IF GOD EXISTS, THEN HE CERTAINLY DOES NOT CARE FOR YOU AT ALL

[Angrboda]

Apo,
You have handed me my ass on a plate, at least once, for being unreasonable. I would never consider you unintelligent nor brainwashed. In fact, as I pour through philosophy from Descartes to Wittgenstein, I would consult you for clarification/consultation/opinion.

You exclaim that you will not explain your theism, but offer the excuse that you are mentally ill/non-rational. Something is amiss.

I neither excuse nor explain my theism with reference to my being mentally ill or irrational. I simply offer no account of it at all. The book referenced makes a distinction between being "publically secular," meaning that one supports and advocates secularism in the public sphere, and being "personally secular," in that the beliefs they hold and choices they make reflect embracing secularism on a personal, private level. If I were to build on that distinction, I'd say I lean towards being "publically secular," but "personally religious." On a forum such as this, there is not going to be a clear separation between the personal and the public, so you see elements of both sides of me here, though with the obvious emphasis on public secularism, for a number of reasons, including that I think that public secularism is in the best interests of us all, to the fact that most opinions expressed are in some sense advocating something, and I have zero interest in advocating the adoption of my religion, and every interest in advocating positions that benefit us all.

As to the nature of my justification of and embracing of my "personally religious" lifestyle, I wouldn't say that I have even ultimately concluded that it is justifiable, defensible and rational. And to explain why I have made and continue to make the religious choices that I make would require many inscrutable walls of text. To do my best to put things in a nutshell, my religious choices have been satisfactory and fulfilling for me, but in very deep ways, my core is not ultimately religious: I entertain deep theories about the structure of mind, biological systems and reality which does not in any fundamental sense connect with, nor depend upon, my religious views. That's my meat and potatoes. That's what I care most deeply about. As a philosopher and a thinker, I'm less interested in the ramifications of my religion than I am those of evolution and neuroscience. Perhaps my religion is a maze which I would be well off to find my way out of. Ultimately, I do what seems sensible at the moment. Thus the time I spend thinking and contemplating the big questions isn't devoted to questions arising out of my religious worldview. And those that do could not be readily explained in short form anyway (at least not at this time). So in a strange sense, while my religion is indeed central to my life, it isn't the center around which my life orbits.

If that makes any sense. Maybe I'm waffling in my answer to you, I don't know. I consider it more worth my time to get "the right answers" with respect to philosophy, psychology and cognitive science, than I do to worry about whether I have the right answers about worshipping the Dark One, or whether the Taoist conception of the ineffable isn't an incoherent bit of nonsense that would best be put aside. (That, combined with my larger worldview, which I doubt you would understand without massive explanation, leaves me comfortably at peace with my beliefs. Which should hardly be surprising to you, given that you are dealing with a Taoist. Many secular people envision belief as a battle, in which the strong beliefs vie for supremacy over defective beliefs, and against defective believers. I've used the metaphor of the rivers before, that in this world, we are all floating down rivers of thought, culture and epistemology, such that a Hindu may find herself at some point on the Ganges, another believer in a different faith might find themselves somewhere on the Mississippi, and another, floating down the Amazon. Because of the nature of things, we might paddle to influence the course we take in this or that river, but the ultimate nature of our journey, where we end up each of our days, is determined by forces we have essentially no control over. I could be wrong. I just don't believe that I am wrong about this. And it leaves me with a profound disinterest in winning this or that particular battle about belief [beyond the mere bloodlust which may be natural to one who worships a goddess known as, "She who destroys."]. I do what I can to see that the battles I care about go the way that I'd like to see them go. However, my mind and heart is always considering a much more expansive theater of operations.)

(See. Attempted explanation. --> wall of text. Oh well. I hope I have succeeded in at least hinting at my reasons in a way that you can find satisfying.)