The invisible blanket

It's Like Group Therapy For Atheists (reply to)

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[gedgetips]

@gedgetips OK, so I don't really get what you are saying regarding the deconverted person having more than just a "lack of bias" going on. I would suggest such a person would tend to continue to accept that "absolute" refers to some other worldly realm even when he ceases to believe in such an absolute. That is, once one is a theist there is a tendency to retain some of the basic beliefs & remain biased against "this world" or even antinatalistic even if one ceases to be religious, as such.

[gedgetips]

@Curas1 I had seen the referenced vid but wasn't recalling it in watching & commenting on yours. My semi-bad. I wouldn't say there is no absolute morality or that everything is culturally relevant only, as I see this as a misleading emphasis that tends to assume a religious basis for this "absolute." As a never-theist & an early anti-theist (age of 5) my sense of the absolute is more about what is relevant outside of the immediate relationships & reactions within a given context.

[Curas1]

@gedgetips

I think I was trying to say that if there is no absolute morality and everything is culturally relevant then it would seem that even if someone was indoctrinated with religious values but later deconverted to become a atheist something else besides a 'lack of bias' must be taking it's place because there is no absolute morality or a fixed frame of reference for values to be established! Aha!

Did you see zaunstars video ?

[gedgetips]

@gedgetips In everyday terms of my saying I will "absolutely" show up for a party, for example, I would mean that given all the situations I can imagine, and over which I have some control, I will make it to that party. Nothing w/i the normal expectations of my affairs, like a friend showing up to visit, will prevent my attendance -- and so in this sense I will "absolutely" be there but, yet, of course, could have an accident or die from frozen turds hitting me from a passing plane, etc.

[gedgetips]

In order to make the absolute relevant it can help to see it as relative to a given context, where something being "absolute" means it applies regardless of whatever occurs within the usual patterns of relationships w/i this context. Otherwise, if we are trying to speak of an absolute that is outside of all patterns of relationship in "this world" then we are rendering the absolute to be a meaningless abstraction w/ "invisible blanket" relevance applying to everything & nothing.