/lit/ - Literature

>>5356794
>which I'll make myself do

This is essentially impossible... At least if you are mentally able. This is not to say religion is good or bad in anyway, just that you cannot make yourself believe something with that attitude.

Read the myth a Sisyphus, and maybe some other related work. Stuff along the lines of existentialism as well. Buddhism is also super interesting, and can be very beneficial.

You will never be tired of being adrift, but at least you learn to laugh at the absurdity of your existence, and enjoy experience.

>>5356794
>

Sufi metaphysics really fit in proper, I'd suggest you to read Ibn Arabi, I like reading Spinoza alongside it, they're very similar

Catholicism.

>>5356794

accept yourself. let this be your meaning and purpose.

trying to throw yourself into a doctrine that you've little cultural relation to and no traditional and ritual knowledge of in your formative years can work out for you but for many it's just a quick-fix that disillusioned secular society people out of desperation. and because they throw themselves into it and make a goal of it they never attain what they're after.

don't make goals in matters like these.

just stay interested in everything for the time being. there's no need to rush into something.

>>5356794
Find a tariqa

>>5356826
This

and also this >>5356815

>>5356794

accept yourself. let this be your meaning and purpose.

trying to throw yourself into a doctrine that you've little cultural relation to and no traditional and ritual knowledge of in your formative years can work out for you but for many it's just a quick-fix that disillusioned secular society people take out of desperation. and because they throw themselves into it and make a goal of it they never attain what they're after.

don't make goals in matters like these.

just stay interested in everything for the time being. there's no need to rush into something.

>ultimately accept (which I'll make myself do)
>unified sense of meaning and purpose?

>>5356794
Just go about it like everyone else and take the first thing that crosses your mind, followed by avoiding any and all dissonance like the plague.

>>5356794
The most important part is making yourself believe that you're not making yourself believe. That way, you can fall for anything.

zen/buddhism, but you don't have to actually study it, just stop doing things.

>>5356815
>>5356816

Avoid Stirner and existentialism like the plague. It'll only mentally regress you and keep you in manchild state.

Get into poetry. It will continue to inform your ways of seeing that will only benefit you. The ambiguity of poetry lends itself very well to spiritual seeking.

Why are people recommending Buddhism when it doesn't offer a sense of meaning or purpose? Buddhism is "literally" "lol just don't think about it." If you want a religious doctrine that has a "narrative" attached to it, pick a Western religion. A type of Christianity is a safe choice, and Catholicism has a whole political aspect to it.

>>5356794
Taoism

>>5356794
or become a neo-platonist

>>5356860

>Buddhism is "literally" "lol just don't think about it."

Mindfulness is that, yes, but it's so much more.

>A type of Christianity is a safe choice

There is something very sad about using the words "safe choice" in a topic like this. Something very sanitized and heartless.

>>5356860
You should be more versed on a subject before chiming in. Buddhism is the exact opposite of what you just stated... In order to be mindful of your inner workings as such, you must first get through all the muck in the way.

>>5356856
Do not listen to this manchild, he is discounting perspectives without delving into why they should be avoided. Simply insulting something does not discredit it.

Poetry can help existential angst sure, but the satisfaction you get from poetry will most likely be much more short lived than a philosophical explanation.

>>5356794
Celtic polytheism, by Toutatis!

>>5356896
>Buddhism is the exact opposite of what you just stated... In order to be mindful of your inner workings as such, you must first get through all the muck in the way.

How does this provide a "narrative" or sense of "meaning and purpose?" Buddhism is fundamentally anti-intellectual. I've read several books on it, and I can' be any more "well versed" in it because it doesn't have verses. I'm not even "chiming" you fuck; I'm typing.

>>5356896

>he is discounting perspectives without delving into why they should be avoided.

You do have a point here, but personally I think it's better to direct newer readers away from angst quagmires like Stirner because they'll shit up their newreader minds too quickly.

When he's really at a level to get something out of those writings he'll move toward them naturally. If I could I'd advise every newreader on this board to avoid Stirner I would.

>this manchild

Hardly, lol. If anything I'm the opposite because I'm advocating poetics and telling anon to embrace the world around him.

Stirner is a plague on newreaders here.

>>5356794
>if I want to have a unified sense of meaning and purpose? I'm tired of being adrift

It is always up to you to find your purpose. Finding it in some ancient theism is finding someone else's idea of purpose, and often a lie or partial lie.

Nihilism is the truth, it gets a bad rap, because it's nothingness. (How very zen) I will always recommend Epicurus, but Stirner if you're weak willed and need that boost.

>>5356898
>anti-intellectual
in what sense, how so?

>>5356840
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

>>5356815
What if I'm not mentally stable?

>>5356925
The whole point of koans is to show the futility/impotence of rational/logical thought. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" "What did your face look like before it was born?" etc.

>>5356919
How is Stirner angsty? I'd say he's the opposite.

>>5356932

Then you'll have a whale of a time and never shut up about it.

>>5356898
Considering this anons writing comprehension, I would avoid whatever he/she is advocating for or against.

>>5356941

Again, this is newreaders we're talking about.

Most lack the perspicacity to really get something out of it in a constructive way and they let it hamper their relations even more.

>>5356933
>LOL I read how 2 buddhism for westerners.
>It is highly anti-itellection guys, come on.

read Either/Or

>>5356933
Not really I think. I reckon the point is that what you're trying to understand can't be understood through intellectualizing, even though that doesn't mean rationality has no place in ordinary life.

>>5356933
No, Koans is a meditation technique to train your brain to stop worrying. You're not suppose to focus on answering the riddle but the feeling the riddle gives. A sort of emptying of the mind. Buddhism and arguably, all religion, is about training the mind. Hell, a famous Buddhist monk once said there's no difference between enlightenment and heroin.
Buddhism is intellectual. It gives you answers on why you want meaning and purpose, why you crave it. If you just want meaning and purpose, you can that on your own. Most people find it in family.

Buddhism teaches the poor peasants to be happy with rice and water and hardly any health or anything at all, while the priests fuck bitches, rule the land, get prestige, and when they get those bitches pregnant the buddhist nuns have to raise the kid.

Koans exist b/c a priest can easily let someone with enough money or power become 'enlightened' by just saying 'they got it!' after a couple of afternoons working in their office.

the maoist revolution in nepal was one of the best things to happen recently

>>5356963
There are people right now, who literally believe this.

>>5356860
The purpose is to stop wallowing in samsara.

>>5356898
>I can' be any more "well versed" in it because it doesn't have verses. I'm not even "chiming" you fuck; I'm typing.

This is cute.

>>5356921
What makes Epicurus a nihilist?

>>5356970
yeah my prof of buddhist studies.
where did all this 'buddhists are noble' bullshit come from anyway?

>>5356963

>more naive bullshit from a simple-minded pragmatist who can't into anything ineffable

sucks to be that basic m8

>>5356932
Then either go to therapist, or figure out that the perspective of mental stability is one of relativity.

>>5356953
I know that you like buddhism because it's hip and trendy and you get to pull the hipster card ("no, that's not REAL buddhism, that's westernized buddhism. I'm into authentic Eastern buddhism - I even meditate twice a week after Starbucks."), but that doesn't mean Buddhism is a good religion for OP's purposes. OP is looking for meaning and purpose, not a fashion statement.

>>5356959
>A sort of emptying of the mind.
This is the opposite of a feeling of "meaning and purpose."

> It gives you answers on why you want meaning and purpose, why you crave it. If you just want meaning and purpose, you can that on your own. Most people find it in family.
No, Buddhism does away with desire altogether. A craving for meaning and purpose is one such desire. Stop talking about the latest blogpost you read by a Brooklyn soccer mom who meditates occasionally.

>>5356972
>The purpose is to stop wallowing in samsara.
A restatement of what I said; good going. How do stop wallowing in samsara? By ceasing to use language, which happens when you realize its impotence.

>>5356977
buddha was a therapist/psychologist, you think he was really born out of his mom's side nigga?

>>5356974
Your prof of Buddhist studies is an idiot.

>>5356980

>I know that you like buddhism because it's hip and trendy and you get to pull the hipster card ("no, that's not REAL buddhism, that's westernized buddhism. I'm into authentic Eastern buddhism - I even meditate twice a week after Starbucks.")

I really wish people would stop trying to call others out for being fakes when they take up endless pretenses to get there.

It's like you can't even see how badly you're tripping over yourself.

>>5356983

>I'll prove you wrong with more naive pragmatist quips

what a shock

>>5356950
I'm comforted by your lack of substance

>>5356987
and what makes you think buddhism is a special religion?

>>5356991

>he says while not putting forward a substantive rebuttal of his own

Don't become the object of your disdain too quickly, son.

>>5356990
buddhism is just the same shit
you can get it in derrida, or from your local psychiatrist, or tao lin

>>5356988
I'm sorry I upset you. Maybe you can talk about why stuff like this makes you angry with your local Buddhist expert, John Winthrop.

"Hey John, this [...] makes me really angry."

"I learned from my deep studies into Eastern mysticism that you have to learn to let go, anon."

"Let go?"

"Let go. Just let go and be like water. Stirring muddy water does not make it clear. That's a quote from the Tao Te Ching -- I have it pulled up on my iPad, let me show you."

"That's so profound, John. Or should I say, Sage Winthrop."

"Haha. Would you like some green tea? - Oh, it' s not really green, it's more brown-green."

>>5357002
It's your place to provide evidence for the claim so that I might have something of substance to refute.

Please don't degrade yourself with the 'son' card

>>5357003

>mother someone on the internet is questioning my claim to total knowledge and it's making me upset

Read the fucking Bhagavad Gita. Also The Power of Now. Yes, it is a bit new-agey, but the general principle is a spot on way to be happier and feel more meaningful.

>>5356980
Nigga, there are many ways to train your mind. Koans is about the feeling of puzzlement. Mindfulness is about the feeling of focus and awareness. Some meditate on happiness. Likewise you can train yourself to have the feeling of "meaning" and "purpose" on all the time.
That's what Christianity is about. The meditative practice so that people get that feeling of being loved and cared for. How they do it? By focusing on the story of Christ, how he sacrifice himself on the cross, having pastors and priest yell at them for several hours every week, and constant imagery of that nigga Jesus all bloodied. After a long ass time, you basically have high that is on all the time. And like I said, why don't you just take heroin if you want that temporary fix of "meaning and purpose"? Why the fuck do you think people use drugs for?

>>5357008

>more namedrops and pretenses to save face

Look I know I was going to hit a nerve by calling out on your nervous projections but you didn't need to wall of text and let me know that I just took an axe to an artery.

>>5356980
I don't even follow Buddhism, I have no friends who do... stop trying to tie in emotional discomfort by calling something "hip and trendy", instead of actually coming up with a counter point.

>>5356963
That's just corruption by the ruling power. It happens to all religion. The kaisers becomes popes. The emperor becomes divine. I mean someone has to help the peasants believe their life isn't so shit. Otherwise they'll start a revolution or says fuck it and then you have no one to take advantage of.

>>5356995
>>5356995
I don't think it is special at all. Your prof is just an idiot on the perspective displayed. It holds little factual merit, and plays on cultural dissidence.

>>5357015
At my church we shoot up H and speak in tongues, nigga. Doped up and lookin' at tha nigga all bloodied up. Derive some real meaning an purpose outta that shit. If that ain't your church you doin it wrong. Fuckin' Catholics lmaooooo!

>>5357003
2014
trying THIS hard to edgy.

>>5357030
what, that buddhism is historically like all other religions and is used to hold down people, while the inner circles get benefits? i mean it took a hell of a lot of donations to make all those monuments and temples... have you read about any of the 'mischievous monks'?

You must try to reject all thing spiritual, for accepting the spirit is ignoring the paradox of subjectivity.

>>5357037
yes marxism tries to fuck up buddhism just like the rest of them

>>5357015
>Nigga,
Thanks for letting me know to take your post "with a grain of salt."

>That's what Christianity is about.
Which is why I recommended it, and not Buddhism. Buddhism explicitly states it wants to do away with desire. Thanks for backing me up, even if you're an idiot who uses "Nigga" without the intent to slur racially.

>>5357023
>I don't even follow Buddhism, I have no friends who do...

Why are you talking about something you're not familiar with? "Oh well I took a class in Eastern Religions in uni for my gen ed credit." Right.

>stop trying to tie in emotional discomfort by calling something "hip and trendy", instead of actually coming up with a counter point.
That is a counter-point. I don't have to seriously "refute" an article in Cosmo because it's ridiculous. Same with Buddhism.

>Look I know I was going to hit a nerve by calling out on your nervous projections but you didn't need to wall of text and let me know that I just took an axe to an artery.
Look I know I was going to hit a nerve by calling out on your nervous projections but you didn't need to wall of text and let me know that I just took an axe to an artery.

>>5357048
>the paradox of subjectivity.
Right. And Consciousness creates Reality, etc. Nice to meet you too.

>>5357036
ayyy lmao

>>5357057
Because in order to understand soemthing, you have to be a follower right?

2014, Being this mentally inept.

>>5357068
Typical of the hipster Buddhist to go "NO YOU!" when someone tells them their "spirituality" ("I'm not religious, but I"m spiritual", they say) is a bunch of wank.

>>5357057
No you daft cunt. I'm saying all religion is about training the mind. If you want to find "meaning and purpose" and empathy in Buddhism, then just look at Mahayana. People there use a meditative practice where they train themselves to love all life so they don't eat meat and won't harm a single ant.

>>5357057
Are you telling me you believe that humans invoke a special rule of reality by just existing?

>>5357044
Your reading comprehension is sub par.

Allow me to articulate for your plebeian brain. Buddhism, like every other religion can be used as a means of exploitation. The exploitative nature of a select few cannot determine the entirety of all followers, let alone the actual philosophical writings themselves.

Just because the pope demands donations, does not disqualify the ethical and moral ideal portrayed in the bible.

>>5357076
>because I said I was spiritual.

This is what my post said.

"Because in order to understand soemthing, you have to be a follower right?

2014, Being this mentally inept."

Try reading it again.... now a second time. Do you understand what I am conveying here? try writing it out yourself if you are having trouble...

Relax buddy, you do not need to answer, or to troll so many people. Sit back and do something else with your time, like play video games. There you go kid, go play some video games.

>>5357079
>No you daft cunt. I'm saying all religion is about training the mind.
Confirmed for not being religious. A religious person would never say something like this.

>People there use a meditative practice where they train themselves to love all life so they don't eat meat and won't harm a single ant.
But they'll set themselves on fire. Yeah, well, pretty cool and all. I think I'll just go train myself to love all life. Brb, training.

>Are you telling me you believe that humans invoke a special rule of reality by just existing?
No, I'm being sarcastic and disparaging you over the internet.

>Just because the pope demands donations, does not disqualify the ethical and moral ideal portrayed in the bible.
You can't "demand" a donation. Also, what the Pope is doing is perfectly "in-line" with the New Testament. Why don't you read the NT before blindly throwing darts of hate at Catholicism? Take your starbucks and go meditate somewhere else, fucking chink-sympathizer. Here's Buddhism's metaphysical doctrine: ching chong goobly gok, ching chong ding dong, gak bin bok hak.

>>5357104
"After the Buddha fasted for 49 days and 49 nights under the fig tree, he crawled over to his macbook and opened 4chan to be smug and haughty toward someone who preached truth and commonsense. 'I'm enlightened and you're a fuckwit', he wrote. It took him several tries to pass the captcha, but he did eventually."

>>5357114
"As the Buddha lifted his gaze from the screen he climaxed and transcended the three buddha boddies, reaching nirvana in an instant. His cock was erect spewing semen across the ground, and back onto the bark of the fig tree."

>>5357114
>Spending this much time replying to people in a thread
>still wonders why he is so alone.

scientism

Animism

Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin is a good intro

>>5357548
>Animism
This is the only real answer OP.

>>5356794

TL:DR Practical Existentialism: all you need to know or understand is that there's no reason or purpose for us to be here.

In that you're liberated to do anything you can conceive of.

Personally i think the greatest thing we can do as a species is get off this rock and populate others.

I may not live to do so but if i live my life in a way that furthers this goal i think i can exist happily.

The thing people miss in the search for meaning is that personal satisfaction or acheivement means little after you're gone, it's making way for those that come that matter.

if you ask me.

late Heidegger did it for me. "The death of God and the meaning of life" by Julian Young is a good introduction if you're new to existentialism.

>>5356794
Autism
Seriously, though
>making yourself accept a philosophy
How do you even do this without constantly being aware of the fact you're lying to yourself.

>>5357551
Another night spend on 4chan. What a life!

>>5357566
Hi nice to see you there buddy!

>>5357553
>tfw you laid a steaming shitpost in /sci/ about this earlier today
>tfw you didn't realize how damn stupid you were until that moment
>tfw you do it again to innocent /lit/ community

I just want to make a space sandwich before I die

>>5356794
You do not learn a philosophy.
You build one of your own.
For some, this is an easy, even trivial thing.
For others, it takes a lifeime.

>>5356794
Study the philosophies, I like Socrates.

Study the religions. I like Taoism/Buddhism

Study the mystics. Gnostic material is good

Study the occult. The Kybalion is good.

If none of this satisfies then I'm sorry you'll have to read Zen from the Bodhidharma lineage. This is not a philosophy, a religion, a mystical teaching or an occult practice. There is nothing to accept and you will find that your only purpose is studying more zen.

What a waste of time that would be.

>>5357515
>scientism

This. I have been ordained as a scientism Bishop, and can tell you that it is the best religion.

There are fuckheads out there putting their 'faith' in the idea of invisible dictators and talking snakes, of animal deities, of telepathic wishes being granted; there are pagans lighting mother candles and performing spells, men in dresses believing they will be given 99 virgins for blowing up a car outside an embassy. Meanwhile, we get the brunt of the hate. The Aristotelian elements were once believed to make up all of matter, and now we have molecules and atomic theory. We put our 'faith' in the idea that the modern atomic theory is a different, and potentially more accurate description of reality. Of the two, we believe that the latter uses more data and provides results that have more internal consistency when making predictions. "But you cant no nuffin, you cultist," scream the children. Well, that's why it's faith. We can't prove our laptops exist, We can't prove salt will dissolve in water, We can't prove holding our fingers to a flame will burn us, but we have faith.

Now lets not get mixed up in the idea of truth. Nobody, not even our Pope, claims that scientism gives us truth. In fact, the second commandment of scientism declares that science is not, and never can be, truth; that our descriptions and models only seem to be the most accurate with the knowledge that we think we have, and can always be falsified later. So what is scientism?
Scientism is the belief that we have models to describe reality. Even though we cannot objectively prove we have any models at all, we believe that we have them.
Scientism is the belief that we can falsify and refine these models within themselves. We cannot prove that we can, but we have faith.
Scientism is the belief that people scoffing at us from the infantile cover of militant skepticism have a fundamentally inferior faith, as the dogmatic "You cant know nuffin" that they chant like a fucking Krishna mantra cannot be objectively verified either.
Scientism is the warm euphoric glow that comes from pure enlightened intellect.

Nobody is asking you to take our holy sacraments and erect a shrine to Richard Feynman and Einstein. We have no door-to-door recruitment agents; "excuse me, have you heard of science and how it can improve the quality of your life?" we just work away improving the transistors for your smartphones, developing ways to cure your cancers, inventing improved hydroelectric dams so third world orphans can drink; and no, we can't prove that smartphones, cancer, or third world orphans exist, and we'll get screamed at and persecuted in a contemporary witch-hunt with brimmed hats, but we won't ever stop. We have faith.

>>5357623

that wasn't me actually.

what happened? link?

>implying im wrong

>>5356794
You can get this from any philosophy, but Islam sounds like a great choice for you.

>I'm a clueless whiny contrarian who has nothing left to be contrarian against
>please tell me what to believe

You know, you wouldn't have made this thread if you had actually put some effort into thinking for yourself and actually had the guts to believe in something that fits you, but you did, and instead of that, you expect people to tell you what to think.

I pity you. You will forever stay adrift

Pokemon

>>5356794
http://dudeism.com/

Abide my man

>>5356815
>This is essentially impossible... At least if you are mentally able.

No it isn't. Anyone can do it.

Pray to Sol Invictus.

>>5356860
engaged buddhism. buddhism bastardized for social justice.

>>5356794
Nihilism, you can't just latch on to other peoples denial of how reality works.
I'm not saying you should become homeless and give up on life, but you have to realize and internalize the absolute truth of your and everyone else's life as a foundation for your own life philosophy.

ITT: teenagers give advice.

>>5357557
God never died. The only "God" that died was the sociological God, which was never a god in the first place. In the middle ages you had St. Francis being laughed at for wanting to be poor in following Christ, and that was the time when your precious intellectuals thought that "God" was alive. The world has been dead to God since Adam & Eve and it's only ever been a tiny minority who have seen him since.

>"society" no longer worships God
>therefore God is dead and I no longer have to recognize my Creator

This is how deranged these modernists are. The same dry Humanist heresy from the Renaissance which puts "society" at the peak of existence. If "God" was alive you'd be the kind of double-minded and lukewarm man that thinks showing up on Sundays is enough to merit salvation.

>Personally i think the greatest thing we can do as a species is get off this rock and populate others.

This is extremely foolish. If our greatest aim is to populate "other rocks" then what will be our aim once we have accomplished that? To populate even more rocks?
Also, it's evil to think in terms of "we", "the species", "humanity", "mankind". You don't speak for every single human being. Most of them want nothing to do with your false idea of "the species" or "humanity". To a lot of people populating Mars would be no more of an achievement than populating the valley across the river.

>The thing people miss in the search for meaning is that personal satisfaction or acheivement means little after you're gone, it's making way for those that come that matter.

The problem is that you have no idea what goodness is so you don't know what it is the people that come after us really need. A lot of people that have been convinced that they were working "on behalf of humanity" have done enormous evil.

>>5357749
>Strawman
>"People who disagree with me are teenagers"
>Tripfag
>Using less used words to seem smarter
Oh wow, get back when you stop thinking you are somehow better than everyone else

>>5357757
I'm not better than anyone outside this place but while I'm here I am certainly better than every single anonpleb.

>>5357761
In that you can be filtered?

>>5357757
she's a resentful christian, every post she makes is like this, just filter it.

>>5357767
'righty, first time i saw her.

>>5356794
that's not how you approach this subject
religion is not ideology: a marketplace of cheap statements where you pick and choose whatever's cool at the moment
if you have a few years on your back you already have a few things worth living for and a few things you love. You've already seen a few things and have a few opinions. Go from there and find what already suits you - yourself. Someone else can not tell you that.

Search for meaning in life is not just a phase and can not be 'dealt with' by throwing a few philosophies at it, maybe add some yoga in the mix, stir, and ready is your soup of fulfillment. It's a common mistake here.

>>5357749
>Personally i think the greatest thing we can do as a species is get off this rock and populate others.

I agree. This is one of the things that makes we wish that a God and afterlife was real. If God was real, he set the Andromeda galaxy hurtling towards ours, and when it hits, it's going to wipe out everything on this tiny little rock. Either God had our destruction planned, or he knew we were going to advance technology and save ourselves. I would love nothing more than to witness the future of our species. Humanity is like a book in the first chapter, and I hate that I won't get to find out what happens in the end. Because of this, I truly wish that I could believe in a God. I wish I could muster that dogmatic faith.

>>5357773
>nd when it hits, it's going to wipe out everything on this tiny little rock
why would you think that
you will probably not notice at all
these collisions are not like physical collisions of normal objects, you know (just in case...)

>>5357773
You do believe in a god. You call it "humanity". For some reason you think that spreading ourselves across the galaxy is somehow meritorious when any number of ancient philosophers could have told you that the quality of life is more important that quantity. What do you think would be better m8, a small community on earth where everyone is happy and wise, or an intergalactic federation ruled by a cruel tyrant where 99% of humanity are benighted slaves and the other 1% are indifferent slavemasters?

>>5357749
>This is extremely foolish. If our greatest aim is to populate "other rocks" then what will be our aim once we have accomplished that? To populate even more rocks?
>Also, it's evil to think in terms of "we", "the species", "humanity", "mankind". You don't speak for every single human being. Most of them want nothing to do with your false idea of "the species" or "humanity". To a lot of people populating Mars would be no more of an achievement than populating the valley across the river.


maybe it's foolish to you, but if there's no reason to live other than to do things for the fuck of it, then what's the biggest and most impressive thing you can do?

i think that's space travel.

>>5357799
Who are you trying to impress?

>>5357793
>why would you think that
Andromeda is on a direct collision course with our galaxy. It's bigger than ours, and in it's arsenal are 400 billion suns. A small meteor is enough to wipe out most of the life on this planet, but the billions of bodies in a galaxy don't even have to hit us, their presence alone will be enough to fuck up the perfect gravitational interaction of our galaxy. A small shift toward our sun would kill us. We are a lot more fragile than you think.

>>5357805

A GIRL

but really, you're missing my point.

>>5357799
Space travel is no more impressive than travel by donkey. They are both forms of travel. Spaceships are an impressive feat of engineering, but engineering is not the highest of pursuits any more than travelling is.


If travelling is the highest of pursuits, then it doesn't matter where you travel as long as you do travel, when reason tells us that the purpose of travel is to get somewhere (the destination is a higher goal than travelling for its own sake, which proves that travel is not the highest pursuit). Nor is the destination the highest of goals, because reason again tells us that we go from one destination to another to fulfil a certain purpose, otherwise we would stay where we are.
Engineering isn't the highest of pursuits because we engineer machines in order to serve a purpose. If engineering were the highest goal then the robot apocalypse you see in the Terminator films would be considered good due to its expressiveness in engineering.

>>5357820
No, it was a genuine question because the start of your sentence made it a bit ambiguous. Because you didn't seem to care it was foolish to others, and I took just doing things for the fuck of it to have no rhyme or reason behind it regardless to explain to others as something other than folly if you did, something being impressive seemed irrelevant because it's all equally folly.
But make your folly shiny if you want the women, yes. It's not a bad way to be foolish if there is one.

If you think spacetravel is the ultimate goal of humanity you need to ask what we are going to do when we get there. Plant a flag in the ground and say "we made it"? People have been planting flags in the ground for centuries. It doesn't matter where humanity travels to, it will still have the same corruptions. Men have done more to fight corruption sitting in their rooms meditating than travelling somewhere. I don't see how you can think that moving us from one place to another will make us any better.

>>5357834
Why don't you like flags as much as the rest of us? Would you like them if we put your trip on one?

>>5357834
>If you think spacetravel is the ultimate goal of humanity you need to ask what we are going to do when we get there.
Survive. As has been pointed out, there is a galaxy hurtling towards ours. Even if that doesn't kill us, our sun is expanding, will engulf our planet, then collapse back to a small glowing ball after it has burned all of it's hydrogen. The aim is survival of our species.

>>5357849
And what is the point of surviving? For what reason are we living?

In other words, what makes our survival more important than another species' survival? Why is it more important that we survive this catastrophe than the ants or the goldfish?

>>5357849
> we shit where we eat, so this planet is ruined.
> let's find another planet to ruin!

>>5356840
*tip*

>>5358617
*Slaps*

>>5356794
Schoppy. He has a beautiful well rounded system and treats everything. It's also both edgy and anti-edgy in a way that will cater to all your posturing cravings.

Everyday you come on /lit/ looking for the same answer and everyday I tell you. The personal religious experience does not enact itself via human means of logic, wither rational or empirical,but rather through a divine logic inexplicable to all but god. You will never be able to read a book of human make. god has to speak directly to your soul and tell you it exists in a way only you understand.

>>5358651
>this is how obscurantists plebs interpret a neurochemical flutter

>>5356794
you're talking about minimizing cognitive dissonance. reality works best.

>>5357560

It seems like a lot of people in this thread really underestimate the power of self-deception.

>>5357560
It happens all the time to Republicans.

Slavic and Dacian paganism

>>5358721
could you not?

>>5356794
Anarcho-Air-Nomadism

>>5356921
Epicurus is probably the lowest level Greek philosopher. "Feeling good must BE good! Feeling bad must BE bad!" Wake up, it's old tyme Objectivism.

>>5359181
Got any better standards to base good and bad on?

>>5359248
Analysis of a situation based on ethical relations, but there is no such thing as a great standard in which to understand good and evil, since the concepts are elusive and only best observed in hindsight, if even then.

>>5359306
did you just say "you can't know nuffin"?

>>5359369
Are you illiterate, or do you just think exclusively in reference to buzzwords?

>>5359306
>but there is no such thing as a great standard in which to understand good and evil, since the concepts are elusive and only best observed in hindsight, if even then.
I'd say that makes Epicurus' 'good feels are good, bad feels are bad' a decent practical approach in the absence of any grand ethical truths.

>>5357853

there is no reason but to do things for the sake of doing them.

if thats not good enough for you it's okay to die, noone's going to miss you or fault you for having done nothing.

>>5356794
Communism

>>5359504
Then you would be wrong, since the subjective experience of an action's making you "feel good" cannot be confused with the action itself /being/ "good". Indeed, it's an often observed fact that what causes one pleasure can cause all others great suffering. The fact that their isn't a golden measuring tape from heaven that can be used to scientifically determine the measure of "good" or "bad" doesn't throw out the project of ethics or make hedonism and narcissism moral, it just means that ethics isn't a simple subject (and it probably shouldn't be).

>>5356972
>What makes Epicurus a nihilist?
Didn't mean to imply.
He is a proto-materialist, and proto-atheist, so deals with the existential crisis perfectly.

>>5359376
No, s/he got ya.
>>5361209
And here I was going to give you a long thoughtful retort! But you have nothing but hot air.
Is it you've never heard of negative-hedonism or you just prefer virtue and valor or something?

This is not something you should be asking the internet

>>5361287

if you are going to though, it makes sense to ask it on an anonymous message board where posts are judged on their content alone.

>>5357674
⇒dat post

Beautiful. Screencapped and saved as copypasta. I love how none of the philosofags attempted to address it.

>>5362375
i hate that shirt and stupid "nerdy" cunts like her

fuck you

>>5360313
>there is no reason but to do things for the sake of doing them.

This undermines the very basis of morality. It does away with all moral condemnations, even of such things as murder.
The ancients said that the reason behind men's actions was the attainment of happiness, and they laid their ethical investigations on this foundation. But your statement that we do things only for the sake of doing them, does away with all distinctions of happiness and unhappiness, moral and immoral, true and false.

>>5357674
>Scientism is the belief that we have models to describe reality. Even though we cannot objectively prove we have any models at all, we believe that we have them.

That's fine, but we would like to know what you mean by reality and model of reality. This is not a trivial question either, and the intention of my asking it is not to reduce us to a state of confused "you can't no nuffin". Rather, I ask what you mean by reality and model of reality because I believe that the investigation of this question will highlight the dependency of science upon metaphysics, which would be a substantial critique of scientism whose main tenet is that science is sovereign lord of knowledge and depends upon nothing.

>Scientism is the belief that we can falsify and refine these models within themselves. We cannot prove that we can, but we have faith.

You are misusing the word faith. You ought to say, "we cannot prove that we can, be we assume it", i.e. "we assume that we can refine our models of reality over time", which is kind of a trivial assumption, it's like saying, "my house is good, but I'm sure that it could be improved". Even here we can have a departure into metaphysics. The notion of "improving models of reality" implies that one can move from a less perfect model of reality to a more perfect model of reality, which forces us to ask, "what would a perfect model of reality look like?" Physicists are aiming at this kind of model when they talk about "a theory of everything", but this is an example of where physicists are so mislead by the false tenets of scientism - if they looked into philosophy for a moment they would see that a "theory of anything" would look something like St. Thomas Aquinas' "Summa", or Spinoza's "Ethics", or Wittgenstein's "Tractatus". Their attempt to build a theory of EVERYTHING while limiting themselves to describing matter is clearly self-defeating, UNLESS one assumes that all there is is matter, IN WHICH CASE one is forced to ask, "are scientific theories about matter themselves material"? And if scientific theories ARE material, then why can't I see, hear, touch, taste, or smell them?

>>5361273
>And here I was going to give you a long thoughtful retort!
>Butterface

>>5361209
I don't see how Epicurean style hedonism can cause others suffering at all.

>>5362694
>butterface
to this day the only thing that titillated me slightly in the pics was one pair of panties
good thing i didnt get to look at the insides

Shintoism

>>5356856
please shoot yourself in the head.

>>5356816
Checkmate and /thread, I feel very sorry for you.
And Stirner is anything but about Angst...read him, pls, dont pretend. If I am free as “rational I,” then the rational in me, or reason, is free; and this freedom of reason, or freedom of the thought, was the ideal of the Christian world from of old. They wanted to make thinking — and, as aforesaid, faith is also thinking, as thinking is faith — free; the thinkers, i.e. the believers as well as the rational, were to be free; for the rest freedom was impossible. But the freedom of thinkers is the “freedom of the children of God,” and at the same time the most merciless —hierarchy or dominion of the thought; for I succumb to the thought. If thoughts are free, I am their slave; I have no power over them, and am dominated by them. But I want to have the thought, want to be full of thoughts, but at the same time I want to be thoughtless, and, instead of freedom of thought, I preserve for myself thoughtlessness.

If the point is to have myself understood and to make communications, then assuredly I can make use only of human means, which are at my command because I am at the same time man. And really I have thoughts only as man; as I, I am at the same time thoughtless.[Literally, “thought-rid”] He who cannot get rid of a thought is so far only man, is a thrall of language, this human institution, this treasury of human thoughts. Language or “the word” tyrannizes hardest over us, because it brings up against us a whole army of fixed ideas. Just observe yourself in the act of reflection, right now, and you will find how you make progress only by becoming thoughtless and speechless every moment. You are not thoughtless and speechless merely in (say) sleep, but even in the deepest reflection; yes, precisely then most so. And only by this thoughtlessness, this unrecognized “freedom of thought” or freedom from the thought, are you your own. Only from it do you arrive at putting language to use as your property.

>>5364276
If thinking is not my thinking, it is merely a spun-out thought; it is slave work, or the work of a “servant obeying at the word.” For not a thought, but I, am the beginning for my thinking, and therefore I am its goal too, even as its whole course is only a course of my self-enjoyment; for absolute or free thinking, on the other hand, thinking itself is the beginning, and it plagues itself with propounding this beginning as the extremest “abstraction” (e.g. as being). This very abstraction, or this thought, is then spun out further.

Absolute thinking is the affair of the human spirit, and this is a holy spirit. Hence this thinking is an affair of the parsons, who have “a sense for it,” a sense for the “highest interests of mankind,” for “the spirit.”

To the believer, truths are a settled thing, a fact; to the freethinker, a thing that is still to be settled. Be absolute thinking ever so unbelieving, its incredulity has its limits, and there does remain a belief in the truth, in the spirit, in the idea and its final victory: this thinking does not sin against the holy spirit. But all thinking that does not sin against the holy spirit is belief in spirits or ghosts.
I can as little renounce thinking as feeling, the spirit’s activity as little as the activity of the senses. As feeling is our sense for things, so thinking is our sense for essences (thoughts). Essences have their existence in everything sensuous, especially in the word. The power of words follows that of things: first one is coerced by the rod, afterward by conviction. The might of things overcomes our courage, our spirit; against the power of a conviction, and so of the word, even the rack and the sword lose their overpoweringness and force. The men of conviction are the priestly men, who resist every enticement of Satan.

Christianity took away from the things of this world only their irresistibleness, made us independent of them. In like manner I raise myself above truths and their power: as I am supersensual, so I am supertrue. Before me truths are as common and as indifferent as things; they do not carry me away, and do not inspire me with enthusiasm. There exists not even one truth, not right, not freedom, humanity, etc., that has stability before me, and to which I subject myself. They are words, nothing but words, as to the Christian nothing but “vain things.” In words and truths (every word is a truth, as Hegel asserts that one cannot tell a lie) there is no salvation for me, as little as there is for the Christian in things and vanities. As the riches of this world do not make me happy, so neither do its truths. It is now no longer Satan, but the spirit, that plays the story of the temptation; and he does not seduce by the things of this world, but by its thoughts, by the “glitter of the idea.”

"

Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, trans. Byington, p.345-347

>>5364284

Too few have yet seen, too few have noticed, too few have thought of the light which was present for over hundred and fifty years by now, overshadowed by the dwarfs of ignorance, neglected by false priests, not recognized as the aurora from a distant source and level of lucidity, but sensed as aether, ever present as a concealed antithesis to every movement of thought of dogma and slavery, a bulwark of criticism, with ever more vanishing frontiers. What can be a stirnerian position more than a position of pure negativity, of dissolution, being overcome in the process of grasping the weight bearing on ones own uniqueness through itself, mediated by oneself.

>>5356794
My honest opinion is that you should read Kierkegaard and see where he takes you.

>>5362381

Then we must develop ethos :^)