Subject: Humanist/Pantheist Art Project
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003
From: Chicschiss@aol.com
To: Pantheists.org

Flash Light says myth is the software of our neural network, and it is not meaningful to ask if this software is "true", but more meaningful to ask if it is "useful".

The terms "true" and "useful" are not mutually exclusive. Flash Light says beliefs "in Christ, Krishna, Buddha" etc. can be judged by their utility. So they can, but they also can be judged by their verity. There is a difference between the reality of a god, and the reality of a concept of a god. Santa Claus is not real, but the concept of Santa Claus is. Is Flash Light’s pantheism based on the reality of the concept?

Utility is contextual. The concept of specific gods has been useful to some, but destructive to others. History teems with examples, a recent one being 9/11. Gods have been historically useful to societies by controlling mass behavior and establishing social cohesion, and to rulers by helping them retain power. But this utility has been accomplished by deception and fear; an enlightened civilization should no longer need deception and fear. (The significant word is should!)

Flash light says the gods do exist - as software running in the minds of believers. But software is not a concept: it is real, true, manufactured by humans and physically installed in computers. The gods are a learnt belief system suggesting but not guaranteeing specific behaviors; so is scientific critical thinking. But software guarantees specific behaviors: it is designed to do a certain job and it does that job exactly, and only that job. Belief systems are not software.

It is meaningful (and useful) to seek the truth. Ignorance of what is true is an obstacle to successfully dealing with the problems of the real world. It is no longer enough for something to be simply useful to some. Radical Islam was useful to those wanting to destroy the twin towers, and perhaps wanting to destroy the rest of the Western world./ But if humanity is to survive, the truth will serve us, all of us, better. In the modern world it is truth which is ultimately useful.