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The truth is my thinking about it doesn’t even go that far. Most of the things we all do (including me) don’t involve evidentiary considerations except in deliberative decision making. To quote Saint Paul, “… we walk by faith, not by sight…” Yes I assume that for everything I do there’s an evidence structure to it lurking in the background somewhere amid all the unconscious processing of the brain, but that’s about it except in the most consequential or interesting matters to me; in which case I come prepared to argue. I can love mathematical proofs as much as I want but if those were the only statements I’d be willing to act on I’d be such a nerd. I’d never be able to communicate with another human being. I don’t expect people to be persuaded by this train of thought, it’s simply an honest description of the internal clockwork of my brain, if someone were to look inside of it.
Atheism has all the logical arguments, so far as I’m able to determine. I’m not a Catholic because I’m convinced of the intellectual truth of it but because I hope it’s true. Without it, I don’t think I’d be living a life much different than I am currently, trying to be moral and do good, so where’s the harm in being one? Yes there are inconveniences and adjustments to make but it’s highly worth the minor cost imposed on me to keep my commitment in check.
To answer the more pointed remark “why is faith enough for me,” I’m not sure it necessarily is. And I don’t know how to explain this sensation well to someone that doesn’t experience it. One thing that’s been adduced in cognitive psychology is the notion that “certainty” is an actual human emotion. Without a strong ideological touchstone, I (and I think most humans) get this sort of cognitive itch like they feel they can’t scratch. Or like a smoker going through withdrawal and feeling mentally constantly on edge like they’re searching for something to soothe the feeling that only another cigarette can satisfy. You could call it that “void” if you want that religious people often talk about, that desperately needs to be filled. Makes you feel very uneasy inside. There’s this need to mentally attach yourself to something “solid,” like an “anchor point.” Atheism and secular philosophy can’t provide something beyond the reality that “… we’re just atoms in some temporary arrangement…,” it’s that sense or feeling of impermanence and ideological quicksand that you can’t hold in your hand that fills the cognitive void that it can’t provide for you. In Buddhism they talk about this notion that they call “dependent arising.” Don’t attach yourself to phenomenon because it’s all in a state of transition and change. It isn’t permanent. And when conditions change, your emotional disposition changes along with it. They talk about how material phenomenon “has no independent existence” or “self-sufficiency.” This is the impulse that I think drives the religious attitude. Going home and hugging the Bible in my mind (metaphorically speaking) renegerates me and keeps that feeling at bay. The sense of transcendence and eternalism it imparts in me makes me feel that there’s a “there” there that that void can’t touch. And whenever it slowly encroaches back into my mind, I go back to the Bible. Secular people do this too, just without the same clarity of mind. I’ve known people who left religion and become slavishly attached to Libertarian philosophy and hug books like Man, State and Economy to death, as it provides them the same feeling the Bible does to believers. Or people who keep “pristine,” untouched hardcover copies of Dad Kapital on their bookshelf that provides all the answers that makes them feel good.
I’m not sure if that answer makes any sense to you; but that’s what it is to me.
This is... an interesting mindset. It seems like you're cognizant of its shortcomings and aren't really trying to proselytize it so I would never be too hostile towards it when the average person has so many dumb beliefs that they're obnoxiously overconfident in.
But as a former edgy atheist I feel compelled to push back at least a little bit. I think you should value truth more highly as an end in and of itself. Sure, people want the answers that religion provide, e.g. "where did we come from", and especially "what happens to us after we die!?!" It's nice to think there's a big "plan" and that we get a nice big reward after life in the form of "heaven" to go to. But it's just not true, and the questions that faith answers are in reality either unknowable, or have mundane answers that aren't very satisfying.
You’ve redescribed faith as existential nicotine. I understand the craving, but the fact that a cigarette calms withdrawal is not an argument that smoking is good. You also have what seems like a bit of a cognitive defense mechanism towards the end with the Das Kapital and Libertarian philosophy bits. To me, that reads like you think that if a person doesn't have religion then they'd just fall back on some secular philosophy and be religiously fanatical towards that instead. And since we all have our "religion", being Christian is hardly a vice even if it's not logically supported, right? But the real lesson to draw from that is not "therefore religious faith is fine." The lesson is "humans are prone to motivated belief and ideological addiction across the board, so we should be more suspicious of all such attachments."
I don’t really disagree with you at all. But to address the critical angle, I value the truth enormously. That’s why I believe all the scientific and logical knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years supports the atheist position. That said though, my religiosity is a testament to the fact that I’m still human and not a purely information processing machine. It’s a cognitive compartmentalization that I let out when it needs to be let out. Some people become so intoxicated by what it does for them it causes them to become overbearing on others and ironically if you seek to win converts to your side of the aisle, becoming an exemplar of the belief that demands people investigate you out of their own curiosity, gets them to open the door. Force is counter-productive in that it sparks resentment among people, despite the fact that that wasn’t how the faith spread so widely throughout the ages.
When people ask me questions of the variety you’re pitching, I don’t descend into my religious beliefs. I’m prepared to talk pure science with them. But first I often try to discern what flavor of an explanation they’re looking for. If they’re looking at the ultimate ends, I’ll go religion if they’re a seeker and I can even talk religious arguments with them, without tearing it down for the reasons I’m persuaded by (again, unless they ask me). I’m intellectually more of a light a torch so they can see the path and be a guide, but don’t tell them they have to travel down the road. In my own life people tend to respect me a lot for doing that. And I don’t demean other ideologies; and even invite criticism against my own.
I’ve explored all kinds of ideologies. I’ve read a ton of secular philosophy and religious philosophy. My general approach is that you can’t claim to understand a worldview without trying to sympathize with it to some degree. Marxian analysis of the commodity was spot on. The Labor Theory of Value he got from Adam Smith which he extended into a longer form has since been jettisoned, and the approach of the Physiocrats has been picked up again by heterodox economists trying to mathematically bring energy in as an input to production. “Free market” libertarian ideology can work very well in the short and medium term but lacks long-term effective planning and still needs to be managed across all scales. I’ve no particular axe to grind against them.
Any religion/ideology/worldview can be a vice, especially when you don’t learn when to put it away as you’re doing other work. And any worldview in general that lacks an update mechanism is inevitably going to drive you right off a cliff. Your only battle is with “time” at that point. I pretty much agree with what you say.
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