Spirits

The impulse of our spirits is to hope eternally and this is why christianity attracts even the most intelligent of minds. While it cannot stand at the presence of logic it survives and overcomes it because men do not act according to reason but according to their passions.
Fichte, like Nietzsche, was “sick” and…nauseated. In both we find a rejection of christianity; Nietzsche goes even further and calls God dead, but the needs remains to establish purpose and meaning back to life.
Johann says:“My inner voice tells me that something results from this activity. This something now necessarly becomes a purpose for me because I ought to carry out the act which is the means to this purpose and only to it.”
That “activity” is Life. And that “something” is an idol, is a ruse, is christian Heaven and Hell… is an Overman? It is all extensions to add upon this life, for life cannot endure purposelessness. Purpose is power, or at least the positive illusion of it, for we really need no question it…we must only believe. It is not a thought, but faith. Do you believe me?
Knowledge is not a requirement, but for the noble minds of some. The identity of a god is not necessary to build an altar to it. Paul goes on to teach them the identity of that unknown. In this we see the method of faith: Often the altar, like the capacity for faith, is already built in the listener. It just requires the right software…
The point I would like to make is that this hunger for power, for the sacred, for purpose, is the hunger of Life. Modern Man, except for aberrations, demands Life. We can examine the practices of infanticide in ancient cultures, but that is not what I seek to affirm. Man kills and commits ritual suicide, but both deaths have meaning, have purpose and that is key. What you will not often find is a true nihilist. People may survive their depression by displaying one’s discontent–they talk about it and treat it, measure it, romance it etc. It is when it curves inwards that these urges, these nauseas, consume the individual because, more often than not, it is the INDIVIDUAL, that dies our of sadness. The gear that finds that it belongs to no machine…it turns nothing and so it collects rust.
We are social beings.
But we are veering off-center. It cannot be helped.
As I was writing, we possess a hunger for life, a Will to Live. It does happen to some sensitive individuals, and I stress that, that their life is put under analysis. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but every examination will ensure the worth of life. Why? Because it is not the actual point of the inquiry to judge between life or death. What is sought is a difference.
Call it Nausea, if you like. The point here is a bite in the mind “a splinter in your mind”. Happiness prevents one from such enquiries into life. Religion has a harder time reaching healthy individuals.
The priest must manufacture in them the need, a disatisfaction, it must make them think about a better, fuller life and then offer it to them. The convert has a need to live (and few are those that can kill themselves upon an honest enquiry into the value of human existence) and out of this commitment for it’s preservation, Life creates or accepts purposes to endure the discomforts of Life.
We imagine, we infer, we create, we believe in a better future (not necessarly always for ourselves but for that with which we identify and form a part of), and so we create purpose for our existence.
Johann says:“Only so far as I see this condition as a means to something better, as a point of transition to something higher and more perfect, does it come to have value for me.”
Life in itself seems meaningless but the Will to Live, that inner voice, creates purpose and meaning to live for another day. These europeans and the christian agree on the incompleteness of being and simply disagree on what will complete it.

Hi Omar

True but the meaning that life provides can begin to become inadequate for some and they seek the “second education.” The first was their education allowing them to function as good members of society. The second education begins when a person wonders what they are actually doing and what is it all for and finds those that can be learned from. But the bottom line is I do very much agree that this feeling of incompleteness is common for most religiously sensitive and the battles result from differing approaches towards completion.

I agree that power is the motivation and it is reflected in prestige that disguises ourloss of purpose. However this feeling of power only exists because the scope of our conception of being is limited to ourselves and life on the same plane of our egos existence. Man’s purpose I believe is in connecting higher and lower levels of being and real human purpose and the ability “to do” in the conscious sense is related to this connection. Having lost this understanding, objective human purpose degenerates into the subjective purposes of our egotism. and the exertion of power as you’ve described.

Frankly, I don’t see a way out. Leaving aside the esoteric purpose of religion, if people were content with the life of the good householder as expressed in the Book of Ecclesiastes half the problems would disappear but that need for power and prestige will not allow it. As I watch the advertising on television it caters to this need for power and prestige since the execs know it is what is wanted in spite of all the platitudes expressed in certain circles.

There is nothing wrong with dissatisfaction. The problem is our attraction to but confusion as to the nature of the “pearl of great worth”.

People are drawn to this religion because they fear death and cannot self-motivate to be kind. At times the religion acts as a genie as people wish for good things to happen.

The fact is that great minds are repulsed by religion not attracted to it.

Adlerian

Not necessary, but still 100% truth :sunglasses:

That is true to a certain extent, and I wonder why that is. Maybe it is because religion is bad (as I believe you are suggesting). Maybe it is because we only call people who disbelief religion great minds, because they tip the proverbial wheelbarrow (one is more likely to be remembered if one criticizes than if one agrees). Maybe great minds simply think too much and dwell on the bad sides on religion ignoring the good sides of religion.

What about atheists who become spritual/religious Alderian?
What about hard line atheist functionalist philosophers who go on to believe in a deity , and a soul?

That must be why I am not religious eh.LOL

Yep, you must see both sides, if you are an atheis, at least inform yourself properly before making a conclusion.