What beliefs do you hold that stand on mere authority?
What beliefs do you hold that stand on mere authority?
32 comments
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My beliefs are too lazy to stand. They're sitting and waiting for the world to fall apart.
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I can respect that. I can't say that I have any strong beliefs either.
But then there's "keep the bills paid or things will get bad". But that's strongly empirically based.
And there are beliefs like "reality is composed of a multitude of things flapping around in time and space" which is popular but stands on the rock of mere convention (ok, maybe it's deeper than that). And might bear questioning. How strong is my belief there? I dunno.
I assume that our culture delivers a fair sack of authority-based beliefs. It would be nice to get a list.
But then it's like asking a fish what water tastes like.
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I totally understand the nature of your question, but I don't think you're going to get much of any solid well founded answers.
It's akin to asking "Are you in a cult, and what are the beliefs they taught you?"
You'll almost always get the same sort of answer from either side of the fence, "No I'm not in a cult", even if the person is totally in a cult and just too blind and brainwashed to realize it.
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That humanity overall gets better and more moral over time.
It's really interesting if you get into the history of it, but There are plenty of historical records that actually show that the past wasn't as horrific as we imagine it to be. Partially because people like to look at the past as terrible to make themselves feel better about the present.
I'm not convinced that there is any real evidence that shows that over time humanity gets morally better, but I like to believe in it, because otherwise it makes me think we should all die 🤷♂️
And just to clarify, I don't mean just actions but also intent. For example, these days we have democracies that have more complex laws to protect people's rights and therefore it's harder to cause the same kind of harm that could have been happening under a kingdom. But at the same time, now we have stuff like factory farmings and wars that lead to millions and tens of millions of deaths and pandemics that are not stopped properly because of conspiracy theories, etc.
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You can’t really measure morality like that. It’s like I look through a library and decide that the library has more sci-fi books than they did earlier because I walked to the sci-fi section. Our modern view of morality is in-line with modern morality. People 200 years ago would have considered themselves just as moral as we consider ourself now.
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I would say that we can't really quantify morality on a time scale that large. I may be confusing terms here but the specifics of what is and isn't considered moral will vary wildly between different groups of people and different time periods.
Even if you break morality down to the concept of "don't cause unnecessary suffering" leaves a lot of room for different interpretation.
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Well, yes, there are always going to be some disagreements, but there are some general things that, according to that principle that you yourself wrote, most people could agree on.
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Money has value (Fiat currency, value by decree)
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By authority of the central bank and the state? Checks out.
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Excellent one
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So fuck it gold right? What stupid plans have you got otherwise?
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1 + 1 = 2. I trust my elementary school math teacher
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Terrence Howard would love to speak with you
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You ain’t thinking with geometry mayn…
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How do you mean?
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If a belief stands on authority alone it's not something I believe, it's something I accept, either because I want to change or as a compromise.
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As few as possible.
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But not none!
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Lots of scientific/technical/medical ones.
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Are you asking about beliefs regarding authority, or beliefs we know to be absolutely arbitrary with no evidence to back up?
Or what do you mean if neither of these?
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Western cultural ethics and morality pivot on the fulcrum of child soldiers as the only basis for an age of majority in the late teens. So the authority of a military dictates my belief.
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The military can physically push everybody around but that doesn't mean that you have to buy into this "age of majority in late teens" thing, surely.
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Try and live by that and you might have some problems one way or another.
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I have one, weak-ass belief that I stand by, and I think everyone unconsciously stands by: All you can do is take a step forward.
If your situation is hell, standing still or going back is not an option. Just take a step, and see how it goes. Then take another. And so forth.
Weak stoicy bullshit I know, but it does remove the stress of uncertainty in a situation.
32 comments