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.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
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
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
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
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'm arguing against the typical definition of Nihilism : "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless." GoogleI 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Christianity set the bar too high for mortal humans. By their standards, we are all abject sinners.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
↪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
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
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.
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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.
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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
a long-range rational view of how the world works is necessary to see the sensible order and positive direction of Evolution. — Gnomon
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
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