18 Jul 08
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Aside from Frankl, I have been most influenced by Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a providential God — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews. Spinoza is one of the most important philosophers — and certainly the most radical — of the early modern period.
In his work, Ethics, Spinoza intends to demonstrate the truth about God, nature and especially ourselves; and the highest principles of society, religion and the good life. Spinoza took the crucial message of the work to be ethical in nature. It consists in showing that our happiness and well-being lie not in a life enslaved to the passions and to the transitory goods we ordinarily pursue; nor in the related unreflective attachment to the superstitions that pass as religion, but rather in the life of reason.
Spinoza sets out to demystify the universe and show it for what it really is.
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by knightmeisterAt age 90, Frankl, in an interview, read a quotation from a noted modern philosopher and another from a schizophrenic patient, and asked his listeners to match quotation with author. Overwhelmingly, he said triumphantly (as though the results of the experiment had just come in), "the majority of listeners got it wrong!"
I wear both a cross and a question mark around my neck. I think I have many questions. To me faith in christ is a messy unfinished business and a committment to reality as well.
I firmly believe that if we commit to finding ourselves and facing what is true and real about life then we end up getting closer to God anyway.
I like the way you think and applaud it. I loved those Frankl quotes , have you got any more?
What philosopher and lunatic had in common, Frankl went on to explain, is the certainty that happiness can be attained by furious pursuit and a consequent rage at the unsatisfying results. His useful word for this is "hyperintention," a tendency that only inflames what is usually the real problem, our own self-centeredness.
"Everything can be taken away from man but one thing-to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." The sane are those who accept this charge and do not expect happiness by right.
Thus Frankl’s own "logotherapy," which views suffering not as an obstacle to happiness but often the necessary means to it, less a pathology than a path. Logotherapy amounts in nearly all situations to the advice, "Get to work."
Other psychologies begin by asking, "What do I want from life? Why am I unhappy?" Logotherapy asks, "What does life at this moment demand of me?"
Happiness, runs a favored Frankl formulation, "ensues." "Happiness must happen." Life should find us out there in the world doing good things for their own sake. Even "if we strive for a good conscience, we are no longer justified in having it. The very fact has made us into Pharisees. And if we make health our main concern we have fallen ill. We have become hypochondriacs."
The tone of Man’s Search for Meaning is that of the reasonable, detached observer describing not only the radical evil around him but radical absurdity, stripped of everything "except, literally, our naked existence." The effect is to connect life at Auschwitz with life anywhere.
Frankl said:
"We needed to stop asking ourselves about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. . . . Therefore, it was necessary for us to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum. But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer."
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinInteresting. To me Frankl seems to have replaced God with talking about "life" as an entity which "demnds" of us to live in a certain way. His whole approach sounds very similar to some Christian writing I have read.
At age 90, Frankl, in an interview, read a quotation from a noted modern philosopher and another from a schizophrenic patient, and asked his listeners to match quotation with author. Overwhelmingly, he said triumphantly (as though the results of the experiment had just come in), "the majority of listeners got it wrong!"
What philosopher and lunatic had i ...[text shortened]... witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer."
CS lewis talked about not trying to attain happiness directly but happiness would come as a by product of living right. He saw happiness not as something to be snatched after but more like a stream that you succumb to or step into. He also talked about courage and termed the phrase "that hideous strength".
Courage seems to be the main thing here. I'm not sure how you do it though. For me I have to something of hope to hold onto to give me courage. The idea that the universe is just swirling around randomly and human values . love etc actually mean nothing is too bleak. It's not enough for me to just create my own meaning because there are also issues of world justice , poverty , the victory of truth over lies , etc. My meaning has to correspond to some greater meaning , otherwise what is the point. There needs to be some greater truth out there in order to commit to living in the truth.
What I wonder is where is Frankl's hope for the world? What is it that gives him the strength to face all this suffering? Does it make any sense to talk about evil unless love is real?
For me the big realisation was that actually all human values (justice , truth , love, honour, beauty etc) are just nothing and mean nothing unless they are rooted in some real external value or law. Once we realise that Hitler cannot be said to be "wrong" and Martin Luther King "right" unless we place their actions up against a yardstick of actual right and wrong then we are in business.
You see Frankl seems to talk about evil (yes?) but this concept makes no sense in an ammoral universe. He cannot argue even that to cause suffering is wrong because what does the word "wrong" mean in such a universe? Most philosophies like Frankl are based on the idea that certain things are self evidently evil and wrong but no-one ever stops to ask why they are wrong.
18 Jul 08
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Originally posted by knightmeistersee Spinoza:
Interesting. To me Frankl seems to have replaced God with talking about "life" as an entity which "demnds" of us to live in a certain way. His whole approach sounds very similar to some Christian writing I have read.
CS lewis talked about not trying to attain happiness directly but happiness would come as a by product of living right. He saw happin re self evidently evil and wrong but no-one ever stops to ask why they are wrong.
There can be, besides God, no other substance.
If God is the only substance, and whatever is, is either a substance or in a substance, then everything else must be in God. "Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God."
As soon as this preliminary conclusion has been established, Spinoza immediately reveals the objective of his attack. His definition of God — condemned since his excommunication from the Jewish community as a "God existing in only a philosophical sense" — is meant to preclude any anthropomorphizing of the divine being.
Spinoza writes against "those who feign a God, like man, consisting of a body and a mind, and subject to passions. But how far they wander from the true knowledge of God, is sufficiently established by what has already been demonstrated."
Besides being false, such an anthropomorphic conception of God can have only deleterious effects on human freedom and activity.
"In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way."
18 Jul 08
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Spinoza begins his treatise On Religion and Scripture by alerting his readers, through a kind of "natural history of religion", to just those superstitious beliefs and behaviors that clergy, by playing on ordinary human emotions, encourage in their followers.
A person guided by fear and hope, the main emotions in a life devoted to the pursuit of temporal advantages, turns, in the face of the vagaries of fortune, to behaviors calculated to secure the goods he desires. Thus, we pray, worship, make votive offerings, sacrifice and engage in all the various rituals of popular religion.
But the emotions are as fleeting as the objects that occasion them, and thus the superstitions grounded in those emotions subject to fluctuations. Ambitious and self-serving clergy do their best to stabilize this situation and give some permanence to those beliefs and behaviors. "Immense efforts have been made to invest religion, true or false, with such pomp and ceremony that it can sustain any shock and constantly evoke the deepest reverence in all its worshippers."
Religious leaders are generally abetted in their purposes by the civil authority, which threatens to punish all deviations from theological orthodoxy as "sedition". The result is a state religion that has no rational foundations, a mere "respect for ecclesiastics" that involves adulation and mysteries but no true worship of God.
The solution to this state of affairs, Spinoza believes, is to examine the Bible anew and find the doctrines of the "true religion". Only then will we be able to delimit exactly what we need to do to show proper respect for God and obtain blessedness. This will reduce the sway that religious authorities have over our emotional, intellectual and physical lives, and reinstate a proper and healthy relationship between the state and religion. A close analysis of the Bible is particularly important for any argument that the freedom of philosophizing — essentially, freedom of thought and speech — is not prejudicial to piety.
If it can be demonstrated that Scripture is not a source of "natural truth", but the bearer of only a simple moral message ("Love your neighbor" ) then people will see that "faith is something separate from philosophy".
Spinoza intends to show that in that moral message alone — and not in Scripture's words or history — lies the sacredness of what is otherwise merely a human document.
The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge. Thus, philosophy and religion, reason and faith, inhabit two distinct and exclusive spheres, and neither should tread in the domain of the other. The freedom to philosophize and speculate can therefore be granted without any harm to true religion. In fact, such freedom is essential to public peace and piety, since most civil disturbances arise from sectarian disputes.
The real danger to the Republic comes from those who would worship not God, but some words on a page:
"It will be said that, although God's law is inscribed in our hearts, Scripture is nevertheless the Word of God, and it is no more permissible to say of Scripture that it is mutilated and contaminated than to say this of God's Word. In reply, I have to say that such objectors are carrying their piety too far, and are turning religion into superstition; indeed, instead of God's Word they are beginning to worship likenesses and images, that is, paper and ink"
18 Jul 08
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Originally posted by knightmeisterFrankl also said in Man's Search for Meaning:
Interesting. To me Frankl seems to have replaced God with talking about "life" as an entity which "demnds" of us to live in a certain way. His whole approach sounds very similar to some Christian writing I have read.
CS lewis talked about not trying to attain happiness directly but happiness would come as a by product of living right. He saw happin re self evidently evil and wrong but no-one ever stops to ask why they are wrong.
"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."
See also Frankl's book Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning.
It is Frankl's creation of logotherapy, the task of applying meaning to life, that makes the author so important. You cannot read this book without changing some aspect of yourself, probably for the better. It is an adventure, much needed and perhaps too short, for anyone facing their own or someone else's death. Even before my son's death and my first reading of this book, I was diagnosed with a complicated, chronic illness which has caused me to make considerable changes to the way I live my life. Viktor Frankl's books continue to help in the transition I'm undertaking. My search for meaning continues, even as the expression of that meaning must necessarily change.
In Frankl's search for "ultimate meaning":
* He described the fruitless pursuit of endeavoring to explain "nonrational intuition" by relating it to an artist:
"Artistic creation emerges out of recesses in a realm that can never be fully illuminated. We clinicians observe time and again that excessive reflection on the creative process proves to be harmful. Forced self-observation may become a severe handicap to the creativity of the artist."
* Referring to the power of feelings: "Feelings can be much more sensitive than reason can ever be sensible."
* Regarding each person's success in finding meaning in life: "There is no doubt that meaning must be found and cannot be given. Least of all can it be given by psychiatrists." When I read this I mentally added "or priests or preachers" at the end of that.
Related to that, Frankl states that belief in God simply cannot be commanded. I can't order someone to really laugh, I have to tell them a joke. Similarly, a priest can't tell me to believe — he has to live out the life in which he's suggesting I believe , which when analyzed suggests that he should be doing exactly the opposite of what he does in religion.
* "Despair is suffering without meaning."
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinPROV 1:22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate KNOWLEDGE?
....The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge.
PROV 14:18 The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with KNOWLEDGE.
The benefits of knowledge is all over the Bible.
Your guy Spinoza is clearly lacking in knowledge.
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by Rajk999oh, really?
PROV 1:22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate KNOWLEDGE?
PROV 14:18 The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with KNOWLEDGE.
The benefits of knowledge is all over the Bible.
Your guy Spinoza is clearly lacking in knowledge.
and you think worshiping ink on paper refutes rational thought, do you?
you have no knowledge of what Spinoza knew or did not know.
He was one of the most important philosophers of all time. He was a superb mathematician.
Have you read ANYTHING about Spinoza, or do you merely quote scripture as a substitute for having even half a brain?
When you go to the mind reader, be sure to ask for half price, in that case.
18 Jul 08
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Originally posted by Scriabin======================================
Spinoza begins his treatise On Religion and Scripture by alerting his readers, through a kind of "natural history of religion", to just those superstitious beliefs and behaviors that clergy, by playing on ordinary human emotions, encourage in their followers.
A person guided by fear and hope, the main emotions in a life devoted to the pursuit of tempora are beginning to worship likenesses and images, that is, paper and ink"
The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge.
===================================
There should be quite a few hunded references in the Bible to either growing in knowledge or gaining it.
In the New Testament there are various exhortations to grow in the knowledge of God, or in the knowledge of grace, or in the knowledge of the Scriptures.
There are exhortations from Paul to Timothy to "study" to show himself approved.
Another place warns the disciples that "some are without knowledge."
I think a simple reference to a Concordance and the word knowledge would demonstrate that "only obedience" is taught in the Bible to the exclusion of "knowledge" would be too broad of a generalization by far.
I especially would object to discounting "the knowledge of God"
as not being strongly taught in the Bible. That is the knowledge of God and His ways.
Even an exhoration to husband's fair treatment to the wives involves them to be with knowledge.
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinI have half a brain.
oh, really?
and you think worshiping ink on paper refutes rational thought, do you?
you have no knowledge of what Spinoza knew or did not know.
He was one of the most important philosophers of all time. He was a superb mathematician.
Have you read ANYTHING about Spinoza, or do you merely quote scripture as a substitute for having even half a brain?
When you go to the mind reader, be sure to ask for half price, in that case.
Proove you have a whole brain.
Show me that this statement is correct:
"The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge."
I showed you where it is wrong. I can quote dozens more passages where knowledge is considered desirable in the Bible. So Spinoza is Jack***.
Your problem is that because of your personal misfortunes you hate God, and you have transferred your 'worship' to MEN. YOU ARE A LOVER OF MEN. Whats worse is that you are trying desperately to convert others to your sick way of thinking.
I pity your type. Clearly you are failing miserably so far.
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinThank you for sharing this with me. I think I will go out and get one of these books some time. He has a great approach and philosophy. How did you come to see it almost as an opposing view to faith in Christ? For me it seems very in line with a Christian way of living (without the God bit)
Frankl also said in Man's Search for Meaning:
"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by product of one's su ...[text shortened]... in religion.
* "Despair is suffering without meaning."gO
18 Jul 08
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Originally posted by jaywilldefine what you mean by the word "knowledge." What does the word "knowledge" mean in the quotes you offer?
[b]======================================
The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge.
===================================
There should be quite a few hunded references in the Bible to either growing in knowledge or gaining it.
In the New Testament there are various exhortations to grow in the knowledge of God, or in t ration to husband's fair treatment to the wives involves them to be with knowledge.[/b]
I hardly think I need to defend Spinoza, as I am not advocating for his views in their entirety.
I've said I was influenced by Spinoza, not that I accept what he wrote as the truth of the whole.
There is an entire branch of philosophy devoted to the question of how we know anything.
Spinoza distinguished three kinds of knowledge of which we may be capable:
First, opinion, derived either from vague sensory experience or from the signification of words in the memory or imagination, provides only inadequate ideas and cannot be relied upon as a source of truth.
Second, reason, which begins with simple adequate ideas and by analyzing causal or logical necessity proceeds toward awareness of their more general causes, does provide us with truth.
But intuition, in which the mind deduces the structure of reality from the very essence or idea of god, is the great source of adequate ideas, the highest form of knowledge, and the ultimate guarantor of truth.
Spinoza therefore recommends a three-step process for the achievement of human knowledge:
First, disregard the misleading testimony of the senses and conventional learning.
Second, starting from the adequate idea of any one existing thing, reason back to the eternal attribute of god from which it derives.
Finally, use this knowledge of the divine essence to intuit everything else that ever was, is, and will be.
Indeed, he supposed that his treatise called the Ethics itself is an exercise in this ultimate pursuit of indubitable knowledge.
Good for him, but one doesn't have to eat the whole apple to get a few vitamins and fiber -- in other words, you don't have to swallow the core of what Spinoza is getting at, but the rest of what you take from him is very helpful.
I, for one, am not a fan of the ontological argument, which is an attempt to prove the existence of god by a priori reasoning from the content of the concept of god. As formulated by Anselm, the ontological argument begins with a notion of "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Anything that satisfies this concept must exist in reality as well as in thought (since otherwise it would be possible to conceive something greater—one that really exists); hence, god exists.
Descartes endorsed a different version of this argument, and Spinoza also relied upon it, but Kant rejected it because of the unintelligibility of comparing the relative greatness of real and merely possible beings. A form of the argument that emphasizes god's possession of the attribute of necessary existence has been defended in recent decades.
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by knightmeisterwell, faith itself is a problem because it rests on the ontological argument I just posted about and which I reject as Kant did.
Thank you for sharing this with me. I think I will go out and get one of these books some time. He has a great approach and philosophy. How did you come to see it almost as an opposing view to faith in Christ? For me it seems very in line with a Christian way of living (without the God bit)
For another, it is simply beyond any rational thought I can entertain to consider a human being as divine or as having any of the attributes of a deity.
But you got it right -- I think following what Jesus would have us actually do, behaving and acting in the real world as he would have us behave and act, is something to take very seriously.
In other words, the morals and ethics Jesus is said to have spoken no rational mind can reject out of hand -- and given the choice, I accept them, as did Frankl.
As for the God bit, I'm with Einstein -- everything that exists, all that we know and don't know that can be contained within the meaning of the word Universe is God. So I can't talk to him on a cell phone or get some sort of revelation like Heston's Moses on Mt. Sinai -- but I don't need a direct line and I sure don't need ignorant fools like that other guy who just joined the thread telling me what's what.
This gets very complicated, but the essence is what you said. Again, I get very annoyed at thoughtless orthodoxy -- which I take all religions to be.
But taking Buddhist philosophy, which has forgiveness and compassion at its center, without the God bit; and taking Frankl and touch of Spinoza and even Einstein gets me to living a life made meaningful by both my will to obey my conscience and also by the suffering I must summon the courage to face and endure.
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by Rajk999Here's a penny for your thoughts. Got change?
I have half a brain.
Proove you have a whole brain.
Show me that this statement is correct:
"The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge."
I showed you where it is wrong. I can quote dozens more passages where knowledge is considered desirable in the Bible. So Spinoza is Jack***.
Your problem is that because of your personal misfort ...[text shortened]... your sick way of thinking.
I pity your type. Clearly you are failing miserably so far.
Got news: if you READ anything I've posted, you'd know of your own knowledge (since all you seem to know is what you quote) that I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.
I think you are entitled to believe whatever you want. No converts wanted as I've no collection plate, no building fund, and I'm not selling books.
But what brought you here and does it have reverse? How can I miss you if you won't go away? Oh, wait, let me drop everything and work on your problem. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
Am I getting smart with you? How would you know?
18 Jul 08
Originally posted by jaywillI said that there is an entire branch of philosophy devoted to the problem of how we know anything -- what does the word "knowledge" mean? That branch of philosophy is called epistemology.
[b]======================================
The Bible teaches only "obedience [to God]", not knowledge.
===================================
There should be quite a few hunded references in the Bible to either growing in knowledge or gaining it.
In the New Testament there are various exhortations to grow in the knowledge of God, or in t ...[text shortened]... ration to husband's fair treatment to the wives involves them to be with knowledge.[/b]
Epistemology primarily addresses the following questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", and "What do people know?"
Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief.
As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions:
* What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge?
* What are its sources?
* What is its structure, and what are its limits?
As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as:
* How we are to understand the concept of justification?
* What makes justified beliefs justified?
* Is justification internal or external to one's own mind?
Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.
You want to talk more about this, or do a little reading on the subject?
See: Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, 2007;
or
The London Philosophy Study Guide offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject: Epistemology & Methodology
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/