John Page

I am but one atheist and I thought this might be worth a new thread.

Ernest Sparks

Existentialism as a category of philosophizing easily accommodates itself to any underlying scheme:

J. P. Sartre accommodated his to Cartesian Rationism and Marxist Dialectic materialism;
M. Heidegger accommodated his to classical Greek ontology and even German National Socialism;
G. Marcel accommodated his to Catholic Christianity;
M. Buber accommodated his to Judaism;
P. Tillich accommodated his to Protestant Christianity;
J. Maritain accommodated his to Catholic Christianity;

so on and so on ....

Has any atheist thinker actually adopted an existentialist foundation simply on the basis of non-God? I don't know.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Well, maybe younger Sartre along this line-

No God, therefore complete human freedom, and that's dreadful.

But Sartre didn't just stay there.

NearNihil Experience

I think modern atheism is just a collection of arguments set contrary to most of what Jewish, Pagan, Xtian, and Islamic history has produced. For every one hundred guys who say "yeah, yeah," there is always one Really loud guy going "nay, nay". Modern Atheism seems to be this.

The criticism that we're jujst rebels and need God to rebel against, (therefore God exists) just doesn't quite grasp the fullness of being a freethinker, not all of whom are atheists.

Existentialism seems to provide some goodies, but there is a whole world of history, and a whole future full of disagreement yet to be created.

All philosophisizing is subjective. A mind has to be doing it. and a mind can not be wholly objective. it can imagine itself as such, but its just imagination. The minds eye steps back to include you(and all you encompass, except the minds eye, but it really never leaves you, you just imagine it and your back to subjectivity).

as to relating to God, as it all has to be some sort of subjective, God is one of those things like the mind's eye. You imagine something imagining you...then through some leap of reason say it actually imagined you first, and everything else. For many people, God is the ultimate subjective, present in everything aware of everything past, present, and future. But they still had to think of him first. *ramble, ramble, ramble.....*

JP2

Camus maybe? As I understand it, his concept of absurdity - as man questioning the universe he's been inextricably "placed in" - is largely dependant on the presumption of the non-existence of God.

ieyeasu

I always thought of Sarte's Atheism by Existentialism as "The wimp's way out"; that, in seeing that god didn't exist, we are doomed. The assumption lies with that old Neo-Platonic assertion of the ideal (spiritual) over the real(physical).

I look at my own atheism as idealistic realism: "Hey, the fact is, there is no god. So, we have to live as best and as full and as well as we can now, cause this is it". I try merge the ideal and the real; that, when sufficient effort is applied, the ideal form is created in the real world. Of course, I have a strong influence from Rand...

John Page

Yes, but wasn't he just greiving? His Existentialism was like "Get Real!" (as opposed to realism, which biographers seem to concur was not Sartre's position) but at the same time feeling like "I want to be loved and taken care of, I want there to be a god" which was also be a real feeling he had to deal with.

Cheers, John

Ernest Sparks

ieyeasu,

I presume that's "Rand" as in "Ayn ____", author of Objectivism, rather than "Rand" as in "_____ Corporation".
Right?

ernie

dublczek

I'm a zetetic realist. A great mind on this forum taught me that.

Ernest Sparks

That's a terrific term! Thanks for presenting it!

Ernest Sparks

ieyeasu,

Both AR and JPS deal with freedom as a fundamental. For AR, freedom is the root of human-qua-human; for JPS freedom is a quasi-cartesian self-discovery. An AR human meets freedom and begins doing things from that basis; A JPS human meets freedom and wonders what to do next. The AR human takes account of others and applies mind to the encounter; the JPS human is terrified by the prospect of others. Both require a form of character: AR human with the morality implicit with possession of mind and conception of others as also human-qua-human; JPS human with an innate need for maintaining self-integrity and avoiding bad faith. Things diverge pretty rapidly after that.

ernie