General religious discussion thread

[Frustration]

6 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

 

Huh, this is not too dissimilar to the stuff I ran into when I was reading up on Catholic catechism. When it comes to the morality on this. I imagine that is because both are coming from a sort of Paul as read by Augustine perspective?

Our relationship with Augustine is... complicated to say the least.

While I like some of his ideas on Morality, we reject a lot of his ideas on Predestination, the Resurrection, and the Physical body.

7 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

This is a bit of a strange way of understanding drugs, mostly since it is treating all drugs as one and the same. This is not a drug use discussion thread, but suffice to say I am experienced and read on the matter from a less scientific and more intimate perspective. To address the specific notions: What drives a person to start using drugs, what causes a person to relapse into drugs, why does society manufacture drugs, these are all clearly worth consideration beyond what the mouse model can say.

Consider reading William S Burrough's if you want to consider this more. 

Well it's more about the mechanics of addiction than drug use. I don't know if they get to it in that video specifically but they go over pornography and other non-drug addictive behaviors in other videos in the collection.

10 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Only got about 7 minutes into the video before the website crapped out on me,

Yeah, I love the Church with all my heart, but the IT department leaves much to be desired.

11 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

 but we have been putting electrical stimulus devices in people for a while now.

...

I really shouldn't be surprised, but that just rubs me all the wrong ways.

Just...

*Shudders*

[Immortal Platypus]

4 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

A quick search suggests that no one has brought up that deontology, or Immanuel Kant's notion of ethics, is the counter to Bentham's calculus of hedonism. I actually think this is the best option for those who value universality. I can't justify why you should value such a concept, but I do.

I have to say, we were just learning about deontology in my philosophy class, and I don't particularly like it. To me it seems selfish, strict, and sometimes contradictory. 

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

3 hours ago, Immortal Platypus said:

To me it seems selfish, strict, and sometimes contradictory. 

The way Kant did it sure was. There are problems in trying to develop an idea of a universal moral code, command, or system. I think that all morality ultimately is only resolved by specific decision making in the moment, that it is the essence of our sense of being ourselves to make such decisions and try to reconcile them or not.

Non-contradiction is a value that conditions a rationality just like universality is. 

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

9 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

Okay, so this is three questions. I am going to answer these, and I am going to hope I am not repeating anyone:

1. why we live
   We live because we are born. We die because we are born. All living things are thrust into life unto death. 
2. why we want to be good people
   Because the alternative is being bad people, and badness is related to being unwanted by connotation. Of course, what makes a good as opposed to a bad person is a kind of subjectivity. Heck, the choice of good-bad as opposed to good-evil is something I just threw in here.
3. our desire to continue living
   This one is related to why we live: The processes by which we are born are self-replicating. The nearly machinic animal aspects of a human being often cling to life, but not necessarily. I know there is a long discourse around suicide in philosophy, since Socrates is so famous for having done it. Consider starting there or going with Albert Camus, the prick. 

A quick search suggests that no one has brought up that deontology, or Immanuel Kant's notion of ethics, is the counter to Bentham's calculus of hedonism. I actually think this is the best option for those who value universality. I can't justify why you should value such a concept, but I do.

What is a soul? I have no idea how to understand what one of those does or is outside of the context of being something like this scene but for different assemblies of god/God/gods. But without an afterlife, what does such a thing do?

I don't even know what question to ask but I am so curious about what this means.

Well, I believe, as said in my post, that we dont neccassarially have a soul, per say, but something often called one. That feeling you can't explain, what you see in another person's eyes as they talk, and you can put the words to reality.

No one can truly every tell you their entire self, and you will never fully understand another person, but the closest you can get to trying is understanding that there is that part of them, that depth, that soul, that you can never understand.

If that makes sense?

8 hours ago, Frustration said:

I never meant to imply anything along those lines. I don't think morality is something someone can choose to participate in, we are all bound to it, willingly or not. I just have yet to encounter a non-religious moral framework I can agree with.

I'll kind of put this together with the next thought here because I find them related

My question is if emotion is what makes life have meaning why not fake it?

Would it be the morally right thing to put electrodes in people's heads that make them constantly feel happy and satisfied?

If so you're welcome to that opinion, if not I'd like to hear why.

While I can see where you're coming from, I personally see it as our understanding, and not the system as being flawed.

Kind of like geocentrism, the solar system is real, but the geocentric understanding of it was based on incomplete data.

I don't think that any particular religion, or religious individual is perfect. I rather believe that the purpose of religion is to give us an ideal of perfection to strive to become.

I think I've heard of that as Existentialism..

Well I can't answer for certain as I don't know everything about chemistry, let alone souls.

I'd say it probably would be pretty easy as they would only be able to react, and not take action for themselves, but I've never had any experience with such a thing, so I have no idea.

I would like to clairify, I do not take offense by asking how athiests can have morality, or asking for an explanation, I take offense at the direct statement of it, and quite enjoy curiosity and willingness to learn more.

I find that no system is perfect. I don't believe you need a god or a soul to understand empathy and morality. I find philosophy confusing and imperfect, and definitely separate from religion. I do not understand my exact stance on philosophy, but I mostly agree with this point:

11 hours ago, Hmmm lies said:

Just because I don't think there's a reason for anything doesn't mean I can't find the world beautiful. I know it's because of signals in my brain, but why should that be any less real?

I strongly believe in something similar, in that even if we are fake, and our understanding of the universe is too, that doesn't make us as perceived by us any less real (I know, so straightforward and definitely not contradictory)

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

6 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

That feeling you can't explain, what you see in another person's eyes as they talk, and you can put the words to reality.

I have been made aware of just the opposite. If you ever watch someone die, they don't actually lose that seeming liveliness until the fluids stop flowing. The lack of a living brain behind the eyes is not the key thing. Wasn't fun learning that, but, as I think I have said before, death is one of the two essential taboos.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

41 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

I have been made aware of just the opposite. If you ever watch someone die, they don't actually lose that seeming liveliness until the fluids stop flowing. The lack of a living brain behind the eyes is not the key thing. Wasn't fun learning that, but, as I think I have said before, death is one of the two essential taboos.

The liveleness is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what the lieveleness conveys.

[Hmmm lies she/her]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

Would it be the morally right thing to put electrodes in people's heads that make them constantly feel happy and satisfied?

This is a question that I myself have struggled with for a long time. A good argument, for sure. I genuinely don't have an answer.

One part of my mind says yes. It's mathematically the most optimal thing for humanities existence.

Another says no, but despite that, it can't seem to come up with any objective reasons as to wrong. The best it can come up with is 'it feels wrong'. The fact that I feel that way, however, implies that there might be something wrong about that.

Another, 'middle ground' part of my mind takes another stance. For example, it puts forward that while this might be better in the short-term, it would be better to increase the lifespan of humans so they could experience more. It also would say that this future would be completely infeasible, and it would be better to look toward more reasonable progress.

It's a question that I'm still trying to find the answer to, one way or another.

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well I can't answer for certain as I don't know everything about chemistry, let alone souls.

I'd say it probably would be pretty easy as they would only be able to react, and not take action for themselves, but I've never had any experience with such a thing, so I have no idea.

I disagree on this notion, and put forward that it would be impossible. I think of brains like hyperadvanced computers. They take sensory input, and give output in the form of actions.

For your argument I would argue that, depending on your definition of reacting versus taking action, either:

• Real human beings don't 'take action for themselves' because they will always act based on their sensory input or
• Our zombie could take action for itself, because it would have a 'simulation' of thoughts and emotions, even if it's not truly experiencing them.

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

Referring to the Electrode Question

I would say that these electrodes would mimic the function of recreational substances.

A ) They’re an artificial high. No cause, no nothing.

B ) They’re temporary, under regular circumstances. Pumping more and more signal in…

So there are a few problems with this.

1. It’ll lose it edge. This is the problem with addiction, with drugs. The receptors’ll wear away, or the subject will grow accustomed. And then they won’t be able to feel accomplishment, there will be nothing to motivate them in that respect.

2. If they cannot be sad, if they cannot be frustrated… all that, they don’t have any reason to do anything. No purpose. They may be able to do maintain tradition for some time, but it’s unstable.

On 1/22/2026 at 10:06 PM, Hmmm lies said:

I disagree on this notion, and put forward that it would be impossible. I think of brains like hyperadvanced computers. They take sensory input, and give output in the form of actions.

For your argument I would argue that, depending on your definition of reacting versus taking action, either:

• Real human beings don't 'take action for themselves' because they will always act based on their sensory input or
• Our zombie could take action for itself, because it would have a 'simulation' of thoughts and emotions, even if it's not truly experiencing them

I think that the distinction (dichotomy?) is…

false.

Very false. I think that consciousness foretells a soul, even if it is artificial processes that led to the creation of the soul.

Example. Scripture states that humanity was given the ability to create life. But life is also created in so many other ways around the world, and that is still life. Humanity exercises the will of God, and if humanity creates a clone like this, or if nature does, it’s still intended by God. And so I think it is still alive with a soul.

(Context needed: LDS believe that animals have souls!)

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

2 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

1. It’ll lose it edge. This is the problem with addiction, with drugs. The receptors’ll wear away, or the subject will grow accustomed. And then they won’t be able to feel accomplishment, there will be nothing to motivate them in that respect.

All experiences can "lose their edge" with over repetition. The same food at every meal, being confined to a small cabin by snow, old books re-read too many times, these all wear out the sense of novelty or enjoyment that the meal had at the first bite, a vacation getaway, or a new story once had.

The electrode machine might physically burn away cells, but a heroin addict will dry out for a bit and return more sensitive to their old habit. Cannabis users can tell you that a fortnight long break from T will revert tolerance.

The experience machine is much closer to Descartes' deciever or the Matrix if people liked being in it. I would say that the issue with a true Control, the worse-than-destruction god of William S Burroughs, is that it denies its subjects ability to rearrange Spinoza's God's innards. I don't want to just feel things; I instead want to make the world a certain way and feel things about the whole experience.

That said, video games are neat.

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

1 minute ago, ParaTulip said:

All experiences can "lose their edge" with over repetition. The same food at every meal, being confined to a small cabin by snow, old books re-read too many times, these all wear out the sense of novelty or enjoyment that the meal had at the first bite, a vacation getaway, or a new story once had.

The electrode machine might physically burn away cells, but a heroin addict will dry out for a bit and return more sensitive to their old habit. Cannabis users can tell you that a fortnight long break from T will revert tolerance.

The experience machine is much closer to Descartes' deciever or the Matrix if people liked being in it. I would say that the issue with a true Control, the worse-than-destruction god of William S Burroughs, is that it denies its subjects ability to rearrange Spinoza's God's innards. I don't want to just feel things; I instead want to make the world a certain way and feel things about the whole experience.

That said, video games are neat.

Yeah, but what we’re talking about is constant experience.

If not, there are different problems.

[Hmmm lies she/her]

On 12/9/2025 at 2:04 PM, Hmmm lies said:

I've been an atheist all my life, for a myriad of reasons. (Wasn't raised religious, learned about mythology from an early age) However, I think my agnosticism is far more interesting.

I try and use logical proposals to explain my beliefs. For example, I might make the following argument against religions with an omnipotent God.

A. If an omnipotent God exists, than omnipotence is something that can exist.

B. If omnipotence is something that can exist, than literally anything is possible

C. If anything is possible, then there is a non-zero chance that all religions are false, and misinformation created by a malevolent omnipotent entity

D. If anything is possible, then there is no way that any given religion is, without a doubt, false or true.

E. If anything is possible, then it is possible that any omnipotent entities are not able to be comprehended by humans, and therefore could not be the subject of any existing religions

F. There are infinitely more possibilities than existing religions

G. If there are infinitely more possibilities than existing religions, then it is infinitely more likely that reality is not correctly described by any existing religions.

Huh, this somehow became the post popular post on this thread. Maybe I should try putting things in lettered lists more.

  

59 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

I think that the distinction (dichotomy?) is…

false.

Very false. I think that consciousness foretells a soul, even if it is artificial processes that led to the creation of the soul.

Example. Scripture states that humanity was given the ability to create life. But life is also created in so many other ways around the world, and that is still life. Humanity exercises the will of God, and if humanity creates a clone like this, or if nature does, it’s still intended by God. And so I think it is still alive with a soul.

(Context needed: LDS believe that animals have souls!)

If we accept that

A. Animals have souls

Then it stems to reason that

B. It is the brain which denotes a soul

And since

C. Brains are used for logical processing

D. B and C implies that anything that can logically process something has a soul

E. D implies that a computer would have a soul

F. D doesn't necessarily have any lower bounds on the logic necessary for something to have a soul

G. F implies that anything that receives input and produces output has a soul

H. F implies that, for example, uranium atoms have a soul, as well as nearly every construct in the universe.

 

Maybe that's confusing, and yeah maybe that's not perfect, but what I'm trying to ask is, if animals have souls, because they think, what exactly is "thinking", and what necessarily makes something qualify as 'alive'?

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

1 minute ago, Hmmm lies said:

Huh, this somehow became the post popular post on this thread. Maybe I should try putting things in lettered lists more.

  

If we accept that

A. Animals have souls

Then it stems to reason that

B. It is the brain which denotes a soul

And since

C. Brains are used for logical processing

D. B and C implies that anything that can logically process something has a soul

E. D implies that a computer would have a soul

F. D doesn't necessarily have any lower bounds on the logic necessary for something to have a soul

G. F implies that anything that receives input and produces output has a soul

H. F implies that, for example, uranium atoms have a soul, as well as nearly every construct in the universe.

 

Maybe that's confusing, and yeah maybe that's not perfect, but what I'm trying to ask is, if animals have souls, because they think, what exactly is "thinking", and what necessarily makes something qualify as 'alive'?

(I've actually thought a lot about this before) [I tried to convince an AI it had a soul] {I got it to say that it could, eventually, have one}

Alive, I call the established laws of life. 

I dispute D, F and G, but not E. H is... interesting. Is the atom the thing processing the logic, or the laws of the universe? Then its the universe that applies to that.

I think that there are a few important things that qualify "thinking". I rank these from lowest level to highest level (in the sense of computer processing)

1. Memory. Remember changes, and alter action and intent of action because of these changes. I don't consider most AI to have this, because they dont actively loop input into their database.

2. Rational Decision Making.. Form goals, and execute goals. Act towards what they process to be the best methods.

3. Emotion:. A layer of processing above processing, which takes concsious, subconscious, spelling, and memory and mixes em into one brew, which is then used to change input before it is recieved by main processing.

[NameIess]

12 minutes ago, Hmmm lies said:

Huh, this somehow became the post popular post on this thread. Maybe I should try putting things in lettered lists more.

  

If we accept that

A. Animals have souls

Then it stems to reason that

B. It is the brain which denotes a soul

And since

C. Brains are used for logical processing

D. B and C implies that anything that can logically process something has a soul

E. D implies that a computer would have a soul

F. D doesn't necessarily have any lower bounds on the logic necessary for something to have a soul

G. F implies that anything that receives input and produces output has a soul

H. F implies that, for example, uranium atoms have a soul, as well as nearly every construct in the universe.

 

Maybe that's confusing, and yeah maybe that's not perfect, but what I'm trying to ask is, if animals have souls, because they think, what exactly is "thinking", and what necessarily makes something qualify as 'alive'?

The jump from “brains are used for logical processing” to “anything that can logically process has a soul” is a big one, I think. As is assuming the brain imparts the soul.

@SpiritOfWrath, do LDS believe all life has souls? Including single-celled organisms, and other very small, unthinking creatures?

[Chaos he/him]

On 1/21/2026 at 8:53 PM, Frustration said:

So I have a question for any atheists out there:

 

What are your philosophies? I've personally always taken religion as the necessary answer: to why we live, why we want to be good people, for our desire to continue living.

 

I've tried on a number of occasion and I actually cannot find any philosophy I find to be both compatible with atheism and internally consistent other than Nihilism.

Some have tried explaining it with love or other feelings, but without a soul all emotions are is just a concentration of hormones at a particular point in space-time.

It's a thought process that leads me to... dark places I don't like. 

I'll take a stab at these.

I think a desire to continue living necessarily cannot have religion as the core answer to this. My cats (as far as we know) doesn't have religion, and they sure live. Same with basically any animal, plant, fungi, or bacteria. I feel like evolution has basically hard-coded this, because anything that did not have that wouldn't proliferate. It is important to not anthropromorphize things like bacteria, per se, but basically everything living would be thrilled to use resources and proliferate. 

As for desire to be good people, by observing primates, we see complicated social structures. We have seen proto-morality, where apes who break social norms are punished and ostracized. It's extremely cool! So I think the answer is pretty obvious: for a social species, social cohesion is really good for the group's survival. Groups and families can work together with child-raising and all sorts of other things. Social cohesion was selected for, and those groups survived and proliferated. In humans, I think we can see very a deep bias to one's own "tribe", which can mean a whole lot of things, but to me it seems really clear how that would be useful tens of thousands of years ago to keep your group alive, and now we see things where we will just inherently trust people of our own group instead of people who aren't of your own group. We're really tribal, and that feels incredibly natural to me. 

I guess what I'm saying is, though I can understand the desire for there to be some philosophical reason for this, does there have to be an answer that is satisfying for us? Evolution provides a pretty compelling reason that can generalize beyond our own species. And I don't know, we don't know what is going on in other apes, maybe they have religion and beliefs, but it's certainly nothing humans currently have. 

So, I don't know. This may not actually have an answer that is philosophically or emotionally satisfying. Lots of things in the universe are like that. It's frustrating that, biologically, there is no real definition of "species" (there are lots of concepts, but all fail in different scenarios). That sucks! We humans love to put things in boxes, but why must the world? The quantum world is incredibly weird, not matching our intuitions at all. It's weird, and I don't think anyone is truly comfortable with it. Nature just does stuff and doesn't really care for our desires and cognition. The universe is unfathomably vast, with trillions of galaxies, which is just... hard for anyone to conceive. 

I guess my ultimate thought is, there doesn't have to be an answer to this, particularly one that is comfortable. It may in fact be correct God does not exist, it may be correct God exists, and it's possible a lot of other possibilities are true, too, and regardless of what said truth is, that will be uncomfortable to people. We want the universe to make sense and be coherent, and we are very good at creating a worldview that forces things to be coherent.

Of course, your question is a good one, because you are trying to make sense of a very different perspective. That's awesome! Just for some context, for me, I have never seen or felt anything supernatural. I see nothing that demonstrates anything supernatural, particularly a deity, nor anything that even suggests that such a deity is even possible. Holy books feel very human-created, ways for people to make sense of the world, rather than divinely inspired. It is perfectly fine for people to disagree; perhaps I'd disagree as well if I had any spiritual experience, but I haven't. So to me, since so many magical explanations have ultimately not panned out, I certainly cannot assume something like a soul exists. I am not a neuroscientist, but neuroscientists certainly do not say there is evidence for a soul, or anything beyond our brains. In fact, there are reasons to believe that your brain has decided to make an action before we are even conscious we made a choice. Wild! I see humans as exceedingly complex machines, but they are ultimately solely governed by molecules. I take antidepressants and I feel extraordinarily different on them, and this is purely a chemical process. I don't even see how a soul could, mechanistically, fit in any of it. There are cases where people get brain injuries and they have radical personality shifts. If there's some extra soul juice in here, I don't understand how it correlates so perfectly with the physical meat that is up in our heads. That's just my perspective, however. I could be wrong.

So the question is more, "Without theism, how do you... keep going on?" Obviously, not a scientific question, so none of that earlier stuff really matters.

Even though I do truly believe that we are biological machines, I'm still here, I still need to function in the world. I still love my wife. So what do I believe philosophically? I don't think there is any inherent meaning in anything. We invent meaning ourselves, and that's awesome! We can treat people well, we can find our own passions, our own loves, our own dreams. Our family still cares about us now, and we care about them and our friend. I get to find my true passion of writing fantasy novels, and that makes me so fulfilled. (Truly, days I don't make progress, I am not doing well.) But philosophically, I don't think there's like... deep down a huge justification, per se. I think everyone has hopes and dreams and creates meaning that is important to them regardless of their beliefs. People create their own meaning every day. I take a walk with my walk and I'm like, "Wow, that was a really great conversation, this was really nice." 

I at least don't need any authority or tradition to provide such meaning. I can just decide that human life has value. Together, as a society, we can determine that life does has value, and act in accordance to make sure people don't starve, and that species don't go extinct. We are part of an unbroken chain of life that goes back over three billion years, which is a huge proportion of the age of the universe (13.8 billion years ago). Our decisions will have an impact, even if one doesn't have kids, with the friends we have, the smiles we make, and what we do. It could have an effect, however slight, for millions and billions of years to come.

But... eventually, there will be a time where there will be no one alive who remembers you specifically. That is true. It is an uncomfortable, dark idea. On an even wider scale, the sun will eventually eat up the Earth, and all our descendants will be dead. (Space travel not withstanding.) The universe doesn't care about us, but we get to create meaning right here, right now. I find that very empowering, because we are the one kind of being that can create meaning. We can make art and weep over it. Or even something as simple as a song that is deeply personal or meaningful. 

Theism, to me, doesn't add anything to that, though if it does provide meaning for you, awesome!

On morality, it seems to me that no one has a strong case for objective morality. Morality is socially contingent. In the times of the Hebrew Bible, slavery was all over the place (including within good God-fearing people), men having multiple wives was normative, women were considered property. I imagine very few people nowadays would feel that way. But we also see different cultures having different values and morals. Not every culture even thinks good and evil is a relevant dichotomy. I think culture and morality does change over time. We see this in recent memory, with many more people supporting gay marriage than in the 90s and the 2000s. I don't think religion actually makes morality objective either, but rather, it's just whatever God decides it to be--so really, it's subjective to his whims.

In practice, lots of people claim to have special divine revelation and a special relationship with their god, and yet that never seems to match up with others saying the same thing. I think that says more about how this is more sourced from our intuitions that we feel deep down than something beyond space and time. However anyone wants to rationalize it, I just don't want to murder people, and I very much do not believe in God. That's my moral intuitions.

So what is my morality? Don't be a dick. Be nice to people. It's sourced from empathy. That's it. Even with us being biological machines (in my opinion, of course), we do have feelings and empathy. It doesn't feel great to hurt others. It's not a complicated moral philosophy, but it's simple and workable for day to day life. Regardless of any divinity or supernatural entity or truth, it will really hurt when those I love die, or when I die, it will really hurt the people who love me. I do think that is ultimately biologically encoded (like everything), but it's still real.

I can understand if people are coming from a religious framework that this sounds very scary, though. 

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

7 minutes ago, NameIess said:

The jump from “brains are used for logical processing” to “anything that can logically process has a soul” is a big one, I think. As is assuming the brain imparts the soul.

@SpiritOfWrath, do LDS believe all life has souls? Including single-celled organisms, and other very small, unthinking creatures?

We believe that sapient life does, I think.

Imma go read what chaos just said.

it was pretty cool

Edited January 25 by SpiritOfWrath

[Hmmm lies she/her]

5 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

(I've actually thought a lot about this before) [I tried to convince an AI it had a soul] {I got it to say that it could, eventually, have one}

Alive, I call the established laws of life. 

I dispute D, F and G, but not E. H is... interesting. Is the atom the thing processing the logic, or the laws of the universe? Then its the universe that applies to that.

I think that there are a few important things that qualify "thinking". I rank these from lowest level to highest level (in the sense of computer processing)

1. Memory. Remember changes, and alter action and intent of action because of these changes. I don't consider most AI to have this, because they dont actively loop input into their database.

2. Rational Decision Making.. Form goals, and execute goals. Act towards what they process to be the best methods.

3. Emotion:. A layer of processing above processing, which takes concsious, subconscious, spelling, and memory and mixes em into one brew, which is then used to change input before it is recieved by main processing.

I'm something of an absolutist. I genuinely don't see why emotion is anything other than hypercomplex electrical signals in the brain. And so, I ask why? Why would one logical processing unit be alive, but not another one? Is it complexity? Then where's the cutoff point? And, I don't think this is really the case. Take a hypothetical human. This human is is blind, deaf, cannot smell, and cannot taste. They are also fully paralyzed. This human has no memory, cannot reason, and can only experience feeling through temperature. The only thing, and I mean the only thing in this person's mind is is the temperature of their body. Is this person alive? I feel that many people would say yes, but then others would argue that such a person is not truly a person, if they can't think. And then that's the question: Where's the cutoff point?

Also, I feel like if we have memory, rationality, and emotion as three ascending steps of sentience, that implies hypothetical greater steps, above us that only more complex constructs could have. Would they be 'more alive' than us?

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

1 minute ago, Hmmm lies said:

I'm something of an absolutist. I genuinely don't see why emotion is anything other than hypercomplex electrical signals in the brain. And so, I ask why? Why would one logical processing unit be alive, but not another one? Is it complexity? Then where's the cutoff point? And, I don't think this is really the case. Take a hypothetical human. This human is is blind, deaf, cannot smell, and cannot taste. They are also fully paralyzed. This human has no memory, cannot reason, and can only experience feeling through temperature. The only thing, and I mean the only thing in this person's mind is is the temperature of their body. Is this person alive? I feel that many people would say yes, but then others would argue that such a person is not truly a person, if they can't think. And then that's the question: Where's the cutoff point?

Also, I feel like if we have memory, rationality, and emotion as three ascending steps of sentience, that implies hypothetical greater steps, above us that only more complex constructs could have. Would they be 'more alive' than us?

It's less about being alive, and more about interacting with the world and making choices. Choices aren't important if emotion doesn't cloud them.

I think you killed the person. The body/brain might... "function", but you killed the person. They no longer make the cut. (Based on the three things I listed.)

Not ascending steps of sentience, just formatted in the way... like 1. is machine language, 2. is assembly, 3. is code, 4. is python, yk?

Hm. I don't think it implies that. They wouldn't be more alive than us. They would have more to deal with, more struggle. Based on the actual nature ranking, going up would be mental health issues.

[Hmmm lies she/her]

1 minute ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

It's less about being alive, and more about interacting with the world and making choices. Choices aren't important if emotion doesn't cloud them.

I think you killed the person. The body/brain might... "function", but you killed the person. They no longer make the cut. (Based on the three things I listed.)

Not ascending steps of sentience, just formatted in the way... like 1. is machine language, 2. is assembly, 3. is code, 4. is python, yk?

Hm. I don't think it implies that. They wouldn't be more alive than us. They would have more to deal with, more struggle. Based on the actual nature ranking, going up would be mental health issues.

Paragraph 1

What is a choice though? Here's a thought experiment I like to use. Say a girl goes to get ice cream. Since her favorite flavor is vanilla, she gets vanilla.

Then, the exact same situation happens. She no longer has memory of the previous event, the same flavors are available for the same prices, and everything else is the same as it was before. She is going to get vanilla. Because, in these exact circumstances, this girl will always purchase vanilla ice cream. Even if you believe in free will, that doesn't change the fact that given specific input, a human will always give the same output. i.e. a computer.

Paragraph 2

Yeah I mostly agree.

Paragraph 3

What? I'm not sure what you're saying. One could create something higher than python in this scenario.

Paragraph 4

In this scenario, wouldn't a hypothetical organism that can remember and use rationality consider emotions to be a mental illness? More to deal with, and more to struggle. Yet, we consider emotions as a fundamental part of life, and I suspect my hypothetical 'higher beings' would too.

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

3 minutes ago, Hmmm lies said:

Paragraph 1

What is a choice though? Here's a thought experiment I like to use. Say a girl goes to get ice cream. Since her favorite flavor is vanilla, she gets vanilla.

Then, the exact same situation happens. She no longer has memory of the previous event, the same flavors are available for the same prices, and everything else is the same as it was before. She is going to get vanilla. Because, in these exact circumstances, this girl will always purchase vanilla ice cream. Even if you believe in free will, that doesn't change the fact that given specific input, a human will always give the same output. i.e. a computer.

Paragraph 2

Yeah I mostly agree.

Paragraph 3

What? I'm not sure what you're saying. One could create something higher than python in this scenario.

Paragraph 4

In this scenario, wouldn't a hypothetical organism that can remember and use rationality consider emotions to be a mental illness? More to deal with, and more to struggle. Yet, we consider emotions as a fundamental part of life, and I suspect my hypothetical 'higher beings' would too.

1. Hhhhmmm. Thats fallacy. The fact that humanity has the capacity to make simple choices, doesn't mean they are limited to simple choice. Computers are.

2. Cool!

3. I was just stating that it wasn't an order of good better best it was kinda just a way I liked to think of it.

4. ....wait I'm not sure what you're arguing. Yeah emotions are cool! They can be good, but they can be really bad too. It's a trade-off.

[Frustration]

19 minutes ago, NameIess said:

The jump from “brains are used for logical processing” to “anything that can logically process has a soul” is a big one, I think. As is assuming the brain imparts the soul.

@SpiritOfWrath, do LDS believe all life has souls? Including single-celled organisms, and other very small, unthinking creatures?

So we believe all living things(including plants) have souls of some kind, though they are not in the same category as human souls. The exact relationship between them and states of judgement has not yet been revealed, but we know there will be a resurrection for animals in some way, possibly plants as well though that likewise has not been revealed.

Spoiler

Moses 3:9

And out of the ground made I, the Lord God, to grow every tree, naturally, that is pleasant to the sight of man; and man could behold it. And it became also a living soul. For it was spiritual in the day that I created it; for it remaineth in the sphere in which I, God, created it, yea, even all things which I prepared for the use of man; and man saw that it was good for food. And I, the Lord God, planted the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

That's not a hugely pivotal point of doctrine so we don't talk about it all that much.

23 minutes ago, Chaos said:

As for desire to be good people, by observing primates, we see complicated social structures. We have seen proto-morality, where apes who break social norms are punished and ostracized. It's extremely cool! So I think the answer is pretty obvious: for a social species, social cohesion is really good for the group's survival. Groups and families can work together with child-raising and all sorts of other things. Social cohesion was selected for, and those groups survived and proliferated. In humans, I think we can see very a deep bias to one's own "tribe", which can mean a whole lot of things, but to me it seems really clear how that would be useful tens of thousands of years ago to keep your group alive, and now we see things where we will just inherently trust people of our own group instead of people who aren't of your own group. We're really tribal, and that feels incredibly natural to me. 

I guess what I'm saying is, though I can understand the desire for there to be some philosophical reason for this, does there have to be an answer that is satisfying for us? Evolution provides a pretty compelling reason that can generalize beyond our own species. And I don't know, we don't know what is going on in other apes, maybe they have religion and beliefs, but it's certainly nothing humans currently have. 

When you mentioned ape cultures one of the first things that came to mind was a study that caught my attention recently about animal spirituality.

Long story short they observed apes and elephants preforming actions that aligned with early spiritual practices, including ritual dance and mourning. Which as a religious individual is FACINATING to me, and honestly has me reevaluating apes in light of my above comments to NameIess.

Now I would agree they do show far less formalized practices, much closer to spiritualism than an actual religion, which doesn't prove anything as you can just as easily be said to be an odd evolutionary trait as it could be said to be veneration of a creator; I just thought I'd bring it up because I thought it was interesting.

31 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Of course, your question is a good one, because you are trying to make sense of a very different perspective. That's awesome! Just for some context, for me, I have never seen or felt anything supernatural. I see nothing that demonstrates anything supernatural, particularly a deity, nor anything that even suggests that such a deity is even possible. Holy books feel very human-created, ways for people to make sense of the world, rather than divinely inspired. It is perfectly fine for people to disagree; perhaps I'd disagree as well if I had any spiritual experience, but I haven't. So to me, since so many magical explanations have ultimately not panned out, I certainly cannot assume something like a soul exists. I am not a neuroscientist, but neuroscientists certainly do not say there is evidence for a soul, or anything beyond our brains. In fact, there are reasons to believe that your brain has decided to make an action before we are even conscious we made a choice. Wild! I see humans as exceedingly complex machines, but they are ultimately solely governed by molecules. I take antidepressants and I feel extraordinarily different on them, and this is purely a chemical process. I don't even see how a soul could, mechanistically, fit in any of it. There are cases where people get brain injuries and they have radical personality shifts. If there's some extra soul juice in here, I don't understand how it correlates so perfectly with the physical meat that is up in our heads. That's just my perspective, however. I could be wrong.

I'd like to thank you for sharing your perspective, it's not one I get a lot of exposure too, and I think it's helpful to try and understand others.

I'm actually going to do something rather unorthodox and agree with you on Holy Books, or well mostly. While I believe the messages and principles they teach, I believe that if God were to send an Angel down to rewrite the bible as it was when it was given to the prophets that it would be substantially different. I think a lot of it is men and their own reasonings. I think that over time a lot of the messages we can receive from them or from revelation comes in large part based off of our personal efforts to look into them and our own desires.

Does that have elements of confirmation bias in it? Yes, and I won't deny it. We get a lot of what we expect out of it. I also think that's why having a prophet is so important as someone to be a spokesmen for God and to guide us in his path.

49 minutes ago, Chaos said:

So the question is more, "Without theism, how do you... keep going on?" Obviously, not a scientific question, so none of that earlier stuff really matters. 

That's probably a more elegant way of putting the question and a more honest one. I do find the idea of a world without an eternity to be in essence, hopeless.

True we can do great things in the here and now, but we have an enemy, and one we can't beat: Time. People forget, monuments are worn down, and eventually according to current projections: the entire universe slips into that sweet goodnight never to return. I honestly can't look at that and say life is worth it.

Maybe that makes you stronger, at the very least it makes you more optimistic. Perhaps that's me just being scared and creating a more comforting lie to avoid an ugly truth, but I don't believe that. I can't hear a child's laughter, or see the galaxies we're photographing and believe it's all for naught.

Spoiler

 

D&C 88

45 The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God.

46 Unto what shall I liken these kingdoms, that ye may understand?

47 Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.

Dang now you've got me waxing poetic.

Guess I might as well run with it while I have it.

I'd like to thank everyone who responded, your insights were definitely a new perspective. While I can't say I agree I do think I can learn. You've all talked in one way or another about the small moments, and making them count. It's definitely something I could do better at, and I want to thank you for that reminder.

[Chaos he/him]

You are very welcome! I can definitely understand the appeal of looking at the vastness and joy and everything and thinking there must be some reason for it all. That's totally fair. I just think most things do not have metaphysical "meaning" attached. If you and your friend got in a car accident with a drunk driver, it's easy to ask, "Why me?" And people are searching for that deeper why. Whereas I'd just say, yeah, that person drove drunk and hit you. That's it.

I'm a bit busy this week (class is beginning Monday) so I may not respond nearly as much as you had, but I did want to comment on this one: 

Spoiler

I do find the idea of a world without an eternity to be in essence, hopeless

This is so fascinating, because I hate the idea of an afterlife. Like, honestly, it does not give any comfort to me at all. I do want things to end. 

I think life's finiteness is what gives it meaning. We have a limited amount of time to make the world a better place. If this is some cosmic... testing ground before the real eternal life after, that honestly feels like some sadistic, unnecessary game.

(If God knows everything, he knows who will join him or not. So he will know who goes wherever in the afterlife. Why do we have this awful part? Why create people who don't go to Heaven? I realize the LDS conception of Heaven is not the same as the standard Christian one but the details escape me, but regardless, I don't really see why God would do... any of this. So he's just... Sending people to hell just because. If Heaven is perfect and without sin, then that kind of takes the wind out of the idea that there even has to be a world with sin at all. And if you're in Heaven and it's perfect and sinless, does that mean free will is gone? Sounds creepy.)

An afterlife also provides perverse incentives for this life. It means people will be far more concerned with the supposed next life than actually trying to fix things and make the planet better. Who cares about staving off the end of the world if you'll see them all again in a perfect place later? It's alarming that there are more than a few believers who would be excited about the end times for this reason.

I guess I've struggled with suicide enough that I find eternity to be a true punishment, regardless of how "good" it's supposed to be. I'm doing good now, and certainly don't intend to pass anytime soon, but no thanks, afterlife. I've watched too many scifi or fantasy stories about immortals and it's always bad. 

This would be different if there was an eventual option to cease existing, however. I'd likely change my mind and exist for a few hundred thousand years or whatever. But a trillion? Quadrillion years? Ooof. The calculus teacher in me is like, "Infinity would be a very, very long time!"

But then, I have zero evidence of an afterlife that can be demonstrated, so I do not worry about it in the slightest.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

8 hours ago, Chaos said:

it seems to me that no one has a strong case for objective morality. Morality is socially contingent.

Just a small thing here, since this is passing on an assumption that I dislike:

Social constructs are objects. Social mores are objects. Laws are objects. Society and its processes are able to be understood as objects of the senses.

The real pain about morality is that it, like aesthetics, feels like it can be made universal. And then this leads into a sort of meta-morality points: Ought there be a universal moral law? Can we express an idea well enough that it could actually be universal? I am doubtful of both of these, but I still think Kant's method is the best way to even approach the matter; anyone who presumes a God or god or natural source for morality is just postponing the problem on to the question of if that source could or should make a universal morality.

9 hours ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Yeah, but what we’re talking about is constant experience.

If not, there are different problems.

Like what? I honestly think the actual problem is that we are getting dangerously close to living inside unstable experience machines already. Our modern world is full of simulated experiences that press on the various senses and manipulate our desires. I am amazed more people don't think sugary drinks are somehow the devil's work, the advertising for them is some of the worst things human expression can be used for.

[Chaos he/him]

13 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Social constructs are objects. Social mores are objects. Laws are objects. Society and its processes are able to be understood as objects of the senses.

What is the assumption that I passed along?

I mean, I don't know. I wouldn't classify them as objects but maybe I am using the word object too literally. I certainly do not have a philosophy background.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

18 minutes ago, Chaos said:

What is the assumption that I passed along?

This notion that the social is not objective. I have seen people balk at the idea of social sciences because they can have no object of study. I think this even leads people to think in terms of atomic individuals. Not the hypothetically ensouled uranium atoms that @Hmmm lies has conceptualized (How does such a being experience being annihilated in a nuclear bomb? Does it?), but [politics].

And since we are doing dialogue now, how do you feel about my responses here https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/107588-general-religious-discussion-thread/page/9/#findComment-2027365 ? 

 

[Chaos he/him]

2 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

This notion that the social is not objective. I have seen people balk at the idea of social sciences because they can have no object of study. I think this even leads people to think in terms of atomic individuals. Not the hypothetically ensouled uranium atoms that @Hmmm lies has conceptualized (How does such a being experience being annihilated in a nuclear bomb? Does it?), but [politics].

And since we are doing dialogue now, how do you feel about my responses here https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/107588-general-religious-discussion-thread/page/9/#findComment-2027365 ? 

 

I am not using your definition of object in this context. I am simply using the colloquial and common notion of objective morality (that there is a universal standard for morals) vs. subjective (ultimately, we decide what morality is). All I'm saying is this stuff is context-dependent and culturally-dependent. There are limits to how culturally-dependent it can be (we are humans after all). But of course social sciences study actual things. 

I will be honest I have no idea what you even mean by "atomic individual". I am pretty confused as to where you're going there, hence why I am merely describing my intent further. Indeed I am using the lens of discussing morality in more a way I hear many Christians use it, but that's the context of the conversation, so that feels appropriate.

As for your responses, they seem fine. I'm afraid I don't have a lot to say on them?