Definitions meaning = a life's purpose; significance of one's life will = a person's ability to make decisions and act on them; the individual ability to pursue goals greater will = a group's ability to make decisions and act on them; the collective ability to pursue goals 1) Meaning & Belonging You have meaning if your life is significant. Your life can only be significant if it is important to something greater than you. Therefore, you can have meaning insofar as you are … [Read more...]
Why Rationality Is Important
Our mind is in some instances active and in other instances passive. Insofar as it has adequate ideas, it is necessarily active; and insofar as it has inadequate ideas, it is necessarily passive. (Spinoza, Ethics, pars III, prop. 1) Why rationality is important What is man's greatest strength? Rationality. His ability to reason, to keep his mind cool, and to align his thoughts and actions with facts and data from the real world. Every wise man says, "Play to your strengths." This is why you … [Read more...]
Why I’m Not an Atheist: On Pagan Pantheism
I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic for two main reasons: I do not respect the Judeo-Christian tradition enough as to define myself in opposition to it. Human experience is not entirely reducible to the language of scientific investigation. The Judeo-Christian tradition has pinioned the European spirit for two millennia. Still today, its doctrine of man's equality before God is deemed a sacrosanct ethical principle, now enunciated in the pseudo-secular ideology of universal … [Read more...]
On the Emptiness of Freedom
Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. (Viktor Frankl) If all we want is freedom, all we get is emptiness. A little child may be free to be innocently spontaneous, but it will stay a child if it takes no responsibility. An artist may be free to express himself without restraints, but he will be unproductive if he sets no creative … [Read more...]
Does Open-Mindedness Make You Wiser or Weaker?
Yesterday night I found this powerful morsel of truth in C. G. Jung's autobiography: The arch sin of faith, it seemed to me, was that it forestalled experience. (Memories, Dreams, Reflections) This is as true of religious and metaphysical faith as it is of more simple beliefs and expectations. If you believe that you're a happy person, you'll fail to experience the much more convoluted stirrings of your soul. If you believe that willpower decreases upon its exertion, you'll fail to … [Read more...]
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