Well, I'm certainly not going to try to convince you of anything. I believe that truth and morality (as I conceive it) are quite often on opposite sides, and when that happens, for me, truth loses every single time. As I've said earlier, I think morality starts with not harming another human being, and if I have to tell human beings lies to stop them harming each other, I'm damn well going to lie like a trooper and not wait for them to become "enlightened" enough to figure it out.
A lie in this context can be a truth we haven't made true yet, like for instance "crime does not pay." Of course it pays, it pays by the truckload, and if truth is all one cares about then there can be no objection to letting everyone know that and govern their lives accordingly. If enough people believe the lie, though, there are fewer criminals, they're easier to catch, and sooner or later the return from crime becomes uneconomic and lo, the lie is true. That's how we achieve morality; we start with a lie and make it true. If you start with a truth you can't change anything.
But once again I come up against the unquestioned, untested, almost unnoticed assumption that all religion is lies. As long as that assumption is embedded in the bottom strata of anyone's thoughts, I cannot find any common ground or engage in any meaningful discussion, because there is no reason to assume it. It is entirely possible, on the evidence we have, that some form of religion (however distorted, however misused) was indeed divinely inspired and represents a measure of truth. I don't say any particular one is, or does...but I'm against basing my entire view of something on a statement about it that I do not know to be true, but merely want to be true. And that is what people are doing (whatever flattering name they give it in their own minds) when they decide that there can never have been, can never be, any truth or any good or any value in any religion.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-09-23 01:12 am (UTC)A lie in this context can be a truth we haven't made true yet, like for instance "crime does not pay." Of course it pays, it pays by the truckload, and if truth is all one cares about then there can be no objection to letting everyone know that and govern their lives accordingly. If enough people believe the lie, though, there are fewer criminals, they're easier to catch, and sooner or later the return from crime becomes uneconomic and lo, the lie is true. That's how we achieve morality; we start with a lie and make it true. If you start with a truth you can't change anything.
But once again I come up against the unquestioned, untested, almost unnoticed assumption that all religion is lies. As long as that assumption is embedded in the bottom strata of anyone's thoughts, I cannot find any common ground or engage in any meaningful discussion, because there is no reason to assume it. It is entirely possible, on the evidence we have, that some form of religion (however distorted, however misused) was indeed divinely inspired and represents a measure of truth. I don't say any particular one is, or does...but I'm against basing my entire view of something on a statement about it that I do not know to be true, but merely want to be true. And that is what people are doing (whatever flattering name they give it in their own minds) when they decide that there can never have been, can never be, any truth or any good or any value in any religion.