Reflex wrote: Nick_A wrote:The essay you linked seems to be a good example of what Simone Weil described as atheism as a purification. I don't see what is irrational about it. As I understand it animal Man lives in a world of darkness in opposition to ourselves destined to be ruled by force. It may be depressing but there is no sense in denying it.
It seems to me to be childish bravado. But you're right: there's no sense in denying what atheism entails -- though atheists here try to put a smiley face on it. And when they do that, they lose a large part of their humanity.
Atheism that I respect recognizes the problem of the human condition. But as you say when it puts a smiley face on it or when it glorifies it I agree that it loses its human value and only tries to justify its egoism. Bertrand Russell wrote of the effect of force. Jesus did also in Luke 13:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
The word repent here is really a bad translation of “metanoia” or a change in mind, a change in the direction of the soul as Plato described. But the point is that we as animal Man, creatures of reaction as opposed to conscious action, are subject to the same laws of force the rest of organic life on earth is. We can BS all we want but will still be hit by falling towers
Simone Weil describes our relation to force in her famous essay on the Iliad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iliad ... m_of_Force
Weil introduces the central theme of her essay in the first three sentences:
"The true hero, the true subject, the centre of the Iliad, is force. Force employed by man, force that enslaves man, force before which man's flesh shrinks away. In this work at all times, the human spirit is shown as modified by its relation to force, as swept away, blinded, by the very force it imagined it could handle, as deformed by the weight of the force it submits to." She proceeds to define force as that which turns anyone subjected to it into a thing – at worst, into a corpse. Weil discusses the emotional and psychological violence one suffers if forced to submit to force even when not physically hurt, holding up the slave and the supplicant as examples. She goes on to say force is dangerous not just to the victim, but to whoever controls it, as it intoxicates, partly by numbing the senses of reason and pity. Force thus can turn even its possessor into a thing – an unthinking automaton driven by rage or lust. The essay relates how the Iliad suggests that no one truly controls force; as everyone in the poem, even the mighty Achilles and Agamemnon, suffer at least briefly when the force of events turns against them. Weil says only by using force in moderation can one escape its ill effects, but that the restraint to do this is very rarely found, and is only a means of temporary escape from force's inevitable heft………………………………….
There is no use in either denying or proclaiming how wonderful our situation is. Atheists like Russell are aware of the human condition but find no relief other than through imagination. Is there a way out? That is where the essence of religion comes in. Is conscious evolution back to our origin possible for man? Christianity as well as all the great traditions originating with a conscious source seek in their esoteric purpose to awaken Man to this potential. It is a worthy question but couldn’t be sincerely discussed in public. The spirit killers and the blind deniers would get a hold of it and the inevitable conclusion would once again be “yo momma sucks.” But in private it can and we need more opportunities for people to share on the great questions.
