Over at First Things, James Poulos writing about, I think, the need to find some sort of meaning in life, worries about (inter alia) the plight of the agnostic:
…the failure of the agnostic to find repose, in faith or out of it, leads him or her altogether past any basis of an entire life and into a long, chaotic oscillation, moving between living as if ultimate meaning shaped life and living as if it did not.
Who knew?
Poulos is, of course, assuming that these poor benighted agnostics are worried about such matters in the first place. Perhaps some are. Speaking only for myself (a C of E agnostic, I suppose, if I have to put some sort of description to where I stand on such matters) I have to say that the presence or absence of ‘ultimate meaning’ bothers me not a jot. As for ‘repose’, I mainly define that as a good night’s sleep.
james seems asking for the moniker ‘post modern’ when he writes stuff like this:
The promise of the therapeutic is that this chaos may be ordered institutionally — a task that requires ritual-making and ritual-breaking performances of commitment and de-commitment. Pessimism, from this standpoint, tends too severely toward the nihilistic embrace of complete randomness or meaninglessness. The promise of the therapeutic, then, holds out the prospect of coping with the soul’s wearying oscillations by sustaining performative change in a condition of open-ended linear progress. The linearity of contemporary optimism, often deemed the logical consequence of modern scientific thinking, can actually be sourced independently or alternatively in our passionate efforts to escape the destructive exhaustion of our souls or psyches, and seek repose without God.
The religionists seem obsessed with trying to maintain a concept of collectivism that is not based on communism or socialism. I find that the “incoherence” goes away quite nicely once I dump the obsession with collectivism in any form.
What is really going on is that the collectivists, whether they be secular socialists or christian right people, are really trying to create a system where they can parasitize those that do not want to be parasitized.
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What sort of agnosticism is Mr. Poulos referring to. I am an agnostic because I don’t know. I don’t know the nature of God, I don’t know the meaning of it all. I don’t know if there is a meaning to it all, yet I know there is a God because He has dealt with me personally. (It involves my suicide and reincarnation in case you were wondering.)
My main point is, not knowing is not what makes me sad and hopeless; I’ve got Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) for that, and MDD is not caused by not knowing. Even if I knew without a doubt MDD would still affect me. I accept the fact I do not know, and likely will not know until God decides I’ve spent enough time on this world and ends the rounds of incarnation after incarnation.
It sounds to me like the gentleman is engaged in projection, imputing his fears and motivations on others. Mr. Poulos, just because you are discomfited by something does not mean I have to be.
@David Hume
David, Mr. Poulos confirms my suspicion that some people should never let their minds off the leash.
Bravo Alan! I sometimes think that Christians are unable to understand atheists or agnostics. Since most of us were raised as Christians, we do not suffer the same disability.
“What sort of agnosticism is Mr. Poulos referring to. I am an agnostic because I don’t know. I don’t know the nature of God, I don’t know the meaning of it all. I don’t know if there is a meaning to it all, yet I know there is a God because He has dealt with me personally.”
In that case isn’t finding out about the nature of God – minimally a superhuman being in terms of intelligence and power – pretty much the most important question imaginable? Even if you don’t think He cares about individual humans, making sure that this is the case would be a far more important existential question than, say, preventing global warming.