From a existentialist point of view, foregoing belief in God comes at great cost. In the absence of God the universe is absurd, life becomes an empty gesture, relationships are reduced to power dynamics, and the qualitative content of mental life gets dismissed. When you actually think about it, that's a pretty big hole that God fills and a huge lose when we don't let him.

Explain why I don't feel empty, then, because I definitely don't believe in God, I don't find relationships to be power dynamics (unless, of course, that's the agreed upon operative), and life becomes exactly what you make of it, regardless of whether or not someone else finds it to be an empty gesture. The universe isn't absurd, it just is.

(April 16, 2013 at 8:23 am)ChadWooters Wrote: From a existentialist point of view, foregoing belief in God comes at great cost. In the absence of God the universe is absurd, life becomes an empty gesture, relationships are reduced to power dynamics, and the qualitative content of mental life gets dismissed. When you actually think about it, that's a pretty big hole that God fills and a huge lose when we don't let him.

Foregoing the belief in God does not mean that life becomes an empty gesture. As summer said, the universe just is, but that does not diminish life in my eyes. It just means that we as humans bear the responsibility for making the most of life, and that life is only worth what we deem it to be worth.

Honestly, I think that when religious people mention the "emptiness" without god, they are simply preying on people's desires for life to have some sort of intrinsic value beyond what we determine it to have.

It might have more to do with the expectations religion imposes on the believers...said believer then become disappointed that religion has not delivered on it's promises?

I found that my current life had much more meaning when I realized that there was nothing beyond it. That, and the realization that my life was my own to manage, gives me a feeling of freedom and power and the motivation to enjoy the life I have even more than I did before. I have always loved life and enjoyed it; a change in perspective did not diminish that. Who are these people who are so easily overcome by the realization that they must rely on themselves instead of some invisible hand?

People who are searching for something to satisfy themselves will search with or without god.

(April 16, 2013 at 10:09 am)Tonus Wrote: I found that my current life had much more meaning when I realized that there was nothing beyond it. That, and the realization that my life was my own to manage, gives me a feeling of freedom and power and the motivation to enjoy the life I have even more than I did before.

I had the same experience as an atheist*. One of the most attractive things about Existentialism is the sense of taking full responsibility for your own life. Taking God out of the picture removes one more external constraint on a young man's life and a source of much hand-wringing like "did I do the right thing". Of course it doesn't mean you go balls out Dostoevsky. You still have your old habits. If you're kind and like to fly kites as a Christian, you'll probably still continue to be kind and fly kites. Personally, I did not change how I lived much at all. Even if life had no ultimate meaning, I could assign it proximate meaning for the duration of my life.

It took me a while to realize that I had lost something of value. Generally I think the basics of physical life are pretty simple...Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. To me it seems that life, as in Life, goes beyond meeting our purely physical needs. We have an inner life. We love and we think. These two things, loving and thinking, make us human and are what give life meaning and purpose.

So being a naturally reflective person I continued to contemplate things like the Good, Truth, and Beauty. Finding support for these trans-personal values, the ones that make life come alive, is not easy when you're committed to physical reduction. Like the professor in Crimes & Misdemeanors said, "The universe is a pretty cold place." And so it was the more I filtered reality through that lens that everything is quantifiable. When you start to think that the qualitative aspects of life are not real or important, you start to lose (at least I did) slowly and inexorably the sense that life has any value at all.

* The fact that I once was an atheist and am no longer one is not meant to be patronizing. It is just my personal history and places my comment in context.

"feeling empty inside" is most often heard immediately after some religiously enforced period of fasting.

(April 16, 2013 at 12:21 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(April 16, 2013 at 10:09 am)Tonus Wrote: I found that my current life had much more meaning when I realized that there was nothing beyond it. That, and the realization that my life was my own to manage, gives me a feeling of freedom and power and the motivation to enjoy the life I have even more than I did before.

I had the same experience as an atheist*. One of the most attractive things about Existentialism is the sense of taking full responsibility for your own life. Taking God out of the picture removes one more external constraint on a young man's life and a source of much hand-wringing like "did I do the right thing". Of course it doesn't mean you go balls out Dostoevsky. You still have your old habits. If you're kind and like to fly kites as a Christian, you'll probably still continue to be kind and fly kites. Personally, I did not change how I lived much at all. Even if life had no ultimate meaning, I could assign it proximate meaning for the duration of my life.

It took me a while to realize that I had lost something of value. Generally I think the basics of physical life are pretty simple...Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. To me it seems that life, as in Life, goes beyond meeting our purely physical needs. We have an inner life. We love and we think. These two things, loving and thinking, make us human and are what give life meaning and purpose.

So being a naturally reflective person I continued to contemplate things like the Good, Truth, and Beauty. Finding support for these trans-personal values, the ones that make life come alive, is not easy when you're committed to physical reduction. Like the professor in Crimes & Misdemeanors said, "The universe is a pretty cold place." And so it was the more I filtered reality through that lens that everything is quantifiable. When you start to think that the qualitative aspects of life are not real or important, you start to lose (at least I did) slowly and inexorably the sense that life has any value at all.

* The fact that I once was an atheist and am no longer one is not meant to be patronizing. It is just my personal history and places my comment in context.

Notice how idiots like wooters always confuse pomposity with sophistication, and try to insinuate themselves into the circle of thinking men by affecting what they conceive to be sophistication beyond the drivel at the core of Christianity, through repulsive pomposity.

But once their thin disguise penetrated, as it always soon is, they can never affect different act, and always fall like an anchor into the abyss of regurgitated anoxic Christian drivel?

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(April 16, 2013 at 12:42 pm)cato123 Wrote: "feeling empty inside" is most often heard immediately after some religiously enforced period of fasting.

Yes, and low blood sugar level and attendant breakdown in higher cognative function of this emptyness is good for embracing Jesus.

(April 16, 2013 at 8:23 am)ChadWooters Wrote: From a existentialist point of view, foregoing belief in God comes at great cost. In the absence of God the universe is absurd, life becomes an empty gesture, relationships are reduced to power dynamics, and the qualitative content of mental life gets dismissed. When you actually think about it, that's a pretty big hole that God fills and a huge lose when we don't let him.

Way to belittle my relationship with my family.

Believe it or not I have an extremely good, loving relationship with both my wife and children.

The added delusion of god could not make me love my children and wife any more than I do now.

The hole your god fills is a product of your imagination.