Confessions

Well @forgetmenot marine biology is his passion and his family causes chaos such as meeting his younger uncle because his gramps decided to have a random out of nowhere affair.

I confess that I have realized that though as dark as it may seem, if one believes or as their belief change and now believes that there isn't an afterlife of some sort then you realize that there isn't much point in being a good person beyond just the surface aside from the good feeling you get from doing so. Aside from that if there's no benefit from being a good person then trying to be one is just a luxury that can only be afforded for people who are in a good life situation because it logically doesn't benefit you anything worthwhile if you are in a bad situation not to occasionally manipulate, steal Etc. I still believe in an afterlife but this realization has occurred to me all the same. Without a reward at the end of life then morality does very little for someone unless they are doing well in life already or unless it would get them further because of the people around them but then that could argueably be referred to as manipulation of others and technically not really be being good to be good anymore.

Good is subjective (Though, I'd argue there are quite a few universal"goods", but that's a subject for another time.). The reward is seeing improvement and progression. Morality is not dictated by spiritual belief. Otherwise, you were only being "good" for a reward, in which case your just a fake and a liar. Be good for goodness sake, as they say. It's a social construct for survival, morality and it serves a vital purpose. Call it the societal glue, if you will.

One day in primary school, remember I pissed myself in pure spite of the teacher who wouldn't let me go to the washroom at the time

Reminds me of the time in kindergarten when they locked me in a small cubicle size room for misbehaving and after they refused to respond after 10 minutes of banging and kicking on the door I pissed in the corner out of spite.

@yaasshat That's a fair point. I suppose when it comes to having a spiritual belief regarding an afterlife the difference is that usually if you behave one way you will end up in one place and so on and so forth but also with those beliefs there are General objective ideas of what is good and what is bad so it kind of becomes less of being a fake or a liar and more of Leaning into what you believe you should be dictated by your religion or spirituality if that makes any sense. The best way I can try and explain it is saying something along the lines of it's like wanting to do and be how your parents say you should be and what you should do because you love them so if they try to raise you as a good person you do your best to become that person even inwardly because that's how you were raised and it's kind of a similar thing with having a spiritual belief. Referring to the societal glue that keeps everything together I do agree though I did kind of refer to that as manipulation if you're doing it just to help yourself get by it's technically manipulation because it's not really who you are it's just what you need to do to be better received in a way that would improve your life. Being a good person is its own reward but if you aren't really in a place where being a good person can help you reach even the bare minimum of a comfortable life then technically the only progress or Improvement you get with yourself is one that only exists in society or your own mind which doesn't really better your life in such a situation.

Spiritual belief is manipulation, though. You choose to follow a set of rules for gain,not because you're just supposed to. That in of itself makes the reasons behind the rules also a lie. It's like saying you're only "good" because you'll get a reward and if you didn't believe you'd get that reward,you would not be "good". So, are you truly being "good"? Is your "good" truly a virtue? The societal glue part was a way to say, these are the things we need to do in order for society as we know it to run smoothly. It's the same reason we have laws. Sure, you could argue it's manipulation if you want to nit pick. However, I'd say it's the necessary tools needed to have a cohesive society, at least until better systems are made. I do think some basic things are solid"universal good", though. Like, don't murderer, rape, abuse, steal...etc Think of those kinds of things as the basic foundation for the rest to build upon and it doesn't take belief in anything spiritual for some truths just to be logically obvious/make sense (Although, very nuanced.).

Universal isn't exactly the same thing as objective though so yeah when referring to the societal thing it's still technically manipulation, the same way you see spirituality but it seems you and I see spirituality is different as I referenced earlier it's not really manipulation in my reference to the parental thing because you actually desire at that point to be said thing where in the societal situation it's more just for your benefit. With the spiritual thing it's like with the parents situation I mentioned, you want to make them proud of you, you want to be what they want you to be because in the spiritual sense that is objectively what you should be. Outside of religion there is no such thing as objective morality so with Society it's all about subjectivity and bending yourself to others subjectivity if it doesn't match your own but with religion there is objectiveness. What you feel is irrelevant because there is an objective right and wrong so if you actually believe your religion you pretty much always guaranteed end up wanting to be that objective right not because of the reward, that's a side bonus but because you want to do right on your own. Now if you don't believe in religion or anything I can understand how that might be a difficult concept to grasp, the difference between the two things but like I said it seems we see belief in spirituality and religion differently.

Nah, it's not difficult to grasp. I mean,I once adhered to the same ideology. However,it's just not how I see things at the moment(Who knows? Things could change to a degree.). But, thanks for the discourse.