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Nietzsche worried that, if we fail to vanquish and decisively replace the shadow of values derived from God, we risk our culture slipping into a deep nihilism. The death of God means there is no going back: we either find a new mechanism for value creation ' a 'revaluation of values', as Nietzsche put it ' or we will eventually descend into a world where, recognizing our values are ultimately foundationless and meaningless, we will become apathetic and cynical ' even despairing.

What is remarkable that these thoughts were written well before the popular nihilist movements of the early 20th.

Our new religion is the slave work values (we cheer working hard and making a profit) and consumerism (force-trained through incessant advertising). Many of our waking hours are between these processes in some way (thus, we continue to 'pray' even thinking we overcame this), but this is not enough for us.

Industrialisation and turning men into labor machines (working at Starbucks is the same slave-like process) contributes further to this.

The Soviet Union had an ingenious solution; in killing God (including literally tearing down churches) they recognised consciously the void that had to be filled, and they filled it with.. art. They had an enormous emphasis upon attention to art, and education of art. Spiritually it was highly successful. Their successful removal of God had unavoidable conflict and related to the removal of the former power structure with standards of living incomparable worse, but the killing of God had enormous popular support. Unlike our own cultures (readers here are largely in Europe and USA, but indeed US culture inherited European culture) they really did kill off God, and so had much more of a pressing need for the aesthetic void that was to be left - as Nietzsche had predicted - with only science and industrial development alone. [ I would add that sports attention (in a human developmental sense, not in our capitalist spectator sense) partly helped fill this void also - the affirmation of life - though it was the attention toward art that really balanced the death of God. ]

The current threads about benign politics, a general feeling of spectating rather than participating (ie, powerlessness), and artefacts such as ignoring far larger political questions (such as the systemic failures, the constant violation of international law by the US, the possibly long-term disfunction of the US political system - and how to enforce its change by public action); instead this is replaces by individual-pointing which, like neoliberalism more generally (which ignores systemic errors by instead blaming only the individual), is a highly conscious attention directing process to make us feel powerless to place our attention questions. I know political marketing strategists who discuss these techniques completely openly and proudly. Thinking along these lines is far too dangerous, and thus it becomes out of range of gentlemanly discourse, Assange is victimises for example, as we are indoctrinated to talk about benign political small-talk that is 100% in line with the existing power structure.

With some of these thoughts, I encourage readers here to take more interest in art and in particular, mythology. Try to limit historical reading to more than 1,000 years ago at least one week a year. If one wishes to understand our own cultural ancestry, I found it helpful to study Zoroastrianism because Christianity was largely inherited from that. They are very similar in many ways, both with the good/bad duality - though in under Christianity 'good' means 'unquestioning belief' and 'bad' means 'disobedience', whilst originally under our religious ancestry, 'good' used to mean 'truth' and 'bad' meant 'decipt/falsehood' - so earlier our own religion (Zoroastrianism) ancestry resembled modern science far more closely than how it evolved post 500AD. This is someone handled by fiction, but I believe we desperately need more depth, a search for the profile and beautiful, and more questioning in our repressed aesthetic hunger.

Sorry for type errors, I'm typing in an airport with limited iPhone battery life.. I find airports are great for re-examining one's unconsciously educated (brainwashed) thought processes.

- Manlobbi

Broadly agree.

Since retirement, I have felt like a kid in a candy store with all of the time I now have time for reading (and without the uneasy feeling that until I had entirely caught up on all of my journals and specialty updates, I had no business pleasure reading anyway). Last week I finally finished Marcus Aurelius.

But the closest analogy I've found to the current US historical current was around 400 years ago in England:

1) invalidate the existing (unstable) social/religious architecture (Henry VIII)
2) progressively debase what remains for a generation or two, then
3) wait a bit while things ripen, finally
3) allowing a vocal, hard-line, far-right conservative fringe to push over the whole structure (Roundheads)

which yielded
a) a number of years of a bloody mess with no one happy, leading to
b) a kind-of return to the old ways, and
c) a slow, gradual revision of those ways to be more endurable for the population - or at least a more durable power structure

And 1-4 above sound to me like the US in, say, 1968-2030

The only lesson I've pulled from this applicable to our current situation has been: if you tear something down without something else ready to take its place, it's not necessarily hopeless, but is probably going to be messily unhappy for some time.

--sutton
hoping to be more cheerful the next time

You did all that on a phone? I'm impressed.

hoping to be more cheerful the next time

It would be perfectly understandable if you are not.

Am I correct in assuming this board is populated by elderly/retired folks who are deteriorating at varying levels of comfort? My cheer quotient is increased by family and(hopefully) having worked and saved hard enough to make it "to the finish line." It's decreased by navigating a route to the finish line while avoid the increasing strife that fills the headlines. Nietzsche, Plato, religious fairy tales have little to no bearing on the final third quarter of the game. 0-30, 30-60, 60-90, 90-120.


it's not necessarily hopeless, but is probably going to be messily unhappy for some time.

I just got the monthly bill from SoCalGas (heating, water heating, cooking). It went from about $100 in winter months to $350.00 ! Our neighbor was billed just over $400. for their 1500' home.

On the one hand.... I can handle it.

On the other hand, being a bit more introspective, I'm thinking of the fallout of this huge change on 40,000,000 people in California; how expensive energy is going to increasingly impact hundreds of millions who live on a shoestring and cannot 'handle it.'

And then there are the Ukranians who have no heat at all as the richest folks wind up their posh Davos retreat, climb aboard their private jets and zoom off to their Caribbean winter estates?.

How does mankind process the pain as climate change is addressed?

My daily gripe: the water is brown from storm runoff and sewage spills into the bay., so surfing is out.. hiking is in.

On the other hand, being a bit more introspective, I'm thinking of the fallout of this huge change on 40,000,000 people in California; how expensive energy is going to increasingly impact hundreds of millions who live on a shoestring and cannot 'handle it.'

And then there are the Ukranians who have no heat at all as the richest folks wind up their posh Davos retreat, climb aboard their private jets and zoom off to their Caribbean winter estates?.

And then there are the children dying of malnutrition in Somalia.

As long as you mentioned it (This is someone -- I think this autocorrected from 'somewhat' -- handled by fiction...), how about creating a board here for fiction or books?

Nietzsche worried that, if we fail to vanquish and decisively replace the shadow of values derived from God, we risk our culture slipping into a deep nihilism.

Thank you, Manlobbi, that's a good foundational post for an atheists' board. I would hazard that most adult atheists encountered the dogma and rituals of one or more organized religions as children. The dogma normally included the idea that if you didn't behave according to whichever book of rules and myths applied, you would be in big trouble. In fact, you would be subject to The Wrath of God.

If God didn't smite you, maybe your King would, or your elder, your parent, your local law enforcement officer. Someone would smite you if you didn't do as you were told.

Not just that, not just serious sticks, but also awesome carrots -- eternal life, seeing folks you'd lost, even, you know, certain enticements that might apply specifically to young men.

The people sipped their wine
And what with God there,
They asked him questions
Like: Do you have to eat
Or get your hair cut in heaven?
And if your eye got poked out in this life
Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?
-- Crash Test Dummies

If you're an atheist, and there is no Lord, no Lord's teachings, no divine right of kings, no Lord's Representatives Here on Earth, what is the basis of your moral code? Do you even have a moral code? Why would you?

Animal spirits is a term attributed to John Maynard Keynes, referring to the manic gyrations of financial markets, but it has to have been used privately long before to refer to the fact that humans are mammals. Mammals are not famous for moral codes.

So, for most of human history, Option 1 was The Wrath of God. After all these years, God is still more often the agent of war than peace, but hey, He's got a little Bernie Madoff in Him, He made it look good for a long time.

Along came The Enlightenment and Option 2: the human conscience. Thoreau thought there was an essential secular goodness in humanity and that our unique ability to reason would take it from there. One just had to commune with nature and be true to oneself. This was pre-Facebook, of course.

So now we arrive at Option 3: enlightened self-interest. This isn't so much a moral precept as a behavioral acknowledgement. The interests of the self -- in the modern world, survival, prosperity, fame, glory, riches -- are the strongest mammalian motivators, so unleash them and see what happens. This produces winners and losers. The winners think this is fine, the losers not so much. If something has replaced God in modern society with respect to universal aspiration, it would seem to be money, which, like the self-interest that pursues it, is inherently amoral.

What we once called art and literature, the highest expressions of humanity, we now, outside elite academic and cultural circles, call entertainment. The most accomplished art and literature still hold the keys to truth as best we can figure it, but it doesn't matter to the fate of the species if only a tiny percentage of self-selected humans are exposed to it. Even world leaders, the elite of the elite, are astonishingly vapid today in this regard. They have more pressing matters.

The modern entertainment industry's least subtle expressions of moral choices are reflected in the wildly popular vengeance genre, in which victimized characters exact a toll on immoral actors or systems, generally through violence. This expresses a feeling of helplessness in the face of immoral or amoral forces too powerful for mere mortals to resist. We must be superheroes to fight back. Hence the elevation of comic book characters, bringing us back to dependence on magical beings, but with costumes. Like church.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts. This seems quaint today. Joseph Goebbels may have founded the modern science of disinformation, but he had a lot of students. Today, social media make Goebbels' reliance on radio seem primitive.

Aside from God and money, what seem to work best, for the modification of human behavior, are appeals to our tribal nature. Our side is good, our enemies are evil, rah, rah, rah. We define sides by blood, nations, religion, language, political ideology, skin color, football jerseys. Science fiction hopefully proposes these divisions might vanish with the sudden appearance of a common enemy; say, an alien invasion. Of course, there are possible downsides there.

I, too, am hoping to be more cheerful the next time.

<If you're an atheist, and there is no Lord, no Lord's teachings, no divine right of kings,
no Lord's Representatives Here on Earth, what is the basis of your moral code? Do you even have a moral code? Why would you?>

I think many folks gravitate towards kindness, generosity and inclusivity because these efforts give us purpose and bring happiness into our lives.
I think Mr. Buffett figured this out a long time ago.

The following study gives us a feel for how it works...

The Great $20 Experiment
In 2008 University of British Columbia (UBC) psychologist Elizabeth Dunn wanted to know if money could buy happiness.
She gave a group of UBC students $20 and instructed them to spend the money on themselves. She gave another group of
students the same amount of money and told them to spend it on others, in what Dunn calls 'pro-social spending.'
The next morning, subjects were asked how happy they felt. Those who spent the money on others were overwhelmingly happier.
(A correlation study was conducted with people spending their own money and the results were congruent.)
'If you use your money to promote social goals,' Dunn explains, 'it can make you happier.' Dunn also found
that the amount of money, is inconsequential.
The really mind-boggling results came when participants were invited to predict the outcome of the survey.
People thought that spending money on themselves would make them happier when, in fact, spending money on others is what makes them happier.

I think many folks gravitate towards kindness, generosity and inclusivity because these efforts give us purpose and bring happiness into our lives.



My cousin Phil has spent a lifetime* researching this very topic and written extensively about it. Sure, some writers will cherrypick the pol pots and rasputins that occur throughout history, but in general, I agree with him that non-secular societies often surpass secular societies with respect to many social issues plaguing the world.

In this essay "Philosophically Speaking" he compares secular vs non-secular in the context of current issues; covid, firearms, race, immigration, death penalty, etc.

"......contrary to the widespread stereotype of atheists as immoral, the surprising reality today is that atheists and agnostics actually exhibit very compassionate, ethical, altruistic, and humane proclivities. Indeed, if anything characterizes the personal orientation of contemporary secular people, aside from their godlessness, it is their care and concern for the well-being of others'care and concern that is often stronger and more pronounced than that of religious people."

https://thehumanist.com/magazine/summer-2022/philo...

* well, not a whole lifetime....yet.

"......contrary to the widespread stereotype of atheists as immoral, the surprising reality today is that atheists and agnostics actually exhibit very compassionate, ethical, altruistic, and humane proclivities. Indeed, if anything characterizes the personal orientation of contemporary secular people, aside from their godlessness, it is their care and concern for the well-being of others'care and concern that is often stronger and more pronounced than that of religious people."

I agree wholeheartedly. And I think that this is unavoidable because each religion has its own god. Once a person chooses to believe in a particular god, or pantheon of gods, that automatically sets up a worth-based conflict with everyone who accepts a different god, and everyone who does not accept that "god" exists. Their god is the only true god, and those who accept a false god as genuine are not worthy. So they're full of care and concern for their brethren, who are deserving of it, but not for the idolators and disbelievers. It's basically no different than warring tribes, except the "territory" is of a different nature.

The Great $20 Experiment ... Those who spent the money on others were overwhelmingly happier.

Along the same line: Ever read Viktor Frankl? Nazi camp survivor and psychiatrist, founder of his own school of psychotherapy? From own experience he found that the ones for whom life had meaning and purpose were the ones that could - mentally - survive the concentration camp. The ones on the other hand who did not find meaning and purpose in their lifes gave themselves up. He concluded that there is a deep-seated NEED in people to see "Meaning and Purpose" in their life, and that mental health issues often are caused by the lack of it.

Along the same line: The most brillant girl in my school is a leading cardiologist and head of the cardiology department of a Munich hospital. Her conclusion after decades of helping and healing people and many others doing so too: "The best recipe for finding meaning and purpose in life is to do help people. This in turn leads to satisfaction with and happiness in one's own life."

...but in general, I agree with him that non-secular societies often surpass secular societies with respect to many social issues plaguing the world.

Don't you mean that secular societies often surpass non-secular societies?

"Don't you mean that secular societies often surpass non-secular societies? "

D'oh.
My new years resolution: don't fill out the e-mail address line until the message is proof read....should extend to shrewdm postings.

edit: .....in general, I agree with him that secular societies often surpass non-secular societies with respect to many social issues plaguing the world.


Speaking of issues plaguing the world... A superintendent ignored 3 school employees warnings that a 6yr might have a gun. The 6 yr old shot his teacher. The superintendent will continue to receive full $250,00 annual salary and benefits until June 2024 because he was fired "without cause".

If ignoring those warnings ain't cause......WTF?

Along the same line: Ever read Viktor Frankl? Nazi camp survivor and psychiatrist, founder of his own school of psychotherapy? From own experience he found that the ones for whom life had meaning and purpose were the ones that could - mentally - survive the concentration camp. The ones on the other hand who did not find meaning and purpose in their lifes gave themselves up. He concluded that there is a deep-seated NEED in people to see "Meaning and Purpose" in their life, and that mental health issues often are caused by the lack of it.

Somewhat tangential, Primo Levi was an Auschwitz survivor and wrote several books about his experiences. One of them is called "Moments of Reprieve" which is a selection of times when he was able to find meaningful, positive experiences in the concentration camp.

I have to wonder the ability to find meaningful events in those conditions helped him survive. All his books are great, by the way.

https://www.amazon.com/Moments-Reprieve-Auschwitz-...

Seems like it's an open secret that there's a place beyond nihilism. Methinks one has to go there personally in order to see the sights.

Gotta take issue with this, though, if I'm reading you correctly: "The Soviet Union had an ingenious solution. . . .Spiritually it was highly successful."

Socialist realism strikes me as about the most spiritually bankrupt form of art humankind has devised. And sinking below capitalist bombast is a real accomplishment!

cheers,
db

We already select our values. Just read the bible and you can find any set of values you choose. From "slavery is OK" to "love thy neighbor", anything you choose is there. Without a deity, we still have the spectrum of values to choose from. We just don't have the pretense of somehow being "special in god's eyes", nor that it was "god's will", nor the tyranny of "god told me what he wants...listen to me".

Secular humanism seems to work pretty well. The best xians practice it, even if they try to justify it with a "god".

Nietzsche worried that, if we fail to vanquish and decisively replace the shadow of values derived from God, we risk our culture slipping into a deep nihilism. The death of God means there is no going back: we either find a new mechanism for value creation ' a 'revaluation of values', as Nietzsche put it ' or we will eventually descend into a world where, recognizing our values are ultimately foundationless and meaningless, we will become apathetic and cynical ' even despairing.

This reminds me very much of the goldbugs' complaints that money has to have intrinsic value or else something nihilistic and immoral will happen. And what has the modern world found? Looked at in a Darwinian sense, the currencies which ran from the gold standard have so completely won the survival contest, that most students have to be taught that people used to think the value of the money was the silver or the gold!

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the argument that if we don't believe in god we have no way to anchor morality is this: how can believing in something that is false change its Physics? If you do believe in god and you are wrong, you don't have a more stable moral system out of the deal, you have a house of cards that hasn't fallen over yet.

Perhaps the lesson from religious dominance of moral systems is that we need an arbitrary power behind our society's moral system. The totalitarians certainly gave us that: absolute dictatorship over your thoughts and actions flowing not from the supernatural, but from that miraculous modern engine of creation: bureaucracy! Well the whole dictators killing 10s of millions of their own citizens and forcing the rest to lie about reality or die has (or should have been if you paid attention) been pretty discredited. So we need something else that is arbitrary.

How about just a strong belief in our values? The truth shall set you free, so elevate not lying to yourself to a primary commandment. It matters that we all get to play at understanding our truth, so elevate not forcing people to stop saying things you dislike to a primary commandment. Pretty clearly *a* pupose of civilization is to create immense societal wealth, but having done so in a complex cooperative way, we now need to argue interminably how to split up all the goodies. Well OK, then, elevate the right to argue, and maybe even vote on, your ideas about how to do all that to a primary commandment.

Almost everybody who believes in god secretly believes that god KNOWS what is good and bad, not that god CREATES what is good and bad. How many religious people would follow god if he announced that pedophilia was now sacred, as long as you brutally killed the child victims of it after you were done with them? No, it takes a real genius to think god can make up what is good and bad and we will just, MUST just, follow whatever with worship and praise. No, the thing that is/was impressive about god was just how smart she was, how much she got right.

So for many of us, taking god out of the equation doesn't change much. Instead of having a guy (or gal) with a long white beard and a personality picking winners and losers behind the whole thing, we just have the whole thing with nothing a human would recognize as a personality (or a beard for that matter) involved. The good stuff is good, it is no easier or harder to figure out what is good and bad than it is to figure out what god is/was telling us is/was good or bad. Jordan Peterson has this right. Act as if god existed because that is the best model we have for motivation to be good, but spend hours trying to answer the question "do you believe in god" because, as he has said, what does that even mean?

R:)

My motivation is self-interest. I try to be "good" because a) I don't want to go to jail, and b) we need everyone else doing so also otherwise society becomes Mad Max, which I would rather not have to deal with. So it's in my best interest to promote "good" behavior, and exhibit it myself.

Now "good" is subjective, as any code is (religious or not). And it's constantly under revision. The "moral" code of the bible would land you in prison today if you were to practice that. But 2500 years ago, the Semitic tribesmen seemed to think it was a good idea.

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