this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Makes me feel more assured and will reduce my suffering until I die. After my death, regardless of if I am right or wrong, the net positive of having had the soothing idea of a larger meaning can’t and won’t be retroactively undone. So why the hell not?
I think most people think like this at their core regardless of class, status, label.
Because religion can be and has been used to convince people to do terrible things. The fewer false beliefs people hold the fewer things can be used to manipulate them in this way.
water can and has drowned people. i fail to see your point.
Yes, and that's why we don't allow people to flood school, hospitals and homes with water. It is controlled and diverted.
we also don’t refuse to allow people to have small amounts of it accessible to them at all times or call it absolutely bad outright just because when used in a malicious way or left to be uncontrollable in particular situations it can be dangerous. shrug.
That's because water is necessary to life.
When doing risk analysis something that is required to keep people alive gets a few extra points towards being accessible for, hopefully, obvious reasons.
If even something that is necessary for life is controlled due to the danger it poses, you can imagine why people would seek to restrict dangerous things that people can live without.
From my perspective they are not lies.
In the hope of civil discussion, it is not helpful for you to frame it that way IMO.
What is truth and how do you know that?
There's no way to know the truth on something like this, but you should always seek it. There are ways to know certain things aren't true though. For example, the Judeo-Christian faith must be wrong, at least to an extent, because it's self-contradictory. Also, most religions are mutually exclusive, so how do you go about seeking the correct one if striving for truth is valuable?
Is this true? Because if so it is a contradiction.
This is just another way of making a truth claim even though you can't know the truth.
Who says seeking truth is something we ought to do? Particularly if knowing the truth is an impossibility. These are all assertions as to what we should do without any justification as to why we should do them.
I'm being slightly annoying to shine your own standards on yourself. Not meant to be combative.
Knowledge and truth are two different things, although I should have written it better. There's no way to know the truth on this particular subject. (Well, there is a way to know theoretically, if a god exists. There isn't a way to know if one doesn't exist though. You can't prove that something that doesn't exist doesn't exist. You can only prove that something exists.)
No, you can use logic to prove certain things can't exist. If there's a contradiction, it can't be correct, for example.
I'm not making a universal statement. I'm making the statement that someone who values truth should seek truth. That seems self-evident.
Assuming you're a skeptic...
Arguments for God's existence (such as classical theistic arguments) are not merely isolated truth claims—they function at the paradigmatic level, offering a foundation for knowledge itself.
If you deny God's existence, you must account for the reliability of reason, logic, and abstract universals like mathematics. If these are simply “self-evident,” then you're assuming the very thing your worldview has no means to justify.
Only if you can justify the validity of logic in your worldview. But without a transcendent source of rationality, why assume logic is binding or that it applies universally? You're using a tool (logic) without explaining why it ought to work or why it's trustworthy in a purely materialistic or skeptical framework.
Okay well this is just an opinion then. My main point here is that you can't propose any "oughts" without a justification.
Again. I'm being nit-picky but I feel like this thread is meant to invite some apologetic banter.
All of those are based on axioms. They're true if the axioms are true, but not otherwise. They are useful, but not self-evident. The axioms seem to hold though.
Why do we need a transcendent source of rationality? We only need to build upon foundations of solid axioms.
Do I need to spell out why someone who values truth should seek it? It's not really an opinion, but a statement. I guess it isn't a complete statement. I guess a more complete statement would be "someone who values truth, and wants to find what they value, should seek truth." Is that better? I don't think that middle portion is required to spell out, but whatever.
It's impossible for you to know that.
Says who? How do they justify that claim?
Axioms are pragmatic and therefore used a lot in math and science but when you enter the realm of metaphysics (e.g. Philosophy) you have to ground your worldview in a justified true belief.
Why do you think truth matters so much? Don't disagree, but why is it humans will forego a more beneficial situation if it's proven to be "untrue" or "not real" etc?
More beneficial for whom? The truth is that pollution is bad. I can make myself feel better about how much energy I use by assuring myself that I'm chosen by God and deserve to consume resources and pollute. This harms other people though. The truth is non-opinionated, so actually useful. Believing something to make yourself feel better, and ignoring problems, is biased favoring yourself and against others.
The truth has value in decision making, while comforting lies have value in stress reduction. Choosing 'truth' over 'comfort' is a long-termist strategy. Being satisfied by a simple answer will make you feel better now, increasing survivability in the short term, but finding a better model of the world to operate by, a.k.a. learning, lets you make better decisions for the rest of your life.
my choosing to engage with something that might not be true isn’t hurting anyone. i’m a solo practitioner of a non christian faith. :p of course the truth matters, but when staring at it makes you actively suicidal and feel like everything lacks meaning, why not make use of the circuitry our brains evolved with, and let a little bit of What If light the path forward?