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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Rose]

You could put it like that.

[TD1]

So...is it creation which makes this being God?

Also, could you imagine it as a multiplicity. Like a civilization which decided to create our known universe?

If not, why not?

((I find it somewhat interesting that people like to think of 'God' as a one-off fluke. That there can only ever be one being that Always Was and Always Will Be. Their very logic makes it possible.

[RAM]

Things I believe:
God exists.
Believing in any given scenario of any god's existence is objectively stupid.
In the unlikely event of god existing its relationship to us is almost certainly exactly like the relationship between us and soap-operas. The afterlife is very real death, but if god likes the episode then your memories will be ogled for all eternity as reruns.
God's motives and nature, provided that you have enough evidence to have even the slightest rumour of a clue as to what you think you will achieve by worshipping it, are tragically easy to comprehend and arguments to the contrary, ugh, I just don't even...
People are inherently good.
People are inherently vacant of any form of good.
Good doesn't exist.
Evil doesn't exist, but if it did then the words "good" and "people" would be the most evil things of all.
That nice young man is helping me make a difficult decision.
That criminal salesman is trying to rip me off for a higher commission.

Anyone who thinks that "faith alone is enough" hasn't been keeping track of just how many things they have faith in, and just how many things they used to have faith in but that faith has somehow departed... Faith, to be useful, needs to be combined with an understanding of consequence, extrapolation, corroboration... If you are going to assume that your beliefs are accurate, that your faith is true, that your trust is well placed, then you are going to make mistakes because of that assumption. As your provably false beliefs get whittled down through the tortures of life then your mistakes will lessen, but there are a myriad of ways to test beliefs prior to being betrayed by them and to take anything as true just because your impulses have taken it as true by accident is far from necessary...

So don't be too worried about believing in god. Even if you believe in it, it still probably doesn't exist. And if there is enough to your soul that an afterlife would have any value, then there is probably enough to your soul that it can make an afterlife of its own that would be better than the one that would be sold to you by a dubious realtor who openly writes all of their own performance reviews and customer satisfaction evaluations and proudly states that it is better that way because they are better than everyone else in every way, especially in humility and consideration of others... So, you know, remember to be a friendly ghost!

[inteuniso]

I am uncertain if religion's rules of morality improve upon quality of life||survivability.

[RAM]

They create a fixed, well, relatively fixed, standard for everyone to be aware of and conform to. It creates consistency and reliability that makes a system more cohesive and resistant to pressures. It is, more-or-less, good for the survival of a community. But it is sort of terrible at maintaining variety. People who are different tend to get suppressed into depression and death or banished. Those you are most dependant upon for new ideas are least able to provide them. This is basically the easiest argument against eugenics, sometimes that which is furthest from the ideal is the most valuable... So you will typically see them being very successful while anyone is paying attention but falling by the wayside over time unless they compromise their ideals.

So... If the rules represent the majority, then the majority will likely experience a significant gain in quality of life and survivability for a rather long short-term. And this will produce an increase in the net-total of quality of life and survivability. And they are then free to take their improved quality of life and survivability and use it to mug a more open society and sustain themselves long-term in that way. Much as a business can spend all its money on advertising and then buy out a business that spent anything on research, staff, and quality. It is actually really wonderfully effective, but also kind of horrific, and eventually you run out of oil to dig up and realise that while you were climbing to the top of the social ladder you were crushing the world underneath you, and now you are the biggest fish in a dried-up ocean.

If you want a review of specific morality rules, then you are going to have to specify. There is far too much conflict between religions to regard any religious rule as being universal.

[Putnam]

Nondiscriminatory resistance to pressure is a bad thing.

[RAM]

That depends upon the pressure. If the pressure is a lack of water, then a fixed and shared set of rules can help with organising and accepting rationing.
If the pressure is an invading army, then shared and fixed rules help with solidarity and consistency in defence.
If the pressure is alien cultural influences, then it is a matter of the extent to which you value "survival" if what survives is no longer "you" and how much you value the elements of yourself that will be altered by the changes in culture...
I suspect that the vast majority of pressures will be overtly hostile. This is not a nice world. But it is fair to say that the most familiar of pressures are minor social things that would probably be best to have some acceptance of.

[Egan_BW]

Nondiscriminatory resistance to pressure is a bad thing.

That depends upon the pressure.

Nondiscriminatory

[Descan]

... He said "nondiscriminatory." As in, does not discriminate regarding your "depends" clause there.

[Putnam]

Really, I think I was just sort of flustered by the phrase "resistant to pressures", which in my experience usually translates to "resistance to change even when evidence is taken into consideration"

[Urist McScoopbeard]

If the pressure is alien cultural influences, then it is a matter of the extent to which you value "survival" if what survives is no longer "you" and how much you value the elements of yourself that will be altered by the changes in culture...

That sounds like a really negative mindset.

[Descan]

I mean I'm fairly sure the foundation of memetics and culture is the same as the foundation of genetics; what we have right now in terms of "memetic packages" like a national group/culture, or a religion, is those packages that have the best ability to propagate themselves (like Christianity or Islam) or adapt to change (the "American" or "Canadian" identities), or both, or to simply survive intact (Such as Judaism). Especially if it's an old package, like the Kurdish or Yazidi cultures, or Judaism, that have had to survive for thousands of years. Doesn't mean they'd look exactly the same as those did thousands of years ago, but the package is more or less intact still, which means at least a portion of those packages directly benefits the wholes survival in one form or another.

There's no moral judgement here, simply survival and propagation. If an idea that made people commit suicide at 30 years old but had a 90% success rate of spreading to 2 or more people before then took hold, then that idea would be extremely robust. Doesn't mean it'd be a "good idea."

[redwallzyl]

I mean I'm fairly sure the foundation of memetics and culture is the same as the foundation of genetics; what we have right now in terms of "memetic packages" like a national group/culture, or a religion, is those packages that have the best ability to propagate themselves (like Christianity or Islam) or adapt to change (the "American" or "Canadian" identities), or both, or to simply survive intact (Such as Judaism). Especially if it's an old package, like the Kurdish or Yazidi cultures, or Judaism, that have had to survive for thousands of years. Doesn't mean they'd look exactly the same as those did thousands of years ago, but the package is more or less intact still, which means at least a portion of those packages directly benefits the wholes survival in one form or another.

There's no moral judgement here, simply survival and propagation. If an idea that made people commit suicide at 30 years old but had a 90% success rate of spreading to 2 or more people before then took hold, then that idea would be extremely robust. Doesn't mean it'd be a "good idea."

The basics of culture are that of ensuring stability and survive by the passing down of ways of doing things. there is unfortunately no universal theory of culture and never will be but it is most useful to conceptualize in a more systems theory way and in taxonomies. biological analogies have been out of vogue in the field for awhile now. fundamentally all aspects of a culture exist to help people survive and maintain stability. this occurs through the passing down of tools in the form of culture. all of the aspects of a culture are linked together and exist for a reason. this is why it is always a bad idea to just go and tell people to stop doing things one way and do them another way, usually like the teller does. its like replacing a cog in a machine with a different one. it might work but it wont quite fit properly. even things that often seem very wrong to some people exist because they help the system in some way. often addressing an issue that is dealt with differently in another culture and always interlocking. now this machine does change by itself and often by adapting parts from others but a forced change will always result in unintended consequences. now their are parts that exist for a different reason, sometimes the response to an extreme historic circumstance that may be now unnecessary or at least not currently doing anything. it is important to not mistake these historical aspects for a normal state or how a people will always be or have been, these things can rapidly change. this is the source of much xenophobia. in addition when someone moves from one area to another they may continue with a practice that served a purposes back home and now does not and is also a source of xenophobia. I have specifically excluded any direct examples but you can probably think of the areas such things apply to.

*Anthropologist awaaaaaaaaaaaay!

[Avarice]

I miss orange

[Teneb]

I miss orange

He was banned for your sins.