Atheists on the Benefits of Non-Toxic Spiritual Beliefs or Religion

[bill4long]

That sounds a bit like the Philosophy of Absurdism and Nietzche's emphasis on the Laughter of the Heights. That was my view for years. It worked for me for a while. Then it didn't. Now these views I explore here http://emergentmormon.blogspot.com/ are working for me. To each their own.

I don't think so. For me it's the opposite. It's about embracing life in it's totality. Especially busting out of the shackles of fear and laziness.

(And I don't mean doing things that appall and disgust you.)

The meaning of life, at bare minimum, is to live and experience.

Humans are the only animals on earth that are hung up on the minutia of the question. Meanwhile...

'Life goes on around him everywhere. He's playing solitaire.'

From what I can tell most people really do know what they really want to do. But don't do it because of fear, guilt and/or laziness.

I like what C.S. "Jack" Lewis said once: most people go through life without doing either what they and should do or what they want to do.

What a waste.

Good fortune favors the bold.

Peace

[Free Ranger]

That sounds a bit like the Philosophy of Absurdism and Nietzche's emphasis on the Laughter of the Heights. That was my view for years. It worked for me for a while. Then it didn't. To each their own.

... Humans are the only animals on earth that are hung up on the minutia of the question. ...

Thanks for sharing, I actually agree with nearly everything you said. It reminds me very much of Nietzsche's philosophy. I interpret Joseph Smith through the Nietzchean lens of somebody who was definitely bold and a visionary and took action with the will to create.

But I do think that you can't dismiss human beings having evolved to dwell on the so-called "minutia" which I interpret by that you mean not focusing on meaning of life or having a worldview or paradigm? When all the science and psychology I have read points to humans as meaning making creatures and forming some kind of paradigm or meaning in life is part of what it means to have a brain like ours and imaginative and artistic capacities. Most animals don't even recognize themselves in the mirror and so our self awareness comes with it metaphysical tendencies. As the videos at the start of this thread explain, we are likely designed by nature to benefit from some form of spirituality.

Just compare the atheist community in the 90s and early 2000s, I was a part of, with its secular vision of being like Spock in Star Treck and basically the belief that pure Reason & Science is all we need and all the world needs, only to have that leave an existential vaccuum to be filled, which was quickly filled with Atheism+ because most atheists craved meaning and higher purpose, which evolved into what some consider religious or supernatural beliefs among many on the atheistic secular far-Left post 2015. Scandinavia is not the bastion of pure atheism either because there's a lot of folklore and elf belief.

So yes, take action with courage and get your needs met, but even the most successful at the top of the hill end up pondering their existence. And as a human being, they most often seek some higher meaning.

[Res Ipsa]

A question and a comment:

Having followed the Atheism + community for a while, I am curious about these “supernatural” beliefs among the secular far left. Would I be correct in guessing that “some” people who used that description were people who were critics of the “Social Justice” movement?

The field of evolutionary psychology has been criticized heavily for creating the equivalent of “just-so” stories to claim an evolutionary benefit for existing psychological characteristics of humans. That problem is worse when you move outside the field: folks who aren’t experts in evolutionary psychology make all sorts of claims based on the false assumption that evolutionary theory allows us to conclude that every characteristic of humans today exists because it had some evolutionary advantage.

One of the important concepts in evolutionary biology is that of “spandrels” — side effects of changes that are driven by natural selection. The spandrels themselves have no survival value at the time they appear. They can even be a detriment to survival as long as that detriment Is less than the advantage converted by change that caused the spandrel.

As time passes, spandrels can persist in a population. As environmental conditions change, natural selection may start to operate on them. But they can persist indefinitely in a population.

Any claim that nature “designed” The human brain for spirituality is based on a misconception of evolutionary science. There is no nature that designs. The existence of a specific human trait is not evidence that is, or has ever been, beneficial to survival of the human species.

Scientists who speak out on issues that are outside of their specialty are prone to this kind of mistake.

[Free Ranger]

A question and a comment:

Having followed the Atheism + community for a while, I am curious about these “supernatural” beliefs among the secular far left. Would I be correct in guessing that “some” people who used that description were people who were critics of the “Social Justice” movement?

The field of evolutionary psychology has been criticized heavily for creating the equivalent of “just-so” stories to claim an evolutionary benefit for existing psychological characteristics of humans. That problem is worse when you move outside the field: folks who aren’t experts in evolutionary psychology make all sorts of claims based on the false assumption that evolutionary theory allows us to conclude that every characteristic of humans today exists because it had some evolutionary advantage.

One of the important concepts in evolutionary biology is that of “spandrels” — side effects of changes that are driven by natural selection. The spandrels themselves have no survival value at the time they appear. They can even be a detriment to survival as long as that detriment Is less than the advantage converted by change that caused the spandrel.

As time passes, spandrels can persist in a population. As environmental conditions change, natural selection may start to operate on them. But they can persist indefinitely in a population.

Any claim that nature “designed” The human brain for spirituality is based on a misconception of evolutionary science. There is no nature that designs. The existence of a specific human trait is not evidence that is, or has ever been, beneficial to survival of the human species.

Scientists who speak out on issues that are outside of their specialty are prone to this kind of mistake.

I decided to start a new topic in my answering of your question, see viewtopic.php?t=157794#p2838899

[bill4long]

Any claim that nature “designed” The human brain for spirituality is based on a misconception of evolutionary science. There is no nature that designs. The existence of a specific human trait is not evidence that is, or has ever been, beneficial to survival of the human species.Scientists who speak out on issues that are outside of their specialty are prone to this kind of mistake.

Nobody knows how brains work beyond a very superficial level.

Bill