Reflections
So I was thinking about my blog. It seems like I spend a lot of time posting about music and movies. I like music and movies, but is that all I think about? Of course not, but I seem to have painted my blog into that corner. In an effort to resist that, and since this is what I was thinking about this afternoon while I mowed, here is a post
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Re: Second. This is purely a mathematical quibble, but Nietzche should say that there is finite cost assigned to belief in the face of no god, because there is no infinite soul to be lost, only our finite existence.
Re: First. I can only speak for my understanding of Christianity, and not all religions, but as I've grown more attached to it and sought truth deep enough to fill big empty questions, it's been holding up for me. Of course, I assume any psychopath can find reasons why his worldview is internally consistent. The point is, in this case, I don't think that an honest Christian is living "for the afterlife." Jesus said that he came so we might have life more abundantly, and that the kingdom of heaven is near. I don't think that he meant that God was going to establish a righteous dictatorship in ten years and start forcing everyone to do good. I think he meant that we can live the way we would live in a perfect world, right now, if we choose to.
As to whether or not those goals, that idea of a perfect world, has any value in a godless world . . . what's the difference? Yes, we can come up with our own ideas about life and morality, but are they likely to be higher values than those of religions? What are religions in this case, if not our own ideas about life and morality, cultivated, refined, and recorded over thousands of years? The idea of the intellectual recognizing the falsity and futility of religion, and coming up with his own awesome creed, "I'm going to do what I like," strikes me as depressing cliche and uninspiring. If religions are all false, what harm is there in clinging to the (at best) unselfish creeds they prescribe? What is the value that Neitzche thinks we're missing out on? Self-centered morality is no more valuable than frog-centered morality in a random universe, save that we are humans and not frogs. The continuance of the species is a strangely unmoving goal to me.
I'm having trouble stringing together two ideas in such a way that a line of thought emerges, but my gist is that, even if false, religion elevates man more than it demeans him.
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The benefit and bane of organized religion (and chaotic religion, for that matter) is this: the interpretation of meaning, what has come before in some record, what is proscribed to come, what should be done and how... these things may be interpreted so widely simply by their sheer existence in language. The articulated directive is a dangerous and powerful entity unto itself. "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: Do this in memory of me." Jesus said. How often? When? Where? With whom? Did he want his apostles to make this ritual known to all makind or did he intend it to stay within the circle of his friends, who would miss him and wish to remember him fondly? Did he mean that the bread became his body (transubstantion) or did he use metaphor? What did body mean then? Has the meaning changed since? (and all this, just with the English translation!) Was the bread broken or the body broken... you see where I'm going with this.
The many "crazies" who use the Lord's Word to justify or simply explain their actions, deeds, words, plans, etc... they act on the Word of the Lord as it has been articulated. This is a tricky notion.
Who is to say whether the words and their meanings are what create within us a sense of social more, a balance separating right from wrong, or whether that comes before articulation? One is exposed to words, their denotative and connotative meanings, and the rates, pitches and tones of voice and expression that accompany the words during formative years. Likewise, even if one could "know" right from wrong without the words and their literal baggage, how would one articulate it to another without language? How could two persons attempt to form consensus without a common language and careful attention to shared meaning?
"I'm going to do what I like" isn't as simple as it sounds, is what I'm getting at. Nietzche makes the point that blindly following the rubric of our predecessors, in religion particularly, can strip one of his or her humanity, negating choice and decision, the very free will most tenets of Christianity prize as virtue of humanity.
His point that devaluing this post-eden earth is a useless endeavor is a valid one, also, regardless of the creed you follow. Whether there is a one true God, an afterlife of paradise, or no god and worm food in our future, what we have is the gift of life in the now in this place, in this time and in this form. We are men and women of the 21st century, and should live in the now instead of forever setting our sights on the hazy horizon with blinders on to our surroundings.
Dismissing cliche, out of hand, incidently, as depressing and worthless tripe is silly as well. Cliche became so for the very reason religion became so. It is knowledge passed down from past generations in a figurative and encompassing form. Think about it. Some cliches even originate in written record in the bible.
So yeah. Words rule. Literally.
heh. The grammar geek cracks herself up.
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That's true because, as you also describe, it is the bane of all communication. The problem is endemic in humanity and we just have to deal with it.
"We are men and women of the 21st century, and should live in the now instead of forever setting our sights on the hazy horizon with blinders on to our surroundings."
I think you mean that we should recognize that we live in the now, because we have no other time to live. Hence my (attempted) point that there is ample evidence that we should strive to live perfectly now, that we create heaven wherever we choose to live as if we were already there . . . "on earth as it is in heaven," etc. I didn't quite say exactly what I wanted to, so let me try again. I think it's possible that living perfectly in heaven and living perfectly on earth are done exactly the same way. The only thing that differs is the environment. You aren't living in a certain way on earth _in order_ to get to heaven. You're living that way because it is the best way to live.
"Dismissing cliche, out of hand, incidently, as depressing and worthless tripe is silly as well."
That's probably true. Let me know if anyone does so, and I will flay them.
I recognize and identify with your criticisms and observations. However, I don't think they prohibit this discussion from having meaning and context.
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Nor do I. I just think we all tend to allow ourselves to fall prey to flowery language sometimes, which by virtue of being seductively scholarly in nature actually betrays our eloquence in communicating. In other words, we three do talk like this sometimes, but I think in our writing even in blogs we tend to overcompensate with $10 words.
Heh... so did the gospels, though, in some ways.
To go back to Greg's original line though, what struck me personally about the internal argument I feel he is alluding to is the "do I believe because I believe or because I haven't questioned enough to change my mind?" Forgive me if I'm off, there, Greg.
The intrigue of that dilemna is paralyzing, a bit anyway. I mean, shouldn't faith stand the test of questioning? Isnt' faith in part based on belief in the absence of proof? Does this leave us faithful or stubbornly, willfully ignorant, not to accept challenges to the beliefs we've been taught? What does it take to truly internalize a taught belief system?
I think you both know I blindly believe things all the time. Often, I would be better served, so it would seem, to question more, or to demand proof. However, I cling stubbornly to my beliefs nonetheless. Sometimes, though, I begin to wonder and the second- and fifteenth- guessing is killer. This is no less true in religious or spiritual beliefs. I believe. But does that make me a stubborn, willful child?
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I'm not sure the argument I presented really deals with that question either, at least in the direct sense. Pascal does very little to elaborate the probability that a god exists, and Nietzche mostly presumes that there is no god. So while the reasonability of faith is a fascinating subject, these two are more focused on the implications of faith, rather than a a basis for it.
As a poor answer to your question, though, Pascal would probably get all mathematical about the probability of consequences. Nietzche would say not to cling to beliefs but instead to form new ones based purely on your own experience and insight. I would say that there are some things worth believing in, even if empirical evidence is hard to come by. Just don't discount proof just because it runs counter to your beliefs.
On a tangent, an interesting discussion about faith would be to compare traditional Christian scholars with secular philosophers like Hume or even Descartes to talk about how necessary faith is to even being a functioning human being.
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Now on to a rebuttal of sorts. I think a couple of your arguments make the same mistake that Pascal makes. Your arguments are framed from the perspective of the point you're trying to make. You say that loss of life is finite, since our life is finite in duration. This only makes sense, however, from some external perspective. To ourselves, the length of our life is infinite, since every experience is contained within it. If Nietzche is correct, and God is "dead," then there is no authoritative external perspective. Nothing can be more infinite than our own lives, since we can never experience anything outside that frame.
You say: "Self-centered morality is no more valuable than frog-centered morality in a random universe, save that we are humans and not frogs. The continuance of the species is a strangely unmoving goal to me."
When Nietzche (or Sartre or Rand or whoever) talks about being self-centered, they're not talking about being human-centric. They're talking about the individual self, not some collective social ethic. They're not talking about simple humanism, but a completely anti-social "me first" ethic that most likely contradicts the more social humanism of Kant or Marx. The continuance of the species is another attempt to frame life in an external perspective that removes its infinite nature. I think Nietzche would probably reject that as well (or at least he ought to).
You say that an "honest" Christian isn't living with the afterlife in mind. However, it seems like we expect Christians to behave in certain ways. That is, the phrase "Christian behavior" is a meaningful idea simply because the Christian religion prescribes certain constraints on your life. There seems to be little motivation in the corporeal sense to act in some of the self-destructive ways that Christian philosophy would compel us (eg. giving up our wealth, martyrdom, helping others at cost to ourselves). So what motivation do we have to behave morally? Only this: the claim that a higher power exists that judges our actions and transcends our own existence. Even without a clear idea of heavenly reward, the existence of a god and that god's demands on our lives is enough to coopt our existence in Nietzche's view.
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I understand your point, but this seems like a usurption of the idea of infinity.
"When Nietzche (or Sartre or Rand or whoever) talks about being self-centered, they're not talking about being human-centric. They're talking about the individual self, not some collective social ethic."
Hedonism: the philosophy. I understand that human-centric is an expansion of pure self-centeredness, but (having never read Nietzche) I never imagined that someone would propound pure selfishness as a creed. Is that really necessary? Isn't that what most people, regardless of their professed religion, pursue relentlessly?
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Nietzche, however, says that Christians are ninnies (approximately). He, and a lot of 20th century philosophers, would say that there is no universal or objective way of perceiving reality: everything we experience is filtered through our own perspective. Thus there is no universal constant, or at least not a meaningful one, since there is no universal way of perceiving it. Thus, the idea of an infinite measure of one's life becomes completely accurate if we concede that there is no meaningful universal perspective.
As for hedonism: lots of people pursue self-interest, but is that a good thing? Christians mostly say that it isn't, and they try to curb those attitudes and tendencies. Ayn Rand, on the other hand, wrote an entire book called The Virtue of Selfishness or something along those lines.
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