Syntheistic philosophy

[Unbeatable]

Getting busy dying makes more sense to me.

You sound depressed? Freud had a thing about our innate striving toward our own obliteration. It never had much purchase with me. But maybe with you?

I prefer modern psychology.

 

[Unbeatable]

Here´s the latest article on Syntheist.org of relevance to this thread.

http://syntheism.org/index.php/2015/04/what-god-would-you-like-to-have-today-sirmadam/

How do you do this? I need more detailed instructions. I finish this article about "using" imaginary gods, but I don't know what specific actions are involved in "using". e.g. the writer talks about how they must treat their gods as sacred. I don't understand what precisely that entails.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here´s the latest article on Syntheist.org of relevance to this thread.

http://syntheism.org/index.php/2015/04/what-god-would-you-like-to-have-today-sirmadam/

How do you do this? I need more detailed instructions. I finish this article about "using" imaginary gods, but I don't know what specific actions are involved in "using". e.g. the writer talks about how they must treat their gods as sacred. I don't understand what precisely that entails.

Something that is sacred, is something really important to you. It´s a value that trumps all other values. It´s really as simple as that. The more you psychologically re-enforce what is sacred the more emotional satisfaction you´ll get from respecting it. The more you re-enforce the sacred the more useful of a mental tool it is. It´s really not harder than that. Just pick something and start treating it as sacred. If you´re finding it hard to stick you can design punishments and rewards for yourself to add to the re-enforcement. Like going out to buy a nice coffee from a café rather than that nasty machine shit from the office.

A very common use of the sacred in religion is treating various places as sacred, like temples or holy areas. They load up these places with the emotions of calmness and introspection. So whenever people enter these places they immediately relax, and the stresses of life wash off. Their temples are typically designed to specifically evoke these emotions. And everybody needs to relax now and again. Especially today when most people chose to, instead of relaxing, watch television or play computer games. Television and games only acts to distract the consumer, to make them forget they´re stressed. But doesn´t actually help them deal with the stress. So it just accumulates.

This has been one of the greatest realizations for me when joining Syntheism and started treating religions with respect, deconstructing them and figuring out why they´re doing all the shit they´re doing. I´m many many times better at dealing with stress now, than I was just a few years ago. My whole body language and posture is better. I´m a much better listener. All this from regularly taking some time each week to do nothing but sit and think about my day/week. All religions promote some sort of behaviour like this. I´ve found that religions are suprisingly functional.

 

[Unbeatable]

How do you do this? I need more detailed instructions. I finish this article about "using" imaginary gods, but I don't know what specific actions are involved in "using". e.g. the writer talks about how they must treat their gods as sacred. I don't understand what precisely that entails.

Something that is sacred, is something really important to you. It´s a value that trumps all other values. It´s really as simple as that.

I didn't ask for simple. I asked for precise. Simplicity is the opposite of precision. You still haven't elaborated on what it means to "treat" something as sacred. IOW, what actual actions does one engage in? I know what sacred means. I don't know how to "treat" something as sacred.

The more you psychologically re-enforce what is sacred

How? Name the actual behaviors involved, please.

the more emotional satisfaction you´ll get from respecting it. The more you re-enforce the sacred the more useful of a mental tool it is. It´s really not harder than that. Just pick something and start treating it as sacred. If you´re finding it hard to stick you can design punishments and rewards for yourself to add to the re-enforcement. Like going out to buy a nice coffee from a café rather than that nasty machine shit from the office.

What keeps you from cutting out the middle man and just buying the coffee?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Something that is sacred, is something really important to you. It´s a value that trumps all other values. It´s really as simple as that.

I didn't ask for simple. I asked for precise. Simplicity is the opposite of precision. You still haven't elaborated on what it means to "treat" something as sacred. IOW, what actual actions does one engage in? I know what sacred means. I don't know how to "treat" something as sacred.

The point is to force yourself to do things that are in your own best interest, but which requires effort on your end. It could be stuff that you often forget. We all have issues with laziness. That´s just normal. We often forget or can´t be bothered doing stuff, we should but don´t unless there´s some external threat.

An example is treating your own children´s rooms as sacred. To prevent you from just barging in. You want them to feel respected by you. So you put a rule in (that you don´t really need to do) in order to help remind you not to just walk in, and always knock. To re-enforce it you can give yourself rewards and punishments (that only you know of). This was an extremely basic use of sacredness. But this is just to make a point.

here´s another example. If I work from home I need to role-play that I´m actually at work. I have to get up the same time I always do. I have to dress up like normal, and I have a home office that I work from. I never sit in that chair unless I´m working. If I do it any other way, I´m horribly inefficient. I´ve tried. Whether or not you call this sacredness is irrelevant. It´s the same mechanic.

We call something sacred because it´s a handy way to label it. If you say to someone that something is sacred to you, they know that it´s super important to you and that´s it´s no point messing with you about it. We often use the term sacredness quiet flippantly about people treating rituals as sacred, like having a beer after work on Fridays. But it´s not flippantly. This is exactly what sacredness means. It´s a ritual that is super super important to you. That´s all it means.

If we treat the god and the divine as mental tools (as we do in Syntheism) the below definition makes perfect sense.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sacred

The more you psychologically re-enforce what is sacred

How? Name the actual behaviors involved, please.

In my case I haven´t had to re-enforce the behaviour. I just decide that something is sacred, and then I feel good when I do it, or bad when I don´t. For me, using the sacred has proven super simple, and useful and beneficial immediately. I know other´s who have said similar things.
one guy, at a festival, built an altar. Every time he genuflected by it he became happy. I´m guessing there´s a similar mechanic in play when Hare Krishna sing their Hare Krishna Hare Ram song. These are extraordinarly simple psychological tools to employ. It´s almost as simple as just thinking yourself happy. But in this case it actually works. I genuflected at this guys altar just to try it. It works. But I couldn´t shake the feeling of feeling like a complete dork. So I only did it once. But that´s my loss.

the more emotional satisfaction you´ll get from respecting it. The more you re-enforce the sacred the more useful of a mental tool it is. It´s really not harder than that. Just pick something and start treating it as sacred. If you´re finding it hard to stick you can design punishments and rewards for yourself to add to the re-enforcement. Like going out to buy a nice coffee from a café rather than that nasty machine shit from the office.

What keeps you from cutting out the middle man and just buying the coffee?

Because that wouldn´t re-enforce the behaviour. It´d actually have the opposite effect. Remember... there´s nobody here trying to force you to do stuff other than yourself.

 

[Unbeatable]

I didn't ask for simple. I asked for precise. Simplicity is the opposite of precision. You still haven't elaborated on what it means to "treat" something as sacred. IOW, what actual actions does one engage in? I know what sacred means. I don't know how to "treat" something as sacred.

The point is to force yourself to do things that are in your own best interest, but which requires effort on your end. It could be stuff that you often forget. We all have issues with laziness. That´s just normal. We often forget or can´t be bothered doing stuff, we should but don´t unless there´s some external threat.

An example is treating your own children´s rooms as sacred. To prevent you from just barging in. You want them to feel respected by you. So you put a rule in (that you don´t really need to do) in order to help remind you not to just walk in, and always knock. To re-enforce it you can give yourself rewards and punishments (that only you know of). This was an extremely basic use of sacredness. But this is just to make a point.

here´s another example. If I work from home I need to role-play that I´m actually at work. I have to get up the same time I always do. I have to dress up like normal, and I have a home office that I work from. I never sit in that chair unless I´m working. If I do it any other way, I´m horribly inefficient. I´ve tried. Whether or not you call this sacredness is irrelevant. It´s the same mechanic.

We call something sacred because it´s a handy way to label it. If you say to someone that something is sacred to you, they know that it´s super important to you and that´s it´s no point messing with you about it. We often use the term sacredness quiet flippantly about people treating rituals as sacred, like having a beer after work on Fridays. But it´s not flippantly. This is exactly what sacredness means. It´s a ritual that is super super important to you. That´s all it means.

These examples make it clearer, so thanks for that. But I think this is another example of syntheism making a concept more difficult to understand by slapping a spiritual-sounding name on it. I understand that this is part of your overall agenda of cultural appropriation of the superficial trappings of real religion, but it can get in the way of communication.

What you're labeling sacredness is what I would refer to as making a commitment, or making a promise, and sticking to it via self-motivation and self-discipline. This isn't something everybody can do, and it isn't simple. It concerns me that you aren't aware of this. When I say that self-motivation and self-discipline aren't simple, I mean that they are multi-step processes. They are skills, like riding a bicycle, except whereas the steps of riding a bicycle involve physical tasks, self-motivation and self-discipline involve mental tasks. You could call them a combination of metacognition, attention-regulation, emotional intelligence-based skills.

You're probably not aware of the mental tasks in question because you're so well-practiced at them(intentionally or unintentionally-- lots of people practice skills to the point of mastery without actually being aware that they've done so, or that they're even skills at all; this is commonly the case with social skills) that they're well established in your procedural memory, so the unconscious part of your mind handles them for you. You're in the stage of what's referred to as unconscious competence, whereas I'm in the state of conscious incompetence, or the cognitive stage of procedural learning.

In my case I haven´t had to re-enforce the behaviour. I just decide that something is sacred, and then I feel good when I do it, or bad when I don´t. For me, using the sacred has proven super simple, and useful and beneficial immediately. I know other´s who have said similar things.
one guy, at a festival, built an altar. Every time he genuflected by it he became happy. I´m guessing there´s a similar mechanic in play when Hare Krishna sing their Hare Krishna Hare Ram song. These are extraordinarly simple psychological tools to employ. It´s almost as simple as just thinking yourself happy. But in this case it actually works. I genuflected at this guys altar just to try it. It works. But I couldn´t shake the feeling of feeling like a complete dork. So I only did it once. But that´s my loss.

Are you familiar with the concept of akrasia? The reason I'm linking to the LW article is that it has links to discussions which analyze the phenomenon in a bit more depth and on a more personal level than the wikipedia article. I'm wondering how prevalent akrasia has been in your life. As you may guess, my akrasia is pretty much chronic. Practically the only time I do anything in my "best" interest which actually requires effort is when there's an external threat, and often the threat has to be immediate. It's been theorized in these akrasia discussions I've linked to that chronic akrasia is a product of various sorts of internal conflicts that are difficult to resolve. The feeling of feeling like a dork would be a surface-level manifestation of such a conflict. Who knows what other sorts of resistance might be thrown up if you persisted.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The point is to force yourself to do things that are in your own best interest, but which requires effort on your end. It could be stuff that you often forget. We all have issues with laziness. That´s just normal. We often forget or can´t be bothered doing stuff, we should but don´t unless there´s some external threat.

An example is treating your own children´s rooms as sacred. To prevent you from just barging in. You want them to feel respected by you. So you put a rule in (that you don´t really need to do) in order to help remind you not to just walk in, and always knock. To re-enforce it you can give yourself rewards and punishments (that only you know of). This was an extremely basic use of sacredness. But this is just to make a point.

here´s another example. If I work from home I need to role-play that I´m actually at work. I have to get up the same time I always do. I have to dress up like normal, and I have a home office that I work from. I never sit in that chair unless I´m working. If I do it any other way, I´m horribly inefficient. I´ve tried. Whether or not you call this sacredness is irrelevant. It´s the same mechanic.

We call something sacred because it´s a handy way to label it. If you say to someone that something is sacred to you, they know that it´s super important to you and that´s it´s no point messing with you about it. We often use the term sacredness quiet flippantly about people treating rituals as sacred, like having a beer after work on Fridays. But it´s not flippantly. This is exactly what sacredness means. It´s a ritual that is super super important to you. That´s all it means.

These examples make it clearer, so thanks for that. But I think this is another example of syntheism making a concept more difficult to understand by slapping a spiritual-sounding name on it. I understand that this is part of your overall agenda of cultural appropriation of the superficial trappings of real religion, but it can get in the way of communication.'

Well... I don´t see it as cultural appropriation. I see what we´re doing as real religion. That´s why we´re calling it that. I see what we´re doing as on par with any religion. I see it as our religions are filling the exact same function in society. We´ve just knocked the unnecessary bits off. Or made them optional.

What you're labeling sacredness is what I would refer to as making a commitment, or making a promise, and sticking to it via self-motivation and self-discipline. This isn't something everybody can do, and it isn't simple. It concerns me that you aren't aware of this. When I say that self-motivation and self-discipline aren't simple, I mean that they are multi-step processes. They are skills, like riding a bicycle, except whereas the steps of riding a bicycle involve physical tasks, self-motivation and self-discipline involve mental tasks. You could call them a combination of metacognition, attention-regulation, emotional intelligence-based skills.

Again... we´re labelling it what it is IMHO. When I sat down to figure out what practical function sacredness played in religion this was what I saw. The other Syntheists seem to agree with me. I agree that self motivation and discipline can be hard to master. Which is why religions go on and on and on about it.

You're probably not aware of the mental tasks in question because you're so well-practiced at them(intentionally or unintentionally-- lots of people practice skills to the point of mastery without actually being aware that they've done so, or that they're even skills at all; this is commonly the case with social skills) that they're well established in your procedural memory, so the unconscious part of your mind handles them for you. You're in the stage of what's referred to as unconscious competence, whereas I'm in the state of conscious incompetence, or the cognitive stage of procedural learning.


Thanks for the links. I´ve got some reading to do before I reply.

In my case I haven´t had to re-enforce the behaviour. I just decide that something is sacred, and then I feel good when I do it, or bad when I don´t. For me, using the sacred has proven super simple, and useful and beneficial immediately. I know other´s who have said similar things.
one guy, at a festival, built an altar. Every time he genuflected by it he became happy. I´m guessing there´s a similar mechanic in play when Hare Krishna sing their Hare Krishna Hare Ram song. These are extraordinarly simple psychological tools to employ. It´s almost as simple as just thinking yourself happy. But in this case it actually works. I genuflected at this guys altar just to try it. It works. But I couldn´t shake the feeling of feeling like a complete dork. So I only did it once. But that´s my loss.

Are you familiar with the concept of akrasia? The reason I'm linking to the LW article is that it has links to discussions which analyze the phenomenon in a bit more depth and on a more personal level than the wikipedia article. I'm wondering how prevalent akrasia has been in your life. As you may guess, my akrasia is pretty much chronic. Practically the only time I do anything in my "best" interest which actually requires effort is when there's an external threat, and often the threat has to be immediate. It's been theorized in these akrasia discussions I've linked to that chronic akrasia is a product of various sorts of internal conflicts that are difficult to resolve. The feeling of feeling like a dork would be a surface-level manifestation of such a conflict. Who knows what other sorts of resistance might be thrown up if you persisted.

I´ve heard of it. Just never taken the time to read up on it. Thanks for the reminder. I will.