June 16, 2013: Online Work Bee

Revision 42717

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SolSeed archive migration
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Create maintainable Markdown archive revision
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8829 bytes
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Agenda

Check In

WWWs from last time

WWWs

Weekly Events Logistics

Service during Ottawa trip: we'll figure it out later (Shelley) Rotation: Brandon, Shelley, Eric, Ben

Work-Bee Sunday June 30, 1:30 pm PDT 16:30 EDT (Brandon will be at the PSAS rocket launch)

Seeing Nature Readings and Practices: next is 2013-10-20 13:00 EST

"The Seed" Song

The Religion Question

Ben's sister Abigail's response to the song was "But why does this have to be a religion?" Ben talked about one of Brandon's arguments about motivating people by occupying the religious place in our circles of commitment. Her argument is that is what makes religion so insidious because it brain-washes people. Ben and Abigail talked about it maybe being okay if you are an adult and you know what you are going into. But Abigail's impression is that most people don't know enough going in, and children certainly don't have much say or information (maybe not enough). The last thing we talked about was values vs. beliefs ... we may be certain about our values being positive, but religions have beliefs that they impose on people (or people accept because they come with the package). Ben's answer (almost certainly inaccurate) was that we try not to have any beliefs, but to just go with what mainstream science has to say about the world. She said that in that case it's not a religion.

Afterward Ben was thinking we have at least one belief: that it would be good for life to spread outward into space. Ben was thinking about how people telling you to believe something can after a long time feel like you are telling ourself. (for example Paul Guilding telling you that grief about the future is okay, but that prolonged despair is not) If it were up to Ben he would try and avoid grieving for the world and be more constructive in saying "how can we prevent some of the things" ... Paul's book points you toward "there is nothing to be done." His book is not a religious tract, so both the positive things about religion (committing you to act in accordance with values) and negative things (reshaping your views in a way that you wouldn't necessarily choose) can be found outside of religion as well.

We may need to go over again the arguments for and against SolSeed being a religion.

Brandon: I think we need a "Why we are a religion" essay.

Eric: We are a religion because I like us being a religion. Do we need a better reason? Brandon: I agree; I'm aware of the evil uses of religion that are rampant, but I also think there's a strong argument to be made that we wouldn't have human civilization without religion, and there are few other things that have the power to make historically positive change happen. Science being another example of such a thing Eric: This is what Sol 2012 was about: doing religion better than it's been done in the past. Brandon: "We tried baseball and it didn't work": http://xprogramming.com/articles/jatbaseball/ Brandon: Religion is about personal and group character-building, rather than about making X happen in the world Practicing piano is similar: "brainwashing yourself" so you have instincts that support great piano-playing Eric: But religion isn't so narrowly focused, it includes one's whole character and how we deal with morally difficult situations Brandon: If we're successful and enough people get involved, the whole gamut of human expression will manifest, including people who commit atrocities "in the name of life" Eric: Or in the name of a misremembered idea, e.g. "SalSaud" ... in the very long term, all your actions can have unpredictable and horrible consequences Brandon: If SolSeed lasts, we won't be able to control what it eventually becomes

Abigail: Does this have to be an argument (confrontational), or just a discussion? Ben: Religion is the sort of thing that makes it hard to avoid feeling confrontational, despite our value of embracing difference Eric: Conflict is a good thing <s>sometimes</s> all the time Brandon: But argument may not be

Sol 2013

Evaluation