Well, again, the point wasn't to justify why the existentialist believes that, but rather to show that they do, and thus that NR is misrepresenting their views.

But I think that is a fine topic to discuss on its own. I think the existentialist (and again, I'm no expert) would say that:

Since existence precedes essence ( and thus, no God to imbue us with any sort of code or path o live by) then it falls upon each human being to set that code. It is not something we choose, it falls to us inherently. As there is no God, humans choose the moral code by which they lve

ok i see you are coming at it from quite a buddhist angle, yes you are right to point out that this state of unity with life may be inherent in all of us all of the time and the process of coming to experience it involves "letting go" and "melting away", or that is, the subtraction of false states leaving a true state in their place, rather than the addition of a true one. i do not believe this is the only or ultimate spiritual truth though, i'm guessing you do? fwiw i do believe that goodness and holiness exist, and not just as concepts created by our minds. i also see just as much a stumbling block with joe average getting to a point where he can experience that for himself, as, say, any other type of mystical enlightenment. most people will never know it, wouldn't you say?

attaining goals of goodness and holiness is one aspect of spirituality, but i wouldn't say these goals should be sought for one reason or another, more they are the natural by-product of a certain way of being, and therefore aren't goals as such. spirituality in a vacuum is something of a cop-out in my opinion, if it doesn't influence us to do some good in the world it's pretty pointless.

the only way i have ever used to differentiate between what is written on the one hand vs. what is written on the other is intuition based on introspection and my own more significant spiritual experiences, of which i have had a handful over the years. ultimately i believe true spiritual writings will trigger deep psychological change in the reader that applies him or herself, and that "the tree shall be known by its fruit" wrt the nature of those writings. buIIshlt will fly by the by and bad stuff will lead to bad, and good to good.

On existentialism, it is my choice or, in Kierkegaard's phrasing, my faith that binds me to a moral code. If I say or act as if I am not choosing to live as I do, but rather am just acting as if forced to do so by my nature, then I am living an inauthentic life, a life where I deny any responsibility for my own actions.

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by your last sentence, as it seems incorrect to me. Can you explain it?

By the way, I want to emphasize that existentialism is by no means an inherently anti-Christian philosophy. It originally arose in the writings of Christian thinkers and many of the great Christian philosophers and theologians of the twentieth century were Christian existentialists.

Well, as far as I can see, theres only 1 angle, that theres no such thing as a self. But I would say jesus and mohammed also mentioned it, plus loads of others( meister eckhart, aleister crowley etc), so I dont think its strictly a buddhist thing.





experiencing it isnt "it". You may have an experience which leads you to a realisation, or to a deepening of understanding, but the experience itself is not the "spirituality".This is why people end up chasing an experience they once had, not realising that they are already there.


I agree that there may be other realisations to be had, but if you mean souls, ghosts, spiritual realms, etc, then no, theres no reason to believe in such things.


possibly.

Well supposedly once you have fully realised everything, then you pretty much are totally in tune with reality ( whatever that means) and so "good" and "holy" may be interpretations of how people saw these fully realised people, yes.

As far as spirituality doing some good, that seems totally irrelevant.

Most people have subjectively determined that murder is wrong. They all have the sense that a morality that posits that is higher than one that posits murder is OK. If we define morality as knowing right from wrong, there is only subjective morality. Knowledge is a function of one's brain.

As I said, I don’t think the issue for existentialists is so much how we derive our moral code, but why we must do so and why we must adhere to it. In other words, that we ought to set our own moral code is itself a moral claim, which we can’t derive from an amoral state.

So is existentialism closed to determinists, along with some materialists and naturalists? From what you’re saying it seems like belief in freewill is a requisite.

I think we need a unifier or unifying principle that binds one to another in order for one to be justified adhering to the agreed upon moral code.

And as I said, I don't think 'choice' has much to do with it. We set our own moral code by virtue of the fact that we are the only ones who can.

This quote I found on the web is supposedly from a noted existentialist who is cited in this thread. It seems quite apropos here:

Near the end of his life, Jean-Paul Sartre told Pierre Victor: "I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God. "
HIS Magazine, April, 1983.

super yawn

Really glad I clicked on this thread, thanks to the OP. No comment because anyone would be hard-pressed to improve on what Sagan said.

Re: last paragraph...what is logical is to assume that certain collective conditions can be preferable to reckless hedonism. Or not. You're right...if you can't conceive of that ever being true for you, then, **** it, do whatever you want

That was Dostoevsky, not Nietzsche. And I've long said that he (Fyodor) was correct in saying it (even if it was only broached via fictional dialogue, as I believe it was in Brothers Karamazov)

To be fair, although I think Zizek overdoes it here:

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zi...-is-permitted/

Respect the post, but in the scheme of things, much much more extreme than very very extreme (which is what exists even if we confine ourselves to the incomprehensibly massive scope of this sole universe) is essentially meaningless. As for the rest, anthropic principle. We think we're special because that's what's immediately discernible. We think of a universe as a product of our imagination rather than the reverse.

That you think there is a such a concept as significance at all shows me that you fail to get the point. Nothing is inherently significant; we're all just biological automatons like the 115 billion more of our kind (species) who existed before us. We don't have free will but (mostly) think we do. We are predisposed to garner utmost enjoyment from orgasms and therefore the peak-end rule/BIAS exists.

We're at the point now where anything within this universe is relativizable. Who needs a TRULY incomprehensibly massive amount of other universes when we can already accomplish this dubious task within the confines of our comparably tiny single universe (heh)

there haven't been 115 billion humans before us. unless i'm missing something

This is false. Cite your source.

You say this like you're on the front lines of investigation.

Maybe not 115 billion, but something approximating it. What difference does it make to you and your worldview if it's 110 or 115 billion?

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Arti...edonEarth.aspx

Just a minor quibble, but the birth rates for 2011 in that study are likely too high. wiki (quoting the CIA, no less) is going with 20/1000 in 2007 and 19/1000 for 2012.

none whatsoever

Yes, it's often attributed to Nietzsche, probably because he said essentially the same thing - he kills god in Zarathustra and denies absolute morality in Genealogy of Morals - he was much influenced by Dostoevsky, which is ironic because D. claimed to be a Christian. I think he even said he would be a Christian even if it was shown to be false.

I've read Brothers 3 times and I think it's his best, though I'm also partial to The Idiot. Ivan not only said that quote but was the speaker in the famous Grand Inquisitor chapter, one of the best prose works ever. But my favorite character in Brothers is Zosima.

I already did.