The Emergence of Theism and Solutions

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is The Emergence of Theism and Solutions in its Evolutionary perspective,

• 1. From evolution, all humans are embedded with an inherent cognitive dissonance [CD] driven by an existential crisis, i.e. the self-awareness of mortality [not by living non-humans]. This is the fundamental psychological derivative.
  
  2. The idea [mere thinking] of God [omni-whatever] is the most effective balm to soothe the CD. Note God is only an idea as a thought not a verified real thing. The majority of theists used this easy and immediate strategy to soothe their CD because it works immediately, i.e. just believe in God and viola! the terrible pains of CD vanish immediately and accompanied by joy and tears for many.
  
  3. All humans has the potential to experience altered states of consciousness [ASC] and a certain percentile has experienced ASC via the various events and means. ASC are verifiable and justifiable as rationally real via science and they can be tested and reproduced deliberately. [counter your point].
  
  4. Some theists who have had experienced of ASC especially losing one self-consciousness with expansion and omnipresent-like consciousness infer that is somewhat like what God is as in 2. Such experiences reinforce their cognitive dissonance strategy. Many of such theists who had experienced ASC claimed to be prophets and messengers of God.
  But such a correlation and conclusion to link ASC with God is fallacious.
  
  5. Some non-theists who have had such omnipresence-like consciousness [very profound to them] had also converted to the theists since such experiences prove to them God exists.
  In this case, they have used such novel experience as a cognitive strategy. There are so many cases of such conversion, St. Paul for example.
  But such a correlation and conclusion to link ASC with God is irrational and fallacious.
  Note the evolutionary time sequence from 1 to 5 and hope you get it this time.
  
  The events of 2 to 5 is driven by 1 the fundamental psychological derivative.
  
  The Buddha understand the necessary psychological scam above and proposed a non-theistic technique to resolve the inherent embedded cognitive dissonance which in a way is necessarily which should not be got rid off permanently but merely it should be modulated optimally.
  Buddhism's 4NT-8FP is a Life Problem Solving Technique.
  viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25193
  
  The analogy of the above CD is like a large river system with extraordinary potentials for the good of humanity but can cause terrible damage via floods etc. So the solution is not to stop the water flow but rather build dams to modulate its seasonal water levels to exploit its potential and power for humanity.
  
  As for the terrible potentials and powers of those elements that cause the CD in humans, the individuals need to build effective neural inhibitors [dams] to modulate his primal impulses.
  These effective neural inhibitors and modulators have a very rational basis and not by pure blind faith like the majority of theists are engaging in.

Views?

[bobmax]

I agree with the potential of cognitive dissonance.
And I also agree on the need for a rational approach.

Rationality must be followed to the end, questioning every opinion.

The existential crisis is a precious opportunity.
But to exploit it it is necessary, as Martin Buber observed, not to stop at the psychological aspect alone.
Because psychology is also based on opinions, on the basis of which we have made the psyche coincide with the soul.
While this is not the case at all!

In fact the psyche is something, while the soul is a pure nothing.
And we are that nothing.

Rather than Buddhism, in my opinion it might be more interesting to have Christian mysticism as a reference.

"I pray to God that he will deliver me from God!" invokes Meister Eckhart.

Here, this is in my opinion the step to take.

[Iwannaplato]

2. The idea [mere thinking] of God [omni-whatever] is the most effective balm to soothe the CD. Note God only an idea as thought not a verified real thing. The majority of theists used this easy and immediate strategy to soothe their CD because it works immediately, i.e. just believe in God and viola! the terrible pains of CD vanish immediately and accompanied by joy and tears for many.

I mean, right from the start of his post he shows his ignorance. It is as if most theist converted from non-belief, rather than having grown up in theism.

[Iwannaplato]

Views?

I doubt the Buddha would have thought much of VA's psychoanalyzing of theists, talking down to them, proselytizing and sloppy intellectualism.

[promethean75]

Vaginal aquafresh's OP is pretty decent actually. If you had to classify and account for what causes religious thinking in humans, that'd be a decent basic outline.

Petition for the community to officiate the outline as our FSK. All those in favor.

The psychic and existential conditions that lead to religious thinking are precise here tho. It's a casserole of a fear of death, hopelessness and despair at the thought of meaninglessness, being surprised by physical and biological complexity, and a sophisticated understanding and use of logic and a few principles of reasoning one side of you uses to trick the other side of you into eating the casserole.

The desperate, emotional human side of you is stronger than the spockian Xavier analytical side, which is taken into its service, overtly creating all those things that pass as arguments for the existence of 'god'.

It's like this. Religious people know that we atheists know they know we know they only hope, believe or assume there is a 'god'... that they don't KNOW, and can't provide any solid, irrefutable proof.

It should be unspoken between parties involved that the religious speaker is taking Pascal in good grace and really developing a pragmatism for Christian ethics in everything and anything he says. He reasons, wherein I can't prove 'god', nothing is lost in thinking, behaving and living as if there wuz a 'god'.

Christians are like Derrida's monsters. They cease being monsters when you make them your pets.

[Iwannaplato]

Vaginal aquafresh's OP is pretty decent actually. If you had to classify and account for what causes religious thinking in humans, that'd be a decent basic outline.

Oh, come on, it's a mess.

Number 1 is hilarious on language grounds alone, and it shares a problem with 2. It seems to present the average theist as a convert from non-theism. The majority of theists have always been theists, they grew up in theism from the Baptisms and other rituals right early on.

Notice his limited knowledge of religious ASCs. He focuses on states where (he felt) one feels some kind of greater knowing, an identification with the deity. This is actually pretty rare. People are much more likely to experience connection to the deity (or from his perspective hallucinate that) Or the presence of Jesus, Krishna, angels, whomever. Or great peace or grace. His choice of omniscience as the key religious ASC says much more about him than theists.

He also foolishly assumes that religious ASCs are pleasant (and or) power trips. They are often unpleasant. The often dreadful middle america that speaks about being God fearing is not kidding around. Let alone the experiences of mystic, dark nights of the soul, all the pain of the practices themselves if you take them seriously. He may think he knows his ASCs but he's a novice at best.

He assumes that anything that is true or useful must be demonstrable to others like one would demonstrate in a courtroom or a lab, but we all have beliefs that we cannot do this with. He conflates what is a rational explanation to a theist with what they SAY here or elsewhere is not convincing, but the more mature theists expect that you can only come to belief via long term practices if one is coming from outside faith or via some intense experience, an NDE for example. Unless one really wants to say: never believe anything that cannot be demonstrated on the internet or via experiments in a lab. But I have never met anything who restricted their beliefs to this, including beliefs that affect their behavior, interactions with others and major choices in life.

None of this saying they are correct. But it is a conflation of you can't prove it to me on a screen on the internet with it isnt true, and so you must be living irrationally. His beloved Buddhism would not have passed these tests 100 years ago. He wouldn't not have been able to cite research supporting his claims. Now he does have research. Buddhists were not irrational before scientists got interested in the effects of meditation.

He makes the (albeit common) misinterpretation of Pascal's Wager. It was NEVER an argument aimed at non-theists. It was aimed at theists to encourage them to continue believing. Nothing to lose by continuing, something potentially to lose by dropping out.

He doesn't seem to understand that referring the St. Paul is hardly evidence of many conversions. But further he was already a monotheist. It doesn't fit his schema, the non-theist assuaging his fear by jumping into religion or misinterpreting brain states.

He cites the Buddha in an appeal to authority way, without really getting that in Buddhism his whole enterprise would be seen as (in modern terms) mental masturbation, disrespectful, implicitly not compassionate and a hindrance to reaching the sought after states that are not sought after, lol.

Another way to put this is he has not moved out of the recently reformed smoker stage - and one need never move out of that.

He is stating some of the most common broad and not scientifically arrived at mindreading conclusions about theists.

And there are so many sentences like this....

As for the terrible potentials and powers of those elements that cause the CD in humans, the individuals need to build effective neural inhibitors [dams] to modulate his primal impulses.

Mull that for a moment and what you have is an atheistic Christianity, taming the best within, that has caused so much damage down through history and was rightly hated by pagans then and now.

I think current AIs could do a better job of spitting out shallow confused mixtures of lay psychology and lay neuroscience helping no one on any side of these issues. And they probably would not confuse a list of assertions, which is also true for his 'arguments' elsewhere, with a demonstration that something is the case.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Vaginal aquafresh's OP is pretty decent actually. If you had to classify and account for what causes religious thinking in humans, that'd be a decent basic outline.

Petition for the community to officiate the outline as our FSK. All those in favor.

The psychic and existential conditions that lead to religious thinking are precise here tho. It's a casserole of a fear of death, hopelessness and despair at the thought of meaninglessness, being surprised by physical and biological complexity, and a sophisticated understanding and use of logic and a few principles of reasoning one side of you uses to trick the other side of you into eating the casserole.

The desperate, emotional human side of you is stronger than the spockian Xavier analytical side, which is taken into its service, overtly creating all those things that pass as arguments for the existence of 'god'.

It's like this. Religious people know that we atheists know they know we know they only hope, believe or assume there is a 'god'... that they don't KNOW, and can't provide any solid, irrefutable proof.

It should be unspoken between parties involved that the religious speaker is taking Pascal in good grace and really developing a pragmatism for Christian ethics in everything and anything he says. He reasons, wherein I can't prove 'god', nothing is lost in thinking, behaving and living as if there wuz a 'god'.

Christians are like Derrida's monsters. They cease being monsters when you make them your pets.

Noted but no name calling please to avoid starting an unnecessary tit-for-tat.
Yes it is as you noted 'an outline' which require much detail to fill in.

Re 1. All living things are "programmed" with a 'will-to-live' [continue living] against all odds at least till the inevitable. The fundamental impulse to ensure one continue living is a natural* "fear of death" strongly embedded in the DNA thus cannot be changed easily. To ensure the "fear of death" is effective, such primal fears invoke the greatest most terrible mental pains a human can suffer.
* there is a kind of perverted fear of death not applicable in this case.

In the course of evolution, humans are gradually endowed with higher self-consciousness [ego] which is [rational] to be aware and understand [and to prevent and avoid] the causes of greater threats to the species, e.g. catastrophe, population expansion, rogue meteorites, scarce resources, etc.
However this self-consciousness is a double-sided blade which made a human be aware of his mortality.
This possibility of mortality invokes the awareness of death which triggers the greatest most terrible mental pains a human will suffer. This is the terrible [subliminally] cognitive dissonances that drive a terrible existential dilemma and crisis.

Fortunately or perhaps it is nature way, to believe in a God [even an illusion] is the most effective balm as consonance to soothe the existential cognitive dissonances.

The fact is all the above is activated below one's normal consciousness.
This soteriological process of soothing and the sense of "being saved" [pain relieved] is so sensitive that a theist will even kill anyone who threatens his secured sense. This is so evident.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I agree with the potential of cognitive dissonance.
And I also agree on the need for a rational approach.

Rationality must be followed to the end, questioning every opinion.

The existential crisis is a precious opportunity.
But to exploit it it is necessary, as Martin Buber observed, not to stop at the psychological aspect alone.
Because psychology is also based on opinions, on the basis of which we have made the psyche coincide with the soul.
While this is not the case at all!

In fact the psyche is something, while the soul is a pure nothing.
And we are that nothing.

Rather than Buddhism, in my opinion it might be more interesting to have Christian mysticism as a reference.

"I pray to God that he will deliver me from God!" invokes Meister Eckhart.

Here, this is in my opinion the step to take.

Noted the above.
Buddhism [non-theistic] and Christian mysticism [theistic] both engage in similar basic meditation practices but Buddhism in addition provide more sophisticated meditation techniques, principles, knowledge and a generic problem-solving-technique to manage the cognitive dissonances via more effective neural changes to deal with the problem. Here again,

Buddhism's 4NT-8FP is a Life Problem Solving Technique.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25193

Also Buddhism [non-theistic] do not have the 'God' [illusory] baggage with it.

Btw, there are a lot of Christian Mystic who combine their practice with Buddhist principles and practices thus veering more towards non-theistic than too much reliance on their illusory God as a crutch. e.g.
Double belonging: Buddhism and Christian faith
https://www.ncronline.org/news/double-b ... tian-faith

[bobmax]

Buddhism [non-theistic] and Christian mysticism [theistic] both engage in similar basic meditation practices but Buddhism in addition provide more sophisticated meditation techniques, principles, knowledge and a generic problem-solving-technique to manage the cognitive dissonances via more effective neural changes to deal with the problem. Here again,

Buddhism's 4NT-8FP is a Life Problem Solving Technique.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25193

Also Buddhism [non-theistic] do not have the 'God' [illusory] baggage with it.

Btw, there are a lot of Christian Mystic who combine their practice with Buddhist principles and practices thus veering more towards non-theistic than too much reliance on their illusory God as a crutch. e.g.
Double belonging: Buddhism and Christian faith
https://www.ncronline.org/news/double-b ... tian-faith

It seems to me that you are trying to reduce, through logical reasoning, any longing for transcendence to immanence.
But this is impossible.

Because beyond any usefulness, beyond any fear of death, there is an ethical necessity.

Evil is what absolutely shouldn't be!

And no logic can ever make people accept that there is.
God is an illusion as an entity.
But the death of God is the death of the "entity" God, not of the belief in the Good.

At the Parmenidean crossroads of the path of the day and the path of the night, the West has chosen the path of the night.
While the East has stood still for a long time at the crossroads. Finally, it too goes along the path of the night.

And it could only go like this. Because nihilism is the desert that must be crossed.

Buddhism as well as Christian mysticism do not have a God entity, however their foundation is still God.
God = Nothing Because it is not possible to cling to it.

But in which you have faith.

Metaphysics thrown out the door then re-enters through the window.

The atheism of those who do not believe in God is a child's play. Authentic atheism is the questioning of God as Good.
This is the real horror.

[Iwannaplato]

Were Buddhist practitioners irrational when they spent years and years meditating BEFORE scientists in the West looked at Buddhist meditation practices and the effects on humans?

Does anyone actually hold themselves ONLY to beliefs that have been demonstrated to be true by science? or even that one can demonstrate to others via some other generally accepted FSK as VA would say?

Or do we sometimes (regularly actually) believe in things about the opposite sex, how to learn, who is a good person, politics and much, much more that we cannot demonstrate is true to others, often not in any FSK, but based on our experience, intuition and to varying degress the best analysis we can do, given the complicated nature of some beliefs and their objects?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Buddhism [non-theistic] and Christian mysticism [theistic] both engage in similar basic meditation practices but Buddhism in addition provide more sophisticated meditation techniques, principles, knowledge and a generic problem-solving-technique to manage the cognitive dissonances via more effective neural changes to deal with the problem. Here again,

Buddhism's 4NT-8FP is a Life Problem Solving Technique.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25193

Also Buddhism [non-theistic] do not have the 'God' [illusory] baggage with it.

Btw, there are a lot of Christian Mystic who combine their practice with Buddhist principles and practices thus veering more towards non-theistic than too much reliance on their illusory God as a crutch. e.g.
Double belonging: Buddhism and Christian faith
https://www.ncronline.org/news/double-b ... tian-faith

It seems to me that you are trying to reduce, through logical reasoning, any longing for transcendence to immanence.
But this is impossible.

Because beyond any usefulness, beyond any fear of death, there is an ethical necessity.

Evil is what absolutely shouldn't be!

And no logic can ever make people accept that there is.
God is an illusion as an entity.
But the death of God is the death of the "entity" God, not of the belief in the Good.

At the Parmenidean crossroads of the path of the day and the path of the night, the West has chosen the path of the night.
While the East has stood still for a long time at the crossroads. Finally, it too goes along the path of the night.

And it could only go like this. Because nihilism is the desert that must be crossed.

Buddhism as well as Christian mysticism do not have a God entity, however their foundation is still God.
God = Nothing Because it is not possible to cling to it.

But in which you have faith.

Metaphysics thrown out the door then re-enters through the window.

The atheism of those who do not believe in God is a child's play. Authentic atheism is the questioning of God as Good.
This is the real horror.

Christian mysticism do not have a God entity?
Do you have any reference for this?
Christian mysticism is grounded in Christianity which is grounded in a God & Christ.
What I note is Christian mystics do not focus too much on a personal God like most lay Christians.

Buddhism-proper I am certain do not accept any 'God' as typically defined.

"Nothingness" in Buddhism is not a 'thing' [essence or substance] but rather a state of mind towards reality.

[bobmax]

Christian mysticism do not have a God entity?
Do you have any reference for this?
Christian mysticism is grounded in Christianity which is grounded in a God & Christ.
What I note is Christian mystics do not focus too much on a personal God like most lay Christians.

Peculiar to mysticism is the spiritual effort to overcome superstition.
And superstition is nothing more than the claim to know the Truth.

All religions are imbued with superstition, because they claim to know the Truth.

However, a spiritual heart also beats in them, which is the same impulse of faith that generated them.

Falling into superstition is almost inevitable, because it is really difficult to keep authentic faith alive.
Which is faith in the Truth, which is not there.

In fact, for the mystic God is nothing, he does not exist.

I mentioned Christian mysticism but in reality there is only one mysticism. Regardless of the religion in which it is possibly hidden.

God does not exist, God is.
While we exist, but we are not.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Christian mysticism do not have a God entity?
Do you have any reference for this?
Christian mysticism is grounded in Christianity which is grounded in a God & Christ.
What I note is Christian mystics do not focus too much on a personal God like most lay Christians.

Peculiar to mysticism is the spiritual effort to overcome superstition.
And superstition is nothing more than the claim to know the Truth.

All religions are imbued with superstition, because they claim to know the Truth.

However, a spiritual heart also beats in them, which is the same impulse of faith that generated them.

Falling into superstition is almost inevitable, because it is really difficult to keep authentic faith alive.
Which is faith in the Truth, which is not there.

In fact, for the mystic God is nothing, he does not exist.

I mentioned Christian mysticism but in reality there is only one mysticism. Regardless of the religion in which it is possibly hidden.

God does not exist, God is.
While we exist, but we are not.

As I had stated, existence is not a predicate, it is merely the copula "is".
Thus "God is" in serious context makes no rational sense.

The question is 'God is [?what].'
e.g. God is a thing, entity, super-agent with omni-whatever qualities.
Whatever God is, the predicates must be verified and justified.
Since the scientific basis provide the most credible truths, God has to be subjected to scientific verification to justify it is real [scientifically].
Any other non-scientific justification of the truth of God would not be reliable.

Your linguistic attempt to explain "God is" is not credible.

Yes, mysticism is a main set [Venn Diagram] but when mysticism is linked with Christianity, we cannot exclude that slightest connection of God from it.

• Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute,[1][2] but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism

Note the variety of Mysticism in the above link.

[bobmax]

As I had stated, existence is not a predicate, it is merely the copula "is".
Thus "God is" in serious context makes no rational sense.

The question is 'God is [?what].'
e.g. God is a thing, entity, super-agent with omni-whatever qualities.
Whatever God is, the predicates must be verified and justified.
Since the scientific basis provide the most credible truths, God has to be subjected to scientific verification to justify it is real [scientifically].
Any other non-scientific justification of the truth of God would not be reliable.

Your linguistic attempt to explain "God is" is not credible.

Yes, mysticism is a main set [Venn Diagram] but when mysticism is linked with Christianity, we cannot exclude that slightest connection of God from it.

Existence is the presence of the other. I am there and there is also the other.

This same observation is existence. And it is communication.

The awareness of existing, when fully lived, arouses amazement.
A primordial amazement where thought stops.

Then when you start thinking again, the question may arise: "Why is there something instead of nothing?"
But when this question arises, that fundamental moment of amazement has already passed. We are now only trying to rationalize it, but without succeeding because it is impossible.

Being is in that same amazement. Indeed, asking why there is something rather than nothing is not a fundamental question.
It's just a contradictory question.

Because nothingness cannot exist, being the negation of existence.

However nothing can be perceived. Because it can happen to feel that this existence is in truth nothing!
And even this awareness does not derive from reasoning, but is original, it just is.

It is the horror of the Nothing. The Nothingness which, however, is also the same Being.
Since Being = Nothingness = Truth.

This is the meaning of "God is" .

Thinking about God through attributes, considering him an entity, as you think for the believer, is nothing but superstition.

Mysticism expresses that one authentic philosophy present in every part of the world.

[Veritas Aequitas]

As I had stated, existence is not a predicate, it is merely the copula "is".
Thus "God is" in serious context makes no rational sense.

The question is 'God is [?what].'
e.g. God is a thing, entity, super-agent with omni-whatever qualities.
Whatever God is, the predicates must be verified and justified.
Since the scientific basis provide the most credible truths, God has to be subjected to scientific verification to justify it is real [scientifically].
Any other non-scientific justification of the truth of God would not be reliable.

Your linguistic attempt to explain "God is" is not credible.

Yes, mysticism is a main set [Venn Diagram] but when mysticism is linked with Christianity, we cannot exclude that slightest connection of God from it.

Existence is the presence of the other. I am there and there is also the other.

This same observation is existence. And it is communication.

The awareness of existing, when fully lived, arouses amazement.
A primordial amazement where thought stops.

Then when you start thinking again, the question may arise: "Why is there something instead of nothing?"
But when this question arises, that fundamental moment of amazement has already passed. We are now only trying to rationalize it, but without succeeding because it is impossible.

Being is in that same amazement. Indeed, asking why there is something rather than nothing is not a fundamental question.
It's just a contradictory question.

Because nothingness cannot exist, being the negation of existence.

However nothing can be perceived. Because it can happen to feel that this existence is in truth nothing!
And even this awareness does not derive from reasoning, but is original, it just is.

It is the horror of the Nothing. The Nothingness which, however, is also the same Being.
Since Being = Nothingness = Truth.

This is the meaning of "God is" .

Thinking about God through attributes, considering him an entity, as you think for the believer, is nothing but superstition.

Mysticism expresses that one authentic philosophy present in every part of the world.

You missed my point.

Regardless of what you claimed, how do you verify and justify what you claimed is 'real'?