Posted: Jul 16, 2016 9:38 am
Keep It Real wrote:The fact remains that the belief in god/the afterlife is invisible and doesn't actually do anything. The orthopraxic components have real effects.
Real effects on whom? In any crowd, there will be some level-headed folks and some complete ninnies, including in church. You can waste a lot of time searching for a global solution that at first blush looks good in general, but only operates on individuals.
Sure, you can roll the dice, and hope that it works for you, but you will never be able to generalize as you are trying to do.
That's why people shrug and say, "Whatever works for you." Lots of folks waste their entire lives flitting from one proposed solution to another, based on what looks good at the moment. In fact, searching is more important to these folks than finding a solution (so that you can go on and try to solve a different problem), so maybe that's why it looks good to you for the time being. Most ad hoc greedy algorithms are incorrect, but that's only an analogy. The point is that it is myopic to base a general criterion on what looks good to you at the moment - that contradicts itself. If you think it's about ethics and morality, you'll soon discover yourself surrounded by folks who don't look at it that way, regardless of belief (or not) in supernatural shit.
Keep It Real wrote:If an ailment could be cured through self-help no placebo would be recommended...
You might recall how you started that other thread. If you like ritual, you can just invent your own, but that depends on having a little spark of creativity. You're searching, but you have no algorithm, so you're basically fucked. Maybe it's time to pick a different problem.