I’m particularly easily inspired by pretty slogans and inspirational tones (like those this site),
I wouldn’t necessarily call that a failing in and of itself—it’s important to notice the influence that tone and eloquence and other ineffable aesthetic qualities have on your thinking (lest you find yourself agreeing with the smooth talker over the person with a correct argument), but it’s also a big part of appreciating art, or finding beauty in the world around you.
and I have, and have always had, one of those Escher-painting brains, to the extent that I was raised very atheist but > am now not so sure.
If it helps, I was raised atheist, only ever adopted organized religion once in response to social pressure (it didn’t last, once I was out of that context), find myself a skeptical, materialist atheist sort—and with my brain wiring (schizotypal, among other things) I still have intense, vivid spiritual experiences on a regular basis. There’s no inherent contradiction, if you see the experiences as products-of-brain and that eerie sense that maybe there’s something more to it as also a product-of-brain, with antecedents in known brain-bits.
I’m certainly not going to join organised religion any time soon, seeing as I think I’m much better off without them. However, it’s proving pretty difficult to argue myself out of a general, self-formed religion because of the hangups I have about our logic only applying to our world. I mean, if there is a supreme being for whom “P and ¬P”...
Fortunately, any beings that use logic that is above and beyond my own, and cares about my well-being, will probably want me to just try my best with my own logic. It’s not a belief that gets in the way of life much, so I don’t think about it all the time, but it would be interesting to sit down and just poke all of that bit of my thoughts with a rationalist stick at some point.
Welcome!
I wouldn’t necessarily call that a failing in and of itself—it’s important to notice the influence that tone and eloquence and other ineffable aesthetic qualities have on your thinking (lest you find yourself agreeing with the smooth talker over the person with a correct argument), but it’s also a big part of appreciating art, or finding beauty in the world around you.
If it helps, I was raised atheist, only ever adopted organized religion once in response to social pressure (it didn’t last, once I was out of that context), find myself a skeptical, materialist atheist sort—and with my brain wiring (schizotypal, among other things) I still have intense, vivid spiritual experiences on a regular basis. There’s no inherent contradiction, if you see the experiences as products-of-brain and that eerie sense that maybe there’s something more to it as also a product-of-brain, with antecedents in known brain-bits.
Thanks for the welcome!
I’m certainly not going to join organised religion any time soon, seeing as I think I’m much better off without them. However, it’s proving pretty difficult to argue myself out of a general, self-formed religion because of the hangups I have about our logic only applying to our world. I mean, if there is a supreme being for whom “P and ¬P”...
Fortunately, any beings that use logic that is above and beyond my own, and cares about my well-being, will probably want me to just try my best with my own logic. It’s not a belief that gets in the way of life much, so I don’t think about it all the time, but it would be interesting to sit down and just poke all of that bit of my thoughts with a rationalist stick at some point.