I’d planned to start writing this the other day, and I forgot. It’s evidence, maybe, that my therapy is working. I have OCD, and the writing streaks might be an example of a compulsion. I’m supposed to avoid them. Oh well.
Writing makes me focus my thoughts. Nice segue into the topic for today —
What’s your take on religion?
For a long time, from about age sixteen, until my mid-twenties, I considered myself a pretty committed atheist. Note that I said atheist, not agnostic. Even before I recommitted to theism, I was hostile towards the idea basic ideas underlying fundamental agnostic thought. (Yes, they’re fundamentalists….)
You’ll never have enough evidence to know; it’s impossible to know.
Okay, that’s fine.
But, you, as an individual, can make a decision based on the evidence you have. I can’t ever know whether gravity is an absolute certainty, either.
But I have enough evidence to wholeheartedly support the theory.
When it comes to God, the afterlife, etc., there might not be enough evidence for you to make a pronouncement.
You do have enough evidence to make a judgment on just about anything; Han shot first. You are allowed to change your mind when you get new evidence.
I actually got into a conversation the other day after listening to an interview with Bryan “Hotep Jesus” Sharpe. He’s written a book about the origins of some of the American wars.
There’s things I thought about the First World War that have really been shaken over the past few years.
The Triple Alliance’s story about what happened seems to be, well, less than true.
I had the same feeling as things were coming out about the Covington Catholic kids while I was at Shmoocon. Okay, so the kid is in a MAGA hat, and he’s smirking as this guy is beating a drum next to his face.
Twitter, CNN, etc., are saying that the kid had a punch-able face, and that these affluenza kids were harassing a brave native American veteran. Reason did a good job covering all of this. But if you stopped taking in new evidence about it after hearing your chosen outlet’s initial reporting, you’d never know.
If you took in information from multiple sources, you might get the wrong story.
Chuck Todd would say that it’s dangerous.
There are people close to me who refuse to investigate further.
To me, however, very little is permanently-settled
TRUST THE SCIENCE!
You know, the sort of science that said that COVID came from the thing in the wet market that Randy Marsh nailed, right?
One of the other things that Bryan is hitting on is the idea of self-perfection.
I get it, but it makes me doubly-jealous. First, there’s lots of things I think I’d like to do that my body just won’t cooperate with. Second, my will power is weak more often than I’d like.
Following a religion’s self-control teachings, however, is something that does help with the self-perfection.
You learn a lot about being a responsible adult from participating in something that taxes you both mentally and physically.
For some, that’s religion. For others, it’s serious sports training. For others, still, it’s things like joining the military. Whatever. You structure your thinking towards a certain cause, and it helps you.
Some people like this guy have embraced things like Orthodox Christianity. But, really, does it matter what it is? There’s a basic human need to do that sort of thing, whether it’s one of the Abrahamic religions, one of the Eastern religions, Scientology, whatever. I’m pretty well convinced that this is something that humans need.
That doesn’t fit well with either Atheism. It also doesn’t really fit in with Evangelical Agnosticism.
If you ever wish for something you’re, in a way, participating in some sort of mystical experience. Ever hold your breath watching the completion of a competition?
How does that ever affect anything?
So why do you do it?