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Forums - General Discussion - The % of Americans who claim no religion has nearly doubled in 18 years.

akuma587 on 10 March 2009

I don't really think there was ever any kind of real collectivity in the world. Different cultures have waged war against each other and themselves for thousands of years, and have hated each other for thousands of years.

In all honesty we probably better understand each other now than we ever have. I think it is also overemphasized that the individual was at some point in history more in tune with the rest of his society. The conflict between society and the individual is the natural result of any kind of society. And if anything, earlier societies unwillingness to respect the individual (well, besides the individuals who actually had power) probably made things much more disjointed then than now.

All the indigent farmers (the majority of society for a long time) throughout history were no more connected to the rest of the world than anyone today. Most of them just wanted to be left alone and not be terrorized by thieves or the government.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

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The Ghost of RubangB on 10 March 2009

@Esmoreit, I still haven't seen it yet, but I watched all the Bill Maher interviews about it I could find, and a few teaser trailer clips. I keep forgetting to rent it. Same director as Borat too (although that doesn't mean much, since both films were just following around a wacky personality and letting him do his thing).

@rocketpig, the agony of anomie. The price we pay. The Industrial Revolution, division of labor, postmodernism, they just keep piling up. We can be replaced at any moment by somebody more capable, and nobody loves us. Shit sucks, eh? At least you can draw. All I'm good at is drinking and video games. Yuk yuk yuk.



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rocketpig on 10 March 2009
jv103 said:
@Rocketpig-I don't know if individuals are necessarily nihilists if they don't believe in a religion. ->I think that the void that is looking to be filled will be done so, to some degree, in the fields of philosophy and the arts. It's hard to look back on western civilizations artistic achievements without seeing religion's fingerprint but that should come (as it has been for quite some time).
" There is no collectivity, just a random group of individuals who happen to coexist in the same space." - Personally - I think this comes more from the inflated egos that are quite plentiful within the United States. The rather selfish rugged individualist history I think plays a larger part in the lacked collectivity. (I haven't seen the whole us so I don't know) I did see much stronger communal bonds in Madera, Portugal when I was there for six weeks in 2003 then I ever have in the US in general.

I'm not claiming people are nihilists (or even anarchists) if they don't believe in religion, I just see two movements happening across the Western world; one denying religion, the other clinging to it. With that comes a certain attitude of "I don't need anything from the community", which creates different takes on life. On the upside, we have progressive and individualistic thought. On the downside, we lose touch with our own sense of humanity and become isolated figures solely interested in our own achievement.

As you said, the United States is the perfect example of this. We've always been the "rugged individuals" willing to buck the current trends and do whatever the fuck we want. On the other hand, much of this has been lost in the US with an embrace to being even more isolated than they already were to begin with. We're a culture that, unlike Europe, is not only mobile, but is increasingly unwilling to acknowledge even those people that immediately surround them. We're the perfect example of how the "videogame" culture has taken hold and made an already powerful-yet-isolated country even more isolated through technology.




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rocketpig on 10 March 2009
akuma587 said:
I don't really think there was ever any kind of real collectivity in the world. Different cultures have waged war against each other and themselves for thousands of years, and have hated each other for thousands of years.

In all honesty we probably better understand each other now than we ever have. I think it is also overemphasized that the individual was at some point in history more in tune with the rest of his society. The conflict between society and the individual is the natural result of any kind of society. And if anything, earlier societies unwillingness to respect the individual (well, besides the individuals who actually had power) probably made things much more disjointed then than now.

All the indigent farmers (the majority of society for a long time) throughout history were no more connected to the rest of the world than anyone today. Most of them just wanted to be left alone and not be terrorized by thieves or the government.

Untrue. Our world has created a situation where no one is dependent on another single person. Even those indigent farmers still needed nomadic traders to bring them wood, metal, and supplies that they could not furnish themselves. Within a sparse trading world, a community was still formed.




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rocketpig on 10 March 2009
The Ghost of RubangB said:
@rocketpig, the agony of anomie. The price we pay. The Industrial Revolution, division of labor, postmodernism, they just keep piling up. We can be replaced at any moment by somebody more capable, and nobody loves us. Shit sucks, eh? At least you can draw. All I'm good at is drinking and video games. Yuk yuk yuk.

On the other hand, at least you're married and get to fight the world with a compatriot at your side. That's worth more than any talent I may or may not have.

 




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

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akuma587 on 10 March 2009

But hasn't the recent economic crisis stressed the fact that we are all extremely connected, at least economically?

Not to mention we are all lazy as fuck and dependent on each other as a result. I am dependent on farmers to grow my food, energy companies to give me energy, builders to build my house, construction workers to build the roads I use everyday, barbers to cut my hair, waiters and waitresses to serve me food, etc.

People back in the day were way more self-sufficient and had much less contact with the outside world than I do. They didn't have to depend on people to do all those things for them.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

highwaystar101 on 10 March 2009

Well it's about damn time lol.



Parokki on 10 March 2009

Welcome aboard, America! ^^

The way this discussion is going, this article seems incredibly relevant.



megaman79 on 10 March 2009

I think Obama is agnostic, seems to believe in science a bit too much.

btw, im agnostic, well most of the time except when i think im going to die then im like that dude in The Mummy



“When we make some new announcement and if there is no positive initial reaction from the market, I try to think of it as a good sign because that can be interpreted as people reacting to something groundbreaking. ...if the employees were always minding themselves to do whatever the market is requiring at any moment, and if they were always focusing on something we can sell right now for the short term, it would be very limiting. We are trying to think outside the box.” - Satoru Iwata - This is why corporate multinationals will never truly understand, or risk doing, what Nintendo does.

rocketpig on 10 March 2009
megaman79 said:
I think Obama is agnostic, seems to believe in science a bit too much.

btw, im agnostic, well most of the time except when i think im going to die then im like that dude in The Mummy

Again, you realize that most scientists believe in a monotheistic God, right?

The two are not universally separate.

 




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