At the start of my anthropology of religion course, I ask students to “explain” religion: Why do you think it exists? What do you think it does? The majority will usually give answers along existential lines: “Religion provides purpose and consolation. It gives meaning to life and relieves fear of death.”
These answers aren’t surprising given [...]
Tags:afterlife·Ernest Becker·existential angst·fear of death·immortality·Irvin Yalom·Ivan Ilyich·Leo Tolstoy·meaning of life·mortality·nihilism·purpose of life·Stephen Cave
In the celebrated closing of the Origin of Species, Darwin hits his lyrical stride with a paradox:
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of [...]
Tags:Arthur Schopenhauer·creation·cruelty·Darwin·destruction·dialectic·Friedrich Nietzsche·grandeur·life·nature·nihilism·omnibenevolence·Origin of Species·paradox·pessimism·red in tooth and claw·Richard Dawkins·Richard Schacht·suffering·theodicy·transcendence
Over at Slate Matt Feeney explores the connection, if any, between the Arizona shooter’s nihilism and admiration for Nietzsche. Along the way, Matt sparks the major works:
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche’s first work, it’s the celebration of anarchic and sexually with-it Dionysus over boring Apollo, who’s like the Greek god of algebra or something. [...]
Tags:Arizona shooting·Gabrielle Giffords·Jared Loughner·Matt Feeney·metaphysics·Nietzsche·nihilism
Over at Slate, Ron Rosenbaum has penned a manifesto for the “new agnosticism,” which he sees as an alternative to credulous theism on the the one hand and strident atheism on the other. Rosenbaum’s position deserves considerable merit and has some appeal, but I am not sure I can agree with him on this definition:
Agnosticism [...]
Tags:agnostic·agnosticism·atheism·certainty·Christopher Hitchens·data·evidence·logic·methodology·nihilism·positivism·reason·Richard Dawkins·Ron Rosenbaum·Sam Harris·skepticism·supernatural agents·supernatural forces·theism·Thomas Henry Huxley·truth
