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.

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.

Homo demens we are, then.

Ah, Pat Buchanan. The man Bill Buckley concluded was an anti-semite. Speechwriter for Spiro Agnew. Thought we should just have let the Nazis alone. Yes, quite a fellow, Pat.

But nobody can be wrong all the time, can they? And others less cranky have noted the dangers of imperial thinking in God's favorite country.

Yes. A God so devoted to watching humanity must be terribly bored, unless peculiarly obsessed by us. In either case, a sad, strange figure.

The God of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions is more a Peeping Tom or voyeur than a stalker. Stalking requires far more effort than watching, and that God's perpetual observation of us would be effortless.

I haven't read that work of James.

Control need not be absolute in order to be exercised. What is it you feel you don't have any control over? If you truly have no control over something, why let it disturb you to excess? One of the examples used by Epictetus comes to mind. We have no control over the fact we will die. Don't we have some control over our feelings about it and, at least in some circumstances, how we die (consider the manner of Seneca's death).

You may expect too much of Stoicism.

As for Seneca, he was a very able man, he wrote very well (though not always to my taste), but if the wealth and property he accumulated is any indication, he allowed his desire for things and power to overwhelm him. I think that to be fair we have to consider what it was like to be a tutor to Nero and a high functionary of Nero's court, and acknowledge that would put him in a very stressful position, but if he participated in the murder of Nero's mother or in preparing Nero's defense of that act before the Senate, that is difficult to forget. He apparently died consistent with Stoic ideals, however.

They're "the rest" yes, or part of it.
Ancient Stoicism was grounded in large part on the belief in an immanent divinity. Stoicism need not be (see Lawrence Becker's book A New Stoicism). That divinity was thought by the ancients to be material, in other words a part of the universe, but in the nature of a fire or spirit infusing the world. The divinity was reason, roughly speaking. Humans have the capacity to reason and so partake in the Divine Reason; we have a bit of the divinity in us.

What's in accord with reason is in accord with the divine spirit which is the intelligence ultimately guiding nature (the universe, world). So in employing our capacity to reason we act "according to nature."

That said, the universe is rather large. It and the Divine Reason are in many ways unrelated to our concerns, as we're a small part of nature. We can't expect to control all that takes place in the universe. At best, we can control ourselves, or at least try to do so. So we do the best we can with what we can control, and accept what we can't control, which is to say we don't pout, as it were, or suffer from angst, or despair, or rant about the meaning or purpose of life. or for that matter, I suppose, wonder to the point of fixation whether or not we have "free will."

Pragmatic, yes, which would mean to me, being a Dewey fan, no absolute conclusions but an appreciation of the fact we deal in probabilities and recognize that as circumstances differ so may assessments, and we learn from the failure to assess correctly.

The test is experience, judgments made and the intelligent analysis of results, I would think. What is or is not reasonably subject to what I do or think in certain circumstances and what is not? But again, I think the emphasis should be on what is not. If I can't do/control X, I do what I can and accept what I can't do without anger or other negative feelings.

Epictetus: "Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens."

The striking thing about Stoicism is that the significance of things outside your control is discounted. So, desire, envy, greed, hate don't arise and don't motivate or influence a true Stoic because they result from a person's desire for or fear of things/people outside their control.

it happens to be the case that it's easier to determine what isn't within your control that what's in your control, but in determining what is not in our control we get an idea of what we are capable of controlling.

Stoicism, especially Roman Stoicism, is very practical; it serves as a guide regarding how to live. You can if you wish indulge in speculation regarding free will, etc., but this does nothing for someone trying to make decisions on a moment to moment or day to day basis.

Equanimity is the goal of Stoicism; aequanimitas to the Roman Stoics, apatheia to the Greeks. What better way to achieve that that understanding what you can do and what is or is not worth doing? Stoicism is practical wisdom, and as such it serves quite well. If that's not philosophy, so be it.

Imperial Rome was aggressively, even militantly, Christian and therefore enightened from about 306 C.E. or A.D. on, until it was finally extinguished by the Ottomans in the 15th century, weakened as it was from being sacked and plundered by enlightened Christians.

All this time I thought Omar actually owned a ruby yacht. If you can't trust Bullwinkle, who can you trust in these sad times?

After some thought, I thought it would be appropriate to return to this place where topics and ideas are repeated so frequently, to repeat what I've said repeatedly:

Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion.

"Good Heavens, Holmes! They may have been the footprints of a gigantic hound after all!"

If you mean by "philosophy" philosophers, those teachers of philosophy who taught me in college, and people who write/talk about philosophy, several things, including, most notably:

How to read, and think, critically;
Not to concern or disturb myself unduly with matters beyond my control;
That we are parts of, and not apart from, the universe;
That Cicero was right, and there is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it; and
That there are philosophers, and those who discuss philosophy, who think an inveterate, unrepentant Nazi and anti-Semite was one of the greatest if not the greatest philosopher in our sad history.

Epicureanism was a popular philosophy in Roman times, for instance. — Moliere

Yes. It and Stoicism were it seems most popular among the more intellectually, philosophically inclined among the Roman elite. Some have claimed Stoicism was more in accord with Roman character. I think that things would have turned out better if either of these points of view had prevailed instead of Christianity, which with the other Abrahamic religions is fundamentally intolerant and exclusive, and therefore necessarily antagonistic to any proposition which would appear to cast doubt on its tenets.

Well, consider Rome's experience with walls (and that of other civilizations/nations) for purposes of making a determination of the value of the thing. Hadrian's Wall was about 70 modern miles in length; much shorter than a wall along contemplated by Trump, which is estimated at 700-900 miles long (not the entire border with Mexico). There were 17 large forts constructed along it, smaller forts every Roman mile (.92 of an English mile), and watchtowers every third of a mile. It was manned by about 10,000 to 15,000 solders. After Hadrian's death, it was abandoned by Antoninus Pius, his immediate successor, who built a wall made largely of turf (instead of stone, like Hadrian's) further to the north, about 37 miles long. Then Marcus Aurelius, immediate successor of Antoninus Pius, withdrew the troops from the Antonine Wall, back to Hadrian's Wall

Historian's dispute whether the walls were truly defensive, to keep the barbarian's out, or whether their purpose was symbolic--to show Roman might and achievement. It's doubtful that the walls kept the barbarians at bay to any great extent, but it seems they were never tested as a barrier. There were no major battles at or for the walls. They may have been useful in regulating somewhat the flow of traffic north and south. But Hadrian's wall in particular was important more for the fact that it served to develop the land to the south of it, e.g. villages were created behind it, roads were built, farms were needed, etc. Some of the wall forts continued in use until the legions left Briton in the 5th century. If the walls were intended to be defensive, it seems they were significant not as barriers but for other reasons.

It doesn't seem contemplated that Trump's wall will be manned as the Roman walls were, so I question how effective it will be as a barrier. I suspect people will go under, around it, over it or even through it if they want or need to. I don't think it will be an important symbol, except perhaps of expense in the service of vanity. It won't be a development tool or "civilizing" tool as the Roman walls may have been. It's another stunt. That's what this man is about.

Defending billionaires is like defending gluttons and hoarders. There's nothing admirable about them.

I would have no problem with greater taxation.

I suspect it was much "easier" being a stoic back in the days of ancient Rome. — Wallows

Epictetus was a slave of a freedman in the court of Nero. He probably didn't have an easy life in that place. It's said his master (or someone) deliberately broke his leg, rendering him lame for life. Marcus Aurelius spent most of his reign as Emperor on campaign in the forests of Germania.

We live in a postmodernist society where anything flies and everyone is entitled to their opinion — Wallows

Perhaps, but when someone says or does something, or tries to do something wrong and its in our power to rebuke or stop them, we should do so regardless of their opinion.

My resentment is the nullification of legitimate feelings, like anger, and their repression. — Wallows

It's not so much repression as intelligent regulation, and a recognition that much as we may want to, we can't control others no matter how much we hate them. We will get angry, but we need not trash our hotel room or break windows or break jaws, or act maliciously or vindictively. We need not allow our anger to consume us. We need not hate, or plot revenge.

Stoicism requires discipline, and practice. But in many things it is simply the application of intelligence to circumstances encountered. Many people do wrong. If you can stop them from doing wrong, do so. If you can't, their conduct is to be regretted, but it's of no use to let yourself be overwhelmed by their character or conduct, and it's within your power not to be.

Part of stoic practice is to anticipate uncomfortable and even terrible situations as a means to prepare for them if they occur. The Cynic Diogenes the Dog lived in a barrel, it's said. Some would find that more difficult than "negative visualization."

Being a misanthrope is perhaps the antithesis of stoic philosophy, yet here I am spouting a misanthropic tune about people in general. What to do? — Wallows

Stop allowing yourself to be unduly disturbed by things beyond your control--which would include "people in general."

As Epictetus said (I quote from memory): "Do the best you can with what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens."

Why can no one on here see where I'm coming from or see the value of Ayn Rand's ideas? — AppLeo

That fact is suggestive, isn't it?

Henry Hazlitt, the journalist, was one of the few persons (perhaps the only one, I'm not sure) who could tolerate Ayn for any extended period of time. As far as I'm aware, she never broke with him and banished him from her Inner Circle as she did others. As to why he was able to abide by her sometimes vicious, sometimes puerile peculiarities over time, we may find an answer in his book The Wisdom of the Stoics (actually a pretty good read, I will note).

We may also find, in Stoicism, as I think Hazlitt did, a way of life which emphasizes reason and the intelligent regulation of the emotions (and especially the passions) and yet recognizes that following reason and understanding our nature as social beings, leads us to took upon Objectivism as a code of living little more than an oddly peevish and hectoring encouragement and justification of our desire to pleasure ourselves.

Ayn Rand has been mentioned, and so I'm obliged to repeat:

Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion.

My work is done, here.

(Ecology is a word coined by a Nazi) — DiegoT

Like Dasein, and other vocabulary introduced by everyone's favorite Nazi. Another of those good things Nazis did.

Good old St. Tommy A. A paragon of special pleading. And, of course, gluttony.

It may be my character is such that I'm unsympathetic to explanations of history, and peoples, and civilizations or most anything by reference to such things as a "Faustian Soul" and "prime symbols." I think more mundane, and less romantic, explanations are available for most phenomena and am leery of generalization.

For example, the wheel makes a good deal of sense when there are animals available and amenable to domestication with the strength to haul wagon loads of goods from place to place. When the largest and strongest animals available for domestication are llamas, or whatever was available in Australia before Europeans arrived (Kangaroos? Emus? Wombats?) it's unsurprising, to me, that the wheel was not "discovered" in those cases. It's not a question of a particular kind of soul. When a need arises, when a problem is encountered we wish to resolve, that's when we humans think and achieve, and our achievements are necessarily limited by the resources available to us, and by what is significant to us in living our lives.

The concept of private property, and the desire for money and what it could buy, baffled Native Americans but was all important to the Europeans who invaded the Americas. Such factors seem to me to account for "Manifest Destiny" and the Spanish conquests, for the fervent lust for acquisition that motivated them, much more readily than any reference to a nebulous will to conquer. And conquest certainly is not peculiar to Europeans nor do I think they had any special gift for it. The Mongols annihilated European armies arrayed against them, and did so because they were much better at warfare, at tactics and strategy, than the Europeans were. Europe escaped conquest for reasons entirely unrelated to any Faustian Soul.

I've heard about this, and am glad for it, but haven't attended. Perhaps I should.

I simply see Christianity as a fascinating and very successful (in terms of longevity) mixture of religious and philosophical beliefs prevalent in the Roman Empire in which it took shape. It's true that if this view of it is accepted, there's very little of it that can be considered original, or special, except that its a mixture, and as a mixture of sometimes disparate beliefs there are aspects of it that are inconsistent and unsatisfactory. I don't think this is a matter of condescention.

My belief is that strange as it may seem, Jesus has always been a problem for Christianity, or at least for those Christians who are philosophically inclined, or theologians. The problem arises because Jesus is simultaneously God and man. He's God while being crucified. He's God while dead. This must be accounted for; it requires explanation. Many are unable to accept the thoughtless position that this is an inexplicable divine mystery to be accepted through faith. This caused problems from the beginning, such as the Arian position that Jesus wasn't of the same substance as God, though divine. The history of Christianity is a history of heresies.

Jesus was human, so thinking of him as the very "un-human" Logos of the ancient philosophers, or otherwise as the perfect being which created the vast universe or is its essence requires real effort. It's not a concept which comes to mind naturally from knowledge of Jesus' life to the extent it's known, which is something which I think supports the conclusion that it was borrowed. And it seems to me that as a result, Christian apologists, then and now, are inclined to ignore Jesus the man as much as they can or "explain" him away.

Some scholar whose name I cant remember said Platonic philosophy should be thought of as being like the science of the era. So it was similar to the way the Catholic Church has agreed with whatever scientists come up with. So it wasn't: Oh let's borrow something Greek, it was: let's see how our Nietzschean project lines up with reality. — frank

I think it was more a case of: Since Jesus is God, the insights of pagan philosophers we find admirable must be consistent with the fact that Jesus is God. But how account for the fact that those philosophers lived long before Jesus? Well, clearly it must be the case that he's that Logos they talked about; they just didn't know it was him. This is assimilation after the fact, through the dubious magic of special pleading.

Considering these similarities penetrate into the core of the Christian belief (for example the Christian trinity and the Platonic trinity), that would imply that centuries of interpretation are simply wrong. — Tzeentch

I don't know what interpretation you refer to, here, but it would seem to me quite likely that the early Christian Fathers borrowed freely from the Greek philosophers, and this I think is very clear in some cases. Take Justin Martyr, who is said to have been the foremost developer of the "Christian" concept of Logos. I think it's apparent that he used the conception of the Logos as a means by which Christians could claim that what was right, or good, in pagan philosophy was in fact "Christian." He seems to very nearly parrot the Stoic philosophers in some respects, and refers as they did to the Divine Reason, and claimed that there is in all men a part of the divine, i.e. reason, just as the Stoics did. That reason was the best guide to life before the coming of Christ. According to Justin, men should live life according to reason (this is Stoicism; he could as well have said "according to Nature"). In that manner, men would participate in the Divine Reason (again, this is the Stoic view).

Now as one might guess, the Divine Reason was Jesus according to Justin, the Logos. Since there were wise and virtuous pagans, philosophers, who though living long before Jesus said much the same thing that Justin and other Christian apologists said, those pagans were really Christians after all, though they didn't know it.

Obviously, I simplify the argument. But this is the sort of thing the early Christian apologists would do. Augustine also claimed that Plato and others did all men could do, without knowing Jesus, to recognize and define the fundamental tenets of what they did not know was Christianity but was Christianity in fact. It was Jesus at work even then in his capacity as the Logos. The association of Christ with the Logos was very useful to the early Christian thinkers.

This is just one of many examples of early Christians incorporating or assimilating pagan philosophical ideas and concepts, probably on a largely ad hoc basis, as Christianity sought legitimacy in the Roman Empire. The Gospel of John is the last of the Gospels in time, and by that time the effort, such as it was, was well underway. It can be seen as early as the writings of Paul of Tarsus also, for example. Tarsus was a center of Stoic philosophy at the time, and Paul "borrowed" from Stoicism with some frequency. I think Christians, especially those who were among the more elite members of Roman society or were their children and had been well educated according to the standards of the time, thought Christianity lacked the sophistication they found in pagan philosophy, and, as it were, inserted the concepts they found amicable into Christian doctrine where it seemed suitable.

I have considerable respect, and a certain degree of (sentimental, I think) fondness for the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The fondness is in the nature of nostalgia as it is for the Church that was, which is to say more accurately the Church as I first knew it; the Latin Church, literally and figuratively. Sancta Mater Ecclesiae. I knew it for a time even after that, when guitar masses were (I suppose I must say it) celebrated. I've attended a mass now and then since that time, for weddings and funerals. There's no beauty left. It's relentlessly prosaic.

That's the Church I think you refer to, even in its Anglican form. The Anglican Church retained much of the Latin Church despite the fact it came about largely because of the monstrous Henry VIII.

But that Church was a kind of mish mash, or hodgepodge, of ancient Rome and through it ancient Greece (though the Orthodox Church is probably truer to the Church as it morphed in the Eastern Empire, which lived on until finally destroyed by the Latin West). What took place in the Church intellectually in 11th and 12th centuries was primarily the result of the rediscovery of Aristotle. What took place politically after the Western Empire is traditionally said to have fallen, was a continuation of the Empire in many respects in the form of Gothic and Vandal successor Roman states, which sometimes squabbled with, sometimes cooperated with, the Eastern Empire, and was even reclaimed by the East for a time during Justinian's principate. Then Charlemagne was crowned Emperor, and The Holy Roman Empire gradually took form, and actually lasted in progressively diminished form until 1806. The Renaissance was inspired by the works of the ancient pagans. Thus, for example, Dante chose Virgil as his guide, and populated his first level of Hell with the great pagan thinkers living in comfort and discussing great things, though necessarily existing apart from the Christian God. The Church, as others have noted, is a kind of ghost of the later Roman Empire in its organization, its ceremony, and even its vestments, and I don't doubt it contributed to the stability of Europe.

Tertullian, who may have been the son of a centurion and a lawyer, was raised as a Roman in the Roman province of Africa. He's the one who said "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Perhaps not much, but he was very much a Roman as were all the Church Fathers. He was just a Roman of his time. The question he asked could I think be asked as well of Christianity, which through Paul and his followers came to have less and less to do with Jerusalem. I'd say Christianity as we know it has been more influenced by pagan thought and religion than it has been by Judaism, with which it has always had a rather awkward and sometimes violent relationship.

So I think I give the Church its due, in that I acknowledge that it kept a great deal of the pagan West alive through its assimilation of it. And I don't mean to contend that the "barbarians" as they were called by ancient Greeks and Romans didn't contribute to Western civilization. But I think Western civilization to the extent it can be said to be of the European tradition looks back to the Roman Empire and Republic.

Yes, there's a great deal of ignorance in this respect, currently. But I think it's true nonetheless, as even those who are ignorant ascribe what was obtained from ancient Greece and Rome to Christianity and other sources which borrowed them or assimilated them, often without attribution. Regardless, Greece and Rome are the sources.

I've looked. What now?

it were the Greeks and Romans that were the source, — unenlightened

They still are. We've been trying to be what they were, or what we think they were, since the 5th century.

Governments which pay the bills of news sources may have a degree of influence over them, you see. Just as governments may have a degree of influence over Facebook or Google for other reasons. I tend to be suspicious of any government influence.

Regulation similar to the regulation of utilities would be an option, I would think.

I understand you don't want to focus on legality. For my part, I don't see the point of merely expressing outrage. Addressing legal remedies and advocating them may be useful, though less satisfying.

Only when our democracy is protected by the citizens is it protected and only when education prepares them to do this, do the citizens have the mentality to protect our liberties. We stopped that education in 1958. — Athena

You'll have to remind of what happened in 1958. I was in Catholic schools until my junior year in high school, alas.

Money is the spirit of America,, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I have no knowledge of the law of Israel, or for that matter that of Venezuela, which apparently is the primary source of funds for TeleSur, speaking of government involvement in sources of information and communication.

There's a tendency to refer to freedom of speech or the right to it as if there is such a right, apart from the law. There isn't; not an enforceable right, in any case. The distinction between a legal right and a non-legal "right" is significant. One shouldn't be treated as the equivalent of the other. When they are, things get confusing.

Should Facebook, Google etc. restrict access to information? I would say no. What is the remedy if they do? Is there an enforceable right to information? Nope. Should there be? That would require a law. That would require a government. Should government be in control of the availability of information? Will that ensure that democracy (which doesn't exist, really) will obtain? That depends on the government, the nature and extent of the control, and its purpose.

In the end, all comes down to law, and what we want to do with it.