:up:

I have spent around three decades working with people (generally in psycho-social and addiction settings) who have various forms of psychotic illness - most typically schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and bi-polar disorder - many of whom were/are untreated. I have met people who think that they are Jesus, God, Krishna, Mohammad, Vishnu, Ironman, Thor, The Grim Reaper, The President of the World Bank, Axel Rose, Marilyn Monroe, Doctor Who, John Lennon, CIA agents, genius physicists and assorted healers and sages. No one ever sees themselves as a bank teller or car wash attendant...

When people lose touch with reality, they often get scared and seek some status to help overcome their fears. My take - big, powerful identities like Monroe or Krishna provides them with a sense of coherence and a ready made myth which brings consolation, along with some kind of power/agency and a mission to work towards - world redemption, bringing love to the world, composing revolutionary music, controlling the financial system, proving god/s, speaking to the dead, healing the sick, whatever it might be.

Everyone I've met has been unique and interesting and they are much more than their illness. And most people when they 'recover' (remission or via medication) report that they are happy to not be experiencing psychosis any more. Naturally, mental illness is a field of huge and varying opinions and theories.

"Truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths."

Richard Rorty

BUT I also think that below this surface, most Australians think that Monarchy is backward, immature and even ridiculous. — universeness

No real idea what Australians think. Most people I have spoken to over the past 20 years don't give a shit about a republic and can't see what difference it would make. And the ones that do are more interested in ending capitalism than the monarchy. I think people are more positive towards monarchy than they were in previous years, mainly because the royal family are the ultimate reality TV show, the ultimate Kardashians. Entertainment has become its own value system.

I’m saying that it is a bleak kind of emotional and philosophical disposition, that it drains the world of meaning. — Wayfarer

The word disposition is useful. For all our reading and thinking, I suspect all we ever do is embolden our dispositions. Although I am aware some people do change their minds - perhaps they eventually encounter their true disposition? I think bleak almost describes my outlook fairly well. But it's also Camus-Sisyphus-cheerful, not lugubrious or defeated. It allows for all kinds of meanings and excitement. I don't see why it would not. I made a conscious choice to construct my own meaning when I was around 25. The ideas I went for are not original or profound, but they do. And yes, they probably owe their origins to the vestigial traces of Christianity, through secular humanism and a simple-minded utilitarianism, but they float in the air, they are not founded on certainty or transcendental promises.

As I have said several times, I encountered Watts decades ago and loved his roadshow of ideas. He considered himself an entertainer and many of us got our start in metaphysical religious thinking through him. Even today I'll listen to him on youtube - to actually hear his resonant voice is a buzz. The charisma leaps from my headphones. And he's often thought provoking.

Jiddu was a BS artist in pursuit of a free lunch in my opinion, sorry Tom, sorry sis! — universeness

Doesn't worry me what people think about him. I think of him these days as a talented performance artist and his private life was bad. I have read a lot about him. Unfortunately. I spent a lot of time 35 years ago in the company of 'New Age' folk, teachers, gurus, monks, seers, and their disciples (yoga, Steiner, Buddhism, theosophy, Gurdjieff, etc). What I found was that the people involved were as racked with anxiety, flaws and substance issues as any other group. So far from providing consolation or peace, most of the folk were ambitious, status obsessed and very poor advertisements for the contemplative life. Doesn't mean the beliefs are untrue, just that I see little point in them.

There is ‘clinging to belief’ on the one hand, and there is ‘letting go, and letting God’ on the other. — Wayfarer

I'm not saying you are wrong. But how does someone outside that world, like me, tell the difference between the two?

Precisely because science can't offer any reason for existence the driftwood is necessary to stay alive. — Hillary

I know you keep raising science but as an atheist I have limited interest in science. I don't look to it for anything except as a tool for solving certain types of problems. I am one of those vexed people who find science and maths dull.

Thanks TC. Just thinking out aloud. I am interested in this subject myself.

What's nihilism's selling point? Is it just the bitter truth or does it give a kick that makes people addicted to it? — Agent Smith

Well, at some level it might be said that everyone is an incipient nihilist - could it not the case that people seek and grab hold of belief systems like drowning people cling onto driftwood in the ocean? The fear of emptiness and consequential depression surely must make Islam or Scientology look as welcoming to some folk as a warm fire on a cold night. I have certainly met a lot of theists who have stated that they can't bear the thought that existence has no intrinsic meaning.

I have no idea what point we are debating. Remind me.

No. There's a real difference between nihilism and idealism. So equating the passage from Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship with Bernardo Kastrup's analytical idealism only conveys that there is a real difference that you're not seeing. — Wayfarer

Maybe we can explore this another time but, no.

A person with a transcendent belief actually has to invent meaning and purpose in a way no different to a nihilist.

In fact Kastrup makes the point that he has no real idea why we are here and what purpose there is to life. He is personally riddled with insecurities and anxieties (which he often acknowledges). He has to build any sense of meaning from the ground up, just like any nihilist.

I don't accept that meaninglessness is anything but an invitation to construct personal meaning. It is not pointlessness. Humans make meaning out of anything. We can't help it, with or without god/s.

Something can have two descriptions. — GLEN willows

I think you are right. And maybe there are many descriptions for the same thing. What is interesting is that some descriptions of things upset or trigger people. Generally this is when the description appears to violate their value system. Tip: avoid using the word spiritual on an atheist forum.

The statement "eventually consciousness and qualia will eventually be explained with neuroscience" is speculative, but no more so that "consciousness and qualia will never be explained by neuroscience." — GLEN willows

Probably true. But here's the thing. People keep talking about how the 'miracle' of consciousness is one the barriers to accepting physicalism as a viable worldview. But I suspect that even if we can demonstrate that consciousness and our sense of self is a product of the brain, the way digestion is the product of the stomach, there will still be people unconvinced, or who will find other ways to advocate for some notion of soul. And visa versa.

The point is, for the nihilist, it doesn't make any difference. Put another way, for the nihilist, 'creative vision and personal transformation' are empty words, meaning nothing. — Wayfarer

But I suspect that here you fail to understand in the same way that you say I don't understand - but for opposite reasons. :smile:

My friend John, a Catholic priest with a mystical bent says that his Christian belief is one punctuated by terror and uncertainty and the knowledge that he has to make daily, often blind choices amidst chaos and suffering.

Do you think this is true? What are the implications? — Wayfarer

The implications are exciting for those of us not attached to transcendence. But the style here is flowery and emotive and trying to throw us off. I am not a follower of Richard Rorty per say (and God knows he has his critics), but for some years a couple of his quotes seem apropos.

"There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves."

"Truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths.”

I think of his statements more as provocations, like Zen koans.

But how different in the end is Russell's world depicted here, to that of an idealist along the lines of, say, Bernardo Kastrup - wherein we are but brief flickering dissociated alters of great mind, a non interfering, essentially instinctive consciousness that isn't troubled over our suffering or our welfare and in the end we are reabsorbed into this overarching mind like plastic bottles being recycled at the reprocessing station?

but spiritual life often involves great doubt, great struggle and uncertainty. — Wayfarer

This is what I mean. The spiritual life and nihilism both invite equal acts of creative vision and personal transformation galvanized by uncertainty. Between you and me I think the foundational benefits of transcendent belief systems are grossly overstated. :razz:

And as far as meaning is concerned, it is not simply an individual matter, something we only create. It's also given to us, or impressed on us. — Wayfarer

I agree that we inherit potentialities and frameworks (my 'ready to wear' comment was as much about our inherited language as it was about faith systems). But we are the ones that have to drive, interpret and enact them.

And besides, in Zen Buddhism, there is the admonition never to seek out experiences or to attach importance to them. So I'm re-evaluating what it means to believe, and starting to see that it's not such a open-and-shut matter. — Wayfarer

To me this resonates with finding meaning in meaninglessness which for me has an almost mystical resonance.

Can you say something more about your understanding of belief in this 'not such and open-and-shut case' context?

Doesn't the sense of nausea originate with that sense of the unreality of everything? That we're 'thrown' into a meaningless cosmos, from which we alone are obliged to create meaning where really there is none. — Wayfarer

But I'm sure that's just how we choose to look at it. We seem to find excitement, connection and opportunity in creating meaning. This is all anyone can do. You're still obliged to create meaning, even with a belief in transcendence of some kind. It is always an active process and we still have to identify which system or parts thereof resonate with us and why and then we have to embody our beliefs through our own judgements, choices and effort. Are we not kidding ourselves if we think there is an alternative to self-creation, regardless of the availability of ostensible 'ready to wear' belief systems?

Is the movement in Australia towards becoming a republic not quite significant now? — universeness

No. Australians seem pretty apathetic and we largely lost interest in the republic idea some years back.

And in Australia it’s perceived almost as a sign of corruption. If a politician takes a position in relation to ‘God’ then they effectively give whatever power they represent to something/someone else - whatever we deem this notion of ‘God’ to be. — Possibility

Don't know about that. Most Australians seem embarrassed by public discussions of god or religion and we are largely secular. God was rarely mentioned in culture when I grew up and only now has a flicker of interest because of the culture wars and the fact that we've caught some of America's shallow Evangelical style beliefs. But this seems to be mainly a form of capitalism rebranded with a cross.

Oh I see. I have sympathy for that outfit. Sorry.

The point of the secular state is to provide a framework within which you can practice any religion or none, but there's a vocal minority who will always take that to mean that none is better than any. — Wayfarer

I agree with the first part of this. Can you expand on what you meant by 'none is better than any' and an example?

Even a drunken man is objective from his own point of view. — Angelo Cannata

Especially a drunken man. Nothing like substance use to embolden certainty.

Would an “independent” thinker be wiser than an academic/famous philosopher?

In theory anyone can be wiser than someone else, right? In other words, why couldn't a janitor be wiser than Slavoj Žižek?

But perhaps the key matter is what does 'wiser' actually look like and in what context? I tend to think that academics write for each other and their work is often separate to their life and the choices they make. The philosopher Richard Rorty has said that even philosophers often ignore philosophy outside of academe. Wisdom, and how this might apply to living in the world, making choices, is easily imaginable as an entirely separate affair.

why he associated with a mystic like Jiddu Krishnamurti.
It's like Einstein taking advice from a woo woo guru! — universeness

Personally I quite like Krishnamurti - I still own a few of his books. As mystics go, he is one of the better ones. And I say this as a heathen.

:gasp:

As a Scotsman, I do agree that I don't understand anyone who puts sugar in their porridge. — universeness

Well, I'm not a true Scotsman I can't eat it without honey. :razz: And I have it for dinner.

I emphasized personal. So, who did you ask was committing the Scotsman fallacy? You obviously — Merkwurdichliebe

It's actually the 'no true scotsman fallacy' - it means you are redefining what something means (here religion) in order to provide your own exculpatory definition. Like you seemed to do above. If I am wrong about that, apologies.

Obviously all beliefs, from politics to religion begin as personal values, but they are practiced in community as public expressions of personal belief. Or are you going to argue somehow that the umpteen millions of people who belong to churches and synagogues and mosques and ashrams and who follow the teachings of their faith leaders in community groups don't count? If you argue that they are not true religions then I think you may be evoking that contested Scotsman. :wink:

Fundamentalists are the lamest strawman for dismissing religion. It's like evoking Elmo's pedophilia to demonize all muppets — Merkwurdichliebe

No, it's not being used as a straw-man for dismissing religion. It's being provided as an enduring example of where religion goes wrong and makes the world worse. Many religious writers are in complete agreement and sometimes go further than atheists on this subject. Just read Christian writers David Bentley Hart or Bishop John Shelby Spong, or one of the best more recently by a Christian writer Kristen Du Mez Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. This is important stuff and can't really be minimized with vague 'straw man' claims.

A truly religious person will like have a fanatical certainty of the general law that is to be observed. — Merkwurdichliebe

Not so. Some would argue that truly religious is the opposite of fanatical. I can think of many very religious people (including preachers, priests and nuns I have known) who do have this trait at all. This is a fundamentalist trait, not a religious trait.

What I am saying is that all that collectivist religiousizing is edifying for many, but at the core of it all, religion is the domain of the individual and nobody else — Merkwurdichliebe

Perhaps you mean 'should be' the domain of... Not sure that this gets to the problem of religions in practice however. We know they help decide elections and change governments and help pass laws and put people in jails and enforce world views and what can be taught at schools so I would not see how your argument works except in theory.

Again, none of that is religion. They, look like religion, because, sadly, that is the example the world presents to us, but these are merely adulterations of religion — Merkwurdichliebe

Religions are organized social groups based around rituals, community and transcendent beliefs. Sounds to me like you are changing the definition to suit a viewpoint or is it a no true Scotsman fallacy? You tell me. :wink:

For the religious individual, it is different because morality is derived from a divine principle that is believed to be the law of god. For such an individual, morality is substantially extant and he is held accountable for his conduct whether or not it is seen by others. — Merkwurdichliebe

Don't forget that religious folk are far from certain what is moral and what is not moral. It is never an easy question unless you belong to the same fundamentalist church. The debate about what god wants and how to interpret religious doctrine often turns into conflict between theists.

The problem arises when a group of individuals who derive their morality through a percieved common faith decide to impose their religious morality on others. — Merkwurdichliebe

Including other religious expression of the same faith or different faiths. Religions do not agree on god/s will. Whether it's Protestants fighting Catholics or a Sunni vs Shia brawl. Some Christians fly a rainbow flag, others hate fags...

To be fair, I think their "happiness" comes from having a good trust in their government and a pretty homogenous population. — Paulm12

Agree.

I'm curious what the difference between a Theocracy is and a country that has a "national church" such as Finland or Denmark. — Paulm12

One difference is that an official church doesn't mean fundamentalist or literalist interpretations - e.g., where the legal system must follow the Koran or the Bible. In nominally Christian countries where they have a national church, people generally hold the Bible to be allegorical stories and fables representing symbolically some kind of beneficial force or god. From them you don't get shenanigans about how to stack the supreme court in order to follow particular interpretations of a holy book. In theocracy, culture and behavior is forced to conform to particular and narrow interpretations of holy books.

think an important part of a country is having religious freedom (which of course, is often supported by religious and nonreligious people). — Paulm12

Secularism and religious freedom are in the interests of religious diversity but fundamentalists don't like it when they realize the practices of other faiths they dislike have equal protection and status.

This way we can even determine degrees of depth, for example "heart" is deeper than "mind", wich is deeper than "car", which is deeper than "34523". — Angelo Cannata

Nice. Of course 34523 might well be the deepest of all if those numbers happen to correspond to the tattoo given to you at Auschwitz.

You may be forgetting that Christian organizations often exclude Christian values and bear no relationship to anything in the New Testament. For instance, religious Writer David Bentley Hart calls Evangelical Christianity, a new religion or prosperity cult.

For instance, would the argument over pro-choice vs pro-life really be seen as a secular matter (I'm in no way arguing it is only a religious thing)? My argument goes like this
1. We expect our government to make decisions based on our moral values
2. Moral values are often shaped both implicitly and explicitly by one's religious values (or lack of)
3. Thus the government's decisions are shaped by religious values — Paulm12

The use of 'moral values' is an almost meaningless term. Whose moral values? There are no moral values as such, there are instead a panoply of competing values that people hold as morally justifiable based on personal preference or an interpretation of law or Islam/Christianity, etc. Even within one religion moral values are all over the place.

and

(C) g/G created a world of suffering and loss in order to be worshipped. g/G is a vain dictator who should be scorned.

How would you prove God doesn't exist? — Paulm12

Indeed. I would first want a good reason to hold a view that god/s exist. Which ones and from what stories? All we seem to have are claims and a few old books, no actual deities have shown up except as dreams or delusions.

The time to believe something is when there is good evidence. The existence of life or the notion of 'something rather than nothing', is not evidence of anything in particular.

Intellectual depth is found in the spaces between the words of the clear narrative. It's found in psychic harmonics connecting the mundane to the cosmic, the mechanical to the magical, and the intimate to the inanimate. — frank

This is not meaningful to me. I also don't recognize the notion of depth as a criterion of value - which seems to be a veiled synonym here for 'better' or 'more evolved'. Isn't what you have written just a flowery way to express a view that some people are more sophisticated than others? By the way, if this is sounding hostile that is not the intent. Just expressing a view.

Sensation, emotion, and intellect play off one another. This play is mythology and it's how you're available to be controlled or exploited, so know your own mythology. Know how you're vulnerable. Know what you're afraid of. And those answers are all around you. — frank

I don't understand what this says. I don't consider sensation or emotion or intellect to be separate domains. I don't know what you mean by mythology (the Old Testament?). What is 'your own mythology? Knowledge of vulnerability and fear makes some sense. I guess you mean insight?

And, yet, there are still aborigines in Australia. — ASmallTalentForWar

Indeed, and in my role I work with Aboriginal community members in my city of 5 million people. Many describe the arrival of the white man and the persistent impact of this trauma as like the end of times.

If you are an Aboriginal person in Australia, the apocalypse began 200 years ago.

If God is powerful and could prevent suffering then he is cruel.
If God is not powerful and cannot prevent suffering then he is impotent. — Jackson

and perhaps

If God didn't exist, the flawed world we encounter is exactly what you might imagine.

Of course there are models of god or cosmic consciousness/great mind where none of this matters.

So, the argument by design taken to its logical conclusion proves not only that a creator exists but that the creator is evil, malevolent, willing to see babies suffer from cancer and die. — Art48

In atheist circles, the old joke use to be that if God was a manufacture of cars he would have his ass sued off and business closed down for culpably negligent manufacture. Also, imagine thinking up and building a world where most living creatures hunt and kill other living creatures to live. Why build suffering and torment into lifeforms when you could do it any way you wanted? Darwin's faith was rocked when he learned of how insects (especially a variety of wasp laying eggs in a living caterpillar) eat each other alive as part of their breeding process.

What presuppositions do you think I have? — frank

I only said they were showing (in that example), not that I could see your entire outfit.

Here -

The only thing standing in our way is ego: the one thing that has always screwed leftists. — frank

But you knew that and this isn't about us. Maybe we can engage about some other shit later on.

You keep cracking me up, Frank.

So yes, there will be some bias in any discussion of history. We can still put politics aside and agree on something as basic as the definition of capitalism, though. The only thing standing in our way is ego: the one thing that has always screwed leftists. — frank

Funny line but that's why these debates are pointless. You presuppositions are showing...