= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
There are Christian Satanists? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Satanism was a religion founded around Rand-like rational selfishness, and explicitly denied any supernatural entities.
Yes, they are "Christian" in the sense that all of the mythology and practices for their worship of Satan are derived from Christianity, and they still believe in a Christian God.
It is just that these people believe that they are defying and opposing the Christian God (Fighting for the other team). They still believe in this God, just no longer have it as the object of their worship and devotion.
This is also the more traditional form of Satanist in our society, and one which the more modern Satanist tends to oppose. The Modern Satanist is a self-worshiping atheist, and as has been pointed out, tend to place everything in the context of self-interest. It is a highly utilitarian philosophy, but often marred in actual practice by ignorant fools who don't seem to understand the difference between just acting like a selfish dick and acting out of self-interest (doing things which improve one's condition in life, not things which worsen one's condition)
I used to know one, and have done a bit of reading about it. It struck me as a reversed-stupidity version of Christianity, though there were a few interesting memes in the literature.
Depending upon the Type of Satanist, yes, they are often just people looking for a high "Boo-Factor" (A term made-up by many of the early followers of a musical Genre called "Deathrock" (it's more public name is now Goth, although that is like comparing a chain saw to a kitchen pealing knife - the "Goths" are the kitchen knife).
Many Satanists, especially those who hadn't really read much of the published Satanic literature would just make something up themselves and it was almost always based in Christian motifs and archetypes. The two institutions who have publicly claimed the title of "Satanist" (The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set) both reject any and all of Christian Theology, Motifs, Archetypes, Symbolism and Characters as being ingenuous and twisted archetypes of older more healthy god archetypes (If you read Jung and Joseph Campbell, this is not uncommon for a rising religious paradigm to hijack an older competing paradigm as its bad-guys)
As Phil has suggested, maybe a front page post will come in handy. It should be recognized that some Satanists happen to be very rational people. They are just using the symbolism to manipulate their environment (although most of the more mature ones have found more mature symbols with which to manipulate the environment and their peers and subordinates).
The types to which I was referring in my post were the Christian Satanists (people who are worshiping the Christian version of Satan), which is just as bad as worshiping the Christian God. Both the Christian God and the Christian Satan are required for that mythology to be complete.
Can you write a post about satanism? I'd love to know whether there are any actual satanists, and what they believe/do.
You mean, like a main page post? I'd love to.
You would be surprised about how rational the real Satanists (and their various offshoots and schisms) are (as the non-Christian based Satanist is an athiest).
In fact, the very first Schism of the Church of Satan gave birth to the Temple of Set (Founded by the then head of the Army's Psychological Warfare Division), which was described as a "Hyper-Rational Belief System" (Although in reality it still had some rather unfortunately insane beliefs among its constituents). The Founder was very rational though. He even had quite a bit of science behind his position... It's just that his job caused him to be a rather creepy and scary guy.
In my case, I knew pretty much from the beginning that something was seriously wrong. But since every single person I had ever met was a christian (with a couple of exceptions I didn't realize until later), I assumed that the problem was with me. The most obvious problem, at least for me, was that none of the so-called christians was able to clearly explain what a christian is, and what it is that I need to do in order to not go to hell. And the people who came closest to being able to give a clear explanation, they were all different from each other, and the answer changed if I asked different questions. So I guess I was... partly brainwashed. I knew that there was something really important I was supposed to do, and that people's souls were at stake (a matter of infinite utility/anti-utility!) but noone was able to clearly explain what it was that I was supposed to do. But they expected me to do it anyway, and made it sound like there was something wrong with me for not instinctively knowing what it was that I was supposed to do. There's lots more I could complain about, but I guess I had better stop now.
So it was pretty obvious that I wasn't going to be able to save anyone's soul by converting them to christianity by talking to them. And I was also similarly unqualified for most of the other things that christians are supposed to do. But there was still one thing I saw that I could do: living as cheaply as possible, and donating as much money as possible to the church so that the people who claim to actually know what they're doing can just get on with doing it. And just being generally helpful when there was some simple everyday thing I could be helpful with.
Anyway, it wasn't until I went to university that I actually met any atheists who openly admitted to being atheists. Before then, I had heard that there was such a thing as an atheist, and that these were the people whose souls we were supposed to save by converting them to christianity, but Pascal's Wager prevented me from seriously considering becoming an atheist myself. Even if you assign a really tiny probability to christianity being true, converting to atheism seemed like an action with an expected utility of negative infinity. But then I overheard a conversation in the Computer Science students' lounge. That-guy-who-isn't-all-that-smart-but-likes-to-sound-smart-by-quoting-really-smart-people was quoting Eliezer Yudkowsky. Almost immediately after that conversation, I googled the things he was talking about. I discovered Singularitarianism. An atheistic belief system, based entirely on a rational, scientific worldview, to which Pascal's Wager could be applied. (there is an unknown probability that this universe can support an infinite amount of computation, therefore there is an unknown probability that actions can have infinite positive or negative utility.) I immediately realized that I wanted to convert to this belief system. But it took me a few weeks of swinging back and forth before I finally settled on Singularitarianism. And since then I haven't had any desire at all to switch back to christianity. Though I was afraid that, because of my inability to stand up to authority figures, someone might end up convincing me to convert back to christianity against my will. Even now, years later, there are scary situations, when dealing with an authority figure who is a christian, part of me still sometimes thinks "OMG maybe I really was wrong about all this!"
Anyway, I'm still noticing bad habits from christianity that I'm still doing, and I'm still working on fixing this. Also, I might be oversensitive to noticing things that are similar between christianity and Singularitarianism. For example, the expected utility of "converting" someone to Singularitarianism. Though in this case you're not guaranteeing that one soul is saved, you're slightly increasing the probability that everyone gets "saved", because there is now one more person helping the efforts to help us achieve a positive Singularity.
Oh, and now, after reading LW, I realize what's wrong with Pascal's Wager, and even if I found out for certain that this universe isn't capable of supporting an infinite amount of computation, I still wouldn't be tempted to convert back to christianity.
Random trivia: I sometimes have dreams where a demon, or some entirely natural thing that for some reason is trying to look like a demon, is trying to trick or scare me into converting back to christianity. And then I discover that the "demon" was somehow sent by someone I know, and end up not falling for it. I find this amusingly ironic.
As usual, there's lots more I could write about, but I guess I had better stop writing for now.
A couple of points:
I could not tell from your post if you understood that Pascal's Wager is a flawed argument for believing in ANY belief system. You do understand this don't you (That Pascal's Wager is horribly flawed as an argument for believing in anything)?
Also, as Counsin it seems to be implying (And I would suspect as well), you seem to be exhibiting signs of the True Believer complex.
This is what I alluded to when I discussed friends of mine who would swing back and forth between Born-Again Christian and Satanists. Don't make the same mistake with a belief in the Singularity. One needn't have "Faith" in the Singularity as one would God in a religious setting, as there are clear and predictable signs that a Singularity is possible (highly possible), yet there exists NO SUCH EVIDENCE for any supernatural God figure.
Forming beliefs is about evidence, not about blindly following something due to a feel good that one gets from a belief.
Well, one reason why I feel that I need someone to follow is... severe underconfidence in my ability to make decisions on my own. I'm still working on that. Choosing a person to follow, and then following them, feels a whole lot easier than forging my own path.
I should mention again that I'm not actually "following" Eliezer in the traditional sense. I used his value system to bootstrap my own value system, greatly simplifying the process of recovering from christianity. But now that I've mostly finished with that (or maybe I'm still far from finished?), I am, in fact, starting to think independently. It's taking a long time for me to do this, but I am constantly looking for things that I'm doing or believing just because someone else told me to, and then reconsidering whether these things are a good idea, according to my current values and beliefs. And yes, there are some things I disagree with Eliezer about (the "true ending" to TWC, for example), and things that I disagree with SIAI about ("we're the only place worth donating to", for example). I'll probably start writing more about this, now that I'm starting to get over my irrational fear of posting comments here.
Though part of me is still worried about making SIAI look bad. And I'm still worried that the stuff I've already posted may end up harming SIAI's mission (and my mission) more than it could possibly have helped. Though of course it would be a bad idea to try to hide problems that need to be examined and dealt with. And the idea of deliberately trying to hide information just feels wrong. It feels like Dark Arts. I should also mention that the idea of deliberately not saying things, in order to avoid making the group look bad, isn't actually something I was told by anyone from SIAI, I think it was a bad habit I brought with me from christianity.
That puts it into an understandable context... I can't quite understand about the having to shake off Christian Beliefs. I was raised with a tremendously religious mother, but about the age of 6 I began to question her beliefs and by 14 was sure that she was stark raving mad to believe what she did. So, I managed to keep from being brainwashed to begin with.
I've seen the results of people who have been brainwashed and who have not managed to break completely free from their old beliefs. Most of them swung back and forth between the extremes of bad belief systems (From born-again Christian to Satanist, and back, many times)... So, what you are doing is probably best for the time being, until you learn the tools needed to step off into the wilderness by yourself.
In response to
The Fundamental Question
What am I doing?: Working at a regular job as a C++ programmer, and donating as much as possible to SIAI. And sometimes doing other useful things in my spare time.
Why am I doing it?: Because I want to make lots of money to pay for Friendly AI and existential risk research, and programming is what I'm good at.
Why do I want this?: Well, to be honest, the original reason, from several years ago, was "Because Eliezer told me to". Since then I've internalized most of Eliezer's reasons for recommending this, but this process still seems kinda backwards.
I guess the next question is "Why did I originally choose to follow Eliezer?": I started following him back when he still believed in the most basic form of utilitarianism: Maximize pleasure and minimize pain, don't bother keeping track of which entity is experiencing the pleasure or pain. Even back then, Eliezer wasn't certain that this was the value system he really wanted, but for me it seemed to perfectly fit my own values. And even after years of thinking about these topics, I still haven't found any other system that more closely matches what I actually believe. Not even Eliezer's current value system. And yes, I am aware that my value system means that an orgasmium shockwave is the best possible scenario for the future. And I still haven't found any logically consistent reason why I should consider that a bad thing, other than "but other people don't want that". I'm still very conflicted about this.
(off-topic: oh, and SPOILER: I found the "True Ending" to Three Worlds Collide severely disturbing. Destroying a whole planet full of people, just to KEEP the human ability to feel pain??? oh, and some other minor human values, which the superhappies made very clear were merely minor aesthetic preferences. That... really shook my "faith" in Eliezer's values...)
Anyway, the reason why I started following Eliezer was that even back then, he seemed like one of the smartest people on the planet, and he had a mission that I strongly believed in, and he was seriously working towards this mission, with more dedication than I had seen in anyone else. And he was seeking followers, though he made it very clear that he wasn't seeking followers in the traditional sense, but was seeking people to help him with his mission who were capable of thinking for themselves. And at the time I desperately wanted a belief system that was better than the only other belief system I knew of at the time, which was christianity. And so I basically, um... converted directly from christianity to Singularitarianism. (yes, that's deliberate noncapitalization. somehow capitalizing the word "christianity" just feels wrong...)
And now the next question: "Why am I still following Eliezer?": Basically, because I still haven't found anyone to follow who I like better than Eliezer. And I don't dare to try to start my own competing branch of Singularitarianism, staying true to Eliezer's original vision, despite his repeated warnings why this would be a bad idea... Though, um... if anyone else is interested in the idea... please contact me... preferably privately.
Another question is "What other options are worth considering?": Even if I do decide that it would be a good idea to stop following Eliezer, I definitely don't plan to stop being a transhumanist, and whatever I become instead will still be close enough to Singularitarianism that I might as well continue calling it Singularitarianism. And reducing existential risks would still be my main priority. So far the only reasons I know of to stop giving most of my income to SIAI is that maybe their mission to create Friendly AI really is hopeless, and maybe there's something else I should be doing instead. Or maybe I should be splitting my donations between SIAI and someplace else. But where? The Oxford Future of Humanity Institute? The Foresight Institute? The Lifeboat Foundataion? no, definitely not the Venus Project or the Zeitgeist movement. A couple of times I asked SIAI about the idea of splitting my donations with some other group, and of course they said that donating all of the money to them would still be the most leveraged way for me to reduce existential risks. Looking at the list of projects they're currently working on, this does sound plausible, but somehow it still feels like a bad idea to give all of the money I can spare exclusively to SIAI.
Actually, there is one other place I plan to donate to, even if SIAI says that I should donate exclusively to SIAI. Armchair Revolutionary is awesome++. Everyone reading this who has any interest at all in having a positive effect on the future, please check out their website right now, and sign up for the beta. I'm having trouble describing it without triggering a reaction of aversion to cliches, or "this sounds too good to be true", but... ok, I won't worry about sounding cliched: They're harnessing the addictive power of social games, where you earn points, and badges, and stuff, to have a significant, positive impact on the future. They have a system that makes it easy, and possibly fun, to earn points by donating small amounts (99 cents) to one or more of several projects, or by helping in other ways: taking quizzes, doing some simple research, writing an email, making a phone call, uploading artwork, and more. And the system of limiting donations to 99 cents, and limiting it to one donation per person per project, provides a way to not feel guilty about not donating more. Personally, I find this extremely helpful. I can easily afford to donate the full amount to all of these projects, and spend some time on the other things I can do to earn points, and still have plenty of money and time left over to donate to SIAI. Oh, and so far it looks like donating small amounts to a wide variety of projects generates more warm fuzzies than donating large amounts to a single project. I like that.
It would be awesome if SIAI or LW or some of the other existential-risk-reducing groups could become partners of ArmRev, and get their own projects added to the list. Someone get on this ASAP. (What's that you say? Don't say "someone should", say "I will"? Ok, fine, I'll add it to my to-do list, with all of that other stuff that's really important but I don't feel at all qualified to do. But please, I would really appreciate if someone else could help with this, or take charge of this. Preferably someone who's actually in charge at SIAI, or LW, or one of the other groups)
Anyway, there's probably lots more I could write on these topics, but I guess I had better stop writing now. This post is already long enough.
It may just be me, but why do you need to find someone to follow?
I have always found that forging my own path through the wilderness to be far more enjoyable and yield far greater rewards that following a path, no matter how small or large that path may be.
What do you do instead of going to bed? I notice myself spending time on the Internet.
Either that or painting (The latter is harder to do because the cats tend to want to help me paint, yet don't get the necessity of oppose-able thumbs ... umm...Opposeable? Opposable??? anyway....)
Since I have had sleep disorders since I was 14, I've got lots of practice at not sleeping (pity there was no internet then)... So, I either read, draw, paint, sculpt, or harass people on the opposite side of the earth who are all wide awake.
I would love to get some examples on how "life experience" in general is necessary for an informed and rational opinion on a subject. The examples in these comments seem to relate to not "life experience" but specific experience (i.e. doing tracings, playing chess, etc.) Yet people seem to think that "life experience" in general adds "something" and that further conversation on the subject cannot substitute for it.
As someone whose peer group is generally much older than me, I can say from comparing myself to others that "life experience" doesn't add to your knowlege or intelligence or mental development, past a certain age. What it does add is context. As you get older, your context shifts--certain things that you thought were important no longer are important and certain things become more important. I think it's explaining this context shift that is so difficult (but not impossible!)
For instance, my younger self had serious worries about her relationship that now seem trivial. This is because I've learned that communication and trust are much more important to having a healthy relationship than physically being close to someone. And this context shift comes from simply life experiences in dealing with people.
Sports... That requires a form of Life Experience in order to gain an informed set of opinions on the subject.
When playing something like Soccer/Football, the basic skills may be imparted through training, yet the ability to successfully play with others on a field is going to take experience in learning how the whole of a team interacts both with you and against you (speaking in third person).
Another area where I understand that Life-Experience is not to be communicated is in the field of certain types of military, paramilitary or intelligence gathering activities. Like Art, there are basic skills which must be learned through your typical learning patterns, yet the application of those skills is something that I learned (in VERY hard and dangerous situations) only through life experience. My would be peers tried to tell me, and warn me as best they could. Told me that there were various situations that would come up for which there was no fixed answer, no set play, and that only having a set of basic skills that were honed as well as could be would save my pitiful ass once I found myself in those situations (fortunately for me, I recalled the words of my art teacher "You won't know why you are doing these things until after you have done them.")... And, since I had paid attention to the basic skill set needed, I was able to put it to good use to save my skin and that of others when the time came. It was only by life experience that I learned about the communities and personalities involved. Those are things that cannot be learned from a book.
Just like on a sports field, there are personalities and the character of the moment that arises in a play that cannot be taught, and must be learned through doing.
Even doing those tracings that I mentioned. We got something out of that that the other students who didn't put in their time would spend years to learn, and it was something that even a full explanation by our instructor wouldn't have taught us (as we all realized after having done what we were told). We learned that we needed to have a reflexive ability to react in order to be able to take in a situation, rather than having to concentrate upon things that should be instinctive, and thus miss out on an opportunity to learn something we would miss otherwise.
In response to
"Life Experience" as a Conversation-Halter
You should declare your age here, and whether you have ever known so much more about anything, relative to someone else, that this might have been a valid claim for you to make in a conversation.
Telling someone that they just lack enough experience to appreciate some point is, if true, extremely valuable info. If it seems reasonable to end the conversation after receiving such info, then why shouldn't the conversation end at that point? The issue isn't Bayesian vs. not, but how easily could they communicate all the specific data on which their overall judgment is based.
This was the basic gist of the earlier response that I made... Only, ironically, I could only recount it as an anecdote.
I have to give it to my art instructor though, because his lesson on gaining personal experience has really carried over into other fields well. His comments ended, temporarily, the conversation until we had gathered the requisite skills and experience to understand both his position and what we were doing. After we finished the assignment (and consequently the semester), those of us who did the work then could understand his reasoning far better than those of the class who had not done the work.
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
Wow! We make worshipping the devil sound bad around here by comparing him to God! Excuse me if I take a hint of pleasure at the irony. ;)
Well, they both (according to Christian Myth) are truly bad characters.
It is unfortunate for God that Satan (Lucifer) had such a reasonable request "Gee, Jehovah, It would certainly be nice if you let us try out that chair every once in a while." Basically, Lucifer's crime was one that is only a crime in a state where the King is seen as having divine authority to rule, and all else is seen as beneath such things (thus reflecting the Divine Order)
It was this act upon which Modern Satanists seized to create a new mythology for Satanism, where it was reason rebelling again an order that was corrupt and tyrannical.