Religion & Ethics: Content from Across the ABC




Date/Time 28 Dec 2014 11:30:32am
Hi DocT,
"illogical fantasy land"?? Heavens above ;p
You're missing that "it matters" (these things have mental significance to us) because these things (predictive modeling/understanding our world(s), consciousness, empathy, love, fear, guilt) have evolutionary advantage, just like pro-social unifying myths (often harnessing them) have had - though creating meme-slaves. In our contemporary anthropocene world though, the de facto imperialist or absolutist versions of such memes/'realities' have become divisive and even pathological, as has consumerism (and love & worship of money over fairness/unfettered capitalism of course). I say this so you understand atheism/nontheism, not to suggest the brain is the creator of your world and dispel the narrative you're invested in, which sounds pretty harmless and positive and undogmatic about anachronistic manipulative viral texts. (Hoping that's not just unforthright evangelistic engagement patter.) Humanism may be Absurdist but it's not nihilistic. It values the real & so powerful social truths/virtues of loving, honesty, justice, .. and aesthetics etc, but doesn't deify them because ideologies are Not Great. It's become more dangerous than beneficial to use a label we can identify with to shield our psyches from uncertainties & unknowns, our insecurities and other threats. We can do much better than currently for spirituality to fulfill our love/social-drive and interdependent needs and potentials, and diversity is good because we can critique and keep each other real/true to our ideals (essentially a social consciousness).