Former Theists, how do you avoid nihilism?

dazed

Happened across this forum after googling

"lose religion escape nihilism"

My path to that google search is like this:

raised catholic by a staunch catholic family
true believer until 20ish which is when I took a first year philosophy course in university
that planted the seeds of doubt and I began to see the world through a different lens
the Judaeo christian concept of God slowly began to erode in my mind as a viable concept
philosophy of mind course really put the nail in the coffin, Dennett's writings on the fluidity of the self as a string of narrative spewing from the brain really took hold
I saw this reality in the erosion of my grandfather's consciousness as alzheimer's wreaked havoc on his brain
there was no room in reality for the concept of a soul, there are just brains
agnostic for years still open to a "faith experience" but never found one
as the years have passed I have come to see the world more and more as a solely material process
have read many philosophers and "great thinkers" in an attempt to find a new structure to replace the christian Judaeo one I was raised with to no avail

to me there seems to be no answer to the macro question of what ought to be, there is only what is. Our world and ourselves are simply bio-mechanical processes.

Thinkers like Sam Harris who posit that there is still an ought that relates to the promotion of human flourishing leave me unsatisfied, since this is essentially utilitarianism which I learned long ago ultimately breaks down as comprehensive ethical framework.

So my approach to all this is to retreat from the macro. I don't think about it and don't talk about it. I have no opinions on macro questions about what is right or wrong or what "we" should do.

I stick to the micro, I rely on my positive emotions and treat my partner, friends and family with love and care. I do things I enjoy, practice mindfulness. I am overall pretty functional one might say.

But at a deeper level, there is an underlying chaos of thought that robs me of true engagement in life. My brain was set up with judaeo-christrian structure of meaning and purpose. I have lost those structures and have yet to replace them. This has led to a corresponding underlying sadness, since the world was a much more beautiful place when I had a heavenly father who had made me for a clear purpose and who loved me. When I knew that I would see those I loved again in eternal life. Now I am a biological process, a stream of consciousness that will cease to exist once the brain that I am a product of stops working. It all does seem rather hollow in contrast to my prior world view.

And so I go on sticking to the micro, retreating from thoughts about the macro, and just living and enjoying the moments. People would tell you I am a relatively happy guy. But I think they would also tell you that I seem distracted and not entirely engaged in living. I am always somewhat removed from life, since reality is such an empty stark place in comparison the reality I believed in for the first 20 years of my life.

I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share.

NOS4A2

↪dazed

I’m not theist, nor ever was, but I have experienced nihilism in a similar manner. I could only imagine how it may be for a person raised on religion, but I did believe in a soul of sorts, the after life, and what not, until situations such as your own arose.

I was able to crawl out of it by replacing the set of principles that had crumbled. This involves a little soul searching, in my case philosophy and art. Admittedly this process continues to this day, but I no longer feel groundless, no longer feel like I’m spiralling down that abyss, and am able to value things again.

Pfhorrest

↪dazed

Yeah the solution I think is to replace the lost principles with new ones. I am firmly of the opinion that there is actually an objective morality to strive for, though Sam Harris isn't a great exemplar of it, and you're right that utilitarianism per se has major flaws as a comprehensive moral system. But that doesn't mean that the problem is unsolvable.

This year I've been writing down my own comprehensive system of philosophy, which I hope might be of help to you in developing your own. It's meant to be read beginning-to-end but for your purposes you might like to start with the last chapter on the meaning of life and follow the links in there back to the earlier chapters as necessary.

Tzeentch

Anyone who follows reason will come to the conclusion that nihilism is untenable. For the same reasons we cannot prove something has objective value, we cannot disprove it. If you choose to believe nothing has objective value, you're simply trading one belief system for another.

Beliefs merely conceal ignorance and they are the mortal enemy of happiness. Sadly, modern man is absolutely filled to the brim with beliefs, however he may deny it.

Banno

I stick to the micro, — dazed

Pfhorrest

Anyone who follows reason will come to the conclusion that nihilism is untenable. For the same reasons we cannot prove something has objective value, we cannot disprove it. — Tzeentch

I agree completely, and to save @dazed the reading of my whole philosophy work I linked earlier, maybe I should just paraphrase the most relevant part of it that's very similar to what you just said here: if we start from a place of complete ignorance, we can't know if anything is objectively good or bad, but in our actions we cannot help but tacitly act on an assumption either that there is (so we try to make our actions good and not bad) or that there isn't (so we don't try). If we want to end up doing good, should there turn out to be such a thing as objectively good, we must try; and if we (even tacitly) assume that there is no such thing as objectively good, we will not try, and so will guarantee failure at attaining it. It is therefore pragmatically best to assume that there is something objectively good, and then try to figure out what it is, and try to do that. We might still fail, either to do good or even to figure out what it is, and it might turn out that the whole endeavor was ultimately hopeless, but we can never be certain of that, and in the absence of that certainty the safe bet is to give it your best go anyway, just in case.

(Conversely, however, we cannot assume that good prevailing is a foregone conclusion, for then we will likewise have no reason to try and so guarantee failure; and we also cannot assume that certain things being the things that are objectively good is a foregone conclusion [i.e. accepting some moral doctrine on faith], because then we will not try to figure out what is good and so will guarantee failure at that. We must act always on the assumption that something is objectively right, but that nothing is completely certain to be that objectively right thing; any particular thing might always be shown to be the wrong thing, but it can never be shown that there is no such thing as the right or wrong thing.)

Deleted User

You avoid nihilism by first NOT trying to dodge nihilism, I'm guessing you have not fully understood nihilism is saying and that is why you're trying to find ways to avoid it.

You "can't" avoid nihilism any more than you can practice it. There is no getting around the rights, only dodging the wrongs.

For me, this is a non-question, because once I actively start pondering ways of HOW CAN I AVOID NIHILISM.. I realize I'm not even a nihilist.. and this has no barring on the fact that there exists 'no ultimate meaning..' for instance.

Anyhow, for me, the way I've personally looked at the nihilism question is not HOW can you avoid nihilism, but instead how would you even go about doing that..?

So as an atheist, I've just nothing to say much on it.

Janus

Thinkers like Sam Harris who posit that there is still an ought that relates to the promotion of human flourishing leave me unsatisfied, since this is essentially utilitarianism which I learned long ago ultimately breaks down as comprehensive ethical framework. — dazed

"Human flourishing"; that preoccupation is very much the problem it seems. If we concern ourselves only with human flourishing then we will rape the Earth. This is what we have been doing. Humans will flourish only if the Earth flourishes.

Most religions rightly propose that we should be concerned with something greater than ourselves, but the problem has always been that the "greater being" is some ineffable or transcendent mystery or some reified all-father to whom we owe obeisance, and who grants us the right, if we are pious, to use the creation He made for us however we wish, with callous disregard for the well-being of mere animals and impious savages.

The way out of nihilism is to live within the greater being of the natural world in a respectful, and even reverent, manner, and to allow it to enrich our works, communities, lives and loves.

BC

I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share. — dazed

I am sort of a Protestant mirror of your Catholic experience. I was steeped in mainline Protestant (Methodist) Christianity, and had no objection to it. I 'drifted' away more than severed the connection. I found a new interest in church as a gay man when I got involved with Metropolitan Community Church in the '70s, for a few years. At some point in the 1980s I realized I really didn't believe any part of the Creed any more, and I declared myself an atheist.

I found it much harder than I would have thought to disconnect all the emotional and intellectual ties I had to the Church, Christian theology, and the satisfactions I found in various narratives in the Bible (OT & NT). It took me maybe 20 years to pull the last plug. I wasn't left with nihilism, because I recognized that the Christian ethics I learned early on was my core "operating system" whether I believed in God, the divinity of Jesus, the Resurrection, salvation... or not.

What I consider right and wrong may be derived from theism, but as an atheist, I don't have any objection to that. Treating other people the way one wants to be treated is a pretty universal rule. Of course, there are elements in Christian teaching that I reject. I reject what the church has to say about homosexuality, for instance. I disapprove of the Church's balance between spending to maintain itself and spending to perform works of mercy (way, way too much spent on the maintenance of the church institution). The Church ought to be poor. On the other hand, atheists do well to feed the poor, house the homeless, visit the prisoner, and so forth, NOT because Christ commanded it, but because it is good for the person who does it, as well as the person for whom it is done. Helping others breaks down barriers between we happy and contented and you miserable and discontented (assuming "we' are, in fact, happy).

180 Proof

@dazed -

Like you I was raised Catholic but, unlike you, bible studies + church history made me a teen apostate. The last year at my Jesuit high school a survey course in western philosophy (main text titled From Socrates to Sartre ... with some hand-outs taken from Copelston's books thrown in for good neo-scholastic measure) the examples of great thinkers gave me permission to think for myself outside the catechismic confessional box and "come out" as a (negative) atheist - a baby step on a decades-long path of freethought, pragmatic (naturalistic, or secular) ethics & progressive (left-socialist) politics, which I'm not only still traveling on, but also celebrate.

In highsight (how many years later I don't recall) I'd realized that, for all my religious education indoctrination altar boy service, I'd never had any 'faith' to lose only, perhaps, my comformity to and compliance with the expectations of family upbringing, parochial school teachers & the priests; I never felt 'the shock of loss', just something like an intense curiosity at a wider, deeper, darker yet more interesting world from which I'd been sheltered (exiled), like a homecoming ...

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?" ~Freddy Nietzsche

"Whether you think consciousness to be a benefit or a horror, this is only what you think—and nothing else ... Nihilism is as dead as god." ~Tom Ligotti

Nothing ultimately matters also includes 'nothing ultimately matters'. ~180 Proof

So what? Get over it and get on with it - carpe jugulum, dude! - drink up, because it's always later than you think. :party: :death:

Janus

Nothing ultimately matters also includes 'nothing ultimately matters'. ~180 Proof

:cool: indeed! And yet every little thing temporally matters, except that which thinks little things don't matter, and what matters most is that that doesn't matter, but thinks it does.

Terrapin Station

Morals, normatives, purposes, etc. arise in individual dispositions, intuitions, emotions, etc.

Those aren't actually chaotic. There are some very common dispositions, where they stem from an evolutionary basis.

The leap you need to make is from being told what to do, where you instead embrace self-determination. What feels right to you? Keeping in mind that we're talking about dispositions that involve interacting with other people, so you need to think about what feels right to you in that context of interaction.

Pfhorrest

Nothing ultimately matters also includes 'nothing ultimately matters'. ~180 Proof

I recently wrote something very similar to that as part of the final chapter of my philosophy book; something like "If nothing mattered, then it wouldn't matter that nothing mattered."

Of course I then go on to talk about why things matter anyway.

Wayfarer

I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share. — dazed

Touchingly written. I have never shared the sense of there being a literal life after death with your loved ones, but then, I never had the idea that this was what religions actually taught. To me it seemed an artifact of the popular imagination, in the same sense that mythical figures personify human traits. Mythologies are there to convey meaning, but once the meaning is lost then the mythology just becomes mere myth.

My brain was set up with judaeo-christrian structure of meaning and purpose. I have lost those structures and have yet to replace them. This has led to a corresponding underlying sadness, since the world was a much more beautiful place when I had a heavenly father who had made me for a clear purpose and who loved me. When I knew that I would see those I loved again in eternal life. Now I am a biological process, a stream of consciousness that will cease to exist once the brain that I am a product of stops working. It all does seem rather hollow in contrast to my prior world view. — dazed

Neither is true. The former is a mytholigised depiction, the latter what happens when that mythologised depiction is abandoned. And you're right in seeing this as nihilism - it often is. The task is to understand what about sacred scriptures was true in the first place. 'Nothing' is nihilism - and you can be a cheerful nihilist, as some say. But if you can't be, then what? I think there are layers of meaning in religions but they have to be discerned. I didn't watch the Tolstoy vid above but I would think that is the kind of thing he'd say.

Pfhorrest

didn't watch the Tolstoy vid above but I would think that is the kind of thing he'd say. — Wayfarer

TL;DW for the Tolstoy vid: the most important time is now, the most important person is the one you're with right now, and the most important action is doing right by that person.

Wayfarer

Wikipedia chapter on Tolstoy Religious Beliefs

After reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, Tolstoy gradually became converted to the ascetic morality upheld in that work as the proper spiritual path for the upper classes: "Do you know what this summer has meant for me? Constant raptures over Schopenhauer and a whole series of spiritual delights which I've never experienced before. ... no student has ever studied so much on his course, and learned so much, as I have this summer"

In Chapter VI of A Confession, Tolstoy quoted the final paragraph of Schopenhauer's work. It explained how the nothingness that results from complete denial of self is only a relative nothingness, and is not to be feared. The novelist was struck by the description of Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu ascetic renunciation as being the path to holiness.

He was described as a 'Christian anarchist' and later in life corresponded with Gandhi.

180 Proof

:yawn:

(Pardon this 'I'm stuck in an airport' ramble ...)

In ancient or Classical eras philosophy, it's said, began with / in wonder - that there is anything at all.

In this Modern era of the last half millennia, it seems to me, despair, not wonder, is the catalyst of philosophizing - despair that, despite the entirety of human knowledge, there isn't any (decideable, in/defeasible) Reason at all for any - let alone every - thing; to wit: Why is there no-Y-thing rather than some-X-thing? Apparently, 'this world' is The Most Arbitrary of All Possible Worlds à la the mediocrity principle (pace Leibniz).

The ancients reflected on their wonder in order to discern whatever lay beyond (or behind) it all that wonder seemed, they had imagined, pointed to and which they had speculated was/is the ordering principle (logos) of whatever there is (physis). In effect, Classical philosophers strove to have their contemplative cake and eat it too: disenchanting the enchanted reality they'd found themselves in but only enough to rationally comprehend, or intuitively glimpse, its raison d'être (arche).

But what of contemporary despair? And the philosophies of despair - pro, con & indifferent? And sectarian anti-secular fundamentalisms radicalized by paroxysms of despair? And globally encompassing mega-menageries of hyper-designed popular diversions from despair? (à la 'culture industry' or 'p0m0 condition' or 'oedipal simulacra' or 'ideology of objet petit a' ...)

I'm with Freddy N. & co - Nihilism is merely a symptom, or seduction, of decadence. Like Schop's pessimism. Even proletarian alienation. And Dionysian iconoclasm, or 'hermeneutics of suspicion' - just dessicated fruit of decadance. Like punkers, hip-hopsters, new atheists & radicalized suburban jihadis/lone wolf mass-shooters. If survived initially, people tend to 'outgrow' these Nihilisms ... and, fatalistically or obliviously, skate the rest of their jaded days across the uneven, cracking, thin ice of despair until. Only Nihilists worry about nihilism, thereby, inadvertently or not, distracting themselves from ... thinking all the way through the inexorable extinction of thinking. Disenchanted (hyper)chaos can't be 're-enchanted', or put back into 'the enchanted cosmos' tube!

:flower: <pansy>

Sad Socrates (red pill, sphereland :scream: ) or satisfied swine (blue pill, flatland :blush: )? - that is the question for each lonesome one of us.

dazed

↪NOS4A2

Indeed it's the act of replacing those principles that has evaded me for some 20 years. A simple example: Abortion was clearly wrong when I was a believer because it would be termination of soul embodied human life that was sacred and in clear violation of the ten commandments.
In my current intellectual landscape, there is no clear answer but rather a set of competing arguments about what constitutes human life, when human life can justifiably be terminated, what sorts of obligations does one human owe another?
There are no clear answers in a world of indeterminacy and random chaos. And so I avoid such discussions.

dazed

↪Pfhorrest

I honestly appreciate the thought and effort.

In simple terms you suggest aiming for what I perceive to be the good, despite not having an objectively determination of what the good is. But the issue for me is that the good used to be clear and now ), I simply can't even perceive what the good is on a macro level. (such as the abortion example I discuss above)

Terrapin Station

Indeed it's the act of replacing those principles that has evaded me for some 20 years. A simple example: Abortion was clearly wrong when I was a believer because it would be termination of soul embodied human life that was sacred and in clear violation of the ten commandments.
In my current intellectual landscape, there is no clear answer but rather a set of competing arguments about what constitutes human life, when human life can justifiably be terminated, what sorts of obligations does one human owe another?
There are no clear answers in a world of indeterminacy and random chaos. And so I avoid such discussions. — dazed

If you're trying to do morality from a purely "intellectual"/"reasoned" perspective, you're doing it "wrong."

Ask yourself if abortion seems acceptable to you. Why does it or does it not seem acceptable to you? When you're intuiting whether it seems acceptable to you, there are a bunch of facts you need to consider, but the facts aren't going to tell you whether it's acceptable to you. You need to access how you feel about it to know. It's self-determination (of your morality).

dazed

↪Banno

interesting and this is pretty much my approach to life currently. It works for the most part, but doesn't give one much motivation to focus on the larger macro issues which still leaves me a rather disengaged citizen.

dazed

↪Swan

if you've never been a theist, I think you are coming from a very different place. I have many friends who are atheists who don't face the sense of empty random chaos about the world, because their brains were not hard wired with an underlying structure that made sense of things that has since crumbled and in my case seems to be impossible to replace.

dazed

↪Bitter Crank

"What I consider right and wrong may be derived from theism, but as an atheist, I don't have any objection to that. Treating other people the way one wants to be treated is a pretty universal rule. Of course, there are elements in Christian teaching that I reject. I reject what the church has to say about homosexuality, for instance. I disapprove of the Church's balance between spending to maintain itself and spending to perform works of mercy (way, way too much spent on the maintenance of the church institution). The Church ought to be poor. On the other hand, atheists do well to feed the poor, house the homeless, visit the prisoner, and so forth, NOT because Christ commanded it, but because it is good for the person who does it, as well as the person for whom it is done. Helping others breaks down barriers between we happy and contented and you miserable and discontented (assuming "we' are, in fact, happy)."

Yes I would agree that like you my patterns of behaviour have not altered much since my loss of religion, the right way to behave seems to have been instilled in me in a way that is pretty much immune to the process of deconstruction.
But I am still left with random chaos when I actually try to reason about something at the macro level and so I always retreat from it, which ultimately makes true engagement with life evasive.
In the end all the things that were once sacred special and true, are simply random biological processes.

dazed

↪180 Proof

the difference between you and I is that I actually did believe and so the loss for me and the corresponding void is much more profound
The nike posit "just do it" works for the most part at the micro level but falls apart at the macro level.
Most of our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model of our existence, take that away and it's all fair game, and I think that in fact it's self interest that will ultimately dictate the directions each of us pursue in that game.

god must be atheist

My lesson from this thread is that theists are addcited to the opium of the masses. Once you start it, you'll forever be missing it if you don't continue.

Somebody on one of the threads said, "theism / spiritualism can only be understood and practiced on an emotional / spiritual level, never on an intellectual level." This is very powerful. I believe our emotional brains are older than the intellectual processing centres. Meaning, that even severely retarded / intellectually challenged / developmentally challenged persons have the same scale and depth and breadth of emotions, as people with the most intelligent minds. I have seen it in a cousin of mine, who had 17 words in his vocabulary, yet he possessed a full range of emotions, including but not limited to, social skills and even a sense of humour. Yes, humour is an emotion, though it hopelessly hangs on the intellect to kick-start it. I have seen similarly rich emotive behaviour in many other people who were otherwise decapacitated intellectually.

I believe emotions presented earlier in the development of the brain in evolution. You can see its manifestation in the behavour of many, many animals. For some reason, emotions changed littel, or none over hundreds of thousands of years and or millions of years of evolution. I don't know why this is so.

So if the emotive part of your brain gets used to something that is pleasurable, the activity is harder to shake than if your intellectual brain gets a high from something.

Religion seems to be therefore not only a metaphor, but an existent reality in its role as a drug. In my youth there were three authors I admired, later joined by a fourth: 1. A. A. Milne, 2. Karl May, and 3. Istvan Fekete. Of the three, I.F. was a religious man, and he wrote beautiful nature descriptions, which grabbed me by the soul, until at 15 I realized he is a covert follower of religion and of a god. I could never read him again. But I am the first to admit that his talent to put his emotions given to him by his own faith was superb, and catchy.

(For completeness sake: The fourth on the list was Jeno Rejto, be topped only by Frigyes Karinthy, who topped everybody else in world literature, methinks, when it comes to style, humour, and bravado. His works are like a lifelong works of what Toccata And Fuge in G Minor by J.S. Bach is in music: not much to say, but inimitable in execution and effect of detail.)

dazed

↪Terrapin Station

what feels right for me in any given situation is ultimately linked to patterns of behaviour that arose in the context of a judaeo christrian faith...and yes I just go with it on a micro level in the normal run of the mill life stuff...but for the bigger questions that sometimes run my way I have no way to navigate those.

Terrapin Station

what feels right for me in any given situation is ultimately linked to patterns of behaviour that arose in the context of a judaeo christrian faith. — dazed

What feels right to you would be linked to innate dispositions that you have. There are probably some aspects of Judeo-Christianity that you felt uncomfortable with. That would be because those things were contra your innate dispositions.

So if you introspect whether you feel that abortion is okay or not, don't you lean one way or the other?

Harry Hindu

But at a deeper level, there is an underlying chaos of thought that robs me of true engagement in life. My brain was set up with judaeo-christrian structure of meaning and purpose. I have lost those structures and have yet to replace them. This has led to a corresponding underlying sadness, since the world was a much more beautiful place when I had a heavenly father who had made me for a clear purpose and who loved me. When I knew that I would see those I loved again in eternal life. Now I am a biological process, a stream of consciousness that will cease to exist once the brain that I am a product of stops working. It all does seem rather hollow in contrast to my prior world view. — dazed

So my approach to all this is to retreat from the macro. I don't think about it and don't talk about it. I have no opinions on macro questions about what is right or wrong or what "we" should do.

I stick to the micro, I rely on my positive emotions and treat my partner, friends and family with love and care. I do things I enjoy, practice mindfulness. I am overall pretty functional one might say. — dazed

I had a similar experience growing up in a Christian home and becoming more aware of the wider world and all the other beliefs that correlated to where you grew up. The basis of my questioning and subsequent abandoning of my beliefs was my love for astronomy. Growing up, space fascinated me. It was the unknown - the "final frontier". I also loved animals, and nature in general, which eventually led me to an better understanding of natural selection and the power of the theory. It was science, or the close investigation of the macro and the micro, that led me out of the delusion. The "just do it" for me is the investigation of the unknown (the macro/micro).

One of the quotes that I often reflect on when I begin to feel those feelings of losing the nostalgia of being young and naive is from Arthur C. Clarke's, "Childhood's End". Jan Rodrick's curiosity allowed him to be the only human to see the Overlord's cities and to glimpse the Overmind. He returns to an Earth devoid of humans and eventually dying himself when the Children destroy the Earth as they unite with the Overmind. Before he dies, he begins to question his meaning and purpose. The Overlord responds, "You exist[ed].", as if the mere fact of his existence counted for something. But "counted to who"?

Isn't that really what we mean when we travel down these nihilistic roads in our minds? Isn't it really a selfish notion that we want to matter to important people - like an all-powerful superhuman that can do you favors if you please it? What do you want your actions (your meaning and your purpose) to matter to? You? Your partner and family? The human species? Then do things for them and let that be your purpose and meaning.

Deleted User

↪dazed

When did I say I wasn't raised a theist...? I was baptized and raised a Seventh Day Adventist. I was never really "all there..." really. I was very critical as a child, critical of everything. I didn't like the restrictions, "Saturday school", Sabbath, 5 am studies.. and they did a complete restructure of the Bible I did not agree with - but still smiled and showed up nonetheless. I never had a need for sacredness, etc.. I was not meant to be there, not meant to be a theist, and I knew from an early age.

But, I think, like some in this thread, I never truly believed, so I never 'lost' anything. I never felt emotionally invested - or truly 'believed'. The only extent of belief I did have was one induced of fear... "God sees what you do.. God is watching you.." and all that.

But I quickly disconnected from this fear too, or "grew out of it.." more to speak. I left 'church, and God' when I no longer had to appease my families wishes, there was just no faith to lose.

When I left, I did not have a problem with the empty, chaos, incompleteness, 'lonely' (without guidance outside of myself), of the world either. I felt the world was full and couldn't wait to be unleashed into it. I remember feeling this way since a child. What "facts" about the world - such as random biological processes I was excited to find out; I am still sweeping through how to deal with 'truths' but I have no such doubts I will not handle this well and come to my point of contentment.

I do think some children are some dispositioned to be who they are - a certain kind of way - even in loss, they struggle less than other children - and child intellectuals (critics) from an early age, seems to follow them into adulthood, these children tend to lean further one way than another. They don't feel some angst as other children, or if so seem to be better at reasoning innately - while for others there is no disposition and they have either be motivated to take on such a style or simply don't have the interest.

Likely not scientific but, I think some people are just born disposition'd to be theists and other's just simply cannot think that way. When I talk to theists, it feels as if our brains are completely flipped; I understand where they are coming from - but that is to the extent my understanding goes -- it is feels like a large gap between us; and to fully integrate into theism would require such a hard re-wiring of the brain (especially since it's been this way until little) .. I do not think it is all possible for me to ever believe.

So I perhaps somewhat sympathize it must be like that from their perspective, they simply cannot grasp 'atheist-like' brains, which is fine I guess.

Deleted User

So if the emotive part of your brain gets used to something that is pleasurable, the activity is harder to shake than if your intellectual brain gets a high from something.

Religion seems to be therefore not only a metaphor, but an existent reality in its role as a drug. — god must be atheist

Maybe this explains it for me. I never got the high. I was emotionally dead all throughout religion :rofl: ...

Pfhorrest

In simple terms you suggest aiming for what I perceive to be the good, despite not having an objectively determination of what the good is. But the issue for me is that the good used to be clear and now ), I simply can't even perceive what the good is on a macro level. (such as the abortion example I discuss above) — dazed

The bit that I actually typed out in this thread is just the very start of my moral framework; it's just the reason not to give up and fall into nihilism completely. There is still a lot of work to be done to build up a complete moral framework that can answer "macro level" questions like that. My complete take on that is at the link I posted earlier, and far too long to type out here, but it's there is you want my full thoughts on that. A lot of it is just slight variations on other pre-existing philosophical works, a mix of universal prescriptivism, utilitarianism, liberal deontology, and philosophical anarchism.

Here, I can copy and paste a bit where I kind of sum up how I view ethics as analogous to science:

When it comes to tackling questions about reality, pursuing knowledge, we should not take some census or survey of people's beliefs, and either try to figure out how all those beliefs could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority believes is true. Neither should we rather feed people's perceptions (instead of beliefs) into such a process, nor should we rather declare that some privileged authority's opinions (instead of the majority's) are correct. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct sensations or observations, free from any interpretation into perceptions or beliefs yet, and compare and contrast the empirical experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for a belief to be true. Then we should devise models, or theories, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be true. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian academic structure.

When it comes to tackling questions about morality, pursuing justice, we should not take some census or survey of people's intentions, and either try to figure out how all those intentions could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority intends is good. Neither should we rather feed people's desires (instead of intentions) into such a process, nor should we rather declare that some privileged authority's opinions (instead of the majority's) are correct. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct appetites, free from any interpretation into desires or intentions yet, and compare and contrast the hedonic experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for an intention to be good. Then we should devise models, or strategies, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be good. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian political structure. — The Codex Quaerendae: A Note On Ethics

But, that's just my take on it; my answer to how to answer such questions. You might come up with something different if you try. The core message is that it's not hopeless, and you can figure something out, so you don't have to be a complete nihilist.

Of course, if you can manage to live your life just moment to moment happily and don't have to think about the big-picture stuff, that's fine too. That's probably more important for most people who aren't in big positions of power than figuring out the macro-level stuff. But if you want to engage in the bigger picture, there is hope that you can figure out a way to do so.

Former Theists, how do you avoid nihilism?

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions