This post helps me understand where you’re coming from. You write that there were those that “were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty.” So it seems that your background was an expectation to serve and surrender to something external. So if you believed in God, God was the powerful force that needed to be served because God was good whereas you only had the potential to be good. I think people would and should chafe against such a world view of overt control and self-negation.
My background is different, and perhaps it explains why there seems to be a spectrum of some theists and atheists seeing God as a dictator, with different theists and atheists have angst about ‘the meaning of life’.
In my background, independence and self-actualization was always emphasized, but unfortunately this was combined with a skepticism about everything. There was still strongly instilled that idea that you should live to ‘something higher’ but it’s never explained what that is (you need to find it for yourself) and meanwhile all the things that are proffered as examples (being wealthy or famous, playing a great role in history, making discoveries, decreasing suffering and helping others) are always handled cynically. It seems there’s actually ‘nothing to believe in’, nothing higher than oneself, and thus no way to improve oneself or transcend circumstances. There’s a running joke in my family, expressed in different ways, that the only life-philosophy that successfully bears testing is materialism.
My whole life I’ve been looking for meaning. As a child, I went to any local place of worship that I could walk to, because I liked the idea of a perfect plane of existence parallel to this one. I felt like a worthwhile life would be one that somehow transcended this life.
I’m very happy in this life, and am converging on the idea that my personal meaning of life is to learn to love more fully in the ways that I am capable. But it all seems terribly imperfect, first of all, and sometimes not sufficient.
It seems that our backgrounds were similar in that we were supposed to serve something higher. In your case, this something higher was made explicit and found inadequate. In my case, this something higher was not described but all potentials for ‘defining your own goals’ were measured inadequate.
What I’ve written here seems only sort of right… but I’m not sure yet which part is just-so. I’ll think about it and possibly add something later. (Later edit: I think stories make me uncomfortable. I think it’s only in a very limited way they could ever be true.)
It seems there’s actually ‘nothing to believe in’, nothing higher than oneself, and thus no way to improve oneself or transcend circumstances.
I don’t follow the reasoning. Why does ‘nothing higher than oneself’ mean there is no way to improve oneself? And it’s even less relevant to being able to transcend circumstances. Crazy talk.
Why does ‘nothing higher than oneself’ mean there is no way to improve oneself?
I suppose because any changes you make will result only result in differences, not anything better. If you can’t define a better way to be, which direction should you move in?
Crazy talk.
I agree. For several months now, no directions on this topic have not seemed crazy. I think it’s crazy to look for value outside oneself, and I don’t believe one chooses what to value; they choose what it is they value.
Yes, I had some trouble writing that sentence. (My initial, “I don’t believe one chooses what to value; one chooses what they value” was even worse.)
There is the idea floating around that if there is no God dictating values, we get to define our values for ourselves. There’s this sense—perhaps I am misreading it—that there’s joy in this unexpected freedom to define our own values and define who we are.
My point was that whatever values we ‘decide’ to have, we picked those values because we already valued them.
It doesn’t feel like freedom to me. It feels like we have exactly the same set of values we’ve always had, but now instead of being guided in a positive direction by something “inherently good” (e.g., God made us in his image) they are given by something I feel neutral about and not so loyal towards (evolution and chance circumstance).
On the other hand, I understand that if someone had a view of God as doling out arbitrary or burdensome values (you must go to church, you must get married to someone of the correct gender, etc), then being able to go by your own internal values would feel relatively free.
This post helps me understand where you’re coming from. You write that there were those that “were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty.” So it seems that your background was an expectation to serve and surrender to something external. So if you believed in God, God was the powerful force that needed to be served because God was good whereas you only had the potential to be good. I think people would and should chafe against such a world view of overt control and self-negation.
My background is different, and perhaps it explains why there seems to be a spectrum of some theists and atheists seeing God as a dictator, with different theists and atheists have angst about ‘the meaning of life’.
In my background, independence and self-actualization was always emphasized, but unfortunately this was combined with a skepticism about everything. There was still strongly instilled that idea that you should live to ‘something higher’ but it’s never explained what that is (you need to find it for yourself) and meanwhile all the things that are proffered as examples (being wealthy or famous, playing a great role in history, making discoveries, decreasing suffering and helping others) are always handled cynically. It seems there’s actually ‘nothing to believe in’, nothing higher than oneself, and thus no way to improve oneself or transcend circumstances. There’s a running joke in my family, expressed in different ways, that the only life-philosophy that successfully bears testing is materialism.
My whole life I’ve been looking for meaning. As a child, I went to any local place of worship that I could walk to, because I liked the idea of a perfect plane of existence parallel to this one. I felt like a worthwhile life would be one that somehow transcended this life.
I’m very happy in this life, and am converging on the idea that my personal meaning of life is to learn to love more fully in the ways that I am capable. But it all seems terribly imperfect, first of all, and sometimes not sufficient.
It seems that our backgrounds were similar in that we were supposed to serve something higher. In your case, this something higher was made explicit and found inadequate. In my case, this something higher was not described but all potentials for ‘defining your own goals’ were measured inadequate.
What I’ve written here seems only sort of right… but I’m not sure yet which part is just-so. I’ll think about it and possibly add something later. (Later edit: I think stories make me uncomfortable. I think it’s only in a very limited way they could ever be true.)
I don’t follow the reasoning. Why does ‘nothing higher than oneself’ mean there is no way to improve oneself? And it’s even less relevant to being able to transcend circumstances. Crazy talk.
I suppose because any changes you make will result only result in differences, not anything better. If you can’t define a better way to be, which direction should you move in?
I agree. For several months now, no directions on this topic have not seemed crazy. I think it’s crazy to look for value outside oneself, and I don’t believe one chooses what to value; they choose what it is they value.
This seems like a distinction without a difference. Can you explain in more detail what you mean here?
Yes, I had some trouble writing that sentence. (My initial, “I don’t believe one chooses what to value; one chooses what they value” was even worse.)
There is the idea floating around that if there is no God dictating values, we get to define our values for ourselves. There’s this sense—perhaps I am misreading it—that there’s joy in this unexpected freedom to define our own values and define who we are.
My point was that whatever values we ‘decide’ to have, we picked those values because we already valued them.
It doesn’t feel like freedom to me. It feels like we have exactly the same set of values we’ve always had, but now instead of being guided in a positive direction by something “inherently good” (e.g., God made us in his image) they are given by something I feel neutral about and not so loyal towards (evolution and chance circumstance).
On the other hand, I understand that if someone had a view of God as doling out arbitrary or burdensome values (you must go to church, you must get married to someone of the correct gender, etc), then being able to go by your own internal values would feel relatively free.