Post: #1

I've long been considering an ROK post on HBO's series, True Detective.

Obviously, the character of Rustin Cohle is my primary interest. Pastabagel at The Last Psychiatrist has this interesting note about faith:

Quote:Cohle asks in Ep. 5 "Why should I live on in history?" It's an odd line, especially when in episode 1 he tells Marty that he "lacks the constitution for suicide." But he also meditates on the cross (as an atheist), "contemplates that moment in the garden, of allowing your own crucifixion." But by 2012, Cohle has changed. He's resigned himself to ending his own life, but only after settling this debt- doing what he owes. One last act of compassion before giving up the only thing he has. His life. And once he's willing to do that, then he can do all the things in his life that require selflessness, courage, etc (i.e. things that require faith). You have to accept the infinite so you can make the right moves in the finite.

The highlighted quote interests me greatly.

At the first level, what is the nature of faith? Pastabagel suggest his definition in the subsequent paragraph:

Quote:And when he does this, when he resigns himself not to his fate but to his eternity of endlessly repeating, at that moment he will actually have faith, because that's when he proves he believes in the eternal. Only after doing this last good thing does he believe that he could stand the idea of an eternity of rerunning his life, because he knows at the end, he's fulfilled it. "Nothing is fulfilled--until the end."

Pastabagel goes on to reference Kierkegaard and his insistence that men -- in order to truly have faith -- must resign themselves to the eternal so they can make the correct moral decisions in the world of the finite.

I'm struggling with this because of a few reasons: what exactly counts as faith, why is faith necessary for these higher order moral (ethical?) imperatives and how does this fit in with mainstream religious/moral approaches to life?

Cohle has a quote in the series that is telling, I think:

Quote:Someone once told me, 'Time is a flat circle.' Everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again.

While it never is directly addresssed, Cohle had a two year-old daughter who died in their driveway and it is implied that Cohle and his alcoholism lead to her death. He first talks about this at a dinner with his partner's family, while his partner is taking a call. This exchange firstly suggests how out-of-touch his partner is with his family, but the point here is about how Cohle relates to that. His shield of indifference is attacked directly when forced to talk about his failure of a family.

In the last episode, Cohle confronts the serial killer that has haunted his soul the entire series. He was heavy into drugs earlier in his life and he has a drug-induced flashback in the fight, when he sees the entire universe spill before his eyes. He and his partner kill the serial murderer, but not before Cohle suffers severe injuries.



Cohle awakes in a hospital, alone. His partner had his family meet him and care for him; Cohle awoke alone in a room. Cohle eventually confesses he saw the light -- he saw his daughter across the pond of eternity -- and he realized that nihilism was nothing more than his defense against confronting reality. He says that he "sees the light" and that "nothing has been fulfilled -- until the end," and the end here is his abandoning of his nihilism.

Frankly, I've never been all that good at philosophical posts (I emailed cardguy about this series and he said, 'It sounds pretentious as fuck') but I am fascinated with the concept of faith and what it portends for human thoughts/behavior.

Specifically, why do the concepts of courage and selflessness require faith? Does it require us to believe that faith means that we believe in world beyond our mortal comprehension? Does faith require us to believe that our acts speak to eternity -- that what we do echoes in a flat circle? Or does true faith revolve around our belief that the world is fundamentally good, evil or morally ambiguous?

What exactly is faith?

Since Cohle was trying to overcome his hand in his daughter's death, could faith simply be the belief that humans can atone for their bad acts? In Cohle's invocation about humans committing acts again and again for eternity, is he talking about atoning for the death of his daughter? That -- like the Greek myth of Sisyphus -- he will spend his life solving murders of women and children to atone for the deaths he caused his family?

This quote by Pastabagel stuck with me:

Quote:You have to accept the infinite so you can make the right moves in the finite.

Does a man have to accept -- on faith -- the concept of eternity to achieve higher levels of awareness or actualization?

Post: #2

A well-nuanced post that should inspire debate and introspection but I have a feeling there will be at least one guy clamoring in with a comment along the lines of "Faith is simply believing without evidence and wishful thinking and yadda yadda yadda"

Post: #3

Cohle's journey from atheistic nihilism, which was originally brought about by the trauma of his daughter's death and his family's destruction, to his conclusion that there is a life after death where he can be reunited with her is one of the most amazing parts of that show. I always wondered how 90s Cohle would've reacted to his "present" self telling him what he saw during his near death experience.

I think he would've dismissed it out of hand as absurd or a hallucination. Nothing would've convinced him otherwise until he experienced it himself.

After he experienced it he used it as proof that it is not hopeless and he'll one day be reunited with his daughter who he thinks he failed. There is redemption for him and that gives him a reason to stop hating himself and to actually live. After all, he didn't really have one before, other than hunting down criminals. Don't forget that he said the only reason he didn't kill himself was that he didn't have the constitution for suicide.

It's only after his experience that he can finally forgive himself and move on with his life because he now knows separation from her is only temporary. A blip in time, if you will.

I think Cohle's atheism and nihilism was motivated more out of anger at God than anything. Often times people ask "Why did God let this happen?" when something terrible happens to them. Some get angry and deny him. That was Cohle. A broken, wounded man in suffering who was reckless and didn't really want to live, but couldn't commit suicide. That self-destructiveness led him to take all sorts of crazy chances with his life throughout the show and the career beforehand that we hear about but never really see much of.

He also talks about meditating on Christ's crucifixion despite being an atheist. If you're an atheist, what is the point of that? I think even he, deep down, knew that he didn't truly abandon his beliefs. He was just still angry at himself and God for what happened.

Personally, I believe God uses people despite themselves to do good. True Detective is only a fictional show, but if it were real I'd believe that God used Cohle to dispense justice here on Earth, uncover the truth, and punish the wicked.

In the end faith is belief in a higher power or a life after death that cannot be scientifically proven. It can offer hope that one day we could be reunited with loved ones we've lost. There are of course disagreements on how we get there or if it even exists. But I think that faith is important because true happiness cannot be achieved just by satisfying the desires of the flesh.

If all we care about is shelter, food, drink, mating and staving off boredom then we're little better than animals.

When I was an atheist I used to say that religion and faith exist because humans are afraid of death. That's partly true, humans are generally afraid of death. But I missed a big part of it because I thought I had it all figured out.

A fear of nothingness and this life being just a short blip full of material concerns that can never be completely satisfied would more accurately account for the reasons why faith exists, if you're coming at it from an atheistic point of view.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that my life during the years I was an atheist was completely miserable. No amount of fucking and satisfying physical needs made me happy. They provided temporary relief from the depression that came with believing life was ultimately a short ride with no real higher meaning or purpose outside selfish concerns, but that's about it.

Nowadays I believe to be a healthy person you must meet your physical, mental and spiritual needs.

I also look forward to the day I'm reunited with loved ones I've lost and can be away from all the evil dirtbags that tried to make life as miserable as possible.

Anyway, hope my long rambling post helped in some way.

Post: #4

I wouldn't say humans are afraid of death per se, I think the fear lies in whether or not we will live tomorrow without anything catastrophic happening to them, (family issues, severe financial loss, etc.)

Post: #5

I am a Nihilist. I am also a hedonist. I used to have faith. I agree that for me the Nihilism is a great help against my inner demons, trust issues, etc.

However I believe that Nihilist to be true. Faith is believing in something, in fact creating something to explain things you do not understand. It gives one hope, certainly. But I'd rather understand the truth and see the world for what it is than believe in something just because it is for the "greater good" or helps a lot of people. Isn't seeing through the BS the essence of red pill?

Those that are in power need people to have faith. It helps society run smoothly, and also makes people more pliable. I can see how if no-one had faith, if everyone lived like me, society would end in chaos. I also believe that most people are idiots and deserve the subjugation of higher powers that they are unwittingly accepting. In fact they sub-consciously crave it.

Post: #6

Faith is not creating something or believing something blindly. It's not a way to rationalize things we don't understand.

Faith is evidence-based trust. Why do we believe that game works? That is, why do we have FAITH that game works? Because we've seen it work before! Our faith in game is based on evidence.

Why do we have faith that the Sun will rise tomorrow? Because it's done so for eons.

The most important things in our lives are based on faith. I have faith that democracy is better than fascism.

Post: #7

(12-09-2014 05:17 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  Faith is not creating something or believing something blindly. It's not a way to rationalize things we don't understand.

Faith is evidence-based trust. Why do we believe that game works? That is, why do we have FAITH that game works? Because we've seen it work before! Our faith in game is based on evidence.

Why do we have faith that the Sun will rise tomorrow? Because it's done so for eons.

The most important things in our lives are based on faith. I have faith that democracy is better than fascism.

Then why is there a faith in God? There is no evidence-based trust in a entity that may or may not exist.

Post: #8

(12-09-2014 06:07 PM)Redwood Wrote:  

(12-09-2014 05:17 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  Faith is not creating something or believing something blindly. It's not a way to rationalize things we don't understand.

Faith is evidence-based trust. Why do we believe that game works? That is, why do we have FAITH that game works? Because we've seen it work before! Our faith in game is based on evidence.

Why do we have faith that the Sun will rise tomorrow? Because it's done so for eons.

The most important things in our lives are based on faith. I have faith that democracy is better than fascism.

Then why is there a faith in God? There is no evidence-based trust in a entity that may or may not exist.

We can know God through reason, and that reason does provide evidence.

Post: #9

(12-09-2014 04:01 AM)2Wycked Wrote:  I'm struggling with this because of a few reasons: what exactly counts as faith, why is faith necessary for these higher order moral (ethical?) imperatives and how does this fit in with mainstream religious/moral approaches to life?

Specifically, why do the concepts of courage and selflessness require faith? Does it require us to believe that faith means that we believe in world beyond our mortal comprehension? Does faith require us to believe that our acts speak to eternity -- that what we do echoes in a flat circle? Or does true faith revolve around our belief that the world is fundamentally good, evil or morally ambiguous?

What exactly is faith?

Does a man have to accept -- on faith -- the concept of eternity to achieve higher levels of awareness or actualization?

My answers are very unique, and I will try to compress them without providing copious background information.

Eternity is real, so "faith in eternity" doesn't make sense to me. This is because cereal, ovens, and apples are all real, so it doesn't make sense to say I have "faith in cereal" or "believe in apples".

Eternity is the simple inference that what we do now will have long-lasting effects on what comes later. Humans are prone to faithlessness when they deem their lives too fleeting, and too powerless, to make a long-lasting impact. But this faithlessness is just a blindness to eternity.

Bacteria are small and their lives are fleeting, but their presence (or absence) can either benefit or extinguish the lives of many, many men. Bacteria are eternal, despite their smallness. So why not infer that we are eternal, despite our smallness?

Who you are now lives long after you die. Whether in the genetic material that lives on in your descendants, or the teachings that influence people 500 years from now, you will still "be here" 500 years from now.

So Eternity is a simple, logical inference. It requires no Faith, just Patience and Focus. (If you learn enough about life, whether through biology, politics, history, or just-living, you'll eventually infer the existence of the Eternal.)

-------------------------------

Faithless people try to solve problems that cannot be solved, and try to bully everyone around to acquire more things "right now". They reduce their own lives to the pleasures / pains of the moment, because they're blind to Eternity.

And so we need Faith, simply because Faithless people are assholes. And to speak an Eternity-based, patient, compassionate solution to a crowd of Faithless individuals invites bullying and violence.

------------------------------

As just one example, the AnonymousConservative blog has a myriad of fascinating (and, at times, highly technical) articles on a small part of the brain called the Amygdala. The Amygdala has one job: to fire whenever something is wrong. And it will fire in response to "wrongnesses" as small as the disorder of a closet to as large as the Eric Garner video.

The smaller a person's amygdala, the faster their amygdala will "tire out" in response to a wrongful stimuli. And worn-out amygdalas produce a short-circuiting in the brain that produces violent anger and (sometimes) violent behavior. In colloquial terms, a worn-out amygdala means you will "lose your shit".

Who has the smallest amygdala? Narcissists! They can only function under very-specific (and highly comforting) environments, because the smallest wrongful-stimulus will set them in a rage. These assholes can perform a weird behavior right in front of you, and then deny (convincingly!) that they never did that - because they would never do that! Their inability to accept the smallest wrongful stimulus causes their brains to "re-wire" themselves, literally blinding the narcissist to many wrongful stimuli, particularly those related to self-concept and realistic-assessment-of-their-abilities.

Who has the second-smallest amygdalas? Liberals.

But the Liberal explanation is a little trickier. There are two contrasting reasons to help someone: (1) You really care about that person, and want to uplift them. (2) You're really disgusted / overwhelmed by their neediness that you just want them to GTFO. The smaller a person's amygdala, the more likely they'll choose the second reason. But that second reason is both self-centered (rather than focused on the person you're trying to help) and completely unconcerned with actually helping. So it literally doesn't care whether the proposed-solution actually works, because it's more concerned with distancing itself from the problem - which is why Liberal solutions almost never work, almost always involve "someone else" solving the problem, and almost always involve "threatening people" who don't agree.

-----------------

So, to me, Faith is just the natural occurrence of having a larger amygdala. (You can enlarge your amygdala by deliberately exposing yourself to stressful / fearful situations, and discovering that you can handle them. Competitive, sportive, and even violent conflicts are amygdala-enlarging.) You participate in Life long enough to see that the "bad parts" are really all that bad, and you especially resist "quick-fix" solutions that are likely to make the situation worse.

Most Faith involves either: (1) admitting that you're too stupid to solve the problem, and admitting that this, in itself, is never something to be angry or upset by, or (2) allowing smarter, more focused individuals to ponder the problem - i.e.: scientists. Since both of these aspects require a focus away from the fleeting negative feelings of inadequacy and urgency-in-the-face-of-suffering, an Eternity-focused approach naturally strengthens these undertakings.

------------------

Lastly, I'm still rather annoyed that Religion has cornered the market on the terms "Faith" and "Eternity". I hope that scientifically-grounded atheists will accept these terms, (rather than lampooning them as "superstition"), and align them more closely with reality.

Post: #10

(12-09-2014 07:12 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  

(12-09-2014 04:01 AM)2Wycked Wrote:  I'm struggling with this because of a few reasons: what exactly counts as faith, why is faith necessary for these higher order moral (ethical?) imperatives and how does this fit in with mainstream religious/moral approaches to life?

Specifically, why do the concepts of courage and selflessness require faith? Does it require us to believe that faith means that we believe in world beyond our mortal comprehension? Does faith require us to believe that our acts speak to eternity -- that what we do echoes in a flat circle? Or does true faith revolve around our belief that the world is fundamentally good, evil or morally ambiguous?

What exactly is faith?

Does a man have to accept -- on faith -- the concept of eternity to achieve higher levels of awareness or actualization?

My answers are very unique, and I will try to compress them without providing copious background information.

Eternity is real, so "faith in eternity" doesn't make sense to me. This is because cereal, ovens, and apples are all real, so it doesn't make sense to say I have "faith in cereal" or "believe in apples".

Eternity is the simple inference that what we do now will have long-lasting effects on what comes later. Humans are prone to faithlessness when they deem their lives too fleeting, and too powerless, to make a long-lasting impact. But this faithlessness is just a blindness to eternity.

Bacteria are small and their lives are fleeting, but their presence (or absence) can either benefit or extinguish the lives of many, many men. Bacteria are eternal, despite their smallness. So why not infer that we are eternal, despite our smallness?

Who you are now lives long after you die. Whether in the genetic material that lives on in your descendants, or the teachings that influence people 500 years from now, you will still "be here" 500 years from now.

So Eternity is a simple, logical inference. It requires no Faith, just Patience and Focus. (If you learn enough about life, whether through biology, politics, history, or just-living, you'll eventually infer the existence of the Eternal.)

-------------------------------

Faithless people try to solve problems that cannot be solved, and try to bully everyone around to acquire more things "right now". They reduce their own lives to the pleasures / pains of the moment, because they're blind to Eternity.

And so we need Faith, simply because Faithless people are assholes. And to speak an Eternity-based, patient, compassionate solution to a crowd of Faithless individuals invites bullying and violence.

------------------------------

As just one example, the AnonymousConservative blog has a myriad of fascinating (and, at times, highly technical) articles on a small part of the brain called the Amygdala. The Amygdala has one job: to fire whenever something is wrong. And it will fire in response to "wrongnesses" as small as the disorder of a closet to as large as the Eric Garner video.

The smaller a person's amygdala, the faster their amygdala will "tire out" in response to a wrongful stimuli. And worn-out amygdalas produce a short-circuiting in the brain that produces violent anger and (sometimes) violent behavior. In colloquial terms, a worn-out amygdala means you will "lose your shit".

Who has the smallest amygdala? Narcissists! They can only function under very-specific (and highly comforting) environments, because the smallest wrongful-stimulus will set them in a rage. These assholes can perform a weird behavior right in front of you, and then deny (convincingly!) that they never did that - because they would never do that! Their inability to accept the smallest wrongful stimulus causes their brains to "re-wire" themselves, literally blinding the narcissist to many wrongful stimuli, particularly those related to self-concept and realistic-assessment-of-their-abilities.

Who has the second-smallest amygdalas? Liberals.

But the Liberal explanation is a little trickier. There are two contrasting reasons to help someone: (1) You really care about that person, and want to uplift them. (2) You're really disgusted / overwhelmed by their neediness that you just want them to GTFO. The smaller a person's amygdala, the more likely they'll choose the second reason. But that second reason is both self-centered (rather than focused on the person you're trying to help) and completely unconcerned with actually helping. So it literally doesn't care whether the proposed-solution actually works, because it's more concerned with distancing itself from the problem - which is why Liberal solutions almost never work, almost always involve "someone else" solving the problem, and almost always involve "threatening people" who don't agree.

-----------------

So, to me, Faith is just the natural occurrence of having a larger amygdala. (You can enlarge your amygdala by deliberately exposing yourself to stressful / fearful situations, and discovering that you can handle them. Competitive, sportive, and even violent conflicts are amygdala-enlarging.) You participate in Life long enough to see that the "bad parts" are really all that bad, and you especially resist "quick-fix" solutions that are likely to make the situation worse.

Most Faith involves either: (1) admitting that you're too stupid to solve the problem, and admitting that this, in itself, is never something to be angry or upset by, or (2) allowing smarter, more focused individuals to ponder the problem - i.e.: scientists. Since both of these aspects require a focus away from the fleeting negative feelings of inadequacy and urgency-in-the-face-of-suffering, an Eternity-focused approach naturally strengthens these undertakings.

------------------

Lastly, I'm still rather annoyed that Religion has cornered the market on the terms "Faith" and "Eternity". I hope that scientifically-grounded atheists will accept these terms, (rather than lampooning them as "superstition"), and align them more closely with reality.

Faith has been given a bad rap due to its association with blind faith. But faith is trust. And trust should be based on evidence. For example I am sitting at my desk right now, would I sit on the chair if I do not have faith that it will hold up?

I will grant that blind faith is stupid. My personal faith is the result of evidence.

Post: #11

For what it's worth, the Catholic Church has always condemned blind faith (fideism).

Post: #12

(12-09-2014 04:01 AM)2Wycked Wrote:  This quote by Pastabagel stuck with me:

Quote:You have to accept the infinite so you can make the right moves in the finite.

Does a man have to accept -- on faith -- the concept of eternity to achieve higher levels of awareness or actualization?

Eternity need not be believed in. All you have to do is take the number one, and keep on adding to it without stopping. There lies infinity, which is eternity by another name.

I regard eternity as a vitally important concept in raising your awareness or actualization because its contemplation is a good way of inducing a numinous experience. Greek philosophical tradition often linked the numinous experience -- a mindblowing awe of something so much larger than one's self -- with the experience of ekstasis, being "outside one's self". I really think there's a lot of common ground between Nirvana, Zen, and this concept.

Speaking anecdotally, maybe the first real numinous experience I had came when I was fairly young, lying in bed trying to get to sleep, and then thought about a grain of sand on a beach. And then I got to thinking that grain of sand was on the vast size of the Earth, which itself was nothing but a grain of sand compared against the size of the Sun, and the sun itself was a grain of sand against the colossal size of the galaxy, and the galaxy a grain of sand in the universe ... it was overwhelming, especially when combined with the thought I had: among this massiveness, God is aware of and loves you.

Like I said, that was an early thought pattern I had, but it was a fair component of my early faith.

The other thing I think is important is to retain a healthy sense of skepticism about the revealed order of existence. It'll sound trite, but Agent K from Men in Black reminds me to never forget my assumptions:

Quote:Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

Post: #13

Reading 2Wycked's original post - this quote from Winston Churchill came to mind.

Quote:Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

Winston Churchill

Faith in a higher power provides humans courage.

Christopher Hitchens (an atheist) used to challenge his audiences to name a single courageous act that could not have been carried out by an atheist.

He used to believe there were no examples. But according to Peter Hitchens (his brother - a Christian and famous UK journalist), he changed his mind in the year before his death.

Lech Walesa was the leader of the shipyard strikes in Gdansk, Poland. These strikes were the first direct political challenge to the Soviet Union - and lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

When asked by journalists if he was worried about reprisals from the Soviet Union. Walesa responded that Jesus was on his side and would help him prevail.

Even a noted atheist like Christopher Hitchens admitted that it took religious faith to provide the level of courage needed for such an awesome challenge.

Of course - if you have faith that God will help you. You then have to ask yourself why God didn't help other people in their hour of need? So - from a metaphysical point of view - it is a myopic way of looking at things.

As for myself - I think the idea of Faith is what Alfred Hitchcock used to call a MacGuffin:





People use the word Faith. Not as a word to express an idea. But a word which they can put in the place of an idea.

If we extend the idea of Faith to The Meaning of Life. We have to ask ourself the question that I suspect Kierkegaard was grappling with (I have yet to read his work - so forgive me, if I am wrong).

You believe in God?

Great.

And your belief in God - gives your life meaning?

Brilliant.



How exactly does God give an answer to why life has meaning? The idea that you may go to Heaven and be reunited with loved ones - is, well, lovely.

But in what way does it give us a real answer to the gaping void of existence that some people feel from time to time?

It doesn't.

Just because you get to find out the punchline to the joke - doesn't tell you why the joke was asked in the first place.

"Faith" just provides a convenient box to store away those confused emotions. In the hope that some higher power has an understanding that may be forever beyond your grasp.

So - it comes down to knowing you will never know the answer. But accepting that since there is an answer - that alone is all that matters.

And that is the type of "answer" that religion offers - even if the religious are just as confused about the nature of existence as the rest of us.

Post: #14

I think some, maybe even a majority of people, are happier with religious ideas, even if some of us see no evidence for them.

If I'm an existentialist ( atheist) , and those people being religious makes their life happier without harassing me, when why shouldn't they be religious?

As long as Allah/God etc doesn't start telling them to kill me etc.
That's the danger of non-objective thinking.

Post: #15

Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Essentially, you have evidence for beliefs despite what your eyes say. For instance you can't see forces like wind or gravity, but you believe in them. It looks like the sun is moving and not the earth, but we know that not to be true because of evidence.

Post: #16

Thinking about this thread made me want to write about Ludwig Wittgenstein.

I think the ideas behind his work will be of use to those interested in the questions this TV show throws up.

You can find the post here:

/thread-44130.html