It is actually not interesting whether or not there are gods

I think whether or not there is a god (or gods) doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter anything, and we should not care.Why so?

Here is the reasoning:
1. If there is a god who created (and/or manages the world) that god (or those gods) allow for a lot of suffering, pain, and meaningless horror (pedophilia, torture, sadists, abuse in family, depression, wars, bombs, and so on). As humans we have clear interests: safety, relative wellbeing for ourselves and our families, freedom from too much stress. That's pretty much it. Gods that create the kind of world we live in are not concerned with out needs, hence, we shouldn't care whether or not they exist. Their concerns are different from ours. They are perfectly alien to our world, having no deep concern with anything that makes our lives worth living. Such gods do not merit any attention. We should keep working on better societies, better charities, better and less corrupt social institutions including politics, and on getting along better.

2. If there is a god who created the world that is of no concern to our creating better societies, better charities, better and less corrupt social institutions including politics, and on getting along better. There is no sign at all that any god has any concern with our endeavours to create better societies. People live excellent lives in atheist societies, mixed religion societies, non-religious societies, and also, people live horrible lives in both religious and non-religious societies. At the same time, people live much better lives in societies with strong and stable political institutions, with social justice, with effective charities and social services, with solidarity and good psychological services. People without these things live consistently worse lives.

3. Our abilities to build better societies don't depend on any gods. They depend on human capacities and abilities to feel, think, and talk. We can cooperate, plan, agree on things, and act together. That's all that is basically required to start any social cooperation. Gods are hence irrelevant. The values we create don't depend on gods, they depend on our abilities and activities, and our efforts. The values that matter to humans are values that stem from our human nature and build, and our ways of living.

4. Gods could seem to be relevant to the sciences. But it seems that whatever role any creating god or interfering god might have played at any time, the world does run consistently along the rules natural science, and our spheres of human interest are shaped by the activities and dynamics of the cultural conceptual spheres that humans shape. Hence gods are irrelevant to them. We need to understand the kind of social world we build, and the kind of natural world around us better, as well as their interconnections. We are parts of nature, so our capacities to invent cultural norms, habits, to sustain practices and invoke values, and so on, are all natural. They don't need to be reduced, or explained away, nor do they need to be explained by invoking the interference of gods. They are simply complex and interesting parts of our world.

Why everyone should be a feminist

In my previous post I proposed that there is inequality which disadvantages all women around the globe. Anyone not wanting to change that situation seems irrational, or self-serving and hence morally blameworthy. Since this situation affects half of the Earth's population the matter is urgent, that is why it merits its own treatment.

Why should everyone accept that this is so?

Well, we know at the moment the following: We know that there is inequality that we can all agree is wrong. Namely:

- Income inequality: women doing the same job get lower salaries in many places.

- Chance inequality: often when admitting students or hiring applicants for a job male's are preferred, even if there is no other relevant differentiating detail in the applicants' CVs.

- Recognitional inequality: women get promotions and favourable performance reviews less often. This even happens - sadly - when women rate women, or for example when students rate teachers and lecturers.

- Inequalities in further gender-role based expectations: it is widely different how much work is expected from a woman to be spent raising her children, cleaning, and providing other essentials for her family. On top of this in many societies there are further unequally spread expectations such caring for the elderly and the sick, playing community roles, or being physically attractive.

To the last inequality some people object: but there is a similar expectation towards man, just look at the fact that handsome man are on TV and in ads. But this argument is wrong because it mixes up two things: it is very different that some people (among them some women) enjoy, and on men expecting women to look good. This is especially salient, because for women looks are often less important in choosing partners, whereas men sometimes 'punish' women on the basis of their looks, going even as far as to leave them, or making employment, promotions, and so on conditional on appearances.

All the above listed are inequalities between men and women that are proven, that have been measured and observed in experiments, and can be read off from economic data. It is certainly obvious to any grownup that this situation needs to be changed.

With this, I’m not saying that woman should not care about their looks, not have children, etc. but that this should be in their freedom to choose, and not what is expected of them to be prioritized. I’m sure many would choose to those these things, as these activities can be very joyful, rewarding, fulfilling, etc. for some people, and there is nothing wrong with them in themselves. What is wrong if someone chooses these activities because they are made to believe that that’s the only right thing to do and they should choose it otherwise something is wrong with them.

Of course as with any problem that is very large scale we should look at the causes of the problem. As with other social-psychological large scale problems there are social structural problems in the background. Most plausibly the factors are that: 

- Girls are not encouraged to follow certain career paths, and life-way, and to also experiment with new life paths, and

- women are given role models and feedback that prioritizes the traditional gender behavior, plus

- there is a lack of viable role models and alternatives, a lack of support for these, and a lot of punitive political and social action and feedback if one tries to step out of line.

- Add on top of this that due to implicit bias even people and organizations who are consciously and explicitly committed to equality make sometimes biased judgments.

What we need to do is to provide choices, and a range of role models, and to protect those who are punishing women for following their own paths. Just as a man nowadays one can aim at becoming a good father, an astronaut (the most boring example of aiming high), a lawyer, an electrician, and a nurse; a carer, an artist, a dancer, a bachelor, a family man, a community fighter, a lone wolf, etc. so all options should be open and the same should be available for any woman. And just as all these different types of men are cheered on, and there are people who reassure them that they are filling in a role that is needed, that they are making the right choices, so, women need the same kind of assurance, whatever track they choose, and whichever way they go.

There are some important mistakes that need to be avoided while giving positive feedback. One of them is essentialism, the idea that there is some element of the traditional gender role that has to be maintained to be still a woman. This mistaken notion has had harmful effects already in many cases in the last 40 years. Just look at supposedly ‘empowering’ videos featuring woman who train hours every day and appear in the videos dancing in minimal clothing  - reinforcing one of the most harmful stereotypes that being attractive sexually is what being a woman is - and perform stereotypical male actions like handling power tools, fighting and shooting, taking revenge, driving sports cars, and so on.

What would be needed instead would be the message that "Hey, you men – most of you – aren’t like that either, and I don’t need to be like a man anyway. I’m happy to let go of the traditional woman package too: I don’t have to be sexy, and I don’t have to wield power tools or be a top business executive. I can be an okay lawyer or counselor, or ... whatever! I can have my average business dealing in whatever I know about, I can write books or pretty much do whatever I want. I can identify with whatever I want, and I can change. If I want to be like that I will be." Of course I'm not advocating radical individualism or that in making up one's mind about how one should live one shouldn't take into consideration one's family, loved ones, and community. But not in the way that one only thinks of the ways one could contribute to the life of others as people living in more rigid times did.

 

Of course in some cases there might be people who can 'max out' both the requirements of the traditional male and female stereotype. But that to me seems overly ambitious taken that most of us don’t even succeed in either one of those two categories even when some of us try. What seems to be much saner is to treat these options as a basket into which one puts what one can identify with – this can change as life goes on. Of course commitments have to be taken seriously and people should be encouraged to foster their skills, talents, work hard, help others, raise amazing kids and so on – but not to do all these things at the same time. 

The mistake of pushing woman to pursue corporate and top-manager careers at all costs definitely has to be avoided. Liberation is not to have to be like some of the most competitive, stressed, overworked and sometimes unscrupulous man. And it definitely isn't being like that, plus taking upon oneself to also tick the boxes of fitting the traditional women-roles. One should not be forbidden to achieve such things, but no one should be expected to accomplish such crazy feats which are not good for employers, persons, and kids in most cases. 

So, what needs to be done? Our communities need to provide more support and give more trust to woman whatever their goals and pursuits are. We need to provide girls with many options. Whatever they want to keep or reject from the traditional ‘woman’ package, and whatever else they won’t to buy into, they need to be encouraged to give it their best and figure out if it fits them.

As I said, getting rid of inequality is not taking on elements of the traditional male package or combining those elements with traditional female elements. This also calls for work-place reform: workplaces and environments shouldn’t be built to suit mostly guys, and then claim that they are women friendly if a woman can adjust and get along in them. That’s not equality, that’s expecting women to take on traditional male roles.

What’ better is to offer more employment flexibility: 4 and 6 hours positions, work from home options, opportunities to learn and stay engaged and connected while at home with children and return later, etc. There is nothing necessary in constantly prioritizing people in jobs who are 100% percent devoted to their workplace. While this might be good in short term profits for bigger companies in large economies, it surely isn’t good in the long term. Humans live in states partly to foster happiness and cooperation, not the operations of super-wealthy individuals owning companies. And surely not, that companies can make profits on employing unhappy, unsatisfied, and unhealthy, overstressed people.

Companies get away with these things too easily: they focus on profits, and that is said to be okay in capitalism. Nobody seems to notice that companies only get the best of the employees and state services and communities bear the burden of dealing with stressed, burnt out, disillusioned individuals. Capitalism is not a higher order system when compared with a society, and its demands should not be placed higher than those of communities of humans.

This proposal is in my opinion a modest feminist proposal with which everyone could get on board. It focuses on eradicating striking inequalities as well as their roots. It does not propose that people of either gender should rule or dominate the other gender, nor that one or the other gender is better. People of both genders show a striking variety of emotion, thought, taste, and preferences in lifestyles. Why is it that men can tolerate this in each other but not in women? Once we let go of the notion that there is one type of women it will also be easier for men: just treat women as people, as persons who might or might not like different things, who think this or that way. You can ask questions, find these things out, get to know them, talk with them and so on. Don’t stress about figuring out some supposedly existent female mystique, or getting right 'what women want'. It is as different as what we guys want. I guess you will find that you can even have female friends, because, guess what: they have thoughts, ideas, can be fun, and are interesting.

Hope and Self-delusion

As Philippa Foot writes in one of her essays, hope is one of the virtues, and it is something important as it helps stick through hard times and great challenges. I like this thought. A hopeful person is probably less prone to be negative, and thus less likely to give up to early, to not to support her community in the face of difficult times. 

Another advantage of hopefulness might be that such a person might offer support to others. A hopeful person may be less prone to go 'all apeshit', as they say, and overreact when getting bad news. This way he doesn't strengthen the feeling of the person who trust's him with her problem that the problem is very bad. A hopeful person might provide calm advice, some supportive words, and maybe also a few practical ideas or good questions that point the way to a solution.

So, is hope all rosy? Not exactly. There are two things that matter. Hope can be exercised too much or about the wrong subject, and also for the wrong reasons. If one is hopeful in situations when there is an obvious danger that needs to be averted, one can do serious damage by remaining inactive. That is a problem people often point out with Christians who rely on divine intervention instead of, for example, medical treatment. Such cases draw criticisms that the agent rejecting medical treatment is irrational, since they are too hopeful. Even if there is a helpful, intervening God (I entertain this only as a theoretical possibility) it is not sure that 1) it would help in such cases, 2) in this particular case, 3) it would not help by offering the chance to get medical help, etc.

George Frederic Watts: Hope (second version, 1886)

A case where hope could be warranted, but one can still be irrational for being hopeful, is the case of a father who has an alcoholic daughter. The father hopes that his daughter will recover. Good thing, and hope can be a useful motivating factor that fuels his continuous support even after the roughest atrocities. But if he is hopeful for the wrong reason, his hope won't help him act in the right way. For example he might be hopeful because he has read many self-help books. These suggest things like 'everyone goes through difficult times, and that's a lesson we all need to get', or 'people need to fight their demons alone, and they will emerge stronger', or even just reading proper work without adequate training, and misunderstanding it. E.g.: the dad 'diagnosis his daughter with bipolar disorder. In fact, that's not the problem at all. The man does not seek adequate help, or tries to support his daughter with the wrong methods. In such cases the hope that would be beneficial if had for the right reasons can turn against those who should gain by it.

Some cases of placing too much weight on hope are instances of self-delusion. No matter that people didn't interact successfully with others earlier by following a certain set of principles, they still carry on. They base their hope that things will work out for them on some mistaken view. They might think that it was just that they did not get the right people as partners in business, or did not marry the right man. They might even think that they should actually take a firmer stance, since things didn't work out as they wanted them to work out. 'Now, it's time I do things my own way.' Whereby this led to some of the problems earlier as well.

It seems then that for hope to be a virtue one needs to have some constraints on it. If one is hopeful one should always assess what warrants the hope. If one finds the reasons convincing then hope needs no questioning. Also, being self-delusional about one topic does not mean that one is such about everything. As with other virtues, exercising hope in the right way needs practice and learning. And most of us screw up quite a few times on the way.

A nice initiative

This is a nice initiative (updated):

This was a good idea. But as I see now - a month and a half later - it died quickly. Sorry about it. I'll leave the original post still on.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/i-support-philosophy

Philosophy and projects in philosophy are definitely ones that are worth funding. You may cite as reasons for this things like 1. philosophers are usually quite useful, clever and nice people, 2. who do not cause much harm in the world contrary to so many other profession (some jobs simply cause harm by creating certain demands for natural resources, or environmental harm, etc.), 3. and they are interested in issues connected to how we conceive ourselves as humans, living beings here on Earth and what values we should endorse. The question of values is of course terrifyingly complicated - just as almost anything about humans starting out from their chemical composition, through their hormonal workings and brain functions, to their vision.

But somehow these questions have been lost from sight: in an age of pluralism and globalization most people choose the easy way of becoming skeptics or egoists who claim that we cannot answer questions of values or we shouldn't care about them since it's perfectly okay only to care about our own interests (including of course the well being of those close to us).

Of course people who opt for these ways out of confusion are objectively wrong: they do have moral views, just bad ones. When it comes to their lives they suddenly do care a lot about rights they have as humans, as people, as citizens, as parents, as taxpayers, etc. This means they should also care about them when others have problems.

Also, it is our common interest to make life as good as possible on Earth for as long as we can. It is absurd to shop for expensive foods with a clear conscience while people are dying of hunger or simple diseases which could be prevented with a small donation from richer people.

The point is: do donate, do help people who are trying to focus on topics that are important to how we see our world and our place in it. Without such a picture it is hard to ground, found and make work a great system of values.