Politics, business, technology, even rationality: many important things preoccupy us but leave the soul lacking. People crave connection, beauty, purpose, meaning, transcendence. These things can be found And so they turn to the many religions that seem to offer that.
Tim Urban noted that people in non-great relationships are twice as far from having relationships figured out as single people. They have two hard steps to take instead of just one: first to realize their current relationship is bad and break it up, then to find a great one. I’m starting to feel that today’s religions are the bad marriages of the pursuit of transcendence.
Religions were not optimized to uplift humans, they evolved to serve their priests and their memes. They offer pieces of the good stuff, but at the heavy cost of false beliefs. And how can the ideal state of your soul be one where you believe falsehoods?
I have seen glimpses of my soul’s ultimate goal. In poems, in woods, in cuddle parties. And I’m grateful that I could see them clearly, without the veil of one dogma or another obscuring my vision. I may or may not ever get there, but with religion I certainly won’t. And when I hear about rationalist friends becoming religious, I grieve for them having fallen off the path.
I think that this is Sam Harris’ core truth, which is why he’s so adamant about the benefits of individual spiritual practice and the horrors of organized religion. Each person’s path is their own, and while the wisdom and advice of others is indispensable, any person (or holy book) claiming to already know the destination is going in the wrong direction.
Cross-tweeted.
TL;DR: In Utopia, no one is Catholic.
Politics, business, technology, even rationality: many important things preoccupy us but leave the soul lacking. People crave connection, beauty, purpose, meaning, transcendence. These things can be found And so they turn to the many religions that seem to offer that.
Tim Urban noted that people in non-great relationships are twice as far from having relationships figured out as single people. They have two hard steps to take instead of just one: first to realize their current relationship is bad and break it up, then to find a great one. I’m starting to feel that today’s religions are the bad marriages of the pursuit of transcendence.
Religions were not optimized to uplift humans, they evolved to serve their priests and their memes. They offer pieces of the good stuff, but at the heavy cost of false beliefs. And how can the ideal state of your soul be one where you believe falsehoods?
I have seen glimpses of my soul’s ultimate goal. In poems, in woods, in cuddle parties. And I’m grateful that I could see them clearly, without the veil of one dogma or another obscuring my vision. I may or may not ever get there, but with religion I certainly won’t. And when I hear about rationalist friends becoming religious, I grieve for them having fallen off the path.
I think that this is Sam Harris’ core truth, which is why he’s so adamant about the benefits of individual spiritual practice and the horrors of organized religion. Each person’s path is their own, and while the wisdom and advice of others is indispensable, any person (or holy book) claiming to already know the destination is going in the wrong direction.