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There's a fun thought experiment in store for you, and in the end I demonstrate how 'atheist' and 'MGTOW' are the same thing, which is pretty cool. But it's less to do with that example. Sorta jumping the gun but whatever. I'm starting a project I suppose you can help with or appreciate. Basically, I believe that where there is some content of truth within any perspective that's logically consistent. Yet, that truth isn't a matter of conclusion but one of relationship. So let's try a thought experiment! I'll show what I mean through numbers. Ex: I ask 3 people to solve for 'x'. The Christian says the answer is 3. The MGTOW says the answer is 5. The Conservative says the answer is 11. These numbers only represent some conclusion they've crafted in response to 'x' (some problem). Then they argue and carry on as they do. But then you ask this: Solve for 'y'. The Christian says the answer is 3.6. The MGTOW says the answer is 6. The Conservative says the answer is 13.2. Then you keep doing this over and over again. You can also do this merely by studying their content, of course. Now, all their conclusions are different. But you're not interested in their conclusions. Instead, you're interested in how their conclusions relate to each other. You want to see how x relates to y, how one conclusion they have relates to another. From there, you're trying to establish a trend. You're trying to see if irrespective of their conclusions, the way they relate to each other is the same. Think of it like a different language. The term 'fear' is different in a host of languages and you wouldn't understand them. But should you inquire their term for spiders, anxiety, terror, etc., you'd be able to establish how each term relates to the others and so finally understand their language. Takes a long time granted, but it's how you do it. Learn the word. Learn its relation. Learn the language. Yet what's more, if we delve into our own understanding of terms in our own language. We come to find out that we understand these terms through relation as well. Think about it. Not only is every word, every abstraction reliant on others to understand it, to frame it within reality. But without those others things existing, you wouldn't be able to define the term let alone even create the abstraction. It's like the physical law(?)of how everything that exists is an effect and produces an effect. So everything that exists does so by virtue of interaction. Be that with something else or time or whatever. It's a neat ontological idea and one that's been plenty explored - true too, I think. What that means is that everything that exists, or rather everything we recognize as existing, does so in our minds by virtue of relationship. It's not an 'is', it doesn't 'just exist'. There needs to be a how, a constitution of some sort. Science bears this out and might even be a product of our minds more than anything. See, every time we find a gap in a cause and effect system, we create something to be responsible for it. Then we try to demonstrate its existence in some fashion. If successful, we try to find a gap in this new cause and effect system, the next thing to be responsible for it, and so create something there and so on and so forth. Truly, those things, those particles for the most part, are placeholders. It's freaky, but they might not actually exist. They've all been the product of attempting to understand a relationship. We say that a proton effects an atom in this way which effects a molecule in this way which effects a larger molecule this way and so on until, I dunno, you form an apple. But we know in reality that where we started, the proton (or whatever the smallest particle we identify) is what the whole thing is supposedly made of. There is no 'atom'. It's a grouping of protons(in this example). Just like there is no 'forest', there's only a bunch of trees. So really, what we're doing when we create all these other particles from proton to apple, is we're creating intermediaries to better understand the relationship protons have to apples. We look at it like a step-by-step process, but we've actually no reason to. Nothing happens 'first' in this system, since it's only one relationship in reality: proton to apple and even then, it's we who are calling this set of protons an apple in the first place. The only truth we've actually discerned from this is the nature of the relationship itself. It's component parts are intermediaries only for our own understanding. It's seen as step 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., but there aren't any steps. Or if you want, there's only one. One that we separate into different steps because we can't understand it any other way: proton->apple. Again a freaky thought, yet our language works this way. What 'humility' (or any word) is, is a product only of all its relationships to its component parts as well as its outcome in reality i.e. how you understand it. So not only do you need the existence of these other concepts, these other words to define and so understand 'humility', but you need an entire network of other words all linked together in some fashion. You need a 'language Matrix', a universe. This operational network, this modeling of reality would thus be a product not of individuals, of certain intrinsic beings, but one of relationship. The words would only be like nodes in a computer chip(protons, molecules, etc.). They only SEND the SIGNAL along. They only TRANSLATE the RELATIONSHIP along. It's WHERE that signal is sent that determines the function and so purpose of the node. Imagine being inside a hollow white sphere dotted with little black circles on the inside surface. When you 'select' a circle it shows all its connections to the others using, I dunno, lasers. All of them are connected yet all of them are different. That's how I envision it. So yeah, entertain the thought. How you understand something isn't due to some intrinsic, innate, 'entirely distinct from everything else' quality, no. You understand it in how it has an 'entirely distinct from everything else' relationship to well, everything else you know ON THE WHOLE. No matter what it is it hits all the nodes, but travels along them in a different path. For example, the node for 'war' isn't connected to 'good' unless routed first through 'soldier' and then 'defense' or whatever. And yes, the relationship of even those nodes are created in the same fashion, having their own unique connections to other nodes and so on. The beauty is that their inter-connectivity is technically all the same giant Matrix, but starting at a different node yields a different perspective of this connectivity. So no matter what, your mind never links 'war' with 'good' directly, or whatever the nature of this would actually be. (It's a thought experiment after all). So on the whole, this is your model of reality. This set of relationships is your 'truth'. So in this thought experiment, the nodes themselves, the words are irrelevant. They're all equally 'words' or 'beliefs' or 'positions' or 'WHATs' without distinction. What distinguishes them is 'HOW'. It's their interconnections that determines their uniqueness. Now if that were true, then what someone says is true or believes is true isn't actually relevant to what's true or even, believe it or not, their own understanding. The node doesn't matter. What matters is its relationship to the other nodes. So consider another person's connected nodes. They may have two nodes connected that you don't. So to you, they might seem like entirely unrelated phenomena. But if their understanding of something shares the same relationship you have regarding something else, if they have the same inter-connectivity but starting at a different node, then suffice it to say you believe the same thing, but only in a different language. Get it? So if their node for 'war' is linked nearly identically to everything your node for 'pragmatism' is connected to, then it's entirely likely that your understanding of 'pragmatism' is actually their understanding of 'war'. Sounds like a neat if probably impossible idea, but that's what I'm looking for. I'm finding it too, BTW. Remember those numbers? x = 3, 5, 11 y = 3.6, 6, 13.2 Well, 'y' is a product of this equation: y = (x/5)+x This is what I keep finding. So long as these groups are attempting to discern truth, they're forced to do so with regard to a certain matter and within a certain perspective since well, everyone has their biases. But wherever they deem to find it, it starts to create parallel relationships to other terms. Their conclusions are different yes, but their relationship to their conclusions, and its relationship to others, begins to develop an eerie congruity. So it is that their conclusions may be absolutely false, but their relationship to their conclusions and subsequent relationships therein, mirror our own within a different, supposedly unrelated subject. I take it you want an example and good, clean one. Simple: MGTOW are to women what atheists are to God. Strip away what each of those terms represent and simply look at the relationship between them. Everything the atheist says of God is true of what the MGTOW says of women. Remember, the 'nodes' don't matter. It's the relationship between the nodes that does. Atheists claim there is no 'God'. It's a product of your own desire for it and subsequent projection of meaning into it. MGTOW claim there is no 'woman'. It's a product of your own desire for it and subsequent projection of meaning into it. Atheists attempt to reconstitute 'God' as it actually exists i.e. the effect it actually produces in reality. MGTOW attempt to reconstitute 'Woman' as it actually exists i.e. the effect it actually produces in reality. 'God' doesn't exist as described, so atheists study the nature of the theist (true believer) to best determine the nature of 'God' as an abstraction. 'Woman' doesn't exist as described, so MGTOW study the nature of the gynocentrist (true believer) to best determine the nature of 'woman' as an abstraction. Atheists don't pray. MGTOW don't hope (no NAWALT). Atheists don't tithe. MGTOW don't pay. Atheists don't attend church. MGTOW don't take 'Women's Studies'. Atheists don't become priests. MGTOW don't become feminists. Atheists don't value God, seeing only the possible benefits of delusion and social cohesion. MGTOW don't value women, seeing only the possible benefits of delusion and social cohesion. Now, this isn't just some mad-lib or 'fill-in-the-blanks' sort of scenario. This matter of relationship is 1:1. In this case, both represent the loss of an abstraction, the loss of a certain connectivity of nodes, and a reconstitution as how they actually exist. But amazingly, that reconstitution is exactly the same. We would think this is impossible given the nature of these concepts. But if we remove any notion of what they're meant to represent, to see them as empty words, as mere nodes in our model of reality, they can be absolutely equal given the same array of relationship. The same relationship to the self, to the individual. And that's what's happening. This is why Jordan Peterson has paralleled very well (I've done better - maybe) the link between Genesis and consciousness. Also, the nature of God as truth, Jesus as the relationship truth has to ourselves, and with the Holy Spirit as the process of reconciling this through discernment. I've already gone into the Christian with this same tool to great effect. I linked them with scientists. Again, uncanny and offers some explanation of why Christian Europe was so instrumental to the scientific revolution. The Holy Trinity is the Scientific Method. Watch a good preacher talk about God and shift him into a scientist talking about the nature of truth. It will follow suit. I've posted something related to this in the Religion section just now, if you're interested. Anyway, yeah. Finding evidence for this is all I'm up to at the moment. Atheist and MGTOW are well-established, but I'd like to try more. I know some will see atheist and MGTOW both as a product of disillusionment and that's all they really share in common. But if you look at the relationship they have to their beliefs, how it shapes their identity, intentions, interactions, and others, the commonality continues unabated. So if you take yourself as an atheist and shift your node, shift your perspective so that 'God' lines up with 'woman', you'll at the very least be able to better understand MGTOW. Sympathize too, since as a matter of language and its relationship to themselves, they aren't technically wrong on principle. I actually encourage you to try it - if you can. Write out your relationship to 'God' then convert it to woman, following through on all the same relationships 'God' had. The impetus to MGTOW makes sense too, after that. No personal motivations or intentions are required to create it. Just lose the abstraction of 'woman'. Same goes for atheist with regard to God, obviously. There is no particular intention or motivation required. Instead, a loss of intention is. Same for MGTOW and to the same result. I guess the takeaway is that when it comes to things that aren't real, that are just ideas - especially lost ones, we can better discern our understanding of them strictly through their relationship to other ideas, not of any intrinsic quality. It also serves to simplify so many things, given one can only have so many relationships to belief anyway, if you think about it. It could probably even be charted using maths. +,-,x,/ and all that. Your model of reality converted into algebra? Complicated as all hell, but I think we could do it. Hope this was fun. PS - There's a Numberphile video on YouTube regarding Surreal Numbers. Just Google it. Watch a mad-genius create our entire collection of numbers(means more than it sounds) using only this ' : '. He's half the reason I think I'm right about this, since he's created everything using only the concept of 'greater' and 'lesser' or: 0 and 1. If I'm right about nodes, at the most basic level it is binary i.e. connected or not. There's other parallels though, obviously. The philosophical process of attribution i.e. distinction i.e. individuation, as a major one.

As title says; Pretty sure I heard it on an FDR video but can't remember - I'm fairly sure it was something like 60 times more likely to be left-leaning than right-leaning, if Atheist? Does anyone remember hearing something like that, and if yes, do you remember the study / source? I can't seem to lay my hands on it. Cheers!

how can evolution/atheism account for objective morality?

I'm am a fairly new atheist and have not "come out" to anyone but my husband as of yet. He is supportive and empathetic though he still identifies as a Christian. I am very nearly ready to come out to my husband's immediate family and one very close friend, as they all still presume me to be a devout Christian as they are and they keep asking me to attend and/or help out with church events and I feel like a fraud making up excuses for why I can't. I think calling a family meeting to announce my nonbelief seems melodramatic, but all the resources I've found online seem to just assume I will use this format when coming out to my family. My problem with this lies in that my father-in-law is working/living out of state and my close friend is also out of state for school. On top of this, everyone in the family has very busy schedules that would be hard or impossible to synchronize for a big family get-together so that I could tell them all in person. While I'd love for everyone to find out about my nonbelief in the most organic way possible (in conversation), I don't want anyone finding out secondhand, which would be unavoidable I think; I want everyone to hear it directly from me. I have a "coming out" letter almost finished and edited, but now that I'm reading all these things online that assume an in-person meeting is the way to go, I'm second guessing myself about whether to use an emailed letter as my method. I think I would communicate more effectively and thoroughly in a letter, but I also think it could make things a bit weird since it puts the ball completely in their court to come talk to me about anything they might want to ask or say. I am most interested in the story of anyone who has religious family and can relate to what it's like to be surrounded by people who assume you believe the same way they do until you contradict that assumption. And I'm interested specifically in the story of anyone who "came out" to their religious family by some means other than a dramatic family meeting. Is there any great way to do this? Is the letter an entirely bad idea? As a side question: to what extent do you address religious friends' and acquaintances' religiously motivated posts on social networks? If someone posts something specifically about atheists that is just ridiculous and makes a habit of publishing falsehoods about evolution, etc., do you just roll your eyes and ignore them, or do you think certain things are worth addressing?

Hey guys - I have my first funeral on Saturday as an Atheist. My cousin died (at 22) and though I wasn't too close to him recently, that side of my family is very close knit. They are also very Christian. Does anyone have any experience with this (it will be at a church) and do you have any tips on how to handle this? My current plan is to follow along with what happens and not say too much - which may be the best approach? If you can point me to any of Stefs or other relevant work on this I would appreciate this as well Thanks! Jonathan Also it pays to note that I have told my immediate family, much to their dismay, that I am an Atheist. My mother, her mother, and my sister are very Christian, while my dad doesn't care either way.

This is a blog post that I wrote about the effects of the Christian doctrine "Substitutionary Atonement." I've been blogging about the trauma produced by religion since I've left the mythology of Christianity. I'd love to get your thoughts on the post. Also, If you have any suggestions for posts, please share! Enjoy! http://www.goddisorder.com/2013/08/substitutionary-atonement-how-it.html