posted
Today I was at working thinking random thoughts, mostly about movies I hate and religion and this ruddy guy I can't get off my mind. I used to have a religion. I was born Seventh Day Adventist. Now I do not have a religion, but it doesn't mean I am an atheist. There is an aspect of atheism that irratates me. Marble statues of round beautiful figures are replaced with sharp spikey instruments or splashes of paint on a canvas as buildings become more... angular than organic and a sort of nilism takes over. This idea that life is meaningless and worthless. I hate this concept. I toy with the notion of their being no God, but even if there isn't a diety watching over anyone does life have to lack a meaning as a result? Which brings me to movies like Happiness that just irratate me as they are full of pathetic people who will never change. I know ther eare quite a few that hate American Beauty, but at least in that movie people learn something and change (But does it have to take such an extreme event to get people to appreciate the underlying beauty of life?) Perhaps it makes no sense at all, but I just cannot rule out religion completely. There is fighting, yes, cruelty (for example Islamic Fundamentalists and their rules about rape), but this is part of the human fabric. Religion has given us liturical masses. Buddhist sutras and fantastic art as well as stories that elevate and teach us for the most part. Removing a concept of spirituality in my eyes weakens things. I can't explain how it does, I just so deeply hate these kind of movies like Crash by Ballard. It seems to go hand and hand with atheism. Perhaps it makes no sense and isn't logical, but that is how most of my thoughts are.
quote:There is an aspect of atheism that irratates me. Marble statues of round beautiful figures are replaced with sharp spikey instruments or splashes of paint on a canvas as buildings become more... angular than organic and a sort of nilism takes over. This idea that life is meaningless and worthless.
Atheism is not nihilism, you know. They're spelled and pronounced differently.
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I know, but they make me think of each other for some reason... At least the sort of atheist who go from "there is no God" to "Life has no meaning." Besides, I said there's an ASPECT of it, not the whole thing.
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Why do humans need religion/God to give meaning to their lives? I am not religous, but find beauty everywhere. It resonates especially within me when I feel incredibly small (ie stargazing). When I feel small, I recognize how unique our little planet is and how important it is for us to do as much as we can to make life as happy and beautiful as possible.
quote:Removing a concept of spirituality in my eyes weakens things.
I find spirituality without the presense of some divine creator or religion. I believe that athiests can still be incredibly spiritual.
To continue off of Tom, atheism is not nihilism, and to be athiest does not require a lack of spirituality, although they are often lumped together.
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I don't think all athiests are like that... (dabbles in athiesm a bit) I just feel there's a small aspect of it that does... Not the whole thing...
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posted
I wonder what marble statues of round beautiful figures you're talking about. Because a lot of those were sculpted by atheists.
You'll find that very few atheists are nihilists or like Dadaist art. Life is beautiful, and we don't pray and repent in waiting for an afterlife to justify it. So is it the religious or the atheists who think this life is more valuable?
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In my experience, the only people who associate atheism with nihilism are closet theists who haven't actually thought things through, but hold to atheism either as a rebellion, or because they are 'angry with God' due to the problem of evil or pain.
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quote: At least the sort of atheist who go from "there is no God" to "Life has no meaning."
You know, I'm sure some people like this exist outside of college campuses, but I have yet to meet any. Where are you encountering this sort of atheist?
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I know one can not believe in god and still be spiritual. (thinks of the ending of His Dark Materials) One can find meaning in life without a central diety. But for some reason I thought of these two movies I hate where the director just uses the movies to state that life is meaningless and pointless. I hate that attitude. For some reason it made me think of atheism and those episodes of South Park I watched... It's a bit hard to coherently mix those together, but it's the sort of weird associations I come up with...
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: In my experience, the only people who associate atheism with nihilism are closet theists who haven't actually thought things through, but hold to atheism either as a rebellion, or because they are 'angry with God' due to the problem of evil or pain.
This is true, in that to equate atheism (or disbelief in God) with nihilism (a moral vacuum) presumes that God is the source of morality.
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So are you an atheist who dislikes nihilists, or a theist who doesn't want to be an atheist because some atheists are nihilists?
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Hey now. I'm an atheist and in no way do I think life is meaningless. Do I think there's an afterlife? No. Do I think that when I die I'll go anywhere? No. I'm fairly convinced that dieing is just going to be like going to sleep and never waking up. Does it mean there's no meaning to life? Nope.
I believe people make their own meaning. We don't need some deity, path or grand plan to give meaning to our lives. Live exists for itself, life exists. It just is. We give our lives meaning through the things we do, the people we meet and befriend and the things and people we leave behind us when we die.
And hey what do you know? I can appreciate beauty too. I think I just find it in different places from a lot of theists. I find beauty in walking on the side walk and imagining just what I'm walking on, down to the atomic level. I find beauty in nature -- mountains, forests, trees. I find beauty in the smells and feelings of being in the forest, of fall, spring. I find beauty in my garden and things that grow.
I actually think that marble statues are just as ugly as paint splashed on a canvas all too often. And gold ones are even worse.
I'm an atheist, and I'd like to think I'm not a moral vacuum. I try to live by the rule that I can only swing my fist so long as it doesn't connect with your face. I try to be loyal to my friends and do nothing to anyone else that I wouldn't understand or mind if they did to me.
Basically what I'm trying to say, in a very long winded manner, is that religion is not necessary to see beauty in life or get meaning from it. Nor is religion necessary for morality.
And hey, I know of whole religions based around the concept of 'life is meaningless'. Or based around the concept of no free will ('fate' of the Greeks anyone?) which is the ultimate in meaningless.
[tongue in cheek] So don't blame that 'life is meaningless' philosophy crap on us atheists. Weren't our idea. [/tongue in cheek]
posted
I don't think Synesthesia is trying to blame anybody for anything. I don't understand either, but I don't hear blame. (Synesthesia, am I wrong?)
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: At least the sort of atheist who go from "there is no God" to "Life has no meaning."
To my knowledge, this concept is a wholly religious contrivance to scare people away from atheism. You can tell, because the vast majority of atheists haven't slain themselves due to their woeful lack of purpose.
Speaking as a hard-core skeptical atheist: I have plenty to get done without bothering over gods or devils. I don't need these concepts to motivate me.
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: I don't think Synesthesia is trying to blame anybody for anything. I don't understand either, but I don't hear blame. (Synesthesia, am I wrong?)
I'mnot blaming anyone, I just hate those sort of movies so much and wondering why someone has to spend millions to make them when they are just so... depressing. Is that outlook on life really necessasary? Perhaps it's not just atheists, I don't know where it comes from. An outlook like that should be reserved for old people and war survivers, or European philosophers trying to make sense of things that don't make sense, not young 20 or 30 something year old people whoa re supposed to be sooooo creative... but maybe those things don't relate at all.
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Funny, I thought Crash would actually do a decent job of representing God's plan, if you really wanted to see it there.
It was, in my opinion, a movie about suffering yes, but also about the human condition, the way our actions effect us later in life, and how we are all connected to each other, even if we don't realize it beforehand. One could easily argue that the events were all part of God's plan to teach a lesson to all the main characters. If anything, that movie represents God more than it doesn't.
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Syn, not all movies are an "outlook on life" or a statement about ultimate reality. Some are simply a look at current society or humanity at its worst and there are many purposes to this kind of art that aren't nihilistic.
I don't think nihilism in Crash is self evident. I think that's something you bring to it. I saw Crash and I came away with the message "Look at where we are and what selfishness, anger and distrust have brought us to." I don't think that is inherently nihilistic. It could very well be the same message as American Beauty, to "look closer."
The undisputable truth is that there is great cruelty and pain in the world. That's a fact of life. Showing that in all its ugliness isn't the same as declaring that it always has to be this way. Some people come up with all kinds of reasons why this is the case, given the premise of a God or gods, and others see it as evidence of the lack of such things, but neither camp has a monopoly on hope, love, faithfulness, trust or beauty. Nor do they on despair.
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Hrrmmm...well, I'm an atheist, but I don't believe that life is meaningless and/or worthless. I just believe that we need to make our own meaning and worth, because there is nobody doing that for us. I do believe that life is short and impermanent, and that in the ultimate end, nothing will remain of humanity whatsoever, which I suppose could be pretty depressing, but that doesn't negate meaning or worth, and it doesn't excuse a life squandered away on nothing. The shortness and impermanence of human life actually makes it that much more beautiful - to me, anyway.
I know there are a lot of atheists out there who have very bleak attitudes, but not all of us do.
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By the way, I think that angularity and abstractism can be beautiful. It can be dumb and boring, too, but it can be lovely art in the right hands. It's all in the artist.
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: I don't think Synesthesia is trying to blame anybody for anything. I don't understand either, but I don't hear blame. (Synesthesia, am I wrong?)
I'mnot blaming anyone, I just hate those sort of movies so much and wondering why someone has to spend millions to make them when they are just so... depressing. Is that outlook on life really necessasary? Perhaps it's not just atheists, I don't know where it comes from. An outlook like that should be reserved for old people and war survivers, or European philosophers trying to make sense of things that don't make sense, not young 20 or 30 something year old people whoa re supposed to be sooooo creative... but maybe those things don't relate at all.
I haven't seen Crash (I know - SHOCK!), so I can't understand the points you're trying to make wholly, but I have experienced other works of art that made me just drop my jaw in horror at how bleak and depressing they were.
Were they necessary? Yes, they were. The artist created them to express an important feeling. Maybe the guy who wrote Crash, or directed it, or whoever it was who was mostly responsible for injecting that mood into the movie, needed to explore those feelings and get them out. For some artists, creating art and making the world confront it is the only way they can express themselves effectively. Artists are often unpleasant that way (and I'm an artist, and so are many of my family members, so please don't anybody try to yell at me over that statement. In my experience, it can be true frequently).
I suppose the best way to deal with your feelings over the movie might be to be glad you don't agree with that point of view. Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I saw, as well, in Crash how people could change things by making different decisions. Without spoiling things, sometimes in that film, people overcame the spiral and did good.
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(((kmbboots))) <-- just a random ninja hug. You were there and I've been thinking about you lately. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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It's a different Crash actually. From ages ago. It's a terrible awful movie. The new Crash, however, was extremely good but it couldn't have been more depressing. At least things changed for people by the end. I'm not even sure if I saw the end of the old crash but it probably involved more car accidents and more really lame and stupid sex. At least the cop in the new Crash probably decided to STOP BEING RACIST all the time.
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: OK, now I TOTALLY don't understand the Atheism/Nihilism take on the old Crash.
That movie was all about sex and fetishes, not about life being pointless.
TO me it was about life being pointless because the movie was so pointless. Dang, I hate that movie. It was on the syllibus for a course on postmodernism. I wish i hadn't dropped it. Then I'd know what postmodernism means.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Mmm... I think whether you're a christian or an atheist you still have to find the meaning in your life.
Praising God and going to heaven isn't much in the meaning department (unless you choose to make it so.)
Really, life is like everything else. You get out of it what you put into it.
That's my view on things. I have trouble with religion because it sometimes frustrates me and involves rules, organization and large amounts of people. But the core of my beliefs is trying to find the meaning and beauty in life and music and stories play a big role in that.
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