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I could see the benefits of having a spiritual community around you, but, like, how do you convince yourself that supernatural things like gods exist? There's j

I could see the benefits of having a spiritual community around you, but, like, how do you convince yourself that supernatural things like gods exist? There's just very little tangible or logical there. Or would it be worth it to participate without really believing? Or you just somehow start believing? Frankly, for me doing that would probably be comparable to asking you to convert to Hinduism or something similar. Stability and fulfilment sound good tho.

Xeoncross 5y ago
That's the thing, most of these questions have been answered or at least heavily explored. Atheism is relatively new to the philosophical space, so I've found most arguments and thought exploration is based on ancient religions. After all, these same people founded most branches of science and math.
prometheus76 5y ago
The first struggle (and it took a couple of years, and is still in process) is learning that my entire worldview is rooted in the presuppositions of the Enlightenment and of modernism (and postmodernism, to a lesser degree). That is not how people saw the world for most of the history of humanity. And most of the experiences of religion and God that I had growing up were through that same empirical, Enlightenment worldview. Through the work of Jonathan Pageau, I began to learn to see the world through a more traditional mindset. And I began to look at my own thinking and my previous presuppositions more carefully. For example, you said "convince yourself that supernatural things exist". But you already believe all kinds of supernatural things exist. You believe in numbers. You believe in categories. You believe in grammar. You believe in logic. You believe in cities. You believe in political offices. Those are all above the natural world. In philosophy, that's called "metaphysics". It's "above" the physical world. You have a hierarchy of values (which is not physical) that determines how you see the world, how you act in the world, and how you categorize what your senses are feeding your brain. This is completely in line with our current scientific understanding of how our brains work. The work of John Vervaeke can also be very helpful. Anyway, once I got over my empiricism and began to see that empiricism is completely blind to very large swathes of the human experience, it got much easier to say "well, since I have a value system intrinsically, and since a value system is completely necessary, perhaps I should put more effort into structuring it around the highest good." Please keep in mind this process took a couple of years and will last for the rest of my life, but I hope you can see the stepping stones along the way.
- v-erne 5y ago
  I cannot wrap my head around how can You throw away empiricism - for me this is the only working way to validate mental models. Without it You just have infinite space of possibilities that are based on some subset of axioms that You choose as You please. It becomes just a logical and emotional game of who says it better (have better stories to tell). And I don't belive in numbers or cities - they are just useful abstractions that stop existing when I stop thinking about them (and I'm guessing this is not a property of any potential imaginery supreme being).
  - prometheus76 5y ago
    Numbers are useful abstractions with no empirical evidence to back them up. That's my point. Numbers are a way of interacting with the physical world and reproduce certain results, but numbers themselves are abstract and have no physical properties. As for empiricism, I certainly did not throw it out. It's useful, but not for everything. Say I have three knives in my kitchen drawer: a butter knife, a steak knife, and a chef's knife. Empirically speaking, which knife is the best knife? You can tell me all the physical properties of the knife, and the metallurgy of the knife and the shape and weight of each knife, but which knife is the BEST knife, from an empirical point of view? Empiricism has no answer UNTIL you, a person, say "I want to dice this onion" and empiricism can then arrange the knives in a hierarchical order according to which one will work best. But science has nothing to say about "best" or "worst" until an agent in the world has a purpose for which they want to use something. Then empiricism is a wonderful tool. Another, shorter example: empiricism can help you build a rocket, but has nothing to say about whether you should aim it at the moon, or at a neighboring country. And one more, just for fun: the empiricism that was used to detect and classify climate change is the same empiricism that was used to make the internal combustion engine. Empiricism is blind as to intent or motive. Empiricism is a toolset, but has no tools for determining a value hierarchy within the bounds of empiricism itself. Empiricism can only go to work once a person has given it a purpose or goal to work towards.
    - v-erne 5y ago
      Oh I think I can see whats happening here - You probably have strong emotional need for things to have purpose and meaning. Sure, if I haven't accepted that pure existence is enough (and depending on the point of view it has none or all the meaning that we want) then exploring pure models in search for purpose would be also what I would do. But since I believe that there are infinite number of abstractions with no real physical properties that can be interpreted as real through your reasoning, from my point of view, empiricism becomes the only real tool (because per Your first example even the best or worst ultimately comes down to preferences that were shaped by physical world).
ryandvm 5y ago
I'm not sure I believe that any particular religion is correct, but it doesn't take very much faith to believe that there is a God. Look at it this way: scientifically, the best explanation we have is that there was nothing and then from an infinitesimal point all of the entire universe sprang. For no discernable reason. That's pretty freaking wild. The idea that there's a God out there past all that doesn't seem that much crazier. Now whether or not you actually have a soul is a whole different discussion...
- v-erne 5y ago
  I always wonder - where do people get this intuition that something out of nothing is somehow more crazy idea than some supreme ephemeral being that existed before all this. The infinite regression argument is quite convincing that its rather the other way around - God is too complex idea to be the simplest possible answer.

Xeoncross 5y ago

That's the thing, most of these questions have been answered or at least heavily explored. Atheism is relatively new to the philosophical space, so I've found most arguments and thought exploration is based on ancient religions. After all, these same people founded most branches of science and math.

prometheus76 5y ago

The first struggle (and it took a couple of years, and is still in process) is learning that my entire worldview is rooted in the presuppositions of the Enlightenment and of modernism (and postmodernism, to a lesser degree). That is not how people saw the world for most of the history of humanity. And most of the experiences of religion and God that I had growing up were through that same empirical, Enlightenment worldview. Through the work of Jonathan Pageau, I began to learn to see the world through a more traditional mindset. And I began to look at my own thinking and my previous presuppositions more carefully. For example, you said "convince yourself that supernatural things exist". But you already believe all kinds of supernatural things exist. You believe in numbers. You believe in categories. You believe in grammar. You believe in logic. You believe in cities. You believe in political offices. Those are all above the natural world. In philosophy, that's called "metaphysics". It's "above" the physical world. You have a hierarchy of values (which is not physical) that determines how you see the world, how you act in the world, and how you categorize what your senses are feeding your brain. This is completely in line with our current scientific understanding of how our brains work. The work of John Vervaeke can also be very helpful. Anyway, once I got over my empiricism and began to see that empiricism is completely blind to very large swathes of the human experience, it got much easier to say "well, since I have a value system intrinsically, and since a value system is completely necessary, perhaps I should put more effort into structuring it around the highest good." Please keep in mind this process took a couple of years and will last for the rest of my life, but I hope you can see the stepping stones along the way.

v-erne 5y ago
I cannot wrap my head around how can You throw away empiricism - for me this is the only working way to validate mental models. Without it You just have infinite space of possibilities that are based on some subset of axioms that You choose as You please. It becomes just a logical and emotional game of who says it better (have better stories to tell). And I don't belive in numbers or cities - they are just useful abstractions that stop existing when I stop thinking about them (and I'm guessing this is not a property of any potential imaginery supreme being).
- prometheus76 5y ago
  Numbers are useful abstractions with no empirical evidence to back them up. That's my point. Numbers are a way of interacting with the physical world and reproduce certain results, but numbers themselves are abstract and have no physical properties. As for empiricism, I certainly did not throw it out. It's useful, but not for everything. Say I have three knives in my kitchen drawer: a butter knife, a steak knife, and a chef's knife. Empirically speaking, which knife is the best knife? You can tell me all the physical properties of the knife, and the metallurgy of the knife and the shape and weight of each knife, but which knife is the BEST knife, from an empirical point of view? Empiricism has no answer UNTIL you, a person, say "I want to dice this onion" and empiricism can then arrange the knives in a hierarchical order according to which one will work best. But science has nothing to say about "best" or "worst" until an agent in the world has a purpose for which they want to use something. Then empiricism is a wonderful tool. Another, shorter example: empiricism can help you build a rocket, but has nothing to say about whether you should aim it at the moon, or at a neighboring country. And one more, just for fun: the empiricism that was used to detect and classify climate change is the same empiricism that was used to make the internal combustion engine. Empiricism is blind as to intent or motive. Empiricism is a toolset, but has no tools for determining a value hierarchy within the bounds of empiricism itself. Empiricism can only go to work once a person has given it a purpose or goal to work towards.
  - v-erne 5y ago
    Oh I think I can see whats happening here - You probably have strong emotional need for things to have purpose and meaning. Sure, if I haven't accepted that pure existence is enough (and depending on the point of view it has none or all the meaning that we want) then exploring pure models in search for purpose would be also what I would do. But since I believe that there are infinite number of abstractions with no real physical properties that can be interpreted as real through your reasoning, from my point of view, empiricism becomes the only real tool (because per Your first example even the best or worst ultimately comes down to preferences that were shaped by physical world).

ryandvm 5y ago

I'm not sure I believe that any particular religion is correct, but it doesn't take very much faith to believe that there is a God. Look at it this way: scientifically, the best explanation we have is that there was nothing and then from an infinitesimal point all of the entire universe sprang. For no discernable reason. That's pretty freaking wild. The idea that there's a God out there past all that doesn't seem that much crazier. Now whether or not you actually have a soul is a whole different discussion...

v-erne 5y ago
I always wonder - where do people get this intuition that something out of nothing is somehow more crazy idea than some supreme ephemeral being that existed before all this. The infinite regression argument is quite convincing that its rather the other way around - God is too complex idea to be the simplest possible answer.