I've come to believe that perhaps the biggest problem in the human world is what I call "meme-based" or "meme-grounded" reasoning.
Meme-grounded reasoning is basically doxastic voluntarism—you hear ideas, you like them, so you choose to believe them. I could summarize it as "axiomatic reasoning in which the axioms are numerous and chosen according to taste."
Like Carlos here, a Christian who thinks reason is overrated—not enough metanoia (spiritual conversion) & thymos (heart). "High performers fly by [spiritual] intuition," he says. What does this mean? I was only a Christian for over 20 years, so, damned if I know.
I think this is unavoidable. Some axioms are necessary, and axioms cannot prove themselves.
So why isn't "the spirit guides" a good axiom?
Simple—it can lead anywhere. Different "spiritual expeiences" lead to different destinations, often incompatible ones. For one it leads to Buddhism, another Protestantism, another Mormonism, another Islam, another ISIS, another "agnostic but spiritual".
How then should we choose our axioms? Well, by looking for axioms that produce the exact opposite of this effect—convergence rather than divergence. The correct axioms are those that would lead two unrelated species on two different planets (or at the very least least, isolated tribes on different continents) to believe similar things. These are axioms that don't tell you where to go, but still lead people to the same place.
Interestingly, this is what Mormonism indirectly taught, for it is their belief that a group of Native Americans did believe in Jesus Christ and the Christian God, and that Christ himself appeared among the Nephites of Central America following the death of Jesus. The Native Americans *used* to be Christian; they simply forgot.
I left the church specifically because I came to believe that this and other teachings were in fact untrue. But part of my change in beliefs was the long-term observation over literally decades that I, unlike my peers, was unable to have "spiritual experiences" linked to the Holy Ghost like my peers did, despite countless attempts. For decades I assumed there was something wrong with me which caused God not to desire to communicate with me. [edit: another key element was the possibility that God might be evil, as explained brilliantly by NonStampCollector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt66kbYmXXk] The truth turned out to be as simple as it was horrifying: God wasn't real.
Awful things can be true, but humans' default meme-grounded reasoning behavior leads people away from believing awful-but-true things unless the awfulness is disguised or masked somehow. For example, one could be an atheist if, like the New Atheists, their atheism seems grounded in a distaste for religion. "Atheism might be awful, sure, but have you seen how much worse *religion* is?" I say it would be better to ignore religion entirely, and just follow the evidence where it leads.
I've come to believe that perhaps the biggest problem in the human world is what I call "meme-based" or "meme-grounded" reasoning.
Meme-grounded reasoning is basically doxastic voluntarism—you hear ideas, you like them, so you choose to believe them. I could summarize it as "axiomatic reasoning in which the axioms are numerous and chosen according to taste."
Like Carlos here, a Christian who thinks reason is overrated—not enough metanoia (spiritual conversion) & thymos (heart). "High performers fly by [spiritual] intuition," he says. What does this mean? I was only a Christian for over 20 years, so, damned if I know.
I think this is unavoidable. Some axioms are necessary, and axioms cannot prove themselves.
So why isn't "the spirit guides" a good axiom?
Simple—it can lead anywhere. Different "spiritual expeiences" lead to different destinations, often incompatible ones. For one it leads to Buddhism, another Protestantism, another Mormonism, another Islam, another ISIS, another "agnostic but spiritual".
How then should we choose our axioms? Well, by looking for axioms that produce the exact opposite of this effect—convergence rather than divergence. The correct axioms are those that would lead two unrelated species on two different planets (or at the very least least, isolated tribes on different continents) to believe similar things. These are axioms that don't tell you where to go, but still lead people to the same place.
Interestingly, this is what Mormonism indirectly taught, for it is their belief that a group of Native Americans did believe in Jesus Christ and the Christian God, and that Christ himself appeared among the Nephites of Central America following the death of Jesus. The Native Americans *used* to be Christian; they simply forgot.
I left the church specifically because I came to believe that this and other teachings were in fact untrue. But part of my change in beliefs was the long-term observation over literally decades that I, unlike my peers, was unable to have "spiritual experiences" linked to the Holy Ghost like my peers did, despite countless attempts. For decades I assumed there was something wrong with me which caused God not to desire to communicate with me. [edit: another key element was the possibility that God might be evil, as explained brilliantly by NonStampCollector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt66kbYmXXk] The truth turned out to be as simple as it was horrifying: God wasn't real.
Awful things can be true, but humans' default meme-grounded reasoning behavior leads people away from believing awful-but-true things unless the awfulness is disguised or masked somehow. For example, one could be an atheist if, like the New Atheists, their atheism seems grounded in a distaste for religion. "Atheism might be awful, sure, but have you seen how much worse *religion* is?" I say it would be better to ignore religion entirely, and just follow the evidence where it leads.