• YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    How do you think you pass over riches, drugs, sex, etc that you can easily acquire one way or another? You don’t cheat on your wife because of your beliefs, you don’t do coke because of your beliefs, you don’t undercut your employees because of your beliefs, etc etc. There literally isn’t any other way to curtail your hedonistic impulses (and other impulses, ofc) but to BELIEVE in something, a sentence or a group of sentences that resound within you at least, that tells you “no, it’s okay, I can hold it in cause if not I’ll regret it later”. It’s either that or, idk, locking yourself up in a room? 😅

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      6 hours ago

      Wait, what?? Are you guys walking around holding back a savage animal through raw force of will?

      Like…I’ve done lots of things I regret, but then later I don’t want to do them anymore, because I know it’ll feel bad

      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Why do you feel bad? Are their lives and opinions that important? I know that the human being is kind at his core, of course, but that nature can be easily veiled with enough wrong ideas. The reason for rampant immorality in some places and times is not because the human being is a natural antisocial, solipsistic deviant but because some cultures heavily uphold wrong things and have completely let go of the right ideas.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          30 minutes ago

          I feel bad because I’ve made the world worse, or that I’ve disappointed myself. But when circumstances force me to act in ways I find immoral, I just feel disgust

          I want good things for everyone in general, but I’m not some endlessly patient Buddha.

          I just try to understand people through their own eyes… And I try to understand myself too. I feel what they feel, but I can also just walk away

          But it’s not about them, not really.

          It’s about me - who am I? Do I make things better or worse? Do I make people better or worse? If you brought me into a perfect world, would I make that world worse?

          If there were 5 billion of me, what kind of world would it be?

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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      8 hours ago

      I dunno, I’d say people do things like coke, cheat, etc, because of beliefs.

      They have a belief that “it doesn’t matter”.

      But yea, our beliefs, our paradigms, are what help us be better people to each other.

      Hell, science is founded on the belief that the universe is rational, that “God does not play dice with the universe”.

      Studying quantum mechanics makes me wonder otherwise. Nothing about it is rational. Not to say I don’t operate on a day-to-day basis that the underlying framework makes sense, what other choice do we have?

      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        If we manage to understand pretty much everything about the universe above the quantum level, I’d consider that a great success for some bipedal primates on the 3rd rock from the Sun, looool. 😁