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This probably won't be popular, but what the hell. I feel like, if you strip away the outward trappings and dogma, this is what religion is good for. Not in a

This probably won't be popular, but what the hell. I feel like, if you strip away the outward trappings and dogma, this is what religion is good for. Not in a "believe in Jesus" or "trust in God" kind of way, but in a "how to orient your life" kind of way. Which is to say, the actually useful portion of religion generally teaches that your best life is probably not focused on you. It isn't about finding yourself, or being true to yourself, or really thinking about yourself at all. It's in being of benefit to the human beings around you. And in serving those around you, you become something that is worth being. It doesn't matter who you are or where you live, there are poor people around you. There are parentless children, drug addicts, parks that need cleaning, animal shelters that need dog walkers. You can always do something meaningful with your life. Try that, and see what kind of relationships you make. Look at and actually see a homeless person. See how that makes you feel. See if your worrying about your own future maybe drops away, or gets morphed into something you can do something with. See what kinds of other people you run into that way. Focus on, if not bringing joy to other people, then at least making their lives better. See if that doesn't - as a pure byproduct - change your own self-worth. Or maybe just make you less focused on it.

kakarot 8y ago
[deleted]
- Domenic_S 8y ago
  Religion, like drugs, can be useful and life-affirming, or it can be misused. Learning to code in high school is great, you should be proud of that!
  - jfk13 8y ago
    > Religion, like drugs, can be useful and life-affirming, or it can be misused. So can computers and programming, come to that.
scarecrowbob 8y ago
I'm more or less an atheist by most standards, and I'm okay with that description. I fundamentally agree with you. We need things (that we imagine to be) outside of ourselves that are good in order to structure what we do. That otherness can be in the form of God or in the form of ethics, or in the form of whatever we unconsciously pickup as meaningful. Culturally (in the US at least), I don't think that there are a lot of serious options just laying around for people to pick up if they aren't into religion, and so we unconsciously pick up other people, transient material successes, short term goal fulfillment, or novelty seeking as a substitute for these long term orientations. When we unconsciously adopt those things (human relationships, solving our short term projects, being smart, or whatever) I think that we're bound to be disappointed because all of those things are pretty finite in what you can do with them: there is always a limit to how close a relationship can be, how healthy your body can be, how much professional success you can attain, and so on. I have a 17 year old who lives with me, and when he goes off to college, I will be happy. I am glad that I have a lot more in my life than just my children, because in the end it's important that they leave, eventually. Even your closest human relations need to have limits. So the choice seems to be between living with short term successes, picking up religion, or doing a lot of intellectual work to try and find meaningful stuff that doesn't have the same frustrating limits as the short-term goals. At this point, I have been finding that last option much more useful... finally, after two decades of being a dead weight of alienating drag, my degree in philosophy is starting to work out some things. So, yeah, I think that you're right: an ethic where you place meaning in your life in the wellbeing of humanity in general is a strong idea.
Domenic_S 8y ago
Love this. We don't want happiness out of life, we want meaning. And we have the most meaning when we're impacting other people. Impacting people can start small, like your wonderful examples, or be huge like starting a successful company. There are so many ways.
- trevyn 8y ago
  I deeply disagree with this — if you can achieve happiness without meaning, there is no need for meaning. Of course, I understand that achieving happiness can be challenging, and that seeking meaning can be a meaningful step on that path. But it is possible to have happiness without meaning, and that seems more valuable than meaning without happiness, or happiness that relies on a sense of meaning.
  - Domenic_S 8y ago
    The science disagrees https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-is-healthier-than-happiness/278250/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-i...
    - trevyn 8y ago
      Ah, interesting. Thank you for challenging my assertion. Upon deeper introspection, my own personal experience of “happiness without meaning” is closer to “the meaning is just the universe/physics unfolding (and I happen to be a part of that)”, which is so all-encompassing that it has little meaning itself, in the Kolmogorov complexity sense. And concomitant well-being, which I would define as closer to “completely neutral affective experience” rather than the “positive affective experience” described as hedonic well-being in the study you referenced.
  - extragood 8y ago
    According to Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", happiness is the greatest good in life. The pursuit of a meaningful life puts way too much pressure on identifying what is meaningful and worth our energies. That would probably decrease my happiness. What if I can't find any pursuit that I consider to be the most meaningful? Am I OK committing to something that could potentially be less than optimal in terms of meaningfulness? It isn't that important for me to evaluate my actions on meaningfulness - I'm bound to disappoint my self by that metric. Prioritizing meaningfulness over happiness is putting the cart before the horse, in my mind.
jf- 8y ago
That’s more a value system, or maybe an ideology, than a religion. Though I’ll agree the two do more or less occupy the same cognitive space. There is no need for anything mystical to be involved. Today we are experimenting with new phenomena that have never been available to humanity en mass. Effective birth control, gender equality, freedom from restrictive social norms, all of these are very new, and indeed evolutionarily novel. We have not yet learned a tradition of how to operate in this space, we are the pioneers, and unfortunately a lot of missteps befall the pioneers. Eventually through trial and error, and a kind of evolutionary process, we’ll figure it out, and then that will get passed down as the new value system. Then we’ll have kids again more or less following in the footsteps of their parents, they’ll just be footsteps we wouldn’t necessarily expect.
- minitel 8y ago
  > Today we are experimenting with new phenomena that have never been available to humanity en mass. Effective birth control, gender equality, freedom from restrictive social norms, all of these are very new, and indeed evolutionarily novel. In brief, I would sum this up as "modernity." > Eventually through trial and error, and a kind of evolutionary process, we’ll figure it out, and then that will get passed down as the new value system. It has been said, by some philosopher or other, that "modernity selects for those who don't adopt it." It means, when you look around the world, the people having the most babies are the people who have adopted the least of these new aspects of society. At this rate the future ought to look more like the past than like a continuation of the trends we see today. Just due to the fact that our modern society depresses birth rates. Maybe there will be mitigating factors? Perhaps we'll reach a balance? Unknown. One interesting demographic fact. If current birthrates persist the United States of America will be majority Amish by 2200. Something to think about. ;) https://twitter.com/epkaufm/status/1007971672950018048 https://twitter.com/epkaufm/status/1007971672950018048 https://unherd.com/2018/06/amish-shakers-can-teach-us-demographics/ https://unherd.com/2018/06/amish-shakers-can-teach-us-demogr...
- maratd 8y ago
  > Today we are experimenting with new phenomena Pretty sure every generation from the beginning of time has thought of itself as a pioneer exposed to new forces and new phenomena. It's a bit arrogant to think that you're the one and only. There are a multitude of other changes that have transformed our environment (agriculture, spoken language, written language, barter, commerce, etc.) over the millennia. > There is no need for anything mystical to be involved. And yet something mystical has been involved for thousands of years, in virtually every culture. When we tried to eradicate it forcefully (communism), bad things happened. Perhaps there's more to it than you think?
dominotw 8y ago
> You can always do something meaningful with your life. There lies the rub. What if you don't find anything to be meaningful to you. This implies that there are some activities that are inherently more meaningful that others and you just have to find them. Now you are back to square one. Can it be rewritten to > You can always find meaning in anything you do This doesn't handwave the problem away. Main task is to find meaning in yourself not keep looking for activities that will give you meaning and hope you get lucky.
- astrocat 8y ago
  It seems like "you can always find meaning in anything you do" turns the sentiment back into being about YOU, which is what OP seemed to be lamenting in the first place. As you expressed, you see the task as "find meaning in yourself," a concept that can maybe be expressed as "meaning comes from within." This sounds nice! I think what OP was getting at is that this perspective has two problems: 1. It requires you to produce your own sense of "meaning" (whatever that means) that is self-satisfying, AND that works well in the society/community in which you exist; and 2. it is fundamentally self-centered. A hypothesis could be that this perspective seems to most frequently result in a failure to find "meaning" (probably better called "contentment") in anything. As OP said, faith/religion traditions tend to hand you a set of pre-defined "here's what's meaningful" morals, and these also tend to be skewed towards group value instead of just self-satisfaction. When handed this outlook on meaning/morals, it seems possible there might be benefits - not having to come up with a self-fulfilling sense of meaning that also meshes with broader society, as well as a focus on being useful to the community instead of just yourself. I personally find the whole "be yourself" / "do what you love" dogma-du-jour to be terrible, and prone to actually resulting in depression and shame. It is at the same time selfish, and self-sabotaging.
j45 8y ago
If we see religion as a dominant world viewpoint, it becomes less about one particular religious interpretation (or not), and more about the benefits of having a practice that helps you be better for yourself and others.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
No need of religion, just the new way of doing things. I feel you are talking of a loss of community. Of human beings being of benefit to each other that can be separate from religion. I do see that the church provides a community for many who can participate in that, even though I am a life-long atheist. But broadly, I agree with you. For my parents and their siblings that meant the furthest apart they were until mid life, ignoring war service, was around 50 or so miles. Not by choice, but there were jobs, opportunities and housing locally. Not in each other's pockets like in a small village, but near enough to meet up regularly, visit when passing, take me over to my uncle or gran if they needed to go somewhere. There was some overlap between friends. There was always someone pretty locally. For me and my siblings, friends and cousins, we are a far flung bunch, and it is the same for most of my friends. I have a relative 300 miles one way, one on another continent, another 200 miles the other way who I've almost completely lost touch with. Some friends have even more far flung friends and family. For the most part that seems to have come at a high cost. Not just when someone is taken ill, or at Christmas, but in day to day life, in our ways of parenting, in our closeness (or more accurately our lack of closeness) in day to day life. The lonely mum stuck miles away from relatives, the dad trying to keep it together alone. Maybe it even explains some of the addiction to social media. Maybe I read far too much into it, having reached an age where mortality is far more apparent, and people I thought as young have died. My parents and their peers seemed to have had a level of contentment with their lot, even though many were in WW2 - sometimes at great cost, that me and my peers have utterly lost. I have no answers. I wish I did.
- magicnubs 8y ago
  > I have no answers. I wish I did. I think this is something that VR tech good enough to make you feel like you're really in the same room as someone (meaning not just visuals, but sight, sound, touch, smell) will help with. That may be hundreds of years away though.
teekert 8y ago
Until you are the type of person that is always focused on others and wants everybody to be happy, often at the cost of expressing your own opinion. Then you'd need a dose of Ayn Rand and you also won't be popular on HN, but what the hell. If you strip away all the industrial entrepreneur worshiping, there is a beautiful lesson about the ethics of expressing what you want and allowing loved ones to do things for you, because they want to see you happy, because they love the real, full you. I guess one can come from many sides but in the end I agree with the writer of this piece, it is about accepting yourself, including the things you don't like. If you've seen Naruto, this is the height of the series for me: [0] (None of the movies will play though.) [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=naruto+hugs+himself&t=ffsb&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=UmPrDbgR3d8 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=naruto+hugs+himself&t=ffsb&ia=vide...
TheBeardKing 8y ago
Voluntarily serving others through time or money is definitely a good way to find some purpose, or at the very least, just not feel so selfish. A good opportunity that I've found that other HN folk might be interested in is donating your time to STEM clubs at public schools, especially those with less advantaged kids. They're usually after school and the one I'm doing is in the Lego robotics competition targeted towards 5th-7th graders.
alexashka 8y ago
The lady isn't struggling with meaning - she's struggling with having lived a care-free life and is now realizing that the ability to form a family and/or have a career that earns above average, has passed her by. There isn't anything to 'do' to solve this - because there is no problem. She's made trade-offs she wasn't fully aware of and now she's coming to see them for what they are. She'll pout for a few days/months/years and then move on with her life. This 'become something that is worth being' aka Jordan Peterson cult of 2018, is going to run it's course too, because most people are average, and this 'worth being' is always something an average person isn't already doing. When they start doing it, 'worth being' will become something more difficult surely because it's never enough. What a great way to view yourself as above others and continue being an ego-maniac (what Jordan Peterson is)
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  I agree, she exploited her good fortune (including youth and beauty as a woman in a society that gives that enormous power), and along the way she didn't spend much effort helping others or figuring out how to so that's no satisfaction to her now. She still wants her lottery ticket to win, she just doesn't see how. Most people are average, which means they can become well-above average at some one useful thing that is "worth being." Most people do get there. "Worth being" clearly implies, that being enough. If J.P. were actually an ego-maniac he would have been chewed up and spit out by society long ago; standing against the crowd isn't easy work.
MagnaEterna 8y ago
Religion and conservatism is really good groundwork for those who aren't exceptional. Hard to say if the world is a better place with religion in it but it's easy to say that some people's lives /are/ better because of it.
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  There's a million ways to be. One of them is good for some group of people.
ransom1538 8y ago
If you are in this situation, if you have 20 minutes, watch 4 vidoes: https://www.youtube.com/user/DaveRamseyShow https://www.youtube.com/user/DaveRamseyShow This man specializes in this.
- lackbeard 8y ago
  Which 4 videos?
rolleiflex 8y ago
I think we in the west ended up replacing religion with, not an absence of it, but with a religion of the Self — where you are the god, or the only one that matters anyway. That obviously doesn’t mean a sincere belief in one’s own omniscience, more that the the aura of ‘importance’ bestowed upon things naturally emanate from the centre of the Universe, which is you. Mind that humans are already pretty much hardwired to do this. Removing external factors of pressure and adding validation in the form of the mass market gospel of ‘find yourself’ just made this a lot more visible. Funny enough, the people who end up going down to the deep end of this road of finding yourself often find that there is nothing to find, since all your life, you’ve spent it looking for yourself and you never added anything to it. It’s an empty box. You’re the pot at the end of the rainbow that you never thought you needed to put gold into. From there, people usually split to a few branches. The more transcendentalist amongst us call it the Buddha, the folks with a more philosophical bent call it existential nausea. The more practical, most of us, go ‘oh.’ and they move on with their lives. Which is probably the most healthy way, anyway.
- betamichael 8y ago
  "Wherever you go, there you are." I've that saying a couple of times.
- randomsearch 8y ago
  The West replaced God not with the self, but with shopping.
  - adamrezich 8y ago
    That and "Science." "Scientists" (catch-all term nobody seems to have a problem using with increasing frequency) are the new priest class.
    - moretai 8y ago
      Hence our fetishization that results in a watermill of these intellectuals
    - 8y ago
kirse 8y ago
I think it is in a "believe in Jesus" way. In the book of Matthew, Jesus reaches out to folks who have finally come to this exhausting revelation: Matthew 11:28-30 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” If anything she is blessed to have finally reached the end of her self-effort and encounter the weighty truth we find in Ecclesiastes -- that everything under the sun is indeed meaningless (vanity).
- acqq 8y ago
  More Matthew, from, 10:34 and on, writing what Jesus personally says, according to him: "“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’" Or maybe Mark 11:12 and on: "12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it."
austincheney 8y ago
It could be argued that belief systems are an inescapable component of the human experience and religion forces a person to channel thinking about such in a deliberate cognitive way.
acabal 8y ago
I very much agree and I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Interestingly enough, this line of thought is not new. People like Auguste Comte in the 1850s saw the industrial and technological revolution as an engine working to erode religion, and he wanted to work towards an alternative. For many people, religion generally provides two things: 1) An overt faith-based explanation of why we're here, how the world came to be, and how important events are driven (God), and 2) a system of ethical and moral rules evolved over centuries to allow everyone to life their "best life". As science and technology advanced, many people lost the need for #1, and started to abandon religion entirely. That kind of makes sense, because #1 is often the marquee headline of religion. But in abandoning religion, they also lost #2, the quieter, but perhaps even more important, aspect. There is nothing in today's modern society that can seriously fill that gap. (In the past, fraternal organizations played that role to some extent, but they are largely irrelevant today.) Comte put together a "Religion of Humanity" in an attempt to provide people with point #2, couched in the familiar structure of religion and ceremony, but without the faith-based belief of point #1. It saw some medium-level success in its day but is now defunct. It was perhaps too early for its time. However I think the idea is more important now than it ever was. People need an ethical, community-based, traditions-based societal structure they can attend regularly and fall back on, but without the requirement that one believe in faith-based myths and legends. We need a new "Religion of Humanity". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/auguste-comte/a-general-view-of-positivism/j-h-bridges https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/auguste-comte/a-general-vi...
- justhelpingout 8y ago
  A system of ethics and moral rules that is evolved over time with no relation to how things are in themselves is simply so much legacy code, to be replaced by the stronger man at a time convenient to him. If, on the other hand, moral rules and ethics are due to the natures of things then there must be someone who intended things to exist in the manner they are intended to exist. That being must be a person because of the principle of sufficient cause (since we exist). Faith is the response to communication from this person. It does not require abandoning of reason, but simply picks up where reason cannot ascend to because of its lack of perspective.
ahel 8y ago
I'm from the flock that value his own practical and hard-learnt lessons over prepackaged answers. Yes it could be said it's more inefficient but I see a beautiful depth in earning your own growth. Following an ethical life path does not provide the same value as rediscovering it.
detcader 8y ago
How you've written things is exactly how Buddhist mindfulness authors Christina Feldman, Sharon Salzberg, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Pema Chödrön have been writing and thinking about it. I recommend checking out Wherever You Go, There You Are. It's clear to me how all of the reaction and distraction we've started to discover that the current Internet lets us cling to will drive people to start seriously evaluating teachings of mindfulness and Buddhism. Mindfulness interest is trending the highest it's ever been: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=mindfulness https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=m... Also interesting, searches for Buddhism peak yearly in the fall/winter?: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=buddhism https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=b...
- PascLeRasc 8y ago
  I'm a data point of your last sentence. Meditation and reading Buddhist writings is part of how I survive SAD.
the_clarence 8y ago
As an atheist I’ve been thinking about that lately and I think I can agree. It looks like in the US nobody cares about the poor people and the homeless and the church is pne of the last organization trying to help people (and convert them, but still). As long as the US will demonize socialism, people who have nothing won’t get help from the government.
- justhelpingout 8y ago
  Socialism without morality leads to Stalinism. Socialism with morality requires strict (e. g. sworn) obedience to a higher authority (see the monasteries of Catholicism which are strictly speaking socialist).
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    But capitalism without morality ends up being America. Where people sleep in the streets at every corners and need to pay to go to college or get medical treatment.
    - r00fus 8y ago
      While the rich own multiple houses in the same street or zipcode.
    - justhelpingout 8y ago
      Oliver Twist's England, surely, where children are pressed into service in dangerous factories that can severe limbs and kill, for mere pennies a day? Otherwise, we definitely agree. We are fallen creatures and will drive earth to hell, regardless of which car we decide to drive there in. Only external help can save us from ourselves.
    - CryptoPunk 8y ago
      America has become substantially more socialist over the last 50 years, if you look at the statistics on social welfare spending, or the number and breadth of social programs in force. In the past, without the safety net, and with anti-vagrancy laws, the street people would have been doing the work now done by low wage legal and illegal immigrants. It was a hard life, but better than slowly poisoning themselves to death with opioids while living on government aid.
deleted 8y ago
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VLM 8y ago
I think what you're talking about isn't so much a religion as a culture, and we're indoctrinated to actively avoid and make fun of that, so ...
laurex 8y ago
Religion might also be thought of as a part of social evolution necessary to establish trust among increasingly larger social networks. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23297205_The_Origin_and_Evolution_of_Religious_Prosociality https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23297205_The_Origin...]
philips 8y ago
I agree! Society is missing a non-theistic answer to this. The closest I have found is the Stoic concept of virtue.
EdSharkey 8y ago
The hitch is that you can't work hard enough to stem the tide of suffering in the world. It's a hopeless situation because the world is broken and suffering and death are unavoidable. If the world is broken, then there is no path to salvation through works. The message in religion, particularly in the message of Christianity, is that life is suffering because of ubiquitous sin - BUT - God came here bodily to teach us how to live, freeing us from the sin of broken laws, and died as a final blood sacrifice to wipe the sin slate clean. Jesus is definitely the superman to model one's life after (be charitable, be loving, forgive, don't lead others to sin, speak truthfully, don't be a hypocrite, etc...) But, the main point the religion teaches is that salvation can only come through faith that Jesus is God and not by any good works you do. You can get all rational and say that's all magic mumbo jumbo, but it's actually really good psychology. Belief in a higher power that saves leads to good people. It's beneficial to mental health when you can surrender the notion that anything you do will fix the world and that life isn't hopeless. And there is a power to prayer. We can definitely make things better here, and we are, but no works can eliminate all of the evil in the human heart.
madrox 8y ago
I identified with the person in the article, and what you described is how I pulled myself out of it. It was a mix somewhere between depression and existential despair. The notion of putting others first, kindness, and empathy is absolutely compatible with a secular lifestyle. That said, I'd also encourage this person to seek therapy. Sometimes knowing the answer isn't enough and you need help getting there...perhaps with the benefit of medication.
kelnos 8y ago
I fundamentally agree with your message (and, as an atheist, try to live it as well as I can), but I don't see why you need religion to propagate it. Then again, perhaps religion is just helpful here in the sense that people -- especially those going through emotional/existential crises -- might find it easier to climb out of a hole with dogma as a guide rather than rational thought.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  I wasn’t trying to say one needs religion to look past oneself. I was instead tipping my hat to religion, in the sense that I think this is a thing religion very much gets right. And it is through religion that most people in our culture are exposed to the idea. That being said, religion does a pretty poor job of spreading the gospel of loosing oneself in the service of others. It tends to focus on religiosity instead. But imho it does a better job than almost any other institution we have. Which is to say that as a culture we are pretty terrible at it.
technobabble 8y ago
Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship – be it J.C. Or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mothergoddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level we all know this stuff already – it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart – you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. David Foster Wallace, from This is Water, a commencement speech he gave in 2005.
- samhain 8y ago
  >If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. The only reason he has to assert it like that is because it isn't true. He has a lack of imagination if he's not able to imagine someone who doesn't worship anything. I imagine he'd just move the goalposts though, and say "oh well they worship their lack of worship, which is a form of eating them alive." It's disingenuous at best, but probably just ignorance, so that he can sound profound without really giving a convincing argument.
  - kaizendc 8y ago
    You're right, the hedonic adaptation is all imaginary. David Foster Wallace and the many psychologists who support it's existence are all wrong. Perhaps they should read your dissertation on it? /s
choicenotchance 8y ago
But what if I absolutely don't want to help other people ? What is left?
solatic 8y ago
> It's in being of benefit to the human beings around you. And in serving those around you, you become something that is worth being. I both agree and disagree with you. On the one hand, you're right that most people would be happier if they committed more and gave more. Human relationships are a positive-sum game. But people who mindlessly follow that advice are asking to be exploited. History is full of dictators who grew rich and powerful off the backs of people whom they persuaded to think of something other than themselves. "Blut und boden." "Deus, pátria, e família." What religion is supposed to be (whether it succeeds is a different question) is a moral compass so that one may find happiness and meaning in service to others, without your good intentions being exploited or usurped against your interests.
- Noumenon72 8y ago
  How does it prevent you from being exploited? By only helping coreligionists who are not supposed to exploit each other?

kakarot 8y ago

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Domenic_S 8y ago
Religion, like drugs, can be useful and life-affirming, or it can be misused. Learning to code in high school is great, you should be proud of that!
- jfk13 8y ago
  > Religion, like drugs, can be useful and life-affirming, or it can be misused. So can computers and programming, come to that.

scarecrowbob 8y ago

I'm more or less an atheist by most standards, and I'm okay with that description. I fundamentally agree with you. We need things (that we imagine to be) outside of ourselves that are good in order to structure what we do. That otherness can be in the form of God or in the form of ethics, or in the form of whatever we unconsciously pickup as meaningful. Culturally (in the US at least), I don't think that there are a lot of serious options just laying around for people to pick up if they aren't into religion, and so we unconsciously pick up other people, transient material successes, short term goal fulfillment, or novelty seeking as a substitute for these long term orientations. When we unconsciously adopt those things (human relationships, solving our short term projects, being smart, or whatever) I think that we're bound to be disappointed because all of those things are pretty finite in what you can do with them: there is always a limit to how close a relationship can be, how healthy your body can be, how much professional success you can attain, and so on. I have a 17 year old who lives with me, and when he goes off to college, I will be happy. I am glad that I have a lot more in my life than just my children, because in the end it's important that they leave, eventually. Even your closest human relations need to have limits. So the choice seems to be between living with short term successes, picking up religion, or doing a lot of intellectual work to try and find meaningful stuff that doesn't have the same frustrating limits as the short-term goals. At this point, I have been finding that last option much more useful... finally, after two decades of being a dead weight of alienating drag, my degree in philosophy is starting to work out some things. So, yeah, I think that you're right: an ethic where you place meaning in your life in the wellbeing of humanity in general is a strong idea.

Domenic_S 8y ago

Love this. We don't want happiness out of life, we want meaning. And we have the most meaning when we're impacting other people. Impacting people can start small, like your wonderful examples, or be huge like starting a successful company. There are so many ways.

trevyn 8y ago
I deeply disagree with this — if you can achieve happiness without meaning, there is no need for meaning. Of course, I understand that achieving happiness can be challenging, and that seeking meaning can be a meaningful step on that path. But it is possible to have happiness without meaning, and that seems more valuable than meaning without happiness, or happiness that relies on a sense of meaning.
- Domenic_S 8y ago
  The science disagrees https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-is-healthier-than-happiness/278250/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-i...
  - trevyn 8y ago
    Ah, interesting. Thank you for challenging my assertion. Upon deeper introspection, my own personal experience of “happiness without meaning” is closer to “the meaning is just the universe/physics unfolding (and I happen to be a part of that)”, which is so all-encompassing that it has little meaning itself, in the Kolmogorov complexity sense. And concomitant well-being, which I would define as closer to “completely neutral affective experience” rather than the “positive affective experience” described as hedonic well-being in the study you referenced.
- extragood 8y ago
  According to Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", happiness is the greatest good in life. The pursuit of a meaningful life puts way too much pressure on identifying what is meaningful and worth our energies. That would probably decrease my happiness. What if I can't find any pursuit that I consider to be the most meaningful? Am I OK committing to something that could potentially be less than optimal in terms of meaningfulness? It isn't that important for me to evaluate my actions on meaningfulness - I'm bound to disappoint my self by that metric. Prioritizing meaningfulness over happiness is putting the cart before the horse, in my mind.

jf- 8y ago

That’s more a value system, or maybe an ideology, than a religion. Though I’ll agree the two do more or less occupy the same cognitive space. There is no need for anything mystical to be involved. Today we are experimenting with new phenomena that have never been available to humanity en mass. Effective birth control, gender equality, freedom from restrictive social norms, all of these are very new, and indeed evolutionarily novel. We have not yet learned a tradition of how to operate in this space, we are the pioneers, and unfortunately a lot of missteps befall the pioneers. Eventually through trial and error, and a kind of evolutionary process, we’ll figure it out, and then that will get passed down as the new value system. Then we’ll have kids again more or less following in the footsteps of their parents, they’ll just be footsteps we wouldn’t necessarily expect.

minitel 8y ago
> Today we are experimenting with new phenomena that have never been available to humanity en mass. Effective birth control, gender equality, freedom from restrictive social norms, all of these are very new, and indeed evolutionarily novel. In brief, I would sum this up as "modernity." > Eventually through trial and error, and a kind of evolutionary process, we’ll figure it out, and then that will get passed down as the new value system. It has been said, by some philosopher or other, that "modernity selects for those who don't adopt it." It means, when you look around the world, the people having the most babies are the people who have adopted the least of these new aspects of society. At this rate the future ought to look more like the past than like a continuation of the trends we see today. Just due to the fact that our modern society depresses birth rates. Maybe there will be mitigating factors? Perhaps we'll reach a balance? Unknown. One interesting demographic fact. If current birthrates persist the United States of America will be majority Amish by 2200. Something to think about. ;) https://twitter.com/epkaufm/status/1007971672950018048 https://twitter.com/epkaufm/status/1007971672950018048 https://unherd.com/2018/06/amish-shakers-can-teach-us-demographics/ https://unherd.com/2018/06/amish-shakers-can-teach-us-demogr...
maratd 8y ago
> Today we are experimenting with new phenomena Pretty sure every generation from the beginning of time has thought of itself as a pioneer exposed to new forces and new phenomena. It's a bit arrogant to think that you're the one and only. There are a multitude of other changes that have transformed our environment (agriculture, spoken language, written language, barter, commerce, etc.) over the millennia. > There is no need for anything mystical to be involved. And yet something mystical has been involved for thousands of years, in virtually every culture. When we tried to eradicate it forcefully (communism), bad things happened. Perhaps there's more to it than you think?

dominotw 8y ago

> You can always do something meaningful with your life. There lies the rub. What if you don't find anything to be meaningful to you. This implies that there are some activities that are inherently more meaningful that others and you just have to find them. Now you are back to square one. Can it be rewritten to > You can always find meaning in anything you do This doesn't handwave the problem away. Main task is to find meaning in yourself not keep looking for activities that will give you meaning and hope you get lucky.

astrocat 8y ago
It seems like "you can always find meaning in anything you do" turns the sentiment back into being about YOU, which is what OP seemed to be lamenting in the first place. As you expressed, you see the task as "find meaning in yourself," a concept that can maybe be expressed as "meaning comes from within." This sounds nice! I think what OP was getting at is that this perspective has two problems: 1. It requires you to produce your own sense of "meaning" (whatever that means) that is self-satisfying, AND that works well in the society/community in which you exist; and 2. it is fundamentally self-centered. A hypothesis could be that this perspective seems to most frequently result in a failure to find "meaning" (probably better called "contentment") in anything. As OP said, faith/religion traditions tend to hand you a set of pre-defined "here's what's meaningful" morals, and these also tend to be skewed towards group value instead of just self-satisfaction. When handed this outlook on meaning/morals, it seems possible there might be benefits - not having to come up with a self-fulfilling sense of meaning that also meshes with broader society, as well as a focus on being useful to the community instead of just yourself. I personally find the whole "be yourself" / "do what you love" dogma-du-jour to be terrible, and prone to actually resulting in depression and shame. It is at the same time selfish, and self-sabotaging.

j45 8y ago

If we see religion as a dominant world viewpoint, it becomes less about one particular religious interpretation (or not), and more about the benefits of having a practice that helps you be better for yourself and others.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

No need of religion, just the new way of doing things. I feel you are talking of a loss of community. Of human beings being of benefit to each other that can be separate from religion. I do see that the church provides a community for many who can participate in that, even though I am a life-long atheist. But broadly, I agree with you. For my parents and their siblings that meant the furthest apart they were until mid life, ignoring war service, was around 50 or so miles. Not by choice, but there were jobs, opportunities and housing locally. Not in each other's pockets like in a small village, but near enough to meet up regularly, visit when passing, take me over to my uncle or gran if they needed to go somewhere. There was some overlap between friends. There was always someone pretty locally. For me and my siblings, friends and cousins, we are a far flung bunch, and it is the same for most of my friends. I have a relative 300 miles one way, one on another continent, another 200 miles the other way who I've almost completely lost touch with. Some friends have even more far flung friends and family. For the most part that seems to have come at a high cost. Not just when someone is taken ill, or at Christmas, but in day to day life, in our ways of parenting, in our closeness (or more accurately our lack of closeness) in day to day life. The lonely mum stuck miles away from relatives, the dad trying to keep it together alone. Maybe it even explains some of the addiction to social media. Maybe I read far too much into it, having reached an age where mortality is far more apparent, and people I thought as young have died. My parents and their peers seemed to have had a level of contentment with their lot, even though many were in WW2 - sometimes at great cost, that me and my peers have utterly lost. I have no answers. I wish I did.

magicnubs 8y ago
> I have no answers. I wish I did. I think this is something that VR tech good enough to make you feel like you're really in the same room as someone (meaning not just visuals, but sight, sound, touch, smell) will help with. That may be hundreds of years away though.

teekert 8y ago

Until you are the type of person that is always focused on others and wants everybody to be happy, often at the cost of expressing your own opinion. Then you'd need a dose of Ayn Rand and you also won't be popular on HN, but what the hell. If you strip away all the industrial entrepreneur worshiping, there is a beautiful lesson about the ethics of expressing what you want and allowing loved ones to do things for you, because they want to see you happy, because they love the real, full you. I guess one can come from many sides but in the end I agree with the writer of this piece, it is about accepting yourself, including the things you don't like. If you've seen Naruto, this is the height of the series for me: [0] (None of the movies will play though.) [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=naruto+hugs+himself&t=ffsb&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=UmPrDbgR3d8 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=naruto+hugs+himself&t=ffsb&ia=vide...

TheBeardKing 8y ago

Voluntarily serving others through time or money is definitely a good way to find some purpose, or at the very least, just not feel so selfish. A good opportunity that I've found that other HN folk might be interested in is donating your time to STEM clubs at public schools, especially those with less advantaged kids. They're usually after school and the one I'm doing is in the Lego robotics competition targeted towards 5th-7th graders.

alexashka 8y ago

The lady isn't struggling with meaning - she's struggling with having lived a care-free life and is now realizing that the ability to form a family and/or have a career that earns above average, has passed her by. There isn't anything to 'do' to solve this - because there is no problem. She's made trade-offs she wasn't fully aware of and now she's coming to see them for what they are. She'll pout for a few days/months/years and then move on with her life. This 'become something that is worth being' aka Jordan Peterson cult of 2018, is going to run it's course too, because most people are average, and this 'worth being' is always something an average person isn't already doing. When they start doing it, 'worth being' will become something more difficult surely because it's never enough. What a great way to view yourself as above others and continue being an ego-maniac (what Jordan Peterson is)

Nomentatus 8y ago
I agree, she exploited her good fortune (including youth and beauty as a woman in a society that gives that enormous power), and along the way she didn't spend much effort helping others or figuring out how to so that's no satisfaction to her now. She still wants her lottery ticket to win, she just doesn't see how. Most people are average, which means they can become well-above average at some one useful thing that is "worth being." Most people do get there. "Worth being" clearly implies, that being enough. If J.P. were actually an ego-maniac he would have been chewed up and spit out by society long ago; standing against the crowd isn't easy work.

MagnaEterna 8y ago

Religion and conservatism is really good groundwork for those who aren't exceptional. Hard to say if the world is a better place with religion in it but it's easy to say that some people's lives /are/ better because of it.

Brockenstein 8y ago
There's a million ways to be. One of them is good for some group of people.

ransom1538 8y ago

If you are in this situation, if you have 20 minutes, watch 4 vidoes: https://www.youtube.com/user/DaveRamseyShow https://www.youtube.com/user/DaveRamseyShow This man specializes in this.

lackbeard 8y ago
Which 4 videos?

rolleiflex 8y ago

I think we in the west ended up replacing religion with, not an absence of it, but with a religion of the Self — where you are the god, or the only one that matters anyway. That obviously doesn’t mean a sincere belief in one’s own omniscience, more that the the aura of ‘importance’ bestowed upon things naturally emanate from the centre of the Universe, which is you. Mind that humans are already pretty much hardwired to do this. Removing external factors of pressure and adding validation in the form of the mass market gospel of ‘find yourself’ just made this a lot more visible. Funny enough, the people who end up going down to the deep end of this road of finding yourself often find that there is nothing to find, since all your life, you’ve spent it looking for yourself and you never added anything to it. It’s an empty box. You’re the pot at the end of the rainbow that you never thought you needed to put gold into. From there, people usually split to a few branches. The more transcendentalist amongst us call it the Buddha, the folks with a more philosophical bent call it existential nausea. The more practical, most of us, go ‘oh.’ and they move on with their lives. Which is probably the most healthy way, anyway.

betamichael 8y ago
"Wherever you go, there you are." I've that saying a couple of times.
randomsearch 8y ago
The West replaced God not with the self, but with shopping.
- adamrezich 8y ago
  That and "Science." "Scientists" (catch-all term nobody seems to have a problem using with increasing frequency) are the new priest class.
  - moretai 8y ago
    Hence our fetishization that results in a watermill of these intellectuals
  - 8y ago

kirse 8y ago

I think it is in a "believe in Jesus" way. In the book of Matthew, Jesus reaches out to folks who have finally come to this exhausting revelation: Matthew 11:28-30 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” If anything she is blessed to have finally reached the end of her self-effort and encounter the weighty truth we find in Ecclesiastes -- that everything under the sun is indeed meaningless (vanity).

acqq 8y ago
More Matthew, from, 10:34 and on, writing what Jesus personally says, according to him: "“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’" Or maybe Mark 11:12 and on: "12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it."

austincheney 8y ago

It could be argued that belief systems are an inescapable component of the human experience and religion forces a person to channel thinking about such in a deliberate cognitive way.

acabal 8y ago

I very much agree and I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Interestingly enough, this line of thought is not new. People like Auguste Comte in the 1850s saw the industrial and technological revolution as an engine working to erode religion, and he wanted to work towards an alternative. For many people, religion generally provides two things: 1) An overt faith-based explanation of why we're here, how the world came to be, and how important events are driven (God), and 2) a system of ethical and moral rules evolved over centuries to allow everyone to life their "best life". As science and technology advanced, many people lost the need for #1, and started to abandon religion entirely. That kind of makes sense, because #1 is often the marquee headline of religion. But in abandoning religion, they also lost #2, the quieter, but perhaps even more important, aspect. There is nothing in today's modern society that can seriously fill that gap. (In the past, fraternal organizations played that role to some extent, but they are largely irrelevant today.) Comte put together a "Religion of Humanity" in an attempt to provide people with point #2, couched in the familiar structure of religion and ceremony, but without the faith-based belief of point #1. It saw some medium-level success in its day but is now defunct. It was perhaps too early for its time. However I think the idea is more important now than it ever was. People need an ethical, community-based, traditions-based societal structure they can attend regularly and fall back on, but without the requirement that one believe in faith-based myths and legends. We need a new "Religion of Humanity". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/auguste-comte/a-general-view-of-positivism/j-h-bridges https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/auguste-comte/a-general-vi...

justhelpingout 8y ago
A system of ethics and moral rules that is evolved over time with no relation to how things are in themselves is simply so much legacy code, to be replaced by the stronger man at a time convenient to him. If, on the other hand, moral rules and ethics are due to the natures of things then there must be someone who intended things to exist in the manner they are intended to exist. That being must be a person because of the principle of sufficient cause (since we exist). Faith is the response to communication from this person. It does not require abandoning of reason, but simply picks up where reason cannot ascend to because of its lack of perspective.

ahel 8y ago

I'm from the flock that value his own practical and hard-learnt lessons over prepackaged answers. Yes it could be said it's more inefficient but I see a beautiful depth in earning your own growth. Following an ethical life path does not provide the same value as rediscovering it.

detcader 8y ago

How you've written things is exactly how Buddhist mindfulness authors Christina Feldman, Sharon Salzberg, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Pema Chödrön have been writing and thinking about it. I recommend checking out Wherever You Go, There You Are. It's clear to me how all of the reaction and distraction we've started to discover that the current Internet lets us cling to will drive people to start seriously evaluating teachings of mindfulness and Buddhism. Mindfulness interest is trending the highest it's ever been: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=mindfulness https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=m... Also interesting, searches for Buddhism peak yearly in the fall/winter?: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=buddhism https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=b...

PascLeRasc 8y ago
I'm a data point of your last sentence. Meditation and reading Buddhist writings is part of how I survive SAD.

the_clarence 8y ago

As an atheist I’ve been thinking about that lately and I think I can agree. It looks like in the US nobody cares about the poor people and the homeless and the church is pne of the last organization trying to help people (and convert them, but still). As long as the US will demonize socialism, people who have nothing won’t get help from the government.

justhelpingout 8y ago
Socialism without morality leads to Stalinism. Socialism with morality requires strict (e. g. sworn) obedience to a higher authority (see the monasteries of Catholicism which are strictly speaking socialist).
- the_clarence 8y ago
  But capitalism without morality ends up being America. Where people sleep in the streets at every corners and need to pay to go to college or get medical treatment.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    While the rich own multiple houses in the same street or zipcode.
  - justhelpingout 8y ago
    Oliver Twist's England, surely, where children are pressed into service in dangerous factories that can severe limbs and kill, for mere pennies a day? Otherwise, we definitely agree. We are fallen creatures and will drive earth to hell, regardless of which car we decide to drive there in. Only external help can save us from ourselves.
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    America has become substantially more socialist over the last 50 years, if you look at the statistics on social welfare spending, or the number and breadth of social programs in force. In the past, without the safety net, and with anti-vagrancy laws, the street people would have been doing the work now done by low wage legal and illegal immigrants. It was a hard life, but better than slowly poisoning themselves to death with opioids while living on government aid.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

VLM 8y ago

I think what you're talking about isn't so much a religion as a culture, and we're indoctrinated to actively avoid and make fun of that, so ...

laurex 8y ago

Religion might also be thought of as a part of social evolution necessary to establish trust among increasingly larger social networks. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23297205_The_Origin_and_Evolution_of_Religious_Prosociality https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23297205_The_Origin...]

philips 8y ago

I agree! Society is missing a non-theistic answer to this. The closest I have found is the Stoic concept of virtue.

EdSharkey 8y ago

The hitch is that you can't work hard enough to stem the tide of suffering in the world. It's a hopeless situation because the world is broken and suffering and death are unavoidable. If the world is broken, then there is no path to salvation through works. The message in religion, particularly in the message of Christianity, is that life is suffering because of ubiquitous sin - BUT - God came here bodily to teach us how to live, freeing us from the sin of broken laws, and died as a final blood sacrifice to wipe the sin slate clean. Jesus is definitely the superman to model one's life after (be charitable, be loving, forgive, don't lead others to sin, speak truthfully, don't be a hypocrite, etc...) But, the main point the religion teaches is that salvation can only come through faith that Jesus is God and not by any good works you do. You can get all rational and say that's all magic mumbo jumbo, but it's actually really good psychology. Belief in a higher power that saves leads to good people. It's beneficial to mental health when you can surrender the notion that anything you do will fix the world and that life isn't hopeless. And there is a power to prayer. We can definitely make things better here, and we are, but no works can eliminate all of the evil in the human heart.

madrox 8y ago

I identified with the person in the article, and what you described is how I pulled myself out of it. It was a mix somewhere between depression and existential despair. The notion of putting others first, kindness, and empathy is absolutely compatible with a secular lifestyle. That said, I'd also encourage this person to seek therapy. Sometimes knowing the answer isn't enough and you need help getting there...perhaps with the benefit of medication.

kelnos 8y ago

I fundamentally agree with your message (and, as an atheist, try to live it as well as I can), but I don't see why you need religion to propagate it. Then again, perhaps religion is just helpful here in the sense that people -- especially those going through emotional/existential crises -- might find it easier to climb out of a hole with dogma as a guide rather than rational thought.

GlenTheMachine 8y ago
I wasn’t trying to say one needs religion to look past oneself. I was instead tipping my hat to religion, in the sense that I think this is a thing religion very much gets right. And it is through religion that most people in our culture are exposed to the idea. That being said, religion does a pretty poor job of spreading the gospel of loosing oneself in the service of others. It tends to focus on religiosity instead. But imho it does a better job than almost any other institution we have. Which is to say that as a culture we are pretty terrible at it.

technobabble 8y ago

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship – be it J.C. Or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mothergoddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level we all know this stuff already – it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart – you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. David Foster Wallace, from This is Water, a commencement speech he gave in 2005.

samhain 8y ago
>If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. The only reason he has to assert it like that is because it isn't true. He has a lack of imagination if he's not able to imagine someone who doesn't worship anything. I imagine he'd just move the goalposts though, and say "oh well they worship their lack of worship, which is a form of eating them alive." It's disingenuous at best, but probably just ignorance, so that he can sound profound without really giving a convincing argument.
- kaizendc 8y ago
  You're right, the hedonic adaptation is all imaginary. David Foster Wallace and the many psychologists who support it's existence are all wrong. Perhaps they should read your dissertation on it? /s

choicenotchance 8y ago

But what if I absolutely don't want to help other people ? What is left?

solatic 8y ago

> It's in being of benefit to the human beings around you. And in serving those around you, you become something that is worth being. I both agree and disagree with you. On the one hand, you're right that most people would be happier if they committed more and gave more. Human relationships are a positive-sum game. But people who mindlessly follow that advice are asking to be exploited. History is full of dictators who grew rich and powerful off the backs of people whom they persuaded to think of something other than themselves. "Blut und boden." "Deus, pátria, e família." What religion is supposed to be (whether it succeeds is a different question) is a moral compass so that one may find happiness and meaning in service to others, without your good intentions being exploited or usurped against your interests.

Noumenon72 8y ago
How does it prevent you from being exploited? By only helping coreligionists who are not supposed to exploit each other?