Now be careful, and don’t get killed by stupid people.
I notice some similarities between what you wrote, and what other people wrote about similar experiences. You focus on technical details that don’t fit. It makes sense, of course, if the discussed text is supposed to be flawless. But it means that you are still at the beginning on the long way out of religion. You don’t believe it, but you still kinda respect it. I mean, you consider those technical details worthy of your time and attention.
Imagine that we would be discussing some other religion, e.g. Hinduism. And I would say that the 1234th word in the Whatever Veda could not be original, because it contains a consonant that didn’t exist thousands of years ago. You would probably feel like “yeah, whatever, who cares about a consonant; the whole story about blue people with four arms leading armies of 10^10 monkeys from other planets is completely ridiculous!” At the end of the road, you may feel the same about the religion you grew up with. The technical details that now seem important to you will feel unimportant compared with the utter falseness of the whole thing.
*
I think that the important thing to see the big picture is reductionism. Like, let’s not talk about the holy texts and evidence; instead tell me what is your God composed of. Is it build of atoms? Of something else, e.g. some mysterious “spiritual atoms”? When it becomes angry or happy, does it literally have such hormones in its bloodstream? When it thinks or remembers, are its “spiritual neurons” exchanging the “spiritual atoms”? Hey, I am not denying your God, I am actually eager to listen to your story about it… as long as you can focus on the technical details and keep making sense. I want to have a sufficiently good model of your God so that I could build one in my laboratory (given enough resources, hypothetically).
And here is when people jump to some bullshit. The Christian version is like “He is not made of ordinary matter; He is outside of the universe”, and I am like: okay, let’s talk about the non-ordinary matter that His non-ordinary neurons and non-ordinary brain are built of, in His reality-outside-the-universe. But, you know, to be able to think or feel, there needs to be some kind of metabolism—even if it’s a 13-dimensional metabolism built from dark matter—right? Then the more sophisticated crap is like “but actually God is the most simple possible thing” or something like that, and I am like: dude, just read something about Kolmogorov komplexity, and come back when you realize how ridiculous you sound.
Of course, such complicated dialogs only happen in my imagination :D because… in real life, when you start asking questions, the typical answer is just “this is all very mysterious stuff that humans like us can’t even begin to understand”, and it doesn’t go far beyond that. Also “read these thousand books, they contain answers to all your questions” (spoiler: they don’t; this is just an attempt to make you tired and give up).
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For most people, however, religion is not about making sense. It is about belonging to a community. If they start doubting it, they will feel alone. Humans have a desire to associate with those who “believe” the same things. It is unfortunate that sometimes the fairy tales they associate around compel them to do horrible things...
Spot on the last part, my entourage mostly focuses on the belonging part,especially my parents .
The reason I started at looking at the text is because I went down the road of what Luke discussed in his presentation “Why the new atheist failed” I wanted to seek the strongest argument of the opposing part that can be criticized without falling in the mysterious loop of what is God or how does he exist.
That’s why I took my time to do this research not because of respect to the religion but because I needed to have some kind of argument that fits the usual discussions I often have with others.
I haven’t read the reductionism sequence in the sense that I have a technical understanding of it.
My personal atheism story was really built from what the last part of the sequences discuss I.e can you start thinking about religion or god without being taught directly, to be honest I started loosing the respect of belief along reading the sequences which was the most enlightening experience I’ve had in my whole life. I can’t praise this community works in the sequences or the posts enough, really.
Thanks for the feedback, the way you formulated some questions is quite interesting.
Congratulations!
Now be careful, and don’t get killed by stupid people.
I notice some similarities between what you wrote, and what other people wrote about similar experiences. You focus on technical details that don’t fit. It makes sense, of course, if the discussed text is supposed to be flawless. But it means that you are still at the beginning on the long way out of religion. You don’t believe it, but you still kinda respect it. I mean, you consider those technical details worthy of your time and attention.
Imagine that we would be discussing some other religion, e.g. Hinduism. And I would say that the 1234th word in the Whatever Veda could not be original, because it contains a consonant that didn’t exist thousands of years ago. You would probably feel like “yeah, whatever, who cares about a consonant; the whole story about blue people with four arms leading armies of 10^10 monkeys from other planets is completely ridiculous!” At the end of the road, you may feel the same about the religion you grew up with. The technical details that now seem important to you will feel unimportant compared with the utter falseness of the whole thing.
*
I think that the important thing to see the big picture is reductionism. Like, let’s not talk about the holy texts and evidence; instead tell me what is your God composed of. Is it build of atoms? Of something else, e.g. some mysterious “spiritual atoms”? When it becomes angry or happy, does it literally have such hormones in its bloodstream? When it thinks or remembers, are its “spiritual neurons” exchanging the “spiritual atoms”? Hey, I am not denying your God, I am actually eager to listen to your story about it… as long as you can focus on the technical details and keep making sense. I want to have a sufficiently good model of your God so that I could build one in my laboratory (given enough resources, hypothetically).
And here is when people jump to some bullshit. The Christian version is like “He is not made of ordinary matter; He is outside of the universe”, and I am like: okay, let’s talk about the non-ordinary matter that His non-ordinary neurons and non-ordinary brain are built of, in His reality-outside-the-universe. But, you know, to be able to think or feel, there needs to be some kind of metabolism—even if it’s a 13-dimensional metabolism built from dark matter—right? Then the more sophisticated crap is like “but actually God is the most simple possible thing” or something like that, and I am like: dude, just read something about Kolmogorov komplexity, and come back when you realize how ridiculous you sound.
Of course, such complicated dialogs only happen in my imagination :D because… in real life, when you start asking questions, the typical answer is just “this is all very mysterious stuff that humans like us can’t even begin to understand”, and it doesn’t go far beyond that. Also “read these thousand books, they contain answers to all your questions” (spoiler: they don’t; this is just an attempt to make you tired and give up).
*
For most people, however, religion is not about making sense. It is about belonging to a community. If they start doubting it, they will feel alone. Humans have a desire to associate with those who “believe” the same things. It is unfortunate that sometimes the fairy tales they associate around compel them to do horrible things...
Spot on the last part, my entourage mostly focuses on the belonging part,especially my parents . The reason I started at looking at the text is because I went down the road of what Luke discussed in his presentation “Why the new atheist failed” I wanted to seek the strongest argument of the opposing part that can be criticized without falling in the mysterious loop of what is God or how does he exist. That’s why I took my time to do this research not because of respect to the religion but because I needed to have some kind of argument that fits the usual discussions I often have with others. I haven’t read the reductionism sequence in the sense that I have a technical understanding of it. My personal atheism story was really built from what the last part of the sequences discuss I.e can you start thinking about religion or god without being taught directly, to be honest I started loosing the respect of belief along reading the sequences which was the most enlightening experience I’ve had in my whole life. I can’t praise this community works in the sequences or the posts enough, really. Thanks for the feedback, the way you formulated some questions is quite interesting.