An even deeper engagement would involve caring about causes, positive societal change, the greater good. I used to be engaged and care about trying to better things (when I was a theist). Now I have no interest in those things because I can't define what positive or good would really mean on a macro scale. I just stick to the micro where it is usually more easy to define what is good for those I actually interact with. — dazed

Sounds like you might be an Introvert, as I am, and the church was your only arena of social engagement. The suggestion to get involved in "politics" and "causes" is good advice for extroverts, but not so much for innies.

Nevertheless, there are ways for introverts to socialize without stress. Internet forums, for example, seem to be a "god-send" for those who tend to avoid clamorous public situations. One philosophical forum I was on for several years, seemed to have an unusually high proportion of people with various psychological and physical disabilities : from depression, to palsy, to schizophrenia. Such psycho-physical issues don't reduce your intelligence, but they do tend to keep you on the fringes of society. The key feature of forums is they let you have a meeting of minds (preferably one at a time) without meeting in person or in crowds. This limits the interpersonal complexities that sometimes overwhelm us turtles. You don't even have to display a photo avatar if you don't want to. :smile:

If you are also feeling depressed, whether clinically or mildly, just the feedback from non-judgmental (except for a few trolls) forum or group members can ease you into feeling comfortable about expressing your beliefs and feelings. If you are also existentially depressed, due to the feeling that the world is going to hell, you might find some non-religious rational solace in an article I just came across [link below]. :cool:


5 Books That Explain Why It Seems the World Is So Fucked : https://markmanson.net/5-books-that-explain-why-it-seems-the-world-is-so-fucked

A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary for those who want to think for themselves rather than be led by the nose via Faith. But when it becomes the core principle of your life, Skepticism tends to deteriorate into unhealthy sneering Cynicism (in the modern sense of contemptuous, pessimistic, and generally distrustful of people's motives). — Gnomon

I wonder what you’re arguing against here - I’m not advocating Nihilism or Existentialism as core principles at all, but as a useful path for @dazed to break this attachment to certainty or infallible authority. My current worldview has developed out of Catholicism with the help of both Nihilism and Existentialism, but I see both as a journey through, rather than into, the hopelessness and despair that comes from having no visible path ahead of you, and towards a sense of freedom in charting your own course.

When you walk into pitch blackness and close the door behind you, it helps to know that it’s more of an open field than a dead end. That way you don’t feel like you have to go back the way you came to escape the dark. Let your eyes adjust and take a good look around - it’s not as dark out here as it first seems, and the only danger is if you stop making your own way through...

When you walk into pitch blackness and close the door behind you, it helps to know that it’s more of an open field than a dead end. That way you don’t feel like you have to go back the way you came to escape the dark. Let your eyes adjust and take a good look around - it’s not as dark out here as it first seems, and the only danger is if you stop making your own way through... — Possibility

:clap: :flower: :death:

An even deeper engagement would involve caring about causes, positive societal change, the greater good. I used to be engaged and care about trying to better things (when I was a theist). Now I have no interest in those things because I can't define what positive or good would really mean on a macro scale. I just stick to the micro where it is usually more easy to define what is good for those I actually interact with. — dazed

You do not care about causes, positive societal change, or the greater good -- but you care about what caring about those things did for you, it seems - because you felt better maybe?

So why not pursue the causes, positive social changes, and greater goods based upon what makes you feel better?

But perhaps that's not as satisfying. Perhaps it's better when we have a big story about purpose and origins to justify caring about these things, but if it's all just brains in bone-boxes responding to feelings selected by a historical and evolutionary process then the big story just isn't as inspiring anymore.

Why is that, I wonder? I mean why isn't the Big Story of the self as a string of narratives spewing forth from the brain nowhere near as satisfying as the Big Story of the immortal self set in some eternal plan within a purposive universe? What did Jesus have to do with immigrants, besides saying some pithy things about love that any brain could have (well, I'd probably go so far as to say *did*, given that I don't believe) come up with?

You say it is because your brain is set for Judeo-Christian meaning and purpose. But nothing could substitute Judeo-Christian meaning and purpose; it would be atheist meaning and purpose, or democratic meaning and purpose, or Buddhist meaning and purpose, or whatever-else-it-is. It would always be a different Big Story. But something about the brain-making-stories Big Story isn't satisfying. . .

So why stick to it?

I think I see what @dazed is getting at. When God is dead, one is left with a plurality of causes. There are so many claims on the contemporary conscience, all appealing to historically evolving notion of reason and decency. And then the species itself is mortal. In the long run, it's all got to go. Maybe it's the heat death. Maybe it's an asteroid.

It's healthy and respectable to get engrossed and not be too evil. But that's about it. The escape from time and chance is given up. Or it's negotiated so that one tries to be on the right side of History without looking too far ahead. To me it looks like transformations of a hardwired fantasy. What is it to be intellectual and sophisticated? To be above confusion and superstition? It's a variation of the divine as far as I can tell. But the healthy-respectable version lacks divine violence, which gives it a certain shallowness.

If I understand your words rightly, uncanni, your 'summa' speaks to me as well. — 180 Proof

It's nice to be understood sometimes... :victory:

Just Think It. < swoosh >

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

Marx helps: we know who is lying to us. and why, and we know we won't have a cat's chance in hell of making sensible evaluations till we get the leeches off our backs, which gives one a sensible purpose.

:cool:

I wonder what you’re arguing against here - I’m not advocating Nihilism or Existentialism as core principles at all, but as a useful path for dazed to break this attachment to certainty or infallible authority. — Possibility

I'm arguing against the typical definition of Nihilism : "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless." Google

I assume you are thinking of extreme skepticism as a way to start all over with no preconceptions . . . a way to reboot your belief system. That's essentially what Descartes tried to do, but it was only a thought experiment, not a way of life. Nihilism is a pretty extreme approach to a new worldview. It seems to imagine that you can purge all former beliefs, and begin anew with a blank slate. But that sounds unlikely, due to the way the human mind works. Nietzsche said a lot of provocative things, but I doubt that even he was that radical in his personal life.

Perhaps you can give me a more positive and reasonable definition of Nihilism. :smile:

Marx helps: we know who is lying to us. and why, and we know we won't have a cat's chance in hell of making sensible evaluations till we get the leeches off our backs, which gives one a sensible purpose. — iolo

I like Marx, but I also personally think that we are largely the leeches on our own backs. Capitalism is a beautiful, seductive monster. Today's art is great. Check out the screens. In all of this mess, the machine is feeding us profound pictures. It's basically condensed experience, hyper-reality. I just watched Succession (two seasons). So much money and talent was concentrated in making that artifact. And we can read Marx because our noisy oligarchy isn't afraid of the 'truth.'

Under the shimmering diversions of the spectacle, banalization dominates modern society the world over and at every point where the developed consumption of commodities has seemingly multiplied the roles and objects to choose from. The remains of religion and of the family (the principal relic of the heritage of class power) and the moral repression they assure, merge whenever the enjoyment of this world is affirmed–this world being nothing other than repressive pseudo-enjoyment.

The smug acceptance of what exists can also merge with purely spectacular rebellion; this reflects the simple fact that dissatisfaction itself became a commodity as soon as economic abundance could extend production to the processing of such raw materials. — Debord

I'm not accusing you of pseudo-rebellion. I'm accusing myself of enjoying a 'virtuous' dissatisfaction. Those who experience the banality intensely might prefer that the less sensitive proles end up with the dirty work. The tyrant outside is a reflection of the tyrant inside.

hy is that, I wonder? I mean why isn't the Big Story of the self as a string of narratives spewing forth from the brain nowhere near as satisfying as the Big Story of the immortal self set in some eternal plan within a purposive universe? What did Jesus have to do with immigrants, besides saying some pithy things about love that any brain could have (well, I'd probably go so far as to say *did*, given that I don't believe) come up with?

You say it is because your brain is set for Judeo-Christian meaning and purpose. But nothing could substitute Judeo-Christian meaning and purpose; it would be atheist meaning and purpose, or democratic meaning and purpose, or Buddhist meaning and purpose, or whatever-else-it-is. It would always be a different Big Story. But something about the brain-making-stories Big Story isn't satisfying. — Moliere

interesting thought, but it's not so much that I need a big story for motivational purposes, I do seem to still care about making the world a better place. but for me what's missing is the underlying structure and framework that allowed me to make sense of what making the world a better place meant. Now I simply have no clue, without absolutes and with the indeterminacy of the meaning of words, I am left with the sense that really all that directs us is self interest veiled in appeals to truths like fairness, justice, equality that are ultimately linked to a world view where those things had meaning because God gave them meaning. I can't escape the thought that those concepts make as much sense in the human world as do they with respect to a pack of wolves...

You talk of god and meaning and contrast that to "facts" of death and meaninglessness.

I struggled to understand how and why death makes our lives meaningless until I "realized" it erases the very thing capable of having meaning - the self.

I like the distinction "macro" vs "micro" although I don't agree with the connotations of one being greater than the other. When people say "life has no meaning" they mean that life has no ultimate purpose and this loss of purpose can be compounded by atheism the antithesis of which admittedly confers a truly great purpose to life.

Yet when one discovers that our lives are empty of this kind of meaning - divinely sanctioned, thus grand - we are liberated to define ourselves any way we want. We may choose our destiny and create a meaning for our own lives. As you can see the lack of a "macro" meaning leads to infinite possibilities of "micro" meaning. Let's not forget to mention how utterly drab and possibly dangerous it would be if god or whatever else decides our destiny - we would be like pawns in a game you neither chose to be a part of nor can control.

I don't think we are in disagreement.

I simply have no clue, without absolutes and with the indeterminacy of the meaning of words, I am left with the sense that really all that directs us is self interest veiled in appeals to truths like fairness, justice, equality that are ultimately linked to a world view where those things had meaning because God gave them meaning. — dazed

How can any "g/G give meaning" to anything that matters to you beyond "self-interest" when, apparently, you yourself don't "give meaning" to anything ("macro") beyond your own "self-interest" (via thinking things through for yourself, to begin with, rather than merely lazing away your days on the (shrink's?) couch expecting some off-the-shelf "absolutes" to dogmatically tell you what to think)?

I don't think we are in disagreement. — iolo

Nice. Thanks for the reply.

Nihilism, schmihilism.

I doubt whether nihilism, and some other isms for that matter, would be the subject of much concern but for Christianity. Christianity led those accepting it to believe that human life had a particular purpose and that ultimately those who were true believers would achieve that purpose and despite death live forever, in some capacity, with Jesus and his Father in one of those mansions in God's vaguely described but apparently nonetheless very satisfying and desirable Kingdom. Perhaps more importantly, Christianity taught that only Christians were to be saved.

But Christianity became less and less credible over time, and the less we believed it the more disappointed, disillusioned and despairing we became. Without the Christian God, life had no meaning, the center did not hold, all was permitted. 19th and 20th century intellectual angst, if not mere anarchy, was loosed upon the world.

The interesting thing is that if we look at the pre-Christian Mediterranean West, Greco-Roman civilization, there doesn't seem to be anything similar to this overwhelming concern, i.e. what if there is no God? The sophisticated and educated were Epicurean or Stoic or Cynic or Platonist of one sort or another, didn't think of God or gods as personal, and didn't expect much to happen after death. Some didn't believe in a God or gods, no doubt, but this apparently wasn't seen as anything very significant judging from the information we have.

Initiates in the various cults and mystery religions believed themselves to have been granted special insights into the world and would live on with their gods or goddesses, it's true, but they were secretive and their devotees limited in number. Those who were initiated didn't seek converts or condemn the uninitiated. The common pagan view of the afterlife was that it would be shadowy, rather sad and boring.

Nevertheless, pre-Christian philosophers managed to come to conclusions regarding good and bad, true and false, the purpose of life, etc. most of which were borrowed by Christians. They were not Christian, they were not theists, nor were they nihilists.

Perhaps we're all victims of a kind of post Christian syndrome.

In any case, if history is any guide we need not be theists or nihilists, one or the other. Maybe we only think that is the case because of centuries of Christian indoctrination.

:clap: :up:

The very start of my philosophy is to reject basically religion (fideism and transcendentalism), and then immediately also reject nihilism (and the cynicism that can't help but lead to it), and then I spend the remaining 80% of the time just going over the vast swathes of what still remains as a possibility besides those equal and opposite anti-philosophies.

Nevertheless, pre-Christian philosophers managed to come to conclusions regarding good and bad, true and false, the purpose of life, etc. most of which were borrowed by Christians. They were not Christian, they were not theists, nor were they nihilists.

Perhaps we're all victims of a kind of post Christian syndrome.

In any case, if history is any guide we need not be theists or nihilists, one or the other. Maybe we only think that is the case because of centuries of Christian indoctrination. — Ciceronianus the White

The very start of my philosophy is to reject basically religion (fideism and transcendentalism), and then immediately also reject nihilism (and the cynicism that can't help but lead to it), and then I spend the remaining 80% of the time just going over the vast swathes of what still remains as a possibility besides those equal and opposite anti-philosophies. — Pfhorrest

Of course this is a wise and sensible position. I get it. And what else can you tell a person wrestling with a spiritual crisis but some version of 'get over it.'

Still, once something like God or gods or mysteries are abandoned and some kind of religion of reason is embraced, the world becomes different. Reason is corrosive, progressive, unstable. Any fixed philosophical system that tells us our place in the world is (in some sense) another 'theology' that conquers disorientation and alienation. (Of course we like a certain amount of alienation. Outside is inside is outside, etc.)

:clap: :up: :cool:

interesting thought, but it's not so much that I need a big story for motivational purposes, I do seem to still care about making the world a better place. but for me what's missing is the underlying structure and framework that allowed me to make sense of what making the world a better place meant. Now I simply have no clue, without absolutes and with the indeterminacy of the meaning of words, I am left with the sense that really all that directs us is self interest veiled in appeals to truths like fairness, justice, equality that are ultimately linked to a world view where those things had meaning because God gave them meaning. I can't escape the thought that those concepts make as much sense in the human world as do they with respect to a pack of wolves... — dazed

Right. So you care about making the world a better place, but you don't know how to make the world a better place because you have a new belief -- a belief about the self, the world, and everything. Hence my calling it a Big Story.

So my question to you is -- if the new belief isn't working, as you would like to make the world a better place but find it difficult to answer what that means because of the new belief, then why hold onto the belief that we are brains spewing out narratives, that all our moral talk is actually veiled and directed by self-interest, that this renders such moral talk meaningless?

What is still compelling you to believe it, given that this very belief is going against your self-interest in fulfilling a desire for a Big Picture morality, where you strive for the greater good and feel good about it?

I'm telling nobody to "get over it." I'm simply noting that the spiritual crisis is due to an assumption, and that the assumption need not (and i think should not) be accepted.

That it need not be accepted is established by the fact that millions of people, some of them very wise and highly intelligent, some of them very accomplished, some of them happy, lived before the advent of Christianity and other religions which posit the existence of a personal God who must be accepted if life is to have any significance and without whom all is meaningless Probably, such people live now as well.

This indicates there is nothing about being human which requires us to experience a spiritual crisis of the kind which, it seems to be claimed, must result in nihilism. And this understanding presents us with an opportunity to assess, as others have, being human free of the assumption from which the spiritual crisis derives.

Fair enough.

But I think of stoicism, for instance, as a quasi-religion.

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. — Epictetus

This aims at a perfectly self-controlled consciousness. This ideal man is like God, self-sufficing and above the world. The stoic is a god-man, a Jesus from Vulcan.

If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies. — Epictetus

Don't cry for mortal things. Be like God, cold and controlled. Life is a test of nerve, a stage for cold virtue.

I like stoicism, btw. But there's a place in for the dark question: Why should the proud godman bother with this stage for virtue? His only attachment is to detachment. The self-mortification is implicitly suicidal even.

He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. — Epicurus

Epicurus helps. Let's just be happy, healthy animals. We just need to get rid of the God virus and the illusion (theological hangover) that something is lacking.

I don't think it's that simple. Something in the human wants to transgress/transcend the given. 'Nihilism' is maybe just an awkward expression of a sense that 'something is missing.' Epicurus and humanism is about as good as it gets, but reason is historical and corrosive. Most thinking people are humanists and yet they don't agree, aren't forming one big inclusive community. We still have sects.

Why should the proud godman bother with this stage for virtue? His only attachment is to detachment. — jellyfish

"Well... then I guess I don't care about becoming a Stoic master."
"Oh my god... he is The One!"

I do seem to still care about making the world a better place. but for me what's missing is the underlying structure and framework that allowed me to make sense of what making the world a better place meant — dazed

Christianity set the bar too high for mortal humans. By their standards, we are all abject sinners.

The dark cynical attitude that no one really cares about anything except Self-Interest, might brighten-up if you find the right depression drugs, or the right group of caring people. Like AA meetings, just sharing with others in the same boat seems to help. If you care, maybe others do too. You'll just need to look for the meaningful Qualia hidden under the mathematical Quanta.

If you're looking for an alternative to traditional religions, maybe you should delve into Deism. It's not a formal religion, but a general religious philosophy that acknowledges the necessity for a First Cause creator. There's no holy book, no carved-in-stone rules, and no myths of afterlife to entice you to endure the suffering of the present world. Unfortunately, also no religious meetings to offer mutual emotional support. It's a god-helps-those-who-help-themselves attitude. At the risk of sounding elitist, it's an artificial religion substitute for intellectuals : like Voltaire and Ben Franklin. If Deism is not for you, maybe some form of Buddhism, such as Zen.


I have created my own personal worldview in order to provide structure and framework for making sense of a world that is still under development. No faith required, but a long-range rational view of how the world works is necessary to see the sensible order and positive direction of Evolution. It requires looking at the scientific evidence from a different perspective. It only appeals to rational pragmatic people who look for clues at the scene of the crime : of creating an imperfect world that requires motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other. :smile:


Deism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html

PanEnDeism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Neo-Deism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page15.html

Beism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

↪jellyfish
I'm telling nobody to "get over it." I'm simply noting that the spiritual crisis is due to an assumption, and that the assumption need not (and i think should not) be accepted. — Ciceronianus the White

:clap: :up:

Nice link. Thanks!

I have created my own personal worldview in order to provide structure and framework for making sense of a world that is still under development. No faith required, but a long-range rational view of how the world works is necessary to see the sensible order and positive direction of Evolution. It requires looking at the scientific evidence from a different perspective. It only appeals to rational pragmatic people who look for clues at the scene of the crime : of creating an imperfect world that requires motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other. :smile: — Gnomon

Your attitude is of course reasonable, but it's also familiar in terms of the emotional comfort it offers. I don't know exactly how far the idea goes back, but justifying evil in terms of a future to come goes back at least to Hegel.

But in contemplating history as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed, a question necessarily arises: To what principle, to what final purpose, have these monstrous sacrifices been offered?

From here one usually proceeds to the starting point of our investigation: the events which make up this picture of gloomy emotion and thoughtful reflection are only the means for realizing the essential destiny, the absolute and final purpose, or, what amounts to the same thing, the true result of world history. We have all along purposely eschewed that method of reflection which ascends from this scene of particulars to general principles. Besides, it is not in the interest of such sentimental reflections really to rise above these depressing emotions and to solve the mysteries of Providence presented in such contemplations. It is rather their nature to dwell melancholically on the empty and fruitless sublimities of their negative result.
...
A principle, a law is something implicit, which as such, however true in itself, is not completely real (actual). Purposes, principles, and the like, are at first in our thoughts, our inner intention. They are not yet in reality. That which is in itself is a possibility, a faculty. It has not yet emerged out of its implicitness into existence. A second element must be added for it to become reality, namely, activity, actualization. The principle of this is the will, man’s activity in general. It is only through this activity that the concept and its implicit (“being-in-themselves”) determinations can be realized, actualized; for of themselves they have no immediate efficacy.
...
These vast congeries of volitions, interests, and activities constitute the tools and means of the World Spirit for attaining its purpose, bringing it to consciousness, and realizing it. And this purpose is none other than finding itself – coming to itself – and contemplating itself in concrete actuality. But one may indeed question whether those manifestations of vitality on the part of individuals and peoples in which they seek and satisfy their own purposes are, at the same time, the means and tools of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing, which they realize unconsciously. This purpose has been questioned, and in every variety of form denied, decried, and denounced as mere dreaming and “philosophy.” On this point, however, I announced my view at the very outset, and asserted our hypothesis – which eventually will appear as the result of our investigation – namely, that Reason governs the world and has consequently governed its history. In relation to this Reason, which is universal and substantial, in and for itself, all else is subordinate, subservient, and the means for its actualization. Moreover, this Reason is immanent in historical existence and reaches its own perfection in and through this existence. — Hegel

I thought I'd share this and see if it resonated with you.

a long-range rational view of how the world works is necessary to see the sensible order and positive direction of Evolution. — Gnomon

Once we posit a director for evolution, then by the same template we'll need a Director for the director, and even all the more because of its larger realm needing extra-explanation.

We can deduce that 'IS' is all there is, since what is fundamental is by necessity (having no opposite), as a superposition of every path of events, since it can't be any particular path because not anything particular can come into the 'IS' as as any specific direction or knowing.

So then, the particular path of our workable universe had to have the other paths pruned away from it, not that the other paths disappeared but that they are not there from our point of view.

Thus, it is a truth that there was a carving out of our universe's path, and so this truth is the proof; however, curiosity still remains but that can only be about the implementation.

One might still stand in awe of the 'IS' as the everything of all events superposed; however, everything has no information content, which is the same as 'random' and 'Nothing' hasn't, and so the 'IS' isn't so great, plus, since it must be so, with no option not to be, it has no power over that 'must', nor does it have the power to go away. 'IS' is ungenerated and Deathless. We and all are part and parcel of the 'IS', for there can't be anything independent of it just sitting around.

Turning the 'IS' into a Wiz having a Mind and being an intentional Creator by figuring out a Quiz is a step too far for the logic of philosophy.

I am left with the sense that really all that directs us is self interest veiled in appeals to truths like fairness, justice, equality that are ultimately linked to a world view where those things had meaning because God gave them meaning. I can't escape the thought that those concepts make as much sense in the human world as do they with respect to a pack of wolves... — dazed

Yeah, I feel you. But a pack of wolves has a certain cohesion. So maybe we're more complex wolves. We love and hate. We assert status with words. We're never done inventing ourselves or figuring out our place. Everyone cobbles together their own post-religion. Some go to more trouble articulating a philosophy or an anti-philosophy.

Even if everything is 'really' empty, our animal minds mostly distract us for this. If we do remember, then there are some twisted pleasures to be had. The individual is more godlike beneath an empty sky.