Hey, Brendan, all this is overly pessimistic. A whole civilization, like a forest, is both dying and renewing itself, as it must. Because our individual view of "the forest" is limited, it's difficult to diagnose the state of its health with any certainty. — BC

It is easy to diagnose that our civilization is extremely sick. Births are below replacement level. Real GDP per capita peaked in roughly the year 2000.* The personal savings rate right now is less than half of what it was in the 1960s and 1970s (meaning probably that people are stretched financially). Anti-depressant use is at an all-time high. Suicide rates have mostly gone straight up for as long as I've been alive. And these are only external things that are easy to measure.

*I calculated this once by using Big Mac inflation, which I favor because it doesn't have a political agenda. Also, I once actually looked up average prices of wheat, meat, oil, houses, education, cars, etc, and made a basket of goods (there were less than a dozen items). By both measures, I got that the government underreported inflation by about 1% per year from 1980 to 2020, meaning the average consumer inflation rate was about 3% per year rather than the claimed 2%. You can also just compare things like median housing price to median income to see that Americans are poorer than they used to be. Food and other consumable items are down in price compared to incomes, but they are more than made up for by the increased cost of assets like housing, as well as healthcare and education.

It isn't the case that people have stopped reading--not even remotely. Granted, reading pulp romantic material isn't the same as reading The Great Books. But the masses have never spent a lot of time reading the great books -- they were too busy producing the economic surpluses the elites need to have the leisure to write and read great books. — BC

If you google, "reading is down" you'll see references to poll after poll that say that Americans read less than they used to.

You can also find studies like these discussing the quality of public discourse:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107848118
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2012/05/21/congressional-speech/

According to a publishing site as of 2023, the global book publishing revenue stood at $129 billion, jumping from $122 billion in 2018. The global book publishing market will be valued at $143.65 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $163.89 billion by 2030. There are more books available to elites and book buying public alike than ever before. — BC

Counting the number of dollars spent on books is a bad measure of book reading because of inflation. Just assuming that your stats are true, that could be misleading because Western civilization does not encompass the whole globe. Also, even if it were talking only about Western civilization, the US monetary supply has been inflating by about 6% per year for decades. If you take the $122 billion number from 2018 and extrapolate 6% inflation for 12 years (to 2030), then you get that to stay the same in real purchasing power, people would need to spend $245 billion by 2030 rather than the $163 billion you just mentioned. Some of this is probably due to digital alternative to books, but if you want to be technical, it appears accurate that reading per capita is down. If you use the ~3% that is typical of consumer price inflation instead of the typical rate of monetary inflation, then the number you'd need by 2030 is $174 billion.

WWI? No. WWII? In Germany for oil, certainly, but for everything else as well. Korean War? No. Vietnam War? No? Kuwait and Iraq War? Maybe. It isn't clear what we were fighting for. Afghan War? No. Oil is important -- no doubt about it -- even if it is killing us. — BC

The argument Spengler made was that the mercenary armies would appear after the world wars, so, one could claim that WW1 and WW2 are irrelevant to his claim. I was using oil as the most obvious example of war for monied interests. But clearly we don't have the same view on world history, so I don't know if it would be worth arguing about. Although I suppose if you say that it isn't clear what we were fighting for, then one could argue that those wars were not in the national interests, which would be consistent with what Spengler was arguing. At any rate, it is objective that the size of the armies has objectively reduced despite an increase in the total amount of people and total amount of wealth.

I googled for "Spengler Forum" today and found some posts which said ignorant things about Spengler, so I became angry and wanted to make a post. They said that "The Decline of the West" is unfalsifiable and that it is like astrology. I will argue that those people don't understand what they are talking about, because many of his claims are falsifiable.

I read some of the posts here, and it seems to me that the people on this thread are giving him the proper respect. But I hope that talking about his predictions will contribute something to the conversation.

When I first read the Decline of the West, I wrote down everything that seemed to me to be a prediction. I don't think I have my notes anymore, but I remember I had ~30 predictions at the end, and only 2 of them seemed to have turned out false.

The only false prediction I can remember is that he said that Russians would never go to space. I think there was another, but I can't remember it.

Here are predictions he made that seemed to me to definitely be true:

• There would continue to be world wars until the West was ruled by a single empire. I think this came true with American hegemony at the end of WW2, since he considered Russia to be a separate civilization.
• There would be forms of communication and transportation "fantastic to the point of madness" -- it came true in the sense that obviously the forms and quantity of transportation and communication have increased considerably since he made the prediction.
• Modern art will consist only in manipulating outward forms and it will lack inner depth. I agree with this because I think modern art is doo doo. I don't have an objective standard for that though.
• The armies of the West will reduce in size from millions of soldiers fighting for their country to hundreds of thousands of professional mercenaries fighting for business interests. It has been a part of public discourse for decades that our wars are fought for oil, so, that seems to be true to me. And obviously, the size of our armies has reduced.
• There will be increasing influence of money in politics, until eventually the people get sick of the corruption and cheer for the return of rule by force. The second part hasn't seemed to have happened yet, but the first has also been in the public discourse for decades.
• There will be a population decline. This has objectively happened because we have birth rates below replacement level
• After atheism, there will be a deliberate and conscious return to the roots of the civilization. I realized today that this perfectly described my own spiritual journey. I think if one wants to look at sociological trends, one could see that church attendance is way up for GenZ, and they prefer the most traditional churches that they can find.
• He said that people won't read books anymore and that the level of public discourse will be very low. The few geniuses left will be isolated because most people will be unable to receive what they have to say. This seems to me to be true. I think if a person doesn't realize that the level of public discourse is low, then that probably means that person is a part of the low level of public discourse. It is objective at any rate that book reading is down.

Those are just the first few predictions I could remember. I had like 30 of them though. To have a +90% accuracy rating for what might be the most ambitious historical work of all time is astonishing to me.

↪Brendan Golledge Interesting input, thanks. Every reply to this thread is welcome. So, yes, your post helps me.

On the other hand, I believe I would only be able to put into practice your thoughts if I were capable of discerning what is important. Yesterday, I learnt something important. What is necessarily important to me and should concern me is not so for others. Children suffering is a good example of this. You say that 'sadness is the loss of something good.' But those infants didn't have the chance to have something good and then lose it.

Furthermore, I still don't see why nothingness should be taken into account regarding the moral uncertainty I am referring to. It does affect me, and it influences me to take one decision or another. Even death has a meaning, in my opinion. I take nihilistic arguments as important, and I respect them, but there is something that doesn't convince me, actually.

For the reasons I expressed above, I wanted to know if thinking that suffering is intrinsically human is actually extreme. Probably, depression and other negative moods lead me to think that way. I can't disagree with that. Nonetheless, I came to the point that people necessarily suffer. It is difficult to focus on the positive sides of life because pain is always present. — javi2541997

Sorry that I didn't reply for so long. I haven't checked the forum in a while.

If you consider the life of a child to be intrinsically valuable, then the child actually did lose something when it died. If the child is in pain while it dies, that means it is losing its health, health is a good thing. Physical pain is usually associated with loss of health, which you could not lose if you didn't have it in the first place.

I have a young daughter. If she were to die, I would thank God that she existed for at least a little while. I think existing for a short time and then dying is better than never having existed at all.

Values are arbitrarily asserted. So, if you disagree, then I can't argue. I think I can argue that this point of view is logically coherent, however.

Our emotional state is usually in reference to what our expectations are. So, if you want to have the maximally positive emotional state, it is rational to lower your expectations to the minimum. I think a lot of misery in life comes from having high expectations which are not met.

I do not know whether these thoughts will help you, but they helped me.

I think despair is when a person realizes that he can't have something that he thinks he needs. Most people think despair is a pit that they need to climb out of. But if you are willing to let go of that thing that you want that you can't have, then despair becomes a tunnel.

You said that you are unable to understand your feelings. I came up with a psychological model years ago that helps me to understand my feelings. (Value) + (Perceived Event) --> (Emotion). For instance, anger is what you feel when you think someone is attacking something you care about. Sadness is the loss of something good. Happiness is the acquisition of something good. Relief is the loss of something bad. Contentedness is the possession of sufficiently good things.

Like in algebra, if you can identify two out of the three things in this equation, then you can figure out the third. You can actively guide your emotions by thinking about what values you ought to have (values are those things which you consider to be good or bad).

It is possible to have a consistent philosophy of life which thinks that existence as a whole is good. If you think that everything that positively exists is good, then bad is only the loss of good things. For instance, if the life of a man is good, then murder is bad because it takes away from the life of a man. If you think that the worst thing that could possibly happen is that everybody dies, or that the laws of physics break and the universe just quits existing, then clearly, it's not possible to have a world that is net evil, because nothingness seems to be morally neutral. The only thing I can think of that would be worse than nothing would be if God were malicious and created immortal souls only for the purpose of torturing them forever, and if God hated himself but was unable to commit suicide. But I don't think there's evidence for that.

So, if you accustom yourself to thinking that nothingness and death is the norm, then you will be able to see the positive good in what exists.

I thought the chat would speak for itself.

If bitcoin is a bubble, then it has lasted 4x as long as the tulip mania, and it has been up-to-date literally about a million times as profitable as the tulip bubble was at its height. Both in terms of time and in terms of profitability, bitcoin outclasses tulips.

If you want to argue that they are both the same, then it is on you to argue why it is that bitcoin is fundamentally the same as tulips even though their behavior diverges so strongly.

Thanks for taking my idea seriously and writing such a long reply.

How do you quantify political wisdom? Do you have any evidence to back-up the idea that only giving, say, degree-holders the ability to vote on policy-changes results in a greater benefit for wider society? — Stuart Roberts

You said more that I'm replying to, but I'll just quote that for now.

If the ruling class is defined by something else, like race, or heritage, or profession, or education, etc, then it's somewhat arbitrary, and a human being is deciding which traits are important and which aren't. However, my idea is that voting power is proportionate to taxes paid. There is no restriction on how that money was acquired, or who can pay taxes. This is superior, because it means that ANYONE can join the ruling class. It is also superior because those paying taxes are supporting the state. It seems fair to me that those with skin in the game should have a say in what is done.

I do not think that those who pay no taxes should be allowed to have a say in government. Then you get parasites voting for their neighbors money.

It is somewhat misleading to call the tax payers in this system the "ruling class", however, because literally their only political right would be to set the tax rate. It is a very powerful right, because they can directly defund government departments that they don't like.

Unless the society is already very unjust, then being able to make money is a good sign of competence. So, I think I am justified in saying that those who pay more taxes on average will be wiser than those who don't.

Also, nobody believed in universal suffrage historically until very recently. So, dissing the idea for being undemocratic from the point of view of universal suffrage is not a very big criticism for someone who is historically-minded.

You had some criticisms about me taking an extreme worst-case view in many cases. I don't believe that the worst-case happens every time, but you have to plan for it when building something that is meant to last. If I were to try to implement a government, then I would want it to be able to withstand repeated evil and coordinated attacks from all directions.

If I'm understanding right, you're saying that tax-payers should be able to vote on a, as you put it, 'consensus rate' which is then payed equally by everyone? I might be being slow, but, how does that avoid rigging? — Stuart Roberts

I think some of the rest of what you said comes from ignorance of how crypto works. When smart contracts are written, they are implemented automatically without further human input, so long as the fee is paid. You can't stop a smart contract without shutting down the whole network.

There are some chains, like ADA and ICP that I mentioned, that already have local governance working right now. When a policy is voted on, if it gets the required number of votes, it is automatically and immediately implemented by the network.

Also, crypto in general can't be hacked, which is why it is a thing.

The idea is that if people declared their wallets honestly, then the tax would be AUTOMATICALLY collected every time someone made a transaction (or maybe like once a year, depending on how they wanted to set it up). No need to file taxes.

Also, the tax rate voted upon would work the exact same as current chain governance. It is a simple thing for a chain to add up all the funds sent to certain wallets (taxes paid in this case). Then it would automatically grant proportionate voting power to the tax payers. When the tax payers voted (maybe there'd be a vote once a year?) then the new tax rates would be automatically applied.

For some things, a person may want his real identity to be tied to his crypto wallet, like if he owns property, because the government is what secures property rights. However, this wouldn't be mandatory in all cases. The system could be set-up so that it just doesn't care who pays taxes, it just gives voting power to whoever has paid. Then it could be possible to vote and pay taxes without the government knowing who you are.

I think it would be good to make voting anonymous, so that people could not be bullied. There is such a thing as "Zero Knowledge Proof", so, it could be possible to collect the votes without anyone knowing who voted which way.

In general, I don't know how you'd 'ignore' a non-crypto vote. What's the point in running a vote if you intend to ignore the outcome? — Stuart Roberts

Suppose a president has a vote, and the results come in and say that his opponent won. He says, "F you; I'm the dictator now." If the army supports him, what are the people supposed to do short of starting a civil war? But most of the time, the "president" rigs the vote to show that he is more popular than he really is.

If an automated system collects both the taxes and the votes, and the votes set the tax rate, then no one would be able to subvert the result. The dictator would have to just ignore the results and extract the taxes by force, which would be hard to do if the people had previously agreed that such behavior was illegitimate. They'd have to go door-to-door and rob people one at a time. But they wouldn't even know how much they should be able to get from each individual person if people kept most of their money in anonymous hard wallets.

So, the people vote for tax-rates, but the government decided what they get to pay less on? You can bet that 'rent' would not be a tax-deductible in this kind of state. Prices on everything, including houses, would be very high. — Stuart Roberts

Tax deductible items could be voted on through the already existing tax system. The system would work with or without tax deductible items though. Anyone in government could call a vote for a change in tax policy, but it wouldn't go through without a majority of the voting power.

Investing becomes a pointless and fruitless tedium if you start taxing every single capital gain. — Stuart Roberts

Doesn't the government already do this? You are supposed to fully account for all capital gains when you file your taxes.

This would incentivise companies to categorise recreational products differently to avoid your voted-upon taxes. It's also a massive administrative cost incurred constantly to manage this system, and it's a big breach of privacy to have all of your purchases not only tracked, but logged. It also prompts questions about what is considered as tax deductible. Are condoms? What about pain-meds? Prescription meds? Non-essential groceries like sweet-treats? — Stuart Roberts

It is true that people would be able to cheat in this system, mostly by lying about how they used their income and expense wallets. But the tax system is already complicated and it's already possible to cheat. How would having an automated system with a public record of all transactions make it harder to catch cheaters? I would think having a simple tax code as described plus an automated system that tracks all exchanges would make it easier to catch cheaters.

I don't think large businesses would lie in order to avoid taxes. Businesses already don't label cigarettes as sweets in order to avoid regulations. They'd get in big trouble if any of their numerous customers ratted them out. But with this system, if even one customer flagged the transaction as something different than the business did (even if they were unaware that the business was trying to cheat), the government would be automatically notified and then a human would investigate.

Invasion of privacy is a legit concern. For tracking physical property, tracking personal identity and individual transactions would be necessary. But it is possible to do crypto transactions without linking your real identity to your wallet, so, although there'd be records of everything, the government wouldn't necessarily always know who was doing it. I think the issue of privacy would be worth investigating further, since this much info would make it easier to run a police state.

How could that actually be done, though? I have to vote for like 15 different specific departments? Also, like you said, this is a collective, 'consensus'-based tax, so even if I hate the monarch, I still have to pay him if I'm in the minority. Also, one govt. dept. kind of has to be responsible for actual money-allocation, right? What if we defund them? Then, there is no legislative body to proffer taxes to the others and the system stagnates. — Stuart Roberts

I am a small-government person, so I like the idea that having many government departments would be annoying for tax payers, so that they could vote to defund ones that they didn't understand or which taxed too much. Although if you were voting digitally, it might actually be possible to vote for 15 departments in 10 minutes (although informing one's self on what the tax rate ought to be would obviously take longer).

Yes, you'd still have to pay the monarch if you were in a minority that didn't like him. This is still an improvement over how taxes usually work. In this system, theoretically, 50% of the taxes paid are voluntary. As things are now, in theory, as low as 0% could be voluntary.

Again, because the vote and taxes would be collected by crypto, it would be possible to directly tax each and every transaction and send the taxes to the relevant government department automatically. The IRS would be largely automated, so that there would be no purpose for tax agents, apart from trying to catch fraud. In cases where people declare and use their wallets honestly, then no human involvement in tax collection is necessary.

It would be a problem if the voters voted to defund necessary government services. Maybe if they defunded the police, then suddenly there'd be crime everywhere and businesses would close down. But in that case, the tax payers did it to themselves.

You said something somewhere that like 1% of the people in the USA have most of the wealth. I believe that a large part of the reason this happens is because we have dishonest money. The government and banks can pull money out of nothing. Many of the richest people in the world now got rich by playing games with money, and they never provided real value to another person. Even those who have real businesses, like Bezos and Musk, are much richer than they otherwise would be because money printing inflates the value of their stocks. If we used only one or a small number of cryptos for money, then we would have a deflationary currency, and no one would be able to print. The only way to get more money in this case would be to provide something to another person who was willing to pay you for it.

I took a break for a day and now there are so many replies that I can't possibly reply to them all.

Years back I did a very unscientific analysis, gathered as much as I could regarding the convictions of politicians for crimes in the United States, and separated their crimes by political party. To my surprise the Democrats had more corruption convictions, while republicans excelled in sex-related crimes. Their respective leads were negligible, at best, so the analysis was fruitless, but the moral development seemed to be lacking in both just about the same. — NOS4A2

That is interesting. I'd never heard of that before, but it sounds possible.

You said that left/right are just pejorative's now. I think there is a difference between the politicians and the constituents. I would agree that I think all/most of the politicians are liars putting on an act, but I think the constituents are very different. I'm still of the opinion that the "left" just believes whatever the government/media tell them, and that their espoused moral beliefs are mostly for show. The "right" is anyone who is opposed to the urban monoculture, usually because they do have genuine moral beliefs, and any system of consistent sincere beliefs must be in opposition to an inconsistent and domineering philosophy. The right is fractured though, because there are many belief systems that are mostly internally consistent, but are not consistent with one-another.

This goes further than your comment, but I'll discuss my political beliefs a little more. I see all the politicians as liars putting on an act. I see the left as willingly going along with the bad things that the government is doing, and patting themselves on the back for their feigned righteousness. I see the right as seeing the problems, but mostly waiting for someone in government to fix the problems, which rarely happens. I have tried repeatedly to organize on a local level to do something like set up a community daycare, community watch, to preferentially hire people with similar political beliefs, etc, in order to do at least SOMETHING to deal with the dysfunction in society, but never got anywhere due to lack of interest from other people. I admire people who do manage to build alternative systems, like Satoshi Nakamoto, the people who made CrowdHealth, and local religious communities.

Some people have said that this only makes sense if you believe in right-wing conspiracy theories. I think if you can't see that things are going very badly, and that government is responsible for most of it, then you are willfully blind.

I will reply to some other comments that stood out to me.

My original post was about moral development with regards to Kohlberg's model, and I don't see the connection between Kohlberg and to women being in STEM. So far as I'm aware, intelligence, career choice, and education are not the same thing as moral development.

Someone said that because I don't know why women support abortion so strongly, I must not have any empathy for women wanting bodily autonomy. Would this argument also apply to women who are against abortion? I have done a little bit of research just now. I found a link saying that abortion is women's #1 political issue (https://apnews.com/article/younger-women-abortion-survey-c8c504a7b9b5a92b4c101a57a3e3a4dc). However, it appears that this is not the case for all times and for all groups of women. At any rate, abortion is very high on the priority list, at least sometimes beating ALL other topics, such as the economy, inflation, environment, cancer, war, etc. You suggested that women need abortion due to rape. I had ChatGPT look up some stats. Apparently, about 1 million abortions happen per year, but only about 130 thousand rapes happen per year. So, if every single rape caused a pregnancy, then 87% of abortions are still happening because women don't want to have to deal with the consequences of their own bad choices. If there were a rape epidemic, so that rape were a bigger issue to women than inflation/education/health/war etc, then I guess it would make sense to me that abortion would be among the first of women's issues (although I'd think that getting the streets safe should be #1 in that case). But when abortion is a woman's #1 issue, and +87% of abortions happen in order to avoid responsibility for their own choices, I guess I'll just leave it there. I do understand that if a woman got pregnant due to rape and was arbitrarily blocked from abortion, she'd likely be really angry. But that's not what happens most of the time.


Some people said some stuff that I thought was interesting, but I don't think anybody directly addressed my argument.

I think my main points were:
1. the "left" in the USA has a lower level of moral development than the "right"
2. Kohlberg was probably right that women on average have a lower level of moral development than men

These points would be consistent with:
1. The work of Kohlberg
2. The work of Jonathan Haidt
3. This study https://slate.com/technology/2006/01/men-women-and-the-joy-of-punishment.html
4. Female voting patterns
5. Evolutionary psychology, if patriarchy is rooted in our biology
6. The fact (if you have eyes to see) that a lot of the stuff the "left" does is nuts

Lots of people, as expected, took exception to my main points, but I didn't notice any real arguments trying to refute the supporting evidence.

I did notice that the guy to whom I said that liberals like to pretend they were born yesterday and make you explain everything to them then asked me, "What did BLM burn?" among other ignorant questions. I also noticed that after I said one side has arguments and the other has epithets, I think I saw at least half a dozen replies which quoted something I said and then gave a one sentence reply asserting that I was sexist/bigot/ignorant etc.

I should have gone to bed already.

Yes, it does seem to me to be accurate to describe what happened on Jan 6th as a riot. All the sources I read say that a lot of police got beat up. I don't know how that could have happened if there wasn't a brawl. But I think it is inaccurate to call it an insurrection, because if they were actually trying to overthrow the government, they would have brought their guns, and there would have been a lot of deaths.

As far as Kohlberg's stages of development go, I don't think women in STEM fields really makes a difference. In order to counter this point, you'd have to show that women have an objective moral standard rather than just siding with whoever sees weaker or more relatable. I just remembered this study which seems to back up my point https://slate.com/technology/2006/01/men-women-and-the-joy-of-punishment.html

In my personal experience, all my worst experiences with authority have been from women. It has only been female authority figures who went out of their way to make my life miserable when there was nothing in it for them. There were also a couple who seemed to take an arbitrary liking to me. My worst experience with male supervisors is that they just don't care about me. At least with a male supervisor, I know that if I do what he says, he will be okay with me. But sometimes a woman makes up her mind to hate you and there's nothing you can do about it.

I am not very impressed with female moral behavior in large groups. The #1 political issue for most women is whether they can kill their babies. I don't even have a strong opinion about when life begins, but it doesn't seem normal to me that a person ought to put killing their babies on the top of their priority list. I would think that a normal person would love their babies and want to take care of them. Also, 100% of marriages are initiated by men, but 70% of divorces are initiated by women. And the majority of serial killers were raised by single mothers (probably because women can't set boundaries, since most of them don't get to level 4). Women also show a complete lack of empathy for male suicide, deaths on the job, homelessness, etc. They asked for special treatment in education and at the job, but have taken no notice that more women graduate college now or that young women outearn men in some cities. Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying that women were the real victims in war. Can you imagine what people would say if someone said that men are the real victims of fatal childbirths? And lots of women recently have said that they would feel safer with a bear than a man. But suppose you replaced "man" with "black man" or "Jew"? Would this be acceptable? I could make a similar argument. A young child is more likely to be killed by his mother than a bear, so I would rather keep my child in the company of a bear than a woman. Can you imagine the hysteria if people were putting forward that argument in a serious tone?

I am ready to get banned for misogyny and general bigotry now. I am tired of the general low quality of discussion on this forum, so I don't even really care anymore. Yes, I am a racist sexist evil Hitler bigot. I hate everything good and pure in this world, including ice cream, babies, and puppies.

I was reviewing my own argument.

According to Jonathan Haidt, Liberals care about harm and fairness (individualizing values), whereas conservatives care more about loyalty, authority, and sanctity (binding values).

According to Kohlberg, Stage 3 (out of 6) is about Interpersonal Accord and Conformity. Stage 4 is about authority and maintaining social order.

I think liberal values of harm and fairness falling in stage 3, and the conservative values falling in stage 4 is a largely consistent synthesis of the two. Women being associated both with stage 3 and with liberal political leaning is also consistent.

However, Kohlberg classified both these stages as conventional morality, whereas I said that the left is in pre conventional morality. This seems like a bit of a misclassification on my part. However, I don't think that the people who behave violently or rudely are acting out interpersonal accord. So, whereas it would not be accurate in this model to say that all liberals fall in pre conventional morality, I think it would be safe to say that the most egregious behavior on the left is in pre conventional morality.

I said that both care about authority and power, but Kohlberg doesn't mention authority as a value until level 4. However, he does mention reward and punishment in levels 1 and 2. So, who is giving rewards and punishments except for authority? I think the lower levels of development respect the power that authority has, but level 4 starts to respect authority for its own sake, even if there is no immediate threat of punishment.

Someone asked whether I think adults act like infants. I think the adults who need safe spaces, trigger warnings, and other such things are operating on a level similar to infants.

I would like to concede that I don't think it was always this way. There are even some liberals like Bill Maher who say that the left has gone nuts. There are people like him who haven't changed their opinions in 20 years, which would have made them a liberal 20 years ago but a conservative today. I think the further back in time you go, the more-so "liberalism" meant an actual political philosophy rather than just conformity and pandering without any consistency. The founding fathers were "liberals" of their time, but a lot of modern liberals seem to think that they are NAZIs.

OK, so "law and order" and the January 6th attack on the capitol by right wingers. — BC

This is an example of right wingers behaving in a disorderly way. I do not think I could justify that the right has done everything correctly.

One thing I could point out though is that the quantity of deaths, injuries, and property damage done by the BLM riots dwarfs what was done on Jan 6th. Also, as a counter-example, there was a pro 2nd amendment rally in Virginia a few years ago where 22k armed protestors showed up, and not a single shot was fired. This demonstrates that the right has a greater capacity for violence than the left, but acts less violently.

The argument I am making here is that women as a group don't progress as high up Kohlberg's stages of moral development as men. I have not seen any counter points (individual persons don't really demonstrate anything).

People said a lot of stuff, but it is hard for me to find tangible points that can even be argued with.

The idea of stages of moral development is reasonable; Kohlberg's explication may not be altogether reasonable. — BC

Apparently, somebody called "Rest" tried to test Kohlberg's theory and found that 1 out of 14 people actually regress through Kohlberg's stages. As far as I'm concerned, 13/14 is pretty good for psychology.

And the left can see the inconsistency of the right and reject it. — BC

I gave examples of inconsistency on the left, and you did not attempt to refute it. And you gave no examples of inconsistency on the right.

I don't even see how most of the rest of your post is relevant. I can't remember the Republicans and Democrats ever arguing about plastic, for instance.

As an exemplar of sophisticated, mature moral judgement in a woman, I suggest you look at Dorothy Day — BC

It's nice if there are smart women out there, but I was talking about statistical trends rather than individual people.

Hey Brendan, just curious. Would you extend this moral
superiority to Trump or just to his MAGA followers? — Joshs

IMO, the Democrat politicians are overtly my enemies, and the Republican politicians are my enemies who pretend to be my friends. I haven't voted since 2012 because I saw that my local caucus was rigged. I think politics is about as real as pro-wrestling. Although, I was astonished that Trump mentioned a bunch of things that I actually wanted during his 2nd term, because I had never felt represented by an elected politician before. However, I don't even know if he's actually accomplished even 10% of what I'd like him to accomplish yet, so it might still be all for show. Also, I think some of the ways he's going about things (even if I agree that they address real problems) are not the best way of doing it. I was just so surprised in the last couple months that a politician actually did something that I half-agreed with, since it happens so rarely. I thought most of what he did in his first term was nonsense and a distraction.

Begs the question too about just what morally developed looks like? Is moral development a matter of actual progress or simply of changing community values? If we believe in moral progress then are we not de facto moral realists? — Tom Storm

I used Kohlberg's definition of moral development in this case. Apparently, it is pretty good. According to Kohlberg, moral development relates more to how you process moral questions, rather than necessarily getting any particular answer.

Brendan, some questions:
1) How do leftists discriminate against white men?
2) How does burning an electric car become an act against the environment?
3) What cities have they burned, or good Samaritans punished?
4) What exactly is the issue with defining a woman? — tim wood

I feel like I'm probably wasting my time. It is a common trope of liberals to pretend like they were born yesterday in order to make their opponent explain everything that has ever existed before they will concede a point. But I will answer your questions anyway.

1. https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/cisgender-straight-white-males-need-not-apply.html
https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/major-us-companies-gave-94-of-new-jobs-to-people-of-color-in-2021-report-says-diversity-hiring-employees-apple-nike-microsoft-wells-fargo

^It came straight from the horse's mouth that they are discriminating against white people.

DEI is logically equivalent to discrimination. Suppose the options are A, B, or C exclusively.

If you choose A OR B
by Demorgan's theorem, that's the same as NOT (NOT A AND NOT B)
By exclusion, NOT A AND NOT B means C, if there are only 3 options
Substitute C for (NOT A and NOT B) above and you get
A OR B <--> NOT C

if, for instance, A means women and B means people of color, then C is white men. Trying on purpose to hire A OR B is the same as trying to not hire C.

So, every company that ever had a DEI page was advertising that they hate white men.

2. Electric cars are supposed to be good for the environment. Before Elon made them, liberals liked electric cars. I think even a majority of people buying from Tesla were liberals before Elon bought Twitter and made all the liberals mad. Also, apparently burning batteries releases a lot of toxic fumes.

3. There were BLM riots in Minneapolis, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles, among other cities. They are still burning Tesla cars, so far as I know. "Burn down a city" I guess is an exaggeration, but they burned a lot of stuff.

The most famous Good Samaritan I think is Daniel Penny. At least, all the witnesses seemed to agree that he was a hero.

4. Did you never hear of the documentary "What is a Woman?" There is a famous case during a confirmation hearing where Judge Jackson was asked, "What is a woman?" and responded, "I can't... Not in this context. I'm not a biologist." I found a half dozen other situations like this after a quick google search, but if you cared, you could also google it or use ChatGPT or something.

How can anyone be a moral person who waits to be told what to do, or to have others fix things or be responsible for fixing them? — tim wood

I was arguing that law-based morality really still means argument based on authority, except with the caveat that it should be consistent. Law isn't really law if it isn't consistent, after all, and it can't exist without some authority decreeing it.

Thank you, Amadeus, for giving reasonable replies.

I have thoroughly explored this subject before. I came to the conclusion that a human cannot do much of anything without taking his sensory experience, reason, and values for granted.

I discuss this in greater depth in this post under the "Venn Diagram" section https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15689/page/p1

I made a post on cosmological arguments a while ago with somewhat different reasoning. The only thing I concluded for sure was that SOMETHING exists outside of the scope of human reason. A creator God seemed like a plausible explanation out of several possible options. I personally like the creator God option, because it provides a basis for a moral framework, but I have no intellectual argument for preferring this option over other options.

As a counter argument to your line of argument, one could argue that there is no necessity of understanding the cause of something. Maybe humans just can't understand some things.

This argument also presupposes the existence of free will, which is itself disputed.

I still think that the only thing that's for sure is that something exists without cause in some mysterious fashion. It could be that impersonal laws of physics exist without cause. Or it could be that the laws themselves came from a being whose existence has no cause. Or reality could be circular (like somebody goes back in time to start the big bang). Or it could be some other option which we can not comprehend.

I have personal thoughts on this, but I don't take them altogether seriously, since I cannot test supernatural claims.

It makes sense to me that if God is truth, and people choose to reject truth in their lives, then God cannot be at union with these people while still respecting their free will. It could be that when you die, you are with God whether you like it or not, and depending on your disposition, this is experienced either as bliss or as torture. Or it could be that since a sinner does not like God, God sends them far away out of respect for their free will, and they experience this as torture. Now, if it is possible to destroy a soul, then it would make sense that a benevolent God would choose to do that as punishment in place of torturing them. If it is not possible to destroy a soul, then eternal torture would seem to be the only possible outcome of a person choosing on purpose to reject God.

My understanding of the "unforgivable sin" is when someone knows perfectly well what good and evil are, but chooses to call good evil and evil good. Most sins would be forgivable, because if a person sins out of ignorance or weakness, then he could repent. But if a person willfully chooses evil and calls it good, then by he nature of the act, he does not want to and cannot repent. This is backed up by the fact that when Jesus talked about this, it was when Pharisees saw him heal people (an obviously good thing) and said that he did it by the devil (calling an obviously good act evil). Also, the Holy Spirit is called the "Spirit of Truth", so it would make sense that the sin against the Holy Spirit would be to sin against truth itself.

The point of the jury isn't to be an expert in any given matter, but to testify that they were shown some evidence or some testimony. So, it would be allowed for the written testimony to say, "The defendant claimed not to have been at the scene of the crime when it occurred," AND "the prosecution claimed to have found such and such evidence that the defendant was at the scene of the crime when it occurred." The point of the jury is to block obviously false claims, like the defendant claiming that there was DNA and video evidence backing up his alibi, when no such thing occurred in court. I think regular people are qualified to make these kinds of determinations.

"Who scrubs?" the jury scrubs if the parties involved in the case repeatedly refuse to give a decent testimony (like if they keep talking about how the defendant used to play baseball and was in the Boy Scouts when the point of the case is whether he murdered somebody when he was 30).

If someone is going to make truth claims, it cannot be anyone in government. That would violate free speech and create a moral hazard. Also, there is no generalized way of determining truth. So, the jury's job is to act like randomly selected notaries testifying that they saw the evidence and the testimony presented at court.

The main incentive for this system is supposed to be that the one who makes the decision cannot possibly be biased in any way because he knows nothing about the individual people who supposedly committed the crime. In order for this to be possible, someone must be in charge of feeding him evidence. Each party in the case may make their case, and it's just the jury's job to keep them following certain guidelines.

The judges who make the decision (they would be different than the judge organizing the case) would be in isolation so that they would be unaware of any possible news about this event. The point is that they ought to be entirely impartial. I thought they would work for a couple months out of the year in isolation with a handful of other judges so that they don't go crazy from social isolation.

Most of this was addressed in my original post to the AI. But the last time I wrote a post on this forum, even though there were like a dozen replies, I saw no evidence that anyone had actually read the whole thing. I thought since the AI wrote a super-concise summary, maybe I should use that and people would read it. But it looks like it failed to keep enough of the technical details that (I believed) would make it work.

I actually didn't add the word, "public", the AI did that. I told it that the proceeding could be made public after-the fact. I guess maybe I should double check that the AI said everything that I meant it to say. It has written a very concise summary, but I guess it's not 100% accurate to my original intentions.

Most replies to my posts either show that they didn't read it at all, or (like tim's) they throw out the whole idea because of one word.

Another thought I just had is that if a population naturally has several different gene expressions (such as eye color), this would point towards those expressions as being not universally beneficial, or else the expression would be ubiquitous (unless it was very new). So, for instance, if a population has a natural and sustained diversity in introversion/extraversion, aggression, fidelity, etc, that the benefit of these traits may depend on the proportion of the population that doesn't have these traits. Then you'd get a stable ratio of traits.

For instance, if an introverted person spends more time inside his own head, and an extraverted person spends more time paying attention to the sensory world, then one may guess that as a whole, introverts are better at thinking and extraverts are better at doing. It might make sense that a tribe may want both types of people. Maybe as society develops, the ideal proportion would change. Like maybe extraversion is more useful when you are likely to be killed by wild animals or war (you have to pay attention to survive), and less so as society becomes more physically safe and simultaneously more complicated and confusing. But this specific example involving extraversion is just a hypothesis. I think it is sound that a specific trait would become ubiquitous if it were always beneficial, even by a little bit.

That's fine to disagree, but if you don't give a specific argument, I don't know why I should believe you.

Sorry that I didn't reply before. My email notification only told me that Banno replied, and I decided that I was not going to read his post.

You say that this has been discussed before. Where have people discussed crytpo-enforced taxation? I have never heard of it before. Did you just read, "voluntary taxation" and immediately think that meant anarchy and that you've seen it before and you didn't read the rest of the post?

How is it possible that you do not pay taxes? Aren't there capital gains taxes, taxes on dividends, and also business taxes? I am not aware of any legal way to entirely dodge taxes. I have heard that landlords that bought their properties with debt can deduct the debt from their taxes.

I thought about the possibility that the government could choose to pay tax in order to give itself voting power to raise the tax rate. The math is complicated because you can get into infinite loops, but with only some of the tax revenue cycling back to a given government agency, but I think I came to some general conclusions:

If there is a unitary government (only 1 branch of government that is funded by voting tax payers), with a legal maximum tax rate that you can vote for called "max", then it will be beneficial for the government to pay tax to itself to vote for the max tax rate, and that the actual tax rate will approach this max tax rate with time. Unless the max tax rate is over 50%, then it should never be possible for the government to vote to raise the max tax rate, and possibly the voters could vote to lower the max tax rate. So, for a unitary government that chooses to pay tax and vote to raise taxes, the max allowable tax rate is basically the same as the actual tax rate.

If there are many branches of government so that most of the tax paid doesn't come back to any particular branch, then it's only beneficial for that branch to pay tax if the max allowable tax rate for its branch is at least as big as the current total tax rate (then they can give themselves a bigger raise than they pay in taxes). So, for many branches of government, a simple fix would be to set the max allowable vote for a tax rate for any given branch to be half of what the total government revenue was last year. Then it would not be profitable for any individual branch of government to choose to pay tax in order to raise its tax rate.

If there are many counties with different forms of government, then it's possible that some of the counties will have unitary government (only one branch of government for the whole county). Then, the count would be like a unitary government for his local area, and could vote for the max tax rate for himself. In this case, it might be beneficial for local areas to be allowed to vote on local max tax rates.

I just looked up the size of the military budget in the USA and the size of US GDP, and it looks like the USA spends a little under 5% of its GDP on the military. But the USA has higher military spending than basically any country ever. And the military should be the largest legitimate budget expense for a country. So, it makes sense to me that the global maximum tax rate for any branch of government should be 5% (and this is even being generous). Then if there were many branches of government, and if the total tax paid to government as at least 5%, then it would never be profitable for any individual branch to pay taxes in order to give itself a raise. Now, many branches of government could collude to raise the tax rate together (this would be hard if they were really independent), but in this case, the tax payers could treat them as a unitary government and then just vote to lower the maximum tax rate that can be voted on.

How are you going to force 100% of the population to be uninterested in power? If even 1% decided to be jerks and abuse everybody else, then there would still be problems exactly like today.

I believe that there are bureaucrats who take their job seriously, and that there have even been absolute monarchs in the past who believed that they were accountable to God. But it is a fact that being on top of the hierarchy means that there's nobody to stop you if you want to be a jerk. And I believe that a large percentage of people would be jerks if they had the chance, and that they have been jerks, are being jerks, and will be jerks.

And I was using "men" in the old way to refer to people in general. I wasn't considering the issue of female representation in politics, although it is a historical fact that usually male humans held political power. You can see an example here from the King James Version of the Bible how "man" is sometimes used to mean people in general, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." This sentence makes no sense if "man" is means only "male human". JRR Tolkien does the same things in his books; he refers to humankind as, "men", as distinct from elves and dwarves.

If you say that reality exists only when we observe it, isn't that like saying that we're living in a video game where the map is loaded only whenever we try to look at it? It seems bizarre. Everything is so consistent in nature, and it behaves as if it's much older than humanity. It would seem to be very strange if it worked that way.

Basically, the ordinary way to have political power is to organize groups of armed young men to fight for you. So, it seems entirely logical that the Founding Fathers wrote freedom of speech into the first amendment, and the right to bear arms into the second. Without at least the credible threat of violence, you can't force the government to do anything. But how will you threaten them if you're unable to organize, or if you are unarmed? And even if it doesn't get to the point of violence, how are you going to get support for an idea if you're unable to freely express arguments in favor of the idea? It is clear from this line of reasoning that freedom of speech is actually a political issue. Without freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and without arms, you have no political power.

Libertarians often criticize government because it has a monopoly on violence. I think that's kind of the whole benefit of government, however. It is true that government is compulsory, and that it's generally incompetent. But in the case of choosing between the government and protecting myself from robbers without help from the government, there would have to be a very incompetent or malicious government in order for me to prefer facing the robber alone over having to pay taxes (it is actually getting to that point for me, but I'm not opposed to government in principle). I think the main benefit of government to individuals is that it has a monopoly on violence, which very likely means less violence overall.

I think the primary job of government is to limit freedom of action in zero-sum games (such as in murder or theft). Assuming that people are self-interested, and you stop them from competing in ways that are harmful to other people, then you don't need to know any of the details to know that the net effect is positive. This is probably why it became ubiquitous for governments to punish criminals, fend off foreign invasion, and not much else.

Pluses and minuses of different forms of government

Direct Democracy: By definition, it's not possible for a direct democracy to implement a policy which 51% of the people would be opposed to.

Limited Ruling Class (Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Republic, etc): If the ruling class has higher average political wisdom than the general population (such as by having higher IQ, or better education), then the government can implement wiser policies than would be possible in a direct democracy.

Monarchy: Monarchy is a simple and natural form of government. It is simple, because what is simpler than, "Person X is in charge"? It is natural, because power struggles tend to be unstable by nature, so that power becomes concentrated. The power being in the hands of 1 person is the natural result of power concentrating with time. Monarchy also has good incentives. The power and prestige of a monarch is the same as the power and prestige of his country. He is the owner of his country, whereas a president is a temporary guardian of an estate which he has no ownership in. The monarch is above bribery (what can you bribe him with that's worth more than the whole country?). The policies of a nation also tend to be stable over the life of a monarch. The line of succession is also usually clear in a monarchy, which reduces the frequency of civil wars.

The only downsides I can think of to monarchy are that it's arbitrary (why does having a great great grand dad who was awesome mean that you should be king?), and that in the case of having a bad monarch, the only remedy is rebellion.

Given the pluses and minuses of monarchy, it seems reasonable to me that it has been by far the most common form of government historically, but that dynasties do tend to get conquered from time to time and replaced by other dynasties.

Net Tax Payer Voting System: By definition, in a net tax payer voting system, it's not possible for 51% of the taxes to be involuntary. If 51% of the tax payers thought their taxes were too high, then they would vote to lower their taxes.

Military Service Prerequisite to Political Positions: This means, at least, that whoever is making decisions is not totally ignorant of military matters.

I understand that senators in Rome usually had military service. This has also been common for US presidents. Prussia, it was said, was a military with a state. Note that all these examples also performed very well militarily. It seems reasonable that governments with some connection to the military will tend to run their military better than those that don't.


It occurred to me while mulling over the net tax payer voting system, that a cryptocurrency with internal governance could be used to implement it (example are Cardano and Internet Computer Protocol). The government of a country could make a deal with some block chain (or a fork or derivative of some block chain), "If you vote to give us a 5% tax (or some other negotiated percent) on transaction fees and staking rewards, we will make your cryptocurrency the legal tender, so that all merchants have to accept it." This might be beneficial for both parties. The government would get voluntary taxes, and the government support would probably pump the bags of crypto holders. Because it's crypto, the vote could neither be rigged nor ignored. Whatever the results of the vote were would be automatically implemented, even if the government didn't like it. The government would be incentivized to try to protect the blockchain, and to convince tax payers and stake holders to increase taxes, hopefully at least partially by finding useful things to do with tax money. It seems reasonable to me that a majority of merchants might agree, "It is worth it to pay a 5% tax in exchange for having police, military, and a court system." But if there was something they didn't like, they could theoretically defund the government.

Currently, Cardano and ICP are run by stake holders. But it would make sense to tax transactions, which would be paid by merchants (such as by Walmart, if we were to transition to a crypto system). So, the block chain may want to create a special governance system just for taxes. It would seem fair to me if they hard-coded it so that the staking tax rate was always equal to the tax rate on transactions (or some fixed ratio), and gave everyone who paid taxes a vote on tax rates proportional to the amount of taxes paid. They might make the voting power decay with time, such that (perhaps) a dollar paid in taxes last year is as good as $0.50 this year. But the stake holders should retain all other voting privileges, because Walmart knows nothing about the governance of something like Cardano.

So, these thoughts lead me to the idea that it would be neat to have a government where military service was a prerequisite to having political power, but where the tax system was created bottom-up by tax payers through a crypto governance system. That way, the people with military experience would be the ones deciding what to do with the military, the people paying taxes would be the ones deciding how much they should get taxed, and the people who understood how money worked (they created a block chain and run it) get to print the money.

It seems reasonable to me that the only unique political idea I actually came up with was related to crypto. This is because crypto is new. People have been trying to run governments for a long time, and as I argue here, politics is a very difficult problem.

This LGBTQ stuff is a part of the liberal social consensus, and so I see it basically as being the same type of thing as religious dogma. It is effectively illegal to seriously investigate things like homosexuality, and also the natural differences between different demographic groups. If you don't completely agree with whatever the liberal social consensus is, they'll levy epithets at you like, "bigot" "sexist" "racist" etc, the same way people probably used the word "heretic" in the past. They'll do this even against people who agreed with everything the liberals said 10 years ago, but who haven't updated their beliefs to the current year. So, I consider ideas about these things to be at best, reasonable guesses, since it's not possible for these ideas at the present time to be discussed and tested fairly and openly in society.

One hypothesis I had was that maybe a gay gene is carried along with another gene that is beneficial. So, for instance, if a gene that makes a man understand women better also has a small chance of making him gay, then it might be carried forward in the population because it is a net evolutionary benefit for those who carry it, despite some of them turning out gay. This is just a guess on my part though; I'm not aware of any evidence at all to back it up.

Recently, I found a YouTube channel from a gay Christian called Becket Cook. I thought that what he said sounded very reasonable. There is one video where he interviews Dr. Nicolosi and they talk about the environmental causes of homosexuality. I've been mildly curious about this topic for years, but this is the first take on it I've heard that sounds like it's hitting near the mark.

I saw videos from like the 1950s telling children to stay away from gays because they like to molest children. The people back then seemed to equate homosexuality with pedophilia. I don't know if this is accurate or not. As I said in the first paragraph, it's basically illegal to seriously investigate this kind of thing. But if the people at that time believed it, then that would explain why they hated it so much.

The extreme focus that people have on homosexuality right now seems artificial to me. There is no precedent for this in history before. I believe that gays have always existed, but that the importance people are placing on sexual orientation right now makes no sense and is not organic. I even heard that zoomers are less accepting of LGBTQ now than millennials are, because it gets shoved down their throats so much at school that they rebel. I'm not surprised and it seems kind of ironic to me.

Trans and gay seem like different issues to me. If a man approaches me and says, "I'm gay. I like to have sex with other men." Then I'll probably think, "That's kind of weird." And then I'll probably go about my day, because it doesn't really affect me. If a person who looks and sounds like a man approaches me and says, "I am a woman. My pronouns are she/her," then it is the same to me as saying, "Believe what I tell you over your lying eyes." I cannot accept it. In the case of a gay guy, he's telling me something about his inner state which I can't directly observe. Or, if he acts on his homosexual impulses, I could theoretically observe that (although I don't want to). But the trans person tells me something which is directly contrary to what I can see with my eyes and hear with my ears. I cannot believe what he tells me without rejecting truth itself. I might keep to myself about it though, for the sake of not creating drama. Now, if a man told me, "I wish I were a woman," I'd think it was sad that he didn't like himself the way he was, but I wouldn't find the statement to be offensive or crazy.

I believe that reality exists independently of our observation, or else nothing makes sense.

It is common in mathematics to prove P because NOT P contains a contradiction. Likewise, you can prove NOT P if P is contradictory. So, there is truth to the statement that we don't understand something unless we understand the opposite to be false.

A cursory search for what the Big Bang is shows that it actually is the beginning of the universe. It is a separate idea from the size of the observable universe. If I understand correctly, the idea is that since the universe was expanding (space itself was getting bigger), the universe can actually be bigger than 13.8 billion light years in radius. That means that it's possible for the universe to have a beginning in time, while the observable universe is not the whole universe.

Talking about space itself getting bigger is outside our usual experience, however, so I find this topic to be confusing. I think the only people who can speak with authority about this are those who have done the math that describes this model.

I've already explained how the existence of entropy points to the universe as it currently exists having a beginning, even without evidence for a Big Bang. If the universe were infinitely old with the current laws of physics, you'd expect for the "heat death" of the universe to have already happened long ago.

I am not aware of an a priori argument that the universe must have a beginning, but it doesn't appear to be how our universe was made. I could imagine a universe similar to our own, but without friction, and with all light/matter being gravitationally bound. In this case, there would be no reason why stuff could not keep happening indefinitely. But that doesn't appear to be how our universe was made. I suppose in the case of a self-existing universe, the existence of the universe would be mysterious, since there would be no explanation for how to came to be. If there was a beginning, then the first cause is mysterious.

The things we are familiar with in the universe cannot themselves be the cause of the universe, because we only experience that these things act after they have first been acted upon by something else. Nothing decides of its own accord to do stuff. Also, if matter, time, and/or space were created, how could the creator be made of this stuff?

I've also already discussed how we already believe that the transcendent exists in the form of mathematics. Math appears to exist independently of matter and time. The existence of math is not mysterious to people who believe in a creator god (although then I suppose the creator god himself is mysterious).

I believe that objective reality exists independently of our cognition. So, if there really is a tree outside shedding its leaves, then I believe that the proposition is true before I become cognizant of its truth. However, it's impossible for me to think that it's true without "I think it's true" being implicit in the thought. So, in principle, I think logical propositions can be written without the "I think", but I cannot actually work through the proof without the "I think" being implicit.

For instance, "if an oak tree is shedding its leaves, then the ground underneath will be covered with leaves" is a form of P -> Q. I believe that P -> Q even if I'm not aware of the tree. It's not like the leaves materialize in front of me (or at least, that's not how I impinge it to work) when I look out the window. But I'm unable to formulate this idea in my mind without thinking about it.

There are logic puzzles where you have to have knowledge of what other actors know in order to solve the puzzle. In this case, knowledge of thoughts is necessary in order to solve the puzzle, so I think the "I think" is actually sort of its own entity. I suppose in the case where I am working through an abstract proof on my own, then there really is no functional difference between "P" and "I think P", since there is nothing going on in this proof outside my own mind. But the distinction becomes important if I believe that there are true propositions that I am unaware of.

Thanks

What you said sounds reasonable.

I don't know whether my philosophy would have widespread appeal. I'd be inclined to think not, because it is too hard to understand. It works for me though. Maybe it will work for some other people too.

My child is only 10 months old, so she's a long way from being ready for this stuff. I've heard that having loving parents helps a child develop emotional stability, even if they don't remember any of the specific events that happened. So, taking care of her and comforting her when she cries seem like the limit of good parenting at this age.

I am thinking that maybe sharing fairy tales with her is the earliest thing I could do to teach her life lessons (when she's old enough to talk). Part of the goal of fairy tales would be to introduce her to the idea that sometimes people make choices and bad things happen. It seems to me that if a child is unaware that bad things can happen in life, then the worst thing the child will be able to imagine is that she is told, "no". This will make discipline a nightmare, would tend to make a child resentful of her parents (since they are the source of the only negative thing she's ever experienced), and make her totally unprepared for when life inevitably slaps her hard across the face. So, I think it is not good to shelter children too much.

Jordan Peterson gave an interpretation of sleeping beauty that I thought was interesting. He said that maleficent represents all the evil in the world, and she wasn't invited to the birthday party because the girl's parents wanted to protect her from all the evil things in the world. But she grows up weak as a result, and becomes unconscious the first time something bad happens (getting pricked by a spinning wheel in this case he said represented possibly the beginning of menstruation). The prince in the story represents consciousness, and that's why a kiss from him wakes up the princess. She had never become conscious before because she had never had to face anything that challenged her.

It seems to me that humans by default learn lessons from stories. Maybe the reason for this is that earlier in our evolutionary history, before we had the capacity for much abstract thought, people could not have understood ethics or philosophy. But they could understand, "I stood on a snake and got bit". So, it seems natural that people learned to infer abstract lessons from stories of tangible events.

I'd be inclined to think that the stories which have lasted a long time did so because they carried some message of psychological significance, even if it's hard to discern what that is. Also, I am not a big fan of Disney movies as a form of moral instruction, because the main character always gets a happy ending no matter how badly they behave (in the OG little mermaid, the little mermaid fails and turns to sea foam at the end, but Disney always changes the real endings). The naiveté of our stories and the ease of life for the boomers might be why recent generations of Americans seem so psychologically fragile. So, I'm thinking of reading her Grimm's fairy tales and Aesop's fables (maybe starting with Aesop's, because they are so short). I'm also personally a fan of LOTR and ATLA, and I've recently become interested in Hayao Miyazaki's stories.

I'm thinking that a large part of the motivation for self improvement is realizing that bad things can happen, and they are more likely if we don't prepare for them. So introducing a child to the fact that bad things can happen is a good motivator for them to try to be the best they can be. This would reasonably start with fairy stories for small children, because they are not developed enough to learn real life lessons. If a child understands that scary things exist in the world and that her parents know more about them than her, then that would tend to make her listen more carefully to what they say. It would also tend to make her want to develop her own discernment when she is older.

Here is more information about how to practice my religion:

Warning: If I were to go back in time and present this to my past self, even I would not have been able to put all of this immediately into practice. I practiced each step for several years before moving onto the next one. So, for somebody who is not me, it is certainly recommended not to attempt to do everything here all at once. For any kind of self improvement, it is recommended to practice one new thing until it becomes habit, before moving onto the next thing.


I realized after making what I might call the "active rules for life" in the original post (Think continually on what is good....), that sometimes stuff just happens, and I don't know how to fit every arbitrary experiences into a system. So, I made a system for that.

In-line with my faith that existence as a whole is good, the basic thing to do when you have an experience is to pay attention to it. What is it? How is it? Whatever you are able to perceive/understand, have faith that it is good.

Paying attention to your experiences could mean looking at what's right in front of your face. It could also mean paying attention to internal things going on, such as your emotional state.

Here are some examples:

• I'm typing on the keyboard, so I'm paying attention to how the keys feel, the sound of the keys, and the fact that my fingers know how to type from muscle memory (I don't need to consciously know how to type the keys anymore). I could, if I wished, go further into thinking about the mechanics of the movement of my fingers, and other biological systems, or I could think about how the keyboard and the computer works. I could think further about how somebody designed this keyboard, and then people made it in a factory. That would bring up perhaps the motivations that people have for working (probably to provide for a family), or how it is that human society is able to be so industrious by applying science and by working together. I don't think it's necessary to go that far into one's experiences every time, however. If I found any of these topics particularly interesting, or realized that there was a gap in my knowledge, I could go look more stuff up (I suppose there are enormous gaps in my knowledge of how computers work).
• I paid attention to putting the dishes away the other day. It was pretty much the same as what I described above, except that the physical sensations of the dishes were different, and that I was aware that doing the dishes was an act of love for my wife (because otherwise she would do them), and it was furthermore fairly directly connected to the continued health (and therefore existence) of my family, and that therefore I ought to be glad to do it.
• I drove a car recently, and what I noticed different than above is that the car is a powerful machine that I am able to control with little physical force. Like in the case of typing on the keyboard, I realized that I was able to control the car without much conscious thought. I could feel the car humming in my body. In the sense that I felt connected to the car, and was able to control it without much conscious effort, it was like an extension of my body. I thought it was kind of neat to notice that. These observations made my daily commute less dull.

Our experiences often come with an emotional charge. Emotions can essentially be either good or bad.

When I have good emotions, I apply what I call my "pride filter". Because our choices are the only thing we have the experience of being able to control (even if free will doesn't ontologically exist), the only honest ways to feel good are:

• Recognition and appreciation of having made good choices or good effort
• Gladness or gratitude for those things outside of one's control

If I experience a good feeling that doesn't fit into one of these, then I either reject the feeling, or reform it. For instance, if I feel badass for whooping someone's butt in a video game, then I remind myself that my intelligence/hand eye coordination were given to me for free, and are thus nothing to be proud of. Also, if it is impressive when I whoop somebody's butt, then it's even more impressive when somebody else whoops my butt, so, I should take note of that and appreciate it when it happens. I might also think of the fact that my desire to dominate someone in a video game is perhaps a misapplication of an evolutionary drive for dominance which is useful for males for reproduction. The video game is also perhaps a form of emotional rest (indulging in solving problems which have no connection to anything that I think is very important, so I can feel good when I win and not care too much when I lose).


In the case of bad emotions, we presumably want to stop feeling them. The options are to improve one's bad circumstances (depending on the circumstances, this can range in difficulty from easy to impossible), change one's values through introspection, or be resigned to feeling the bad emotion. In the case of introspection, you have to go back to just analyzing the situation, as described above. Telling one's self to simply be happy will not usually work. If you're upset because you don't have something you want, then you have to be able to really convince yourself that you don't want it in order to stop feeling bad. So, honestly seeking the truth is the best cure for feeling bad about unsolvable bad circumstances (the truth will set you free).


Examples Of Dealing with Bad Emotion:

• Bad Health: I've had several health issues in the last few years. Recently, when I've felt bad, I have thought, "Thank you, God, for the health that I've had the past, and what health I have remaining." I don't know if there's a God that actually listens, but I think it is good for me to do this. Also, I might pray (and do what I can to bring it about) that my health will improve, but this is independent of my gratitude for what I already have and have had.
• Society is dying: Part of my motivation for developing this philosophy in the first place was my observation that society seems determined to destroy itself, and there's next to nothing I can do about it. I desired to believe that there was still good in the world, even if the world of mankind that I lived in was failing very badly. So, that points towards finding goodness outside of myself or my circumstances, and the ultimate expression of this is to try to see goodness in existence as a whole.
• Death of child: This has not happened to me yet. But this is the worst-case I can think of in terms of the natural affections. So, I have thought about it. It seems to me that in coming from one's own genes and in being raised by you, a child is an extension of yourself. So, how can you ever convince yourself that you don't love your child without by necessity devaluing your own life? So, detaching one's self from desire in order to avoid the pain of loss does not seem to be a good or natural solution to this problem. I am reminded of the Bible passage, "Those who eat the bread of sorrow, rouse yourselves after resting." My interpretation of this passage is that there's a time for mourning, and then there's a time to pick yourself up and find something else to live for. I consider mourning to be the process of letting go of those things that you had previously depended on. So, the mourning process in this case would consist of thinking over the fact that you'll never get to hold your child again, or see him play, or see him get married. I think the pain would probably never entirely go away. It ought to be possible, I think, with time, to get to the point where you still remember that you've lost something, but you can look at the sky and still think it's beautiful, and remember other people who you are glad to know (or whatever else gives meaning to your life), and go out to live for those things.

To summarize the reactive rules for life:

• It is always good to pay attention to what is happening and try to understand what it is and how it is.
• For good emotions, constrain them to recognition of good choices, and gladness for things outside of your control. The purpose of this rule is honesty.
• For negative emotions, if improving circumstances is impossible, the best thing to do is honest introspection (which brings you back to point 1 again).

Probably my experience living at a monastery is indirectly responsible for coming up with ideas like these. The job of the monk is "inner work". That is to orient one's heart properly. That is what I'm doing, except I've tried to strip away the original religious foundation of the inner work.

I would argue that inner work is actually the main point of the Christian religion. Jesus said, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." My interpretation is that he is telling them to do the inner work, and then their outward behavior will also be clean. He talks about this again when he says how murder consists not only of killing someone, but consists also of harboring unjust anger against them, and that adultery consists not only of unlawful sex, but also in lustful intent. This is why I believe that religion and psychology are not actually separate subjects. I could say that a lot of my philosophy consists in trying to reconcile ancient psychological wisdom with modern material knowledge.

Other References:

I like to study religious texts (particularly Christian) for moral instruction, even though I doubt the factual truth of all their supernatural claims. I explain in a post "A Secular Look at Religion" how this is possible.

I think most everything I've said in the original post is fairly objective in the sense that one can try out for one's self and see that it is true. Some of my other posts are less objective, however. I did experiment with some speculative theology in "A Functional Deism," where I argue for the plausibility of a creator god. Then in the post "A Deist Creation Myth" I pretend like I know that my speculation is true and built a creation myth for it. It seems to me that the morals of most cultures are contained in their stories/myths, so, this is basically a way to express my philosophy in story format. The main moral is supposed to be that existence is good.

I will follow this up with another post with more details about how to put my religion/life philosophy into practice.

I think the cosmological argument provides a very good proof that SOMETHING exists outside the realm of human understanding. If it's a First Mover, then by definition, we can't say much of anything a priori about him (because he is the first a priori principle, before all other principles). If it's an infinite regression of causes, then we can never get to the bottom of it, or even get meaningfully closer to the bottom of it. And of course, circular reasoning is not normally considered valid. So, I can't think of any ultimate beginning to existence that could be fully explained by human reason.

If it was a first mover, then we can make several reasonable guesses. One is that if he moves other things without himself first being moved, does that not seem similar to the idea of free will? That might give you the idea that the first mover is a willful agent. Otherwise, I suppose he is something totally unfathomable to humans. And again, it wouldn't make sense to say that he created matter if he himself is made of matter, so he probably doesn't have a material body. Many such arguments could be made that make reasonable guesses about his nature

I have tried to figure out if there is anything meaningful that could be said about an infinite regression of causes. The only thing I can think of is that each step in the chain of causality cannot get meaningfully less complex than the previous, or else the chain of causality would not be truly infinite. Supposing that the complexity of each step in the infinite regression could be expressed as an integer, clearly, each step cannot consistently get less complex than the previous step, or else you'd get to a complexity of 0 and the end of the chain of causality. Also, if the universe were truly temporally infinite, then you'd not expect there to be any irreversible processes. If there were irreversible processes in an infinitely old universe, you'd expect them all to have happened already. So, I think it's fair to say that the existence of entropy implies that the universe in its current form had a beginning.

I've heard arguments that maybe each black hole creates a new universe with somewhat different laws of physics. In this case, maybe entropy could be reset with the birth of each universe. Or if the many worlds hypothesis in quantum mechanics is correct, then there is an infinite multiverse. But at any rate, even if it's black holes all the way down in an infinite chain of causality, clearly the universe we live in with its current laws has a birthday.

You mentioned the question of homosexuality in a natural ethic like the one I'm proposing. In my philosophy, existence is good. So, homosexuality in this mindset is not terribly interesting, because it is not useful for the continued existence of the species. I suppose it is interesting to investigate how it is possible that such an evolutionarily unadaptive trait can continue to exist.

I think most of the pro-LGBTQXYZ community base their philosophy basically on hedonism. Something like, "Being gay makes me feel good, so it is good, and you ought to accept it." I think the Christian objection usually comes straight from the claimed word of God that homosexuality is an abomination. I don't think either argument works in the deist worldview that I have described, because my worldview doesn't accept that human happiness is the ultimate arbiter of goodness, but it also doesn't accept that we have received special revelation.

I admitted when I originally wrote the post that I was working off speculation.

According to cosmological arguments, a first cause is one of the options for explaining existence, which implies something like a creator god. So, this part is at least plausible. Alternatives are an infinite regression of causes, or circular causality.

Some very basic assumptions about the nature of a creator god would say that he would create a world similar to ours. These arguments are time consuming and I've done them already.

Also, prior to the scientific revolution, pretty much all people were religious almost without exception. However, it is the people who believed in a creator god who came up with the scientific method. Also, the existence of mathematics was not considered strange by theists/deists, but it is sometimes considered strange by atheists. So, among all the previously existing religious beliefs, belief in a creator god appears to be the most adaptive.

According to the is-ought dilemma, it's technically not possible to infer an ought from an is. However, if we assume something like, "We care why God made existence," then we can continue trying to infer morality from existence. There is no obvious utilitarian purpose to existence (it doesn't appear to serve some other purpose). So, the options appear to be, "there is no purpose", "we don't know the purpose" or "existence is its own purpose." There don't appear to be any psychologically useful implications from the first two options, but believing that existence is good for its own sake would point one towards believing that one can find goodness and meaning in absolutely all circumstances. It would also say that working towards survival is a good thing, which one would presumably want for a moral system for living creatures.

As I have said before, I believe my psychological motive for creating this system was that I wanted to be able to see the good in situations where things were not going my way. It seems suitable for this purpose for me. It is a scaffold for founding morality which requires relatively few unfalsifiable assumptions.

I am not aware that deism ever "failed" in the intellectual sense. Has anyone ever proven that it's impossible? It is merely not popular. I think the reason is probably that most people would rather believe in a god who is interested in their personal happiness.

I worked through all this myself, with reference to previous arguments (such as cosmological arguments). However, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that somebody else had previously come up with very similar arguments.

I am not a very big fan of universalism in general, because it's not possible for two contradictory statements to both be true at the same time.

I don't believe that the problem of evil is really a problem for a deist. The Christian God asserts that death is bad and that he is actually interested in human flourishing, so the existence of things that seem bad to us is a problem for Christianity. But the existence of things that seem bad to humans is not terribly mysterious if the creator god is not especially interested in our happiness.

I have actually already explained why a creator god would create a temporal world and then take a day off. As I've explained before, it seems reasonable to believe that mathematics is somehow closely related to God (or else why is math-based science so successful?). But mathematics can describe many situations that don't physically exist. So, if god likes himself, and if he contains an infinity of abstract potential, then it would make sense that he'd want to create a big universe (or possibly an infinite multiverse) in order to tangibly instantiate many different forms that already exist in him in the abstract. Also, if you believe in an omnipotent and omniscient creator god, then you have to believe that he got it right his first try, so it's not mysterious that he didn't need to continue to meddle with creation.

I've made an argument in a different post that if god is infinite, then it might be the case that he has a limited ability to add to himself. Something like infinity + 1 still equals infinity. If this is the case, then it would make sense that he can only create things which are finite and imperfect. If we were perfect and complete, it might be the case then that we would become identical to god, and would cease to exist separately from him. So, no matter what the circumstances of our lives are, it is likely that it's just not possible for contingent beings like us to exist in a state of perfection. If this is the case, then it might be that god is more pleased by a creation that spontaneously comes into being and approaches perfection (like through the evolutionary process) than one which came into being in its final form (no matter how highly developed that final form might be).

The most obvious answer is that for some reason or another, biology makes women less interested in the subject. This answer is unpopular, because most people today practice the religion of egalitarianism, so they will call you a bigot for saying so (their word for heretic), but it is the truth.

The evidence shows that sociological reasons are false. For example, I studied physics at university and it was almost all men. There were scholarships available allowing women in physics to basically go for free, but they still didn't want to. There was also ubiquitous pro-female propaganda, and that still wasn't enough. The sociological explanations (not enough female role models, etc) show a lack of understanding of male motivation. When men want to do something, they go do it, with or without role models. The fact that they were pushing for role models, scholarships, and other support is an admission that women as a group are not intrinsically motivated to study physics, because if they were, then these other things would not have mattered.

An explanation for this from evolutionary psychology is that men by nature have to work harder to provide for themselves and to get sex. Men are bigger and stronger (more able to put their will into practice) and women are picker with regards to sex (men have to work hard to impress them). So, men are by nature more interested in understanding how things work and they are competitive and want to prove themselves. The survival of women, in contrast is more dependent on their relationships, since they are less able to get their material needs met by their own hands. This also makes women more malleable under social pressure, since they are more materially dependent. Feminists project the degree to which they are socially malleable onto men, which is why they think that social pressure (like shaming) can turn men into women. When the men don't change much because they aren't wired to respond to this kind of propaganda, the feminists call them sexist and propagandize even harder. But close to 100% of the media has been feminist for decades, which is good evidence that it is not possible to say anything to make men and women behave the same.

I'm used to thinking of God as being holy. So, if the universe is God, then it would follow that the universe is holy. I guess if he died to create the universe, then nothing would be holy. This is the first time I've tried to think about this idea, so pardon me if I didn't get all the details right on my first try.

I have thought about this before. Assuming that we are talking about an omnipotent creator God, then if he DID have the power to kill himself, he must have chosen not to, or else nothing would exist. If he chose not to, then he must have decided that he likes/loves himself. So, if this kind of God exists and if it's possible for him to kill himself, then God's self-love is a necessary prerequisite to existence.

This then provides a motive for creation. If God contains the potential for all else, and if he loves himself, then it makes sense that he'd want to create everything that could possibly exist out of his self-love. If every existing thing is a partial manifestation of the infinite God trying to manifest himself, then you would predict a very big and very old universe (or possibly infinite multiverses).

If it were possible for God to add to himself, I would think he would probably do that. But if he's infinite, that might not be possible. It might be the case that infinity + 1 = infinity. According to Christian theology, there is no difference at all between the Father and the Son except that the Son is "begotten". If it's possible for God to "beget" a son, then it might not be possible for God to "beget" two sons, because they would actually be identical (the same being). And then they also teach that the Holy Spirit "proceeds", but I'm not sure what the difference is. Anyway, if God loved himself, and if it were possible for him to make more Gods like himself, then you'd expect something like the Trinity. Then all the rest of creation is necessarily finite and imperfect, because otherwise it would be literally impossible for God to create it.

"Before the beginning" is not actually an arbitrary phrase. The matter we are familiar with only acts after it's first acted upon. So, it follows that if there was a first cause, it can't be anything at all like the matter we are familiar with. So, that leads to the idea that the first cause does not exist within time and space like matter does. It is a very traditional Christian idea that God exists outside of time. The Nicene Creed even says that the Son was begotten from the Father before all ages. So, the idea of God existing before time is an old one that has made sense to people in the past. Also, math appears to be true regardless of what time it is, so, it sounds reasonable to say that math might still have been true before the Big Bang. So, there is at least one thing we are already familiar with that has its existence independently of time.

I read the essay from Gnomon about a deistic God. I guess I don't have much to say, because most of it sounds plausible. The main thing I noticed that I might disagree with is the analogy of creation being like an egg or a fetus. Based on what I discussed immediately above, we have good reason to think that a creator god must be utterly unlike anything that we've ever experienced. So, it makes more sense as an analogy to think of existence as a creation than as a birth, because if it were a birth, that would seem to imply that we were the same type of thing as God. So, I like the traditional Jewish/Christian analogy for existence as creation better.

I haven't spent much time thinking about pandeism before. Here's what I thought of in a couple minutes. Part of the point of this post was to imbed a moral foundation within the creation myth. Your creation myth (180 Proof) was very short, so I don't think it did that much. I suppose if everything is God, then that means that everything is holy. I suppose that's pointing in a similar direction to what I was trying to point at in my story, that everything is good for its own sake. I think the main difference would be that in the deist world-view, God is eternal and still exists separately from his creation after it has been created, whereas in the pandeist view, there is nothing outside of "creation". It seems to me that since math is eternal and abstract and seems to exist independently of matter, that the deist creator god fits together more nicely with mathematics than the pandeist god. The creator god also points more towards the existence of a supernatural or otherworldliness, whereas pandeism would not seem to do this. Since it's all speculative, I suppose the most that could be said of one conception rather than another is that it's more or less plausible or has different moral implications.

Again, it makes more sense – cogently, parsimoniously, naturalistically – to substitute existence (or laws of nature (à la Laozi or Epicurus, Spinoza or Einstein)) for "God". — 180 Proof

I briefly discussed in one of my earlier replies that I can't imagine a difference between an unconscious creator god and the laws of physics. They would seem to me to basically be the same thing. So, I wonder if you're taking more offense at the word, "god" than with the idea itself.

I think that is a better version of Christianity, where human beings are able to exist without any repercussions regarding the choices they make in their life and being able to choose whether to acknowledge such a God or not as you say he does not require any covenants.

Your view of God in this respect is similar to mine, but with the added bonus of immortality granted to beings who express his will the best and who are as morally good as it is possible.

However I do not subscribe to the creation myth or garden idea because I cannot infer purpose from god nor any motivation behind his reason for creating this world. It could be that initially god rolled the dice and created the universe where life may emerge due to intrinsic inevitability of the properties of physics, maths and matter such that life’s emergence was inevitable not just on this planet.

This leads to many questions such as his relationship to his creation and creatures within it, as god himself is immortal does is this property also inherited by human beings who wish to attain immortality as well or is it just an exclusive property belonging to god only? If so then we are but the flicker of a candle in the wind compared to god’s eternal existence. If we have no intrinsic purpose to our existence but to enjoy it (and some don’t) then if we die never to be reborn then our creation was meaningless. — kindred

I didn't imagine that people become immortal in the Christian sense. The particulars of our minds and bodies do not become immortal (so far as I know). My idea was that abstract ideas (such as perhaps the virtues of patience, perseverance, or temperance) are immortal, so that in-so-far as we practice these virtues, we are participating in the life of immortal virtues. So, it is not that individual humans actually live forever, but that while they are alive, they become like things that are immortal. I think of this less like hope in some unverifiable paradise, than as another way of seeing the world as it actually exists right now. I think in the case of virtues, one man's charity does not interfere with another man's charity, and one man's temperance does not interfere with another man's temperance. But one man's greed would interfere with another man's greed. So it seems to me that the virtues are virtually the same for everyone, but the vices are all individual. So, the virtue I practice is in principle the same as the virtues that were practices thousands of years ago, and are also the same as the virtues that might be practiced thousands of years in the future. That is the sense in which I participate in the life of the immortal. I think in a definitional sense, I define virtues as any positive habit that builds one's life up (the easiest to think of could be diet and exercise), whereas a vice is something that tears your life down (like smoking, because it hurts your health and your wallet).

The idea in this creation myth is that since we can't infer a utilitarian purpose for things, perhaps those things exist for their own sake. That is the story behind this creation myth. And in the story, the laws of physics are set up precisely so that stars, life, and the rest, will spontaneously arise. The whole point of the story is to let you interpret meaning in the world as it actually exists right now.


Now to address your last paragraph. I don't think humans are immortal, because it appears that our existence is dependent on the arrangement of matter in our bodies, so that there is no reason to believe that we continue to exist after the matter takes a different form. So then, yes, I think it is likely that we are a flicker of a candle in the wind compared to God's existence. It is normal, I think, to imagine that our lives are meaningless if they are temporary, since we come from a culturally Christian background that teaches an afterlife. As I discussed after the creation myth, however, whatever you are genuinely able to believe with respect to values becomes true, at least to you. I have often thought in my life before whether it's possible for me to do anything that's not in vain, and eventually I came up with the answer, "If there's a moment in which I wouldn't wish anything to be different, or even for the moment to last longer, then it is worth it, at least to me in that moment" That seems to be true, by definition, isn't it? Whatever I find to be worth it and meaningful, IS worth it and meaningful to me. If I imagine that simply existing as I am for a time is meaningful, then I am content. And the point of this creation myth is not that we exist for our own pleasure, but that we exist for God's pleasure (I suppose this retains that element of Christian mythology that meaning is derived from God). As it said, we are like flowers. "It is not necessary that the flower understands its purpose." I do think there is an argument to be made that a creator God's opinion about the purpose of existence is more valid than anyone else's. If some random Joe makes a widget, that Joe has more authority than anyone else to say what he made it for, even if somebody uses it for a different purpose. That doesn't mean that we have to respect God's wishes for the purpose of creation, but I can't think of anyone else who can more convincingly come up with a different purpose. This God is truly omnipotent and immovable in the sense that his purpose is for things to exist for their own sake, so that it's literally impossible for humans to thwart his purpose no matter what they do. His will IS done. There is no conflict to God.

My idea of the creator God comes from cosmological arguments. That means by definition, whatever exists without being caused is God. So, if the laws of physics are eternal and simply exist without cause, then they are God. Even if that were the case, that still leaves the unanswered question of how all the matter got instantiated (because Mathematical laws can exist without material instantiation). I heard Carl Jung talk once about the likelihood that God is unconscious. I didn't like that idea, but if it were true, I can see no difference between an unconscious creator God and the laws of physics.

I've heard arguments that I think are convincing that the scientific method was developed in the first place because people believed there was an intelligent creator God, and that therefore nature was rational. Math is a kind of language, and Genesis says that God created by speaking, so at the highest abstract level, Genesis appears to be true in this sense. Even if none of the rest of it is true, this points towards the idea of a creator God as being the best model of reality that people had yet come up with, because it bore fruit.

I realize that this is speculative, but I'm not aware that anyone could prove that this story did not happen. It is a convenient scaffold for a philosophical viewpoint.