Philosophy Now Forum

As I have stated before, that I believe we are, our modern society,
is soul sick...we are soul sick collectively and individually....

what are some of the signs or symptoms of being soul sick?

there is no interest in where we are going, individually or collectively....
the future holds no interest to us as a society or state.... what are we
aiming for when we, for example, cut taxes or reduce the size
of the government or increase the military budget?

or said another way, we are involved in ''ad hoc'' thinking, that of
the moment.. with no thought as to past or future of any given action...

''Kill all vermin" as IQ45 recently stated, and by vermin, he means all democrats,
liberals, gays, trans or people of color...that is the voice of Nazism and that
particular ideology has no future outside of simple hating everyone who is
not you....or looks like you, or thinks like you....anyone who is different is
hated for being different...and that particular ism or ideology has no
future within it...ok, we hate people, and now what? what is next for
an ism that only value is to hate others who are different?
there is no future there... there no path to follow into the future....
when the state goal is to hate others... as the conservative/Maga party
only goal is to hate others... it has no other function.....

there is nothing to feed the soul in a party of hate... it is an empty value..
not to different than eating healthy food as opposed to eating healthy food..
and here the healthy food is love and peace and hope and the unhealthy food is
is the hate of conservatives...

so what ''food'' should we be eating if we are to feed the soul?
what food has a future within it? as I have mentioned, love, peace,
hope, charity, are all foods that can feed the soul...we can find
subsistence for the soul in the positive beliefs of human beings, not
in the negative beliefs....

now some say, we can feed the soul with the word of god....
but that is just another assumption... as belief in god is just
an assumption...as I have mentioned before, religions such
as Christianity are based on negative values...
for example, the Jesus based religions are based on the death
of Jesus... his crucifixion is the heart of Christianity... it is a death
based religion... one must die, before salvation...

and within Buddhism, the basic premise is, life is suffering...
and within that premise, there is no beauty or joy and the only hope
is to escape being reborn again and again... the major problem I have
is that reincarnations, as required by Buddhism, is also an assumption...
there is no physical evidence that we are reincarnated, reborn...
and there is no evidence that Brahman, the one, exists... that we
individual souls, like raindrops, or is called Atman, fall into the sea of Brahman..
Brahman, the one that is....it is an assumption that there is Brahman or
our individual, eternal soul, atman...

religions themselves are based on assumptions that cannot be proven or found...
if we remove religions as a means of belief, then what is left?
what else can feed our soul if we remove religions from the list
of possibilities to find food for our soul?

Kropotkin

I think part of the problem lies with the fact we don't see
existence as a problem... what does it mean to be human,
isn't a question with most people... what is the point/goal of
existence, isn't a problem for most people?
or our understanding of the Kantian questions....
''What am I to do?" ''What am I to believe/hope in?" ''what can I know?"
today, who thinks of these questions, in terms of our modern existence?

everyone thinks that the ''modern'' question is about the
materialism that everyone just assumes, assumes, is the right answer.... 
how big of a house can we buy? or how much salary can we get, or
what kind of a title I can get? questions of the transitory lives we lead...
money, titles, houses, cars... material things that come and go...
and add nothing of value to our lives...  

and that is why we are soul sick... we focus on the wrong questions
of existence.... we focus on the body instead of the soul...
and by soul, I don't mean the soul in terms of a religious answer,
for religion offers us nothing today.. belief in god brings us nothing
in terms of our current soul sickness... in fact, it could be said
that belief in god is part of our soul sickness... or is our lives so
shallow that a new car can fix what is wrong with our souls?
I don't think so.....

are you soul sick? and how would you know? what criteria would
one use to discover if one is soul sick or not?
what standard would anyone use to discover if they are soul sick?

that is a question...

Kropotkin

one way to think of existentialism is to see it as
a way to think about being soul sick...

From the very beginning of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard,
there has been an effort to define and work out how to escape being
soul sick... and for Nietzsche, part of being soul sick, was how to
create an ethics/morality without a god or religion? to create an ethics/morality,
that was about being human, and had a human basis...
what does ethics/morals look like in a no-god world?
Part of what drove Nietzsche was his understanding that being
Christian, as defined by Christianity, was being soul sick...
the idea about the ''slave mentality'', that was just another word for soul sick...

his thinking about Nihilism, is just another way of thinking about soul sickness...
for Nihilism is being soul sick...and what is Nihilism?

Nihilism is the negation or dehumanization of human beings
and their values....

and that is the standard operating procedures of corporations today...
to negate and deny human beings and their values and instead
seek out profits/money.. for that is the true religion of big business
today... profits... and in seeking out profits, they deny and negate
us, human beings and our values... for in the corporate world,
love has no value or worth, joy is irrelevant, beauty only has
value if it can create profits... and peace is for the poor and weak...
despite the words of Jesus....

and that negation of human values is nihilism... a practice that
has been going on for over 200 years... and one wonders why
we the people, we are soul sick....and if we were to follow the conservatives,
and run government like we would run a business, as is often wanted,
then we bring this negation and devaluation of human beings into our
government..... and it is already devalued because big business already
owns our government.... we haven't live in a democracy or even
a representative republic because our representatives are bought
and paid for by big business...

part of our returning to being soul healthy, starts with government that
is free of corporate ownership...

one of the steps we require, is to think about human beings in
a unity with others...a holistic approach to understanding what it
means to be human is what is required...

part of the soul sickness we have, is that we think of ourselves and others
in isolation... we don't think of things holistically, as a unified whole...
we think of human beings in isolation to other human beings and to
other isms and ideologies..... and we take ideas like god and freedom
and beauty, in isolation to each other.... to take justice, which is equality,
by itself, it negates the measure of justice/equality into something with
no value.... only by taking the idea of justice/equality as part of the whole,
can we see justice and equality for what it is worth....if I were to
take one value and apply it to our society, I would take the value of
justice/equality... that is a primary, key value which has been devalued
in America, and within the world today.... until we no longer devalue,
negate justice/equality in the modern world, we will continue to be
soul sick...

Kropotkin