a tool for implementing those goals, and processing/evaluating that intuitive data.

I've honestly found the hostility towards "spirituality writ large" here rather confusing, as the majority of the arguments seem to focus on a fairly narrow subset of religious beliefs, primarily Christian. I tend to write it off as a rather understandable bias caused by generalizing from "mainstream Christianity", though, so it doesn't really bother me. When people present actual arguments, I do try and listen in case I've missed something.

Or, put another way: Rationality is for falsifiable aspects of my life, and spirituality is for the non-falsifiable aspects of my life. I can't have "incorrect" goals or emotions, but I can certainly fail to handle them effectively.

Comment author: XFrequentist 11 May 2011 11:47:35PM 3 points [-]

We are at high risk of arguing about words, and I don't wish to do that.

Describe specifically what you do when you're using your spiritual side. Assign it a label other than "spirituality" or "religious". Then I can give you my opinion. As stated your comment is noise.