It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was already nada y pues nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine. (A Clean, Well-Lighted Place)
Is man devoid of meaning? If he is not created by some entity with its own external purpose, does man have no purpose? Does the existence of God determine a man's purpose, or does man himself? Is it possible for some external entity to give you meaning and purpose? Listening to Paul Kurtz on Point of Inquiry radio, he spoke about the existential dilemma. From the Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia,
Paul points out that being a part of such a worldview, in which every behavior is outlined -- "do this, don't do that, be this, don't be that" is the very antithesis of freedom and individuality. Secular humanism presents an ethical alternative to religions, and allows one to maintain individual identity (rather than collective identity) and to pursue ones goals and hopes freely.
Insofar as views of the afterlife go, does death render life beautiful, or meaningless? Certainly, the value of every day increases exponentially if they are your only days to live. Clearly, the value of 70 years of life is pitiful if a hundred million trillion years of life follow. Just because life is thus made "precious" in value does not mean that death confers "meaning". We all must assign meaning to our own lives. We all must decide what will make our lives "worthwhile". Believers decide that faith is the penultimate goal, and that pleasing God is their summa bonum.
What this seems to boil down to is an argument on the part of theists that if we assign our own purposes and meanings to life, that those values and meanings are functionally deficient. A counterargument to them would run along the lines that they choose to assign meaning to themselves through their faith, and so in that sense, they can't escape the idea of "man-centered meaning/values/purpose". They choose to value God, religion, faith, etc. Their own faith is itself temporal, just as my values and purposes and meanings and goals are. Does that render faith pointless and functionally deficient? Or is faith not just another avenue by which humans assign themselves value?
How do I personally look at life, death, and despair? I'm a sort of Stoic. I'm a determinist who wants to live a good and virtuous life, and tries to deal with the things that I can know and control, and learn to accept the things which I cannot know or control.
I have written a little on quasi-Stoicism before, in the context of Stephen King's novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
The quick and easy way to become a Stoic? Simply know the things that are within your power, and the things that are not. Recognize how small you really are in the scheme of things, and do not despair or fret when circumstances do not unfold as you had planned or hoped. Be courageous enough to control those things which you can for good, and courageous enough to accept those things which fate/life/chance hand you unexpectedly. It does not mean you must become emotionless or apathetic, as is commonly misconceived. It means that you allow your mind, via reason, to rule your passions, and recognize the dangers posed by the passions to the execution of our values and goals.
One of the beautiful things about Stoics was the way that they derived value and meaning from the pursuit of virtue, and ataraxia, or inner peace. That is why Seneca, Marcus Aurellius and Epictetus, all at very different stations in life, held a similar outlook upon life's value and meaning. I don't want to get into the distinction between classical Stoicism and its difficulties with reconciling fatalism and freedom, but this should give you a picture of how I view the existential dilemma from a broad perspective.
________________
Technorati tags: Philosophy, Stoicism, Existential Dilemma
Another term for the groundlessness of the world of meaning is "nothingness." Heidegger introduced this term to indicate the kind of self- and world-understanding that emerges in anxiety: because my practical identity is constituted by the practices I engage in, when these collapse I "am" not anything. In a manner of speaking I am thus brought face-to-face with my own finitude, my "death" as the possibility in which I am no longer able to be anything. This experience of my own death, or "nothingness," in anxiety can act as a spur to authenticity: I come to see that I "am" not anything but must "make myself be" through my choice. In commiting myself in the face of death — that is, aware of the nothingness of my identity if not supported by me right up to the end — the roles that I have hitherto thoughtlessly engaged in as one does now become something that I myself own up to, become responsible for.Most of what Paul speaks about in his interview is "the courage to become" -- the courage to become who and what you want. Paul doesn't prescribe some step-by-step, self-help manual-type philosophy for us. What he does do is point out that religions all require the same thing, that you, as the believer/follower, abdicate yourself of your own freedom, and enter into the homogeneous fold. Without uniformity, believers are unable to easily identify themselves and "the others", and so maintaining a strong sense of community and identity almost requires these shared rituals, customs, and peculiar behaviors which are particular to each denomination of each religion. And thus the religion, or, as they would insist, the God of the religion, becomes the believer's purpose [although arguably God is subsumed into the religion and its customs, interpretations, Scriptures, etc.]. But what the believer has done is lose their own personal identity and purpose into this form of collectivism.
Paul points out that being a part of such a worldview, in which every behavior is outlined -- "do this, don't do that, be this, don't be that" is the very antithesis of freedom and individuality. Secular humanism presents an ethical alternative to religions, and allows one to maintain individual identity (rather than collective identity) and to pursue ones goals and hopes freely.
Insofar as views of the afterlife go, does death render life beautiful, or meaningless? Certainly, the value of every day increases exponentially if they are your only days to live. Clearly, the value of 70 years of life is pitiful if a hundred million trillion years of life follow. Just because life is thus made "precious" in value does not mean that death confers "meaning". We all must assign meaning to our own lives. We all must decide what will make our lives "worthwhile". Believers decide that faith is the penultimate goal, and that pleasing God is their summa bonum.
What this seems to boil down to is an argument on the part of theists that if we assign our own purposes and meanings to life, that those values and meanings are functionally deficient. A counterargument to them would run along the lines that they choose to assign meaning to themselves through their faith, and so in that sense, they can't escape the idea of "man-centered meaning/values/purpose". They choose to value God, religion, faith, etc. Their own faith is itself temporal, just as my values and purposes and meanings and goals are. Does that render faith pointless and functionally deficient? Or is faith not just another avenue by which humans assign themselves value?
How do I personally look at life, death, and despair? I'm a sort of Stoic. I'm a determinist who wants to live a good and virtuous life, and tries to deal with the things that I can know and control, and learn to accept the things which I cannot know or control.
I have written a little on quasi-Stoicism before, in the context of Stephen King's novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
The quick and easy way to become a Stoic? Simply know the things that are within your power, and the things that are not. Recognize how small you really are in the scheme of things, and do not despair or fret when circumstances do not unfold as you had planned or hoped. Be courageous enough to control those things which you can for good, and courageous enough to accept those things which fate/life/chance hand you unexpectedly. It does not mean you must become emotionless or apathetic, as is commonly misconceived. It means that you allow your mind, via reason, to rule your passions, and recognize the dangers posed by the passions to the execution of our values and goals.
One of the beautiful things about Stoics was the way that they derived value and meaning from the pursuit of virtue, and ataraxia, or inner peace. That is why Seneca, Marcus Aurellius and Epictetus, all at very different stations in life, held a similar outlook upon life's value and meaning. I don't want to get into the distinction between classical Stoicism and its difficulties with reconciling fatalism and freedom, but this should give you a picture of how I view the existential dilemma from a broad perspective.
________________
Technorati tags: Philosophy, Stoicism, Existential Dilemma
