The inevitable march of secularism? Not so fast

[Jeff Lebowski]

I'm not defining religion at all. There's no point to anything. Period. The meaning of life could be 42 for all I care. The only meaning you can imbue your life with is the one you seek out for yourself; if we only find meaning in our own self-endowed perceptions, how can we ever trust our unmediated reality? We can't, which is why Hume, king of empiricists, hit the nail on the head. There is no point to life, even if you try and find a point to life, there can't be one unless there is a God just like we were taught in our youth, in which case you're fucked (me too, probably).

The sooner we accept that life is meaningless, the happier we'll be with the utter meaninglessness of it all. If we're constantly searching for meaning in life, we'll never be happy. For, if there can be said to be any meaning at all to life, it's to try and be happy as often as you can, and to make others happy. Humanism and the teachings of Jesus are a great way to live, probably the best way, but there's not any "meaning" to them. They are just a code, devoid of any meaning beyond trying to keep us from killing each other, itself pretty much meaningless.

Wow.

[tooblue]

I'm not defining religion at all. There's no point to anything. Period. The meaning of life could be 42 for all I care. The only meaning you can imbue your life with is the one you seek out for yourself; if we only find meaning in our own self-endowed perceptions, how can we ever trust our unmediated reality? We can't, which is why Hume, king of empiricists, hit the nail on the head. There is no point to life, even if you try and find a point to life, there can't be one unless there is a God just like we were taught in our youth, in which case you're fucked (me too, probably).

The sooner we accept that life is meaningless, the happier we'll be with the utter meaninglessness of it all. If we're constantly searching for meaning in life, we'll never be happy. For, if there can be said to be any meaning at all to life, it's to try and be happy as often as you can, and to make others happy. Humanism and the teachings of Jesus are a great way to live, probably the best way, but there's not any "meaning" to them. They are just a code, devoid of any meaning beyond trying to keep us from killing each other, itself pretty much meaningless.

And enters in the postmodernist nihilist.

[wuapinmon]

I think you and Wap are misunderstanding the point because you’re defining religion too narrowly. Religion, according to Harari, is the secret sauce that makes any civilization possible. It’s the fictional stuff that resides in our imagination, and is real only because we all agree it’s real. So, it includes legal codes, money, humanism, campitalism, as well as religions that decide ethical issues by resort to scripture. In modernism, humanism is the yang to science’s yin (Harari says that). Religion is just a tool humans have used in order to build the pyramids, etc. “Religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organising large-scale cooperation.”

Spirituality is different from religion, because spirituality means finding your own way based on your inner voice and feelings, apart from social order. Jesus and Buddha started out on spiritual paths, rebelling against the prevailing religions, and ironically they became the source of “more laws, more rituals and more structures were created in their names than in the name of any other person in history.”

I’m summarizing what’s in the book. These are not my own original sayings.

I'm not defining religion at all. There's no point to anything. Period. The meaning of life could be 42 for all I care. The only meaning you can imbue your life with is the one you seek out for yourself; if we only find meaning in our own self-endowed perceptions, how can we ever trust our unmediated reality? We can't, which is why Hume, king of empiricists, hit the nail on the head. There is no point to life, even if you try and find a point to life, there can't be one unless there is a God just like we were taught in our youth, in which case you're fucked (me too, probably).

The sooner we accept that life is meaningless, the happier we'll be with the utter meaninglessness of it all. If we're constantly searching for meaning in life, we'll never be happy. For, if there can be said to be any meaning at all to life, it's to try and be happy as often as you can, and to make others happy. Humanism and the teachings of Jesus are a great way to live, probably the best way, but there's not any "meaning" to them. They are just a code, devoid of any meaning beyond trying to keep us from killing each other, itself pretty much meaningless.

[creekster]

I think you and Wap are misunderstanding the point because you’re defining religion too narrowly. Religion, according to Harari, is the secret sauce that makes any civilization possible. It’s the fictional stuff that resides in our imagination, and is real only because we all agree it’s real. So, it includes legal codes, money, humanism, campitalism, as well as religions that decide ethical issues by resort to scripture. In modernism, humanism is the yang to science’s yin (Harari says that). Religion is just a tool humans have used in order to build the pyramids, etc. “Religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organising large-scale cooperation.”

Spirituality is different from religion, because spirituality means finding your own way based on your inner voice and feelings, apart from social order. Jesus and Buddha started out on spiritual paths, rebelling against the prevailing religions, and ironically they became the source of “more laws, more rituals and more structures were created in their names than in the name of any other person in history.”

I’m summarizing what’s in the book. These are not my own original sayings.

I can't speak for Wuap, but I think I get the point. I am struggling to understand what he is presenting here that is different or new. Why, IOW, is this book and its conclusions important? Religion, as you are suggesting he describes it, is the tribal influence that we have talked about here many, many times over the years.

I am sure it is a good book. And I am glad you enjoyed it.

[SeattleUte]

Ha. Gotta love those cherry-picked comparisons:



I wonder why the author didn't pick Stalinist Russia vs. the U.S.

It is exactly this kind of hubris I was referencing in the OP.

In fact, humanism shared the fate of every successful religion, such as Christianity and Buddhism. As it spread and evolved, it fragmented into several conflicting sects. All humanist sects believe that human experience is the supreme source of authority and meaning, yet they interpret human experience in different ways. Humanism split into three main branches. The orthodox branch holds that each human being is a unique individual possessing a distinctive inner voice and a never-to-be-repeated repeated series of experiences. . . .The more liberty individuals enjoy, the more beautiful, rich and meaningful is the world. Due to this emphasis on liberty, the orthodox branch of humanism is known as ‘liberal humanism’ or simply as ‘liberalism’.* It is liberal politics that believes the voter knows best. Liberal art holds that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Liberal economics maintains that the customer is always right. Liberal ethics advises us that if it feels good, we should go ahead and do it. Liberal education teaches us to think for ourselves, because we will find all the answers within.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as humanism gained increasing social credibility and political power, it sprouted two very different offshoots: socialist humanism, which encompassed a plethora of socialist and communist movements, and evolutionary humanism,whose most famous advocates were the Nazis. Both offshoots agreed with liberalism that human experience is the ultimate source of meaning and authority. Neither believed in any transcendental power or divine law book.

So, apparently wars among the splinters of humanism have killed more people by far than the combined religious wars among monotheists combined. Maybe that makes you feel better about this.

[Topper]

I think you and Wap are misunderstanding the point because you’re defining religion too narrowly. Religion, according to Harari, is the secret sauce that makes any civilization possible. It’s the fictional stuff that resides in our imagination, and is real only because we all agree it’s real. So, it includes legal codes, money, humanism, campitalism, as well as religions that decide ethical issues by resort to scripture. In modernism, humanism is the yang to science’s yin (Harari says that). Religion is just a tool humans have used in order to build the pyramids, etc. “Religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organising large-scale cooperation.”

Spirituality is different from religion, because spirituality means finding your own way based on your inner voice and feelings, apart from social order. Jesus and Buddha started out on spiritual paths, rebelling against the prevailing religions, and ironically they became the source of “more laws, more rituals and more structures were created in their names than in the name of any other person in history.”

I’m summarizing what’s in the book. These are not my own original sayings.

This makes sense.

[SeattleUte]

This was sort of my point. So, as SU, and the author he was quoting, see it, we all need something of a religious nature in our lives. Some might use organized traditional religions, others might hug trees on the weekends. Whatever it is, though, we all need it and our societies need it. But reaching this conclusion sheds no light on whether any of the religions are correct or mistaken, true or false. Indeed, even if one of them was correct, the fact tat some or almost all people had gone in a different direction wouldn't prove or disprove that fact. There are also other inferences one might draw from this apparent condition of humanity.

I think you and Wap are misunderstanding the point because you’re defining religion too narrowly. Religion, according to Harari, is the secret sauce that makes any civilization possible. It’s the fictional stuff that resides in our imagination, and is real only because we all agree it’s real. So, it includes legal codes, money, humanism, campitalism, as well as religions that decide ethical issues by resort to scripture. In modernism, humanism is the yang to science’s yin (Harari says that). Religion is just a tool humans have used in order to build the pyramids, etc. “Religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organising large-scale cooperation.”

Spirituality is different from religion, because spirituality means finding your own way based on your inner voice and feelings, apart from social order. Jesus and Buddha started out on spiritual paths, rebelling against the prevailing religions, and ironically they became the source of “more laws, more rituals and more structures were created in their names than in the name of any other person in history.”

I’m summarizing what’s in the book. These are not my own original sayings.

[wuapinmon]

This was sort of my point. So, as SU, and the author he was quoting, see it, we all need something of a religious nature in our lives. Some might use organized traditional religions, others might hug trees on the weekends. Whatever it is, though, we all need it and our societies need it. But reaching this conclusion sheds no light on whether any of the religions are correct or mistaken, true or false. Indeed, even if one of them was correct, the fact tat some or almost all people had gone in a different direction wouldn't prove or disprove that fact. There are also other inferences one might draw from this apparent condition of humanity.

I once had a shower thought that if we evolved to be spiritual, then there might be a biological imperative that needs scratching to keep all systems operational. But, there's no proof that we evolved spirituality, only that we have it, perhaps as a side effect of other evolutionary pressures.

[creekster]

I still find it interesting that SU still needs to find meaning to his life to define himself.


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This was sort of my point. So, as SU, and the author he was quoting, see it, we all need something of a religious nature in our lives. Some might use organized traditional religions, others might hug trees on the weekends. Whatever it is, though, we all need it and our societies need it. But reaching this conclusion sheds no light on whether any of the religions are correct or mistaken, true or false. Indeed, even if one of them was correct, the fact tat some or almost all people had gone in a different direction wouldn't prove or disprove that fact. There are also other inferences one might draw from this apparent condition of humanity.

[Moliere]

Guys, life is meaningless. You'll only find happiness when you realize that there is no fucking point to anything.

I still find it interesting that SU still needs to find meaning to his life to define himself.


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[wuapinmon]

Guys, life is meaningless. You'll only find happiness when you realize that there is no fucking point to anything.

[CardiacCoug]

Except that it's absolute shit.

Ha ha! I like how he imagines there is nobody who believes in God between New Orleans and Montreal.

I’d give him Napierville to Montreal — but along the rest of that road a majority of people I think have a primitive, literal belief in God.

[SeattleUte]

My comment about the existence of God was directed more towards what I understand to be the point of some or many of your posts here over time and a speculation about how you might use this analysis amongst us, your brethren.

What I understand, then, is that he proposes the march of science has not, in the slightest, eradicated religion. Instead, it has led the Dutch and others to replace a belief in a Supreme Being with a general belief in each other and our feelings. OK. This is a point that has been made here in this forum many times in the past. Anyone who carefully considers the human condition would, I think, reach a similar conclusion. Unlike the Age of Anger, which seemed intriguing and which I bought and have almost finished, this book doesn't seem as interesting.

There are many crossovers between Age of Anger and Harari’s books. When Harari says the Scientific Revolution, he means capitalism’s triumph too, because, as he notes, capitalism has driven the Scientific Revolution. Without capitalism, scientists would have no means to pursue science nor know what to do with it. And therefore it’s the Scientific Revolution that has led to all the anger that Age of Anger describes that has been mounting and manifesting itself in various ways through the last five hundred years and all over the world. Like Age of Anger, Harari does a good job of demonstrating that this Scientific Revolution has been at best a mixed bag for living things overall, and even humans. But overall I think Harari’s sympathies lie more with animals than humans including religious people who have not been on the winning end of the Scientific Revolution. Overall, Harari regards humans, including the poor and religious, to have in many ways been made better off by the Scientific Revolution. He does, however, raise the possibility that hunter gatherers were better off than factory workers in China or serfs or peasants. Animals, however, have gotten a very bad deal without mitigation—except for rats and cockroaches.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I’ve never taken a position on the existence of god, not since the early eighties.

[tooblue]

SeattleUte: the quintessential postmodernist religionist. Who knew?