Why theism doesn't work for everybody

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Heh, fair enough.


I am not trying to start an argument on that small detail if we agree in practice.


Understandable. I think a lot of the "mystical" tendencies are both to appeal to that human desire/tendency, and yeah, transmitting the idea to people more suitable to mysticism.


Understandable in some ways. I don't think it's imagination, but rather there are different cognitive mechanisms at work. Some model agency, and others model things as tools or objects. A more tool/object-oriented modelling is probably more likely with autism. It's probably also more cognitively demanding as well.

I agree with the bit on the pet dog. You've read about the embodied mind, and heard about how some think metaphors are a model of how the mind constructs "higher" thoughts out of "lower" thoughts, yes?


It's all complicated. There are hot and cold processes. I'll probably agree with your general thrust though, but with reservation as I've gone too far in the "emotional" direction in the past. The brain is modular, not monistic.


In some sense, yes. But the feeling isn't the same. The sense of getting something right, and cutting past superficiality appeals more to curiosity, and status-oriented motivation, than cutting into an animal.


I was not aiming to debate you. I wouldn't be surprised if the basic cognitive structure is the same across the two actions. I don't really want to debate you though, as this is not a thrill at combat, but rather a thrill at winning. By putting forward a position different than yours that I know I can defend, I have established some sort of social victory. I don't need to fight you to have that victory, and the battle you're describing is something I would rather avoid because of the stress it causes, but also because I am intelligent enough to find that such contests not to really give me the status of a superior combatant, and so would rather waste my effort to where I can win/make a difference. Frankly, I am more likely to assess you as an ally, not an enemy given my current mood. I just have some distaste for the positive mysticism, simply because the ugliness of the world takes a prominent role in how I understand reality.


Your shorthand is a misunderstanding of my point. You have to realize that detachment actually favors the idea I am trying to convey. "Beast" is a misunderstanding. Instead the core idea is "mechanism", "mindless", "soulless", "purposeless", "empty", "crass", "materialist", "alien", etc. "Ugly" is only part of the characteristics, and "beast" is just the opposite. The concepts evoked need to be closer to analysis, detachment, depression, etc.

And no, I don't want to debate that. You're missing my point. There is no point for the debate. You know the cognitive mechanism, but if we play our status games right, then we actually win by both understanding each other when we make high-level conceptual points. We're both smart enough to know that the minutiae game reduces our relative rankings, and we're both smart enough to know that we both can understand each other's position. So, let's stop this. Our agreements are too significant, and by knowing the psychology game, we're both better off PLAYING IT as a superiority card.

That does not proove magic does not exist.

Agonistic play is also applicable to social bonding between lovers, friends or, in the case of our lupine cousins, packmates. It is a part of our nature to spend our leisure time preparing for combative situations. Between mutually acknowledged social equals, it is generally of an amicable nature. However, the presence of a non-participating third party, particularly one to whom the combatants are attempting to appeal for acceptance or recognition, it can get a bit more rough. Even without the actual presence of a third party, a "sense of stakes" can act in the same capacity.

However, the presence of rules and guidelines can serve as a preventative tonic against catastrophe. Information stored in the cortical regions of our brains serves as a gating system for checking and shaping our behavior. When we are considering an action, it is fed through this gating system. If the impulse conflicts with the algorithms that are stored in our cortices, the impulse is inhibited. If not, it progresses to neural systems in the motor areas of our brains.

Involved in this gating system is cortisol, which is a wicked, little hormone that is involved in stress responses. When a set of actions frequently results in a stress response, the algorithms in our gating system are modified in a manner that results in repetition of the behavior being inhibited. This is why children usually don't run out into the street a second time if their mothers pull them aside and beat blisters in their posterior the first time they do it.

However, catecholamines can also be released during a stress response, and this can actually serve as a confound in the system. If the release of catecholamines overwhelms the effects of cortisol, we end up with a reversal of the system that would ideally result in the extinction of a behavior. In fact, the behavior could even intensify. This is what we call "perversity" or "bloody-mindedness."

Now, since both you and I probably both have a propensity for being bloody-minded, perverse, and generally a migraine-inducing nuisance to individuals who are attempting to keep things under control, conventional guidelines are not likely to hedge sufficiently against conflict.

Therefore, in order to escape this quandary, any engagement must be fed through a gating system that is not reliant on stress feedback. This can be accomplished by the associating a reward stimulus with the gating system, and we can control our behavior by virtue of the removal of the reward stimulus.

As a result, we can simulate moral conduct by simply establishing an aesthetic system that serves as a standing reward for good conduct. By adhering to this system, two honorable, hard-headed fools, who are normally impossible to discipline or contain, can normally get along and manage not to murder each other. Refractory behavior by such individuals is generally unlikely in situations to which their sense of honor and fair play is applicable.

Of course, truly ignorant people tend to confuse a resistance to stress-induced behavioral modification with a lack of the intellectual capacity for comprehending ordered thought. They are inferior creatures, worthy only as game animals to be hunted. Neither AG nor WD are prey. AG and WD are predators. Therefore, since we are both predators, we can agree that verbal abuse would be a futile and stupid waste of resources that would only serve to agitate our respective sense of bloody-mindedness. Since we acknowledge each other as highly boneheaded, we shouldn't have any difficulty getting along, and perhaps we can trot off later and abuse some peasants.

Having established that, allow me to reassert the position that I postulated in the OP. What I postulate is that an atheist can derive a sense of spiritual satisfaction from comprehending the universe in terms of scale, and we are not required to make a departure from comprehending it accurately in order to get the effect. Although this kind of exercise can potentially lead to delusions of something being there that actually isn't, we can safeguard against this by simply developing a point of departure between experiences that we consider to arise from material substance and experiences that are derived from changes in our state of mind...in other words, "distinguishing between fantasy and reality." Therefore, you could tickle your nucleus accumbens all day long, and you wouldn't become a holy roller unless you were to suddenly decide that you no longer find it satisfying to feel grounded in reality.

Actually, what I meant by "shorthand" was that the comprehension of the world in terms of metaphor actually makes it easier for us to store and handle information. It is a method of encryption. Because you are on the autistic spectrum, you have more difficulty understanding it than most people do, but you can overcome this limitation by looking upon it as a system of data encryption. I am doubtful that I am imparting upon you a new idea, here, but I hope to have iterated it well here.

I am trying to understand your "negative mysticism," though. From the sound of it, you are just saying that elevated moods and high spirits tend to be a buzzkill for you, and you like tripping on self-induced depersonalization, which has some fairly amusing psychotic-like symptoms. You can mechanically cultivate this effect by sleep deprivation, which I would have no doubt you have done if I am correct about the effect you are referring to.

Oh, of course we don't have to. But you are tempted to because you get a jolly off of the clash.

LOL, that's pretty much correct.


I don't think that's correct. I don't intentionally deprive myself of sleep for highs, nor do I tend towards these feelings when I lack sleep. Background issue: I am a former theist, and these feelings are the result of a rapid, painful, and emotional deconversion process. The better conceptual metaphor is the death of God, with the negativity being the inversion of a normal spirituality induced by strong emotional aversion to traditional spirituality.

Does it seem to be a somewhat paranoid suspicion of anything that seems "too good to be true," then? I am sure there is some reward stimulus involved here, even if an especially insidious one. Wherever dopamine shows its face, there is a reward stimulus in there somewhere.

In which case, releasing the skepticism sufficiently to allow experiences that can result from doing so could contribute to feelings of anxiety, danger, or an essential wrongness. You hedge against these feelings with a simple patch, which is simply a general sense of cynicism. You thereby keep limbic dopamine elevated, so it essentially "screams louder" than the anxiety. So it goes back to, "once burned, twice shy." It's not a permanent solution, but it's a good short-term fix.

Therefore, perhaps there is an essential difference between an established atheist and a former theist who feels burned and cheated by religion. A person who is well established in a non-religious mindset ultimately has the same needs as a person who grew up with religion. They pursue it in different ways. They are essentially more like each other than either is like a person who is still reeling from a "loss of faith."

That's what I would postulate, anyway.

I get the feeling that this isn't just cynicism, but rather a reversed attitude. So, the mechanisms that point to ideals, to divine notions, and everything else, are instead dealing with an absence. They aren't just negative towards religion, but they are finding an opposite truth. So, where God appeared to rule the world, instead they are seeing that the world has no purposes or unity, and they are reacting to that.

I am not sure it's even a flaw or a failure to adapt. Alex Rosenberg's depiction of disenchanted naturalism evokes many of the same kinds of mental patterns and mindsets as my "negative mysticism". http://onthehuman.org/2009/11/the-disen ... o-reality/ However, Alex is not coming at this from a religious perspective, he's really pointing to failures of reality to deal with pre-existing human needs often filled by religion, and how naturalism actually cuts down these notions as well. So, when you talk about my cognitive tendencies, and those of a criminals, the issue isn't a moral difference but rather a mechanism difference(a confused distinction under compatibilism, but a very intuitive one given our libertarian free will instincts), and that's a massive issue going on there, and even every recreation never gets to the original conception.

I dunno, I could have misunderstood your earlier statement. When you said "you are just saying that elevated moods and high spirits tend to be a buzzkill for you", were you meaning that they kill the experience, or that I dislike elevated moods and high spirits? They kill the experience, but they do not have any negative impact on me as a person.

But that's pretty compelling evidence against it.

If it has a cause and effect, then it becomes rational, and not magic or supernatural.

So they snuff the experience. I'm just trying to ferret out the mechanism, here.

I read your link. I am getting this picture that the "positive mysticism" tastes something like "answer." However, there seems to be "complete" in there. It's somewhere in that general category.

So there is a sense of "meaninglessness," which I think is like the sense of frustration that comes with the realization, "I am wasting my time." I recall Ecclesiastes:



And it goes on and on, throughout Ecclesiastes, along the same vein. Eventually, you start to get a little bit annoyed with it. It gets especially annoying when you realize that the Teacher is looking for not only the unobtainable but the improper. The answer to anxiety is not to keep feeding it with things that sate it temporarily. That's like removing a dog from the room as soon as the infant utters so much as a sniffle: it simply establishes a perverse reward system that results ultimately in a deeply entrenched phobia of dogs. You deal with the reaction by waiting quietly for the infant to calm itself, having the dog sit quietly and demonstrate good temper.

But you speak of a "reversed truth." I am trying to comprehend "truth," but bear with me for a while. This truth of yours has a divine entity ruling and uniting the world, so let's consider it in terms of Handel's Messiah, "Hallelujah" Chorus.

"He shall reign forever and ever" comes from Book of Revelation 11:15. "King of Kings" comes from Revelation 19:16. Anyway, the music combined with the chorus develops a sense of many different things all leading to a sort of climax. This is actually one of the benefits of polyphony: by virtue of this method, you can weave symphonies that are parallel with the idea of the disparate and seemingly disorganized ultimately being unified under a common plan. Its parallel with our day-to-day existence and what we HOPE that existence is a part of is emotionally quite moving.

Essentially, the idea that there is no eternal reward means, ultimately, that you go through your entire life practicing good moral behavior, and you practice self-discipline and self-restraint, because you know that trying to go "chasing the dragon" leads ultimately to disaster. But you go through all of your life with a sense that it is there to be chased. It is the "ultimate high." Therefore, practicing temperance and chastity leaves one with a gnawing sensation that one is missing out on something.

So the imagined (or fervently believed) "eternal reward" is like establishing a mechanism for delayed gratification, thereby rendering it unnecessary to have that feeling of "being left out." You can look at the fools around you who are indulging in the passing pleasures of the moment, and you don't feel so much like a fool. You have a sense that, somehow, it's worth it in the end.

Now, the sudden removal of that impetus would therefore leave one with a feeling of, "what a gyp." In fact, if you hold the belief in it, you are likely to resent someone who comes along and says, "you know you are just kidding yourself, right?" It comes across as quite rude, and your instinct is essentially to say, "bugger off." After all, it means you have spent your entire life, up until that point, leaving yourself out of what little pleasure there is to be found in life, if that is actually the case.

However, what does an established humanist use in the place of God? What is the humanist's secret magic? Why aren't they all out there doing drugs and jumping out of airplanes and otherwise behaving recklessly, trying to obtain that rush? How does the humanist just calmly accept living a dreary day-to-day life, knowing it ultimately comes to nothing?

And this question gnaws at the theist. It is simply incomprehensible.

And trying to argue with them is like trying to explain the complexities and subtleties of a fine draft beer to a teetotoler or a reformed alcoholic who once went from cheap beer to cheap liquor without detour. You might as well be speaking Greek.

Not everything has a cause and effect.

So all you did was give a graph that had nothing to really say it was just a bunch of words and phrases that hardly counts as proof

Both taste like answer. One is the cheerful answer where one finds unity and reconciliation with the world, and where a divine order penetrates the universe.

The other is the bitter answer, like a comfortable cynicism. It isn't bitter/resentful(except perhaps against reality itself for being so flawed, but this is not necessarily the dominating feeling). It isn't angry. It isn't disenfranchised. It's the cold reflections of a practitioner of realpolitik. Reality makes sense, but the sense of it is ugly, even horrifying in some sense. So, in realpolitik, the truth that you discover is that states do not and really cannot act out of their altruism, but that survival is a brutish conflict where peace is a matter of delicately balancing powers. In recognizing this you lose your soul, but you gain clarity.



There is a sense of meaninglessness, but not frustration. Meaninglessness is a fact. It's not a frustrating fact, but rather just a melancholic one.


Two extended quotes like this comes off as pretentious, and both appear wrong.


Irrelevant. The eternal reward was never part of my religious experience. I mean, that's not to say I didn't believe in it, but I didn't believe in it as a motivational factor, but rather the divine moral code was understood as intrinsically motivating and order-providing to the world. Morality was not taken as a given fact about reality, but rather a God-given aspect of reality.

In any case, this entire lengthy morass seems more of a sign that you care to hear yourself talk. Displays of knowledge are fine, so long as they don't become tawdry. However, you're going down rabbit-holes on the mechanism. This isn't resentment. This is a one-ness with divinity being filled with a void, and understood through the lens of the gaps/cracks. Don't think extrinsic motivation, but rather think about God as the unifying element of reality, that which brings order, that which gave mankind morality as a gift(not as a pointless sacrifice), and through whose wisdom the world makes sense, and the loss of that. Think of it as the destruction of meaning at a loss. Think of it as a recognition of Nietzsche's death of God without Nietzsche's affirmation of life.

Hi William, this has not been my experience of Christianity.

Alright, so it pertains to altruism. I always did think that altruism was a false idol in the first place, though. The fact that I do altruistic things is just that: I relieve a certain pressure in doing it. The fact that I take a degree of personal pride in fulfilling an obligation is exactly that: I have a degree of pride, and I feel very ashamed if I don't live up to what I expect of myself. Unadulterated altruism, though, is a false idol.

Okay, why does it make you feel melancholic? I ask that because it would help matters if we could get a better grip on the meaning of...well, "meaning."

So what was your religious experience, then? Why was it important to you?

No, there was a purpose in it. Like most of what I type, I don't connect it on screen as well as I do in my head. I think that Handel's Messiah, in the way that its music is organized, is illustrative of what you seem to have derived once out of religion, based on what you have told me. Some charismatic sects are especially reliant on Revelation.

In other words, it's something like what the musical structure of Handel's Messiah leads us to feel as a result of hearing it, especially the "Hallelujah" part. It's not just pretty music, but it is music that tells a religious point of view.

But it has been for some people. I know that you have more depth than that, Grebels. However, you also seem to comprehend the way atheists think and why better than some Christians do. I hope that you don't think that I consider your religious views to be that narcissistic or materialistic. I think much more highly of you than that, and the same goes for your beliefs.

I admit to seeing a lot of Christians who are more concerned with what they don't do, than what they actually do. There are so many dried twigs. I have to wonder if the whole point of Christianity get missed a lot of the time.