Multiple Purposes of 'Prelude to Atheism'

It is extremely crucial for me to communicate that many of the ideas in this writing were intended primarily as brainstorms for how to write characters into a fictional work. 'Prelude to Atheism' in one dimension was simply an effort to wallow in complexity in many cases. Real life personalities and psychologies are too complicated for the interpretations I laid out, and I do not deem myself an expert in those matters - only that that's what fiction writers have to create when they write.

Writers construct characters that have faults and strengths. They take the rights of interpretation into their hands. They must play God and make assertions about the Universe in realms where they lack expertise. They make statements despite not having degrees in political theory, the social sciences, or theology.

When converting information about the real world into a fictional one, the truth takes a back seat in priority to whatever can keep a story-line interesting - or make for drama that can keep an audience's attention. Writers have to write about things that are probably much larger - or much more black and white - than experiences they really have.

Multiple Purposes of Exploration

Saying Stupid Things to the Wall

When I recorded all of this, I was by myself in my room.

So much of what I said was actually spouting off to nobody. I was mulling over some really obvious assumptions about life, and sometimes just saying stupid or terrible ideas to the wall.

Because I was writing stuff that might be useful brainstorms to myself in the future, not all of what I said will make sense to anyone else. Many seemingly dark things are actually about something else entirely, and visa versa, many things that come of as casual or comedic, are actually things that I care deeply about.

Wallow in Complexity for My Own Personal Discovery

At the time of writing all this, I was in a process of upheaval. I was not sure exactly how solid the grounds of rationality were. I was attempting to cross lines that I assumed up to that point as axioms.

I was trying to set forth an effective grounds for rationality that at that point I did not see clearly.

How precise is logic and rationality? How soft and how hard is the logic of human ethics and values?

Examine the Process of Steel Manning Itself

When do we really believe in the efficacy of steel manning arguments?

What happens when we steel man what we otherwise think are obvious errors? Can we stand to use similar methods between ideas? What is missing when certain arguments appear to win for the wrong conclusion?

What happens when we use some of the tools we think are good arguments in other areas?

What structures of value and order do we impose? What values do we imply? How do we actually use beliefs in practice, to fill in gaps? Why do we feel that mystical beliefs are required to make sense out of reality? What do false beliefs substitute when we incorporate them? When do people feel that reality falls short of accomplishing moral beliefs?

As a thought exercise, what if we were to imagine the rules we might set forth for an artificial intelligence to make the value judgments that we make naturally, without even thinking about it?

Wallow in Complexity for Fictional Writing

Fiction writers must create rules, realities and controversy around things they otherwise have no business being experts in. A writer must wallow in complexity about rules of life that do not always get explicitly translated to the writing, but still govern the realities in the writing nonetheless.

Much of what I came up with in 'Prelude to Atheism' may appear to be presumptuous claims about expertise in reality, when in fact they were explorations of how to write interesting characters, humorous situations, or characters with deep flaws.

When writing fiction, a writer has to build a reality based on notions that do not have to be true in reality. A fiction writer must create politics, rules of love that the characters follow, and general areas of wisdom that may or may not be true. Characters must be created based off of real world examples that the writer narrows and doctors in order to create more interesting dynamics.

Explore/Discover a Journey From Believer to Atheist

The reason I label my journals as 'Prelude to Atheism' is to attach a tentative meaning to all that it contains. Somewhere in the explorations is a true journey out of Mormonism - which due to its nature is an unclear, nonsensical haze between realized denials that build to de-conversion - and the remembered ardent belief.

This weirdness of seeming duplicity is a complex subject in and of itself - the strangeness of belief and faith. In hindsight, I could frame things in terms of de-conversion, but at the time, I would have always believed that I believed. There is both a gradualness and suddenness to my de-conversion. I can see repression and denial in one vein, but in another way, I was completely devoted up until the point at which I consciously and externally decided to myself that I could no longer believe.

Particularly one finds this strangeness when confronting a belief in and devotion to the Book of Mormon for example. Because of the claimed origins of the Book of Mormon, it can only exist in a very tight context of either a fraud or literally following a vision from an angel, digging it up out of a hill and translating it with magical stones. Part of what I wrote about deals with the strangeness of the emotions of belief around this. Emotional to the belief strongly forged through childhood took time to wear off even after I logically decided it was false.