# Re: Is Existentialism an obsolete philosophy? ...Similarity to religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 23, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237 "2010-06-23T14:04:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/101 "2010-09-07T23:56:08Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > When you say, “and **think** that they’re good rules,” you really mean, “and they fit with **my** objectives.” It doesn’t change anything I previously said about you not having any basis to think your objective is better than any other. Although, many atheists do apparently Well, yeah. Of course I think my objectives are better than other objectives; if I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my objectives. What are your objectives? ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/102 "2010-09-08T13:39:20Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > When you say, “and **think** that they’re good rules,” you really mean, “and they fit with **my** objectives…” > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I already told you what my objective criteria are: **Are the rules consistent? Do they lead to outcomes that feel satisfactory according to my moral instincts? Are they workable in practice? Do they make sense with what we know about how the universe works?** For most of human history, what we call “murder” and “theft” were a great way to achieve an individuals objectives. It’s still that way in most of the world. Only here and now does it “seem” different. Murder is becoming harder to get away with in the western world, but theft is still a really good way to amass great wealth. Look at the recent story on 60 Minutes about Medicare fraud… people stealing millions individually and possibly billions collectively and no-one minding the store. Killing your rival and gaining his resources or opportunities is consistent, workable, and how the universe works in most areas of nature, for all of the history of life on this planet, **and** lead to outcomes that satisfy the desires of the killer. Male lions drive off or kill the rival leader of a pride, and kill his offspring so they can father their own. [QUOTE=The Hamster King] For example, I believe all people deserve to be treated equally. I believe this because it satisfies my innate sense of fairness, [/QUOTE] You really have to “believe” in order to override the overwhelming evidence against it. Why should you believe, “it’s fair that everyone have the same opportunity,” when, “I’ll just kill him, take his stuff and make more opportunities for me,” is, to quote you: “…workable in practice…” (and makes) “sense with what we know about how the universe works…” ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/103 "2010-09-08T13:43:09Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > > When you say, “and **think** that they’re good rules,” you really mean, “and they fit with **my** objectives.” It doesn’t change anything I previously said about you not having any basis to think your objective is better than any other. Although, many atheists do apparently > > Well, yeah. Of course I think my objectives are better than other objectives; if I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my objectives. Everyone thinks their objectives are better than others; that’s why you can’t choose any one set over any others. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/104 "2010-09-08T15:13:05Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > For most of human history, what we call “murder” and “theft” were a great way to achieve an individuals objectives. And for ALL of human history SOCIETIES have punished individuals who murder and steal. Because the other individuals who have to live with a murderer or a thief find those actions intolerable. That’s why murdering and stealing are wrong. The fact that sometime people break the rules does not mean the rules don’t exist. What may be confusing you is that often societies have different rules for “insiders” and “outsiders”. Cheating a stranger is fine. Cheating your brother is not. Killing someone from the next valley is okay. Killing your next-door neighbor is not. Human beings have an innate moral sense only when it comes to small groups. Extending those impulses to a larger human community requires conscious effort. (But an effort that is necessary in order to live an any society larger than a small band of hunter-gatherers.) > [@](#): > > _You really have to “believe” in order to override the overwhelming evidence against it. Why should you believe, “it’s fair that everyone have the same opportunity,” when, “I’ll just kill him, take his stuff and make more opportunities for me,” is, to quote you: “…workable in practice…” (and makes) “sense with what we know about how the universe works…”_ But killing someone and taking his stuff is NOT workable in practice in any place where the social order hasn’t completely broken down. If you start murdering your neighbors your neighbors will quickly band together and put an end to you. Because killing and stealing from members of your own family/tribe/clan/community is always considered wrong. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/105 "2010-09-08T15:16:24Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > Everyone thinks their objectives are better than others; that’s why you can’t choose any one set over any others. If one set of rules produces widespread pain, suffering and misery, and another doesn’t, wouldn’t you say those are rational criteria for choosing one set of rules over another? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/106 "2010-09-08T16:16:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Again with the attempt to lump together Communism and atheism. Atheism is not Communism. The Communists, again, are a monotheistic religion in all but name and acted the way they did because that’s how monotheisms act when they have the power. Again with the attempt to evade the painful knowledge that people espousing ideas very similar to yours shed more blood in the 20th century than anyone else. The Marxist/Communist movement has quasi-religious aspects, as does any mass movement, but to equate its philosophy and principles with monotheistic religion borders on madness. Doubleplusgood doublethink, Comrade Der. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because society is mostly composed of people who at least go through the motions of theism. But the creation of that society has been one long war against the same theism that they nominally supported. It has been created in spite of the malignant parasitism of theism, not because of it, and has involved the crippling of that theism. Congratulations. That paragraph actually manages to outdo Ayn Rand for simple-minded either-or, black-or-white thinking. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/107 "2010-09-08T16:47:17Z")
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat] Again with the attempt to evade the painful knowledge that people espousing ideas very similar to yours shed more blood in the 20th century than anyone else. [/QUOTE] But the Communists didn’t murder people because of atheism. They murdered them because they adopted an inflexible ideology that they were willing to pursue no matter what the consequences. And while Communism officially embraced atheism, Nazism _didn’t_. Some Nazis were atheists, some were Christians. What united them was not their views on religion, but their commitment to a toxic value system. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/108 "2010-09-08T17:01:45Z")
I think existentialism is the best possible philosophy for the current age, or any age short of utopia. Why? Because when you come right down to it, it’s just you and the bullshit. And you don’t matter. But if you fight the bullshit, you at least _mean_ something - even if you _matter_ nothing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/109 "2010-09-09T02:27:14Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > > Well, yeah. Of course I think my objectives are better than other objectives; if I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my objectives. > > Everyone thinks their objectives are better than others; that’s why you can’t choose any one set over any others. Fascinating answer. It prompts me to ask again: what are your objectives? ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/110 "2010-09-16T12:13:14Z")
[quote=“Snowboarder\_Bo, post:67, topic:544237”] > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > Notice how the atheists say they are demonstrably as good as others, but the best example they give for a logically derived ethic is: “ **keep the relatives of those you kill from killing you, and also not to run afoul of secular police authority**.” Do you notice that what they are _pushing_ as good isn’t even the average standard I’ve been suggesting. It’s worse\* than that. Not doing anything that would get you arrested and removed from society is the \*\*absolute minimum \*\*we ask to let you live in society. > > > [@](#): > > > > Did you build that strawman yourself, or did you have to get help? > > > > That’s a complete bunch of bullshit there. Nothing factual at all in the whole paragraph, AFAICT. > > > > **Have you got a cite** for that “best example”, or \*\*did you make it up yourself \*\*(to bear false witness against others)? > > (emphasis mine.) > > Whaaa??? Do you even read the posts??? I obviously “made it up myself,” “to bear false witness against others,” by the simple expedient of **directly quoting Voyager immediately before my comment.** > > [QUOTE=Voyager] > …There are plenty of secular reasons to live peaceably, not the least to keep the relatives of those you kill from killing you, and also not to run afoul of secular police authority. What atheists actually say is that we are demonstrably as good as those who claim that their morals come from god. That’s the best example so far given with a reason behind it. and… Like I said, not getting yourself removed from society is the absolute minimum we ask to let you stay in society. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/111 "2010-09-16T12:25:45Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > > Since everything tells me God wouldn’t do this again, it would be almost impossible for anything to convince me… The only way I can think of to convince me otherwise would be if I had gone insane and was hearing voices. > > LOL … so you get your morality from God … unless what God says happens to **conflict with your moral instincts.** It sounds like you’re a moral relativist just like us atheists. You just don’t want to admit it. It’s not my “moral instincts” I’m using as the test. Sorry, I often forget that not everyone understands what they are arguing about. Even though the direct implication of my statement was that since we have a codified set of writings, we have to test what any spirit, (or human,) tells us against those writings. I will admit that you probably had no way of knowing that that was what the bible teaches as well, though. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/112 "2010-09-16T12:35:23Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > > Everyone thinks their objectives are better than others; that’s why you can’t choose any one set over any others. > > If one set of rules produces widespread pain, suffering and misery, and another doesn’t, wouldn’t you say those are rational criteria for choosing one set of rules over another? No. I wouldn’t. Not unless you have already arbitrarily selected, “Less pain, suffering, and misery is good” as your purpose. And then there is no reasoning required. It automatically suits the purpose. It’s a circular argument. If you define “less suffering” as “good” then choosing the set of rules that causes less suffering is good. No thinking required. It’s the deciding how to rationally choose “less suffering” as “good” part that you haven’t described in any detail yet. How do you get around averaging in the purposes of serial killers and anyone that doesn’t already hold your beliefs into your objective standard? ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/113 "2010-09-16T12:38:05Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > > Everyone thinks their objectives are better than others; that’s why you can’t choose any one set over any others. > > Fascinating answer. It prompts me to ask again: what are your objectives? It doesn’t matter for the purposes of this discussion. My question has always been, how do you incorporate my purposes, your purposes, and everyone elses purposes into an objective standard set of morals? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/114 "2010-09-16T12:43:08Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > > > If one set of rules produces widespread pain, suffering and misery, and another doesn’t, wouldn’t you say those are rational criteria for choosing one set of rules over another? > > No. I wouldn’t. Not unless you have already arbitrarily selected, “Less pain, suffering, and misery is good” as your purpose. That’s not arbitrary; that’s what the vast majority of people want. > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > It’s a circular argument. If you define “less suffering” as “good” then choosing the set of rules that causes less suffering is good. No thinking required. It’s the deciding how to rationally choose “less suffering” as “good” part that you haven’t described in any detail yet. How do you get around averaging in the purposes of serial killers and anyone that doesn’t already hold your beliefs into your objective standard? Serial killers are trying to inflict unwanted suffering on others. Morality is all about what standard we can all agree to live with. And again; the collective desire of humanity is a better moral standard than mutually contradictory claims about the hypothetical desires of a god or gods that there is no evidence for. Religion fails completely as a moral standard, both from a moral and rational standard. It produces vile behavior and has no rational basis for its claims. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/115 "2010-09-16T13:04:11Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You are ignoring that we are talking about reality, not abstract logic; so it matters very much if your claims are objectively true or not. I’ve already dealt with this. [QUOTE=ch4rl3s] If, like Der Trihs, you already know the absolute truth value of every statement, then you don’t need logic at all. And in his case it shows [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Der Trihs] And starting with a conclusion you chose to believe is NOT how logical reasoning works. [/QUOTE] We all choose the facts we accept. I choose to believe that my dog chased a squirrel the other day, and that a while back a car flipped over one morning and landed in my yard. I choose to believe these things because I have evidence for them. I can’t prove to you that they happened, but I believe them to be objectively true. And if they had wide ranging implications, (they don’t,) our logical world views would differ based on whether we believed these facts or not. Did OJ Simpson kill his ex? Did Rodney King act in a way that provoked the police to think he was resisting arrest? These have an objective truth value, and yet peoples views differ wildly and these questions have wide ranging implications to the societal view people have. But, people choose which facts they accept. Most of the time, we’re taking someone’s word on something anyway, and accepting their interpretation of the facts, (and accepting that they have the facts.) And we can get it wrong, and they can get it wrong. [QUOTE=Der Trihs] And starting with a conclusion you chose to believe is NOT how logical reasoning works. [/QUOTE] Sure it is. Because choosing to believe is what we all do. _I don’t have a magic wand to tell me which “facts” are true, and neither do you. We all make choices._ If you don’t have the truth value of the premise, (and often you don’t,) then you find a conclusion you have evidence for, or accept, and work backwards. See which premises lead to that conclusion. (or take it as your premise and see what you can prove from it. It often amounts to the same thing.) And if you choose to accept conclusion “a” because you have evidence for it, and it can only come about from premise “A,” then it doesn’t matter if you have any other evidence for premise “A.” you simply must accept it for the sake of logical consistancy. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/116 "2010-09-16T13:33:15Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > [QUOTE=Der Trihs] > And starting with a conclusion you chose to believe is NOT how logical reasoning works. Sure it is. Because choosing to believe is what we all do. [/QUOTE] Only if you are a believer of some variety. Otherwise, we study the facts first, extrapolate from them, and arrive at our understanding of the world that way. Whether you like it or not, postulating a conclusion first are creating some fact-free chain of “logic” to justify your assumption isn’t good reasoning. No matter how may time you claim it is. Choosing what you believe is an act of madness, it is the denial of reality. The fact that it is central to religion is a major cause of the worthlessness of religion. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/117 "2010-09-17T04:12:43Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > > Fascinating answer. It prompts me to ask again: what are your objectives? > > It doesn’t matter for the purposes of this discussion. Of course it does! You’re talking up the importance of following a codified set of writings; if someone tells me that, _No, I Reject The Part About Executing Homosexuals_ and someone else replies _But We’ve Got To Follow The Codified Set Of Writings,_ then I of course want to hear why it’s so important to follow the codified set of writings. You say it’s arbitrary to select “Less Pain, Suffering, And Misery Is Good” as a purpose; I’m asking why it’s not arbitrary to select “Doing God’s Will Is Good” as a purpose. If I’m phrasing your purpose badly, then by all means rephrase it while answering the question. But how you answer that question speaks directly to the point; does your justification differ from an existentialist’s? If so, how? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/118 "2010-09-17T04:14:42Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > It’s the deciding how to rationally choose “less suffering” as “good” part that you haven’t described in any detail yet. How do you get around averaging in the purposes of serial killers and anyone that doesn’t already hold your beliefs into your objective standard? \*Everyone \*wants less suffering for themselves. Even serial killers (who care about no one but themselves) want to avoid personal suffering. And virtually everyone (with the exception of a few pathological cases) wants less suffering for their family & friends. So, yes, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that a desire to avoid suffering is a human universal. The only question is how far we extend that desire to others beyond our immediate circle. But if you say “suffering is bad for me, but good for you”, you need to justify why. What rationale to you have for distinguishing what’s good for me and my friends, from what’s good for you and your friends? You can certainly imagine some bizarre society where everyone thinks suffering is good, but why? Such a society has never existed in reality, and indeed, there’s nothing to suggest that such a society would even be possible for human beings to achieve. We’re just not wired that way. It’s as much a fantasy as a society where everyone is completely selfless, or a society where everyone only sleeps one hour a night. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/119 "2010-09-27T16:45:28Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > > > It’s the deciding how to rationally choose “less suffering” as “good” part that you haven’t described in any detail yet. How do you get around averaging in the purposes of serial killers and anyone that doesn’t already hold your beliefs into your objective standard? > > \*Everyone \*wants less suffering for themselves. Even serial killers (who care about no one but themselves) want to avoid personal suffering. And virtually everyone (with the exception of a few pathological cases) wants less suffering for their family & friends. > > So, yes, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that a desire to avoid suffering is a human universal. [\QUOTE] > Sure, the real question is in how we try to avoid suffering. More on that later in the post. > > > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > > > The only question is how far we extend that desire to others beyond our immediate circle. But if you say “suffering is bad for me, but good for you”, you need to justify why. > > When I’m imagining the rationale of an atheist, I’m not saying “suffering is bad for me, but good for you”, I’m saying “suffering is bad for me, but your suffering may be good **for me**. And there is no other rationale that I need to listen to. As soon as your suffering benefits me, I don’t need to justify it; it’s **good. for. me.** ” There is no rational reason for an atheist to ever do anything that doesn’t ultimately benefit them. The only reason to deny this is that we try to make the benefits of killing us and taking our stuff really small and the penalties high. And that isn’t a denial of the actual point, it’s actually an acknowledgement of the point. > > > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > > > You can certainly imagine some bizarre society where everyone thinks suffering is good, but why? > > Let’s imagine such a society. I’m imagining a society where the young, on a very regular basis, think that the elders are unfair, mean, hateful, deliberately trying to make them suffer, and evil. Why on earth would the elders of this society not let the young, for instance, have cake for breakfast, or wear that short skirt to school, or go to that unsupervised party, or take the car wherever… Can’t they see how much the young suffer, (and they really do suffer, if you’ve ever watched closely, they are in agony and really think the elders are evil in that moment… for not letting them do whatever they want.) So, why would the elders allow this suffering? To teach lessons, to make the young better people, and… to prevent greater suffering later? What obvious hogwash. This society universally seems to believe that the suffering is necessary for growth and improvement. That working through the suffering is better than alleviating it now. (Well, almost univrsally believed, present company excluded, apparently.) But we all know that those elders are evil, don’t we? And if you haven’t figured out which society this is, it’s almost every one on earth… ever. > > [QUOTE=The Hamster King] > Such a society has never existed in reality, ha. If humans allow this suffering temporarily to promote the growth of their young to adulthood, why do so many atheists that I talk to on this board have a problem accepting that a benevolent creator, trying to promote our growth into something much more than merely human, would allow even greater suffering temporarily? But I do hear them saying they think that this proposed elder is, (just like I hear from children,) unfair, mean, hateful, deliberately trying to make them suffer, and evil. But, it’s only children who still believe that is evil. When children mature, they realize that the elders did have good in mind for them, and don’t look on those memories the same way anymore. I’ve used these analogies before, specifically with Der Trihs, but no one seems to get it. If there is a benevolent creator much more intelligent than us, than we, like children, may not understand the lesson yet and be like children trying to explain adult motives to other children. Only someone who thought their intellect was the end all and be all of the universe would think differently. The universe could still look the way it does now, and have a benevolent, loving creator. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237/120 "2010-09-27T16:46:41Z")
continuing the thought. [QUOTE=ch4rl3s] …The universe could still look the way it does now, and have a benevolent, loving creator. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Der Trihs] A god that you can’t even demonstrate is possible, much less real and moral. [/QUOTE] I can show it’s possible, but, like I said about us all choosing what we wish to believe, he will never accept it even though he said… [QUOTE=Der Trihs] Choosing what you believe is an act of madness, it is the denial of reality. [/QUOTE] Even though he shows that’s what he does all the time. Denies reasonable explanations. Even though most thinking atheists realize that they can’t disprove the existence of such a god. Der Trihs is adamant that he has. Complete denial of reality. He’s not even worth talking to, and I always eventually wonder why I keep doing it. But, people like Snowboarder Bo, and The Hamster King keep falling into the same intellectual abyss, so I keep doing it. Once more… If you have two starting points, (A, and B) that you can not conclusively prove one way or the other, even if you are _led_ to think A is more likely than B… If A leads to a conclusion (a) you can’t accept about the world, and B leads to the conclusion (b) you like and have reason to believe, why would you insist on believing A and b? That is what isn’t logical. And about denying reality? We don’t even know what reality is, and most physicists have stopped asking the question. They deny they are even looking for reality anymore. They can’t tell you what an electron is doing when they aren’t looking, they can only give you a probability of what they will find when they do look. And they shy away from the question of what is really going on. > [@](#): > > Quantum Reality: Nick Herbert, 1985 > One of the best kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality… Nothing exposes the perplexity at the heart of physics more starkly than certain preposterous-sounding claims a few outspoken physicists are making concerning how the world really works. If we take these claims at face value, the stories physicists tell resemble the tales of mystics and madmen…The Copenhagen interpretation… (there is no deep reality.)… Far from being a crank or minority position, “There is no deep reality,” represents the prevailing doctrine of establishment physics… In words that must chill every realist’s heart, Bohr insisted: “There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum description.” There’s more if you want it. I don’t deny anything we can objectively call reality. I don’t deny your experience. I deny that your experience acurately depicts reality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-is-existentialism-an-obsolete-philosophy-similarity-to-religion/544237.md?page=7)