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It's probably fair to say I bought into a lot of Humanism while in college. I guess it's just part of the idealistic culture that thrives on many college campuses.
I'm in the process of giving up my cherished belief that humans can improve the human condition and become better over time. I have suffered way too much "cognitive dissonance" in trying to maintain that belief. Like any religion, it "works" until it no longer explains reality. Then one is faced with two options: give up the religion, or deny the facts.
I can no longer deny the facts. Humans are what they are: just another animal.
I didn't know that Humanism was a 'religion.' It's more a philosophy, isn't it? It's non-secular.
I saw that last night and thought it was one of the best movies I have seen in awhile.
Yeah it was a VERY different apocalypse movie. Kept you guessing. Played out like it would play out for the hapless protagonists. And a very different and localized (to the US presumably) apocalypse from a very unusual cause (as such movies go). Good acting and the plot holes would mostly only matter to someone with IT / security expertise. Nor were they that big anyway.
Interesting choices of music, cinematography techniques, etc. Definitely watch it when you're not in a bad mood though, lol.
It's probably fair to say I bought into a lot of Humanism while in college. I guess it's just part of the idealistic culture that thrives on many college campuses.
I'm in the process of giving up my cherished belief that humans can improve the human condition and become better over time. I have suffered way too much "cognitive dissonance" in trying to maintain that belief. Like any religion, it "works" until it no longer explains reality. Then one is faced with two options: give up the religion, or deny the facts.
I can no longer deny the facts. Humans are what they are: just another animal.
Thanks for another interesting thread to follow along...
I have always appreciated the progress we humans have managed over time. Despite ourselves, and although I have faith there will always be people who help us move in that direction, I also realize there will always be the people who thwart that progress and/or move us backwards. If I want to look on the bright side, I can. If I want to see the "glass as half empty," I can do that too. More often than not, I don't really think about how things will unfold in the grand scheme of things. I am forever thinking (and telling my wife), "one day at a time." That's pretty much the long-and-short of how I live my life. My perspective. To make the most of what I can and strive to minimize what doesn't contribute to our quality of life. Or lessens it.
True there are far too many people suffering all over the world. This is nothing new and nothing that will end before I die I don't think, but there are lots of people happy to be alive. As one of those people, I know we're fortunate. Ultimately there is little to be gained from lamenting all there is to lament. We can't and shouldn't carry the world's problems on our shoulders.
"There is nothing clever about not being happy." -- Arnaud Desjardins
It's arguably my favorite book that I've yet read. I read it 10+ years ago over the course of several visits to a Borders bookstore, so my opinion of it would surely change somewhat were I to re-read it today, but given that my own worldview hasn't substantially changed over the course of that time period, I think my verdict on the book would be broadly similar
I'm nearly halfway through it and it seems to be taking no prisoners. It doesn't even like atheism:
Quote:
Unbelief is a move in a game whose rules are set by believers. To deny the existence of God is to accept the categories of monotheism ... atheists say they want a secular world, but a word defined by the absence of the Christians' god is still a Christin world ... Christianity struck at the root of pagan tolerance of illusion. In claiming that there is only one true faith, it gave truth a supreme value it had not had before. I also made disbelief in the divine possible for the first time. The long-delayed consequence of Christian faith was an idolatry of truth that found its most complete expression in atheism. If we live in a world without gods, we have Christianity to thank for it.
I don't agree with this because it has always been possible to reject all gods as either non-existent or irrelevant ... as Epicurus did long before Christianity. Christianity therefore doesn't really define us, though it is the main thing we strive with in the West.
I find myself agreeing with quite a lot in the book though. That humanity as a species is basically hopeless. That the primacy of man over the animal kingdom, and the existence of the self, and of free will, are illusions; idealism, a fool's errand.
I am not entirely sure I agree with his thinking on morality; although he correctly identifies it as rooted in empathy, he seems to regard it as little more than a sop to our conflicted motivations, seeming to prefer that we simply be true to our natures ... if I understand him correctly anyway. I would say no to this. Our natures are not uniformly empathetic or even thinking, so morality to me is a struggle not against "sin" but against our naturally dysfunctional and inattentive defaults.
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