This is what fiction is for. A principle can be presented as a character which personifies it to explain it better, but that’s different than telling people that the character is a real person rather than a fictional symbol meant to demonstrate a point.
A good example of a fictional deity character meant to demonstrate a point but which is not meant to be believed as real would be the Goddess of Everything Else. I will admit that the Goddess of Everything Else represents rationalist/transhumanist values much better than the Christian deity. Reality is often very harsh and takes a lot of courage to face sometimes. Most people probably don’t have what it takes to be able to see the full scope of the darkness that our species faces without flinching. If you feel you need to believe in a God for a while, it would be best to pick one that doesn’t require you to compromise too many of your other principles nor to sacrifice all of the skills you’ve learned here, and one for which there is minimal if any social penalty for changing your mind about later.
I agree that it’s important to be conservative when talking about gods. I would never tell anyone that God is a real person who exists within physical substrate (except in my own brain-meat).
But, I also think that “fiction,” while technically accurate, fails to capture the way in which I use God. While a “set” of anything is technically a fiction (in that it doesn’t exist in the physical substrate), set theory can be a powerful tool. If you were to dismiss any given set as a fiction without first appreciating the details of its use, you would be losing important details.
E: I’m not familiar with Unitarian Universalists. What’s their credo?
You should be wary of believing something because you think it’s useful to believe it, rather than because it’s true. For every useful untrue belief, it should be possible to get the same or greater benefit from believing something that’s true instead, if you have developed the skills, qualities, attitudes and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner.
That’s the thing. Unitarian-universalist churches accept everyone as members no matter what they believe. They don’t require their members to have a particular belief system. So if you change your beliefs at any point you won’t have to leave.
Not every belief is about truth. You may hold X to be useful because it’s useful, and Y to be true because it’s true. The mistake is to automatically hold X to be true as well, or Y to be useful. Restating that as “X being useful is true” erases the distinction or invites unnecessary rigor. In the same vein, there are judgements of falsehood or necessity or need, and these are about falsehood or necessity or need and not about truth.
I agree entirely. What I am arguing is that gods can be a part of “skills, qualities, attitudes, and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner.”
They don’t require belief in any untruths, merely interpretation of the truth into a euphorically beautiful form. No where in my post do I advise believing anything untrue, and nowhere do I advise deliberately ignoring true things.
Except that you’re using “useful to believe” as a criteria for determining whether something is true or not. Also, if you had developed the skills, qualities, attitudes, and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner, you wouldn’t need to believe in a God, because you would know how to live with the knowledge that there is no God and not be broken by it. If you truly had developed the ability to handle the truth safely, it wouldn’t matter what the truth was, you’d be able to handle it regardless. That is to say, if a God does not exist, you would be able to handle that just as well as if a God does exist.
Also, it’s not very polite to deliberately take someone else’s words out of context. I think you probably knew on some level what I actually meant by “skills, qualities, attitudes, and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner,” and you also probably know what I meant by “true”. I’m not sure how someone could frequent this site without ever hearing about map-territory distinction. Correct me if I’m wrong, but map territory distinction is mentioned right on the front page of the site.
If you want others’ cooperation in avoiding breaking through your cognitive dissonance about religion so that you don’t get overwhelmed by grief or something, then just say you don’t want to talk about it and no one will question you. Not everyone needs a belief in God to deal with their grief. Furthermore, trying to persuade grieving people to join your particular religion while they’re in a vulnerable state of mourning would likely be seen as predatory in certain ways. You’d be taking advantage of someone’s pain to trick them into believing and doing things they wouldn’t normally believe or do if they weren’t in a vulnerable state.
And those on this site who aren’t religious and aren’t currently grieving won’t be convinced. They will see the flaws in your arguments and argue with you, which puts your precious belief at risk of falsification.
So really, trying to proselytize here is a lose-lose situation.
This is what fiction is for. A principle can be presented as a character which personifies it to explain it better, but that’s different than telling people that the character is a real person rather than a fictional symbol meant to demonstrate a point.
A good example of a fictional deity character meant to demonstrate a point but which is not meant to be believed as real would be the Goddess of Everything Else. I will admit that the Goddess of Everything Else represents rationalist/transhumanist values much better than the Christian deity. Reality is often very harsh and takes a lot of courage to face sometimes. Most people probably don’t have what it takes to be able to see the full scope of the darkness that our species faces without flinching. If you feel you need to believe in a God for a while, it would be best to pick one that doesn’t require you to compromise too many of your other principles nor to sacrifice all of the skills you’ve learned here, and one for which there is minimal if any social penalty for changing your mind about later.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MFNJ7kQttCuCXHp8P/the-goddess-of-everything-else
Also, have you considered joining a Unitarian-universalist church?
I agree that it’s important to be conservative when talking about gods. I would never tell anyone that God is a real person who exists within physical substrate (except in my own brain-meat).
But, I also think that “fiction,” while technically accurate, fails to capture the way in which I use God. While a “set” of anything is technically a fiction (in that it doesn’t exist in the physical substrate), set theory can be a powerful tool. If you were to dismiss any given set as a fiction without first appreciating the details of its use, you would be losing important details.
E: I’m not familiar with Unitarian Universalists. What’s their credo?
You should be wary of believing something because you think it’s useful to believe it, rather than because it’s true. For every useful untrue belief, it should be possible to get the same or greater benefit from believing something that’s true instead, if you have developed the skills, qualities, attitudes and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner.
That’s the thing. Unitarian-universalist churches accept everyone as members no matter what they believe. They don’t require their members to have a particular belief system. So if you change your beliefs at any point you won’t have to leave.
Not every belief is about truth. You may hold X to be useful because it’s useful, and Y to be true because it’s true. The mistake is to automatically hold X to be true as well, or Y to be useful. Restating that as “X being useful is true” erases the distinction or invites unnecessary rigor. In the same vein, there are judgements of falsehood or necessity or need, and these are about falsehood or necessity or need and not about truth.
I agree entirely. What I am arguing is that gods can be a part of “skills, qualities, attitudes, and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner.”
They don’t require belief in any untruths, merely interpretation of the truth into a euphorically beautiful form. No where in my post do I advise believing anything untrue, and nowhere do I advise deliberately ignoring true things.
Except that you’re using “useful to believe” as a criteria for determining whether something is true or not. Also, if you had developed the skills, qualities, attitudes, and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner, you wouldn’t need to believe in a God, because you would know how to live with the knowledge that there is no God and not be broken by it. If you truly had developed the ability to handle the truth safely, it wouldn’t matter what the truth was, you’d be able to handle it regardless. That is to say, if a God does not exist, you would be able to handle that just as well as if a God does exist.
Also, it’s not very polite to deliberately take someone else’s words out of context. I think you probably knew on some level what I actually meant by “skills, qualities, attitudes, and habits necessary to handle the truth in a sane and healthy manner,” and you also probably know what I meant by “true”. I’m not sure how someone could frequent this site without ever hearing about map-territory distinction. Correct me if I’m wrong, but map territory distinction is mentioned right on the front page of the site.
If you want others’ cooperation in avoiding breaking through your cognitive dissonance about religion so that you don’t get overwhelmed by grief or something, then just say you don’t want to talk about it and no one will question you. Not everyone needs a belief in God to deal with their grief. Furthermore, trying to persuade grieving people to join your particular religion while they’re in a vulnerable state of mourning would likely be seen as predatory in certain ways. You’d be taking advantage of someone’s pain to trick them into believing and doing things they wouldn’t normally believe or do if they weren’t in a vulnerable state.
And those on this site who aren’t religious and aren’t currently grieving won’t be convinced. They will see the flaws in your arguments and argue with you, which puts your precious belief at risk of falsification.
So really, trying to proselytize here is a lose-lose situation.