• MisterScruffy
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    That makes me feel so great about life. Why would I ever turn to faith.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      In our society, one that teems with parasitic behavior between its individual members, yes, it raises a question why we might want to live without higher meaning. Sartre didn’t address it until late in life, but Camus recognize that most people at least commit philosophical suicide (that is, take a leap of faith) if the choice is between that or committing literal suicide. It’s why he offers embracing the absurd, imagining Sisyphus happy, and finding a way to get there, yourself.

      To be fair, I’m not even there yet, finding that my society has willfully betrayed me from my childhood (as it does for all kids in the US) trying to create an obedient and disposable laborer / soldier to build vanity projects for billionaires, rather than prepare us to shape society the way we want it as we grow into it. Ours is now a gerontocracy as well as a plutocracy, while the kids have their own ideas and are looking to defy the natural social order.

      So my story and yours is in how we break free from the fetters and find our own way. Or not, as the case may be.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t really know anyone who lives life for some higher meaning. The people I see are just trying to get through the week.

      • MisterScruffy
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        You won’t ever be able to overcome the ills of society alone, by yourself you’ll never be able to “break free from the fetters and find your own way” Making a better society requires coordinated collective effort. Religion bonds people together in a very rare way. You can’t get people to work together in a coordinated way without some ideal in their minds, they have to believe that their effort might not help themselves directly but might help make future civilization a better place. That takes faith of one kind or another.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          That takes faith of one kind or another.

          Bullshit. You can choose any number of career or volunteer paths that demonstrably help people or society without needing any “faith”.

          • MisterScruffy
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Here’s the context of that sentence that you are quoting: “You can’t get people to work together in a coordinated way without some ideal in their minds, they have to believe that their effort might not help themselves directly but might help make future civilization a better place. That takes faith of one kind or another.”

            I was talking about getting people to work together for a better world, not an individual choice"

              • MisterScruffy
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                “the betterment of mankind” is an intangible idea that you are choosing to believe in. That’s faith.

                • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  It’s very tangible. Quantifiable even. Higher literacy rates. Lower teen pregnancy. Higher incomes. Longer lifespans. Lower carbon emissions. And so on.

        • You’re right that changing society requires a movement, but I was talking about the individual process.

          And yes, few of us find a real opportunity to find a way to create for ourselves some wiggle-room such as Winston and his nook-journal hidden away outside the surveillance of Big Brother. (Our world teems with infant perishing from famine or infectious disease, so just by getting literate and on the internet, you’ve gotten far.)

          I think of the chaos of complexity that allowed cloned dinosaurs to breed, to migrate off Isla Nublar and to survive despite a lysine dependency. Our oppressive system is rife with such opportunities even if it’s to pirate movies for diabled folk who couldn’t otherwise afford to otherwise see them. Or for that matter, our own kids.

          Steps to escape the cages might be tiny in the moment, but they can sometimes add up.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Religion bonds people together in a very rare way

          It’s called brainwashing.