Belief

[andrewducker]

There's a terrible article in the Guardian on belief here.  I was vaguely incensed by various bits of it, but particularly by

If we truly believed that life was meaningless, we would have no reason to get up in the morning - ultimately, the most rational thing to do would be to jump over the edge of a cliff.

I've seen this kind of thinking before.  And never an explanation of _why_ jumping over the edge of a cliff is more rational than going for a long bath, having sex, or saving children from starvation.

The answer is that none of these is inherently rational - all of them are choices, based around our emotions, and just because we don't have a 'reason' it doesn't suddenly make us stop caring about things.  It just means that our emotions are rooted in ourselves, not in some kind of universe-defining primal cause.

On the other hand, it can mean that if what really, truly drives you is TV, beer and Nachos, then that's fine too:

Comments

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

...many secular ideologies, such as Marxism and liberal humanism, are essentially theological narratives in structure and function, though arguably less coherent...

Apart from the small but important fact that most organised religions are bast around the concept of the concept of an all powerful "sky bully" serving out heaping piles of contradiction to base our actions upon.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Heh heh. Nicely put. :)

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Apart from the grammar and typos. Too much Java today. Of both kinds.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Didn't even notice them, mate. My brain is totally elsewhere today.