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| Dentist73548 #752280 7 months ago |
The philosophy of cosmicism states that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos, ever susceptible to being wiped from existence at any moment. This also suggested that the majority of undiscerning humanity are creatures with the same significance as insects in a much greater struggle between greater forces which, due to humanity's small, visionless and unimportant nature, it does not recognize.
Perhaps the most prominent theme in cosmicism is the utter insignificance of humanity. Lovecraft believed that "the human race will disappear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will also disappear. Everything will disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense as the free motion of elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, feelings? Pure 'Victorian fictions'. Only egotism exists."[2] Cosmicism shares many characteristics with nihilism, though one important difference is that cosmicism tends to emphasize the inconsequentiality of humanity and its doings, rather than summarily rejecting the possible existence of some higher purpose (or purposes). For example, in Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories, it is not so much the absence of meaning that causes terror for the protagonists as it is their discovery that they have absolutely no power to effect any change in the vast, indifferent, and ultimately incomprehensible universe that surrounds them. Whatever meaning or purpose may or may not be invested in the actions of the cosmic beings in Lovecraft's stories is completely inaccessible to the human characters, in the way an amoeba (for example) is completely unequipped to grasp the concepts that drive human behavior. Lovecraft's cosmicism was a result of his complete disdain for all things religious, his feeling of humanity's existential helplessness in the face of what he called the "infinite spaces" opened up by scientific thought, and his belief that humanity was fundamentally at the mercy of the vastness and emptiness of the cosmos.[3] In his fictional works, these ideas are often explored humorously ("Herbert West–Reanimator," 1922), through fantastic dreamlike narratives ("The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath," 1927), or through his well-known "Cthulhu Mythos" ("The Call of Cthulhu," 1928, and others). Common themes related to cosmicism in Lovecraft's fiction are the insignificance of humanity in the universe[4] and the search for knowledge ending in disaster.[5] [edit] "Cosmic indifference"Though cosmicism appears deeply pessimistic, H.P. Lovecraft thought of himself as neither a pessimist nor an optimist but rather an "indifferentist,"[citation needed] a theme expressed in his fiction. In Lovecraft's work, human beings are often subject to powerful beings and other cosmic forces, but these forces are not so much malevolent as they are indifferent toward humanity.[6] This indifference is an important theme in cosmicism. The noted Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi points out that "Lovecraft constantly engaged in (more or less) genial debates on religion with several colleagues, notably the pious writer and teacher Maurice W. Moe. Lovecraft made no bones about being a strong and antireligious atheist; he considered religion not merely false but dangerous to social and political progress."[7] As such, Lovecraft's cosmicism is not religious at all, but rather a version of his mechanistic materialism." Lovecraft thus embraced a philosophy of cosmic indifferentism. He believed in a meaningless, mechanical, and uncaring universe that human beings, with their naturally limited faculties, could never fully understand. His viewpoint made no allowance for religious beliefs which could not be supported scientifically. The incomprehensible, cosmic forces of his tales have as little regard for humanity as humans have for insects.[8] Though hostile to religion, Lovecraft used various "gods" in his stories, particularly the Cthulhu related tales, to expound cosmicism. However, Lovecraft never conceived of them as supernatural; they are merely extraterrestrials who understand and obey a set of natural laws, which to the limited human understanding seem magical. These beings (the Great Old Ones, Outer Gods and others)—though dangerous to humankind—are neither good nor evil, and human notions of morality have no meaning for these beings. Indeed, they exist in cosmic realms beyond human understanding. As a symbol, they represent the kind of universe that Lovecraft believed in, a universe in which humanity is an insignificant blot, fated to come and go, its appearance unnoticed and its passing unmourned.[9] |
| werkbau #752285 7 months ago |
^what |
| DNCSquared #752292 7 months ago |
^^ Dafuq.. |
| PonyRIG #752297 7 months ago |
too long, didn't read |
| Anchors #752342 7 months ago |
Im...wat. |
| HotFuzz #752383 7 months ago |
 |
| RepentantAnon #752386 7 months ago |
i think he's saying either there is no god, or where is your god now |
| Xuncu #753173 7 months ago |
It's about how with the scope of science, it seems that all we have revealed is the insignificance of the human race compared to the larger scale of the universe.
It alludes to the arrogance of Abrahamic faith, that "God created the universe to us", comapring it to the arrogance of a puddle thinking the ditch was made for it, or a one-dollar bill thinking my genuine leather wallet was made just for it, ignorant of what the dollar actually represents (ie; in theory, a measure of a gold troy ounce), or how my credit card is of greater values, of such magnititude, that like the 'gods' of even the Cthulu mythos, that they are in fact 'just' aliens that respond (and are within the constraints) of (economic) laws that happen to not wholly overlap with ours, that it is merely unable to conprehend how it works, ignorant that it is merely another inhabitant confined to the rules of existance. To that, even if there ever were 'higher beings', it was more like Stargate where they were just aliens who wanted to be worshipped for the sake of having slaves, though as that idiot with the stupid haircut shows, this is also a questionable theory, only insigificantly less so than 'Jesus is real'. ie, the axiom that at a high enough level, especially to a primitive society, advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic, merely due to a lack of understanding. True is the fact that literacy and writing skill used to be seen as shamanistic magic, as at the time, most of the world's meager human population was illiterate; making meaning of symbols was derived from storytelling and oral traditions, the 'magic' of being able to inspire and to move emotion. Again, to a primitive, uneducated, illiterate society, this is impressive magic, hence why so many christians are still impressed with the passage "It is written" in the bible. Furthermore, it notes a difference between Nihilism (an extreme example is Kefka from Final Fantasy 6, in which because he finds no value in existance, he feels free to destroy everything), and healthy skepticism, atheism, deism, ect: Namely that while, say, an Emo finds no value in existance, an Atheist like myself recognises the indifference the universe has for me, and in turn is indifferent to the indifference. ie; if the stars one day spelled out "I don't give a fuck", the proper Atheist response is "Cool story, bro!" |
| PonyRIG #753181 7 months ago |
someone said "final fantasy 6"? I DEMAND MORE PONY TERRA! and filly Relm too! |
| Xuncu #753240 7 months ago |
Obviously, a Scientist's response is to immediatley ask who the hell went to the effort to move/elimiate stars hundreds/thousands of light years apart, at the correct century/millenia {Orion looks like a 2D stick figure from our perspective; in fact, the dsitance between the closest star (Bellatrix, 243 Light Years) and the farthest star (Alnilam, 1359 LY) in that constillation is so vast, the back star may have died already, and anything near the closest star might not even recognise it yet, and we won't find out until the close star dies, which will take another 243 years for us to find out afterwards}-- as well as how, and how the hell they manages to time it so far ahead to spell it in a language that, at the time, would not have existed yet, as well as aiming at us in three-dimentional space.
Fun fact; the three stars from orion's belt seem so close, but the middle star (Alnilam) is actually +400 light years away from the other two. However, we know phsyics say we CAN do it, merely that at our current scale of power and technology, it's impossible for us; but for a sufficiently advanced species, it may be so easy, that they'd kill several stars just to troll us. If Venn Diagramed, the circles of "Atheist/deist/ect" signficiantly overlap with "Scientist." Ovbiosuly, there are Scientists who happen to be christian, such as the man who headed the human genome project. Now, he is a proper scientist, but has been criticised for having that conflict of interest in the Project, but he manages to keep his knowledge out of his faith. Problem being, he keeps his knowledge, his experience with the Scientific Method, from analizing his faith. One can venture that either his faith 'orders' him to keep away from doing so (as is often the case with the uneducated masses of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Creationists, where they go out of their way to confuse, slander, mislead, cherrypick, or out and out lie whenever Science is involved), or what I think is his case, he is afraid of applying it, knowing that it'd inevitably lead to the conclusion that God is a flawed theory, an unnececcary theory, and an unwantable, derogatory, damaging theory-- one that due to this horrible nature, has cause unanted suffering in peoples and has interfered constantly in politics on all levels, to the effect that religion has become the most damaging aspect of/to the human existence of all time. |
| PonyRIG #753246 7 months ago |
lol, what is this? school? |
| okami6969 #753535 7 months ago |
What does any of this have to do with Bright Mind? |