The Christian view of life

A man at the very end of himself - stripped of all hiding places. Knowing he needs to hide but there is ne'er a fig leaf to be found. Not even his honesty helps him.Rivetting...

Yes, I'm enjoying reading his confession. But it appears he doesn't end up a Christian. He says later on that he can't comprehend the resurrection, for instance, and can't comprehend communion. (Of course communion in the Russion Orthodox Church required him to believe the bread and wine were really flesh and blood, and there are other elements in that church that put him off).

What's the problem with someone manufacturing purpose for themselves?

Nihilism is only one of the many blind alleys open to mankind. Realising one is in one is good - for at least one gets to see there exists an impossibly high walls all around - ones which cannot be scaled. This whilst knowing that Death approaches inexorably from behind.And that the only possible way out is to cry "Help!"Lets hope Tolstoy did.

Rereading your OP it seems I've been getting off topic. But that's because it's hard to keep the topic in mind. I think it's a very attractive topic but I'm not sure what to do with it really.I think you've put your finger on an important fact, this trend of recognition of the emptiness of life in serious Christian writers. Their recognition of this meaninglessness is satisfying to you because it reflects your own sense of the ultimate emptiness of life (despite being able to create your own meanings), but you appear to be somewhat surprised to find it in Christians because you simply accept this ultimate meaninglessness as the way things are, and belief in God should on the other hand confer a sense of meaning (I guess this is part of your thought?). Well, it does confer a sense of meaning, it satisfies the deepest longings of the human heart, as those same writers will no doubt attest. Those longings reflect the fact of meaninglessness without God.Now I'm wondering how can it really be possible to be a happy nihilist, which is what you seem to be saying you are. Perhaps you only appreciate it intellectually, and it hasn't taken hold of your life as it did Tolstoy's? If someone honestly faces that there is no ultimate purpose, doesn't that kind of put an end to the endless making of one's own purposes as it did in Tolstoy's case?You've many times said that life is meaningless if based only on nature, but the existence of God would probably confer a formal purpose, an ultimate meaning.Yet you accept that life is based only on nature, you accept evolution (as did Tolstoy until his crisis), you accept that you are but material stuff that will eventually disintegrate and be no more.Why is it so easy for you to accept this?I suppose this is somewhat off topic too. I hadn't realized how many unanswered questions are bound up in that OP of yours.Your mission now is to drag us back to what you originally had in mind.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Nothing really, we all do it, and it's necessary if we are just this stuff that evolved out of nature, the only thing anyone can do.But it can be a deception, hiding the truth from us, if we were made by God whose purposes for us would be far more satisfying if we followed them.{edit: Actually it is a deception anyway, because it hides the fact that there is no ultimate purpose to human life, whether one finds God or not. Sometimes people recognize this fact without finding God}Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

A man who manufactures his own purpose has no way of knowing whether that which he manufactures is actually a purpose. If he defines purpose as that which he manufactures then he can manufacture anything he likes and call it purpose.Products such as Alice in Wonderland Inc. might produce.That said, I was expressing an opinion. I don't claim what I say to be absolutely right.

Well, he did, but he still ended up in this oddball religious solution to the problem without the resurrection or communion and the whole supernatural bit.

I don't know that I was surprised to find it: I was surprised to find it expressed so forcefully. I don't know that I'm particularly happy. The issue is not about being happy or unhappy. I don't know about it being "easy." It just seems true.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I guess I was overly impressed with Tolstoy's rather dramatic crisis as a result of his recognition of the meaninglessness of life and wonder why others can recognize it and go on living with it when he couldn't.

Are there really atheists who believe in "absolute" (you call it ULTIMATE) purpose? I don't recall ever seeing that viewpoint expressed here... it seems so... "out there." I'd be interested if you could point me to somewhere (an old thread) to read more? I know you're busy, so ... if not, OK.I think RR's OP is well-done as well. The problem I have with nihlism is that it's impractical. It seems to have nothing to say after saying "there is no absolute purpose." Good. Great. We've got a life to live nonetheless. Whether there's "absolute" purpose or "private" purpose, life is going to have purpose, so what does it matter what we call it?I think this relates to the OP in the following way: it exposes a difference between Christians and nihilists: for Christians, knowledge of nihilism is useful--it helps guide faith, guide belief. For nihilists, knowledge of a lack of "true" purpose is not useful in any special way. It is META-KNOWLEDGE: knowledge about what you know.Sorry if this doesn't further the discussion. I'm trying to shake off a bit of rust here

That's true. It might even hinder practicality.

I don't think I said that, Ben, not sure how you got that out of what I said. No, they don't, they can only believe in making your own private purposes. Absolute purpose, or "formal purpose" as Robin calls it, can really only be recognized if God exists and is recognized, and if you deny God you're left with your own personal subjective private purposes. Well, ultimately it's about whether there is a God or not I guess. There do seem to be people who aren't content with the idea that there is no real (ultimate formal) purpose to our existence. Like Tolstoy. It tormented him when it began to strike him how true it is according to everything he had believed to that point, that all he was was this accidental thing that was going to die, and it didn't matter to anyone. Some seem to live with this recognition somehow or other without having a crisis over it as he did, though, I mean those who recognize this meaninglessness. Others don't seem to recognize it or think about it all, but just go through life following their own interests and making purposes out of those and appear to be content. It is that for those who simply accept it I would say. But it does drive some to seek and even find God. I think Christians merely recognize that this is the condition of unbelievers, that they should suffer from a lack of meaning in their lives if they were to fully face it; it really doesn't guide Christians, though, our faith, at all, that I can see. It's just an observation Pascal and Law and others make about the human condition without God basically. Yes, you haven't been around much lately, but I seem to be struggling with this thread too despite at first being very enthusiastic about it, and may have set it back quite a bit myself.

You do have a startling way of zeroing in on the point sometimes. Yes it can hinder practicality. If you recognize there's no point to your life, you can lose even the motivation to create personal purposes, because in the end it doesn't matter anyway.I think that was my state of mind before I became a Christian. Very hard to care about getting things done, or pursuing anything too intensely, except some things I just happened to enjoy for their own sake, and I could lose interest in those too. And it really was because there was no Big Picture meaning that I could see. Maybe depression is really mostly this kind of recognition.

Very true. But whether it's practical or impractical, whether it makes you happy or unhappy--none of this matters. All that matters is whether or not it is an accurate depiction of the human condition.One can take a different approach to life--a hearts-and-flowers approach--and be perhaps very happy and very practical. And false.