Sorry it has taken me a bit to respond... I had some active comment sections today and I try to be engaged there.
A couple of things... When I say I am not religious... I don't follow any revealed, prophetic, etc based religions. Nothing organized. Those shift so much and it is easily proven they do that at this point they are primarily works of man. Some people find comfort in them. They tend to cause discomfort in me.
I wrote a few times about the closest things religion wise to explain me... here are a few you can read or not read. They are old so I am not trying to solicit votes. I don't tend to do that.
The little religion that history has forgotten... Deism (not to be confused with Theism) - 10 months ago... explains my thinking best I think
If reality were only a simulation how would WE the simulants be able to know for sure?
Outcast, Hermit, different wiring, or possibly genetics... Am I intentionally obstinate? (some profanity... oh no)
Then there is what I wrote a few days ago that also ties into this... (images are clickable links to the articles)
Please understand my intentions are not to trash any religion. I know Christianity the best and I've studied it extensively and have many different bible versions. If I wanted to trash it and bash it I could do a pretty thorough job. That is not my goal though, and I don't see it as necessarily beneficial to do that. I don't mind people practicing it or any religion until they try to force it upon me or they make laws based upon it that force things upon me. I will fight in those situations.
Your post has been an inspiration for me and I did not mean to argue against any statements that you've made. So there is no need to be so defensive.
I just thought that your declaration was quite symptomatic: we reject religion yet we act and say things as if we were religious. And this also refers to people who openly declare themselves as atheists.
But I guess it all depends on how you define the word "religious".
My definition is very broad and it boils down to this: if there is at least one thing that you consider to be absolutely true (as opposed to everything being totally relative) than you are accepting the existence of a transcendent reality and thus you are being religious.
Ultimately the reason I added the religion comment in my post though is somewhat what you were talking about. I knew if I mentioned the word "evil" some people would immediately draw their own conclusions. Some would not see it as a chance to target religion, others would. I've actually encountered that before. I don't believe we actually need religion to understand the concept of evil. Some people though obviously have mental issues (example: psychopaths and sociopaths) and cannot totally comprehend this. So yes I recognized that by using "evil" some people may choose to focus on that word from a religious context, and if they are anti-religious that may stop them from reading any further, or if they are religious they could potentially take it in a context other than what I was aiming for as well. So yes, some of what you were writing about is true to my motivations as well.
I remember thinking "evil" and then feeling the need to put that qualifier in there. This is experiential in my case. I've had discussions derailed by that word before. People can latch onto a word and get fixated on it and ignore everything else I was talking about. Thus, I believe that qualifier was my experience trying to head that off at the pass so to speak.
That's an interesting insight.
That's the crucial point. I don't think it's possible to separate those two. When we deal with the concept of evil, we implicitly assume the existence of a transcendent reality and that's the very domain of religion. We could call it ethics but still it's the same thing: something that shapes our behavior yet it's beyond our rationality.
Personally I am fine with that. It fits right in with Deism.
So let me rephrase that "I don't believe we actually need ORGANIZED religion..." :)
I don't intend it as defensive and I didn't take your post as anything offensive. It's actually a good post. Well written.
I just thought I'd share what inspired me down that path. You noticed that I felt the need to mention religion in the post. I actually noticed that too as I was writing it. Yet I may have been coming at it different than you thought so I thought maybe if you knew a bit more about me as all I said was I am not religious in my post, but actually that was not quite true. I simply am not part of any organized religion. :) I am a religious soloist.
I'm glad it inspired you. I actually get why you wrote what you did. I just felt a need to share with YOU what actually did likely inspire my choice of words.
I actually had nothing wrong with what you wrote. If I had I would have quoted that part and discussed it. So please take no offense. I was simply being as open and honest with you as I could in a QUICK fashion as the comment sections of two of my posts have been pretty active today and it took me a bit to reply to you even though I opened it up in a tab as soon as you told me about it.
OK, that's good. Now I understand your point.