Blog 19 -- 4/28/14

During our last discussion (pun most certainly intended) we spent a great deal of time tossing around our personal takes on existentialism. I was quite surprised that the distinction between Meaning and meaning was revisited, and to such a great extent. I truly felt that leading up to this class, existentialism was revealing itself to me as increasingly atheistic. And yet, with an understanding of the subject as being the human struggle to define the self in terms of subjective and/or objective purpose, I am forced to once again reconsider the idea of existentialism as fundamentally atheistic. Despite our exploration of religious existentialists like Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, I felt nothing necessarily religious about their philosophies—well, at least not insomuch as someone like Nietzsche’s gung ho advocacy against religion. Sure, the formers’ religious inclinations were made evident throughout their works, but in my opinion, the messages they presented could have just as easily been offered without the religious skew.

Let’s take Kierkegaard’s notion of a subjective faith for example: Why can’t some worldly paradigm serve the same purpose as his subjective conception of God? During my junior year of high school, I had an atheist friend with whom I often discussed my faith. One afternoon, during one of our regular bouts on religion, I suggested he try looking for God in the things he loves. A good while later, he was speaking in front of our class and called upon our conversation—saying how he felt he had found God in music. Sitting in the audience, it certainly sounded as though instead of coming about God through music, he had simply found a replacement for Him. Is this not an instance of faith being replaced with a more material foundation; more importantly, is a mundane basis for orienting oneself in life, such as this, a viable, and sustainable, alternative to the faith life (subjective or objective)?

In a rather longwinded attempt to exemplify my uncertainty surrounding the essentiality of faith to the philosophies of religious existentialists such as Kierkegaard or Dostoevsky, I have attempted to bring this discussion full-circle: I cannot help but smirk at the oddly existential feeling I am left with after having revisited (and with such class-wide enthusiasm) the notion of cosmic purpose in spite of what my preconceptions of the subject have deemed otherwise atheistic in nature. 

Yours Tru.ly