sent to my friend, oscar, in a couple emails:
"i credit st paul and the other christian patrisics with quite a lot of influence on my philosophy too, especially the exceptionally early church a la acts of st luke. their philosophy derived from a true belief that christ’s return was iminent is something i pretty much just want to squeeze into my own brain. its awesome. i want everyone to live in a way so untethered by expectations because they so truly and firmly believe that something wonderful is always around the corner. i think that little microcosm of time where the early christians really didn’t have any doubt that they were right is one of the most powerful levels humanity has ever been."
"they were in some way my earliest introduction to proper philosophy and so they’re very dear to me. i said to ari last night in discussion of them that if the christians had kept up that energy then i’d probably be a christian now. i am typically not a very spiritual person but i do hold some metaphysical concerns about the way human perception and creation leads the world - we have an inability to fully perceive “true” reality in the way a lot of (in my opinion lesser) philosophers strive towards, and so i believe that our perceptions and principles have a way to influence reality in some senses - the phrase “life imitates art” comes to mind. see, early christians considered their belief to be axiomatic in the truest sense possible. they had the ego-power to not just believe but know that christ’s return was imminent, and in that brief moment i believe that they did create a legitimate philosophical axiom. in response to that moment, the atheist position in me that upholds the inexistence of god seems insensible. i think that it’s one of the strongest positions within human reality that has ever existed, when a group of people construct an axiom from the conviction in their belief. on the other hand maybe im just going a little bit crackers in that. my approach to marxism ultimately has always been to try and create an argumentative and joy-fileld basis of belief in it that i’m able to construct marxism as axiomatic - that’s what i believe will construct the actual much desired state of “global communism”."
in any case, what it is that i believe here, is the power of human faith as a matter of conviction. the early christians held their own personal views to such high esteem that they had a pure conviction and certainty in things like the imminence of christ’s return and the rest of their faith that they create what i perceive to be the realest concept of “truth” in philosophical terms. this idea of truth is rejected by philosophers like nietzsche and other influencers of mine, and i can indeed see why, but i think that there is a sense of truth that we can draw when we take ideas like faith, religion, magic, manifestation, all walks that we describe like this can have salvaged from them one idea - this idea of conviction. conviction to treat your own faith as axiomatic, a philosophical “given”, provides the strongest basis for human thought possible. the early christians bear relevance less in that i care at all what they believed (i do but more in a theology sped way), moreso that the sheer conviction of their belief is what makes their work so genuinely sublime. i think that this ability to create such strong and powerful thought and belief is essentially what i consider to be god - i spoke to ari on this yesterday (and i think he showed you some of his takeaways), but my general feeling is that if the christians had kept this approach up, then god would have been real. whether that means a literal entity would be created via their thought or whether i approach it on a more mundane level that the idea of god may as well have existed because of the power of their belief is unimportant. to me, that is what god is. it is a shared conviction born from a pure sense of love and adoration in what one believes. the early christians didn’t make apologetics or try to justify their eschatological beliefs, they simply adored christ and tried to spread their love to as many people as possible. i draw this into my views on marxism less in the fact i consider them directly related and more that i consider this an approach that can be applied to near enough anything, including communism/marxism. my goal as a marxist is to spread enough joy and love of communism that it becomes a philosophical truth to me adn my contemparies, rather than caring about arguing with capitalists or trying to create a firm argumentative basis. i believe that all of those things are far less important than allowing yourself to take as much joy and adoration in what you believe, rather than weakening yourself by stooping to the level of your detractors by making apologetics. does this make sense? this is a very “deep” kind of rant for me so i essentially just try to put my brain onto the page when i justify it, i hope you’re able to get something from it :).
discussed with my friend, ari, having shown him the above:
moi:
i mean besides the fact that there are plenty of arguments against your atheism - literally unending, its my main contention with nu-atheism or all ideological atheism. arguing the existence or nonexistence of god totally misses the actual point of what is being said yknow. i have so many fucking bad things to say about christian apologetics, if you as a christian are trying to convince people that god is real then you're being genuinely a moron. the point is that god stands up whether he's real or not.
ari:
that's just a fake it until you make it tho
moi:
but its not! because that implies im saying "god stands up whether he's real or not because we'll treat him as if he is real"
it doesn't disturb me :) my point isnt that it convinces me, like, obviously jesus wasnt the son of god. however, my point is that all of what you're saying right now doesn't feel like it appropriately argues with what they believe, if that makes sense? which isn't quite what i mean what i mean is that "god stands up whether he's real or not because our belief doesn't approach ideas of realness" - it sidesteps the concerns of real or fake entirely
ari:
but... how? belief in essential is treating something as real without evidence, how can belief even exist without at least implicit assumption of realness?
moi:
because i think that is a mindset entirely immersed within ideas of christian apologetics. i think they have a lot to apologise for(lol) in the restructuring of christian argumentatives as having to restrain themselves to the world of the mundane and scientific because it did nothing but harm them. trying to prove something like god is true is like... moral arguments. really. its like trying to prove in unparalleled certainty something like idk that... theft is wrong. its a fool's errand - you can't do that, you can um and ah around the idea that yknow it causes unnecessary harm and blah blah and yeah maybe but there are always extenuating circumstances, you know how we both come down morally on this so go with me and don't try and create some moral equation for it. it is impossible to give a consistent moral reasoning for why murder is wrong but it is very possible to hate with all one's being someone who murdered a person close to you. belief in god and faith is the hating someone who murdered your wife, the thing that fills your spirit and powers you.
the issue i think you're facing is that you're trying to start with the materialism of it. you're seeing their claim and trying to work backwards from what their statements mean about the world, to see that and then see how they can reach some conviction and axiomatic belief. what you need to do instead is to come to grips with their conviction of belief, then look at how that impacts the world, see the church they built for example, see that their lives and the lives of the people around them structured themselves around their belief. that is what i am pointing to. because then what good is it for someone like you or i to come along and point out the material reasons that what theyre saying isn't true? don't you see how meaningless that is in the face of the conviction axiom? the kind of presence that has? at that point what does it matter whether they're true or not because they have modelled part of the world around the impacts of its truth either way
they were filled in some way with the love of god, that much is undeniable. you may decide yourself where that love came from but it was there - ideas like heavmen and spirit and such existed in some form"
ari:
they have the feeling of love of God and like... it motivated them etc, good for them, no matter where it came from it was there and it gave them the power to achieve things, but it doesn't exactly convince me, bc if I get any lesson from it is that an individual has the capability of inventing their power and impacting their own reality, definitely not that I should believe in the same bullshit they do. if it teaches me anything it's that one can shape their reality.
moi:
honestly the religion angle is probably the least important part of it, dont get me wrong like i love it and have a particular affection for it but it is the least important part of the whole system. my point about this is what you identified here:
"one can shape their reality"
THAT is what i'm trying to demonstrate and talk about here. the way belief can shape one's reality. maybe don't even say belief, maybe you care more abt the practice that comes from it, its pretty much entirely immaterial, the point and important part is the two words - shape reality. it is kinda nietzchean indeed, but its this idea of self assurance and belief that is so fundamentally through everything i do, the conviction to look at the world and the true power of the human spirit to become the master of its reality. im trying to push the malleability of the reality of human circumstance and how there's an underlying truth behind things like faith, belief, manifestation, things like that, a single golden thread pulled from udnerneath all of those things and THAT. is essentially magic. its more powerful than anything we can dream of, i don't believe the human spirit has a real limitation, everything we know can be seen as self defined and no circumstance or situation is bound in stone. this is what i want to deliver, i think that the early christian church is just a microcosm where it was demonstrated, i think it says something about the history and role of religion but its overall just a stepping stone along the way to understand the transcendental nature of human spirit applied properly and collectively .you don't need to be religious for that - you don't need to accept christ for that - i would and i maintain what i said re: if that was maintained then god would be real but its irrelevant
im not asking for you to be convinced, im asking for you to look past what they believe and assert and look into what wonders are wrought via their conviction. in my pursuit as a theologian, im inclined to say something like this is what god is made of, that god is a conglomeration of the human spirit, much like i believe in the metaphysical process that is essentially a godhead that is the summation of all human art or science. but you don't have to pursue that if you dont want, its just a framing device - one i like but it is just a framing device. you can approach it as a stark mundanity of nietzchean conviction and reach the same point which is that the human spirit has a fundamental power to shape reality. i want to frame it as like, a magic thing, i believe this is what magic is, you may frame it as a conviction to pick up the tools and make a thing but its all framing devices distracting from a real fndamental thing. i just have no desire to defrag what im saying from the christian angle cuz i just generally like the christian angle and find it satisfying
ari, a little while later:
tomorrow I'll go off over faith as choosing a conviction vs faith as belief without evidence bc I feel the difference is very slim but it is there. I understand what you meant re: apologetics now; they positioned it as belief without evidence rather than choosing to act like it was real, not bc of being logically convinced to it but bc of wanting to. I agree that aligning oneself with sth bc they want to despite lack of evidence is the Chad version of needing clues and rationalisations bc of lacking evidence. that's weak. see I didn't fully understand you before bc you didn't mention the aspect where it was a choice bc they wanted to "believe". ultimately they made it an axiom to themselves bc they wanted to. so the thing that made them powerful is entirely self -constructed. yeah I understand it now, I'm ig really not used to the idea of religious faith but I can understand conviction. the way you explained it to me before I had criticisms concerning blind belief being weakness that indicates lack of critical thinking etc rather than sth powerful and I stand by it but that's when it isn't a choice. you can have critical thinking and still choose to approach sth as true despite being aware logically there isn't enough evidence for it, like you can acknowledge the lack of evidence and make a choice in this framework this isn't weakness. weakness is approaching sth as truth despite lack of evidence bc you just accept it without criticism, which is how I saw it but the element of choice rather than passive acceptance changes quite a lot.
and maybe that's what, if it applied, made them much more powerful than the Christians nowadays given whem they believe they literally believe as in take it as true with no evidence not bc they want to but bc they genuinely think it must be true on some level. or they like it and they want it to be true so they make themselves think it is, but that's not the same as making the choice for conviction despite knowing it may as well not be, not caring if it is. the element of choice is what saves it for me bc that's will. you can act on will while intellectually still being critical
ari did then go onto write some of his own stuff abt it
in an email to my friend anna, what i consider to be the current clearest and most put together example of what im talking about, in the context of a series of essays we're going to be writing together:
on whilst i know you have your reservations towards me leaning so heavily on the early christians as being slightly western/christian centric but i apologise because they so fundamentally underpin my philosophy that i must use them as an example here to talk about what i consider as the Other approach, even if my approach restrains itself to being overall secular. but in any case i view radical optimism as also an exploration of radical self-certainty and assurance - the courage to believe in the rightness of one’s own approaches and beliefs as generally something necessary to go through the truly radical change we need right now. i relate this to the early christians because they considered their belief to be genuinely just an axiom. they had the ego-power to not just believe but know that christ’s return was imminent, and that conviction i believe is the genuine closest thing humanity has to ideas of philosophical “truth". taking the comparison further, whilst i am a secular person, i think that in the face of conviction like that, responding with “god doesn’t exist!” is just… not wrong but it’s pointles, because at that point it stops being about whether or not god exists or whatever it is someone wants to purport, it becomes about what that belief actually means to the person, and how much power they get from it. consequently, i think the real cracks began to show in christian thought very soon after when early christian apologetics began and they started feeling a need to justify their beliefs and fit them into scientific or equivalent strokes. the faith when it was just building a church out of this shared ecstatic love for life and eachother was sublime.
the actual christianity here doesn’t really matter but out of this i think we can draw this idea of self assurance and conviction, and the idea of human will and conviction being strong enough to shape reality. this idea of self assurance and belief is so fundamentally important to humanity, because it shows the ways that human circumstance in a grand scale is malleable based on the strength of will of the race. there’s this single golden thread underneath all these concepts like faith, religion, manifestation and etc that is the hidden knowledge we possess as people that is the true insane power of the human spirit and that combined love and belief is enough to change the world.
forgive me if this is a little bit fragmented and weird because im also high rn and i find this thought process hard to get out, so this is kind of edited together from different things i’ve written to friends in the past. what i am trying to put out though is the power of conviction in a belief, the identification that this idea of philosophical truth is only a matter of people wanting to believe in something better, and that if we band together in this collective idea of wanting to believe in something beautiful. that i think underpins my idea of radical optimism - the power of raw conviction in a thing and how it can be used to change the world. bypassing wooly ideas of liberal pacification of just being happy all the time, of religious ideas of just blind belief in something, but keeping the real beautiful parts of those ideas to make an active choice to stand for something without compromise and without worrying that you may be wrong - making an active choice in the faith you hold.
when the concern was drawn that this could lead negative actors who nontheless do possess conviction, i responded with this:
when it comes to the application of my ideas of raw conviction, i think the important differentiation that i’m perhaps guilty of not demonstrating well enough is the idea of it coming from a place of love and joy. i don’t believe that this same idea of total conviction and adoration for an idea can come from anything but a good place - not that there aren’t people totally and utterly convinced of awful and horrific things, there unfortunately are, but i don’t think they hold the same power. the power comes, in my mind, from the fact that by experiencing this kind of total enrapturement with something you hold in your soul, you are opened up to loving the world and humanity as much as is feasibly possible to do so. someone who is convinced of something vehemently awful if anything goes to the opposite end of that spectrum and shuts themselves off from the world, they’re denying themselves a true interface with the world (i don’t want to use the term “natural world” here because i consider humans just as much part of that but that is what i am referring to) and with their fellow people. to be convinced of something hateful is an insular thing that you can only share with other people equally as feeble minded and shit as you.