Re:Alan Watts, for all his faults, was an imaginative and pr...
by maroonblazer on Saturday January 27, 2024 @04:03PM
(#39159814)
> I do think there was something lost in the country when we discarded the church as a common moral frame
My hope, disguised as a hypothesis, is that we're gradually shedding the superstitions of our past, and in so doing, are descending, albeit temporarily, into a local minimum. Eventually, we'll find our way up to a higher peak where compassion and collaboration are the order of the day without attachment to unfounded beliefs.
Re:Alan Watts, for all his faults, was an imaginative and pr...
by 2snakes on Saturday January 27, 2024 @08:45PM
(#39161743)
Or a leap forward in consciousness due to said beliefs turning out to be founded.
Re:Alan Watts, for all his faults, was an imaginative and pr...
by factotvm on Saturday January 27, 2024 @09:01PM
(#39161813)
I would imagine consciousness shrinks in the presence of an all-powerful god.
Re:Alan Watts, for all his faults, was an imaginative and pr...
by anjel on Sunday January 28, 2024 @12:52AM
(#39162948)
>the only other shared philosophical framework we have is the market, and whatever the limits of the church, the morals of the market seem to be making for a much colder society.
If things are colder, it's not amorality, it's colder as a side effect of cultivated self pre-occupation. For the "market" depends upon narcissism to keep consumers keep consuming. It's getting more pronounced with each successive generation. Adam Curtis - The Century of the Self is the long history of how and why: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s&pp=ygUTY2VudHVyeSBvZ...
Incidentally, re: "modern spirituality feels hollow" - there was a good article in the Atlantic* recently arguing that the fundamental problem for the modern church isn't that it asks too much of its members, but that it asks too little - that by not requiring its members to actually demonstrate their beliefs, it robs those beliefs of any tangibility and makes the whole exercise hollow.
I'm not a Christian, but I do think there was something lost in the country when we discarded the church as a common moral frame - the only other shared philosophical framework we have is the market, and whatever the limits of the church, the morals of the market seem to be making for a much colder society.
* https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/christian-...