Doubt

[Kevin]

Did you take a look at what he said to me?  He mentioned "us" as in you and me, so yes I found it insulting.  

 

He should have picked his words more wisely when addressing me because I found his post to ME rude.

 

I meant that as in all humanity. It was not meant as an insult, and I don't know how you interpreted it as such. I am sorry if I have offended you unintentionally though. But I feel like you are being really unfair to me. I want to believe and in mostly I do, I just have some doubts, and also a history of depression and anxiety. Indeed, my mom died when I was in high school from an accidental overdose of sleeping medication, which she had to take in part of because of her anxiety problems.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Kevin

[MIKolbe]

Off topic posts have been moved.

 

Keep it on topic.

 

Thank you.

[LouisvilleFan]

@theculturewarrior

 

I have considered going to a therapist, since I think just meds alone are not getting it done.

 

Amen, brother.

 

Sorry for the children here who consider this thread an opportunity for cheap jokes. I think we all agree an Internet message board is not the place to find the real help you need, but if we can at least point you in the right direction and offer a little encouragement, something good is accomplished. I hope someday it's possible you will successfully ditch Zoloft completely. I understand some people truly need these medications, but a lot of people are prescribed this stuff and become alchoholics in a sense: they're treating the symptom in order to avoid confronting the disease.

 

Of course, take a good doctor's advice over mine. :)

 

Do you have any leads on spiritual directors or counselors? Or for that matter, a good person mature in the faith to talk to?

[Era Might]

 It's like in The Brothers Karamazov, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted" because everything is equally meaningless.

 

 

Animals know nothing of god, and yet not everything is permitted among them. And history is replete with examples of people finding ways to justify anything and still believe in god (usually they justify it by citing god). Just look at America. It's a rich and powerful country...obviously proof of God's special favor. It justifies all the crap we buy and sell, our military, our conquest of North America, etc.

 

Who is more peaceful, the hummingbird who knows nothing of god or the man who does?

 

I won't try to tell you whether god exists or not (I haven't figured that out myself), but I've found that fear drives many spiritual hangups. We go through this life, with all the pain and imperfection and limitations, in constant fear that in the next life we may burn in a fire for all eternity.

 

What happens when, for the sake of argument, when you remove that fear? When you look at life as a grand and beautiful and flawed attempt to make things a little better, in the many ways peoples around the world and throughout history have done so. And maybe it all ends when we die. Is that such a bad thing? It seems to me that hell is what really makes life meaningless, one big roll of the dice with eternal stakes decided in 60 years if you're lucky.

 

I can't say that I've been able to relieve myself of the fear, but in the moments I have entertained the possibility that the fear is for nothing, I've felt tremendous peace. Far from feeling like life is meaningless, I feel...peace.

 

But always there is still the fear in my mind, the fear of the unknown. Are our fears of the afterlife as unreal as the fears of sailing too far and falling off the edge of a flat earth? Is it based in reality, or in anxiety and projection?

 

The man you pass on the street one minute may be burning in hell the next. Does that give life meaning?

Edited December 1, 2012 by Era Might

[Kevin]

@Era Might

 

I respect your opinion, one that I have seen in many permutations, but I could not disagree with it more. It is indeed motivated in part by fear - as it should be. If you aren't afraid of the fact that all the grandness and beauty in the world is going to one day be utterly snatched away from you, along with your identity, your mind, and everything else, I can only say I don't understand your way of thinking. If I embraced such a peace, it would be inversely proportionate to the distance I felt between myself and death, and just a lie. As for Hell, if you reject God, then then death makes your rejection complete, as is your will - and that is Hell, the right to say NO.

 

I don't mean to sound harsh, but this kind of argument for secularism or agnosticism is not one of the things that bothers me about the faith.

[Era Might]

If you aren't afraid of the fact that all the grandness and beauty in the world is going to one day be utterly snatched away from you, along with your identity, your mind, and everything else, I can only say I don't understand your way of thinking.

 

I didn't say I wasn't afraid of it, only that if that is indeed that case, then it does not follow that one cannot have peace or meaning in life. The world went on without me for a long time before I was ever born, and if it were to go on without me after I die, there are any number of ways one could find meaning in that.

 

"I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:"

 

--Robinson Jeffers, "Shine Perishing Republic"

Edited December 1, 2012 by Era Might

[Era Might]

I don't mean to sound harsh, but this kind of argument for secularism or agnosticism is not one of the things that bothers me about the faith.

 

Also, even if there is no god, one can still appreciate belief in the concept of god as a personification of ideas and values, and religion as communal attempts to create meaning.

[Kevin]

 

I didn't say I wasn't afraid of it, only that if that is indeed that case, then it does not follow that one cannot have peace or meaning in life. The world went on without me for a long time before I was ever born, and if it were to go on without me after I die, there are any number of ways one could find meaning in that.

 

"I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:"

 

--Robinson Jeffers, "Shine Perishing Republic"

 

 

If you think that is "meaning" then we simply have irreconcilable worldviews. The idea of meaning without an ultimate referent seems to me a mere case of self-deception, as Sartre says here. There is no room in such a world for peace or meaning.

 

I would also point out how that poem (which as a poetry MFA I'm pretty familiar with) ends:

 

 

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say—God, when he walked on earth.

[Era Might]

 

If you think that is "meaning" then we simply have irreconcilable worldviews. The idea of meaning without an ultimate referent seems to me a mere case of self-deception, as Sartre says here. There is no room in such a world for peace or meaning.

Not sure what you mean by "ultimate referent" but reality is an "ultimate referent." Accepting the way things are is a referent, even if one does not know why or what. The buddha's nirvana is an "ultimate referent." I wasn't trying to reconcile any worldviews, simply challenging the assertion that without the existence of your conception of a personal god, one cannot find meaning in life.

 

 

I would also point out how that poem (which as a poetry MFA I'm pretty familiar with) ends:

 

 

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.

 

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say—God, when he walked on earth.

 

Ok? Jeffers mentions the word god, though I'm not sure how that changes the point I was making (and, by the by, I find it interesting how he slips in that "they say").

 

I guess I'm not sure exactly what you are struggling with or doubting. You seem to believe pretty firmly that reality requires an "ultimate referent" which you identify with a personal god who judges and and makes everything right at the end of time. If you accept that there is meaning in life, and you define meaning in a personal god, then it seems that your conception of reality makes the existence of god pretty much a given? Or am I missing something?

Edited December 1, 2012 by Era Might

[Kevin]

Not sure what you mean by "ultimate referent" but reality is an "ultimate referent." Accepting the way things are is a referent, even if one does not know why or what. The buddha's nirvana is an "ultimate referent." I wasn't trying to reconcile any worldviews, simply challenging the assertion that without the existence of your conception of a personal god, one cannot find meaning in life.

 

Ok? Jeffers mentions the word god, though I'm not sure how that changes the point I was making (and, by the by, I find it interesting how he slips in that "they say").

 

I guess I'm not sure exactly what you are struggling with or doubting. You seem to believe pretty firmly that reality requires an "ultimate referent" which you identify with a personal god who judges and and makes everything right at the end of time. If you accept that there is meaning in life, and you define meaning in a personal god, then it seems that your conception of reality makes the existence of god pretty much a given? Or am I missing something?

 

You say, "accepting the way things are" but that's the problem - you nor I don't know with any certainty the way things are. What we call "reality" is just an illusion based on our perceptions in a world without an ultimate metaphysical reality, and a world without God is a world without the possibility of a such a metaphysical reality.

 

Jeffers belief system is anti-humanist. He doesn't believe we can just live in the same comfortable way as before if the traditional idea of God.

 

Or to use Sartre again:

 

And when we speak of “abandonment” – a favorite word of Heidegger – we only mean to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality, they said something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will do without it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, it is essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a priori existence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do a little work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all the same, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God. In other words – and this is, I believe, the purport of all that we in France call radicalism – nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself. The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man. As Ponge has written in a very fine article, “Man is the future of man.” That is exactly true. Only, if one took this to mean that the future is laid up in Heaven, that God knows what it is, it would be false, for then it would no longer even be a future. If, however, it means that, whatever man may now appear to be, there is a future to be fashioned, a virgin future that awaits him – then it is a true saying. But in the present one is forsaken.

 

Just to qualify - Sartre seems to imply Divine Command theory (that the arbitrary will of God is in the old sense goodness) but in the old model the God of Abraham and the God of Plato and Aristotle are the same, so God's will is not arbitrary but the manifestation of Love. I think that, under your model, there is no possibility of metaphysical truth, and that is what I mean when I say you cannot construct "meaning" because to me meaning is synonymous with telos in the Aristotelian sense.

 

The problem with Sartre is doesn't really go far enough - though he is right in his essentials, he still in the end tries to reconstruct an excuse for life to go on at all just like those he criticizes.

 

What I doubt are simply matters of fact, i.e. the Resurrection, the Fall, etc. I don't feel I know enough to even make a probabilistic evaluation of the veracity of these things, so I can only go with what seems best to me without knowing if I am right.

 

Also, while I appreciate your taking the time to respond, I came to this site to get away from the discourses of secularism and agnosticism and engage with people who share the faith I feel is weak in me. So I would rather not continue this debate. If you what you believe makes you feel good, all the more power to you, but it will not work for me.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Kevin

[Lilllabettt]

Faith is something that requires doubt. Uncertainty and Faith will both wash away on the shores of eternity ... until then, those who would have the one must contend with the other.

 

You have gotten some interesting replies. But one thing I didn't see mentioned ... it's possible that you are meant to use this experience to develop your "negative capability" - your capacity to just live and be with uncertainty and doubt, without thrashing about desperately for "answers" or "proof."  Many, many important people have gone through this experience. Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare come to mind. They are truth seekers, they look and look, they learn, they grow in knowledge, and then they hit a wall. They struggle for awhile, and then they "surrender" and learn to be patient with not knowing, with ... waiting. It's inside this space that some of the most brilliant streaks of creativity and innovation happen. Some people say that well developed negative capability is what gives Barack Obama his creativity as a politician. 

 

If you are a person who would always rather take the "red pill" (Matrix reference!!!) this can be such a painful experience, and the reality is, you may or may not get "over" it over the course of your life ... but if this is what it is happening to you, maybe it will be helpful to recognize it and see that it has its purpose ... 

 

 

[Era Might]

Just to qualify - Sartre seems to imply Divine Command theory (that the arbitrary will of God is in the old sense goodness) but in the old model the God of Abraham and the God of Plato and Aristotle are the same, so God's will is not arbitrary but the manifestation of Love. I think that, under your model, there is no possibility of metaphysical truth, and that is what I mean when I say you cannot construct "meaning" because to me meaning is synonymous with telos in the Aristotelian sense.

 

Yes, I have something of the post-modernist in me, in the sense that I believe meaning is usually constructed, though I am not anti-religion, and still consider myself a Christian of the agnostic sort.

 

I had my own thread in the debate table about a month ago called "the non-existence of God"...you might find some more answers from others that are helpful. Here's the link:

 

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/124369-the-non-existence-of-god/

Edited December 1, 2012 by Era Might

[Era Might]

Oh, Kevin, if you like Sartre you have to read Simone Weil.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Weil

Edited December 1, 2012 by Era Might

[Kevin]

Yes, I have something of the post-modernist in me, in the sense that I believe meaning is usually constructed, though I am not anti-religion, and still consider myself a Christian of the agnostic sort.

 

I had my own thread in the debate table about a month ago called "the non-existence of God"...you might find some more answers from others that are helpful. Here's the link:

 

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/124369-the-non-existence-of-god/

 

Yes, reading your thread, I would say that you are just the sort of person I am trying to get away from (not in a personal way I mean, because you seem like a very nice person) by coming here because I am surrounded by people like you in my real life. I don't think I can agree with almost anything you say at all, so I think we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

Thank you for the recommendation, but I feel I need to get through Kierkegaard before I move to other existentialists.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Kevin

[Freedom]

I meant that as in all humanity. It was not meant as an insult, and I don't know how you interpreted it as such. I am sorry if I have offended you unintentionally though. But I feel like you are being really unfair to me. I want to believe and in mostly I do, I just have some doubts, and also a history of depression and anxiety. 

 

I'm sorry you feel that I was being unfair to you.  I stated facts about the Shroud of Turin.  When I said that quote about believers and unbelievers, I said this because I can't help you, to pass it off to other Phatmassers who can.  Please do not address me on this thread of "Doubt" again.