What do you REALLY believe?

[LMNO]

Good points up there.  ^


I also wanted to ask if some of the people in this thread had forgotten about the Law of Fives...

In a meaningless, random universe, we find patterns, and we think they mean something.  It tends to make most of us comfortable, ascribing meaning onto chaos.

[hooplala]

Good points up there.  ^


I also wanted to ask if some of the people in this thread had forgotten about the Law of Fives...

In a meaningless, random universe, we find patterns, and we think they mean something.  It tends to make most of us comfortable, ascribing meaning onto chaos.

THIS.

[Cain]

Although the notion of the 'absurd' is pervasive in all of the literature of Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus is his chief work on the subject. In it, Camus considers absurdity as a confrontation, an opposition, a conflict, or a "divorce" between two ideals. Specifically, he defines the human condition as absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance/meaning/clarity and the silent, cold universe. He continues that there are specific human experiences that evoke notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or acceptance. He concludes that acceptance is the only defensible option.

For Camus, suicide is a "confession" that life is simply not worth living. It is a choice that implicitly declares that life is "too much." Suicide offers the most basic "way out" of absurdity, the immediate termination of the self and self's place in the universe.

The absurd encounter can also arouse a "leap of faith", a term derived from one of Kierkegaard's early pseudonyms, Johannes de Silentio (but the term was not used by Kierkegaard himself), where one believes that there is more than the rational life (aesthetic or ethical). To take a "leap of faith", one must act with the "virtue of the absurd" (as Johannes de Silentio put it), where a suspension of the ethical may need to exist. This faith has no expectations but is a flexible power initiated by acknowledgment of the absurd. However, Camus states that because the leap of faith escapes rationality and defers to abstraction over personal experience, the leap of faith is not absurd. Camus considers the leap of faith as "philosophical suicide." Camus rejects both this and physical suicide.

Lastly, man can choose to embrace his own absurd condition. According to Camus, man's freedom, and the opportunity to give life meaning, lies in the acknowledgment and acceptance of absurdity. If the absurd experience is truly the realization that the universe is fundamentally devoid of absolutes, then we as individuals are truly free. "To live without appeal," as he puts it, is a philosophical move that begins to define absolutes and universals subjectively, rather than objectively. The freedom of man is, thus, established in man's natural ability and opportunity to create his own meaning and purpose, to decide himself. The individual becomes the most precious unit of existence, as he represents a set of unique ideals that can be characterized as an entire universe by itself.

Camus states in The Myth of Sisyphus: "Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death, and I refuse suicide."

[Cain]

Of course, that we are all here suggests the main conflict would be between Kierkgaard's and Camus's view of the Universe.

Reminder: I need to read some more Kierkgaard

[hooplala]

I love Camus.  He was the inspiration for my "Modern Sisyphus" story.

That, and I love pot.

[Cain]

And beer.  And probably maple syrup and ice hockey, too.

[LMNO]

I really need to read that.


It dawns on me (rather pretentiously, of course) that my brother and I saw the absurdity of the universe.  The difference was that he took the leap of faith into Scientology, and I accepted the absurdity.

Man, that really makes me sound like a pompous dick, doesn't it?

[Cainad (dec.)]

That's best kind of dick there is, LMNO. The best.

[Cain]

I really need to read that.


It dawns on me (rather pretentiously, of course) that my brother and I saw the absurdity of the universe.  The difference was that he took the leap of faith into Scientology, and I accepted the absurdity.

Man, that really makes me sound like a pompous dick, doesn't it?

Does your brother really count?  His Scientology doesn't sound much like Kierkgaard's irrational Christianity, and I would suggest a possible 4th addition to Camus' system, that of Denial, which leads back to dogma.

[LMNO]

Perhaps I don't understand the "leap of faith", then.

From the above passage, I thought it meant that in the Face of the Absurd, one looks for an irrational "higher step" that tries to stuff the absurd into a coherent, explainable box.

I guess that's not it?

[hooplala]

And beer.  And probably maple syrup and ice hockey, too.

Hockey, no; the rest, yes.

[Cain]

Perhaps I don't understand the "leap of faith", then.

From the above passage, I thought it meant that in the Face of the Absurd, one looks for an irrational "higher step" that tries to stuff the absurd into a coherent, explainable box.

I guess that's not it?

Not as such.  It accepts the Universe is paradoxical and contradictory, and that is how one should approach God.  There is no rulebook, no one way, only you can decide.  Where it differs from Camus is that Kierkgaard still holds that God exists, and that a command from God would transcend all moral codes, either individually crafted or that of the Bible.

[LMNO]

I have a lot more reading to do.

Oddly enough, this makes me happy.


LMNO
-batting .003 and loving it.

[Cain]

I included the Cambridge Companion to Kierkgaard in the intellectual download.

[LMNO]

I wish my brain could do simultaneous downloads.