About Camus, I cannot really comment on whether he was trying to deal with the Christian baggage. Actually, original sin is an idea completely alien to the atmosphere I have grown in and cannot connect with it. Therefore, I cannot see any traces of it in Camus, even if it exists. For me, Camus (in his essay on Sisyphus)is a young guy trying to figure out whether this life as it is, without speculative hopes, is better lived through and enjoyed or just ended and done with. He justifies life and his love for it through logic and experience and his reasons sound solid to e. Camus means that to me. Maybe, he is simpler for me because I do not have any background of Christian theology or greek mythology to read more than he writes. I think Camus accepted that we are addicted to meaning and even within that ‘condition’, life is beautiful.
Also, I believe it is difficult to understand any thinker through another thinker. Only the other thinkers interpretation filters dowm. Like you saw in this post how you disagree with my take on Kierkegaard whom I have only read through Watts and not in the original.

In retrospect, I really should have been more diplomatic and respectful of other people’s beliefs. But at the same time, I don’t want to turn my freedom over to anyone. I’m willing to suffer the consequences. Bring it on!! I don’t need to be saved from my experience.

Is that sort of what you are saying? (Of course, without all of the baggage I’ve brought to the issue?)

You write: It just occurred to me on reading your comment that what Camus is trying to do is to show how life is beautiful despite being addicted to meaning. Just a thought.

That’s exactly where I’ve been tripped up with my understanding of Camus. Did he get stuck in ideas of Original Sin, or was this intentional on his part. Maybe Solomon is wrong and he intentionally presented it in this way to create an intellectual “conundrum” for we meaning junkies - especially those of us whose meaning is stuck in Christian baggage.

I completely understand your awe theory and a little fear within that. I am only against a God who prescribes rules for my earthly life.

I remember when Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna in the battlefield towards the end of his speech. It’s beautiful. There is a tele-series on Mahabharata in Hindi which has a long (but abridged) version of Gita. I have also seen it on that and that was what inspired me to read it in the first place. The actor who plays Krishna is brilliant. He has that naughty glow and smile on his face without any attempts that is so appropriate for Krishna.

All this has nothing to do with the discussion, but just came to my mind.

I know I am horrible at expressing myself so please, please, please forgive me. I wasn’t trying to say that you, alone, are a meaning junkie. Driz, me, Jenavie J, and anyone else engaged in any discussion whatsover on the web is a meaning junkie. This, to me, is what Nietzsche understood that perhaps Camus did not (although as I’ve said before, I am open to re-evaluation).

We can’t go back to a tribal understanding that existed prior to our meaning addiction because modern man is far too addicted to meaning to be able to do this. It won’t work.

I’m not particularly into the fearing God thing, either. At least in terms of “being afraid of God.” But to be in “awe” is very closely related and contains fear.

You’ve mentioned several times that you’ve read the Bhagavad Gita. Remember when Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna and Arjuna can barely stand it? Krishna shows himself as the creator and destroyer of everything on earth and Arjuna is in awe of this. Yes, it is fearsome, but
Arjuna’s overriding emotion isn’t fear or being afraid, it’s wonder. It shatters the sense of “self”. That’s scary. But it’s also awesome!

lol! We ought to leave you alone for a little while. In a sense, what I think we, the collective opposition, have committed is a crime similar to that of the porter in Through The Looking Glass.

The servant brings up the joint, a juicy leg of mutton. The mutton is calmly introduced to poor Alice, (she curtseys, the mutton bows, it’s all very proper) and as she begs to cut a slice and have a little to eat, the meat is promptly removed! Little Alice is scolded and then well advised to *not* slice up those who she’s only just met, and the poor girl goes hungry.

We offered the man something that looked delicious, and as he goes to take a bite, we move him on to other introductions! Shame on us!

~ Driz

Thanks for considering my doubts worthy enough to contemplate. I think by now I am transparent in as much as the fact that I am skeptical of ’spiritualism’ or without getting into definitions, possibility of ‘experiences beyond physical and intellectual realms’. But, I am skeptical not rigid. I have taken Driz’s and Arulba’s comments seriously and have vowed to give it a chance in whatever way I can.

As far as God fearing religion is concerned, let us change the frame of reference. Please believe me when I say that I do not have anything against Christianity (except what I have against all religions as a sect in general). Let me tell you why I do not like the idea of a God I need to fear.

First, as I said, it kills my freedom of choice. If there is a God I need to fear, there is definitely ‘his’ set of values I need to follow. I consider my life boring if it means such external discipline. I like my experiments. I like choices. One may say, “What if such experiments include one like Raskalnikov’s in Crime and Punishment’. I have not resolved that dilemma, neither do I think that Dostoevsky could. I think through that novel he wanted people to contemplate on it. His answer in Brothers Karamazov seems to answer in your favour, not mine. Because if Ivan goes mad and Alyosha resolves internal conflict, your ideas stand over mine. Why do I still struggle then against it? Why do I stand with Ivan yet? Simple. Doing otherwise would be intellectual dishonesty. Frankly, if in Arulba’s terms I am a meaning junkie, I can live with it. But, I can not accept what I fail to feel. I cannot help but quote Eliot:

“Will the veiled sister pray
For the children at the gate
who will not go away and cannot pray”

Jumping away from my doubts is not possible. Overcoming them definitely is, but is a painful and long process. I have, I belive started that process, thanks to you all.

Why cannot man be responsible for his ctions by the simple fact that he is free within his limitations and his choices define him? Why cannot Nietzsche’s concept of eternal burden give us all the discipline we need, without having to stand as a naughty child before a god? Why do we need fantasies to regulate us when we can do with our inherent sense of right and wrong? Just a few quentions…