{"id":4742,"date":"2018-10-25T05:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4742"},"modified":"2018-10-23T12:15:15","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T19:15:15","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-ii-chapter-20-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/10\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-ii-chapter-20-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Science of Discworld II’: Chapter 20, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second half of the twentieth chapter of The Science of Discworld II<\/i>, we discuss altruism and why we even bother to do good things. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of religious abuse, homophobia, child abuse<\/b>.<\/p>\n

As I said at the start of this video, the issue of altruism is one that was, rather quickly after I started identifying as an atheist, constantly thrust in my face. How could I possibly believe in nothing? If that was the case, then why do anything good<\/i>? Why be nice? It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter in the end if there was no God or god or gods, so what was the point? (Which I think that says far more about the person who is asking the question than me, for the record. Is the after life the ultimate endgame? Is all we do here just to get us to that place? If so, no thanks. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m good.)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And early on, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have an answer. My rejection of spirituality was more rebellion than a nuanced philosophical opinion. As is so often the case, these conversations weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really made in good faith, either. They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t about trying to learn about someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life or experiences; they were arguments to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153won,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d end up feeling foolish and terrible because it was all nothing but a gotcha. It was an attempt to make the other person feel morally superior. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a deeply important question at the heart of this all, and I love that the second half of this chapter explores it in a context I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have when I was younger.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The concept as it is used here relates to the (sometimes) false notion that altruism is not evolutionary possible, that creatures in the natural world are all competing and it is our natural state to compete with one another. Even that<\/i> is a simplification, of course, and the world is so much more complicated than this. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re shown an example of how humans can imagine competition where none exists. (The UK vs. US driving tests, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still curious about. Is there anyone here who has taken both? Are ours really so much easier?) But that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t intended to show that competition does not exist; it certainly does. The question, rather, is why altruism ever developed in the first place. How did humans come to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153overcommit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to one another? Why would we do something like that? I got the sense that Cohen and Stewart weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trying to tell us that Randolph Nesse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theory was correct, but more that it was incredibly compelling. And it felt that way to me, too! Perhaps that really was<\/i> what separated us from the Neanderthals, and maybe our ability to occasionally cooperate with one another is what helped our survival.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But even as I type this out, I know that overcommitment isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t universal, and on a personal level, I am aware of the other end of the spectrum. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t divorce my feelings on God or Christianity from my experience. And how could I? The emptiness I feel inside might very well be because of what happened to me and how religion was used to abuse me. I know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a possibility, but I suppose I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really spend too much time thinking about that sort of thing. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spoken to other people who were abused as kids, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s honestly eerie how many of us wonder the same thing: Did abuse make us who we are today? So is my disbelief in God always<\/i> tied to that, or is it something I would have come to on my own?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a different gamble I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard before, and I thought Cohen and Stewart were leading to it. In that gamble, you write out the pros and cons of believing in the Christian God. What happens if the atheist is right? Nothing. If they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wrong? They go to Hell. What happens if the Christian is right? They go to Heaven. If they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wrong? Nothing. And of those gambles, one seems less risky, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve genuinely heard people say (to my face!) that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather be Christian and wrong than an atheist and wrong. On a purely mathematical level, I could understand this, but it seems like such a massive undertaking for something without any real confirmation. To me, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a statement of doubt: that person doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what happens after they die, so they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re spiritually hedging their bets. Is that a way to live? To believe? Because in the end, even if I followed that, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fake it. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the main reason I ultimately gave up on it all: I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep pretending that I felt like there was anyone listening to my prayers. Or anyone or anything out in the universe who cared about my eternal soul. Or that I even had<\/i> an eternal soul.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, maybe I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have some spiritual justification for altruism on a personal level. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t base it on a God or a god or gods, but if I can return to something I said just a bit ago, I know how terrible it feels to have someone use religion to justify horrible things towards another person. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m certain that my outlook on life is<\/i> related to my desire to not ever perpetuate that feeling in anyone else. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m perfect or that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve avoided harming others, but I know what that loneliness and fear feels like, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to another person to feel what I felt, if that makes sense.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flimsy, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mine.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/3RbGRtzMqC4<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"