b_chocolatey @b_chocolatey@qoto.org

@lack this second and third definition seems to be what Kipling was referring to in the poetic demand to “take up the white man’s burden.” Look closely at the line, “and weigh your gods, and you.”

@lack Perhaps a third definition is in order, which somewhat overlaps with the first two. The symbolic, the sympathetic magic, that points to the first two. The Statue of Liberty is an example of this: a personified, anthromorphized representation of a philosophical abstraction, namely, liberty. The statue is beautiful and well-made, and is intended to refer to an Idea that is beautiful and timeless. This is, after all, why religious icons were first introduced in pre-Abrahamic times. The Statue of Liberty is a goddess in the literal, historical sense.

@lack definition 2: God is what is rightfully deserving of worship - that which is encountered through religious experience. Certain things people naturally discuss- and should discuss, in reverential tones, when they try to describe it accurately. When people speak of the Vastness of the Universe, the Beauty of Music, the Finality of Death, and so forth; these are things that, when I capitalize them, you know why. These are all emanations of God. It has always been understood thus.

@lack That having been said, it is possible that Consciousness has naturalistic origins that have yet to be discovered, at the quantum level. That, for example, it arises when energy is transformed into information, passes through logic-gates on very very fast timescales - that certain types of computers are naturally sentient. I think the odds are against it; I think that the problem of consciousness will remain a hard problem that is never cracked via scientific inquiry.

@lack definition 1: God is Soul. God is Person. God is Life. God is Mind. The origin of the inner experience of sentient organisms. Sensation, memory, intention, emotion, survival instinct… love, bonding, companionship. Everything that separates us from mere mechanical cause-and-effect that controls steam engines and stopwatches.

@lack definition 1: God is Soul. God is Person. God is Life. God is Mind. The origin of the inner experience of sentient organisms. Sensation, memory, intention, emotion, survival instinct… love, bonding, companionship. Everything that separates us from mere mechanical cause-and-effect that controls steam engines and stopwatches.

@lack As for myself, I would say that I am a post-modernist, in the sense that I have two different definitions of “god” which seem to mostly overlap. If you ever have seen #MattWalsh do his troll routine of “what is a woman?” I would say that my own belief system can boil down to “What is a god?” Trolls #Christians and #atheists equally. #woman #women #adulthumanfemale …

@lack As for myself, I would say that I am a post-modernist, in the sense that I have two different definitions of “god” which seem to mostly overlap. If you ever have seen #MattWalsh do his troll routine of “what is a woman?” I would say that my own belief system can boil down to “What is a god?” Trolls #Christians and #atheists equally. #woman #women #adulthumanfemale …

@lack I would say that you are half-agnostic, or soft atheist, in that case.

@MtnStateNomad @lack the woke religion likes to mobilize sympathetic churches leaders and religious organizations towards their preferred in-group whenever possible. They gain nothing by making a principled, internally consistent, unpopular argument for no-god-because-dinosaurs. The Current Thing has already moved on

@MtnStateNomad @lack that may be true to an extant, but the Current Thing seems to have moved on from atheism to what can better be called the #woke #religion. There is only so much mischief you can do with atheist NPCs. “Hate whitey, loot Walmart, stop using normal words, cut your dick off” doesn’t quite fly with engineering grads, for the most part. Atheist true-believers from the upper class actually like math, logical debate, freedom of speech, and object permanence

@wagesj45 And, the fact that they didn’t believe in the same supernatural being suggests that atheism/materialism seemed equally implausible to non-overlapping civilizations separated by geography, culture and language