My advice is don't indulge in gloom and depression. — Sivad

This isn't how depression works. It's not something the person is in control of. It's a sickness.

My view on the topic is so simple to the point of being simplistic: depression is a mood, not an illness, treat it accordingly. — Noblosh

Have you experienced major depression?

How do you deal with your 'monster'? Have any of you defeated it? — Question

I have occasionally occuring suicidal thoughts. For me it's more of a thought of "I'd rather not be alive. I'd rather not exist". But it hasn't yet manifested into any actual actions. I've always felt that I'm too selfish to kill myself; I'm too concerned with physical pleasures, with feelings and emotions, with my own ego, no matter how toxic these things are.

I've been struggling with minor and major depression over the past 14 years or so. The major depression has increased recently, to the point of spending days at a time (when I'm off work) doing nothing. My sleep schedule is totally out of whack. I sometimes abuse several addictions. Addiction in relation to depression and suicidal thoughts seems to be a complex relationship, as far as I can tell; one isn't necessarily the cause of the other. They're interdependent.

You speak of a monster in a lake; my monster often manifests in dreams as a wolf or similar beast lurking beneath the floorboards, or waiting outside. I also used to have a recurring dream of a massive serpent, the size of a tree, on a twilit archipelago-esque island (lol...?). But the serpent was beautiful, not terrifying. There are other dreams that I connect to depression; I could go on. Many different recurring scenes where I'm totally alone walking through a landscape (the only person in the world). I also have sleep paralysis.

From a philosophical perspective, I think it's important to recognize that there's a state in which a human person may deem it better to end one's life, than to continue with life. There's a mental or spiritual state or whatever where the individual decides that life is no longer worth living. Looking at this as a mental "sickness" is a good starting point, to deal with the problem; to begin talking about the issue. But I don't think it's the end point. A physical sickness only exists within the world of physical reality, but a mental or emotional or spiritual sickness doesn't carry over properly; the metaphor doesn't carry fully over. I think this is significant because it bucks the typical materialist/scientistic trend of assuming that survival, or pleasure, or avoidance of pain or discomfort, or whatever, is the ultimate. It's not. And of course, ultimately, the reason this is important...is that life is worth living. Otherwise, the distinction wouldn't even matter; otherwise, the philosophical significance of suicide would be nil. If life did not, in fact, matter, then no one would even be asking the question. Indeed, the suicides of countless people attest to the very fact that life is meaningful. This is key. Clinical psychology can't get us to this point.

unlike the philosophical the religious ultimately allow reference ad-hoc beyond human comprehension: e.g. "god did it!", which is philosophically unsatisfying. — jkop

No; religion allows for reference to things beyond human comprehension not ad-hoc, but because there are things beyond human comprehension. The religious or mystical faculty is what comprehends this aspect of reality; the reasoning aspect (what you erroneously refer to here as the "philosophical") cannot do so.

If Islam came first, and without a largely centralized religious framework, then Muslim countries probably wouldn't have been able to progress as steadily as the Christian West has in reality. — Heister Eggcart

Apologies for just jumping in and critiquing (my mental quota for posting here gets filled pretty fast, but I keep reading), but how does a purely theoretical concept like this support any real argument? Islam is an Abrahamic religion; removing it from it's proper context to theorize about that context removes the meaning of the context itself and doesn't present an actual argument. Sorry to be obtuse here; you've made some valid arguments as well. Just a fine point that always tends to push my buttons. Carry on with your well-reasoned critique.

But as to John's comment, and as a slight critique of his, and a slight credit to you, I think the distinction is that Islam is specifically Abrahamic, not just that it comes after Judaism. So, the grounding seed if you will of Judaism already existed for the pith of Islam to sprout, and the natural result was a decentralization of the new religion, based on a former center.

The truth of a paradox begins where reason ends.

So google searches are the metric of whether something exists? Right. Here we are, in 2017.

So, doe Christian culture not exist? Does atheistic culture not exist? Does progressive liberal culture not exist? Does southern American conservative culture not exist? Is Barbecue not real? Is everything racist?

Culture itself doesn't exist, right?

RIP Chris :’(

Huh, I was being sarcastic the whole time until I said this:

I wasn't really sure what you were getting at, but I wasn't too worried either. No worries regardless. — Noble Dust

Not even sure what just happened, in that case. Cheers either way! No hard feelings at all. All my comments here were in the spirit of this thread being in "the lounge". Sorry if it came off otherwise. I did take things in a bit of a more sarcastic direction with the youtube postings. I just thought it was funny (any Nicholas Cage reference is funny to me). Sorry if it was otherwise.

*correction*, leave it to a philosophy forum member to suddenly lose their sense of humor when anything they said is taken under the scalpel... :-}

I wasn't really sure what you were getting at, but I wasn't too worried either. No worries regardless. Leave it to a philosophy forum member to explain the details of their sarcastic comments in hindsight :P Cheers, mate

Maybe that's a Gemini thing?

No, mystique is my thing; ask anyone here who thinks my views are bullshit. I'm the Scorpio after all, not you..

wut

That's basically my life's story, so...

I'm not only a Scorpio, but also a Snake. Yikes...

I feel the same way. If someone feels like they connect to the description, then that's fine. If they feel it's inaccurate, then go with that. Sometimes it's nice to have a language, regardless of how superficial, with which to talk about personalities.

I personally identify more as an INFP than I do as a Scorpio. But on the other hand, I could see how each sort of defines a different side of my personality. The INFP in me is the altruistic, "God is Love" side, while the Scorpio side contains more of the dark, hidden and aggressive parts of my personality. Who knows.

:-O

As someone formerly religious, and currently "spiritual", I took the liberty of answering the poll anyway; I said "yes". If a different religion other than Christianity led me to conversion, or if a different (or even the same) form of Christianity led me back into the fold, then so it would be. I'd rather not abstract myself so far away from my experiences to the point where these possibilities would never be possible.

Also, The vote is now 50/50 thanks to me! *extra karma, bitches*

I agree about the "remembering".

The question is really what meaningful interdependence do these ideas have (in my mind or in history)? We could probably find a common cognitive predecessor between ancient Greek stoicism and modern hipsterdom, but I don't expect the connection to necessarily mean much. — VagabondSpectre

Well, maybe i shouldn't say "everything is interdependent of everything else"; that suggested historical connections that exist outside of time. Rather, something more like "History is real: ideas form a linear thread that describes the history of ideas." It's actually a very simple idea.

If theists share something in common because they believe in X, atheists don't necessarily share anything in common at all beyond lacking belief in X. — VagabondSpectre

This essentially amounts to positive and negative belief, which are poles I consider equal, so I don't see any veracity in your argument here. That's really what I've been trying to argue against all along against your views, in this context. Actually, I'm not even sure anymore why this even matters. Basically, you're insisting on the absolute apophatic nature of atheism as it's given, and I'm saying "yeah, but so what? An apophatic belief assumes a cataphatic belief." So, tied into this position is an assumption that apophatic belief is not an evolution of cataphatic belief, just a side of a larger form of belief. So that would mean atheism and theism are sides of a coin, not linear phases (cataphatic to apophatic). Given all that, I do place some emphasis on apophatic belief in general, which may cast an ironic light on our discussion in general.

Remember to separate secular humanism out from atheism here, as the former is the world view while the latter is in most cases a lack of world view. — VagabondSpectre

Is this really the case in general, or just the case for someone like yourself who takes such pains to make these distinctions? And if the latter, how much do the distinctions matter within an atheist (sorry, a secular humanist..?) worldview?

but doubt applied to atheism has nowhere to go but to recede from the very language it is framed in (theological non-cognitivism). — VagabondSpectre

No, no. Doubt applied to atheism could lead to theism. Or pantheism, for that matter. Or a more profound atheism. Surely this is obvious. Doubt just means questioning what you know to be true, in a philosophical context. Lack of doubt leads to fundamentalism, always. You're a smart cookie; don't fall prey to this tendency.

Stalinist Russia and Hitler's Germany hardly represent atheism to any extent. — VagabondSpectre

But they represent arguably the first instance of atheistic philosophy taking on the world stage in an epochal context. This isn't to say that atheistic philosophy can't try again and become more robust.

(in the name of, but not based on the ideals of) — VagabondSpectre

What's the difference?

Cultural relativism appears as the moral result of post-modernism, which is quite far from secular humanism. — VagabondSpectre

This is a fair point.

Fake news creates an air of unintelligibility but it's different than the post-modern variety: one is outright deception creating doubt in specific facts while the other is based on a rejection of reason. It's a product of social media and the internet, not post-modernism. — VagabondSpectre

To my own point, I honestly can't tell which part of this sentence signifies fake news, and which part signifies post-modernism.

Ridicule, which is almost always a far lesser harm than the harm of the position I'm attacking, is only the tassel on the spear. — VagabondSpectre

Ridicule should be reserved for intimate human relationships. If, for instance, you find yourself ridiculing a philosophy forum member, I'd advise you to consider what you're doing before you act. And, as much as I dislike Ted Cruz as much as you do, I would even say you should think twice before ridiculing a politician who is not a personal acquaintance of yours. Ridicule within the context of an online forum or the media's portrayal of a political figure that is fed to you is ultimately just projection and caricature, respectively. There are already too many crusaders who feel themselves to be uniquely enlightened who are clogging the airwaves with their ridicule of the Ted Cruz's and the Obama's of the world. We could do with less ridicule and more positive language; more positive philosophy; more positive spirituality; more positive religion, more positive atheism.

It sounds as if you have an expanded conception of god, not a dead one. — VagabondSpectre

I suppose I'll take that as a compliment. I certainly hope my view of God is a self-generated expansion of what exists.

Pain and pleasure have intrinsic value: eat a chocolate bar or drop a T.V on your foot if you require demonstration of this. — VagabondSpectre

But the intrinsic value here is essentially survival, or physical well-being, neither of which I count to be foundational stases of Meaning; at best only descriptions of what meaning is. The pain of the TV on the foot and the pleasure of chocolate are descriptions of physical states, and not signifiers of Meaning. There's no referent as to why a TV on the foot or a chocolate bar are good or bad, other than the subjective five senses; and on top of that, the TV on the foot could be a masochistic pleasure, and chocolate could be repulsive (as it is to me; I detest sweets on a purely physiological level. A high level of sugars makes me literally gag). On top of this, I bring back my argument about suicide. There is a strong argument to be made (purely on the prevalence of suicide alone, without even looking up stats), that there is a state of the human mind in which death is more reasonable than life. Let me repeat: A state in which death is more reasonable than life. Clinical depression, for instance, is related to this; i.e. a state in which not only negative emotions, but irrational negative feelings and views about the world dominate the cognitive function of a human person, without reference to the reality of that person's subjective position within society; the depressive state essentially creates an alternate reality in which the person lives. This is, in a sick way, one of the grand tropes of the human person: the ability to end one's own life voluntarily. It surely requires a certain level and depth of cognition to reach the phase where this is possible. These are all states in which your simple philosophy of "pleasures vs. pain" holds no ground; this is your proverbial Wittgensteinian ice where your simple proposition slips and falls; cannot remain upright.

Where and when do you cash in your spiritual promissory notes for real value? — VagabondSpectre

Nowhere physically; and at no particular point in time. And there's no promise of any payment. Spiritual value is primary. So none of this analogy works in any way.

Once you've been to the top of so many towers, you've already seen a majority of the peaks; and clouds are just clouds: pretty and without function. — VagabondSpectre

But maybe you missed the moment when the clouds part and the sun shines through? Or maybe the stars? (Just drop it, I can do this all day, and it doesn't actually prove any point for either of us. I'll just keep doing it for the sheer fun).

Enter my mud hut: It boasts livability! — VagabondSpectre

Ah! I too live in a mud hut, and I too am living!

I'm not sure how to interface with your analogy, because I don't feel I'm living in either a mud-hut, or an ivory tower. I think I grew up in the tower, spent some time in the mud-hut, and am now a gipsy, roaming abroad. What my final home will be is not of much concern to me right now. Perhaps I have none.

Maybe you should call your mud hut an igloo? A mud hut will definitely wash away easily, despite your admonitions that it won't. An igloo can withstand the cold of a God-less world! It's just your style!

I only have room for some basic principles like "observations contain data pertaining to the real world" and "I want to avoid excessive discomfort as a goal" and "cooperation is almost always universally profitable toward avoiding discomfort". I've got no room for any intellectual shenanigans of any kind in here, so I welcome your inspection! — VagabondSpectre

You may have only room for those three guests, but they could just as easily decide to leave, and I could easily recommend new guests for you! Guests who would give a different turn to your mud-hut social life. (See? I really can do this all day. I'll take it to the point of ad absurdum purely for my own entertainment).

I can't fully imagine why you value being lost unless it stems from a deep desire to find your own way, and if so you might eventually find you need something sharp to cut through the underbrush. Empiricism is one such sharp implement. — VagabondSpectre

This is indeed the reason for my value of lostness. Empiricism is indeed a sharp implement, but I'm less concerned with using it to cut through the underbrush; I'm more concerned with how these various instruments might help me make a fire; maybe even a village.

I'd rather listen to Ravel, the most pianistic of all:

Sure they are related in some ways, but each of these thing you have named represent vast and diverse swaths time and thought; they aren't very interdependent. — VagabondSpectre

I dunno, I would venture to say that everything is interdependent of everything else within the history of ideas. Unless you're of the persuasion that real, divine inspiration can occur, where something totally new cuts through the clouds...

which was the notion that authority to govern should come from the people being governed, not from a divine representative of god called a monarch. — VagabondSpectre

I tentatively agree with this concept and don't consider it to be particularity atheistic. But all of that said with some caveats as well.

Nietzsche kicked off the modern era by announcing god is dead to indicate that Christian moral foundations needed replacement, and after a brief nihilistic affair, secularism was the result. — VagabondSpectre

I am not a Nietzsche expert (The Gay Science has been traveling around with me in my backpack for some time now, waiting to be read), but it seems to me, from reading a lot about Nietzsche, that it's often forgotten that he actually said "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?" It doesn't seem like it was a triumphant atheistic statement of liberation.

but in regards to what we're discussing, it wasn't beneficial to atheism at all. — VagabondSpectre

Perhaps, but post-modernism also was not beneficial to religion (Christianity, generally, in the west), either. I grew up with the notion that subjectivity and objectivity can't be reconciled to one another, and that objectivity always trumps subjectivity, thanks to a 40-years-late Evangelical obsession with fighting ever so valiantly against the notion of "subjective truth".

Atheism had been around and didn't need post-modernism mucking up and doubting it's structure; Atheism came under fire for being too certain. — VagabondSpectre

But that's just why post-modernism was beneficial to atheism. Atheism, like any worldview, requires a rigorous (or robust, as you say) critique of itself, if it's to continue to be a viable view for people. Why do you think Christian theology has survived for the past 2,000 years? Veracity. Indeed, atheism and Christianity both equally needed the challenge of post-modernism. Post-modernism, for all it's pastiche, panache and bullshit, is hugely a positive force in the evolution of human consciousness. It's an apophatic evolution; a negative evolution. The next step is to rid ourselves of it's shell with grateful hearts.

I'm not sure what you mean by "fake news" — VagabondSpectre

You basically described what I mean by it.

Atheism isn't tied in any meaningful way to post-modernism or to "fake news" though, whether we're talking about new fake news or regular old propaganda. — VagabondSpectre

But Stalinist Russia, and to some extent, Hitler's Germany were atheistic political endeavors, the disasters of which informed the disillusionment of the post-modern movement. Hell, even the soft-religiosity of the American nuclear family contributed to this disillusionment, and probably just as profoundly. I'm not specifically accusing atheism of spawning post-modernism, I'm trying to suggest that all sorts of things, including atheism and religiosity (the nuclear family, for instance), enabled post-modernism. I'm no post-modernist myself, but I often think it gets a bad rap for how unintelligible it is. But it's actually a movement that makes utter perfect logical sense, given the direction the world has moved in within the past 100 years. Unintelligibility was the next logical step of the competing strands of thought that met after the 2nd world war ended, and ended with such an existential swan song (or so it seemed). And the unintelligibility of "fake news" is the perfect logical next step. It aligns perfectly with the unintelligibility of post-modernism. Fake news doesn't miss a beat; rather, it was the next moment for us; it was obvious.

Some grudges I enact because it's morally praiseworthy to do so. — VagabondSpectre

I don't see a grudge as being morally praiseworthy in any context. A grudge suggests harm done to one party by another, thus eliciting the grudge. The proper, moral way to deal with harm is not to perpetuate the harmful act itself through lambasting and lampooning (a sort of retaliation that places the harm back on the perpetrator; thus, a form of the perpetuation of the bondage to "The Other"; a form of oppression in it's own right). I'm not wise enough to say exactly how grudges should be dealt with, but I can at least see far enough ahead (and reference my own experience) to intuit how they shouldn't be dealt with. Of course, I hold my own personal grudges, I just don't hold one against the actual Christian teachings that I grew up with.

"if a view is not founded in spiritual beliefs does that mean it must be founded on nothing?" — VagabondSpectre

At this point in my life, the answer is "yes".

When someone with Christian or spiritual foundations for their moral and existential views suddenly becomes bereft of that spirituality, they therefore lose their existential and moral beliefs too and are left with nothing. — VagabondSpectre

This sounds more like a projection of your own experience unto the idea. I personally have had the opposite experience; I've found deeper and more meaningful spiritual concepts through the abandonment of the strict religious environment I grew up in.

Religious belief and spirituality are first constructed from nothing in a human mind, and generally it's all that mind will ever know in terms of existential belief. — VagabondSpectre

This reads to me as incredibly reductionist.

Non spiritual beliefs are similarly constructed from nothing as a starting point, but they do base themselves in real things. "I think therefore I am" and "pain and pleasure are real (and have inherent value)", are some basic facts upon which non-spiritual moral and existential views can be founded. — VagabondSpectre

But what value do those real things have? How can value be predicated within the realm of the value itself? The value of currency, for instance, is (or was) predicated on the value of gold or silver, or whatever, not on the value of the paper that the money itself is made of. And now, we live in a world where paper money has no referent, which I think is analogous to the idea of an atheistic worldview with no spiritual referent. So again, it comes down to either spirituality or nihilism, with no room for anything in between. A meaningful atheism based on robust concepts of pleasure and pain is in this context analogous to the currency we currently use: paper printed by the government that has no actual value in and of itself; it's value is descended from former value, and not predicated on actual value.

but personally after spending so much time inside of it, I've become more interested in bushwhacking my own trails and setting fires where I think the forest could use some regeneration — VagabondSpectre

True, I'm sure I'll get there.

From a tower the view is all clouds and mountain-tops, but down at the eroding shore you see everything up close in all it's confusing complexity. — VagabondSpectre

Why not travel between the two altitudes?

If you do inherently enjoy feeling lost, I'd bet that the unending challenges offered by scientific exploration would prove a source of much longer lasting value than the various top floors of the many metaphysical and ideological towers whose decorative spandrels give intrigue and purchase to those willing to climb them. — VagabondSpectre

So far in my life, my enjoyment of getting lost has been more aesthetic than scientific. I'm not concerned with being lost for the sake of finding scientific proofs that have veracity; I'm more concerned with the state of lostness. I'm a poet more than a philosopher, and I mean that honestly, not pretentiously.

Scrutinize the living shit out of any tower claiming to have reached heaven. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, and the towers to heaven that I scrutinize the living shit out of include the towers of atheists like yourself.

For what it's worth, I think the mods did an ok job of deleting the posts that needed to be deleted in this context, including mine. There's a lot of wasted oxygen in this thread; hell, I'm wasting mine even now. I'm not actually that emotionally invested in whether my anonymous posts on an internet forum are censored, whether with good reason or no. The anonymity of an internet form throws a different wrench in the problem of censorship. Obviously fair guidelines need to be enforced, but at the end of the day, none of us actually know who the people are who we're interacting with here.

And Wayfarer...lol.

When it comes to actual issues, I'm centrist, because I think that the political system of "us vs. them" is another manifestation of the spiritual bondage of "The Other" that mankind is bound by in this world. Which at once makes me hard left and hard right; hard left in that an abolition of "The Other" would mean the total acceptance and liberation of all marginalized and oppressed groups (LGBTQ etc), race, etc. But in this view, sexuality and race are not aspects of being human that have an inherent worth that needs any celebration, but rather, immutable characteristics of individual human persons that have no real content, and do not require content. In this view a cis white male is equal to a trans black woman in the purest sense of the concept: there is no value content within immutable human characteristics. The content that we fill these concepts with is always and only ever taboos. The taboo of the LGBTQ person being a sinner going to hell, or the taboo of daring to make any reasoned argument for the regulation of the concept of equality within a philosophical context. The social taboo is the hallmark of the political, and it is meaningless in the worst way. And so I'm hard right because the desire for the abolition of "The Other" is ultimately a religious perspective: the bondage of "The Other" is a spiritual bondage; in other words, a bondage on humanity that emanates from something outside of the physical world, and can't be altered by anything from within the world itself; so in other words, can't be altered by any political force (the tepid force of humans attempting to govern themselves, like toddlers trying to build a toy fort out of blocks). So the call to equality is always a spiritual call; it's always a call that pulls us past ourselves, pulls us out of our very selves into a higher form of being. This to me is the supremely spiritual.

Which leads me to my choice in this pole: apolitical. Idealistically, I'm an anarchist; I believe that ideas like free thought and free expression are ultimately anarchical ideas: For each person to think freely and express freely, no person can exert any form of control on another person. The problem that intervenes is the human condition, which perpetuates the problem of "The Other". This is why I'm often a Christian mystic of sorts (see my post in the religion pole); it's the only way I've found to have the potential of eliminating the problem of "The Other", which is why I haven't completely defected from Christendom.

I was raised in an extremely conservative Evangelical Christian environment (in actuality, I had Reformed Presby-leaning parents [just found that out recently, gee thanks] who home-schooled my brother and I, within the context of a super Evangelical church environment, which then changed to a not-very-Baptist Baptist church around middle school). Nowadays I vacillate between my own weird form of Existential Christian Mysticism, and a sort of ironic Nihilism (apologies for how agonizingly pretentious that sounds). What I mean by ironic Nihilism is the feeling that life has a definite, profound meaning (esoterically), but the structure of society (both religious and secular) is unable to realize any potential for the actualization of this meaning (exoterically), on a spiritual level, which results in a feeling of meaninglessness. And my Christian upbringing has left me with a neurotic, messianic feeling for the whole of humanity, where I feel the need to reconcile the esoteric with the exoteric. Which is why many of my posts may come off as psuedo-philosophy, on topics like porn, imagination, etc. I'm more interested in how the unchartered depths of philosophy and religion can interface with the average person, which is to say, with humanity. But these broad strokes generally undergo a lot of crossfire, which I'm use to.

So, for me it's about the disconnect between the ideal and the practical. And I'm ultimately an idealist in every way. And that's why I vacillate.

I said "Other" under the first pole, and "Christian" under the second, even if neither is exactly accurate.

Empiricism is about testing predictive models (of observed phenomena) to find out how accurate and reliable they are, but god/the infinite is not a testable and therefore falsifiable theory, leaving us no way of knowing how reliable said intuition really is. — VagabondSpectre

So fascinating. This need for testability, for empiricism, isn't even something that I actually have any critique of; I just can't fathom it for myself. I love the unknown. I love being lost. When I visit a new city, I consciously wander around until I'm literally lost. So I just can't relate. But so interesting that there's people like yourself who are so committed to this thing.

What Meaningful spiritual riches are there to be found in the past which cannot be found today? — VagabondSpectre

In a way, I think the true spiritual riches of the past are either dormant, or coming to birth in the world we live in today. So I'm not worried, and I'm not concerned with explaining it in more detail for you, because I don't think you're particularly interested. Of course, if you are, I'll give it a shot once I'm more properly rested.

Post-modernism, and "fake news", aren't really connected with the rise of atheism, — VagabondSpectre

To the contrary, one can crudely make a vague map as such: Protestantism -> The Enlightenment -> The Death of God (a seed of modern atheism)-> Modernism -> The World Wars -> Post-Modernism -> Our Current Epoch (including fake news, etc) (what exactly do we call ourselves now???). Ah, this is a bit of a gross generalization. I'm not actually that concerned with how atheism fits in here, but, to your statement: after the World Wars, it seems like the various nuances and aspects of modern atheism really started to take shape. The existential crises of the wars really helped the Western World to frame their atheistic feelings. There was a context of horror that helped the world at large set it's agnostic and it's atheistic bar. Elliot's The Wasteland is a perfect barometer of that moment. All of these various worldviews, along with competing worldviews like right-wing conservatism and it's requisite faux-Christianity, bring us to where we are now, with our "fake news". So there is certainly a connection, or a parallelism, with the rise of atheism, as I can see it, historically. I'm not accusing atheists of being responsible for "fake news"; I hope that's clear. What I'm saying is that these various factors: fake news, atheism, post-modernism, are related. They all can't properly exist without one another, historically and politically.

While you view "losing one's faith" as the descent into spiritual poverty, I view it as the ascent into intellectual development and robustness. In my view children don't start out with faith, it's arbitrarily forced upon them by their family and community before they're capable of critical thought. Babies are soft-soft-atheists! — VagabondSpectre

Maybe I spoke wrongly or didn't express my view adequately; to the contrary, I view "losing one's faith" as the potential for acquiring "true faith". If I can make one more criticism, it's that I'm always struck by the black and white, "either/or" mentality of so many ex-members-of-Christendom like yourself. I'd rather not presume to know why you respond the way you do, and why I respond the way I do (to being raised within Christendom). But I find so much wisdom in a passive approach that is so careful to lay no inherent blame on teachings, but only on teachers; this allows one to assess the teachings with less of a grudge.

Spritual moral and existential views are founded on spiritual beliefs; non-spiritual moral and existential views are founded on something else. — VagabondSpectre

On what, then? At this point I would be inclined to say "on nothing" (I mean that formally, not pejoratively).

Some people might object to my use of the term metaphysics in this sense, but theological metaphysics does tend to have the quality of being unfalsifiable; blind. — VagabondSpectre

This to me speaks presciently to the untranslatability of your empiricism to my intuition. My view on that is best illustrated by my first response in this post. Do you at least see how me saying this is not at all an avoidance of your argument? We're both literally speaking different languages here, languages we seem to find satisfying enough to stake our claims on.

Ultimate importance has no equal, so in your future pursuits when you see someone claiming to have found it, feel obligated to really put it to the test should you consider adopting it. If it really is an ultimate force, it can take it. — VagabondSpectre

I can honestly say that I very much appreciate this advice; not only because it's something that I've used as a metric for myself in the past, but because it's also a finicky standard that my desire for something ultimate often falls prey to because of it's inherent motive. Indeed, "if it really is an ultimate force, it can take it." As you say. Did you mean to hit on the very core of my philosophy here???

Well, ultimately, yes. But there's more to it than that. For example, there's a big difference between what some guy on a philosophy forum happens to think, and the kind of investigation carried out by the police. — Sapientia

So are you critiquing my response here, or critiquing your own statement? vis:

You should recognise that your assessment of such things is from the perspective of a subject interpreting events, and may well be biased. — Sapientia

____

It's not a matter of all or nothing, it's a matter of the extent to which we have knowledge or evidence, and, with regards to the latter, its strength. It's about the difference between what might largely amount to speculation and views firmly grounded upon evidence. — Sapientia

Where did I suggest an all or nothing attitude, and what "firmly grounded" evidence can you provide for your views about porn in this context?

I was speaking more in general. Generally, you'd be responsible for what you consent to. — Sapientia

I don't think a general case of an 18 year old woman going into the porn business would be analogous to a general example of personal responsibility (what does that even mean?).

In other words, what exactly amounts to general here?

I dreamt I flew on great white wings.
We sailed over my worries into the past,
Into the infinite first feeling.
Not like the first drop of rain,
But empty, as the first change in pressure.
After all, I was an egret -
Elegant, infinite,
Indefinite.

You know that hour between a normal day
And the oncoming odd orange glow –
No, yellow, like the house where we grew up;
The infinite hour, the inward hourless inlet
In the seaburn of the sorrowing glow…
No, not like that –
Like the concave memory
Of an oncoming rainstorm:
The intensification of a Psalm,
Like the first drops that remember
Like the remembering link in the mind
Of the first change in pressured hands and their electric touch?

That’s the feeling. That.
And not much else, but only everything else.
Only the nothingness of everything
Contained within the first feeling. Not the first memory.
The first feeling.

I dreamt I flew on black raven wings -
A child, infinite, carried on the sheer evolution of the mind
From innocence to an indefinite egress
Into the elegant inward of the inland egret.
Involution involuntary; evolution into inwardness –
“And a cold wind blows on the hearth forever.”
Not my words, but my brother’s.
In the house where we grew up.

I'm not sure all these ad homs are compatible with Jesus' core teaching being love...

From what I've read, the pornography business doesn't operate the same way that prostitution operates. — Bitter Crank

What have you read on this? I'd be interested to read it as well.

Most of these businesses operate in the San Fernando Valley area of L.A. They are legal businesses. Prostitution operates everywhere; it is not a legal business (except in Nevada, at least in the U.S.) — Bitter Crank

The reason I bring up prostitution in relation to porn isn't because of legality. As I said elsewhere, I'm not in favor of some sort of law against porn. I'm tentatively in favor of legalizing prostitution as well. I'm more concerned that porn and prostitution may have a link, and sex trafficking is a business that operates within prostitution. Plus, in a way, porn is like an evolution of prostitution.

You should recognise that your assessment of such things is from the perspective of a subject interpreting events, and may well be biased. — Sapientia

Sure; we all should, including yourself. There's no way to assess anything other than as a subject interpreting events.

You most likely do not have access to all of the facts or intricacies involved. — Sapientia

Again, no one does. This isn't an argument.

But again, it ultimately boils down to personal responsibility. If you allow yourself to cave in, consent, and go through with something that you're not really comfortable doing, and do not really want to do, then you're culpable to some extent. — Sapientia

When someone manipulates another person, how is the victim culpable? Resistance to manipulation stems from personal autonomy, not personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is on a spectrum based on a person's level of autonomy. A mentally handicapped adult without much autonomy doesn't have the same responsibility of a mentally healthy adult, for instance. The ability of people to be autonomous individuals varies widely, based on a bunch of factors, and their level of expected personal responsibility stems from that.

Ha! Simple common sense is simply not on your side in this debate. Your stance is quite far removed from simple common sense, and represents a conceited and convoluted over-intellectualisation.

Female sex workers are no more exploited than truck drivers, custodians, roofers, secretaries, sales clerks, and factory workers are exploited. — Bitter Crank

But you're missing a key factor here; sex work often involves an element of manipulation, and sexual manipulation tends to be deeper and more emotionally scarring than, for instance, a simple workplace situation of "we know you signed up to dig holes, but we need to you excavate some caverns" (horrible, off the top of my head example). "Digging holes -> excavating caverns" is not analogous to "sexy photo shoot -> sucking dick and fucking without a condom with someone you've never met", for instance. The former just requires more skill; the second requires an intensification of human intimacy which the worker may not be prepared for. An 18 year old girl getting lured into the business of sex work is a different situation than a basic dude without much prospects trying to figure out if he should work in the factory or as a custodian. The 18 year old guy without much prospects (but plenty of muscle and testosterone) has way more social potential within the work force to begin at an entry level factory/etc job, and then, if he applies himself, move up into higher paying jobs, all the while, offering his simple physical labor for a decent wage. As a side note, he's surely less susceptible (though not immune) to sexual harassment all throughout this process. This is not analogous to women being lured into the business of sex work. At this point, Sapentia will cackle out something about "you really think all female porn stars are lured into porn work? I just spat up my diet coke reading that." Not exactly, no. But take a second, and try practicing some empathy here. Imagine yourself as an 18 year old woman, a 21 year old woman, or whatever. You don't have much prospects. You know you have the body that guys want. You have an average straight female sexuality, (read: much different than straight male sexuality...I really shouldn't need to spell that out, but I start to wonder); maybe you're bi-curious even, just to be progressive. Now, you've just graduated high school, or there abouts. Where are your parents? What's there influence on your life at this point? So anyway, at this point, you're either aware that you can go into the sex business, or you're not aware. If you're aware, what are your feelings about this option? I'm not telling you what they should be; I'm suggesting that you put yourself in her shoes and imagine (wait, this isn't philosophy! Damn you, Noble Dust. You sentimental dilettante). Ok, now you're not aware that sex work is an option. A pimp approaches you, courts you, makes you feel beautiful, makes you feel a way that other men haven't made you feel before. What's your next move?

Ok, back to the basic factory dude. The mindset of a basic young dude working in the factory is not the same mindset as the 18 year old woman who decides (?) to work in the sex business. For instance, the 18 year old guy may not exactly be a philosopher, but he's used his brawn for the better part of his pubescent years for various basic purposes, so the transition to factory work, or hard labor of some kind, is at least logical. It certainly doesn't pose any amount of emotional scarring on his psyche, given that his work is, at best, only liminally sexual, not gratuitously so. His sexuality is expressed through the use of his strength to perform basic, essential tasks in a factory environment. HIs sexuality is only expressed very marginally here. And it fits with his basic situation in life. But how can we say that the innocent, 18 year old girl, initiated into the sex business, is in an analogous situation? Surely she's learned to use her innocent feminine charms to navigate the world thus far (and this is only assuming innocence, which suggests the sort of gleeful cluelesness that those in favor of porn on a general level, like Sapienta profess). Simple common sense should surely indicate that these are not analogous situations. I continue to be amazed at the brazen, willful blindness to the particulars of what gets sex workers into sex work. There is not a lot of data on the subject, so all we can do is use our best educated hypotheses, and read data from non-profits who have a stake in the claim. But the folks unequivocally in favor of porn seem to begin with the assumption that porn is unequivocally positive, which leads to an inability to even consider the possibility of what actual life would be like in a situation where sex work suddenly came unto one's horizons. Furthermore, considering that most of the small amount of data available is provided by non-profits in favor of helping people with porn problems, those unequivocally in favor of porn are, therefore, basing their arguments on less actual data. As a side note, the sheer amount of sheer opinions being thrown around on both sides here is surely much more than a typical discussion on this forum, which is indicative of the situation.

No one's mother is telling them, at age six "Laura, one day you'll be a fine porn star! A fine one!" (And no, this is not emotional pleading, again. If you find yourself feeling various emotions at this point, that signifies that the analogy is doing its work, and you'd rather not interface with it on a visceral level). There seems to be this utterly unrealistic, (porn-influenced?) meta-narrative of sexually liberated, feminist women joining the sex work force in order to gloriously flaunt their sexuality in front of us strip-club-patron-esque straight men who are apparently applauding their sexual liberation. Or, alternatively, the simple (more accurate) portrayal of sex workers as women who have "no better prospects". If sex workers only join the sex business because they have no other prospects, then our willful participation in their work simply perpetuates that situation; a situation of unrealized potential that straight men benefit from; a situation of objectified women who could otherwise have had more fulfilling careers. And no, it's not analogous to the monotonous life of the factory worker, the cherry-picker, the meter-reader, or whatever. It's a profession that bares the entirety of one's sexuality to strangers. TO STRANGERS.

Right, in that case, the belief would be belief in "degrees of certainty".

Porn doesn't objectify. People objectify. — Sapientia

But people create porn; people objectify through porn. Porn is one of the most straightforward ways to objectify. When a person objectifies another person, they look past that person's individual humanity (their unique, unrepeatableness) and transform their experience of that person into an object of desire; there's a disposable aspect to objectification. On the other hand, a sexual experience that does not objectify any of the participants is one in which the individual humanity, the unique unrepeatablness of each person is upheld and intensified, rather than overlooked. Sex and individuality are profoundly linked, but porn, for instance, makes the sex act impersonal, and not individual. Porn focuses on the sex urge, and not the deeper meaning of what sex symbolizes. The normalization of pornography just leads to deeper social isolation and disconnect from the role sex plays in human intimacy. We live in a world where the carnal is separated from the intimate, because we live in a world of social isolation. That's the irony; true sex means deep individuation, but our society's focus on individuality leads to sexual objectification, not intimacy.

The problem is ultimately about those views themselves and the people who hold them, not with porn. The fact is, due to our nature, people are flawed; and, as a result, people will inevitably form flawed views. I'm all in favour of promoting views which avoid these kind of flaws, but blaming (in this case) porn itself is not, in my view, the right approach. — Sapientia

What exactly would be the mechanics of a porn viewer that does not objectify the actors and their sexuality? What's an example of healthy porn use, versus unhealthy use? It's not a question of whether one person is addicted and another is not, ultimately. The same principle of objectification underlies the very nature of what porn is, and the function it serves, regardless of how regular porn use is, whether it's compulsive, not compulsive, or whatever.

And if it is not so much that which is the problem, but rather the "consenting via monetary gain" aspect, then your problem isn't just with porn, but is with a huge and fundamental aspect of our society. That's just how society functions, and it isn't going to change any time soon. — Sapientia

Sure, in a way, this is the problem that I have with porn. Just because society may not change anytime soon, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to rail against the depravity of the situation. If we all say "it won't change anytime soon", then it won't. If we all say "it needs to change", then it might. And I'd rather say what seems right, knowing nothing will change, then say what's easier to say, knowing that nothing will change. I'll gladly keep being a pain in everyone's ass on this topic; I'll gladly keep saying things that make you laugh out loud at how ridiculous you think they are.

This mammoth of a record: