I believe that society is organized in a way that some of its members contribute more and some less. It might seem unfair, but it's also about the paradigm of personal freedom. If a society forces all its members to perform this social contribution as a duty, it would feel like I don't have a choice about how to live my life. Like, interests of society are above my own personal preferences and choices. The same situation is when society refuses to support those who don't reciprocate that support or not reciprocate enough.
Let's take an example. Suppose there is a genius artist or a musician who has a great potential but is unable to get any money out of this at some point. Maybe, this is only due to specifics of the market. So he has to rely on social benefits. This way, other members of society support him while he contributes nothing. To make things fair, I would have to support an idea of either forcing this guy to find a decent job that would pay actual money or let him starve. Although I might think that even if he doesn't contribute anything worthy at this moment, his potential could pay off ten-fold in the future. So I'd let him live his life and pursue his long-term goal literally on my account.
Ok, if we take a look at a typical structure of society we'll see that it doesn't resemble a system where individuals equally contribute to the common wellbeing. I'd say paradoxically the group of people that makes a real contribution is a relatively narrow stratum of adult, healthy, and educated man and women who work and pay taxes. Apart from them we have children, elderly people, permanently and temporarily disabled, women on the maternity leave, students who don't have yet enough skills to work, unemployed people who cannot find jobs due to the situation on the job market, etc. So in practice, society is a structure where a small group of hard-working people is supporting a lot of parasites.
I think considering that in practice a number of society members, who can make a valuable contribution, is far less than a number of those who can't, we eventually come to an idea that we don't value individuals by how much they contribute to society. I believe this is a part of human nature to be willing to contribute because, after all, we have developed as social animals. But due to the complexities of the modern world, it's not that easy.
I'd like to illustrate this last point by an example. Imagine that twenty years from now due to the progress in the AI most of the manufacturing and office jobs will be automated. There will be no jobs for accountants, salesmen, cashiers, financial analytics, programmers, lawyers etcetera, etcetera. The only valuable human skill, for example, will be an ability to create the original art, music, and literature. It will produce the situation where there'll be an extremely narrow group of people having those skills who would be able to create something marketable. All the other 99 percent of the population would be compelled to live off social benefits or UBI or die. But the latter would also lead to the destruction of society in general. So the fairness, in this case, is not a good option at all.
It's interesting that one of the core principles of Communism is expressed in a slogan "Take from each according to his abilities and give to each according to his needs" So basically the utopian model of Communist society doesn't concern itself with the problem that some members contribute more and some less.
According to existentialism, the meaning of our lives is what we think it is. And it's not even a self-deception.
There is a bridge between reality and our ideas. Many imaginary things that we'd just made up throughout our history became the things in reality afterward.
So our minds can shape reality. Like in a Platonic sense the dimension of ideas influences the dimension of reality.
If you believe that your purpose in life is creating some meaningful art that can positively alter the world, it will become true. Like with Van Gogh. Or you might believe in compassion and helping people.
Our ideas come from deeper things that are engraved in our instincts reflecting a deeper purpose of the universe and reality itself.
Also, why do we think we should create something in order for our lives to have a meaning?
What if you choose instead of being a creator to become a receptacle of what had been created by others and the beauty of the world in general.
What if everybody wrote books, drew pictures, composed music but nobody would read, watch and listen it. What would be the point in doing all those things?
I think our life is not defined by what we produce. If you spend your life reading books, listening music, and watching art without contributing anything yourself; do you consider your life meaningless?
First, it's an interesting life, and second, you, consuming creations of others, make what they do meaningful. Which makes your life meaningful in turn.
Like in the modern economy the most important are those who consume stuff. Those who buy gadgets and fancy food and clothes.
Those things now can literally be produced without the participation of humans by robots toiling at automated factories. But what would be the point of all that, if nobody consumed it?
If we get to the very bottom of what society is, and how it came into existence in the first place, we realize that what society is based upon is a principle of following a common imperative. This is its main purpose. The relation between an individual and society is a mutually beneficial exchange. First, it's a system of exchange where I can get all what I need in exchange for something I can produce. The system of assessing of value that each of members contributes and the common currency.
The second important and beneficial element of society is its security. And here is the point where individual freedom begins to get curtailed in order to accommodate the needs of society. Literally, if I live individually in the wilderness, completely supporting myself and not relying on anybody else, I'm just as well not bound by any laws apart from my own ethics. I mean, I can kill strangers.
The only reason I abide the laws of society (as any other member of society) is that I find it beneficial to be a part of this society as opposed to struggling on my own. In other words, curtailing my freedoms in this way is my own conscious choice; this is not something that has been imposed on me by somebody.
In ancient Greece, one of the punishments for criminals was an expulsion of a guilty citizen from the city-state and stripping him of his citizenship. That meant that laws protecting citizens didn't apply to him anymore. Which seems natural in accordance with this basic concept of society. You can either choose to be its member and reap the benefits associated with that, or you can reject it altogether. It's your choice.
So the main requirement society puts on an individual is to comply with its laws. This sounds reasonable because this is the only way to guarantee the security for all its members. In this context, a well-being of society is more important than a well-being of an individual. For example, as a smoker, I might resent laws and regulations limiting smoking, but at the same time I realize that they have been put in place to protect the health of many other individuals who might suffer as a result of my actions
The more questionable aspect of living in a society is an obligation to follow its ethical and cultural guidelines, e.g., customs, traditions, religion, and values. I cannot see how my personal opinions and beliefs can harm society. Also, I consider them the most important integral part of my internal freedom. Meanwhile, societies often impose their values and beliefs on individuals, making them obligatory. For example, religious societies require from its members the strict adherence to religious rituals.
The question is, whether this following common ethical and moral norms is crucial for the functioning of society, or this is just an unnecessary and not justified by anything limitation of personal freedom. I think it has something to do with maintaining balance. If society as a whole is based on some set of moral norms and principles, then breaking those norms and principles, even if it wouldn't lead to an immediate harm to other individuals, would produce eventually a sort of chain reaction.
An individual having a different set of ethics while interacting with others would undermine their perception of ethics. They, in turn, would introduce those changes in ethics further and this would lead to a domino effect. Whether this system of norms and morals makes sense in the first place is debatable, but its collapse would inevitably lead to at least temporary turbulence, which can have unpredictable and harmful consequences.
Liberal societies are characterized by an absence of a strict set of cultural rules. This makes them more robust and less prone to being disturbed by such changes. At the same time, they allow the maximum level of personal freedom regarding beliefs, personal ethics, and moral principles. Basically, they support the existentialist approach, encouraging everybody to figure out those things for themselves. As long as those ethical decisions are within the limits of common sense, and what we consider universal and unquestionable values.
One of the interesting things is how the system of industrial, market economy tries to propagate its own system of values and beliefs. On the one hand, it's obviously artificial; it has nothing to do with any values and beliefs we developed during thousands of years. It looks more like marketing that got out of hand, trying to assume a position of the system of moral norms.
To be more specific; we believe that money and possessions bring happiness, that making more money is a virtue. Also, spending money and buying stuff is a virtue, and this also leads to happiness. This view is disseminated through commercials that in our modern world became somewhat akin to sermons. Being repeated multiple times they form beliefs. This, by the way, is how religious systems technically work, and I wonder if the system of marketing and advertisement hadn't been designed in the same way purposefully.
Many people lately refer to this paradigm of consumerism when they talk about their personal freedom from common opinion and values. If we get to the bottom of it, this system of beliefs and values is designed to maintain stability of the industrial, market economy itself. Namely, in order to stay balanced, it needs this constantly expanding cycle of production and consumption. Realising that this is a totally artificial system of beliefs that has nothing to do with any real human values, makes it simple and obvious to make a choice not to follow it.
I'd say the concept of truths and falsities in religions reminds me an argument whether unicorns had wings, or whether Harry Potter really was a wizard. You can tell that unicorns didn't have wings, that's the truth, but on the other hand, it's false because there never were any unicorns in the first place; they are a myth. There is a set of rules, defining what's true and what's false regarding the imaginary world, and we can deduce with certainty that some things are true, and some are false, but in the end, everything about the imaginary world is false because it's imaginary.
It seems like the same logic applies to religions and people asserting that some things about religions are true or false. As well as arguments about which religion or sect is a true religion. All those arguments might be valid, but they are all based on made-up premises. Because most of the things in religions that involve supernatural, the existence of fate, heaven, hell or an invisible creator are just assumptions. Or things that religion considers as valuable metaphors or things to fill the gaps in our knowledge about the world. And since we created a lot of fairy tale assumptions in our religions, all the reasoning based on such premises would be within the realm of fairy-tale logic. Although we can draw valid conclusions.
In none-religions, there are no such things as true or false. Truth in its absolute form is only present in religions because for it to exist you need to believe in it. It doesn't mean that your faith will make this thing objectively truer than it previously was, but at least faith allows an absolute truth to exist as a concept
Because beyond the bubble of faith we don't know for certain anything. For example, I took part in an argument where somebody claimed that Science is a new religion. I disagreed with that. I'd say Science might be a religion for somebody who has nothing to do with Science, and blindly believes what Science says. But anybody who more or less familiar with how Science operates knows that the key difference is that Science doesn't say anything with certainty. Not accidentally scientific statements called theories despite being confirmed by multiple proofs. Nonetheless, it's always assumed that there might be an error, or we misinterpret certain things, or things might work differently under different conditions. So this is the difference. Many people who don't believe in science don't realize that scientists don't believe in Science either. There are no absolutely certain things in Science, no absolute Truth. There are only things that seem very likely to be true because for example they were confirmed by numerous experiments and loads of evidence. But still, they are called theories.
So if I follow non-religion in any form, I stop using the concept of Truth. For example, if I follow some personal philosophy that shapes my values and principles, I certainly doubt and revise it, because it's hard to believe in something I came up with myself. Neither I believe in religions. I'm not saying that religions lie, I just think that there are not very convincing to me, and there are inconsistencies that bother me, in case I wanted to use some religion as a foundation for my values and principles. I just cannot turn a blind eye to something, that I think is quite not right, or it contradicts my own perception and experience.
Maybe an ability to believe is a key difference between religion and non-religion. For me, it's difficult to believe, because when you believe in anything, it means you assume that the world is very simple. That it can be explained in some way. I don't think so. I have far more questions than I have answers. And even regarding everyday life I constantly encounter contradictions to something I thought I knew. If I cannot believe my own experiences then how can I believe in something that had been said by some other person. Which is what any religion boils down to. It can be wise and plausible, but those are still the words of a man. I can consider those words and think they sound like something very likely to be true, but then I encounter something contradicting those words. If I had faith, I probably would be able to ignore things and facts, contradicting what I want to be true. Which I think is essentially what faith boils down to. An ability to ignore and forget anything that contradicts one's believes. Which is absolutely not the easiest thing to do. Here I recall a relevant episode from 1984 where it had been explained that in order to achieve the heights of this system one had to perfect a skill of forgetting, clearing from the mind things and facts that needed to be ignored. So I don't have this talent. Probably because of my keen intuition very sensitive to lies. Even when I lie to myself.
So answering the question if my non-religion is a true non-religion, I'd certainly say no. It's very likely that I'm delusional. Only religion can be true since the concept of truth exists only inside religion where people can believe in something without questioning it. Outside religion there is no truth, only something that likely to be true, although there is always room for some doubts.
I was wondering. Is language a necessary prerequisite to the existence of concepts? For example the concepts of Good and Evil.
To begin with, language is what makes us different from animals. One can argue that animals have their own means of exchanging information like the signals of approaching danger or some sounds related to rituals and conveying a general disposition and mood.
But it's not really a language, the way we understand it, because it doesn't have mechanisms to produce something.
Like, probably both animal and human language might have concepts of observable material objects or even their abstractions. Like an ape transferring information about food probably has a certain signal referring to food in general. So it creates an abstraction, based on one characteristic of multiple objects, namely that they are edible. Or signals related or referring to a variety of hazardous situations can be interpreted as an inception of an abstract concept of Evil. (In a highly subjective sense incorporating things and situations that are Evil for apes.)
But nonetheless, it's an abstraction. So the animal language has concepts, but it doesn't go further than that. It doesn't have any tools to produce derivative concepts and conclusions, so it remains rooted in the sphere of observable material things.
I think human language is different in a sense that it has those tools, allowing to create derivative concepts based on primary concepts.
So this is a question I think about; do those highly abstract concepts like good, evil, soul, material, spiritual, infinity exist outside of language?
For example, if we didn't have language would we have any inkling of the existence of such things?
If the answer is "no" then it means a somewhat spooky situation when language conjures things out of nowhere. Things that didn't exist before.
Or does it come primarily from our imagination and then those amorphous forms are just cast into words to be perpetuated indefinitely, being transferred in this shell from one conglomeration of neurons to another?
So we live in a world, significant part of which is created by our imagination. Or languages. Speaking of what's real and what is not.
Also, I wonder how natural language and language of math are connected and what is primary?
I thought about math lately and it occurred to me that I could answer the question "What is so cool about math?"
I think the coolest and, at the same time, an incredibly spooky thing about math is that it allows us to see things that we can't and will never be able to see with our own eyes or gadgets or whatever.
We wouldn't have any idea that they are even there.
Like, I feel that there is something very mysterious and spooky about a medieval scholar who draws abstract symbols and equations on a piece of paper and realizes that we all sit on a sphere that rapidly spins around another sphere, the sun.
In an era long before the space exploration or powerful telescopes or ambitious expeditions around the globe. When everything a man can see is a flat plane of the earth and the sun in the sky above it.
Only the symbols on paper tell the different story. That we are on a globe, circling another globe. And that there also exists a different planet that nobody will be able to observe for the next few centuries.
But the symbols tell it's there.
They also tell that the world consists of something that we might consider small particles, but in fact, it's something a bit different, something our brains would never be able to comprehend, really.
Actually, we'll never even be able to see them.
But they exist because the symbols say so.
Also, there are other dimensions that mirror ours in all respects except that time there moves in opposite direction.
Math conjures those visions and revelations out of nowhere, and it's really mysterious and spooky. The most mysterious and spooky thing is that those images and secrets visible to us only through jumbles of symbols are real. And even the more spooky thing is that we draw those symbols ourselves.
But returning to the initial question, how natural language and language of math are connected?
And do concepts of good, evil, material, spiritual, infinity, etc. exist outside of language?
Or would we have any idea about them if we hadn't had the language in its present form or had a language of primitive signals?
Or if we have had the language of signals would our behavior and thinking be similar to that of a machine?
Does language define how we think?
Can we think without words?
Can we think without words about abstract concepts?
Or would we be able to make complex decisions if we haven't had an internal monologue consisting of words in our heads?
And how the words, which signify some deeply abstract ideas, had developed?
How did people understand what they meant?
Actually, do we even understand the same words in the same way?
Is it true, that we have to fulfill our ultimate duty and redeem the evils we made, no matter how difficult it is and how long we try to postpone it?
Or is it just a fantasy based on an ethical metaphor? Is it true, that our past mistakes and faults are going to follow and haunt us throughout our lives? How would one feel at the end of one's life knowing that some things still need redemption?
If this very thought would even cross our minds, considering our capacity to deceive ourselves, explaining our wrongdoings as the necessary evils and our weaknesses and cowardice as rationality and common sense.
Or most likely we would just forget the things that are too unpleasant to remember. This is what would happen most likely. I think for many of us life will provide a layer of insulation protecting us from facing the truth. But the book has a moral point, though a fairy tale kind.
Do empathy and emotions define the higher level of human being? And the lack of emotions or empathy puts us in a category of lower human beings. Putting aside robots.
For example, if we decided to divide society into groups with different social status and privileges based on the level of empathy and emotions one possesses would it be fair?
Do emotions and empathy have any value per se, not being reaffirmed by action? And does it matter when action is impossible?
And if they matter so much that we deem any AI totally alien because it's incapable of emotions, then how this correlates with the philosophy of individualism?
At this point, the Pandora's box of multiple ethical questions is open, so I leave it at that
I wonder if this hypothetical social experiment can be justified from the point of view of ethics. Setting aside platitudes about equal rights and opportunities for all human or humanlike beings.
Throughout history, we had the principle of duty more frequently defining human fates than the idea of free will. Indian caste system, the principle of Dharma, responsibilities of Warrior, Governor and Martyr.
Can the concept of human donors in the background of this story be accepted as morally justified martyrdom for the well-being of society in general?
What's essentially wrong with an idea of people with a preordained duty attached to their lives? And how are they different from people for whom the duties are imposed by their ethics?
Another question, can a society decide matters of ethics and their implications in the form of duties for its members or is it important to allow each person to make a decision about the system of values they want to follow. In general, is there something wrong with this story?
One of the ideas in this book that captured my attention: Would it be justified, if our conventional notions of attachment and relations were deemed harmful and discarded in order to give everyone an opportunity to lead more enjoyable and fulfilling life?
On the one hand, those principles had been developed so we would be able to survive as species. On the other hand, if it's not an issue, does it make sense to keep them? How would it really affect people psychologically if it was a real situation?
Also why we consider discarding the feeling of attachment unethical? Is it simply due to the tradition or instinct or there is some deeper meaning in this?
Also, the second question: is it ethical to artificially limit mental capabilities of people who are predestined to have a lower status and perform menial jobs? Wouldn't it reduce their unquenchable craving for better opportunities, social angst, a feeling of being unworthy, and self-depreciation?
Does a society that artificially divides people into castes, where everybody has their paths laid out for them in advance, makes its members happier because nobody feels that their low status is their own fault?
If industrial economies in this scenario use all their surpluses to sustain wars that are artificially maintained to keep this economic model functioning maybe there's something wrong with industrial economies?
Is it some artificial and erroneous route of civilization? Because in reality, producers spend a significant part of their revenues on marketing campaigns trying to convince people to buy stuff that they otherwise wouldn't buy.
So basically industrial economies produce a lot of unnecessary stuff. Also, does this kind of society provides maybe an essential thing - the existential meaning, expressed in this scenario as an eternal fight with an abstract and symbolic enemy?
What is more important; a stable and perfectly organized society that keeps its members satisfied and relatively happy by regulating and suppressing their impulses and passions with drugs? Or is it freedom of people's emotions, passions, and creative impulses even when those are dangerous and destructive?
Do such impulses and passions even dark and destructive have some value per se that can outweigh the stability of society and its members? Is this social control through drugs similar to the control through religion and conventional morals?
I sometimes think about China's rise, from the perspective of ideology. And I wonder what will happen next.
What I'm trying to say is; I constantly return to the point several centuries earlier; Europe, Renaissance, development of science and downfall of Christianity. And Nietzsche proclaiming that "God is dead and we killed him." Which was true. The history of the next few centuries was influenced by this fact. Because the void left by religion had to be filled with something. It brought us ideologies; Communism, Fascism, Consumerism. Why Soviet ideology started crumbling and eventually fell apart, and then the Soviet Union fell apart? Because people were literally trying to build the paradise on Earth. As a replacement for an elusive paradise of Christianity. But it's impossible to build a paradise on Earth, the whole concept is so inconsistent with the reality of the human condition. At some point people were told "Ok, we built something, now we live in a Socialist paradise, sort of" and from this point this ideology began to crumble. Keep in mind; it worked perfectly when people were in the process of building the paradise, believing in it, although, they lived in hell at that moment. But when the paradise was sort of ready, the whole ideology fell apart. I think it happened because the very concept of paradise is inconsistent with human reality and the human condition.
Do you think that the fall of the Soviet Union was a consequential historical event?
I think so. And it happened because of the ideology that fell apart.
And here I want to emphasize the point I'm trying to make;
Historical events of the last two centuries were predominantly shaped by ideologies, their rises and falls.
Ideologies were and are the attempts of humanity to fill the void left by religion when religion lost its meaning. We are trying to find our individual and collective purpose, to define our values, to understand what is good, what is bad, and what is important
We still live in this historical period shaped by ideologies
The current ideology and religion is consumerism. Initially emerged in North America and Western Europe, now it's more or less universal. It promises us some sort of happiness related to prosperity and buying stuff, and, although we sometimes laugh at it, we don't realize how deeply it shapes our lives. The problem of consumerism is the same that caused the downfall of Soviet ideology and the Soviet Union. It promises happiness during our lifetime. ( rather than the religion that promised the life in paradise after death, and since nobody had ever returned, we couldn't check how good this paradise really was. So we have to assume it was good)
Consumerism promises happiness during our lifetime if we follow certain conditions (virtues); getting a good education, job, working hard, eventually spending and being happy. Unfortunately, this spotless happiness contradicts the very essence of human condition, the balance of joy and suffering. Nothing can make everybody happy. Nothing can even make happy enough people to make this ideology viable. So people follow the rules our consumerism culture proposes, and it doesn't make them happy in the end. So what's next? People stop believing in ideology, and it crumbles. And it crumbles together with many other things, including economies, nations, and states.
Now, what this all has to do with China? What's the main ideology in China at this moment? The thing defining how people think and act, their long-term goals and values. From what I've learned it's the same old culture of Consumerism I've mentioned above. China is a big industrial economy, based on a principle that people produce and consume stuff. Consumerism, apart from being an ideology, is a system of values that makes people act in a certain way, allowing an industrial economy to function.
I've mentioned above that crash of ideologies led to the crash of states in the past. As an example, the Soviet Union. So now here's is a question; what happens when people in China (whose prosperity now grows and who can buy and consume more stuff) will realize that growing material prosperity essentially doesn't make them happy? (for example because of the huge gender imbalance, which, looking at it from a certain angle, is a very serious issue that can affect everything)
If I understand things correctly, the beginning of economic growth in China was also supported by Communist ideology, in other words building a paradise on Earth. So now, considering the booming economy, it is more or less time when Chinese leaders will be telling that this task is accomplished. The question would be; what's next? Plus, now the Communist ideology, praising sacrifices and building for the future generations is replaced by Consumerism ideology that promises people happiness during their lifetime. (Which is not going to happen) So, ok, what's next? If the main goal is achieved, what meaning people can attach to their lives, apart from being happy, which is a vacuous and unattainable goal.
In other words, isn't the fate that had befallen the Soviet Union going to affect China as well?
I think an emergence of conspiracy theories and pseudo-science theories and all the turmoil and confusion and people arguing what is moral and what's is immoral, all this is a part of a bigger problem.
It's mere symptoms of the disease that plagued Western civilization starting from Renaissance when the system of values and moral norms defining "good life" based on Christian faith was undermined by multiple scientific discoveries and emergence of philosophical theories questioning Christian dogmas and principles and its credibility in general.
Not even credibility of mythology associated with Christianity and Abrahamic religions in general, but whether it really holds true values and morals people should follow. Like Nietzsche said, "God's dead, we've killed him." Also, it feels like there wasn't any way to avoid it.
In my personal opinion, Abrahamic religions are a really strange phenomenon; they are pretty rigid in terms of their rules and possibility to interpret their contents metaphorically. I can judge by the way they have a hard time turning into a source of philosophical wisdom stripping themselves from its mythological contents.
As opposed to Eastern philosophies and religions like Hinduism, Buddhism or Daoism where philosophical aspect prevailed over its mythological elements. It seems like it was never important for anybody whether the presence of various gods and deities correlated with objective reality. It was a mythological, fairytale aspect of those philosophies that we perceive according to the principle of the relation of fairy tale reality to objective reality; namely as symbols and metaphors.
For example, we don't have arguments whether gods and deities in Hinduism and Buddhism were real, and those religions still have a strong influence on their respective cultures. And for worshippers of those religions the aspects related to rituals and superstitions, and aspects related to philosophies and morals are separated.
In this respect what also comes to my mind are polytheistic religions of Ancient Greece and Rome. I was thinking; Are they even religions? I mean, I doubt if anybody in Ancient Greece and Rome ever really believed that those big pantheons of various deities and multiple convoluted and elaborate stories related to them could be real. They were way too convoluted, elaborate and by all means literary. And with deities having so many human qualities and flaws it would be difficult to take them seriously.
So it more feels like, in fact, those civilizations weren't religious; what those pantheons and myths produced were mere rituals and superstitions, (plus an inspiration for a very cool art) plus certain "fairy tale wisdom" and metaphors. But they didn't serve what some philosophers now claim was the main and key purpose of religions in general; to provide society with norms, morals, feeling of purpose and identity, without which society wouldn't be able to exist.
In Ancient Greece, the thing which served this purpose was, in fact, philosophy and it fulfilled its role pretty well, considering that this society was stable, with clear social norms, principles, and laws; plus with a certain level of freedom to choose personal values and beliefs.
This fact actually casts doubt on claims that from the anthropological point of view religions were necessary social constructs that allowed societies exist.
So, it makes me think that Abrahamic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are a special breed that is really different from Oriental religions and philosophies, as well as Polytheistic religions of ancient and primitive societies.
And to the contrary to what some philosophers claim today their defining characteristics weren't providing societies with values, morals, and purpose. As we can see Ancient Greece and Rome didn't really need religion to have them. Also, in China historically and even today this task was successfully fulfilled by Confucianism, which was a pure philosophical teaching that simply made sense.
As my personal observation, I've noticed there are two characteristics that differentiate Abrahamic religions from Hinduism or Buddhism or anything. First, they are pretty totalitarian in practice. During the centuries when Christianity was predominant (and to some degree in Islam now) the person was required to believe in what is written in holy books, plus to believe it almost literally, including obvious mythology, dubious dogmas, and controversies.
The scope of such belief also includes the necessity to interpret the world in a certain way, so it wouldn't contradict religious teachings about it. Hence persecution of science. Which leads to the second peculiarity of Abrahamic religions; namely, they have troubles distinguishing and disengaging its philosophical ideas from its mythology.
Basically, when we start questioning the credibility of events in those religions they begin to fall apart, their ideas begin to lose credibility as well. For example, it doesn't happen to Buddhism, although, it's most likely Buddha was a fictional character. In fact, it doesn't really matter.
So it makes me personally suspect that those religions don't really have valuable philosophy and wisdom that could exist on its own without being supported by belief in myth.
It seems like the emergence of those religions was really a strange historical phenomenon rather than anthropological necessity, considering that societies don't really need strong religious beliefs to hold together, based on the example of ancient and eastern civilizations.
So considering these qualities, it wasn't surprising that with a quick progress of science and development of critical thinking and philosophy during the Renaissance, Christianity and associated with it system of morals and values started falling apart.
It wouldn't happen to Buddhism, for example, because it's a philosophy itself, but as I've mentioned Christianity has trouble with dissociating its philosophical and mythological stuff. Or, I dunno, maybe if we don't believe in miracles it stops making any sense at all.
So the thing is, whatever was supposed to fill this spiritual hole that was left after Christianity fell apart, it didn't materialize. It's also interesting and strange because once again looking at Eastern philosophies they fulfill this purpose pretty well for the thousands of years.
What I think failed to emerge as a unifying and universal philosophy had to be based on some deep core beliefs and convictions. But this placeholder for core beliefs had been filled by Christianity as well, so deep impact it had on human souls. So what followed included spiritual nihilism, the emergence of horrors of the 20th century, the emergence of fascism and devaluation of human life to nothing, which Nietzsche so sadly predicted. This all resulted from the disintegration of Christianity, as a fallout of its toxic explosion.
Or rather even due to the very existence of such strange phenomena. Not for nothing those religions were compared to drugs. Those are drugs, all right, and the consequences for the soul are similarly destructive.
So what, in fact, I wanted to say is that this whole turmoil, confusion, and beliefs in strange things and conspiracy theories are just an inevitable consequence of the existence of this spiritual hole left after religion. The hole not filled by any convincing philosophy, a system of values, or wisdom.
According to the principle of existentialism, it's now our problem, for each of us to find some meaning in our lives. And without any core beliefs, so many people try to fill this void using any means they can find.
I heard some pseudo-scientific theories mentioning some pre-human civilizations living on Earth, possessing basically magic powers. I can see what it might mean for those who believe in such things; their existence would confirm that we are part of some meaningful process and so on. I personally believe that all the coincidences that led to the emergence of human life are too convenient to be mere coincidences and there is some purpose behind it.
So, to summarize some of the things, I tried to grasp. Namely, what are the forces that drive people, and how we design in our minds the concept of what should be a good life or at least some subjective perception of a good life? For example, from my personal perspective in my personal context of living. Or what's this mysterious mechanism of faith, and what people actually believe in, and why it's considered important to believe in something? Like, for example, I might intermittently believe in the principles of Stoics and Epicureans, depending on what exactly I can afford at the moment. I don't see any contradiction in that.
I was curious about what are actually those things the Christians believe. I mean, apart from the convoluted history of travails of Jewish people, and obscure legends from Genesis that can be interpreted in so many different ways.
What I believe is that the core of any religion and philosophy should consist of a comprehensive list of clear and understandable concepts that people take personally in the context of their own lives, and people can believe in those concepts. In other words, to accept them as truths without questioning whether they might be right or wrong.
The truth is a vague concept itself. Some philosophers argue that there is no such thing as truth in reality or at least such thing as an absolute or objective truth. Nonetheless, I understand the idea of faith, or what it means to believe.
For example, I strongly believe in intrinsic goodness in people, which exists despite all the evilness in people that also exists. This is a belief that I keep holding despite the realization that I cannot even clearly define, what I mean by goodness in people.
To break it down, it's more like an emotional perception of a quality, developed during the millions of years of evolution, that allows us to act like social animals, taking care of our own kind. We care about each other, feel love, empathy, and other stuff like that.
But when I see this quality as if it's something sublime and divine, I realize that I'm very anthropocentric. Like we still kill animals for food without any moral qualms. Well, at least I doubt if there is somebody who even thinks about moral consequences of killing mosquitoes, although they might have thoughts, and hopes, and feelings, and stuff. Well, cows definitely do.
So it technically should have removed people's kindness and love to each other from the pedestal of divine intrinsic goodness to the set of realities related to our evolution as social animals.
The point is, it doesn't happen, I mean, I keep believing in human deeply hidden goodness and wisdom and stuff, even though I cannot explain rationally, what exactly do I mean by that. This, I think, is a nature of faith; it lies below rational level on some emotional plain, and it doesn't communicate with the rational part of mind well.
So, then I eventually decided to learn what Christians actually believe. And it was like; they believe that the things written in Bible are written by God. That Jesus is God. The implication of that is that all that he says rings the divine Truth. As well as everything that's written in Bible rings with the divine truth as well. Also, there's life after death, and those who believe are going to be saved. (presumably from death)
So those two core beliefs are essentially about the same thing - the promised miraculous escape from death.
Two things here strike me as curious: First, it's a really kind of egotistical philosophy, like the person is primarily preoccupied with his/her own salvation, not whether their actions are good for people who surround them. No, the core idea is that very personal issue of death and finding some way to avoid it. And the hell with others. Which somewhat contradicts my personal belief that our strength and beauty as human species is in standing up to each other, helping each other, etc. in other words putting other people before self every now and then. This is why this core tenet of personal salvation strikes me as somewhat strange.
The second strange thing is this fear of death, on which basically the whole idea is based. The fear of death takes the center stage here. When we talk about salvation and eternal life, we are, in fact, saying that we are scared of death to such degree that we are ready to go to lengths to avoid it.
For example, some ancient and eastern philosophers argued that there is no point in being afraid of death. Like It's the same state as the one we were in before we were born, or what we feel every time when we sleep. (We feel nothing and think about nothing.) Like, why we are not afraid to sleep, but are afraid of death, while those two conditions are technically so similar?
The thing is, the fear of death is primal. It's an instinct of self-preservation that resides in our reptilian brain. But shouldn't religion or philosophy appeal more to our rational mind?
Meanwhile, according to this core belief, the central idea of Christianity is built around this primitive, fundamental fear of death and desire to avoid it at any cost. This is how it seems. Another thing that puzzles me, is that I'm used to perceiving Christianity in the historical context as a religion of Power. And War.
Meanwhile, the message and preaching of Christ are all about peace and love to each other and stuff. This is kind of a paradox. Also, if we believe that Christ is the true God (or some avatar of God from Old Testament or whatever), then he's the same God who led Jews on the bloody conquest of Holy Land, who wiped out humanity in a big flood, burned gays en masse, and other stuff like that. Which leads to further confusion about which of those contradictory messages is more relevant in the context of this religion.
At least the concept of God from Old Testament makes it more clear why Christianity is the religion of Power and Conquest. This all rings somewhat similar to the legends and beliefs of North religions.
Another paradox is that God of Old Testament focused predominantly on taking care of Jewish people - his own chosen race, largely at the expense of other people who were conquered, slaughtered, and so on. Also, it seemed like the eventual coming of Messiah in the form of Jesus Christ was also viewed as the event that was supposed to rejuvenate the Jewish nation, having hard times at that particular historical period.
Meanwhile, Christianity became really powerful after it had been adopted by Romans, and starting from that point it benefited many different nations, bringing its rough totalitarian strength and discipline to the core of those societies. The thing is, it didn't benefit Jews much, they really had been left on the fringes. And it's somewhat baffling and kinda defeats the purpose of Old Testament.
Probably, the word Communism conjures in me some associations with the hive mind, hive behavior, and hive values. Namely, that individual is less important than a hive. And a hive turns into an object of worship, like a swarming God. Maybe, this is how bees think. All that makes sense only if I can believe that hive values and perceptions are deeper than my individual values and perceptions. But how can it be, if the hive consists of the same individuals as I am? And people are imperfect and fallible. Or is that the case when a combination of parts become more sophisticated and perfect than separate parts? Or society is more like a flow of water, and while the movement of separate parts can be more or less unpredictable and chaotic, based on a multitude of different driving forces and pulls, the motion of the whole flow is clearly defined by the configuration of pipes and channels.
Or, in other words, where is that border, reaching which my own identity ends and blends with identities and perceptions of other people, becoming influenced by them to the degree when it's impossible to distinguish anymore where one consciousness ends, and another begins. When I read or hear somebody whose points and logic are precise, consistent, and beautiful, I fall into trance, in which their flow of thoughts become my flow of thoughts, and later I have difficulties separating those adopted thoughts from thoughts that are intrinsically mine. Or, like, maybe my mind is fully comprised of thoughts and ideas I borrowed from somebody at some point. In this case, do I even have a unique identity, separate from their identities? Ok, and if I don't, what would be the point in perceiving myself as something separate from the hive-mind, hive-conscience, hive-perceptions, and hive-goals.
Maybe, this can be the principle of Communism taken to the extreme, and it still makes a lot of sense. Namely, to dismiss the importance of individual mind, individual perception, and individual free will. We are all parts of a single organism like neurons in the brain. Our knowledge and perceptions are part of knowledge and perceptions of a giant brain. Our goals and philosophy come from there as well, we are not formed from unique substance, unique fabric of ideas, although, we can produce unique ideas that immediately become a part of hive-consciousness. The more we try to see ourselves as separate entities, the more we fall into the trap of following most banal and most commonplace concepts and ideas.
Counterintuitively, embracing the principle of hive-mind and admitting our insignificance within it, we can reclaim our individuality. The individuality of a sparkling neuron within a more complex and perfect construction of the brain. The significance of a grain of sand, participating in a mesmerizing beauty of a dune, consisting of myriads and myriads of such particles.
The idea of Communism is to comprise those separate, chaotic, and unpredictable water drops into a single powerful stream, magnificent gigantic dune, sophisticated brain, which neurons work in a concerted effort to produce insights. At the same time, it offers an answer to the existential headache of an individual, trying to understand his or her direction and meaning. To some degree, it offers solace, and something to cope with pain and mortality. The thing is, we don't matter as separate beings at all, but at the same time all together we comprise a single organism, which is immortal and which has that deep meaning and purpose. As long as it exists, our thoughts are not going to disappear in the oblivion, and neither do we.
Well, it makes sense if we believe in a grand intrinsic meaningfulness of human civilization, but this is how it works. Faith doesn't need any strong logic behind it, it just exists. And when you deal with the things, where it's hard to find any facts or logic, just to believe probably makes sense. I don't know, I probably believe in this higher purpose of human civilization because of science, art, things like that. And because throughout thousands of years those things never got completely lost, buried under the sand of time. While Empires and peoples rose and disappeared, knowledge was something that always stayed.
Maybe, Christianity tells something similar, but ironically, the way I understand it, it tells that we are kinda important as individuals. Like, I mean, if somebody tells me that I'm going to live forever in heaven, I would assume that I'm somewhat that important.
But will ants and bees have this eternal blissful existence in heaven, and if not, how would they answer those existential questions about the purpose of their lives and stuff? Like, if I'm a bee, and I see a God before me, and I ask, like, "is there any way for me to have that infinite, blissful life in heaven?" and he would say something like, "No, it's not going to happen." Then I would ask like, "what's my purpose then?" Everything got to have a purpose. And on the other hand, what should define my morals and actions and stuff. So, yes, religions are anthropocentric, even ego-centric, they say we as grains of sand on a dune nevertheless are so important that we deserve eternal life in heaven and stuff. Which is kinda strange and counterintuitive from a point of view of the grain of sand.
Another idea that makes sense is to live here and now, enjoy the current moment and not think about things on the grander scale. Because that grander scale might or might not exist. It came from Greek philosophy of Hedonism, we can call it consumerism or whatever, but the point is, this concept, as well as religion, also unite us, individual drops of water, making us move like a water stream in a certain direction. Neither of those ideas has a clear goal, only direction. I can look at the sunshine and worship the Sun. It also makes perfect sense. Because it's beautiful.
