/lit/ - Literature

He’s just so based
Faith isn’t holding on... it’s letting go

>>13416166
René Girard has a great essay where he analyzes Camus' "The Stranger" and brings in this very theme of Kierkegaard's to make a beautiful point about egotism and desire. Worth reading.

>>13416200
link?

>>13416188
>holding on
to what?
>letting go
of what?

>>13416166
He refuted atheistic existentialism before it was even born

>>13416220
It's called "Camus's Stranger Retried" and it is in his book called "To Double Business Bound," or you can find it for free on JSTOR if you are a student.

>>13416348
>He refuted atheistic existentialism before it was even born

This. Breddy impressive.

While everyone was stroking Hegel's shaft, Kierk stepped back and saw the inevitable faggotry that was coming down the road.

>>13416188
Shut up Pynchon. The nature of the faith is in letting go of reason and acting in animal faith for all states including the ones we don't want you to do, which is why the despair exists in the first place. Possibility is the greatest avinue to despair. It is constructing our views of possibility and not gratitude for the present material that results in such despair. The infinite is not ours, nor is it a place we can go to or come back from, but is itself an acceptance of the unknowable limits of our agency. The infinite symbolises the limits of human facutil to comprehend the immediate choices.

>>13416245
>holding on to what?
To what Kierkegaard calls the infinite, which is to say, that idyllic and highest vision of oneself which fulfills every aspiration and desire that persistently aches in the background of daily life. It is the desire to be precisely the thing which one dreams of, and so believes that currently is not. It is the keen awareness of the differential between what one is in one's daily roles and personality against what one believes that one could be by fulfilling one's potential.

>letting go of what?
Of the same, namely, of the infinite, which is to say the culmination of one's egotistic desires and fancies in favor of a complete submission to the substantially greater glory of God, which undeniably must outweigh even the perfection of oneself in life to the extent that such a thing is possible. "Letting go" is the process of obeying the higher purpose of the cosmos as a whole rather than cling to the precious image of oneself as a "knight of the infinite." The knight who has "let go" is the knight of the finite, or the knight of faith, who is, relative to the knight of the infinite, inglorious, plain, unadorned in earthly beauty, deprived of every attribute that would make one an outstanding, powerful thing according to the standards of this world. The knight of faith is rather, or can be, anything which is apparently beneath the ideal, "infinite" fantasy--for instance, a breadmaker, husband, a carpenter, etc., serving society and his fellow man in a meek and seemingly insubstantial way, compared to the striding and swaggering knight of the infinite, who draws the envy of all men. The knight of faith must certainly fail to draw this kind of envy, and many actually feel sorry for him, seeing that he is not a great scholar or a politician, or a conquerer or a warrior; although, if he were to find himself in such positions (for he could never aim for such things himself--he is too pragmatic for that) he would astound men with his humility and lack of selfishness, so that the many who felt sorry for him would suddenly feel naked before him, and if they were damned, they would become extremely spiteful toward him, and skeptical of his goodness, which they could not believe, positing that he must be secretly duplicitous and false, hiding a tremendous ambition and lust for power behind an outward show of selflessness. But this is just what he is not--and the fact we have such a hard time believing that a knight of faith could exist is tied to our stubbornness in regards to this so-called "letting go" of the infinite.

>>13416468
Excellent post

>>13416410
> retard, le post
'Faith' simply means 'trust'. Trust in God.

That's all there is to it. "Reason" and other bullshit has no relevance to the question.

Hes not a good philosopher. All he does is write good enjoyable poetry and his readers like the way he puts things so they think that his reasoning therefore must be sound. When in reality he is the king of fallacies.

"Dude God is real cus like subjectivity is the only real thing. XD, if you dont believe in God well t-then your a fedora!"

Is there an unofficial /lit/ Kierkegaard reading list or flowchart?

Should I brush up on Hegel before diving in?

>>13416601
You just described Nietzsche

>>13416166
>dude just believe sky daddy

>>13416601
>Kierkegaard isn't a good philosopher because muh fallacies
go back to reading Popper, pleb

>>13416601
>>13416838
I believe you gentlemen would be more effective and gain more ground in your skepticism if you were more fair to the subtleties of your opponent's argument. A more confident skeptic would be willing and even eager to try to offer perhaps an even better argument than the opponent is himself capable if, in order that when he successfully refutes it the defeat is all the more devastating and sound.

>>13416952
That would require entertaining the possibility that their disbelief might lead them to suffering in the afterlife. It’s understandable why they have trouble doing so. Some even muster faith against God’s existence, because they want to avoid all guilt by believing God is impossible

>>13416966
>>13416188
When the fuck did christfags start infesting this site?
Why would they have come here in the first place?

>>13416838
Midwit alert

>>13416166
>>13416188
>>13416200
>>13416500
>>13416577
>>13416944
>>13416966
checked

>>13416993
>w-why are people discussing one of the most famous philosophers to ever live?!?
not your safe space brainlet

>>13416993
>provide an actual argument as to how Kierkegaard is wrong
>no fuck off christfag
yeah sure we're the infestation

>>13416410
Having faith that God exists doesn't equate to abandoning reason.

>>13416166
I can't; my boy is perfect

>>13416952
>better argument
nope, creating an illusory all powerful ghost doesn't fix the existential problem

sounds like book IV of The World as Will and Representation

>>13416577
The nature of trust is in itself a component of the immaterial such as we know it. The laws of physics are not precarious, though randomness seem inherent. It cannot be accepted as such that tomorrow the moon will crash into the earth. We therefore can ascribe trust to certain systems outside of us, and therefore take these attributes both outwards into the materiality of the world and inwards to the ability of our essential animality. As we speak of trust we cannot deny it from the world as such, in itself, a complex trust system without conscious agency. We should not therefore speak of faith as actionable without imparting on it some attribute of receiving reason's sentiment, if you'll give the two headed horse a name.

>>13416166
Confucius lol xp

>>13417028
god necessitates the abandonment of reason in order to comprehend it as such, without the biases of either language or culture to provide stability or unity to etheir the signifier or signified. It is therefore that we have specialists in science to seek the universe as we do the attributes of godheads and their nature as constructions and as socially organized conception of the reality of the world.

>>13417053
You’re assuming God is fake. This is exactly what’s predicted here>>13416966
You are a meme

>>13416966
Yes but the atheist in your comment is not a true one, in my mind. For if I only "disbelieve" in God in order to clear myself of guilt, or rather to allow myself the free and unmitigated reign of my desire, then seems to me to still be a kind of positing of God. In this case I would seem not to deny that God exists based on any rational premise, but rather based upon whim entirely, as though it were a choice based upon what one would like to be the case, and not a matter of soberly assessing the issue and accepting the consequences of the conclusion regardless of our inclinations. In my view, many atheists and theists are stuck in a kind of dichotomy which has nothing to do with a sincere search for truth. For instance, an atheist might belittle the Christian who believes in God out of a hope for an afterlife, thinking himself therefore possessing a kind of strength and sobriety on account of his not needing an afterlife. But this is just the same kind of argument the theist makes against the atheist when the former accuses the latter of rejecting God out of a desire to be lawless in this life. Both of these arguments, in my view, seem to accuse the other of being irrational, putting one's desires (for heaven or for lawlessness) before an honest pursuit of truth, again as though it were a question of one's own strength or well-being whether one ought to believe in God or not.

A more sincere seeker would not come under either of these categories; for instance, we might have a theist who is in fact inclined NOT to believe in God--for this makes it easier to live with sin--or we might have an atheist who sincerely wishes for a faith in God, but cannot come to it without seemingly running into contradictions he cannot bear to hold. Here we have a more honest atheist or theist, who is neither trying to avoid responsibility for his actions, or to secure a comfortable estate in the afterlife. An atheist of this kind would surely understand that if he had the true belief he would dread an eternity in hell, understanding completely therefore the prudence of a practicing Christian. But if he does not believe in God--again not out of a deliberate desire to be disobedient--he cannot bring himself to practice the faith. He may still very well try to be sincere, compassionate, and caring towards others, but not because he believes in God. He may, rather, believe in something essentially alien to human concern; in such a case, the good in this life is good enough, even though there is nothing to hope for, no reward to be sought in another life, and no ultimate end or purpose to the human experience. It is rather like a happy accident, a strange harbor on the outskirts of the cosmos, a pleasant fortuity, insulated from some lofty explanation. To such an atheist the belief in God is rather superfluous--it is not necessary and since he is at peace with his worldview he does not pine for anything.

>>13417130
There is no reason I can see why he might not struggle within himself exactly in the manner of any fervent Christian--fighting against egotistic desire, fighting against selfishness; in other words, he may indeed possess a genuine and grand love for humanity, even though he has no mind to unite with God in the ineffable womb of contemplation. And perhaps for this reason he has more time to love humanity than the monk, who has his thought ever directed to God, and to his fellow man only in an abstract way, allegedly sending his love out into the ether where it falls gently upon the busy multitude. Or perhaps the atheist does something quite similar, and in his leisure practices some sort of contemplation, where his thought is not of God but of something indefinable in any case. At this point, what really is the difference between such an atheist and a devout theist? What could bring such men into contention with one another? The Christian might weakly accuse the atheist of replacing God with mere humanity or mere ineffability, or of not using the word love to describe his feeling or of giving no mind to Christ, and so forth--but probably the Christian could put his faith to better use than to disturb such a man. Both an atheist and a Christian might agree that there is no place for prudence in the life of the greatest man, who thinks neither of reward nor of immortality nor of unification nor of fire and brimstone...

>>13416350
thanks
to jshit I go

>>13417104
and your premises are that he exists AND cares about anyone's life AND intervenes

>>13417147
Yes, but there are reasons to believe these claims, such as prophecies, miracles, etc. but most importantly by believing I will profit, whereas your faith leads nowhere

>>13417130
>To such an atheist the belief in God is rather superfluous--it is not necessary and since he is at peace with his worldview he does not pine for anything.
That's because they're being ignorant about the purpose of the necessity of God as a symbol of valuation within a system of individuation that regulates the means of communal meaning making itself - to the very extent that God doesn't necessitate belief in itself, but that belief allows for the property of an agent we can pose in order to form individual wills. It is not given that we have always understood the world by the same conceptions, and therefore the attributes of God have a dominance over our ability to communicate and comprehend at all.

>>13417137
I've rubbed shoulders with many atheists, and I would not describe a single one of them as either charitable or compassionate.

>>13416166
Literally anyone else.
This Christcuck is the worst.

>>13416166
If you take his leap to faith seriously then you need to take another, this time from a cliff.

>>13416166
I started reading fear and trembling and it was literally just ramblings about Abraham and breastfeeding. He's a joke.

>>13416166
I will never understand the psychology of Christians. No clue what it is your deity actually does for you psychologically, physically, financially, medicinally or otherwise, but clearly your lives have become quite idyllic for doing so, so power to you I guess. The Judeo-Christian theology seems like the greatest anesthetic in the world, from where I stand.

>>13416245
Letting go of reason and logic to believe blindly.

>>13418170
>>13418181
>>13418199
>>13418218
>>13418236
(you)

>>13416166
I frequently hear that it is more rational to believe in God, and specifically Christianity, on this board. Does this man give that reason?

>>13418261
No, he proves that it is fruitless to understand faith through reason and that you should just embrace it regardless of your doubts.

>>13418261
No he legitimately recommends a suspension of reason and a leap to faith instead. Which is somewhat more admirable than making the preposterous claim that belief is more reasonable.

>>13418261
no that would be Pascal

>>13418261
Read Aquinas if you want to see a rational approach to faith, Kirkegaard is basically the opposite of that

>>13416993
they've been here the whole time. this board used to have a christfag general before it was invaded by redditors thanks to that one imgur post

>>13419908
You need to repent and eliminate Christfag from your vocabulary

Existentialism is the shallowest kind of philosophy out there.

>>13419779
and that's why Aquinas was wrong and Kierk was right

>>13416468
Thanks, I haven’t read him yet but your post makes me want to

>>13421164
>Hasn’t explored the depths of the self
Hit the books kid

>>13416993
>one post making it into a religion issue
>thread suddenly goes to shit