existentialism

[iambiguous]

From PN:

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
Kate Taylor recalls a ‘humanist’ classic by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s short book Existentialism is a Humanism (1946) sets out the main claims of Sartre’s existentialism, and defends these against some of the criticisms laid against it.

Or, perhaps, more to the point, both are Isms. And, of course, so is criticism.

Isms tend to attract those who anchor their moral and political convictions to objectivism. Another one.

But a crucial point regarding existentialism is that it steers clear of essentialism. The idea that value judgments can be ascertained ontologically, teleologically and deontologically – God or No God – if [and only if] they are anchored to the correct Ism.

Pick one:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p … ideologies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s … philosophy

And, sure, it might end up that yours is actually the most rational and enlightened one of all.

Sartre makes two basic claims – firstly that God is dead and this has consequences for the way we live; and secondly that all claims about humanity and the world must begin with human experience. Given these two claims, Sartre concludes that ‘existence precedes essence’. What he means by this is that human beings are without any pre-existing purpose or ‘essence’ which is not of their own making.

The first claim is of fundamental importance because if there is a God, the God and this God is both omniscient and omnipotent, then case closed. The whole truth just doesn’t get more essential than that. On the other hand, if moral and political claims begin with human experience, how then are we to confront the fact that historically and culturally and in terms of our own personal experiences, there have been, are now and always will be countless differences? And, indeed, given that philosophy has been around for many, many centuries now and we are no where near to a consensus regarding any of the most wrenching moral conflagrations, what does that tell us?

Of course, some then argue that the closest we come to an essential human scaffolding is our embodiment of “biological imperatives”. Genes. So, according to them, in regard to things like race and ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation there are behaviors that are “natural” and behaviors that are “deviant”.

Then one by one they will tell you what must be done to those who are not “one of us”. All the way up to extermination.

[iambiguous]

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
Kate Taylor recalls a ‘humanist’ classic by Jean-Paul Sartre.

If we think about an everyday manufactured object – let’s say a chair – we can see that it has been made with specific qualities in order to carry out a specific purpose: as something for us to sit on. Even before he goes about making it, the manufacturer of the chair already has in mind what he wants the chair to look like, the types of qualities that he wants it to have. This specific set of qualities exists before the chair exists, in the mind of the manufacturer. Sartre thinks that when we talk of human beings having a specific essence, we are making the assumption that we, like the chair, have been made according to a specific set of qualities in order to carry out a specific purpose. In other words, we assume that even before we are born what we are – our essence – already exists in the mind of our supernatural manufacturer, that is, God.

On the other hand, even in a No God world, all human beings are essentially biological entities. And we all share in common particular necessities that we must obtain and then sustain if we wish to go on living. We must obtain food and water. We must acquire a shelter. We must create a community capable of reproducing and defending itself.

But even in regard to necessities, where do genes end and memes begin? After all, down through the ages [as Marx noted] human communities have in fact gone about the business of creating and then sustaining the “means of production” in ways that resulted in very different “political economies”.

So, today, is capitalism or socialism closer to an essential understanding of the human condition? Are liberals or conservatives closer to encompassing it?

But if God is dead, this cannot be true.

On the contrary, down through the ages there have been any number of entirely secular renditions of God that not only proposed an essential understanding of the world around us but acted on it. You know the ones.

So since he is an atheist, Sartre says that existence precedes essence: unlike the chair, we do not come into existence with a specific set of qualities in order to carry out some or other purpose. Rather, the responsibility falls solely on us as individuals to make our purpose for ourselves. In the absence of a supernatural manufacturer, we make ourselves.

Still, again, there are biological parameters: the color of our skin, our gender, our sexual orientation [some say], our innate intelligence and personality traits. In fact, some focus in entirely on this and pontificate their own dogmatic “my way or the highway” assessment of Nature itself.

Then those like me who thought through Sartre’s own assessment and reconfigured existentialism into moral nihilism in the is/ought world.

[iambiguous]

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
Kate Taylor recalls a ‘humanist’ classic by Jean-Paul Sartre.

But how, without a manufacturer’s blueprint, do we go about making ourselves? For Sartre, the answer to this question is what defines existentialism as a philosophy of action: we live through our freedom of the will to choose.

Of course, even the existentialists have to assume something that they have no capacity to demonstrate either ontologically, teleologically or deontologically: that, in fact, we do choose of our own volition.

After all, in a wholly – really, really wholly – determined universe, existentialists and essentialists are interchangeable. Nothing that any of them think, feel, say or do, was other than what their brains compelled them to think, feel, say and do.

So – click – existentialists of Sartre’s ilk take a leap of faith to autonomy here and figure there is always the possibility that “somehow” we do have free will in a No God universe.

This brings us to the second of Sartre’s core assertions: that all claims about humanity and the world must begin with human experience.

Same thing. While I share Sartre’s subjective assumption that we live in a No God world, as with free will, to claim that God does not exist does not demonstrate that God does not exist. It’s just one more intellectual prejudice rooted existentially in dasein. God is one possible explanation for the existence of existence itself. Unless it can be explained how something came into existence out of nothing at all.

On the other hand, as the child once asked, “who created God?”

It was René Descartes three hundred years earlier who concluded that the primary thing we cannot doubt is that we are thinking things: ‘I think, therefore I am’. For Sartre, it is this human subjectivity – our lived experience – that underpins his claim that we have the freedom to choose how to act.

Indeed. I merely note that historically and culturally the things that we think about in regard to value judgments are ever evolving and changing. Then those like Marx who suggested this revolves largely around political economy.

What, after all, did Descartes think about? Did what he think was true about it coincide with what all rational men and women are obligated to think in turn is true? Rene Descartes was a devout Chrisitan. So, did what he thought about God coincide with what all rational men and women are obligated to think as well?

Sartre says that our lived experience shows us that we are always free to choose to act upon this or that. Think about the next choice that you make: you could stop reading this article, or continue, or get up and get a glass of water; take the dog out; get some ice-cream, and so on. The point is that our lives are always filled with possibilities, and we are free to choose which ones to take.

Naturally, I would be curious to hear Sartre’s reaction to my own considerably more, well, existential understanding of that freedom. For instance, his take on the Benjamin Button Syndrome pertaining to our individual value judgments in a free will world.

[iambiguous]

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
Kate Taylor recalls a ‘humanist’ classic by Jean-Paul Sartre.

This takes us on to Sartre’s moral point: by choosing this or that, we at the same time choose the set of values endorsed by our choices. This is because, for Sartre, we can’t choose something that we don’t think is good, therefore each choice is also an affirmation of the value of what we choose.

Again, as a “general description intellectual contraption” this can be embraced by those all up and down the moral and political spectrum. After all, don’t both liberals and conservatives “choose this and that”? They both endorse sets of values in alignment with their choices.

Then what?

The points I make here – ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529 – don’t go away.

This kind of potential pick-and-mixing of values has faced criticisms for being overly individualistic. But for Sartre, our freedom cannot come without responsibility, because all choices have consequences, and his defence against criticisms that existentialism is an extreme individualism is the radical claim that individual choices legislate for humanity as a whole. Sartre believed that in choosing this or that, we at the same time validate that choice for the rest of humanity. In this way, human beings are not only responsible for making themselves, we are also responsible for defining humanity as a whole.

The same thing, of course. It’s just another “world of words” in which freedom and responsibility and the individual and humanity can then be embraced be those on both the left and the right to champion completely conflicting moral narratives and political agendas.

At one point Sartre takes his own “existential leap” from Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union to Mao Zedong’s China. He “began to associate with various Maoist currents, though he always denied being a Maoist himself.” His dispute with Albert Camus revolved in part around the extent to which “political responsibility” did or did not encompass the embodiment of “authenticity”. To what extent did human freedom itself revolve more around the individual or the class struggle?

In a post-God world, only human beings can choose what to make of their existence. Sartre in fact says that we are ‘condemned to be free’. Our freedom is a condemnation because we cannot escape having to choose, nor escape the responsibility that comes from having that capacity. We cannot deny the weighty responsibility that accompanies our freedom to will as we choose.

Assuming of course that we do in fact live in a free will world. And Sartre seemed to clearly believe that we did:

“Sartre believes wholeheartedly in the freedom of the will: he is strongly anti-deterministic about human choice, seeing the claim that one is determined in one’s choices as a form of self-deception to which he gives the label ‘bad faith’, a notion that plays an important role in Being and Nothingness.” Nigel Warburton in Philosophy Now

Still, he was no less like all of us here: speculating about something he was unable to actually demonstrate much beyond what he “thought up” in his head. He believed we had free will.

And though we may well be “condemned to be free” all the way to the grave, what on Earth does that mean to each of us as individuals? Are those like Kant closer to the truth, or those like me?

[rootseeker]

@iambiguous

In a post-God world, only human beings can choose what to make of their existence. Sartre in fact says that we are ‘condemned to be free’. Our freedom is a condemnation because we cannot escape having to choose, nor escape the responsibility that comes from having that capacity. We cannot deny the weighty responsibility that accompanies our freedom to will as we choose.

Assuming of course that we do in fact live in a free will world. And Sartre seemed to clearly believe that we did:

“Sartre believes wholeheartedly in the freedom of the will: he is strongly anti-deterministic about human choice, seeing the claim that one is determined in one’s choices as a form of self-deception to which he gives the label ‘bad faith’, a notion that plays an important role in Being and Nothingness.” Nigel Warburton in Philosophy Now

Still, he was no less like all of us here: speculating about something he was unable to actually demonstrate much beyond what he “thought up” in his head. He believed we had free will.

And though we may well be “condemned to be free” all the way to the grave, what on Earth does that mean to each of us as individuals? Are those like Kant closer to the truth, or those like me?

To “condemned to be free” means to us as individuals that we are just that… independent agents as individuals. We can blindly follow the demands of others and metaphorically live the lives of others more than we are living our own life, but the deeper truth is that you are a bubble of existence with your own independent perspective and choices. You can live life according to a personally developed perspective or fully adopt the viewpoints of others without considering your own.

A deterministic universe does not take away free will. Free will simply means that choices are internal to a person rather than external to others. The internal cogs of the mind can be either predictable or unpredictable by an omniscient perspective and it wouldn’t change the free will aspect of a decision.

[iambiguous]

“all the consequences of this”
Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

Existentialism, as I understand it, is primarily a philosophy of tragedy. It often speaks of tragedy as bound up with existence – that you cannot have one without the other.

Unless, of course, you are able to grab existence by the balls and yank it hard enough to do your own bidding. That’s how it works in a No God world anyway. Once you accept that God does not exist, you may well come to conclude in turn that in the absence of God all things are permitted. And this gives you permission to grab it by the balls. Then it all comes down to whether or not you can actually accomplish this. And then sustain it. You might come to construe yourself as one of Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Choosing to master life rather than to be enslaved by it.

On the other hand, sooner or later life will grab you by the balls. If only on the day you receive the news from the doctor that the tumor is terminal. Ushering in the biggest tragedy of them all. At least for the No God existentialists: oblivion.

Tragedy

Before the rise of German, and in turn French, existentialism, tragedy was considered primarily a poetic and literary style. We can think of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, or Euripides’ Alcestis as well-known examples of tragedy. Centuries later, in Germany, the writings of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Jaspers. elevated tragedy outside of literary expression to a place of philosophical and existential importance.

Right. Tragedy as construed by the intellectuals. By the philosophers. By the dramatists. Here we can cue those like AJ and his ilk to set us straight on tragedy up in the didactic clouds. Instead, for some of us, bringing it all back down to Earth, the tragedy revolves far more around all of the actual pain and suffering we might endure in the course of simply living our lives. Pain and suffering attached to an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence that can only end in nothingness. Day after day we are confronted with those terrible headlines bursting at the seams with human affliction and travail.

And for what? Your moral narrative and political agenda or theirs?

Arthur Schopenhauer’s magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation raises tragedy to “the summit of poetic art” as it expresses “the terrible side of life”; Nietzsche’s early work The Birth of Tragedy argues strongly for a Dionysian revelry in tragedy; and Jasper’s Tragedy Is Not Enough finds tragedy to be a condition for the experience of transcendence.

Sure, if any of them work for you then that need be as far as it goes. That’s always been a rather intriguing aspect of the human condition. Something that you believe does not necessarily have to correspond with reality. If you can raise tragedy to the summit of poetic art, or Dionysian revelry or a condition for transcendence, good for you. That has just never worked for me.

[Peter_Kropotkin]

=D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

K: excellent description of existentialism… and what it could mean
to us…

In fact, this is so well done, I am rather jealous…

Kropotkin

[iambiguous]

“all the consequences of this”
Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

Karl Jaspers was an existentialist philosopher who saw tragedy as a launching pad for authentic faith. What he calls ‘tragic knowledge’ or ‘absolute and radical tragedy,’ is comparable to Sartre’s or Camus’ notions of meaninglessness or absurdity.

Authenticity. It pops up time and again in regard to existentialism.

But what on Earth does it mean to live an authentic life? Here I often come back to Sartre’s “Hell is other people”. Though this too will mean different things to different people. From my own frame of mind, others are “hell” because they tend to objectify us. They react to us in terms of their own objective moral, political and spiritual narratives. Objectivism then [to me] is authenticity on steroids. Which “for all practical purposes” can result in truly devasting consequences for those deemed to be “one of them”. In fact, historically, all the way up to the death camps.

It might revolve around race or ethnicity or sexual orientation or religion or political ideology or, philosophically, a deontological assessment of Good and Evil.

As for the part where knowledge becomes “tragic” or results in “absolute and radical tragedy”, that is far too obscure – abstract – for me to make much sense of it. I suppose if your own knowledge of the world includes a belief that ultimately human existence is essentially meaningless and absurd, that might be construed as tragic. A part of me certainly believes that to be the case.

Jaspers’ kind of tragedy is opposed to salvation or redemption, since they are both answers to it. As Jaspers says, tragedy is not enough – implying that we can, and ought to, move beyond the brute tragedy of existence. He says that “the chance of being saved destroys the tragic sense of being trapped without chance of escape.” In contrast, many atheist existentialists see the whole of human existence as tragic.

There you go: construing an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence – the absurdity of life – in opposite ways. I often note myself that one way in which to reconfigure the absurdity of life into something constructive is in recognizing that it is precisely the absence of one or another objectivist font – God or No God – that frees you to pursue so many more options in life. You’re not tied down – anchored – to one or another moral dogma [religious or secular] that binds your options. In other words, that restricts what you may or may not do if you want to gain approval from a community or acquire immortality and salvation.

[iambiguous]

“all the consequences of this”
Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

The fact that Jaspers retains his ideas in the face of the tragic nature of existence shows how he differs from atheist existentialists (e.g. Heidegger, Sartre, Camus). These – myself included – argue that the tragic nature of existence does not have an answer; it is just how existence is.

On the other hand, cue “the gap” and “Rummy’s Rule”.

The parts that, in my view, are particularly perturbing to many philosophers here. So perterbing, in fact, that some simply dismiss them as…as what exactly? Not worth pondering at all?

Tragedy in and of itself gets sucked down into them both. It ends up meaning whatever each of us as individuals come, existentially, to believe it means. And then we either take that to the grave or replace it with another essentially meaningless belief that we take to the grave instead.

Always having to accept that what is tragic for some is wildly celebrated by others.

We cannot escape it, avoid it, or supply a remedy for it. Therefore I argue that the atheist existentialists develop a more authentic form of existentialism, since they accept absolute tragedy and do not seek to dodge its consequences.

Sure, as a general description intellectual contraption, if that works for you, fine, it’s then deemed to be more “authentic.” But what on Earth does “absolute tragedy” mean when, say, confronting those newspaper headlines day in and day out? What you think it means or what I think it means?

Sartre says, “when we speak of forlornness, a term Heidegger was fond of, we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this”. So Sartre and other atheist existentialists “face all the consequences of this” – while religious existentialists (such as Kierkegaard, Jaspers, and Marcel) do not.

Still, the religious existentialist surely recognized that their escape from this forlorn frame of mind revolved entirely around a leap of faith. It’s not like they went through their days with anything approaching a sense of certainty that immortality and salvation awaited them. And how could they not wonder about all the other Gods that all the other flocks were leaping to in turn.

They would be uneasy with Sartre’s notion, put forward in his novel Nausea (1938), which carries radical tragedy to its logical conclusion: “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”

Amen to that?

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

To a simulated recovery of what was ‘lost’ or , reduced to absurdity. Faith alone is instrumental in reaching this (the) high(er-est) ground.

That is

They would be uneasy with Sartre’s notion, put forward in his novel Nausea (1938), which carries radical tragedy to its logical conclusion: “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”

meno says:

“Every existing being is born without reason….”
but, it is learned only through karmic chance, for intelligence is privileged, and karma does play a reduced role in the process of deconstruction.”

So, this is where the significance of movement , casting a shadow becomes sensible, exactly your point about contextual signifiers.
“

[iambiguous]

“all the consequences of this”
Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

Dread

Søren Kierkegaard examined the philosophical, psychological, and theological implications of angest (Danish for ‘dread’ or ‘anxiety’) in his famous work The Concept of Dread.

Just a reminder that dread as a concept – as a philosophical contraption – is one thing. But actually experiencing it in, say, grim psychological pangs rooted in the realization that your own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless…right up until the time you topple over into the abyss that is oblivion?

That can invariably be experienced as something else entirely different. It’s sort of like a deep-seated fear that is derived from actually thinking through the human condition given a certain set of assumptions that some are more willing to accept than others. Also, there are antidotes like God and religion to…tame it? To comfort and console you teleologically?

On the other hand…

Dread, according to Kierkegaard, comes from within the individual (spirit) and from without (as an ‘alien power’). Kierkegaard connects dread with the entrance of sin into human existence, the Fall of Adam and Eve. This brought with it dread, not of something external to the individual, but as dread of one’s own self: “one will encounter the phenomenon that a man seems to become guilty merely for dread of himself.”

Sure, if you are able to take that leap of faith to the Christian God and twist dread into an entirely different frame of mind, what can I say…if you do manage to accomplish this that need be all it takes to take this dread away…far removed from my own considerably more discomfiting set of No God assumptions. Here, the dread remains, but, come on, with that leap of faith – and a few YouTube videos? – it reconfigures into immortality and salvation.

Then, whatever, “for all practical purposes”, this particular philosophical/spiritual contraption…

Man also finds dread in his longing for release from guilt. Kierkegaard writes, “the expression for such a longing is dread, for in dread the state out of which a man longs to be delivered announces itself…” The central existential paradox regarding dread is that man “cannot flee from dread, for he loves it; really he does not love it, for he flees from it.” With dread, man continues the vicious cycle of: freedom-fall-dread-guilt, freedom-fall-dread-guilt, ad infinitum.

…means.

No, seriously, in regard to your own life as it is construed in terms of dread and in terms of the Christian God, you tell me what you think he means above.

Kierkegaard’s response to dread (and to most other problems) is faith. He writes:

“The one and only thing which is able to disarm the sophistry of remorse is faith… courage to renounce dread without any dread, which only faith is capable of – not that it annihilates dread, but remaining ever young, it is continually developing itself out of the death throes of dread. Only faith is capable of doing this, for only in faith is the synthesis eternally and every instant possible.”

Indeed, given the sheer complexity of human interactions and the many, many ways in which our own personal experiences can different from others, what can we really know about how others come to think and to feel about such things as God and religion.

And, yes, aside from a leap of faith to God what else is there to provide you with objective morality, immortality and salvation?

Philosophy? Ideology? Nature?

[Ecmandu]

In a god or no god existence, consent violation is the only problem. It hasn’t been solved yet, and is the only thing worth working towards.

This is objective truth. It’s visceral for each individual no matter how much they differ on what consent violation is, and it’s true by definition.

So keep on trolling iambiguous.

Your lie is exposed.

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

If in fact it is a problem, or felt problematic, it may be a no end/no exit please ploy to reduce humanity into becket like pigeon holiest to impress situational disparities as the new norm.

All philosophers are apologists, meaning they don’t want their readers to think that their views necessarily need to be adopted

Otherwise I agree but then this is the slave boy talking , just filling in.

[iambiguous]

@Ecmandu

In a god or no god existence, consent violation is the only problem. It hasn’t been solved yet, and is the only thing worth working towards.

This is objective truth. It’s visceral for each individual no matter how much they differ on what consent violation is, and it’s true by definition.

So keep on trolling iambiguous.

Your lie is exposed.

Run it by these folks – consent.academy/consent-vio … %20help.– and then get back to us.

But only in regard to an actual set of circumstances.

By the way, do you still claim to have spoken to God, the Devil and Buddha? Or was that someone else here?

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

Well it may have been meno, but then again I am a mere intermediary , a kind of waterboy, playing a try at both ends, as if they fed off each other.

And yes god speaks to the ones violating the no exit edict.

[iambiguous]

@Meno_

Well it may have been meno, but then again I am a mere intermediary , a kind of waterboy, playing a try at both ends, as if they fed off each other.

And yes god speaks to the ones violating the no exit edict.

I’ll get to you later, Alan.

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

@iambiguous

@Meno_

Well it may have been meno, but then again I am a mere intermediary , a kind of waterboy, playing a try at both ends, as if they fed off each other.

And yes god speaks to the ones violating the no exit edict.

I’ll get to you later, Alan.

It’s odd but the paradox lis thickening as the archaic duplicity build onto its self more layers, like the rings indicating the ages of trees.

The more I hear and understand Alan’s goal of as a kind of purveyer of reality behind the hoax, the more agreeable his method becoming.

That is analogous to the continuing testing of AI as far as to determine its benign or maliciously worn imputation intentions toward sentience.

And really appreciate the content I’ve approach toward at least a foreshadow of objectivity in this regard.

So am becoming paradoxically used to this self depreciating anti heroism that ‘Alan’ represents.

[Ecmandu]

Iambiguous.

My consent is violated if anyone’s consent is violated, including mine.

Existence is just one big consent violation to me and it’s stubborn.

My goal is to solve that problem.

[iambiguous]

“all the consequences of this”
Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

Dread, like tragedy, should lead you somewhere; and in this case, where you’re led is faith. Kierkegaard thinks that tragedy, paradox, and dread should lead one out of attempts to rationalize and towards a subjective ‘leap of faith’.

On the other hand, let’s face it, some – many? most? – think themselves into making that leap because in a No God world, well, what else is there? Even if you do manage to make the equivalent of a leap of faith to one or another secular Ism, what’s the 70 to 80 odd years you’re around down here next to “all of eternity”?

Of course, I have no way of knowing the extent to which this is applicable to Kierkegaard. After all, what do I know of the life he led, the experiences her had? But he was certainly intelligent enough to grasp that there are no alternatives to God. And historically and culturally it just makes sense that it would be the Christian God.

Although Kierkegaard acknowledges that faith does not do away with dread, he thinks that it develops “out of the death throes of dread” and that faith is the courage to “renounce dread without any dread.” But what is renouncing other than conquering and moving beyond? And what if, on the contrary, dread should lead you nowhere?

Well, dread is still around if only because it is a leap of faith. And that is, in a crucial respect, a leap into the unknown. You have no accumulation of substantive, substantial proof that God does in fact exist. That’s what makes it a leap of faith. But how can that not be better than moral nihilism and oblivion?

But where does the courage part come in? It’s not like many would punish you or make your life miserable because you professed a belief in the Christian God back then. Denmark was a Christian nation. And even though only around a fifth of the nation today consider themselves “very religious”, I suspect the number was greater back in the early 19th century. In fact, his biggest beef seemed to revolve around a more or less institutionalized faith. He was more partial himself to a deeply professed existential commitment.

Thus…

Both Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel argue against purely rationalistic answers to existential problems, since rationality cannot completely explain the subjective experiences of paradox and mystery.

And what could possibly be more paradoxical and more mysterious than the existence of existence itself? The deeper you delve into it [as, say, Albert Einstein did] the more perplexing it all becomes. And that was before modern science revealed just how truly ineffable – vast on a simply staggering scale – the universe is. And before QM and the multiverse.

So, sure, maybe connecting the dots here will prompt some to take that leap. I wish I could think myself into doing it. Instead, for me, in coming back time and again to this…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l … _eruptions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t … l_cyclones
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t … ore_deaths
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

…I figure if there is a God He must either not be omnipotent or is a sadistic monster.

Rationalism also assumes a scientific stance of ‘objectivity’ that tacitly thinks it can gain certainty about the external world and humanity’s relationship to it. Marcel is especially opposed to this. He thinks this kind of ‘scientific’ posture poses all inquiry in the form of problem and answer, and leaves out, or completely ignores, the idea of mystery.

Still, in regard to most of what we experience in interacting with others, there clearly appears to be an objective reality. And the only way to make these components – the laws of nature, mathematical truths, the empirical world around us – mysterious is to presume one or another metaphysical rupture: sim worlds, dream worlds, solipsism, the matrix.

You tell me.

[iambiguous]

“all the consequences of this”
Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

Both Kierkegaard and Marcel acknowledge the role anxiety plays in human experience, and yet they both see subjective experience as pointing towards something ‘beyond,’ and ‘transcendent’.

Or, perhaps, the other way around? Mere mortals embrace spiritual denouements like God in order to allow them “in their heads” to move “beyond” and to “transcend” the anxiety – the trials and the tribulations – that sooner or later beset all mere mortals given the “human experience” itself. But to go there, in my view, exposes the reason why there are so many, many different paths to immortality and salvation. So, of course, most won’t go there. Instead they convince themselves that despite all the competition for souls out there – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions – their path really is the one true path.

They note how language cannot penetrate this realm beyond normal human experience, but they still choose to keep this realm as a possibility.

Indeed, in some respects, that’s the beauty of the human condition as “for all practical purposes” it is. Language is unable to fully deconstruct or to confute these spiritual/religious paths. There are no definitive arguments that expose them as necessarily irrational. As long as the reality of existence itself is so profoundly problematic and mysterious, religion will always be one possible explanation.

Thus, this frame of mind…

Why they choose to do so is beyond comprehension for rationalist atheist existentialists, who would ask, why believe in anything indescribable or beyond comprehension? Why not simply accept human existence on its own terms, as something radically and absolutely tragic, riddled with anxiety and dread, from which there is no escape?

…simply will not sink in and be accepted by many. In part, of course, because it is a brutally bleak way in which to think about your own existence. And I know this myself because sans “distractions” it is the brutally bleak frame of mind that often confounds me. Again, many here think I’m here only to belittle or to mock religionists. But, in actuality, that part of me is derived more from the profound envy that I feel for those who still are able to be comforted and consoled by religion. I want that again for myself. They have it and I don’t. Then my reaction to those like Immanual Cant who dangle the possibility of actual proof that a God, the God does exist but then come off looking like fools when they can’t deliver it.

So I think both Kierkegaard and Marcel do not take anxiety and existential angst seriously because they think it points beyond itself to a transcendental realm. The contradiction in Marcel’s thought is that although he is against the scientific manner of framing inquiry as problem/answer, he nonetheless retains mystery and transcendence as potential answers to the problems posed by existence. To be consistent, he and Kierkegaard, should have abandoned those elusive phantasms, and carry tragedy and angst to their logical conclusions as Sartre argues.

Of course, for most of us, the extent to which we take anxiety and existential angst seriously is derived less from philosophical or spiritual accounts and more from just how devastating actual circumstances are. In fact, one of the main reasons why God and religion are embraced is that sooner or later the devastation can only be dealt with by leaving it in God’s hands. And, come on, Sartre was Sartre. He was world-famous, a celebrity philosopher who had tons of resources [and Simone de Beauvoir] to fall back on to help him cope with his own “nausea”.