Ive had interesting, and mostly civil, discussions this past week with atheists and believers. For me, the fulcrum point of Christianity is the moment when Christ says, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? There are interesting discussions about this all over the Web. It is, symbolically, not just the fulcrum for Christianity, of course; its the fulcrum of philosophy, between a meaningless universe and one in which there are fundamental principles of value expressed through humans. It the the singularity of doubt, where essentialism and existentialism clash. The anti-theist, not necessarily atheist, would perhaps request a better symbol, one unencumbered by all the baggage of faith and sentiment and history. I think those encumbrances are rather its strengths. In any case, you must choose, and even refusing to choose is a choice, as Rush said in its song Freewill, and seemingly came down on the side of existentialism. However, I also think that it is intellectually lazy not to maintain an open mind. Existentialism was critical to the Enlightenment, and is a useful tool for combatting literalism, which is a morbid tendency we all have, to mistake the map for the territory. One of my friends identifies as an absurdist, and thats a respectable position. Though widely regarded as an existentialist perspective, most famously championed by Camus, it strikes me rather as an attitude, and one not incompatible with essentialism. The opposite of an absurdist, to me, is not necessarily a believer but a conceited person. Were all pretty absurd, so lets have a laugh about it, guard our hopes, and not take ourselves too seriously.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 19:30:29 +0000
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