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"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is 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 JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess 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. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction

schrototo 16y ago
Btw, the best way to experience this is the original audio recording of DFW's speech: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiobook?id=374103756&s=143445 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiob...
crasshopper 16y ago
I can't stand this platitude that there are no atheists in foxholes. I have been inches from death and never questioned my atheist beliefs.
- erikpukinskis 16y ago
  The foxholes platitude, as I understand it, posits that when faced with death, everyone turns to spirituality. I don't think that's what the parent's quote was really about. It seems to me the quote is saying that you can stop worshipping the spiritual world, but you can't avoid worshipping something... money, prestige, science, comfort, fun, etc. While I disagree with the "worshipping anything other than god will eat you alive" sentiment... in general I agree with the concept. The idea that you could rid yourself of unexamined, culturally imprinted beliefs is a charged mixture of hubris and absurdity. Atheists shed some small set of (generally preposterous) beliefs, and then imagine they are free of faith. It's like rich white kids eschewing BMW's and designer clothes and thinking they've escaped privilege.
  - crasshopper 16y ago
    Atheists ... imagine they are free of faith. Don't assume. you can't avoid worshipping something Don't assume.
    - PakG1 16y ago
      Anyone who comes to a conclusion about something inevitably in the end has faith. The fact that I sit in a chair right now, I know obviously that the chair can support me. But at the end of the day, I don't know for sure, so that knowledge is also rooted in faith that it will continue to support me and won't spontaneously break. And I've had chairs spontaneously break on me before too, so there's physical evidence in my history that my conclusion isn't a sure thing. The only people who don't have faith are skeptics, and I'm talking about skeptics who are skeptical about everything here. Like they aren't even sure of their own existence. Faith is a logical requirement of any personal conclusion whether you like it or not. http://xkcd.com/242/ http://xkcd.com/242/ Even if you experiment to beyond reasonable doubt, you still risk that you could be wrong. Any true scientist trusts in the scientific method, but the scientific method itself leaves things open to new questions, new evidence, and new experiments. That's what makes the scientific method wonderful. But that's also why any conclusion by the scientific method also in the end has a final requirement of faith for any immediate conclusions.
HelloBeautiful 16y ago
Such a stupid nonsense ...
- d0mine 16y ago
  Could you elaborate?
  - HelloBeautiful 16y ago
    The word 'worship' has a widely accepted meaning (as defined in dictionaries, etc.). This quote tries to change the meaning of the word, while having no useful information/ideas.
    - thrdOriginal 16y ago
      The comments here to this overall incredible speech are very surprising. I can't argue that it doesn't have any useful information/ideas, that is a subjective value judgement (as crazy as it seems to me); however, in what way is he trying to change the meaning of the word? One of the examples given in merriam-webster is: extravagent respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem <worship of the dollar>
    - DavidMcLaughlin 16y ago
      I don't know what's more disappointing, the fact that your original comment, which added absolutely nothing of value, was voted up or that this explanation has even more votes. All it takes is a simple Google search to show that the author of the quote uses worship quite routinely in one of the word's many "widely accepted" meanings: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/worship http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/worship The only contentious thing he has done is draw parallels to atheism, the definition of which is not so sensitive to context. The merits of doing so I think would have been a good talking point, but instead all you contributed was "a stupid nonsense."
joe_the_user 16y ago
If "worship" means anything it means an unconditional, faith based obeisance. If you define "worship" as merely seeing something as larger or more important than yourself, then yes, everyone "worships something". But this "observation" is not profound but rather a verbal card-trick leaving you with nothing useful. What interesting is the difference between worshiping a God, formulating a rational, ethical system, attempt approach reality scientifically, cultivating the "be here now" attitude and what-all, rather than the comforting new age claim that "all beliefs are really the same".
- jerf 16y ago
  "If "worship" means anything it means..." Whoa, there, stop right there. Meaning flows into definitions, not the other way around. Worship can mean many, many things, and when specified by the author (as it seems to be reasonably, if implicitly, done here) unless they're trying to do something really stupid like redefine worship to mean "purple", you pretty much have to take the definition as given. Declaring "No, the word worship really means X" does nothing to counter the original text, nor does it further your understanding or anybody else's. As evidenced by the fact that your second paragraph strongly suggests you were too caught up in enforcing a wrong meaning to even see the point, as "all beliefs are really the same" is very contrary to what you are replying to, which is a discussion on the very different results that different beliefs can have! And I would note, at no point in the quotation as given did the question of "truth" come up, it was simply talking about beliefs and their results. (Right or wrong. I'm not defending it per se except inasmuch as I'm suggesting you completely missed it. The full context may contain the idea of truth of the belief, I don't know.) Similarly, to use another example I've seen more times than I can count, logically defeating religion requires substantially more than to simply declare that "by definition, faith is belief in something that doesn't exist" and QED your way to victory in the next sentence. Not everybody uses the term in that way, and all you can do with wordplay like that is preach to the choir, you'll convince nobody who didn't already agree with you with that sort of thing.
  - lbrandy 16y ago
    That is a weak defense of an equivocation fallacy. Claiming he didn't play along "hard enough" doesn't undermine -his- point that the original statement is an equivocation fallacy. While there is no platonic definition of the word, any two people communicating have some definition, and each has some sense of what the other's definition is. Intentionally violating that is acceptable in certain cases when you are careful to ensure you don't poison the conversation. No such care was given here. It's a shifted definition of the word "worship" which then shifts the definition of the word "atheist" which then shifts the definition of the word "belief" in your post, and which then shifts the definitions of the word "faith". We've created an entire parallel vocabulary which will do -nothing- helpful to the conversation. And two posts away you have this: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2365864 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2365864 A guy talking about how atheists have faith. Except it's not atheists, it's "atheists". And they don't have faith. They have "faith". The equivocation fallacy is complete. This is what happens when you let someone poison a conversation with an equivocation.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
neutronicus 16y ago
I regret so very much that David Foster Wallace is no longer with us. I'd love to see an E Unibus Pluram for the internet.
dspeyer 16y ago
So a "set of ethical principles" are "spiritual-type" even if constructed in pure reductionism.

schrototo 16y ago

Btw, the best way to experience this is the original audio recording of DFW's speech: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiobook?id=374103756&s=143445 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiob...

crasshopper 16y ago

I can't stand this platitude that there are no atheists in foxholes. I have been inches from death and never questioned my atheist beliefs.

erikpukinskis 16y ago
The foxholes platitude, as I understand it, posits that when faced with death, everyone turns to spirituality. I don't think that's what the parent's quote was really about. It seems to me the quote is saying that you can stop worshipping the spiritual world, but you can't avoid worshipping something... money, prestige, science, comfort, fun, etc. While I disagree with the "worshipping anything other than god will eat you alive" sentiment... in general I agree with the concept. The idea that you could rid yourself of unexamined, culturally imprinted beliefs is a charged mixture of hubris and absurdity. Atheists shed some small set of (generally preposterous) beliefs, and then imagine they are free of faith. It's like rich white kids eschewing BMW's and designer clothes and thinking they've escaped privilege.
- crasshopper 16y ago
  Atheists ... imagine they are free of faith. Don't assume. you can't avoid worshipping something Don't assume.
  - PakG1 16y ago
    Anyone who comes to a conclusion about something inevitably in the end has faith. The fact that I sit in a chair right now, I know obviously that the chair can support me. But at the end of the day, I don't know for sure, so that knowledge is also rooted in faith that it will continue to support me and won't spontaneously break. And I've had chairs spontaneously break on me before too, so there's physical evidence in my history that my conclusion isn't a sure thing. The only people who don't have faith are skeptics, and I'm talking about skeptics who are skeptical about everything here. Like they aren't even sure of their own existence. Faith is a logical requirement of any personal conclusion whether you like it or not. http://xkcd.com/242/ http://xkcd.com/242/ Even if you experiment to beyond reasonable doubt, you still risk that you could be wrong. Any true scientist trusts in the scientific method, but the scientific method itself leaves things open to new questions, new evidence, and new experiments. That's what makes the scientific method wonderful. But that's also why any conclusion by the scientific method also in the end has a final requirement of faith for any immediate conclusions.

HelloBeautiful 16y ago

Such a stupid nonsense ...

d0mine 16y ago
Could you elaborate?
- HelloBeautiful 16y ago
  The word 'worship' has a widely accepted meaning (as defined in dictionaries, etc.). This quote tries to change the meaning of the word, while having no useful information/ideas.
  - thrdOriginal 16y ago
    The comments here to this overall incredible speech are very surprising. I can't argue that it doesn't have any useful information/ideas, that is a subjective value judgement (as crazy as it seems to me); however, in what way is he trying to change the meaning of the word? One of the examples given in merriam-webster is: extravagent respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem <worship of the dollar>
  - DavidMcLaughlin 16y ago
    I don't know what's more disappointing, the fact that your original comment, which added absolutely nothing of value, was voted up or that this explanation has even more votes. All it takes is a simple Google search to show that the author of the quote uses worship quite routinely in one of the word's many "widely accepted" meanings: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/worship http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/worship The only contentious thing he has done is draw parallels to atheism, the definition of which is not so sensitive to context. The merits of doing so I think would have been a good talking point, but instead all you contributed was "a stupid nonsense."

joe_the_user 16y ago

If "worship" means anything it means an unconditional, faith based obeisance. If you define "worship" as merely seeing something as larger or more important than yourself, then yes, everyone "worships something". But this "observation" is not profound but rather a verbal card-trick leaving you with nothing useful. What interesting is the difference between worshiping a God, formulating a rational, ethical system, attempt approach reality scientifically, cultivating the "be here now" attitude and what-all, rather than the comforting new age claim that "all beliefs are really the same".

jerf 16y ago
"If "worship" means anything it means..." Whoa, there, stop right there. Meaning flows into definitions, not the other way around. Worship can mean many, many things, and when specified by the author (as it seems to be reasonably, if implicitly, done here) unless they're trying to do something really stupid like redefine worship to mean "purple", you pretty much have to take the definition as given. Declaring "No, the word worship really means X" does nothing to counter the original text, nor does it further your understanding or anybody else's. As evidenced by the fact that your second paragraph strongly suggests you were too caught up in enforcing a wrong meaning to even see the point, as "all beliefs are really the same" is very contrary to what you are replying to, which is a discussion on the very different results that different beliefs can have! And I would note, at no point in the quotation as given did the question of "truth" come up, it was simply talking about beliefs and their results. (Right or wrong. I'm not defending it per se except inasmuch as I'm suggesting you completely missed it. The full context may contain the idea of truth of the belief, I don't know.) Similarly, to use another example I've seen more times than I can count, logically defeating religion requires substantially more than to simply declare that "by definition, faith is belief in something that doesn't exist" and QED your way to victory in the next sentence. Not everybody uses the term in that way, and all you can do with wordplay like that is preach to the choir, you'll convince nobody who didn't already agree with you with that sort of thing.
- lbrandy 16y ago
  That is a weak defense of an equivocation fallacy. Claiming he didn't play along "hard enough" doesn't undermine -his- point that the original statement is an equivocation fallacy. While there is no platonic definition of the word, any two people communicating have some definition, and each has some sense of what the other's definition is. Intentionally violating that is acceptable in certain cases when you are careful to ensure you don't poison the conversation. No such care was given here. It's a shifted definition of the word "worship" which then shifts the definition of the word "atheist" which then shifts the definition of the word "belief" in your post, and which then shifts the definitions of the word "faith". We've created an entire parallel vocabulary which will do -nothing- helpful to the conversation. And two posts away you have this: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2365864 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2365864 A guy talking about how atheists have faith. Except it's not atheists, it's "atheists". And they don't have faith. They have "faith". The equivocation fallacy is complete. This is what happens when you let someone poison a conversation with an equivocation.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

neutronicus 16y ago

I regret so very much that David Foster Wallace is no longer with us. I'd love to see an E Unibus Pluram for the internet.

dspeyer 16y ago

So a "set of ethical principles" are "spiritual-type" even if constructed in pure reductionism.