What are the Benefits of Theism?

[Skepdick]

If I don't get to decide that you misunderstood my words, then who does?

Have you forgotten about gas lighting already?

I haven't forgotten - the question is directly related to that!

If you misunderstanding my words, the it's not gaslighting.
If you understand my words, then it is gaslighting.

Who gets to decide whether you understand my words or not?

Hint: it's not you.

I don't want to "emotionally manipulate you" or "make you question your perception" or any of the connotations that this silly word "gaslighting" comes with.

I am simply and directly telling you. YOU ARE MISUNDERSTANDING MY WORDS. Which ones? All of them so far!

[tillingborn]

Show me the words I have misunderstood or fuck off.

[Immanuel Can]

At issue is whether you understand that ideas can trigger similar responses to to art and nature - that they can have aesthetic appeal. Perhaps you don't like that point, which ironically supports it.

Nothing's "at issue." Anyone who reads can see what the truth is. Why you're feigning an inability to read, I cannot imagine. I'm beginning to suspect "troll."

I have already said that I understand what "an aesthetic appeal" is. Even more, I have said that I even concede that some (rather foolish) people may base their life philosophy on nothing more than "aesthetics." But I have also said that most people will find "aesthetics" an inadequate reason for belief in anything important, and would add that any rational person will find it inadequate -- and most particularly in situations in which the "aesthetic" is aligned but truth is not.

I have also pointed out that YOU consider "aesthetics" inadequate, clearly -- since you deny that you are, yourself, driven by mere aesthetics, and you became insulted when you perceived even the hint that you might believe something on mere aesthetic grounds.

If you want to, you can read that second paragraph over twenty or thirty times. But that's my position, and it won't change, because it happens to be the truth. Deal with it, or don't.

[Skepdick]

Show me the words I have misunderstood or fuck off.

ALL of them.

Scroll back and re-read.

Read until you have an alternative hypothesis to the one you are busy confirming (e.g gaslighting).

[Terrapin Station]

If I don't get to decide that you misunderstood my words, then who does?

Have you forgotten about gas lighting already?

The better answer would have been, "Someone who is not a moron."

[Skepdick]

The better answer would have been, "Someone who is not a moron."

So that leaves you out too?

But check this out. Point 1 is rather outstanding...

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rapoport%27s_Rules

How to compose a successful critical commentary:
1: You should attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, "Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way."

2: You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

3: You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

4: Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

[DPMartin]

but note socialists are secular, a soft word for atheist.

Yes, it is.

A funny thing, though: the word "secular" was originally a word coined by religious people, and described the difference between the "sacred" and the "profane" areas of life. That bifurcation, that dichotomy, the idea that there were things that are "not Godly" or "not of religious concern" opened up a sort of institutional space in which Atheism could find roots. As more and more of life became "secular" and not "sacred," the plausibility of Atheism rose: the idea that God was either irrelevant or non-existent became more and more plausible as people saw themselves surrounded by an increasingly "secular" world-order.

One sees this in Nietzsche, for example. By the time he was writing, the secular realm had expanded to the point at which his "Madman" could ask where God could even be found. There seemed no area left in life in which God was relevant. But this was a product of modernity, too. Man began to feel self-sufficient. The light of his cities blotted out the stars. His fears of mortality were assuaged by recourse to physicians. His food begun to come from the store, not the field. His house was insured against fire. And his moral qualms were outweighed by his opportunities to explore alternate activities.

Man stopped thinking about God. And that's when Nietzsche said, "God is dead": not that God had actually been killed, but that God had, as Nietzsche saw it, only ever been a concept in the first place, and now was a concept no longer needed.

One wonders if he still holds the same opinion.

All that really changed, though, was man's attitude.

a side note a guy I used to work with in the 90's had family in the Ukraine and since the iron curtain was down he when to visit, he noted that when they spoke of politics or like subjects they would whisper in their own home, still feeling the fear they had to have before.

I've seen that effect -- in abused women, actually. Psychologists call it "hyperalertness."

It happens when a person is a persistent victim of abuse, and develops self-defensive habits that often persist far beyond the day or the situation in which any actual threat exists. It means the person has been significantly psychologically damaged, and it may take years (or happen never) that they are able to escape the aftereffects of the abuse they've suffered.

That's Socialism at work.

no argument there.

[Immanuel Can]

no argument there.

It's a strange world we're starting to live in, isn't it, DP? It's starting to become a kind of "culture of snitching," in which people use information about others, and present it to the uses of the PC set in order to show themselves "committed" to social justice. But a "culture of snitching," like the one they had in East Germany prior to the fall of the Wall, for example, makes everybody terrified of their neighbours.

Worse still, the day comes when you don't actually have to be guilty of violating the PC groupthink, but that it's enough for you to be accused of so doing, or even just accused of being suspicious of having harboured attitudes that could lead to it.

We must not let that happen. If it does, we will have no "Socialist paradise." Instead, what we'll effectively have is a "reign of terror," a universal gulag of sorts.

[tillingborn]

At issue is whether you understand that ideas can trigger similar responses to to art and nature - that they can have aesthetic appeal. Perhaps you don't like that point, which ironically supports it.

Nothing's "at issue." Anyone who reads can see what the truth is. Why you're feigning an inability to read, I cannot imagine. I'm beginning to suspect "troll."

I have already said that I understand what "an aesthetic appeal" is.

When I ask if you understand that ideas can have aesthetic appeal, you give a list of things:

No doubt some people choose a particular church, mosque or synagogue because they like the architecture, the music or the rituals, or because it's "cultural" to them, and they don't actually give a fig whether it's true or not.

Of architecture, music, rituals or culture, which one is an idea?
My point is that some people are Christians, some are Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or any of the other religions. Some people don't have any religion. Some people are rationalists, some empiricists, pragmatists. Some people are right wing, some are left wing. The range of ideas that people have to choose from is vast. I don't doubt that many people seriously explore their own beliefs and find good reasons to believe them, or adapt, or abandon them. I do not claim that anybody believes something "and they don't actually give a fig whether it's true or not" and frankly I think your suggestion that anyone "believe a thing they already believe isn't true" is incoherent. Among the people who do seriously examine their beliefs, there is no consistency of choice. There are two possibilities to account for this, either some people just aren't trying hard enough, or after a great deal of unbiased research that fails to discover some objectively true deciding fact that would decide it for everyone, people find something about one idea is simply 'more beautiful'. I think the latter is obviously true. You like the former idea.

[Immanuel Can]

Among the people who do seriously examine their beliefs, there is no consistency of choice.

I don't think you know this is true at all.

Have you any study or set of studies that defines what is meant by "seriously examine," and shows the effect you claim to see?

There are two possibilities to account for this,

Only two? I can think of more. Why stop at such a paltry count?

Indeed, I think it's quite evident that many people are "not trying hard enough" as you put it. But beyond that, there are other sets of people. Some are not philosophically able. Some are uneducated. Some have only a limited set of data -- consider, for example, whether a person born into an Islamic polity is likely to be allowed to become equally aware of all other religions. Some have personal or moral reasons for wanting one kind of ideology to be true, and not another. Some have wounds from people they have trusted, or should have been able to trust, and so are drawn either away from belief or toward a radically oppositional belief. And some want moral freedom in some area of their lives that one ideology affords and another doesn't. Some have been lied to, and have believed the lie. Some have been told that their cultural or racial identity requires they ONLY believe in a certain set of things. Some have been deceived to believe there's no alternative but skepticism about everything. And some are in thrall to a powerful ideological figure, and are not thinking for themselves. Some are so busy with "secular" affairs that they never find the time to think at all, and are living on "auto pilot"....

There are plenty of reasons why people choose their ideologies, and "aesthetics"? Well, that has to rank awfully low, actually. I think that's quite obvious. You don't.

So?

[tillingborn]

Among the people who do seriously examine their beliefs, there is no consistency of choice.

I don't think you know this is true at all.

Have you any study or set of studies that defines what is meant by "seriously examine," and shows the effect you claim to see?

There is roughly two and a half millennia's worth of recorded philosophical, scientific and religious thought. It is demonstrably true that people who take the trouble to write books have different ideas.

There are two possibilities to account for this,

Only two? I can think of more. Why stop at such a paltry count?

Because, as I specified, I am talking about those who do seriously examine their beliefs.

There are plenty of reasons why people choose their ideologies, and "aesthetics"? Well, that has to rank awfully low, actually.

Again as I specified, either some people just aren't trying hard enough, or after a great deal of unbiased research that fails to discover some objectively true deciding fact that would decide it for everyone, people find something about one idea is simply 'more beautiful'. Among those published philosophers, scientists and theologians of the last two and a half thousand years, the majority of them made a choice. The Pre-Socratics who chose one or other of the Greek elements as fundamental. The early Church Fathers who decided what was canon. The rationalists and empiricists who decided how to think. Creationists and evolutionists. Contemporary advocates of String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity. There are libraries worth of serious thinkers who have exposed themselves to huge amounts of information and yet can reach different conclusions to philosophers, scientists and theologians who work in the same building. Once all research and argument is exhausted, people still disagree because they prefer different ideas.

[Greatest I am]

how do you explain inquisitions and jihads and the discrimination of homophobia and misogyny against half the worlds population...?

I don't have to. I have already said that there are many false beliefs in the world, and what you point out points to that. We are agreed: false beliefs cause much misery. But none more horrendous than Atheism has caused, by orders of magnitude.

I have just suggested that the proliferation of falsehoods counts for nothing in the question of whether or not there is a right answer. And logically, that's how it is.

The false belief is being driven by the god religions and you are helping them, if not fighting them.

Led, follow, or get out of the way of better people.

Regards
DL

[Immanuel Can]

Among the people who do seriously examine their beliefs, there is no consistency of choice.

I don't think you know this is true at all.

Have you any study or set of studies that defines what is meant by "seriously examine," and shows the effect you claim to see?

There is roughly two and a half millennia's worth of recorded philosophical, scientific and religious thought.

So..."No," then.

Or do you really think I ought to take an expression like "two and a half millennia's worth of recorded...etc." at face value?

[tillingborn]

I don't think you know this is true at all.

Have you any study or set of studies that defines what is meant by "seriously examine," and shows the effect you claim to see?

There is roughly two and a half millennia's worth of recorded philosophical, scientific and religious thought.

So..."No," then.

Or do you really think I ought to take an expression like "two and a half millennia's worth of recorded...etc." at face value?

I suggest you take a look in a library.

[Immanuel Can]

There is roughly two and a half millennia's worth of recorded philosophical, scientific and religious thought.

So..."No," then.

Or do you really think I ought to take an expression like "two and a half millennia's worth of recorded...etc." at face value?

I suggest you take a look in a library.

Yeah, so "No" is the right answer.

Would you accept from me as proof if I just said "everything for millennia," and "library"? Or are you familiar with the concept of actual evidence?