Week in Review (April 15-19)
Tradwives, Joel Osteen, a Happy Nihilist, and an Atheist who Believed in God
Jesus, Joel Osteen and Buddha
I touched a nerve with this week’s Jesus and Joel Osteen article: What if Jesus went undercover boss at Joel Osteen's Church? Can church be relevant in today's unChristian America? The basic idea of the article is if and how Jesus might fix American Christianity, as represented by the phenomenon the megachurch. One of the most bizarre aspects of the article was Googling “Jesus and Joel Osteen” and finding the below meme. I guess someone had already contemplated Jesus as the undercover boss at Lakeside Church.
Of course the meme is problematic, depicting Jesus as a Fabio Caucasian. In a previous article I discussed the ways Jesus is depicted in images and art, and what we learn from this. The article is entitled, The Pretty Jesus. Did art mess up Jesus?
This week I also published Part Three of my series, “Philosophers You Have Never Heard Of”. So far, each installment covers a philosopher damn near-impossible to properly pronounce: Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, and Siddhartha Gautama. Thankfully, in the third case we can just refer to him as Buddha.
The article this week is titled, Is there a cure for human suffering?
Just like Jesus didn't start Christianity, Buddha did not start Buddhism. The Buddha was not a religious figure. He made unparalleled contributions to philosophy, psychology, and the science of the mind. The Buddha is known especially for a shocking claim he made, which is that he discovered as the cause and solution to human suffering.
In the article I discuss:
Why you never think of the Buddha as a philosopher
Why the religious and non-religious can get behind Buddha’s philosopher's insights
Why you don't have to quit your day job, check out of life, or do a pilgrimage to Tibet to be truly liberated
The universal relevance of the “Four Noble Truths” and the “Middle Way”
A different way of thinking about true happiness
The article also offers several resources to explore Buddhist philosophy further.
The Buddha said, “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” He also asserted, “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
Currently Reading
I’m currently reading, The Sunny Nihilist: A Declaration of the Pleasure of Pointlessness by Wendy Syfert.
In my work as a religious deconstruction/trauma counselor, the topic of nihilism comes up. Upon leaving one’s religious belief system, a person can find themselves in an existential crisis, unsure about any absolutes and the meaning of life. I have written about this in previous articles such as: Are There Absolutes, and Life is Absurd. And That’s the Good News.
Generally, nihilism is considered a negating thing. Right? Other words that come to mind are: pessimism, fatalistic, hopelessness, despondent, morbid. But the term nihilism actually means nothing-ism. Nihilism is essentially a collection of philosophical views that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as absolutes and inherent meaning. You often find the nihilist view in existential philosophy. In this sense, nihilism is not a dark and despairing outlook on life, rather it is placing the responsibility for life’s meaning and purpose on each of us as individuals. In other words, realizing there is no absolute or inherent meaning or purpose woven into existent, we are free to create meaning for ourselves.
I recently came across Wendy Syfert through an article she wrote: How to be a happy nihilist: Exhausted by the modern pressure to squeeze meaning out of every moment? This compelled me to read her book, The Sunny Nihilist.
In The Sunny Nihilist, Syfret offers a scathing critique of our preoccupation with meaning. We’re told our jobs should be meaningful, our hobbies should be meaningful, our lives should be meaningful – significant, moving toward some great end. We ask: am I leaving a legacy? Am I making my mark? Is there a point to my existence?
Wendy Syfert, writes:
“The pursuit of meaning shifted from a epic journey to a scavenger hunt. It's not enough to try and locate purpose in love, family, work or religion (although readers beware, those areas hold their own traps). Now we are being asked to find meaning in everything we do. From our morning coffee to our weekend laundry load, each event or chore needs to be optimized and elevated into a clear-eyed statement about existence.”
The chapters in the book are:
Stop Trying to Make Everything a Thing
A New Kind of Nihilism
The Myth of Meaningful Work
Following Your Heart (Into the Void)
Life After God
The Dark Side of Nihilism
Sunny Nihilism for Everyday Life
The Pleasure of Pointlessness
One of Syfret’s main points is that we are so inundated by the expectation that our lives be infused by “meaning” and “purpose” that it becomes a heavy burden to bear and prevents happiness and well-being.
Syfret writes:
“Sunny nihilism breaks away from the previous fixation on destruction by viewing pointlessness as a chance to breathe and think. Ultimately serving as a blank page, a chance to enjoy the moment, the present, the chaos, and the luck of being alive at all.”
And
“They only ask that you stop obsessing over what might be, and allow time to experience the euphoria of what already is.”
Tradwives and Baruch Spinoza
This week upcoming, the plan is to write an article on trad wives, and discuss Baruch Spinoza in Part Four of my series: “Philosophers You Have Never Heard Of”.
The “tradwife” subculture is based on advocating for traditional values, and, in particular, a “traditional” view of wives as mothers and homemakers. the movement has found traction on social media, particularly TikTok and Instagram. At the forefront of the tradwife movement are American influencers like Estee Williams, Nara Smith, Emily Mariko, Ballerina Farm, and Hannah Neeleman, who have amassed substantial followings.
A recent article in The New Yorker is titled, “The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife”. The article discusses how Alena Kate Pettitt helped lead an online movement promoting domesticity, which she now says, “It’s become its own monster.”
Some have been critical of the tradwife movement, saying that the movement can act as an “entry point for white nationalist and supremacist ideology”. Trad wives call for “submissiveness” to their husbands, which has raised a concern of “the danger of normalizing abusive relationships”.
In this week’s tradwife article, I plan to discuss:
What is fueling the tradwife movement
Religious patriarchy and toxic gender roles
The Bible’s view of women
Exposing the false choice of tradwife versus feminism
Lessons learned from the rise of tradwives
I’m looking forward to the Baruch Spinoza article. In a letter to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein, who pressed Albert Einstein about his belief in God, Einstein wrote, “I believe in Spinoza's God.” Wait. What? Spinoza didn’t believe in God, he was an Atheist. Spinoza is one of my favorite heretics. I see many people who leave religion spin their wheels about what to believe about God. In my estimation, understanding Spinoza's views would provide a meaningful pathway out of this dilemma. I’ll sort this all out in this week’s article.
This Weeks Substack Crossword Puzzle
It’s been a while since I did a Substack Crossword Puzzle. It’s based on my most recent published Substack articles.
In Summary
Jesus and Joel Osteen walk into a bar…
You can’t blame Buddhism on Buddha, but it might be worth hearing out his insights into human suffering.
“Happy” and “nihilism” don’t really seem to go together… or do they.
Tradwives is a thing, but what kind of thing is it exactly?
Can you be an Atheist and believe in God? Ask Spinoza.
Wait, the NY Nicks are in 2nd place???
For what my opinion is worth, I think you haven't come close to capturing just how different Christianity and Buddhism are. But in saying so, I realize that I look at Buddhism as a non-theistic spiritual path, and maybe what I'm actually saying is how wide the gulf is between religion and mysticism, and the fact that Buddhists sit at the feet of their mystics, and Christians tend to burn them at the stake. Certainly that are flavors of Buddhism that have devolved into religion, just as there are (mostly individual) Christians (St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, St. Teresa of Avila, HIldegard of Binger, Saint Francis) who absolutely belong in the list of those of great mystical realization.
The Buddhism (I relate to), completely lacks a "god" that is similar to the "white man with long beard sitting in the clouds" that most Christians seem to be unable to get beyond.
If you want to completely befuddle yourself, do some reading on what many consider the "heart" of Buddhism, the concept of Sunyata (horribly translated into English as "emptiness"). That might give you a taste of just how different Buddhism is from Christianity. Buddhism has a profoundly rich study of psychology and epistemology, something that seems completely absent in Christianity.
This Buddhist religious movement rapidly developed in a number of different places in and around what is now India, the birthplace of Buddhism. Buddhism itself started sometime in the fifth century BCE. We now think that the Buddha, who founded the religion, died sometime toward the year 400 BCE.Aug 20, 2018