Hi there, nice to know I’m not the only one absolutely new and quaking in my slippers here.
I don’t think you’re quite making the mistake of believing in belief. I can’t model your brain accurately just by reading a few paragraphs of course, but you don’t seem to show much flinching-away from admitting the judeo-christian god and the catholic interpretation of it is wrong. I think you’re more identifying the religion of your family and peers as your ‘group’ (tribe, nation, whatever wording you prefer) and shying away from dropping it as part of your identity for the same reason a strong patriot would hate the feeling of betraying their country.
I remember reading a thing about this by… some famous secularist writer, Dawkins or Harris I think. About a million years ago, for all the good my memory is serving me on the matter. I’ll try and find it for you.
As for being attracted to a higher order of things, well.. I agree with you. I just happen to think that higher order is quite physical in nature, hidden from us by the mundanity of its appearance. I think you might really want to read the sequences:
Hi there, nice to know I’m not the only one absolutely new and quaking in my slippers here.
I don’t think you’re quite making the mistake of believing in belief. I can’t model your brain accurately just by reading a few paragraphs of course, but you don’t seem to show much flinching-away from admitting the judeo-christian god and the catholic interpretation of it is wrong. I think you’re more identifying the religion of your family and peers as your ‘group’ (tribe, nation, whatever wording you prefer) and shying away from dropping it as part of your identity for the same reason a strong patriot would hate the feeling of betraying their country.
I remember reading a thing about this by… some famous secularist writer, Dawkins or Harris I think. About a million years ago, for all the good my memory is serving me on the matter. I’ll try and find it for you.
As for being attracted to a higher order of things, well.. I agree with you. I just happen to think that higher order is quite physical in nature, hidden from us by the mundanity of its appearance. I think you might really want to read the sequences:
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Reductionism_(sequence) and http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Joy_in_the_Merely_Real