An old question in a more subtle form

[Tiassa]

I would not even have thought of the notion had I not been cursed to HGTV while ripping the column. But I'm sitting there with a goofy grin on my face staring up at yet another home-improvement pseudo-reality/part-gameshow program in which a designer redid some dude's backyard.

A couple of trees came down. It was a bit of sadness.

But the trees were recycled, through the wood chipper, into the flowerbeds as decorative cover.

And it apparently felt good. Everybody felt some connection to the trees, especially one of them, and the family expressed some happiness that they still had the tree with them.

Now, normally people make abstract points about one-eyed horny purple people eaters, elephants in high heels, or statues turning cartwheels, but my back door aside, I'm curious how atheism regards such simple superstitions insofar as whether or not encouraging such sense of spiritual fantasy, projecting attributes of kinship or other "connection" beyond the gravitational, economic, or otherwise basic association of objects in a Universe is healthy.

I mean, there is religion, and people say what they will. On the far end of the spectrum is the seconds of breath held in anticipation on the two and two in the bottom of the ninth. Somewhere in between, people assign personalities and all sorts of psychosis to their pets, and believe themselves somehow in union with the tree so that beauty bark made from a backyard tree is something akin to keeping gran'ma's ashes in the attic.

.....?

 

[Raithere]

And it apparently felt good. Everybody felt some connection to the trees, especially one of them, and the family expressed some happiness that they still had the tree with them.

I don't know if there's anything more that needs to be said. Why should the fact that they're emotionally attached to the tree or that they're happy to find some way to keep some part of it around be surprising? The problem, as I see it, is when people attempt to make something more out of this connection than is warranted. We create any number of fantastical scenarios to describe why and how the connection exists or in an attempt to ease our loss. The problem is not that we feel these connections but in not recognizing them for what they are.

~Raithere

 

[Tiassa]

Sometimes I think of the nearly nihilistic statements of the infamous goth crowd that have to do with "pain lets you know you're alive, man." Do people somehow desire burdens in order to feel human? Is this somehow a bulwark against the Camusite "Absurd"?

On the one hand there is the symbolic empathy of a world event--a moon landing, an earthquake in Iran, a breathtaking surgery to separate conjoined twins. Is it a matter of degrees, or is human emotional response to human events--e.g. the stunning photo displays of world sympathy following September 11, 2001--a wholly separate process of connection warranting its own magnitudes?

What of the starving children in Africa? My cat brings me more human value than my knowledge that people starve. Why? My cat is closer, vomits on the carpet at just the wrong times, wakes the baby by accident and on purpose, and generally has greater influence over the shape of my life than a starving child in Africa or India or even Appalachia.

Can we afford such illusions? Is there anything similar between a family's regard for a tree in a wood chipper and ecoterrorism, for instance? Extreme, I admit. But still .....

 

[Greco]

I keep looking for the truth even if I have to rub my rabbit foot for luck.

Gamblers have a higher probability of winning if they have a superstitious gizmo or belief. Why? I dont know.Maybe the power of positive thinking or perhaps they have a connection to the realm of probabilities. There are mysteries still beyond our grasp.

 

[buddhafish]

Well in this case I'd say the tree exists, and is part of nature. We're all part of nature, same as the tree, same as the snail, same as the clouds and the most distant galaxies. I see no reason to deny that people can become attached to trees and pets and rocks and places and all things natural. How you connect with that object doesn't really matter.. it is a growing, living thing and deserves our respect and appreciation.

Mind you, I'd like to see how the episode would've been if it was old Grandpa Sterling who got the wood chipper treatment, and not the tree.

 

[zagen]

Basically, an atheist just wouldn't believe that it's something to do with religion, the connection between the tree and person that is.

Though from there, any guess is as good as the next, because many atheists would believe different things. Some atheists might believe in a psychological cause of attatchment by the way the mind groups things, you could go to the psychlogy forum here for that question. Then other atheists might believe that aliens are making you believe that, or that some people have supernatural powers to feel living organisms, you could find that in the pseudo-science forum.

Basically, it's just they dont believe it's because of god. Most people expect all atheists to be alike or something, even when the definition of atheism is posted at the top as a sticky.

 

[CounslerCoffee]

"I've never felt this connected before..." - So says a girl that has sex for the first time.

It's all about connection. The family that saw that tree probably sat underneath it during the summer, had picnics around it, attached a swing to it, etc. The reality is that they are attached to an inanimate object; humans do this all the time. How many people talk to their cars? How many people talk to their cats (A cat is alive, I know, but they can't talk back)?

I would consider myself an atheist. Did I cry at my grandfather’s funeral? I did. I balled my eyes out. I knew him my entire life, and then he was gone. Is he with me anymore? No. I have pictures and memories, that's all. His spirit does not hang around my room (If it did I would freak out at the number of activities that he would of seen).

The real question is this: Are those people sane? Is caring about an inanimate object insane?

Note: That thing about the aliens... Yeah, I believe it.

 

[sargentlard]

Do people somehow desire burdens in order to feel human?

An excellent question to which I haven't found and answer. How does pain release you? I have found it to make me a worse person.

How is pain weakness leaving the body? How do I feel greater for having felt that pain...every time i recall that pain I only seemed to be tossed back into a temperament of aggression and avoidance. I have found pleasent experiences to make me stronger rather than the painful ones. It teaches good lessons but those lessons could have been better taught, no?

or is there a side I am not seeing to this? Does struggle and opposition really does define our humanity and society or is it just our proclivity to be in a place of misery?

 

[Raithere]

Can we afford such illusions?

I tend to fall back onto relative valuations. Proximity is a factor, both in terms of direct influence in one's life and one's ability to affect a situation but so is consequence and ideology. The most direct relationship is the personalization of remote events and abstractions. Zoos are my favorite example, for while I hate to see these animals in cages and tanks the research is essential to us accomplishing anything and the personalization is integral to motivating anyone into doing anything. Would we have dolphin safe tuna if it weren't for 'Flipper' and Sea World? Not likely.

The dilemma is in weighing the various valuations and choosing the best course. We can't accomplish everything and even if we could there are so many interrelations that the result would hardly resemble our intentions. Drastic remedies almost never achieve the desired result or have consequences as severe as the initial problem.

But the mind works with abstractions, not realities. Even when the television brings images of children, bellies swollen with starvation edema, into our living room they remain abstractions. We rely upon our senses and emotions to link us viscerally with reality. It is not until we 'feel' the child in the image do we have any connection with them. In this the Goths are correct, if narrowly focused, and the cutters cut because they know that it is better to feel pain than nothing. Even the theists are right regarding their bond with the rest of existence. So the family feels a bond with the tree, memories of happiness, home, and family that it reminds them of, which seems absurd when one considers the abstraction of a tree.

The error in Camus's dilemma is that he is focused upon the abstraction. Without the burdens, without the hope, there is nothing. He sees strength, honor, and hope in perseverance (and so do I) but he wasn't able to turn torment into joy. The trick in avoiding the depression of nihilistic futility or intellectual apathy lies in the eyes of a child. Sisyphus's torment exists only in the apathy caused by repetition. We become inured to that which is familiar. But if each moment is regarded as new, unfamiliar, where is the torment? Sameness lies in abstraction; no path is ever the same, no matter how many times it's been walked.

~Raithere

 

[Tiassa]

While the rest of your excellent post requires thoughtful consideration, one thing that did stick out as an interesting point to tweak is:

He sees strength, honor, and hope in perseverance (and so do I) but he wasn't able to turn torment into joy.

Perhaps, again, I'm invoking a matter of degrees, but it seems to me that Camus reconsidered the boundaries of joy inasmuch as Sisyphus must, necessarily, be happy.

Incidentally, Aleister Crowley took the ... "pseudonym" works well enough ... Perdurabo because, by his reckoning, the word is a a phrase that means, "I shall endure."

Aside from that is merely a philosophical nitpicking that I need to dispense with before giving such a magnificent post its proper consideration.

 

[Greco]

[QUOTE=Raithere
The trick in avoiding the depression of nihilistic futility or intellectual apathy lies in the eyes of a child.


Greco: Dont tell me that Michael Jackson is innocent.

 

[Raithere]

it seems to me that Camus reconsidered the boundaries of joy inasmuch as Sisyphus must, necessarily, be happy.

I do agree. My interpretation is that Camus reckoned Sisyphus happy despite (or perhaps because of) his torment rather than perceiving that his torment is of his own creation. What torment if one would prefer nothing more than roll rocks up a mountain?

~Raithere