In the twentieth century, the response to fear-filled religiosity has been atheism and fear-filled alienation from all things spiritual. Alienation may be a sixties word, but it's by no means a sixties concept. It is, after all, just a name for that basic atavistic feeling of not being "at home" in the world, a kind of cosmic homesickness. It was not born in the twentieth century, but it was certainly fed by existential philosophy and the denial of the existence of God.
Jean-Paul Sartre celebrated this terrible emptiness: "Life has no meaning... It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing by the meaning that you choose." As the philosopher William Barrett puts it, "Sartre's atheism states candidly ... that man is an alien in the universe, unjustified and unjustifiable, absurd in the simple sense that there is no...reason sufficient to explain why he or his universe exists."
Wow, if I thought that was the whole truth about our universe, I'd be pretty alienated and afraid and bummed out, too. And no amount of Sartre and intellectual muscle-flexing would assuage my fears. Engaging in nonstop activity so I didn't have to think about it would at least push my fear to the background. But I wouldn't be getting rid of it - only masking it.
Sometimes the fear manifests as an anxiety that hangs over us, one that we cannot ascribe to any particular event. "Free-floating anxiety" is the term used by modern psychology, and by naming what we cannot explain by classifying the symptoms, we delude ourselves into thinking we somehow mastered the cause. Many years ago I read a column by a successful playwright recounting a day in his life that would be the envy of many, full of people and color and action and fun. I no longer remember his name, but his last line was burned into my brain: "I go to bed every night thinking that I have forgotten something." The nagging sensation of having forgotten something important, which disturbs our comfort and routine, both feeds our fear and is a product of it.
So for many the price of escaping from the prison of damnation-drenched religious conventions has been to lose touch with the spiritual truths from which they originally sprang. When that happens, our new reality is the fear-filled and barren terrain of sterile secular humanism. It's a false world in which the spiritual either gets taken over by fanatical fundamentalism or explained away by psychoanalysis as the residue of a damaged childhood. Indeed, one of Freud's most famous books about religion is entitled The Future of an Illusion.
Without faith in a higher order and the existence of something outside ourselves and our everyday lives, life can become emotionally unbearable and filled with fear. And this anxiety, even if we're not aware of it, will surface in other parts of our lives. Bernard Levin described it as "the gnawing feeling that ultimate reality lies elsewhere, glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, sensed just beyond the light cast by the campfire, heard in the slow movement of a Mozart quartet, seen in the eyes of Rembrandt's last self-portraits, felt in the sudden stab of discovery in reading or seeing a Shakespeare play thought familiar in every line."
But we spend a large part of our lives barricading ourselves against this ultimate reality. In the nineteenth century, Nietzsche called himself "a man who wishes nothing more than daily to lose some reassuring belief, who seeks and finds his happiness in this daily greater liberation of the mind." But the freedom he was seeking, which was essentially the freedom from fear and convention, cannot be found through the mind, only through the soul.
This excerpt was originally published in On Becoming Fearless In Love, Work, And Life by Arianna Huffington.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Why do you refer to secular humanism as “sterile”? Do you believe it’s not possible for people who do not believe in God to be equally concerned about their fellow humans—or the planet, or animals, or insert whatever you want here—as those who do believe in God?
In terms of your statement that, “It's a false world in which the spiritual either gets taken over by fanatical fundamentalism or explained away by psychoanalysis as the residue of a damaged childhood,” since when is everything either/or? You’ve created a false dichotomy that you would, quite rightly, criticize others for creating. Personally, I’ve had no “psychoanalysis of a damaged childhood,” and would venture to say that a lot of other posters here have not, either. Did it occur to you that there’s another world, one that is not false? One in which people do not believe in a “higher power,” but accept their place in the world for what it is, strive to do good and to make those around them happy and content, and believe that life is sacred because it is life?
I’m perfectly happy in my “sterile” secular humanism. In fact, I’m tempted to believe that, for those of us who do not live in fear of an almighty God, our morals and values are more meaningful, because we’ve adopted them for ourselves willingly, not out of fear of being hellbound. And almost as importantly, we do not use God or religion as an excuse for the cruel or intolerant things that we do. For us, because we’re personally responsible for the things that we do, any cruel or intolerant act that we commit devolves directly upon us, and cannot be justified by a random passage in a "Book."
You hypothesis people are moving to agnosticism and atheism mostly as a reaction to fundamentalism just doesn"t hold water. I, and many people I know, have moved to agnosticism/atheism after carefully considering the possibility of God"s existence. And when examined with scrutiny, the existence of God, like Santa Claus, seems pretty unlikely.
As far as becoming empty and fear-filled, this has not been my experience. I have the good fortune to have some wonderful relationships with friends and family. I"m able to be a part of an organization that is doing some incredible things to address world hunger and poverty. My life is far from being devoid of meaning or full of fear. I see awe and wonder in what life has become, and yet I"m not polyannaish about the challenges the world faces. Still, I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of the journey.
nuff said. but keep working on it. your on the right track.
I expect this kind of post from someone on the right, not you. What a bunch of ignorant stereotypes about how atheists think and look at life. We are not afraid of spirituality or organized religion- we've intellectually and emotionally rejected it. There's a difference. We're not filling our lives with activity to forget about our coming non-existence; we just don't believe in an after-life so we've got to live now, with the only life we know we have. We don't believe that the universe's meaning comes from a supernatural deity; so we each have the responsibility of coming up with our own.
If you want a post about non-belief on your blog, I applaud you- almost every other media outlet is trying to ignore our existence. Just find an actual non-believer to write the post, please. Then it might actually reflect the actual outlook of non-believers.
Personally, I don't know how people go through life disconnected...but I was there too. I was raised religiously, but when my religion appeared to be wrong I didn't throw out the concept of "god," I just redefined it. Beliefs should serve you because they are based upon real things, and questioning those beliefs is always healthy, but the mind is not the key to enlightenment; the intellect is unsuited for understanding many spiritual truths. If you watch preachers preaching, which I did quite a lot growing up, you'll notice that their mental bodies are very active, but their aura is not expanding and their presence is not illuminated like someone who is actually communing with "god" and allowing that loving information to come through.
And the aura alone is proof that the individuality is more than the body. To those of you who have no concept of an aura within your experience, just remember that you can't see your kidneys and you don't usually feel them, but they are necessary for you to live. Believing in them serves you, and you trust medical science, but if you didn't believe in them they would still function, you'd just have less information about your body.
I am thinking perhaps you personally know people (maybe more than a few) who you feel are paying the "price of escaping from the prison of damnation-drenched religious conventions" by embarking on the "fear-filled and barren terrain of sterile secular humanism." "Escaping" assumes a pre-existing state of imprisonment. Speaking for myself, there was nothing from which to escape. I was raised with benign Methodist conventionality and my memories of childhood involvement with that particular organization are pleasant and plentiful. However, as I grew up and embraced my own personal journey toward awareness, the conventions of organized religion and a singular "God" theory, no longer resonated with me. This hardly plunks me smack down in the middle of "fear filled and barren terrain". Whatever this place is where I have landed, I find the terrain dotted generously with wonder, imagination and hope. The "Fertile Void", if you will. It is terrain I thoughtfully and purposefully navigated TOWARD and arrived at by conscious choice; not at all a place I hauled ass to, terrified and panting, fleeing full speed and fear laden, FROM something else. If you feel that for ALL OF US, atheism (a dreadfully impaired word) or humanism is a reactionary fear to "damnation-drenched" religiosity, perhaps you should get to know more of “us”?
I would never make declarations which speak to a presumption on my part, that I have carte blanche on the whole God/No God issue. People are entitled to experience their faith in the manner which "resonates" soundly within them. My “faith” (another dreadfully impaired word), is in myself and my capacity to expand my understanding/awareness. To that end, though I disagree with practically everything you wrote here, I fully appreciate your opinions as an opportunity for such expansion. Hopefully, you’ll appreciate mine, and the opinions of other posters here, as the same.
And it's unlucky to be superstitious.
But the heaven myth is hogwash.
The soul disappears when the brain dies, just like the TV picture disappears when you pull the plug.
But if it makes you happy AH, go for it.
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First, people are born atheists and they are brainwashed into become religious. Please also note that Bertrand Russell pointed out the truth of this by observing that people became the religion that was prevelant in their area.
Second, human behavior is a product of evolution not religion. We do what we do because to do otherwise would cause extinction of the species. Some of our behavior is clearly causing us to head in that direction even so.
Third, what you do is to say that it is the cart which drives and provides power for the horse and not the other way around. Religion is the by-product of insecure humans who are sold on the notion that certainty can be gained through faith. But it is a after the fact certainty about gaining your certainty in the afterlife. Talk about a used car sale!
Fourth, religion is about control. When one studies history and discovers how the religious classes control even the greatest of rulers in almost every civilization and how one legitimizes the other the purpose of religion becomes evident. Religion, is the oldest money making endeavor kown to man. Prostitution learned from religion and Prostitution at least gives you what you pay for.
Finally, as a person who was brainwashed early on in religion I finally outgrew and out knew my need for some ficticious being to blame and to beg for help from when things didn't go right. I had that yearning you describe Arianna. That yearning went away when I found out that I was the source of all my problems and the solutions. Once I had confidence in my own being there was no fear, no lienation, no sense of something greater than myself.
So, I conclude that everything you say comes out of your own brain washing into religion.
What an absurd post. An intellect astute enough to realize that faith is primitive and ridiculous does not fear it in any sense. Faith is boring, wrong, irrational, low brow drivel. Faith is irrelevant. The only anxiety it creates occurs when its practitioners engage in their ubiquitous violence.
is just like Santa Claus. Somebody made him
up so they could get 5 bucks out of you.
Religion is just as much of a sham, a scam,
as this 'war' is.
When you die, they put you in this box,
and they dig a hole, and stuff. That's
pretty much the end of the movie. So, how
much money DID you give the guy in the pointy
hat, anyway? LOL