Want is present in the human condition in general, regardless of station, but the form it takes can vary greatly from person to person. How each of us goes about filling this hole (even if filing it is only temporary) basically encapsulates what I take to outline the meaning of (one's) life. — VagabondSpectre

I agree on want being present in the human condition in general. But as far as how we fill the hole encapsulating our meaning in life, I revert back to Tillich's faith. That sound's like ultimate concern to me; the problem is that you're equivocating it with something absolute. The fact that you label our own individual search as the meaning of life labels that search as absolute. If it's not absolute, then it's easily over-turned. Which I think it is. Any ascribing of a meaning to life has to be either absolute (capital M Meaning), or not a real meaning. I don't know how else to phrase that. An ascribing of meaning that is not absolute is always, ultimately, only tentative. So your description of the meaning of life here would only be tentative. How can it be otherwise if it's based purely subjectively? This to me is an equivocation of objectivity with subjectivity. "The meaning of (one's) life" is an objectivity, but you're assigning it subjectively. The Meaning (capital M) should rather be the objective, while the subjective is you or I.

but I would inevitably be cherry-picking my own basket. This is a good function of religion though (religion has some capacity to adapt as is by virtue of what religious groups choose to focus on) because it allows religion to somewhat change with the evolving needs and moral views of it's adherents. — VagabondSpectre

Right, and I don't think cherry picking is a problem; the phrase just has a negative connotation. I "cherry pick" when I accept Jesus's unconditional love as something I want to emulate, and something I consider deeply True. And then I continue cherry picking when I reject the notion that Scripture is innerant, or that hell exists. I'm not taking the convenient bits, I'm taking the bits that resonate with the part of me that seeks the truth.

The thing they all had in common though was damnation of the others. The concept of damnation is what most repels me from religion as a whole. — VagabondSpectre

I fully agree. My first post on this forum was on that very topic. My OP here is a good reference point for a lot of my thinking:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/762/otherness-forgiveness-and-the-cycle-of-human-oppression/p1

There's really no philosophy of atheism (any good philosophy that is) because there's nothing to philosophize. — VagabondSpectre

But you and other atheists philosophize, and you do so from your position of atheism. I really don't see how you can keep saying otherwise. I get that atheism is, formally, a lack of belief in God, that's obvious. But to then say you have no atheistic philosophy is nonsensical. Just because it's a simple lack of belief does not mean you have no philosophical beliefs that relate to your stance of atheism. Lack of belief in God has to profoundly affect how you do philosophy, which it clearly does.

Isn't a temporal life better than no life at all? There's some value there; of course it's infinitesimal next to the infinite. — VagabondSpectre

Once you've glimpsed the infinite, the eternal, it's hard to be satisfied with just the temporal.

Why is the value of meaning dependent on the value of Meaning?. You said it follows, but from what? Can't meaning exist independent of it's capital cousin? — VagabondSpectre

I explained that in my description of physical reality being an objectivization of spirit. There would be no meaning without Meaning, in this scenario. Lowercase meaning is descended from Meaning.

The flowers are the lives, rights, and well-being of innocent individuals who don't deserve the treatment that religion can sometimes prescribe or otherwise render. — VagabondSpectre

Something I've been trying to get at all along here, is where does your conception of morality stem from? Historically, a lot of the moral framework we all live within is descended from Christianity. That's why I asked about your flowers. How do you even conceive of "lives, rights, and well-being of innocent individuals" as having value or meaning? Why do those things matter? Why do they matter within a temporal life? Those concepts were originally predicated on the eternal, not the temporal. Ripped from an eternal framework and placed within a temporal one, they have no actual content.

On the one hand, there is credible evidence that pornography is not harmful to individuals or to society. — anonymous66

There's research (fringe research, not mainstream research) that points to porn being harmful to the brain:

https://yourbrainonporn.com/

There's also a lot of anecdotal evidence, within this online community, of the effects. It's certainly an addiction for a lot of people:

https://www.nofap.com/

If someone is not being forced to do porn and submit it to the public, then they are not being used solely as a means to an end. — Chany

There appears to be a connection between human trafficking and the porn industry. It's difficult to come up with hard data on the subject, since one industry is illegal, and the other is...well, porn. Most research is done, then, by advocacy groups, not by neutral parties. Which is understandable.

One could take a dim view of pornography, and yet maintain that the societal costs of squelching free speech and free expression outweigh the benefits of governmental censors clamping down on porn, which is likely virtually impossible anyway, at least without imposing the sort of controls which are incompatible with liberal democracy. — Arkady

On the one hand, porn should absolutely be legal for the reasons you gave, but on the other hand, the porn industry's potential connection to human trafficking needs to be further investigated. There's also the potential connection to child porn. What percentage of adult porn actors started their careers in child porn? The demarcation between trafficking, prostitution, child porn and adult porn is not at all so clear cut. It's a complex issue. Realistically, making porn illegal would have more damaging effects than not, I would guess, but that doesn't mean it's not having hugely detrimental effects on society as we continue to allow it. It's not black and white.

I realize that your experience defines religion for you. That's the way of it. What's sacred to you is a matter of the various articles of faith which comprise your beliefs. How you experience it is how you experience it, and that's fine. I'm just here to lay down some reflective pylons to keep people from trampling the flowers as they begin to flail in inspiration of their own personal religious beliefs. — VagabondSpectre

For instance, what else is there in religious experience other than flailing in "inspiration of [one's] own personal religious beliefs"? (flailing clearly being a derogatory word that suggests the implausibility of religious experience). So, to my point, I'm not really sure what you're getting at, here. Is religious experience acceptable or condemnable to you? Religious "experience" seems maybe ok, but "flailing" about religiously (whatever that is), is not? What exactly are these precious flowers you speak of?

The context:

"Fare forward, travellers! Not escaping from the past
Into indifferent lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)

Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of man may be intent
At the time of death" - that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which will fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare Forward.

O voyagers, O seamen,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination."
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers." - The Dry Salvages, Four Quartets

I'm just back from the funeral of an old friend though, so may be more melancholy than usual, and I'm just re-reading Eliot because the late friend was an enthusiast and so was the celebrant at his funeral. Still I'm heartened to read a line I don't remember noticing before, 'Old men ought to be explorers' Eliot writes, and:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T S Eliot — mcdoodle

Another favorite from Four Quartets:

"Not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers."

Why the need for a bang or for a whimper? Why not voyage on without knowing? Not well, but forward none the less?

So you're saying that the lack inherent in the human condition is freedom and freedom from suffering? (that's what I gather from the news, feel free to correct me). — VagabondSpectre

Well, I have a hard time saying whether freedom is inherent, or an inherent lack in humanity. A lack of freedom from suffering (i.e....suffering), would be more of a component, or a result of the lack in the human condition. In my mind, when I say "the lack inherent in the human condition", it doesn't actually signify anything specific, but quite literally, just lack. Emptiness, poverty...etc. That's why I said it's an apophatic idea. I think it's possible to acknowledge a lack, without clearly defining what it's a lack of. With physical poverty, or the emptiness of a bowl, for instance, we can signify what could fill those states of lack. That's a nice analogy, but it doesn't follow that we therefore can signify what should fill the lack in the human condition. But the emptiness, the poverty, is measurably there. But this is why I call it apophatic; in theology, an apophatic conception is a negative way of obtaining knowledge, or truth. It doesn't signify meaninglessness (this most likely does not resonate with you from what you've stated about your views, I'm just explaining mine, and my language). This sort of lack is a principle in the psychology of depression, for instance, as I understand it. There are times where depression doesn't seem to have a real cause other than a chemical imbalance. There's simply a lack, so to speak. The cause may become more clear later on, or not.

I have a hard time knowing "what is meant within sacred teachings themselves". — VagabondSpectre

Studying them would be a good place to start. This is one of the paths of thought that I'm currently hoping to embark on soon. But yes, it's often hard to know how to interpret them.

You seem to say that the true meaning of religion is altruism, but you haven't explained why. What makes one Christian teaching sacred and another not sacred? — VagabondSpectre

I don't really think either of those things, so either you misinterpreted what I said, or I didn't say it well; I don't have the patience to comb back through the debate. Actually, I don't want to make any claim about what the true meaning of religion might be, as a whole; there's definitely no such thing. Each religion contains different meanings (meanings of text, of tradition, of ritual), all of which may be exoteric, esoteric, lost to history, and all of which are constantly evolving, devolving, or going extinct, or being revived...

What do you mean "What makes one Christian teaching sacred and another not sacred"? It would depend on your interpretation of Christianity.

Ah but there is little to no philosophy of atheism, — VagabondSpectre

Really?

We could go through my favorite critics of theism and their criticisms, but they don't need to prove the natural (nature is self-evident) — VagabondSpectre

I'm absolutely no expert at all, but I feel like there's enough particle/wave physics, and theoretical physics out there to at least ask the question of whether nature is self-evident. It's a topic I personally am curious to explore more.

It works extremely persuasively. It's persuasive because it finds common wants and value between two negotiators and uses reason and logic to search for mutually beneficial means of cooperation. — VagabondSpectre

But who out there is actually implementing this on the political world stage? My question was a bit sarcastic, but that's what I was getting at.

You want me to show my work that meaning is only something that exists when a mind is around to interpret it? — VagabondSpectre

Please forgive my tone there; I don't think I was quite in my right mind when I made that post. It's a tendency of mine. But yes, I would love to hear your reasons for that statement.

You're the one that suggested things like comfort and freedom have no meaning (capital M) compared to "eternality"

" Anyway, what you're missing, and what I may have failed to adequately express is the teleology of "eternity". What meaning does anything at all have within the temporal? Don't talk to me about "finding 'my' happiness", or subjective truth vs. objective. Don't talk to me about my loved-ones' happiness. They'll most-likely live the 70-some years that I'll live, given luck. So? Do their lives have Meaning, capital M? How does meaning cohere within temporality? Does it? Does meaning cohere within eternality? Ask yourself this, don't just give me the stock fundamentalist-soft-atheist doorstep fodder." — VagabondSpectre

I can see how you would interpret this paragraph as a suggesting that "comfort and freedom have no meaning (capital M) compared to 'eternality'", but that is not at all what I meant there. I was trying to distinguish the temporal from the eternal, and I was suggesting that Meaning (capital M) can only exist within the eternal. I think it follows that any representation of meaning (for instance, comfort, etc), that exists within the temporal only has value as it relates to Meaning within the eternal. Think of it like this: imagine physical reality as an objectivization of spirit, or the eternal (if that's hard to picture, think of water changing to ice; the element is the same, but the form changes. Now the form is "dead" in the sense that it doesn't flow. Water flows, but ice is stationary. Try to take this analogy outside it's physical constraints and imagine how the physical world could be seen as "dead" or stationary, despite the fact that it isn't in fact so, within it's own rules). Out of physical reality grows consciousness, out of consciousness grows moral concepts, and a mental world in which we talk about the problems of Meaning, or meaning. We can talk about Meaning and meaning if and only if the physical world is an objectivization of the eternal; then Meaning has content; Meaning has no content within the temporal if there's no reference to the eternal. Why? Because the temporal is TEMPORAL. It will end. Meaning will end, and so it's not meaning at all; it's just a willful semblance of something like meaning, to tide us over before our temporal lives end. Comfort, being nice to each other, gourmet food, social justice, social equality, sex. All nice lowercase truths to make us feel like our lives have meaning, before they end in nothingness. Or, before they end, and our participation with eternity begins? My philosophy is kind of all or nothing, if you haven't noticed: Universal Salvation, or Nihilism. Nothing else makes sense to me. What do you think? Do you think a temporal life that ends in nothingness is worth living?

So the idea that you're getting closer to the infinite by being altruistic doesn't please you? Why do you hold it as valuable to do so then? — VagabondSpectre

No, I wouldn't use the word "pleasure" to describe the spiritual journey. Any sort of "pleasure" derived from it is a gift given freely and freely received through the process of the journey; whereas "pleasure" to me denotes something I desire to possess; sexual pleasure, drunkenness, romance, social acceptance...and by the way, I'm not trying to make the typical distinction here in saying that those things are "evil" because they're "of the world" or something. But I absolutely think of those things as pleasures that we actively seek to possess, whereas spiritual "ecstasy", if you will, is a passive, directly participatory experience. Actively seeking to possess spiritual knowledge or experience is exactly the thing that prevents you from getting there. It's apophatic. The same goes for creativity. This elusive thing is the thing that sex and acceptance and drunkenness and physical comfort are striving for. I'm speaking from experience here, on both sides of that coin...

Morality can use observation and reason as a tool to get better. Reason and observation aren't themselves morality. — VagabondSpectre

I can roll with that. Perhaps I missed where you clarified that.

I realize that your experience defines religion for you. That's the way of it. What's sacred to you is a matter of the various articles of faith which comprise your beliefs. How you experience it is how you experience it, and that's fine. I'm just here to lay down some reflective pylons to keep people from trampling the flowers as they begin to flail in inspiration of their own personal religious beliefs. — VagabondSpectre

I wasn't just talking about religious experience in that paragraph, though. I want to be less critical in my tone than I have been in the past in this discussion, but I can't help but feel like this is some classic atheistic "soft-preaching" here; proselytizing the idea that "everyone's religious experience is different and equally valid [but also total bullshit, we just know we're not alowed to say that just yet]". That's honestly how I take this sort of sentiment, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I sincerely hope I'm wrong on that.

Bless our Scientistic Overlords for their bountiful worldly blessings.

What is the inherent lack in the human condition? — VagabondSpectre

I always think apophatic concepts are best understood analogically. Load up a few different news sources for the best answer to your question here.

Offering someone eternal salvation as implicit incentive to behave morally, as religion is want to do, exploits their selfishness with a promise for which there is no reason to expect delivery. — VagabondSpectre

This is certainly how religion itself often gets presented. I don't argue with you there at all. But the problem, for me, and probably the reason I'm bothering to slag on through this excruciating discussion, is that I think there's a huge miscommunication through religion, and, conversely, through the subsequent critiques of religion that follow. (My grammar there is deliberate, though maybe clunky. Re-read if necessary). Sure, religion itself in practice gives this incentive for moral behavior, but that's the exact opposite of what is meant within sacred teachings themselves. That's the irony. That's where a mystical approach to religion comes into play. What I always see in the classic "critique of Christianity from a former Christian" is this sheer obsession with hypocrisy. It's almost like there's an emotional wound there....hmmm...wonder if that impedes philosophical reason at all...

But, from a strictly philosophical perspective, it's only the ideas that hold water, right? We should be assessing the ideas themselves, not the failed practices, or psychologizing away the history of the religion.

I won't bother saying more here, I think I've already overstayed my welcome in this thread.

We could exhume and go through some arguments from each of your favorite theologians and religious philosophers, but unless any of them can use reason and logic to substantiate or quantify the supernatural, my objections will always be the same: no proof, no proof, no proof... — VagabondSpectre

I could say the same to you: "We could exhume and go through some arguments from each of your favorite atheistic philosophers, but unless any of them can use intuition and spiritual practice to substantiate or qualify the natural, my objections will always be the same: only proof, only proof, only proof..."

What the above argument suggests is a complete lack of moral development based on empathy or common sense. — VagabondSpectre

But where do these concepts come from, within the history of thought?

Actually the values are up for grabs per my description. First we agree on what values we want our morality to promote, and then we can construct rational arguments (including those based in observation) around those values.

If we don't share any of the same values, then we won't agree on what's moral. Luckily we both likely want to go on living, and in comfort, and also want other people in the world to go on living and also in comfort (or at least free from suffering). These are modest values admittedly, compared to eternal life in paradise for everyone (and avoiding eternal torture in hell) that is... — VagabondSpectre

Not to be trite, but have you tried out this line of reasoning on the political world stage? How might it go if it were presented, do you think?

I wasn't making an appeal to emotion, I was pointing out an implication of your own statements, and you've just reiterated it: to you everything is existentially meaningless (except altruism for some reason) because next to the infinite you view it has having infinitesimally small value. This includes the 70-some odd years of life that your loved ones will live. — VagabondSpectre

Aside from trying to find the subject of this sentence, I'm scrambling to understand how you came to this conclusion (the conclusion I can interpret, anyway) about anything I said.

The thing about meaning is that it only exists when something is around to interpret it. — VagabondSpectre

Oh? Show your work, please...

You don't think that the psychological comfort people get from thinking "they're closer to the infinite" counts as pleasure? — VagabondSpectre

I do not.

I really don't know where you're getting you're information about demons and holiness from though. Not from this world I reckon... — VagabondSpectre

From various readings about the history of Christianity form folks like Tillich, Berdyaev, etc. Tillich's A History of Christian Thought is invaluable, if you find it to be an interesting topic. I'm not sure you do though? But then I'm not sure why this is such an interesting topic for you.

I advocate that people eschew superstitious beliefs in favor of beliefs grounded in observation and reason, morality included. — VagabondSpectre

How do you reckon morality to be something included within observation and reason? I'm pretty sure I brought this up before.

I honestly believe that the main product which religion exports to it's consumers is psychological and emotional comfort, which comes in many forms. The emotional joy that a religious experience can bring is not too different from a sexual climax or a highly enjoyable piece of entertainment; — VagabondSpectre

This seems to be pure conjecture, or maybe pure experience, and I can only respond with my own experience. Which is that I disagree. My experiences of religious experience, sexual pleasure, and entertainment are all very distinctly categorizable, separate phenomenons within my set of experiences.

The very doctrine of Grace is entirely self-interested: one performs the act of accepting Jesus to become superior to any other sinner, to be seen by God to be better than others and gain the favour of God. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is a gross generalization. By definition, salvation means equality; it has nothing to do with superiority over others. Your point here is that classic psychologization of religion that's so painfully inaccurate in an atheistic ethos.

it was like a massive hand formed from the sounds and came over me as though it literally grabbed and took away all that pain. — TimeLine

I don't want to disarm the potency of your experience here, but I had a similar experience when I was about 15. A feeling of a divine "hand" grabbing my whole being and silencing me, a hand that took my whole being into consideration and made things "right"...

the classical is and remains entrenched in European culture and so it should; it would be a lie in a way to disregard that influence and power. The suggestion of a complete abandonment of atonality to me seems somewhat impossible and there is a certain dishonesty about it that I am afraid becomes clear in some compositions, although I will agree that you correctly paint the picture of a gradual progression and ultimate change — TimeLine

Well, I don't know if the classical remains or should remain there; I think the American minimalists are enough to say otherwise. Now, I do personally agree with you when you talk about a complete abandonment of tonality. That complete abandonment does not meet with my own purely intuitive standards. And that's all I have to go on when it comes to tonality. That's the funny thing; I can wax poetic about whatever I happen to know or not know about tonality, minimalism, post-minimalism, etc, but when it coms down to it, if I don't personally like it, then it just doesn't matter. I don't ultimately give a shit unless it's dope. And a lot of contempo-classical is, decidedly, not dope.

I love the Cello and I remember being told how much it would cost to buy one by a teacher at school. I could barely afford lunch at the time and it makes me wonder whether such music is really the sounds created by the privileged. — TimeLine

Well...cellists themselves aren't exactly the privileged (my sister-in-law being an example); if anyone involved is privileged, I guess it would be the faculty who serve as the gate-keepers to cellists. But on the other hand, there's any number of talented cellists willing to play whatever's put in front of them, however, there's many fewer composers willing to write interesting music that involves the cello...so...

An older one that I just posted:

https://nobledust.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/westsider-rare/

Some poetic nonsense:

https://nobledust.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/tuning-peg/

I am not entirely sure I agree that a complete denial of tradition can be coherently possible without some constraint of one's own creativity; — TimeLine

Well, any denial of tradition includes an acknowledgement of tradition, in the same way that atheism includes an acknowledgement of theism, just by definition.

Maybe yes, the assertion that one needs to break free from the pre-conditioned structure of classical language has its merits, but is that foundational structure coherently reducible? I'm not sure, I need to read more. — TimeLine

I'm not sure why it being coherently reducible is important. Classical structure lead to atonality, and then minimalism rebelled, but maybe that rebellion was just the next logical step. I mean, atonality continued and continues, even now. But now minimalism is replaced by post-minimalism. Some examples:

John Adams, possibly my favorite post-minimalist composer. This piece is for two pianos. Not an easy duo to write for! Twenty fingers...



Nico Muhly's Balance Problems, written for my favorite contempo-classical ensemble in NYC, yMusic:



With post-minimalism, listen for the development of simple minimalist repetitive structure; the structure changes more quickly, but still seems to retain a certain logic.

To be perfectly honest with you, I have difficulty with trippy analogues, I can even struggle with John M. Cage. — TimeLine

Cage is strange, but his early percussion music is cool (be sure to catch the sea shell horn!):



Not familiar with Dan Yuhas. It's interesting, seems to lean more atonal; not really my thing, but I'm always open to hear more stuff.

I never indulged in Phillip Glass but I could see him creeping up on me on those days where I feel like I'm just sick of everything, but not exactly stressed or anxious, more like disappointed and tired, where you don't really want to talk neither do you want to shut off and just having him on my iPod as I wander around. — TimeLine

I actually think he's overrated, but I also do love his music, I just don't place him on the same level as Reich, or Cage or whatnot. I don't spend a bunch of time listening to him.

Oh please, don't let me make you feel ashamed. Sorry. It's more of a classic musician's response to another musician, than anything else ("oh god, you don't know that record?"). Forgive me, it was unnecessary.

Well...as to a reaction against atonality, I see guys like Arvo Part, John Tavener, and Michael Nyman as strictly European "sacred" minimalists, who write minimalist music that's literally more religious and in line with a mystical or specific religious line of thinking, and so by result their music is more "classical" in the sense that it's more informed by the hard classical composers who literally had to write music for the church, as in Bach, etc.

Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Reilly, et al, are all American minimalists who grew up in an Academic setting where the venerated people were Schoenberg, Messiaen, etc. (ironically European) and I'll be biased here and include one of my favorite Messiaen pieces (granted I still can't find a slow enough version on youtube; search spotify for a version that's about 9 mins long):



So anyway, that's a less atonal Messiaen piece. But the more atonal tendencies of these early and mid-modern dudes are all exactly the thing that the American minimalists were rebelling against. One of Glass's earliest pieces is this unlistenable solo violin piece where the violin practically plays triads the whole time; I can't even remember what's it's called. But that's how bold the rebellion was. Reich himself said, in some interview that I saw at some point, that he "simply didn't want to make atonal music." He just wanted to "make tonal music".

Here's a nice Philip Glass primer:



and some trippy, hippy Terry Reilly shit:



And btw, my favorite of the 3, here's Reich's Music For 18 Musicians:



[god, don't get me started...what am I doing on a philosophy forum...]

Btw, I'm not familiar with Summa for Strings, but it's very nice.

Edit: and what you say about reaching out to someone but never connecting is very true because this piece seems to constantly elude the tonic (the home pitch). It's there, but only fleetingly.

Oh god, you know Part, but not Reich? Sorry, I get emotional about these things. Part is wonderful; simply beautiful because of his fearlessness and the beauty of his music. But Reich is beautiful because he's a mathematician. And I'm literally the last person to appreciate that about a composer. The piece I just posted isn't the best intro, maybe check out his most well known piece, "Music For 18 Musicians". Just keep in mind that European minimalism tends to be way different than the downtown NYC scene oft the 60's - 80's. Euro minimalism is more classically tonal; American minimalism is more a reaction against atonalism.

I'll leave it up to you philosophers to seek out the other 3 movements to this piece, as it doesn't exist as a single video or a playlist on youtube. But begin here, and be sure to listen all the way through to the last section of the piece, since the final section absolutely transcends the rest of the piece in a totally unprecedented way. You should be able to easily click through youtube uploads of the rest of the piece; if not, use spotify to find Reich's "Works 1965-1995" album.

What is the actualization of humanity? — VagabondSpectre

The fulfillment of the lack inherent in the human condition, I'd say.

The difference being that religion doesn't tend to do ti via reason like humanism and social contract theory — VagabondSpectre

Check in with Aquinas, Tillich, Berdyaev, et. al., before you make that statement. Hell, even Whitehead, right?

[No, they have to be completely selfless, or they're nihilistic children, you say. - VagabondSpectre]

Certainly I never said that.
— Noble Dust

Vagabond: I can work with greed and we can achieve the ends we want by agreeing to cooperate because it's more profitable. Capitalism alleges to do this, and humanist/theistic morality does it too.

Noble Dust: As I said, this idea of working together for my sake is nothing more than a child manipulating it's parents or her friends to get what she wants for herself. It's childish. That's why I bring up altruism. True altruism, or true unconditional lovelays itself down for the other. This concept doesn't avail itself of survival, or creature comforts, or whatever. — VagabondSpectre

???

Because I don't base my moral system on God. Why is it necessary to have God in order to have morality? — VagabondSpectre

I guess I assumed atheism is a fundamental position for you, and so morality would stem from it. Is this not the case? If not, why do you spend such flatteringly large spaces of text responding to a clueless philosophical dilettante like myself? Because your atheism is passive, and not a fundamental element of your mode of thinking/interfacing w/the world (soft atheism)? But then, wouldn't you just not care? Your admonition earlier of "recommending" your form of atheism reeks to me of the fundamentalist forms of religion I'm all too familiar with. Perhaps I'm not quite the agnostic sheep you think me to be.

Yes, observation and reason are how. — VagabondSpectre

No, you said:

You can judge the quality of a moral position by finding out how well it actually promotes the values it sets out to promote - VagabondSpectre — VagabondSpectre

which suggests some sort of self-contained value system. What is that value system? It isn't observation and reason; those aren't value systems. Explain further.

Because happiness is the state that I want myself and others to be in, and freedom seems to be an essential way to get there. Freedom and happiness sum up the plethora of valuable things that life has to offer. — VagabondSpectre

Now here, I can sing it with you a little bit. Only because I think these words are so vacuous and vague. Happiness? Freedom? Of course I want those things, I want them as much as my 9 year old niece does. Now, what exactly those things are becomes harder to define the closer you attempt to look, not unlike wave particle duality, for instance...

I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is essentially that the well being of your loved one's is meaningless and unfulfilling to you. — VagabondSpectre

First of all, your appeal to emotion here is amusing, if nothing else, given the totality of the rest of your position. Anyway, what you're missing, and what I may have failed to adequately express is the teleology of "eternity". What meaning does anything at all have within the temporal? Don't talk to me about "finding 'my' happiness", or subjective truth vs. objective. Don't talk to me about my loved-ones' happiness. They'll most-likely live the 70-some years that I'll live, given luck. So? Do their lives have Meaning, capital M? How does meaning cohere within temporality? Does it? Does meaning cohere within eternality? Ask yourself this, don't just give me the stock fundamentalist-soft-atheist doorstep fodder.

But then, what's the point of altruism? — VagabondSpectre

Altruism coheres meaning outside of the temporal. Is that philosophical enough for you?

It seems like your altruism is yet another layer of greed which obscures your personal desire for some kind of spiritual connection with the infinite (whatever that might happen to be). Somehow altruism gets you there; it's an arbitrary means to the ultimate end of spiritual delight. Welcome to hedonism. — VagabondSpectre

I can't find any "coherence" here. Hedonism has to do with the flesh. So, the sort of "spiritual" hedonism you're speaking of (clearly not physical hedonism) can only be described as demonic within the realms of any classical teaching about spiritual realms (since you're speaking in those terms), (i.e."the holy" being a neutral, set apart experience that is equally demonic and divine). The problem is that spiritual altruism is not demonic in that sense; it's the opposite; it's divine. Altruism in it's pure form isn't demonic, so it can't be hedonistic; again, it's divine. In other words, you're talking about the spiritual realm in misused abstract terms. Altruism would only be hedonistic/demonic when it's used as a cloak; i.e. the examples I gave several pages ago...

Define "something higher" or define "ultimate concern" and we might begin to speak the same language. If your "something higher" is an indescribable ineffable infinite force of love, truth and theosophical ecstasy, naturally that's your ultimate concern. — VagabondSpectre

Try reframing this in a way that doesn't belittle the concepts you describe, and I'll think of a thoughtful response.

I have a vast and changing hierarchy of wants and values, but there is no ultimate value that renders all others meaningless by comparison. That's an effect reserved for only the most grandiose of ideologies. — VagabondSpectre

Does that vastness, does that ever-changing hierarchy influence how you respond to my posts on this forum? Since there is, of course, no ultimate value that renders all other values meaningless by comparison in your posts here, when debating philosophical matters. Surely such grandiose ideologies would not be expressed by one so deeply entrenched in reason and empirical evidence; surely one such philosopher would not take so much time to crush such a helpless continental philosopher as the one he fearlessly debates here.

The Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien (re-reading)

Dynamics of Faith - Paul Tillich

Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing - Kierkegaard

oh god..

(Y)

>:O

'You should let go even of dhammas' - you don't find that in the Bible. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's a new one for me. Interesting. Things to think about.

The point of the analogy is that nobody has access to the closet (i make it my closet in the analogy so it makes sense in the real world; you don't have access to my closet. The analogy is for you, the reader). — VagabondSpectre

Too many rules; analogies don't work this way; they should be simple.

Whether or not your friends are the umpteen proofs of God or not doesn't change my retort. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, it does. Your analogy gets lumpier and lumpier the more you try to explain it.

So God is an ultimate concern because he offers salvation? Sure, but that seems greedy.

If everyone only obeys God in order to avoid hell and get into heaven then they're more hedonistic than yours truly. — VagabondSpectre

I don't see salvation as heaven vs. hell, I see it as actualization of personality and humanity. So there isn't greed involved. Greed signifies wanting too much of a good thing. The actualization of humanity doesn't fit that category.

You cannot lack atheistic beliefs because there's no such thing to lack. — VagabondSpectre

So atheistic beliefs don't exist then?

You could lack atheistic lack of belief, which statistically would indicate you're a theist! — VagabondSpectre

Maybe I am...who knows at this point...

The regressive left doesn't really go after Christianity though, at least not very much these days. — VagabondSpectre

My personal experience doesn't jive with that; I'd be curious what your reasons for claiming such would be.

The new enemy is the colonial west, and the victims are everyone other than straight white males. — VagabondSpectre

I do have to agree to some extent here. I'm not particularly looking to discuss politics in this thread about religion, though.

As you can see from the above video, no. — VagabondSpectre

But where, philosophically, do their views com from? Where are women's studies, sociology, etc., descended from philosophically?

That's right. I'm interested in reasonable truth, not ultimate, divine and gilded truth. Reason is what I rely on to try and discover or approximate "truth", if I transcended reason, I would therefore be failing in that endeavor. — VagabondSpectre

So this must be where we differ, then. I'm uninterested in reasonable truth. I'm interested in ultimate truth.

What's so great about great love? — VagabondSpectre

The answer to this question is experiential, not philosophical, so I can't answer it for you.

So you're an altruist then? — VagabondSpectre

Textbook altruism, yeah. The twisting of the word via evolutionary biology, no.

Humans are selfish, and so things like social contract theory and humanism seek to offer rational paths toward moral behavior (don't steal, don't murder, etc...) — VagabondSpectre

The same role religion provides...funny...reminds me of my previous arguments.

No, they have to be completely selfless, or they're nihilistic children, you say... — VagabondSpectre

Certainly I never said that.

Atheism has nothing to do with my moral positions — VagabondSpectre

How/Why?

You can judge the quality of a moral position by finding out how well it actually promotes the values it sets out to promote, — VagabondSpectre

Can you (or we) do this if (us) humans are inherently selfish, as you describe them?

and freedom and happiness are the values I seek to promote for everyone and also myself. — VagabondSpectre

Why?

As to nihilism, I understand it as a belief that life is meaningless. So, the antithesis would be that life has meaning. The reason I bring up nihilism in this scenario is that life having meaning, to me, must be an ultimate meaning. If life having meaning means me, my loved ones, and everyone else having comforting lives and enjoying life until they die, then how is that real meaning? That, to me, is a temporal, unfulfilling excuse for meaning. It comes down to this: meaning and the infinite must be linked, in order for meaning to exist. Meaning has to point beyond the temporal in order to have any ontological and metaphysical content. Meaning can't exist temporally, or finitely. This is the gist of my argument about nihilism; to me your views on an altruistic life are what I would ironically call "soft-nihilism". It has no real meaningful content.

Being some completely selfless being who doesn't care about comfort at all? That resembles nihilism in my opinion. — VagabondSpectre

How? And I never described a being who doesn't care about comfort; I suggested the possibility of a being who would lay down comfort for something higher: someone who does not make comfort their ultimate concern, contrary to what you describe.

This conversation is getting boring; we're obviously speaking two different languages here.

I forgot to mention, though, what do you think the distinction is, then, between the believer and the one who experiences the spiritual?

I think that's the signal of something important, and not to be belittled. — Wayfarer

Thanks.

That's not quite the point I'm trying to get across. The distinction I'm trying to make is between the attitude of being 'a believer', as opposed to learning through (spiritual) experience. — Wayfarer

This make sense to me within the context of the Christian mystics, since I still haven't delved into Buddhism or other traditions as I've been wanting to. Learning through spiritual experience is something I feel like I've tasted in my upbringing, but something I've lost touch with as an adult. I'm apprehensive as to what it would look like now (add on to it the other typical adult cares and worries), but it's something I want to explore. I guess desire will only be fulfilled through action...

In the ancient world, that was the distinction between 'pistis' and 'gnosis'. The Pistic approach was associated with the well-known fish symbol of early Christianity. The gnostic attitude was very different. Belief, to them, is simply instrumental, it can only point you in the direction of getting the real insight which is needed to save yourself. (Have a look at the abstract of this book.) — Wayfarer

I'm not even familiar with the word pistis, so thanks.

The analogy describes the agnostic perspective. Having access to my closet equates to actually having evidence or knowledge of god as opposed to being unable to get such information. — VagabondSpectre

That can't be right; if access to the closet was access to the knowledge about God, then you surely would have that access (assuming you have access to your own closet). So the analogy breaks down again (so my first sentence isn't evidence for God, it's just where your analogy breaks down). Unless the closet is locked? But it's your closet. So you lost the key, or something? It seems like maybe you have.

Agnosticism entails a presumption about the state of the world, but believing that religious experience can offer experience of the infinite is just as presumptuous (more so in my opinion). — VagabondSpectre

Atheism can also be presumptuous; presumptions aren't inherently bad, despite the word's negative connotation. It's more a question of which if any presumptions might be justified.

Even if a trusted friend told me god exists (oh how they do) since I believe they have no way of getting that kind of knowledge, I would not believe them. — VagabondSpectre

This is another analogical confusion; I wasn't equating a friend telling me about the ball to a friend telling me about God. The friend in this case would be something like the 5 proofs of God's existence or whatever, regardless of whether you happen to find any veracity in those proofs (I don't personally).

So you don't think getting the things you want is an appropriate basis for your concerns? Ultimate or otherwise? — VagabondSpectre

No I don't; it depends on what it is I want. I've wanted plenty of things that are harmful to myself.

I still don't really know what ultimate concerns and ultimate fulfillment bereft of divine salvation actually looks like. — VagabondSpectre

I don't either.

Also, How is "God" a proper moral basis for "ultimate concern"? — VagabondSpectre

If you're asking me personally, the idea of God becoming incarnate in the form of a man so as to impregnate the world with unconditional love, leading to a process of historical salvation of humanity would be a reason for God, as such, to be an ultimate concern. Or, if God is love, then love would be the ultimate concern here.

What's your ultimate concern? — VagabondSpectre

I'm not sure. The Truth, maybe. Regardless of comfort, or survival, or spiritual fulfillment. But I think all of those things will be subsumed within it. I trust to the nobler desires within us, but I don't count them to be the ends themselves. I'll willfully continue the search, but I won't make the search my ultimate concern.

It's an extremely simple analogy and uses extremely simple and uncontroversial terms to convey the point that as an atheist I do not actually possess any atheist beliefs, I simply lack theistic beliefs. — VagabondSpectre

What if I simply lack atheistic beliefs? I simply lack the belief that i lack belief in a god?

Modern social justice gone wild movements are indeed not unlike religion and seem to offer fulfillment of a different kind, but they are relatively few in number, and technology or science is not their object of worship. — VagabondSpectre

It's not, but historically, the secularism in a country like America is tied to the rise of scientific empiricism (vs. the conservative right and their adherence to literal interpretations of the Bible). So we have this false dichotomy of either evolution or creationism (which is already very passe). But the progressive left is tied in some way to this tension that existed; so much of the left's criticism of fundamentalist Christianity (fully justified) has to do with this tension of bad literal interpretations of scripture on the one hand, and, on the other, the only reliable retaliatory weapon...scientific evidence to the contrary. So now in 2017, I think we live in a political landscape where this ridiculous twilight zone fight between evolution and creationism is thankfully a thing of the past, but the implications still play out in a world where the progressive left is still unconsciously influenced by this implicitly materialist outlook that places scientific evidence above all. By the way, I do agree with you about these social justice movements going wild, regardless of whether we disagree about why.

Also, I'm not so sure the women's march on Washington would avail your claim that these movements are few in number.

Humanism doesn't even really factor into it. These movements are dominated by politically charged platitudes rather than an actual exploration of moral normative values based on the somewhat universal human values (desire for life and freedom). — VagabondSpectre

But aren't these political platitudes so profoundly influenced by humanism?

Well Tillich supposed that the ultimate concern of skeptics is truth. I'm asking what if it's just a normal concern which doesn't involve the transcendence of reason? Tillich's interpretation of religion as an act of "faith" only seems to apply to religious minds. — VagabondSpectre

So you're saying what if truth is a normal concern which doesn't involve the transcendence of reason?

But survival might as well be of ultimate importance to me because everything of importance to me exists in this world, so I need to be alive to get at it. — VagabondSpectre

No, survival is just the mechanism of life itself. It is NOT life itself. Again, "No greater love has a man than this: to lay his life down for his friends."

Why can we not enter into some sort of common agreement in pursuit of mutual survival and comfort? — VagabondSpectre

See my comments on altruism, of which you then asked "who said we needed altruism?" I was anticipating the response. So furthermore:

I can work with greed and we can achieve the ends we want by agreeing to cooperate because it's more profitable. Capitalism alleges to do this, and humanist/theistic morality does it too. — VagabondSpectre

As I said, this idea of working together for my sake is nothing more than a child manipulating it's parents or her friends to get what she wants for herself. It's childish. That's why I bring up altruism. True altruism, or true unconditional love lays itself down for the other. This concept doesn't avail itself of survival, or creature comforts, or whatever.

And so I bring up nihilism because I see this sort of selfish faux-altruism as a cloaked form of selfishness; so if this is the humanistic, or the agnostic, or the soft-atheistic version of the good life, it's just another form of selfishness, of brute survival cloaked in empirical reason and analytic observation, and so there's ample reason for me, given all this evidence, to just simply declare myself a nihilist and pursue a Dionysian life of whatever I happen to enjoy, until it wears thin and I find it the right time to end my own life. After all, I'm only using others to help me find my own cowardly creature comforts, for the sake of soaking in the precious last 40 years of my pointless, insignificant life. Ah the untold years I'll spend spewing asinine platitudes on philosophy forums before the end!

I see the need to think independently and authentically and objectively, but I don't equate that with the process of transcending the subjective and emotional developmental stages. A child is emotional because love needs to be established. Love still needs to be established for the objective, critically thinking adult. The need to establish love never goes away, and this is always a subjective (of the subject) and emotional need. Indeed, the absence of the sort of unconditional love that the parent offered is probably the genesis of so much human suffering. On top of that, I grew up in a very isolated environment where I had a lot of freedom; so things like thinking independently, critically, being imaginative, and embracing freedom where always easy for me to embrace, even in childhood. I trust I'm not the only one who's had such an experience, even if the latest psychological studies didn't happen to include us.

I feel the same way. I think it's a memory or an intuition - possibly it's even what Plato meant, in his idea of 'anamnesis' - that at some time, before this life, we really knew it, and some part of ourselves remembers that knowing. So the spiritual quest - which Plato called the philosophical quest - is 'unforgetting' (that's what an-amnesis means) that great thing we once knew. — Wayfarer

When I first read about Plato's idea, I didn't identify with it at all. But over time I've come to feel some agreement with it. I often have an intuitive feeling of "remembering", or a feeling of a past state of equilibrium. I get it in dreams and the waking memory of dreams. I'll often wake up with a feeling of complete and utter peace, like a lifting of a veil, and then it recedes within seconds. It's like all the psychological weight of adulthood is momentarily removed from my spirit, but then is draped back down around me. I'll probably be laughed off this forum for considering that significant.

My view, over the subsequent years, was that religion, in the Western sense, had defined whatever that intuition was in its own way, and then insisted that you believe it in that particular way. A lot of Christianity is grounded in 'right belief' (which is the etymological meaning of 'orthodoxy'.) Whereas, I always felt that some state of higher knowing, which Christianity didn't understand, but Eastern religions did. — Wayfarer

I have mixed feelings about "right belief". It's part of what tore me away from the church, but I also realize that it's an intrinsic part of the whole ethos of Christ's coming, death, and resurrection. I was always struck by the magnitude of the idea that the Jews, always expectant of their messiah, never even anticipated that his death and resurrection would be for all of humanity, for "Jews and Gentiles" alike. So I was always struck by the revelatory character of the story of Christ recorded in the gospels. So the idea of a messiah for all of mankind surely must be the genesis of the need for right belief, the genesis of orthodoxy itself. And yet the dogmatism of orthodoxy is oppressive and has been the cause of so much oppression.

Let the belief "a ball exists in my closet" be analogous to the belief "god exists".

Without any access to my closet whatsoever, are you willing to believe that there is indeed a ball there?

Would you be willing to believe that there is no ball in my closet?

If I were you, I would take no hard position either way. I would not believe there is a ball my closet, but I would also not believe there is no ball in my closet. This is soft-atheism. Agnosticism is it's rational progenitor. Hard-atheism, (the connotation that many erroneously apply to atheists at large) would be analogous to the belief that there is no ball in my closet. — VagabondSpectre

All analogies break down, but it would depend on how I came to the belief that a ball exists there. If a stranger said so, I may not believe. If someone I trust very much, like my best friend, said so, I may believe. But I'm not sure what that does with your analogy. Unless "no access" includes the word of other people. But then, how would I have come to the belief at all? That's why I don't totally get it. It seems like it starts as formal logic and then turns into an analogy.

On top of that, I would rather spend my time studying different religions, trying to experience them, studying the history of religions, and trying to understand the history of thought, when it comes to discerning whether belief in God is a credible belief. Taking to hard rationalism or empiricism to answer the question of God seems like a misapplication of a human faculty. Ever-increasing layers of formal abstraction will surely lead you to a place that's safely far away from any possible experience or conception of a god or divinity, or the infinite.

They reliably get me the things I tend to want. — VagabondSpectre

I don't see this is a valid reason, morally, to make it an ultimate concern. Perhaps Trump feels the same as you about this.

I think the distinction is somewhat ethereal. Tillich's analysis applies readily to religion and religious belief (faith as a product of ultimate concern) because religion comes packaged with the promise of ultimate fulfillment, but science in particular does not. — VagabondSpectre

It's true that science doesn't offer that, as such. I wasn't making that argument, but maybe it seemed like I was. But there's a trend in popular culture and media to accept science with what the new atheists like to call "blind faith" when they're talking about Christians. In a sense I think we're living in a Dark Ages of the Internet, where technology (science being it's progenitor) and life are one fluid experience; the world is experienced as a technological world centered around "tech", in the same way that the world was experienced as a spiritual world centered around the church in the Middle Ages. Living in one of the most secular, progressive liberal cities in the world, I see every day this humanistic worldview alive and well, and it's relation to technology. There is absolutely a promise of ultimate fulfillment in this sort of popular view. Technology and it's accompanying opulence are a large enabler of this humanistic worldview. Agnosticism, hard or soft atheism, or whatever don't seem to matter in this view, because the god of humanism is the human person. The promise of ultimate fulfillment is the cleansing of the human race by way of the political legislation of social equality. It may sound hair-brained, but my critique of science taking on a religious character in popular culture is because of these observations of the type of epoch we're living in.

What if they have no ultimate concern? — VagabondSpectre

According to Tillich, everyone does. I tend to tentatively agree, although I haven't finished his book and I'm still mulling over the implications. I think I explained earlier his argument.

Things are important to me, but what is of ultimate importance? Me being alive maybe (for now), but not science. — VagabondSpectre

I don't think I suggested science might be your ultimate concern.

The ends are somewhat clear to me. And all of us exploit science in the same ways in order to achieve these ends. — VagabondSpectre

If the ends, if our ultimate concern, is always and only comfort, then I can't see anything other than pure nihilism being the case. Survival or comfort as the goal always leads to bloodshed. So, if survival or comfort is the goal, then bloodshed in the name of it is permissible. And so nihilism. And I don't buy the idea that altruism, working together for our own survival and comfort, is the way to achieve peace, or a way to assign meaningful meaning to life that would sufficiently disprove the view as nihilistic. This is a classic bourgeois sentiment. Altruism as a way for individuals to find their own comfort or survival is still ultimately selfish. Altruism by definition means selfless concern for the well-being of others. "No greater love has a man than this: to lay his life down for his friends."

The problem in bold is that I don't understand how my faith and I might relate to "the infinite". I can recall the feeling of doubting god from my religious childhood, but my belief in god has long since been crushed under the feet of doubt and my developing empirical/epistemological standards. — VagabondSpectre

To be clear, I also had a similar experience with religious upbringing, and have doubted belief in God to the point of agnosticism, but not to the point of atheism. To label myself at the moment would be hard. But to be clear, I'm just extrapolating Tillich's argument here, and toying with it myself, and inserting some of my own opinions on faith vs. belief, vs. doubt, etc.

I struggle with relation to the infinite as well, but I personally can't shake the concept. Maybe it's just the religious upbringing. But I've never been anything close to a materialist or physicalist, so a concept like the infinite has remained on my horizons almost out of necessity. Not because I believe in it per se, but because it seems to need to exist metaphysically and teleologically. But I think what Tillich might be saying there is that ultimate concern encounters doubt when the infinite (God, the greatness of the nation, the totality of knowledge or certainty, the arc of scientific discovery) is encountered by the finite person. So the encounter of the finite person with the infinite, the thing categorically beyond the finite person, is what causes doubt.

The only way I can frame that is that the faith went away. — VagabondSpectre

Again, I would argue with Tillich that you're conflating faith with belief.

I understand that doubt is natural when someone is very concerned with the truth of something particular, but what happens when doubt wins and they discard that particular "truth" as a concern? — VagabondSpectre

Then the ultimate concern changes to something else.

The skepticism I employ is a way to test the robustness of new, existing, and competing "beliefs" out of a desire for "robust beliefs". Are robust beliefs my ultimate concern? Perhaps, but only because of the predictive power they offer. I want predictive power so I can more easily satisfy my immediate human wants and needs. — VagabondSpectre

It sounds to me like your ultimate concern is certainty. Or knowledge, or power, which all seem to be connected.

The trouble is it's not the robust concrete I contest. "Truth" as an ultimate concern. — VagabondSpectre

Did you mean to say "It's Truth as an ultimate concern"?

It's that he has less beliefs, (and therefore less faith?), but you and Tillich are the one's suggesting that there is some ultimate concern to be "faith'd" on in the first place... — VagabondSpectre

Not sure how faith can be a verb, but I guess I was more trying to point out that you were conflating belief and faith, which is a distinction I happen to agree with from Tillich. I suppose you don't accept that distinction though.

Is a shoemaker's ultimate concern shoes? Is his faith in his shoes his religion?

Why need a scientist draw ultimate fulfillment from science?

Does everyone have a faith defined by whatever it is that they happen to get the most "fulfillment" from?

Faith in religion as a source of ultimate fulfillment makes sense, but "faith" in cinema or math or science as a source of ultimate fulfillment makes far less sense — VagabondSpectre

Obviously that's not Tillich's argument. A shoekmaker's ultimate concern might be his family (providing for them, etc). A scientists ultimate concern might be knowledge and certainty.

Doubt, for me, is a very practical attitude because I expose myself to as much as possible in search of fulfillment in the long run; it's a way to halt un-robust (and therefore unfulfilling) beliefs at the door and provokes an identity check. — VagabondSpectre

Even here, it seems to me that all this is very important to you (I don't mean to put words in your mouth), which suggests to me that things like halting un-robust beliefs are ways to get to a deeper ultimate concern.

The hunt for fulfillment is itself my ultimate concern. — VagabondSpectre

And so making the hunt for it your ultimate concern seems to me like means with no ends, and another way of pointing at a deeper ultimate concern. If the hunt is significant, then it must have a referent; a reason for significance.

If it interests you, see my discussion of Tillich's concept of faith as "ultimate concern" in this thread:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1307/religion-will-win-in-the-end-/p6

"Faith" is a misrepresentation of trust, belief, values, ethics and knowledge in this context. Every philosophy, outlook or world view shares these aspects: that's an understanding of the world, of what's important, of what's needed, of how to live. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That's not the argument Tillich makes. Faith isn't a representation or misrepresentation of trust, belief, values, ethics, and knowledge; it's the mechanism by which these things function. A philosophy, then, is a set of ideas and beliefs which are the product of the function of things like values, ethics, etc. So ontologically it goes faith -> functions/content (values, etc) -> philosophy. An optional 4th step is -> religion.

All the argument is really saying is: "everyone's postion is an understanding of how the world works and, for each position, those who hold it stick to it."

Those of faith just misread this feature as "faith" because they cannot imagine understanding, ethics, trust, knowledge or a way of life could be without partaking in faith. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The idea is that the mechanism of religious faith is the same mechanism that drives a secular way of thinking. So "secular faith" is a metaphor, but causally accurate, based on this view. Like I said earlier, the reason that it's important to retain the word faith is to emphasize the misunderstanding of faith versus secular thought. It's important to retain the word faith so as to underline the unity that underlies the two seemingly different ways of thinking. The other distinction that I've already made is that this is fundamentally different from the concept of belief. Like I said, belief is part of the content of faith, or one of it's functions.

I'm skeptical because I've made effort in life to over-apply doubt in hopes of eviscerating the requisite beliefs of faith. — VagabondSpectre

Why?

Tillich also suggests that doubt is an integral part of faith:

"...faith is uncertain in so far as the infinite to which it is related is received by a finite being. This element of uncertainty in faith cannot be removed, it must be accepted. And the element in faith which accepts it is courage...If we try to describe the relation of faith and courage, we must use a larger concept of courage than that which is ordinarily used. Courage as an element of faith is the daring self-affirmation of one's own being in spite of the powers of "nonbeing" which are the heritage of everything finite. Where there there is daring and courage there is the possibility of failure. And in every act of faith this possibility is present. The risk must be taken. Whoever makes his nation his ultimate concern needs courage in order to maintain this concern." (p. 16-17).

"All this is sharply expressed in the relation of faith and doubt. If faith is understood as belief that something is true, doubt is incompatible with the act of faith. If faith is understood as being ultimately concerned, doubt is a necessary element in it. It is a consequence of the risk of faith." (p. 18, emphasis mine).

He also elaborates on another form of doubt, which reminds me of your "over-application" of doubt. Correct me if I'm wrong:

"There is another kind of doubt, which we could call skeptical in contrast to the scientific doubt which we could call methodological. The skeptical doubt is an attitude toward all the beliefs of man, from sense experiences to religious creeds. It is more an attitude than an assertion. For as an assertion it would conflict with itself. Even the assertion that there is no possible truth for man would be judged by the skeptical principle and could not stand as an assertion. Genuine skeptical doubt does not use the form of an assertion. It is an attitude of actually rejecting any certainty. Therefore, it can not be refuted logically. It does not transform its attitude into a proposition. Such an attitude necessarily leads either to despair or cynicism, or to both alternately. And often, if this alternative becomes intolerable, it leads to indifference and the attempt to develop an attitude of complete unconcern. But since man is that being who is essentially concerned about his being, such an escape finally breaks down. This is the dynamics of skeptical doubt. It has an awakening and liberating function, but it also can prevent the development of a centered personality. For personality is not possible without faith. The despair about truth by the skeptic shows that truth is still his infinite passion. The cynical superiority over every concrete truth shows that truth is still taken seriously and that the impact of the question of ultimate concern is strongly felt. The skeptic, so long as he is a serious skeptic, is not without faith, even though it has no concrete content." (p. 19-20, emphasis mine).

If science was my faith a la Tillich, I would expect it to have ultimate fulfillment on offer, but It only seems to offer run of the mill fulfillment; the same kind you get if you build a house or sculpt some art. There are many scientific facts that we all tentatively accept as true without actually knowing ourselves (usually by appealing to authority) — VagabondSpectre

I agree.

but the great thing about all scientific facts is that by definition they need to be testable and falsifiable; — VagabondSpectre

This is indeed great, but this seems to be exactly the point at which belief in science gets so confused with knowledge. Because the knowledge itself changes. Belief has to be strong to allow science to guide your thinking as the knowledge changes.

The scientist with the most scientific understanding, who we would expect to employ the most faith per science as a religious system, actually takes less on faith than anyone else. — VagabondSpectre

You're confusing faith with belief here, within Tillich's dichotomy. So, the scientist who has the most understanding we would expect to have an "ultimate concern" in science. But are you saying that he does not in fact have that ultimate concern, or simply that he has less beliefs contained in his faith because of his scientific knowledge?

Are you saying that "belief in science" is incompatible with "belief in god"? — VagabondSpectre

No, I wasn't saying that. I was having some fun re-writing (and paraphrasing) bible verses with Science as the god.

Belief in science and God is of course possible, and belief is the right word here. Belief is a core component of thinking; I can't verify all scientific claims I hear about; not 100% of them. Not even a scientist can; a biologist probably takes what an astronomer says on belief. Or maybe, for fun he verifies it, but then next month he's too busy to verify someone else's astronomical claim, so he accepts it on belief. Certainly the average person accepts science simply with belief, not any verification of studies, let alone personal critical analysis of those studies. Science is truly, in a very deep sense, a belief system in this way. It's an entire system of claims which are often accepted without question. The problem is when this belief in science is assumed to be knowledge. There's quite simply too much information in the totality of the human experience for humans to not have belief. When you start thinking this way, the sheer amount of things we take solely on belief begins to become staggering. We believe in the news the same way (although not so much anymore. What's to become "fake" next, I wonder?).

Faith, on the other hand, is different. Paul Tillich describes faith as "ultimate concern". Humans have many concerns: social, political, scientific, religious, cognitive. Any can become the ultimate concern; any concern can become a faith. So,

"If [a concern] claims ultimacy it demands the total surrender of him who accepts this claim, and it promises total fulfillment even if all other claims have to be subjected to it or rejected in its name. If a national group makes the life and growth of the nation its ultimate concern, it demands that all other concerns, economic well-being, health and life, family, aesthetic and cognitive truth, justice and humanity, be sacrificed...Everything is centered in the only god, the nation - a god who certainly proves to be a demon, but who shows clearly the unconditional character of an ultimate concern."

"But it is not only the unconditional demand made by that which is one's ultimate concern, it is also the promise of ultimate fulfillment which is accepted in the act of faith. The content of this promise is not necessarily defined. It can be expressed in indefinite symbols or in concrete symbols which cannot be taken literally, like the "greatness" of one's nation in which one participates even if one has died for it, or the conquest of mankind by the "saving race", etc. In each of these cases it is "ultimate fulfillment" that is promised, and it is exclusion from such fulfillment which is threatened if the unconditional demand is not obeyed." (p1-2, Dynamics of Faith)

He goes on to describe how ultimate concern in something is faith:

"Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It happens at the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man's total being. They all are united in the act of faith...

This leads to the question of how faith as a personal, centered act is related to the rational structure of man's personality which is manifest in his meaningful language, in his ability to know the true and to do the good, in his sense of beauty and justice. All this, and not only his possibility to analyze, to calculate and to argue, makes him a rational being. But in spite of this larger concept of reason we must deny that man's essential nature is identical with the rational character of his mind. Man is able to decide for or against reason, he is able to create beyond reason or to destroy below reason. This power is the power of his self, the center of self-relatedness in which all elements of his being are united. Faith is not an act of any of his rational functions, as it is not an act of the unconscious, but it is an act in which both the rational and the nonrational elements of his being are transcended." (p. 5-6)

I think it's important to retain the word faith to emphasize the import and consequences of Tillich's concept. Anything can be an ultimate concern, looking at faith in this way. Scientific progress, for instance. Faith in science, then, is religious. Belief is not. But beliefs are a component of faith. Each of us has a faith which contains its requisite beliefs.

Nah, it's pretty cool.

Compared to the epic throes of such sarcastic existential neediness, what alleviation of suffering could there ever be? — VagabondSpectre

Do not suppose that I have come to bring sarcasm to the world. I did not come to bring sarcasm, but rather poetic analysis.

My point is that religious folk are happy to accept all the boons of science just as atheists are. — VagabondSpectre

Verily, whoever does the will of my Father Lord Science, is my brother and sister and mother.

That we're not inclined toward religion or religious belief is what loosely defines us as atheists in the first place though. — VagabondSpectre

Verily, whoever believes in Lord Science is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is already condemned because they have not believed in the name of Lord Science's One And Only Son.

Verily, we thank the Almighty Lord Science for all and every form of alleviation of physical suffering, and for all forms of ever increasing physical convenience that bring us closer and closer to our very Lord herself. For we consider these light and momentary afflictions as preparation for a weight of momentary glorious convenience and comfort before the inevitable extinguishment of our very existence. As we look not to the things that are unseen, but to the things THAT ARE SEEN. For the things that are unseen are IMAGINARY, but the things that are seen are, thank the fucking Lord, temporary.

Ah yes; thank the Almighty Lord Science for offering the alleviation of physical suffering, and for his bountiful blessings of Xanax for those sufferings we poor faithful are inflicted with that aren't quite as easy to define. But solely dependent, of course, on our health insurance. Thank the Lord for his daily blessings.

What alleviation from suffering can science offer an atheist which it cannot and does not also offer to the religiously devout? — VagabondSpectre

Wait, what alleviation from suffering does science even offer at all, to anyone?

Hey, that's a pretty cool comment.