Today was a rather interesting discussion. When reviewing what the basis of existentialism was, it made me think a lot about religion. I agreed with some of the points, such as we are all free and should live in the present, but then I disagreed with some points also, such as the one Mr. Bennett pointed out #6...
To refresh your memories, #6 said that existence is essentially absurd. There is no purpose to our presence in the universe. We simply find ourselves here; we do not know and will never find out why. And death, which irrevocably terminates our existence, testifies to the ultimate absurdity of life. Compared with the eternity of time that preceded our birth and will follow our death, the short duration of our existence seems trivial.
Now, I'm not trying to bring up an argument of people's religious beliefs, but I feel this argument is very weak. To say, there is no purpose to our presence in the universe. We simply find ourselves here; we do not know and will never find out why..that to me has no substance. Many things are unexplainable, and one thing is how we were created. How could you say we mean nothing, yet here we are. If we were placed here just for the hell of it, there had to be some form of a meaning behind it. But alas, that is just my opinion...Also another topic that sparked my interest in class today as well, was when Mr. Bennett was explaining his religious belief. When he explained vaguely why he turned atheist I wanted to counterattack an argument but decided to leave it for a posting. =) When he said something along the lines of, if God could let you suffer so much then he must be a monster. How could he let the world be the way it is. To disagree with this point I immediately thought of something that existentialist believe in; that you are free. If God stopped you from doing all of the horrible things people do in this world, wouldn't you be losing your free will? God would be able to influence you, control you, and basically over mind you, that is too say if there even is a God. By not stopping all of the suffering in the world, God let's you continue to have your free will and freedom to do as you please. Just a thought that popped up maybe you agree or disagree with me.
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I'm so pleased to see that you have become one of the more articulate and thoughtful "posters" on our mutual blog ring. After your initial hesitancy, I thought you were going to have trouble finding your "voice," but that certainly hasn't been the case.
ReplyDeleteYour point above is very smart not just because it articulates the standard argument about free will so well, but because it uses the Existentialist argument against itself.
This is a first rate debater's tactic. Touche'
Im with you on this Melissa also. I happen to be religious as well and I would have made the same point but I tend to never argue my points out on religion but keep them to myself. Spot on I share your sentiments. Ive always thought if we hammered our views on others like groups in the past we lose the free will we have. In fact I was going to talk my experiences in next post with religion. I enjoyed your post very much and it was well written.
ReplyDeleteVery nice comments Melissa and a well thought-out argument. I, myself, am also religious and I find myself agreeing with almost all of your sentiments, but I personally do not reject existenialism completely. I believe that you don't have to embrace one of these concepts and reject the other completely, and a few of the tenets of existenialism, I found to be true to myself. This was a very nice post and you gave most of an argument I would have made on this subject, but like Arun, I often keep my religious beliefs and ideas to myself, so you vocalized them for me.
ReplyDeleteTo Mr. Bennett's point about not believing in God, I do, however agree with him that you should do something nice for somebody and be kind to everyone, not for a later reward solely, but just for the purpose of helping another. Whether people find that message in God or in something else, I believe that is a key point and a lesson that everyone should know. If you are a good person and do charitable things to help your neighbor, you are in fact following many of God's teachings, and acting in a similar manner, and I believe that, in some ways, not completely, but in some ways, that is more important than just simply following a doctrine and quoting words, if your actions don't reflect those words.
Very true Jimmy I share your sentiments as well and thought your comment was excellent. Words without action is meaningless and always help out others are two sayings I try to heed. Since i never knew what existentialism was learning about it was very interesting
ReplyDeleteGotta show this from a different point of view here. I am not a religious person at all. My problems with the concept of God include Mr. Bennett's point that all of this suffering in the world would most likely mean that God is a monster. I just tend to put a lot of faith, maybe faith isn't the right word, a lot of trust into facts. I like to know something and I like it even more if it can be proven and backed up with facts, usually proven scientifically.
ReplyDeleteAs far as existentialism goes, I tend to agree with it. I feel that life started by random, coincidental events. We aren't in the middle of the universe. We aren't in the middle of our galaxy. We aren't even the center of own solar system. How significant can we be in the grand scheme of things if this is the case? Our existence is essentially absurd. Got to say I agree there. But, because I feel this way, I also feel that we can enjoy our life to the fullest on this earth, because this is only one we are going to get.
This is most likely the minority side of this argument, but I felt that I needed to balance out these comments a little bit. Mr. Bennett was probably feeling a little lonely with everyone disagreeing with him so far. (Ironic because we are all alone) There we go and now you know. You all just delved a little deeper into the labyrinth of my mind, for better or for worse.
Well Steve, maybe if you were a true existentialist you would realize that Mr. Bennett wanted to be alone, because as the great prophet/philosopher Oscar Manheim once said,
ReplyDelete"We all die alone." And being alone is a tenet of existentialism.
I do want to point, however, that I do not reject existentialism or religion, and I do not believe that they are both absolute concepts, because I do not think we live in a Minickian (not sure how to spell it) universe where everything is simply black or white, right or wrong.
I, on the other hand, try to take the positives, in my opinion, of each of the two concepts to form my beliefs and don't follow anything rigidly. As it said, not all existentialists even believe in the same thing.
I see your point about meaningless existance Melissa, but I think I agree with Steve on this one. Since none of this has any sort of relative meaning in the greater scheme of things, it can only have relevance to everyone personally. I think this ultimately is positive and beautiful. It leaves you as alone as you can be, and I don't really see anything so bad about being alone. Because of our nature we always long for something or someone else, but in the long run none of it really matters.
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