The stress of uncertainty

@fmf said
And yet he cannot empathize with or understand how people who don't share his speculations about supernatural matters can find any meaning in life, or any importance, or any purpose, or any reason to live, or any reason to have children. His religious beliefs have taken a tragic toll on the substance of his common humanity. This is despite the fact that he has participated in cou ...[text shortened]... r finding meaning in life where people have shared with him their different beliefs and perspectives

Haha, taken a toll on his humanity?

How? How can you pretend to know this guy like that?

How can you come to this dramatic conclusion?

Or is this melodramatic garbage posting that comes from the same place as the accusation that I'm stalking you?

@philokalia said
Haha, taken a toll on his humanity?

Yes. As I said, his religious beliefs have taken a tragic toll on the substance of his common humanity if they have deprived of him of the ability to empathize with and understand people with different beliefs from him to the extent that he doesn't know how having children would matter or would have meaning for those people. Empathy is surely an important element of our common humanity.

@philokalia said
How can you pretend to know this guy like that?
How can you come to this dramatic conclusion?

From what he says about himself, about his beliefs, and about the beliefs of others who do not share his.

@philokalia said
Or is this melodramatic garbage posting that comes from the same place as the accusation that I'm stalking you?

Typically for you, you are sidestepping what KellyJay's supposed psychological/ philosophical take is on not-believing-what-he-does and also sidestepping what my analysis is - in reply - of the implications of his take. Instead, you are making personal off-topic remarks.

@fmf said
SecondSon asked this on another thread: "How can one bear up under the stress of uncertainty? Especially about the truth."

Regardless of what religion one adheres to, is subscribing to a theological or ideological version of what "the truth" is, a way of avoiding stress?

What exactly is the disadvantage of uncertainty about spiritual things?

Stress of uncertainty certainly played a part in the perceived necessity for early man to invent religion .
There must be , there should be , there just has to be some higher reason for our purpose and existence, else we are just wandering the pointless forest was probably another rational .
As for myself , I rather enjoy the forest .

@caissad4 said
Stress of uncertainty certainly played a part in the perceived necessity for early man to invent religion .

"The truth" referred to in the OP is presumably "the truth" that the consciousness is everlasting and the "uncertainty" is presumably with regard to death and/or what happens after that. However, in my experience, I haven't seen much difference, broadly speaking, between believers and non-believers in terms of the fear of death. Some are stressed by the prospect of it, others not so much; certainty or uncertainty rooted in one's beliefs about life and the afterlife do not seem to be reflected in any recognizable patterns of stress.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
To you perhaps.

Please accept that for me, even without God, the world is full of meaning and wonder and that our origin is to be admired, not denigrated. Again, I respectfully avoid calling you deluded for believing in a deity, so please extend the same courteously when discussing the views of others, even if you don't agree with them. Is that really such an unrea ...[text shortened]... oviding you with the intellectual capacity to describe your own origin as pond scum and meaningless.

Listen the point of something without a point is still pointless. If it is all here without a cause and reason, you can say you like the way it looks; another may hate it. Meaning, according to taste, isn't really a standard for value judgments; the diversity of opinions and tastes render it useless for that type of thing. There are a lot of different tastes in this world; all would be of equal value and worth no matter how twisted and selfish or self-less they are. There would be nothing with which we can say this one is really better than that one; it would merely point to personal tastes, not a real value, those all would be firmly planted in mid-air.

Even human life can take a back seat to anything else once that something is thought to be of more value. Values by feelings are a fickle standard that would always be in a state of flux.

@kellyjay said
There would be nothing with which we can say this one is really better than that one; it would merely point to personal tastes, not a real value, those all would be firmly planted in mid-air.

Do you think the children of Christians are "really better" and have more "real" value in their minds than the children of atheists have in their parents' minds? Is this a perspective that your religious beliefs have caused you to arrive at?

@kellyjay said
Meaning, according to taste, isn't really a standard for value judgments; the diversity of opinions and tastes render it useless for that type of thing. There are a lot of different tastes in this world; all would be of equal value and worth no matter how twisted and selfish or self-less they are.

I am not aware of anyone arguing that "twisted and selfish" tastes are "of equal value" to "selfless" ones. You don't seem to have any understanding of how people's moral compasses actually function and what they are for.

If the only way you can find or measure "meaning" or make "value judgements" is to cite your personal speculations about supernatural matters and religious dogmas attendant thereto, then so be it.

But don't kid yourself that what you are engaged in is anything other than profoundly subjective and only "universal" in so far as you just so happen to attach that narcissitic, intensifier adjective-label onto your personal opinions.

@kellyjay said
Listen the point of something without a point is still pointless.

If someone were to declare that the "point of something" ~ specifically your beliefs ~ was "without a point", would that mean your beliefs were "still pointless" regardless of whether you believed your beliefs did have a "point" or not?

@kellyjay said
There are a lot of different tastes in this world; all would be of equal value and worth no matter how twisted and selfish or self-less they are.

Who claims this "equal value" thing you keep mentioning over and over and over again?

Has anybody on this forum ever made the claim?

@kellyjay said
There are a lot of different tastes in this world; all would be of equal value and worth no matter how twisted and selfish or self-less they are.

And if someone shares your belief in Christian dogma and believes that life has the same "point" as you believe it has, do your value judgements and his value judgements then become "equally valid" or does that fellow Christian - to your way of thinking - need to accede to your supposedly self-evident and unilaterally declared "objective" tastes and preferences and judgements even within the framework of your shared dogma?

@FMF

What exactly is the disadvantage of uncertainty about spiritual things?

Is "uncertainty" a euphemism for lost ?

@sonship said
@FMF

What exactly is the disadvantage of uncertainty about spiritual things?

Is "uncertainty" a euphemism for lost ?

"Lost" might be a label you'd attach to someone you were trying to target for conversion to your religion. Or it might be a label you'd use to describe a non-Christian when using loaded adjectives expressly for the consumption of the Christian gallery ~ when you are proudly seeing things only through a partisan/ideological prism.

But I presume that SecondSon was referring to the "agnostic" element of my agnostic atheism, which is not something that renders me or people wired like me "lost" in my life.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Think for a moment. If you are wrong and I am right, life had this extraordinary start billions of years ago and made this amazing evolutionary journey to form a human like yourself, providing you with the intellectual capacity to describe your own origin as pond scum and meaningless.

Was the evolutionary process purposeful?

Probably not in the same sense as your religious framework, but yes, purposeful.

There is a reason why every creature looks the way it does today, why it adapted to thrive in its particular environment, why it goes to extraordinary lengths to reproduce and ensure the continuity of its genetic code.