TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
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User ID: 616
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Have you looked into John Vervaeke's series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis? He goes in depth into outlining the problem, and possible solutions. Although the latter half where he gets all into psychological concepts is skippable for sure.
Long story short - you have to have a lot of things to find purpose. You need a community, people around you that care about you and know you and will help you improve towards your purpose. You need some psychotechnology like prayer, meditation, et cetera to keep your mind focused. You also need to work on getting into the flow state, et cetera.
Idk man, it's not easy. I've been trying to find something like this myself, and it's a tough road but there are bright spots. Progress is possible.
One way to find purpose is to look at your life, and figure out where you've been hurt by other people or the world. What problems exist that made life harder for you? Then try to work on fixing those, to help others in the future who may be in your same situation. Just a thought.
Another thought would be to read great literature, like Dostoyevsky or Paradise Lost or Faust or whatever. Just check out some of the all time great works in the Western canon. A lot of them have themes around purpose and meaning in life, how to deal with it's loss and how to find it again.
Wishing you luck brother.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Yeah I didn't like the strange turn towards Gnosticism at the end, also thought it was kind of abrupt and didn't make much sense. Oh well. The first parts were solid.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Hey, I very much appreciate the vulnerability and opennes with which you're sharing man. It seems like for a certain type of person, you and me and a sad handful of others, these deep religious and philosophical struggles are really brutal. I get so fucking jealous of normal people who seem to be able to just kind of shrug at deep religious quandries and get on with their lives.
I've also got a huge helping of chronic pain which plagues me daily, a big part of my conversion. I can relate to feeling suicidal and feeling like Christ is the only choice I can make and keep on living. It's not a great place to be, but at least we have Him I guess. Better than having nothing.
Honestly your story kind of terrifies me. I really hope I don't end up in the post-Christian space like you are, because while I'm struggling enough at my current point I could probably see myself going to your situation and dang that sounds even worse. Hope you figure something out buddy. Maybe we should do a phone call or something if you want to PM me. We could at least commiserate.
In terms of reason in Eastern Orthodoxy versus Catholicism, man, most Christians aren't clear thinkers at all. It seems like Catholicism versus Orthodoxy versus Protestantism or whatever is all a sham from the Evil One to confuse us. I just go to the services that speak the most for me and try my best to be pious. I do think the EO has the best claim to be the true church, but hell if Catholicism speaks to you I like to think God would be more pleased if you were a practicing Catholic than a total apostate. Anyway.
This is pretty far from the CW thread lmao, but hopefully if any lurkers are in the same boat they can read our struggles and get a sense of solidarity, and realize that they aren't walking the path alone. I get the sense that a lot of young men struggling with purposelessness in a secularized world are walking alongside us. That thought gives me hope that even if we don't figure it out, we can maybe pave the way a bit and help make progress for our children, or posterity.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
the scientific idea of there being something ‘beyond’ science seems to be such a taboo idea that you can even do race science and get by, but if you posit something like ‘maybe remote viewing is a thing?’ you immediately get anathematized. This is despite the fact that most humans in history have had a deeply-held belief that the material reality we experience is not all-there-is, and many many many people in the past (and today) have had direct experiences not explainable by our current models of empirical reality or even our current ideations of psychological conditioning (e.g.UFO encounters by nuke-launchers).
Yep, this comes down to the fact that while moderns like to believe we are free of myths and superstitions of the past, instead we believe in scientific materialism and constant progress as our societal myths. Now many argue that these myths are fundamentally different from those of our ancestors, and they're right of course. But they're still beliefs based on social consensus and assumption rather than deep thought and 'objectivity' like the vast majority presume.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Pretense, decorum, expected behavior; these are arbitrary and often worthless. Note often, not worthless for being arbitrary, worthless where they only exist to delineate class. Talk more properly, dress more properly, behave more properly, again I ask whose fucking properness?
To look at this point a bit, these things are absolutely not arbitrary and worthless. Manners, expected behavior, et cetera are highly refined social technologies that teach people how to socialize in expected manners and not have to figure it all out on their own.
To your examples about leaders dropping decorum, there's a difference between an in control man dropping decorum occasionally for emphasis, and destroying decorum entirely as a concept. Also, mass manipulation of public opinion via inauthentic markers of 'realness' is not a good development, in my personal opinion.
Part of the breakdown we're seeing in community and romantic relationships comes from this attitude of destruction towards all social convention, which rap absolutely pushes as you admit. On a higher level, I think many people on the right dislike rap because it is explicitly about tearing down these old Western ideals and virtues, which you seem to see as a good thing if it's clever and sounds cool.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
What are some of the best philosophers to check out or books to read in your view? I'm certainly open to reading more anti-materialist arguments.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Thanks for the tag! For what it's worth, I wrote about my conversion experience below, and this was another factor that helped me along the way. I have had many various ideologies I've tried to pin my identity to throughout the years, from communism to anarchy to libertarianism to effective altruism. Ultimately I've found that Christianity has been far more 'stable' for me, in part because it's transcendental, and in part because there is plenty of room for doubt and even periods of lack of belief while still being welcomed back such as with the parable of the prodigal son.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
I don't know what's true, I'm just curious to find out. I think it's a question worth exploring more.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Yeah for sure. I get why people don’t talk about conversion experience in modern society, but it is helpful to read them.
Basically I was very into a sort of Westernized Buddhism for a long time, but then had some tough times in my life that led me to a crisis of faith. I slowly approached the Christian church more out of desperation than anything, if I’m being honest. As I started going my perspective on a lot of things shifted. I read the Bible for the first time, started taking Christian thinkers and themes in media more seriously and seeing a vast depth of wisdom there I had missed. Kind of unprompted I had some let’s say convincing experiences both sober and then on a psychedelic trip that made me consider seriously the whole Christ as God thing.
I also had virtuous Christians come into my life, or realized folks I already knew and respected were deeply religious.
From there I tried out the Orthodox Liturgy and had a super intense emotional reaction, I actually started crying in the service. It was quite embarrassing and a part of me hated it. I mean honestly this whole process has been difficult internally, I find materialism and atheism a difficult mindset to shed which is why part of why I write about it on here occasionally.
Anyway all this happened, I started praying and got more ‘confirmation’ so to speak. For me my experience was kind of seeing visions of the Cross or hearing the voice of God, but it’s all pretty messy and confusing when it comes to that sort of thing. I’d rather not go into the gory personal details.
It wasn’t an all at one experience it was more a collection of coincidences and shifts in mindset, combined with persistent direct experiential signs that slowly convinced me. My conversion has not been an easy or easy even willing one to be quite frank, and I’d imagine most conversions from atheism to religious belief are far more messy than typically presented.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Hah yeah that was pretty crappy of me, I apologize. I care very deeply about the topic and it’s easy to let emotions cloud your judgment.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Yeah this is a tough one to crack. Official dogma of the Orthodox Church is that the fate of non believers is a mystery, essentially. I tend to be humble on that myself. I agree that positing one God over another is murky water.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Hmm very interesting points you’re raising here. I’ll have to think more about all of this.
My intuition is that we can move forward and take the best of post enlightenment rationalism but somehow remythologize it. I’ll admit that has tension with the belief in one dominant religious structure as you’ve pointed out elsewhere.
In terms of what prayer changes - it’s mysterious my dude that’s all I got for you at the moment. It also changes the way people feel and the way they see the church though, so internal experience at the least.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
We're not people who just haven't tried to believe. We've heard that same condescension for years. If you truly want to inspire people to change, you might want to try a different tack.
Hey, this is a fair point. I suppose my thought is that I was raised 'Christian' yet I never really prayed, or took it seriously at all. I'm sure other people had a very different experience.
Overall I personally believe modern Christianity, especially in the West, has basically totally lost the plot. I don't have all the answers as to why there are multiple religions or anything, I'll be honest. But my personal experience has convinced me to believe in the Christian God, to answer your question.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
See my reply to you above... but basically this idea that True Science exists is a motte and bailey, and not what I'm trying to talk about. I'm talking more about Scientism.
I absolutely agree that we can have a religious society that embraces the scientific method, and I'd welcome it. I'm not a RETVRNer, I want to move forward once again toward God while keeping the fruits of modern materialist progress.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
I would suggest the traumatic transcendence is unlikely because the world is FULL of trauma
Actually, as the post I linked argued, it's likely the modern world has far less trauma than the ancient world. This could explain the relative lack of miracles over time under the traumatic transcendence argument. The Holocaust is a fair point, but then again there are all sorts of strange and occult forces and miraculous accounts from Holocaust times... maybe @SecureSignals would know more.
However the reason humanity embraced the current paradigm was because it was safer, dragons and demons and other monsters (there were those seeking to inflict madness and corruption into the world) were banished by the light of reason, which meant that there were arguments that Mages were trying to wake humanity into a much more dangerous world and that they did not have the right to do so. Even if Bacon is correct, is a world with less predictability actually better? Or have we manifested this world because it is the one where we have the best chance?
It doesn't seem to me that the dragons and demons and other monsters have been banished. It seems that they've moved into different realms in order to torment us, and we've gotten locked into a paradigm where we can't even discuss them seriously because to admit we still have monsters around is seen as 'pseudo-science'. Or we try to add a spiritual bandaid like therapy that barely works above placebo.
The reason why materialism is ascendant is that it can be used every day in the smallest of ways. Christians don't just pray for a church to appear, they build them out of brick and mortar.
Prayer can be used every day, and in the smallest of ways. Christians pray and then build the church. You see we in the modern world, thanks to Descartes, have separated our physical bodies and our minds to the point where we almost can't see it. To many religious types, embodied action is a type of prayer. This is a much deeper topic that I still wade in the waters of, but suffice to say there's more here than meets the eye.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
While I agree materialism was rare in the past, there are still groups like the ancient Greek Atomists (such as the school of Epicurus) and the Charvaka school in India that believed in it.
I mean... kind of, but they also lived steeped in a highly symbolic world. Even if they had beliefs that kind of rhyme with modern materialism, I'm highly skeptical that it would resemble our actual worldview. I tend to see these thinkers as proto-Enlightenment thinkers, the beginnings of the demythologization of the world that started with the Enlightenment and led to the modern materialist malaise.
For the ancients, everything was symbolic. Divinity and non-human agentic beings were everywhere and in everything. Even if there was a 'materialist' in those societies who professed to believe the gods were fake through logical reasoning, it would be like the masses of modern Christians who profess to believe in God and yet don't act as if he exists. They may have arrived at that stance, but we can't always choose our beliefs, especially our deepest ones.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
I think this whole post is confused in very common ways about what it means for something to be material vs scientific vs transcendental.
You're probably right in that I assumed a lot in the post. To clarify, when you say things like:
Neither ESP nor non-materialism would disprove or break science.
I'm more arguing that our culture, and indeed the mainstream scientific apparatus, operates based on a sort of materialist, reductionist Scientism framework. Often when rationalists talk about materialism vs non materialism they get bogged down in these definition games, and to be fair it's for a somewhat good reason.
Regardless, the average scientist doing actual work in the world today, publishing papers that lead to policy interventions, diverting government funds, organizing society, etc, is a materialist by action. Even though a ton of people say they're Christian, in reality they act like materialists. That's what I'm getting at.
So yes you can say okay in an edge case True Science would survive proof that materialism is false, and I'd agree. Sadly our world doesn't run on True Science, it's a motte that never has and never will exist.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Hah I haven’t read that one in too long. Man, I love Scott’s writing but the mental gymnastics in this quote are astounding:
The results are pretty dismal. Parapsychologists are able to produce experimental evidence for psychic phenomena about as easily as normal scientists are able to produce such evidence for normal, non-psychic phenomena. This suggests the existence of a very large “placebo effect” in science – ie with enough energy focused on a subject, you can always produce “experimental evidence” for it that meets the usual scientific standards
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Hey man, I have difficulty understanding what I’m claiming too! We have that much in common.
To try and come at it another way, I think the word we use for ‘material’ or ‘physical’ causes traps is in a framework or mindset that causes us to lose quite a bit of understanding. While a materialist/scientific framework is useful, I believe we need a more wholistic framework to understand things like consciousness, morality, free will, time, and other high level concepts.
Hence why we’ve made little to no progress with these fields despite incredible investments of resources and energy.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
I didn’t want to argue the whole damn thing at once. This is likely the most complex topic in existence.
This feels like an isolated demand for rigor. Why do I need to lay out every belief I have in one place?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Yeah this debate tends to get messy. I threw Bigfoot in there for variety, I’m not a cryptozoologist by any stretch of the imagination.
What I’m trying to get across is that while most default modern thinkers believe they have achieved a hyper rationalist, extremely logical and bulletproof worldview based on rigorous scientific inquiry, they in fact have not. And don’t even question the core assumptions of their worldview, just dismiss challenges a priori.
To your credit it sounds like you allow a much larger amount of leeway for possibility than most. I’d be curious if you’ve tried prayer or any other personal or ‘experiential’ practice aimed at seeking direct contact with the divine or spiritual world?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
From my point of view, with the evidence we have on hand, the likelihood of God’s existence far surpasses that of aliens. But the UFO thing is a great example of mainstream culture reasoning based more on emotions and consensus than actual logic or reasoning.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
I want you to seriously try and do some experiential religious practice and try to have an open mind as to the existence of divine entities.
I want folks like yourself to perhaps try to pray, or even meditate and give it a genuine shot. Maybe even take psychedelics and explore your mental space, once we have (hopefully) learned to incorporate those sorts of aids into mainstream religious practice.
Ultimately I want to return to a more symbolic worldview such as the ancients had, while retaining the benefits and understanding modern science has given us.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1mo ago
Thanks for articulating the point I was trying to make more coherently.
I’d even add that our entire system of logic and philosophy comes directly from the Church Fathers, notably Augustine and Aquinas. While I think the Catholics were flawed in their approach to understanding divinity, you can’t deny that the Catholic Church was an extremely crucial part of the foundation of the scientific worldview - if not THE most central piece the rest of the world missed.
Check out Jordan Peterson's lectures if you haven't already. He helped me learn to accept religion from a sort of symbological point of view. Worth a shot.
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