[ExI] Rick Warren on religion

[Dave Sill]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2018 at 3:01 PM SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> If your identity requires people, and you remove the people, how can the
> identity continue?
>

My identity doesn't require other people. Without other people my identity
will change, but it'll still be mine.

The USA is a nation. It’s boundaries rely on treaty, and those treaties
> rely on governments. With no people, there are no government, thus no
> nations.
>

If I'm the last person on Earth, and I think I'm in the US, then I'm in the
US. I don't need governments to validate my beliefs.

You cannot maintain citizenship to a country which does not exist.
>

I can make a country exist.

How could you possibly maintain a meaningful “job” as we currently
> understand one in a capitalist society, if there is no money, no goods or
> services to exchange, and no one to consume the product you create. There
> is no possible financial end, as there are no people.
>

I would redefine "job" to apply to a non-capitalist world.

If a Church is a religious organization, then it ceases to exist when there
> is no one to organize it.
>

If I'm the only member of the Church, it ceases to exist when I say it does.


> If it is a body of believers it ends when there are no believers.
>

OK, so if I believe then it doesn't end.

If there are no people, how would you know if you were still a misanthrope.
>

I would ask myself "do you wish there were other people?" and if the answer
was "no" then I'd know I'm still a misanthrope.

There is no way to check.
>

See above.


> Similarly you cannot be anxious of social interactions if their are none,
>

Sure you can; you can be anxious of potential social interactions. There
don't have to be monsters for one to be afraid of monsters.

and you can’t be confident in them either because they fail to exist.
> Similarly, you are now neither smart nor dumb, because your responses to
> events are precisely the definition of average.
>

You can make wise or unwise decisions, whether there are other people or
not.


> Your attitudes and reactions literally become the only possible ones. If
> you took an IQ a thousand times, your score would average to 100 because
> you are the only person who could be used to average the score.
>

IQ becomes meaningless but intelligence doesn't cease to exist.

The concept of “self” is created in relation to that which is not the self
> (the other). No one is arguing that your physical body would dissolve and
> that you would ascend to an enlightened non-material self.
>

So what's your point? Without other people I cease to be a person? That's
ludicrous.

What we’re saying is that your concept of “self” that is, how you define
> yourself as a person distinct from others, breaks down if you are the only
> person.
>

No it doesn't, it just changes.

Let’s take a for example here: how would you describe yourself? What type
> of person are you? How would that sense of self be impacted by no longer
> having other people?
>

I'd be different, but I wouldn't cease to exist.

-Dave
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