People who still resist full materialism, but feel too clev…
People who still resist full materialism, but feel too clever to be religious, call God "the universe" and creation "the simulation"
If you believe in a universe with agency, you might as well believe in God. If you believe you are inside a simulation, you might aswell call it creation.
But that doesn't come with the benefit of feeling more enlightened than those silly people who still believe in a "white old man in the sky"
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I think people struggle with the personalization anthropomorphization of these ideas
I don't think anyone really imagines God as a white old geezer with a beard sitting on a cloud.
I think many non-religious people believe that this is exactly what the religious imagine and straight forward interpretations of the Bible support this view, although I don't actually know how the majority of believers conceive of God, but I would not be surprised if many do believe this
I think that any believer with a minimum of humility realizes that God is far beyond our comprehension and can only be talked about in the form of metaphors and symbolical language.
What makes men engage in greater acts of kindness and cruelty, a misguided belief in doing something in the name of a higher power, or a misguided belief that they themselves are the highest power?
I think communism answered that question conclusively.
But that doesn't mean that those who believe in a higher power aren't vulnerable to becoming evil...
Once power and ego enter the equation, everything else steps into the background.
The ego is very capable of creating mental pseudo-spirituality that liberates people from universal ethics by convincing them that they are so special, enlightened or direct representatives of God that the rules don't apply to them.
I focused on the cruelty part, as you can see. I don't think the answer is the same for kindness.
Communism most certainly didn't match its cruelty with the same amount of kindness, or any kindness, for that matter.