This is one of the values of religion. Whether you believe in an omniscient man in the clouds or not, the practical day-to-day rules to live by gives people answers to these sorts of philosophical questions. This saves them the trouble, anxiety, and self-doubt that come from trying to work out the "best" answer for themselves.

FWIW, 'omniscient man in the clouds' is a strawman built by its enemies.

...it is?

Are you saying that Christianity and Islam don’t require the belief in a supernatural being?

“Supernatural being” and “omniscient man in the clouds” are not equivalent which is why it is a strawman caricature

So is the problem is "man" or "in the clouds", because it's certainly not "omniscient". Omniscience and omnipotence are foundational aspects of the Abrahamic religions, and many other religions as well.

It is the very concept of supernatural beings that's risible. That's not a strawman. Inevitably the arguments fall into:

1. My book says so. (Yeah, well, I have a different book that says your book isn't just wrong, but evil.)

2. The god of the gaps. (The ever shrinking god.)

3. So many people believe! (So what? Millions of people think the Earth is flat. That doesn't make them right.)

4. You don't know, so it's just as likely! (lol. Let's unicorn hunting. You don't know they're not real. So they must be!)

Shouldn't be "man" either because at least in Christianity he's described as the "Father".

I'll give him the benefit of chalking that up to Bronze Age societies failing to capture the transcendent nature of the sublime due to linguistic and cultural biases.

"omniscience and omnipotence" The wording unfortunately implies an agentic creature of this world.

Alternatively, God created the world as an arena, with creatures as agents. God manifests in the world through His creatures, in our quest to maximize truth, goodness, beauty. One step further, the purpose of the Son is to provide a humanly comprehensible blueprint on how to act as to maximize truth, goodness, beauty. Finally, the Holy Spirit is that which guides us in following the path the Son laid out for us.

For a scientifically trained mind, this can also be pictured as the quest to identify and asymptotically aim at maximizing the objective function that encodes truth, goodness, beauty. The stakes - a life well lived.

If it’s not an agent, then why bother it? Occam’s Razor would say you can safely ignore it, as something no effect is indistinguishable from something that doesn’t exist. Similarly, if it has effect, but no agency then it’s unworthy of any worship (putting aside just how profoundly offensive the very concept of worshipping is). No one worships gravity, and worshiping the sun is rightfully seen as primitive superstition.

As far as a deistic god , you clearly don’t believe in that, as any reference to divinely given scriptures runs counter that concept. You can’t claim its hands off while simultaneously engaging in miracles and vaguely interpret led prophecies.

It’s a weak, and lousy concept, propagated by cultural baggage.

Neither of the mentioned religions fixates solely on "believing in a man in the clouds." You're purposefully reducing the spiritual and prose content of these multifaceted, vibrant families of traditions. The person you're replying to isn't suggesting these religions don't believe in omniscient deities, they're trying to discuss them beyond the juvenile, r/atheist flat "le epic sky man" level of discourse.

Actually they literally do fixate on belief. In fact, the primacy of belief repeatedly and explicitly stated in their respective holy texts. There are multiple treatises arguing over the fate of good people that who do not share their belief, and whether mere ignorance (as opposed to conscious rejection) is enough for them to be “saved” from eternal damnation. To deny this, is either displaying ignorance or is rather disingenuous attempt to shift the discussion to abstract platitudes. Furthermore, the omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence of their preeminent supernatural being are fundamental properties of it.

Using big words, and acting serious, doesn’t hide the fact that the very topic is unserious. It’s like holding a conference on the economy of the United Federation of Planets. Sure, it may be a fun intellectual exercise, but no matter how much you dress it up, the core concept is fiction. And treating it as serious is not only unproductive, it’s profoundly insulting.

But sure. The Emperor’s new clothes sure are fantastic, and anyone saying they don’t exist are just haters.

In practice they never did. Their utility (for good or bad) came from being widespread moral frameworks, shared by an entire society, that you were taught to respect from birth, plus that fact that they weren't up for debate, except through very slow processes.

Just for the sake of debating I wanted to add that the entire basis for not debating those facts is because they belonged to a dangerous being in the clouds. Not saying that they should have been debated more, nor less, just that pretty much all societies based their moral codes on very scary supernatural being(s). Maybe because only fear makes humans collaborate in good times - thus basically turning the "good times" into a permanent "dangerous times"...

Alternatively, 'traditions are experiments that worked', and 'fear of God' simply translates to 'fear of messing up', with an accent of 'by pridefully refusing to listen to the wisdom of tradition'. Darwinian insights apply to a wide range of human behaviors, from cooking to cheese making to moral systems. Debate is always welcome, but changing social norms willy-nilly on a whim comes with a high risk of chaos, pain and disfunction.

>I wanted to add that the entire basis for not debating those facts is because they belonged to a dangerous being in the clouds

The being in the clouds is a red herring. The real reason for not debating those facts was that they were conventional respected wisdom. People didn't have to, and often only superficially if at all, believe to the actuality of it - but they wouldn't contest the associated moral code, the same way they wouldn't contest the customs of their land.

A strawman is an argument used instead of another argument... what is the original argument? Who are the enemies? Who is 'its'?

That's a value of philosophy, not just religion. Religion is one type of philosophy, but many people have a non-religious framework to help quickly answer these types of questions.

Frameworks yes, dogma less so.

Dogma is a key part of religion’s power. It gives certainty in the face of these difficult questions.

In principle I agree, but it seems like in practice most religious people form their own philosophical framework like everyone else (mostly influenced by family/community and upbringing) and adjust their religious interpretation to match.

For me it feels like authoritarianism vs. democracy - in theory an authoritarian provides quick certain decisions where a democracy might be slow and messy and unequivocal, but in practice an authoritarian government is just a democracy that makes voting very difficult. If you make decisions enough people disagree with you'll be removed, just like in a democracy. Similarly, religious dogma has to be regularly updated to avoid losing followers, and the enormous variety of religions and denominations and sects and interpretations means that in practice religion is just another form of personal philosophy that is more cumbersome to change when you lose your certainty.

With religion you quickly come into contact with conflicting rules, and then you have to start relying on different peoples’ interpretations of the “rules” so any time saving is just coming from delegation, not the religion itself.

I think that is basically what they were saying.

One does also have the benefit of looking at a religious group and potentially seeing the tradeoffs/upside though. ‘Does this seem to be working out for them overall?’

If one was being rational about the whole thing, anyway.

> the practical day-to-day rules to live by gives people answers to these sorts of philosophical questions. This saves them the trouble, anxiety, and self-doubt that come from trying to work out the "best" answer for themselves.

That's part of culture, not necessarily religion. Those answers come from just watching how people go about life and learning from them. Metaphysical beliefs are not needed for day to day life and are just vestigial at this point

If churches only followed their own preachings :-)

"Jesus, please protect me from your followers"

> The Catholic church has an explicit teaching on this, which is, "you may not do evil so that good may come from it."

It is worth noting that that same doctrine holds that "doing evil" means doing an act which is evil in itself or willing the bad outcome (e.g., because the harm caused is part of the mechanism by which the good is achieved) of an act which is not itself inherently evil. Knowing a bad outcome is likely (or even certain) to occur but accepting that as a side effect (rather than a mechanism) of doing good without willing the bad outcome is permitted, for proportionate reasons. (Principle of Double Effect)

I appreciate this insight. A lot of the EA stuff really feels like Rationalists treading into philosophical problems where theologians and philosophers have been working for like, centuries, cocksure that everyone in the past has at best little to teach them.