site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3352 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for March 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Choosing a church based on the music is way more sensible than choosing based on their opinions on gayness. You should go to a church that makes you feel good. If you're choosing a church based on their politics, then politics is your god.

Religion is not about feeling good - particularly Christianity!

I wanted to go to church I could agree with theologically. Both music and opinion on gayness are derivative aspects of the fundamentals. That's how I nearly became a Mennonite before I realized I had to expand my search beyond Christianity.

What did you find?

That I reject revelation as a source of divine knowledge on one hand, and that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are totally insufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being on the other. The existence or non-existence of a Supreme Being that has or hasn't created the universe isn't proven or disproven by any faiths and is ultimately irrelevant. It's the believers you have to worry about, since they can and do act according to their beliefs.

Therefore, I don't really care about organized religion beyond avoiding or mitigating its impact on my life. Theoretically, if someone came up to me and explained that if you earnestly believe in some silly things start with axioms A, B, C you end up with a net positive balance of utilons/hedons/whateverons, I would be hard pressed to explain why I won't do this. Waaait a minute, have I just ended up with the plot of South Park S07E12 "All About the Mormons?"?

That I reject revelation as a source of divine knowledge on one hand, and that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are totally insufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being on the other

Wouldn't a philosophy like Buddhism or Stoicism be compatible with this?

The whole 'reject organized religion' doesn't mean you have to reject all prior knowledge and thoughts on how to live a good life.

Buddhism as practices by Buddhists in Russia is very much an organized religion, but I guess Americanized Buddhism qualifies as a philosophy.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats