If it wasn't for religion

[The Grand Nudger]

If I were living in the truman show.,..then I would be living in the truman show (though why I would be living in the truman show if your superstitions were as false as they certainly are is a mystery). 

IF you found out you were living in the equivalent of the Truman show, it would result in a dramatic change in your behavior. You're relationship with wife is not going be the same after you find out she was a paid actor.

-and yet no change whatsoever in my moral precepts.  

Nothing about living in the truman show gives me moral license to skullfuck the extras, for example.  

Perhaps not the Truman show, but if I found out you were a video game simulation, you might, like one would do so in Grand Theft Auto.

Lucky for us, only crazy people would believe we're in the Truman show, or it's all just a video game. You probably would't want such people to watch your kids.

I -already- do horrible shit in video games that I wouldn't do irl, lol.  That's the great fun of a video game.  Razing villages to the ground, dropping nukes on the enemy..etc.

People don't seem to turn into raving sociopaths when they lose their faith.  The boards are full of such people.  I doubt that any of them have bodies under their floorboards.

Not even Valk.  She keeps them in the shed.  

It doesn't seem me that people actually lose their faith. Theism casts such a long shadow, that hardly anyone seems able to truly disbelieve it, even those who claim to be atheist. They occupy a view of life, that's confused, contradictory, and incoherent.

Perhaps, again, you should contain yourself to what you believe..and why, rather than making some comment based on your historically poor ability to comprehend the mind of an atheist?

The idea that everyone operates as though your superstitions were true consciously or subconsciously is false on it's face.  

Change it to what I actually said, and perhaps this might be a little more evidence.

Everyone operates as if reality possess moral aims and purpose, and you're a clear example of this.

You believe there are moral facts. That the holocaust is bad, is a moral, and objective fact.

The fact that you struggle with cognitive dissonance, that leaves you unable to see how the existence of such facts, indicate reality possess morals aims and purposes, is more your problem than mine. You live and operate if such purpose exists, not in negations of it. You're the man who says "it's raining outside, but I don't believe it."

Case in point, I'm not struggling with any cognitive dissonance on this issue, Acro.  That;s just something that you, as a superstitious person, are saying. It tells us only that you think that you would feel some sort of cognitive dissonance.

Why do you believe this?  You have no idea what atheists think or why...so, perhaps you should focus on what you believe and why, instead?

If you found yourself standing in a room with a mute....would you take that as an indication that "all is permissible"?

According to a rock it is. A rock doesn't tell me to use it to pummel your head, or build a house with it. It has nothing to say one way or the other, it takes the same stance in all instances, repeats the same refrain, all is permissible.

Rocks don't say anything...so, again, the rock isn't telling you anything, let alone that all is permissible.  

Is this an affirmation that you would also assume that all was permissible with the mute on account of them telling you nothing? Is the only difference between yourself and a rapist, for example..someone or something else's ability to say no?

The most that you can competently claim, Acro..is that if it weren't for your religion, then you would not know how to establish right from wrong, and that all things would seem to be permissible to you.  This observations only speaks to you, not anyone else, or how anyone else would perceive the world or the nature of moral questions. People already perceive the world and the nature of moral questions differently than you do, so it should come as no surprise to find that others would not see the world or the nature of moral questions as you do in that event. You losing whatever operative superstition you hold will not make you agree with them, or them agree with you by default.

Following?