Why might one wish to mitigate one's lack of belief ...

[Revoltingest]

....the solution is to simply ignore the mystery. Ignore the existential questions that it generates. And thereby ignore the discomfort that not knowing any of the answers to those questions.

I observe, but then ignore many irrelevant things.
The various religions & their gods are as significant to me
as the latest episode of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians".
I know that this fiction exists. And that there are questions
unanswered....What Kim is up to?
Anal bleaching? A new dress? Lunch with Kanye?

Some questions aren't worth asking because
the answers aren't worth knowing.

 

[PureX]

I observe, but then ignore many irrelevant things.
The various religions & their gods are as significant to me
as the latest episode of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians".
I know that this fiction exists. And that there are questions
unanswered....What Kim is up to?
Anal bleaching? A new dress? Lunch with Kanye?

Some questions aren't worth asking because
the answers aren't worth knowing.

And yet the need to restate the point, but with much added condescension and veiled insult was so great that you just couldn't resist it.

I think there's a lot more to athism for some people than just not caring about the big questions,

 

[Revoltingest]

And yet the need to restate the point, but with much added condescension and veiled insult was so great that you just couldn't resist it.

I think there's a lot more to athism for some people than just not caring about the big questions,

The insult was only "veiled"?
Dang...I've got to be less subtle.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I observe, but then ignore many irrelevant things.
The various religions & their gods are as significant to me
as the latest episode of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians".
I know that this fiction exists. And that there are questions
unanswered....What Kim is up to?
Anal bleaching? A new dress? Lunch with Kanye?

Some questions aren't worth asking because
the answers aren't worth knowing.

The problem is that science can't answer what is worthful or not. So worth is irrelevant as science can't answer that.

 

[Polymath257]

As usual, I think there is great confusion here about the difference between belief and faith. Rejecting a belief in God is easy and fairly common. Rejecting faith in the face of the great mystery of being is another matter. That can destroy a person. I have noticed that for most atheists, the solution is to simply ignore the mystery. Ignore the existential questions that it generates. And thereby ignore the discomfort that not knowing any of the answers to those questions.

And that's fine for them as long as they can maintain that ignorance. But if they come to a point in life where those questions can no longer be rejected, and avoided, and they begin to lose faith along with their "un-belief". Then they may really need to revisit the idea of God. Not necessarily a "belief" in God. But actual faith in whatever mystery solution that word might mean to them.

I don't even know what it means to have faith in a mystery.

Faith, at least to some extent, means some sort of trust. A mystery is something you don't know. I don't see how the two fit together.

There are many mysteries that I see as an atheist: what's up with neutrinos? What is the nature of dark matter? Is the Goldbach conjecture true?

And I know that to approach those mysteries, I have to make hypotheses, test those hypotheses, and perhaps modify those hypotheses.

The only absolute mystery, as I see it, is that there is something as opposed to nothing. But I don't think that a why to this can be answered, so I leave it as a curiosity. I don't ignore it, but I do take it as a raw fact that things exist.

So, I guess I have no idea what you meanby 'the great mystery of being' and why you think it can destroy a person who has no faith (?) in it.

 

[Polymath257]

The problem is that science can't answer what is worthful or not. So worth is irrelevant as science can't answer that.

Absolutely. Science can show how things interact. But what has meaning is up to each individual. Once the goals are chosen, science can helpt o achieve them.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't even know what it means to have faith in a mystery.

Faith, at least to some extent, means some sort of trust. A mystery is something you don't know. I don't see how the two fit together.

There are many mysteries that I see as an atheist: what's up with neutrinos? What is the nature of dark matter? Is the Goldbach conjecture true?

And I know that to approach those mysteries, I have to make hypotheses, test those hypotheses, and perhaps modify those hypotheses.

The only absolute mystery, as I see it, is that there is something as opposed to nothing. But I don't think that a why to this can be answered, so I leave it as a curiosity. I don't ignore it, but I do take it as a raw fact that things exist.

So, I guess I have no idea what you meanby 'the great mystery of being' and why you think it can destroy a person who has no faith (?) in it.

Well, your model is too simple, because it includes you, as you do something subjective there, yet that is not useful according to you, if I recall as correct, namely your subjective position, that objective is more useful subjectively to you.
The problem is that if you bothered to check, both things and exist are not raw facts. They are cognitive abstracts. You can't point to neither things nor existence.

 

[Revoltingest]

The problem is that science can't answer what is worthful or not. So worth is irrelevant as science can't answer that.

Worth is a useful thing to discern.
But I grok it...not science it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Absolutely. Science can show how things interact. But what has meaning is up to each individual. Once the goals are chosen, science can helpt o achieve them.

Yeah, but your goals are as subjective as everybody else's. That is the limit of science and where science doesn't apply when it comes to moral judgments.

 

[PureX]

Absolutely. Science can show how things interact. But what has meaning is up to each individual. Once the goals are chosen, science can helpt o achieve them.

So if the chosen goal is to destroy humanity, and most complex life forms on Earth, science is right there to help us achieve that.

What a gift.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Worth is a useful thing to discern.
But I grok it...not science it.

Can you rephrase that?

 

[Polymath257]

A lack of belief is painful to the natural mind because it limits natural and spiritual potential.

So many questions from one simple sentence.

What do you mean by 'natural mind'? Can you give an example of an 'unnatural mind'?

What do you mean by 'spiritual potential'? Why do you think that a lack of belief limits this? Why would such a limitation be painful? How is 'natural potential' different than 'spiritual potential'? Why would it be painful to limit such potentials?

 

[Revoltingest]

Can you rephrase that?

Yes.
But quality & clarity would degrade.

 

[Polymath257]

So if the chosen goal is to destroy humanity, and most complex life forms on Earth, science is right there to help us achieve that.

What a gift.

And also to make sure that doesn't happen. Power can be used both ways. All science does is give power through knowledge, not wisdom.

But that is off topic. What does this have to do with 'faith in a mystery'?

 

[Polymath257]

Yeah, but your goals are as subjective as everybody else's. That is the limit of science and where science doesn't apply when it comes to moral judgments.

Agreed.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes.
But quality & clarity would degrade.

Yeah, you and your everyday words as they make sense to you. Stop doing that. Accept that English is not the same to the rest of us.

 

[Colt]

The problem is that science can't answer what is worthful or not. So worth is irrelevant as science can't answer that.

If atheists are correct, then opinions are worthless!

 

[Revoltingest]

So if the chosen goal is to destroy humanity, and most complex life forms on Earth, science is right there to help us achieve that.

What a gift.

Science is like other tools, ie, we decide what to use them for.

It reminds me of an alien invasion some years back....
Kodos; Ahhhhh! He's got a board with a nail in it.
Moe: Extinct humanity will ya!
Kang: Run Kodos!
Kodos: It looks like the Earthlings won.
Kang: Did they? Right now they have a board with a nail in it.
But they won't stop there.
Soon they will make bigger boards with bigger nails until they
make a board with a nail in it so big it will destroy them all!

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Agreed.

That means if we are to play with raw facts, that it is either a raw fact, that other people do some thing differently than you. Or that it is not really real as it is a real ontological negative like say evil.

Here is an example of raw facts and really real negatives:
"Logic
¶
All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality."

—Ayn Rand Lexicon

The Ayn Rand Lexicon: This mini-encyclopedia of Objectivism is compiled from Ayn Rand’s statements on some 400 topics in philosophy, economics, psychology and history.

aynrandlexicon.com

So here it is for coherence: If everything is coherent as an added up positive as you also claim, if I recall correctly, then I just have to say no and then I am a real ontological negative outside raw facts. We are playing what it means that the universe is orderly, logical and what not.
That one is not particular to Ayn Rand. It is the folk belief that only positives are real, because negatives don't make sense.

I learned many years ago, that the idea that all of the world must make positively sense, is falsified by doing something differently and then listen to how that is a real, really real negative. The joke is that you can't observe a negative empirically.

 

[MikeF]

If atheists are correct, then opinions are worthless!

Are opinions worthless? If I am of the opinion that slavery should not take place and should be abolished where it does, and further, I convince a significant number of others to share that opinion such that slavery is actually abolished, has not something worthwhile occurred in eyes of the former enslaved? A tangible and real worth?