the point of deism
My best blogging buddy, Ark, has a few problems with the religiously inclined. I share many of his concerns but we often don’t come to the same conclusions on related matters. He has recently sparked an interesting discussion about deism (here) that has got me thinking about the human craving for meaning and purpose.
Life for many of us in this day and age isn’t the struggle of ye olden times, or the struggle still faced in many other parts of the world. If you have a comfortable place to live, a means of generating income and the luxury of pursuing social and other leisure activities that interest you, life is a far cry from the basic human fight for survival – finding and competing for land, food and security in less comfortable surroundings.
It seems to me that humans faced with a more stark and painful existence that promises no hope for change or improvement, in this life or beyond, would simply give up. This would obviously not be a genetically successful trait. I would suggest that the craving for more to life than this, is an evolutionary successful characteristic that has been vital in bringing us to where we are today. However, in recognising this, we find one of the obvious psychological reasons for the sneaky suspicion that many humans have that there is an invisible force with a plan and afterlife, waiting in the shadows. (Other reasons include the curious quest for answers, and the extension of childhood with the invisible parent-god figure always there for us.)
So, while no-one can prove that an invisible or absent force of any description isn’t behind the creation of our existence, the fact that our strong desire for this belief can be found in basic human psychology, and that this belief has been exploited in every society down through time with a whole range of now laughable superstitious organised religions, can lead us to fairly confidently conclude that this craving for purpose is evolutionarily defunct. We have it, but we don’t need it.
Life isn’t always a frightening struggle for existence that requires an evidence-free creator-shaped comfort blanket. Let’s move with the times. Life is a pointless but at times interesting and enjoyable journey through random experiences – no creator forces or gods included.
I think you just perfectly summed up 200+ years of anthropology. Well done! Class dismissed.
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Thank you! I missed out paranoia though … do you agree deism/theism is natural now?
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Nope. It’s still a residue of something far more ancient.
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That sounds mysterious. Aliens?
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Bugger… Now i’m going to have an image of Giorgio Tsoukalos in my head all day!
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Yeah…what she said.
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Is that sarcasm or genuine agreement? Your tone is so dry …
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No, sarcasm. I fully agree.
Nice tree
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LOL…I am comma happy…edit out the one after the ‘no.’
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Your picture praise is late, half-hearted and patchy. You’re only ‘best’ because no-one else mentions them. 🙂
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I have this alternate theory. There is a period of human existence when we exist in a bubble of warm love. Every need is catered to, and every time we scream someone comes running. e.g. babyhood. There is nothing we can do, literally, that will stop the love from coming. For us, it’s Edenic. Then we learn to crawl and talk, more is expected of us, other siblings come along, the whole world goes to hell. I’ve often wondered if the groping towards God was an attempt to recreate that total bliss, that we have a definite sense that we lost.
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I completely agree with you! That’s the kind of thing I meant by extension of childhood. I guess it’s not childhood in entirety, but the paths that were laid in our brains right from the beginning that all-knowing protector forces are there. And it seems probable that the yearning for the god comfort blanket, and the warm feeling (i.e. their evidence) it brings to those who imagine it, is a recreation of those times.
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Laurence McKinney did an excellent job playing with this idea in his book, Neurotheology. He even goes as far to say that since we have no memories of the first 3 years of our lives (while the brain is physically hooking up and we can’t reliably store a damn thing) there exists a black hole (a cognitive black spot) from which our deep questions of origin arise.
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It certainly makes a lot more sense than random invisible deities to suit your culture. Thanks for the info.
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Can I just say I agree with you and rest it there?
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Why ever not? (a picture praise would be nice though 🙂 )
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Talking of pictures, I didn’t notice the beautiful tree! Your choice of photos is always awesome.
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Thanks for the spontaneous praise! 🙂
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I hate it when people like Mak creep just to win a Noddy Badge. Honestly…the things a bloke will do to attract the attention of wimmin.
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It’s a tree, Mak. They grow all over the bloody place. Shesh!
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what is it my friend? few people notice trees around them you know
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Just because you like her her photos wont mean she loves you any more than anyone else, believe me. If you forget just once that’s it…you’re toast!
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Hahahaha, I wouldn’t want to be considered toast!
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Right…so cool it. 🙂
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Duly noted
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😉
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Stop interfering with the photo admiration! And leave my best blogging buddy Mak alone!
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When our ancestors still lived in the seas, they had gills. We’ve lost them now. God will go where the gills went. You’ve said it all.
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That’s an interesting idea. I can’t imagine humans ceasing to make up things that aren’t there, and then believing it.
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Off topic, but I know you like weird blogs: Everyone is really just a scared, insecure, and sometimes downright vicious animal doing his/her best to survive in a cruel world.
A gem in every post here, start with the “comment policy”: http://agalltyr.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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LOL It’s brilliant, Clare. Where do you find these blogs?
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The tag surfer. http://wordpress.com/#!/read/following/
The tag “homosexuality” is a rich stream. Unfortunately, a lot posted there is simply obnoxious, rather than hilarious.
But- “I won’t allow comments, because people disagree with me”. How cool is that?
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Top Drawer. I wish I had come up with a line like that, I would have used it on Violet. Lol….
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You look transgender (no offense), so it’s a good guess that your head is so confused that you wouldn’t understand my opposition to homosexuality and other sexual deviance and would find it “obnoxious”.
My blog is meant to be serious. This world is really screwed up, and other people who are wise enough to realize that need some inspiration. If you can’t see that, then there’s something even more wrong with you than your lack of gender identity.
In any case, any intelligent person knows that trying to socialize on the Internet is both unhealthy and time-consuming. Therefore, it is a waste of time. If I’m going to have an argument, it’s going to be in real life, not on the damned Internet. It takes way too long to type, and you can’t hear tone of voice or see facial expressions.
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Matthew, yes, I am a trans woman.
I did not call you obnoxious. Read my comment again: with your vaunted intelligence, you should be able to scan it. I even called your remarks “cool”!
I agree with you about facial expressions, etc, though Wikipedia has some useful tips on debate on line. However, now you really are being obnoxious, and I think it is intentional.
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I just got this woman to follow my blog:
http://en.gravatar.com/electrikkiss
See. Some people find my ideas interesting.
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Oh, Matthew. I have 555 followers, which is hardly uncommon. Perhaps she likes a laugh as much as I do.
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Here’s someone else who just started following my blog today:
http://en.gravatar.com/jamesneed
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Matthew, she has followed you because she wants you to look at her videos. Have a look:
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Oh, and it’s called “cynicism”. Look it up:
“contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives”
“based on or reflecting a belief that human conduct is motivated primarily by self-interest”
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Most of my posts are protests against situations in life where either I or someone else is being mistreated. If you think that’s “obnoxious”, then you’re just an evil person, and I hope you burn in Hell.
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A**holes like you are the reason comments are disabled on my blog. Your friend was more diplomatic. You could learn from her.
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I have moral corruption splashed in my face on a regular basis, and you have the nerve to call my words obnoxious? I’m one of the people who has a right to be offended by what’s going on in the world right now. What I write is a justified reaction.
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What you write is dripping with fear, alienation and resentment. Maybe you could try doing some voluntary community work so you can start to see people in general as individuals with different experiences, and not a frightening wall of moral corruption (whatever that is).
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I actually quite like the quote! Although it’s a bit grim. But then when you read some of the posts, perhaps life is just really scary for this person. There’s something kind of sad about the outlook, and I guess disabling comments says it all. Unless it’s satirical. Ark’s right though, you’re great at finding gems. I tag turf occasionally but obviously need to spend more time in homosexuality.
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Not scary so much as meaningless:
“In my adult life I’ve come to the conclusion that the goal of most people is to make money in order to stuff their faces with food; buy useless material garbage like cell phones with video cameras, high definition TVs, and shiny sports cars; and make themselves look pretty with clothes, makeup, fake smiles, and plastic surgery in order to impress other people, all the while not really knowing or caring what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. To me this is all vapid, shallow, and meaningless.”
http://agalltyr.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/searching-for-meaning/
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First of all Matthew, nice to hear from you and be able to have a discussion with you. You’re right that conversations by internet are nothing compared to face to face, but they are certainly useful for ideas. Clare in particular writes many thought-provoking posts that generate useful dialogue and re-evaluation of opinions. Please don’t take the opportunity to abuse my open comments policies by writing ridiculous things like hoping people burn in hell. Apart from the fact it reveals you have irrational superstitious leanings, it’s bad form to be rude to nice people you know little about.
I like the quote from your post above, and I think it does say a lot about society – but it doesn’t say everything. And people who behave in this manner usually do so because they are scared, lacking in self-esteem and struggling to find the elusive meaning in life (that we have no need to find). There’s no need to take the meaninglessness of life so seriously, or to be judgemental about other peoples’ harmless expressions of what life means to them.
I would recommend that you try not to be so bitter and angry about life. I also like a good rant, but to stray past finding life amusing, refuse feedback on your opinions and lashing out in a nasty way at people you don’t know, will only serve to make this meaningless life less pleasant for you and others. If we’re going to do meaningless, let’s try to enjoy the experience.
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Just out of curiosity, you people aren’t actually stupid enough to think that homosexuality makes any rational sense, are you?
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It does make rational sense, because it makes emotional sense, and there are times when rationality has to defer to emotion. Have a look at this: http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/sym.htm
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Hi Clare, would you mind looking at my latest post (what would a god look like?) and tell me why Ark doesn’t get my point that not all people visualise thoughts, and it’s possible to conceive of a deity without making up a picture? Or tell me that I’m making no sense and he is (that would be an ouch).
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It makes about as much sense as heterosexuality. It exists as a natural state in our world. Deal with it.
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Ah. Brilliant. Homosexuality is better than heterosexuality: heterosexuality produces unplanned children, in the most difficult circumstances: the children of homosexuals are planned, loved and wanted.
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I agree that unwanted pregnancies is a clear downside of heterosexuality. Let’s see where evolution takes us.
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By the way, how on Earth does a transvestite faggot have the nerve to call someone else’ ideas “weird”? You are truly delusional.
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Hi Matthew, I understand you have disabled comments on your blog because you are unable to engage in meaningful dialogue, but perhaps you could view the opportunity here to have a go at discussing ideas without resorting to behaving like a nasty child who has led a frighteningly sheltered life. Would like to share your ideas on the roots of deism?
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There is no hierarchy of weirdness, Matthew. I have as much right to my opinion that your relentless negativity is weird, as you have to opine that my gender expression is weird; but the levels of cynicism and negativity displayed on your blog is unhealthy.
If I were “delusional”, how would I know? By the feedback of people I respect.
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Gays have become so arrogant. Supposedly they don’t want to be criticized, but then they go and shamelessly splash their disgusting gay “marriage” propaganda all over the news in everyone’s faces (including those of innocent children), and then you in particular ridicule the blog of someone with an actual responsible attitude towards sex (who was originally even careful to avoid using pejorative words like “queer” or “faggot” in his condemnation of the homosexual philosophy).
Gays were best when they were an isolated subculture that normal people knew to avoid. I never really had a problem with them back then.
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Matthew, do you know any opera fans?
Forcing you to attend an opera would be shameless and scandalising, but talking about opera where you can hear, or wanting opera to have as good a tax structure as symphonic concerts, really isn’t.
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You know I actually haven’t read any replies you people made to what I originally said, but I hope it gave you a feeling of catharsis, and I hope it inspired other people who might stumble upon this post.
I had an unavoidable argument today with a fucking moron in real life. I don’t need that shit 24 hours/day. I have no idea why any non-masochist would ever enable blog comments.
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That could so easily come across as snarky. That is not my intent.
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(click it)
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Wow, there’s a whole community of fear and hate. Teenagers go through confusing periods in life, especially when they’re indoctrinated with ignorance from youth. Hopefully they’ll all pull through to be decent human beings as adults.
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I don’t agree with that guy 100%, by the way. I actually think he’s pretty stupid when he tries to say “Anyone that calls for their behavior to be tolerated is implicitly admitting that there is something wrong with their behavior.” Easy counterexamples (like the oppression of women) can be found for that logic.
His inability to choose concise titles for his blog posts also implies a lack of intelligence. See. This is why I don’t usually link to other people. If I really analyze people for long enough, most people are either idiots who don’t know what they’re doing or sociopaths who are willing to do anything.
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Paranoid nastiness, Matthew. Is it your other blog?
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I don’t doubt it. And if you continue to ignore everything that’s said to you, your life may continue in such a negative fashion. It doesn’t need to be that way.
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Do you know another reason why leaving comments enabled on a blog is a bad idea? It’s because when people read your blog, they’re not really reading your whole post. They’re just skimming it so that they can comment. They don’t really care what you have to say. It’s all about them getting a chance to express themselves.
I’m not the first person to notice a selfish psychological pattern similar to this one:
“When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes?item=qt0479121
(from the movie “Fight Club”)
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Not always, actually. For me, it depends how original the blog post is. Tedious drivel ranting about homosexuality needs very little attention before a brief refutation in a comment. People can sometimes learn more from what they say themselves than what others say: putting it into words makes it clearer in ones mind. And- recognising the phenomenon, sometimes I try harder to listen, in conversations.
But you are being negative again. What, always? Have you never noticed a comment which responds to the original post better than that?
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@Matthew
And just when you were on the verge of extracting a modicum of understanding and a little respect for your position you come out with this pearler, and reveal what you really feel/think.
“Just out of curiosity, you people aren’t actually stupid enough to think that homosexuality makes any rational sense, are you”
Well done Matthew…
What a Dickhead
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