By tying his definition of bullshit to not having concern for describing reality correctly (or for providing an accurate representation of reality), Frankfurt aligns his view with the views exemplified by gender-critical feminism or the anti-gender movement, in which the social constructionist theory of gender and the theory of gender performitivity are bullshit.
That is only true if you think the social construction of gender isn't part of reality.
One possibility is belief in an objectively true reality, which is fairly straightforward, as social constructs don't form part of such a description of reality.
Alternatively, it is possible to believe that many aspects of what we perceive as reality are social constructs, and that gender is one of these. I'm not clear what it would mean (or even if it's possible) to believe both that gender is socially constructed and that it isn't part of what we perceive as reality.
But I think it (the statement) is also true if you believe that it's not possible to describe such a reality "correctly" (particularly according to Franfurt's meaning).
These are murky waters, maybe we could talk about it without specifically discussing gender?
In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Tess Derbyville comes to the attention of the horrible man Alec d'Urberville due to kinship of their surname. None of the characters apparently know that a relative of Tess chose the name out of a "phone-book" to disguise his family's humble origins.
So is the family name relationship bullshit. Yes, in a sense it clearly is. Alec and Tess are not related.
But are not surnames also bullshit when a person can take on a name for themselves? Isn't a surname a social construct which could just as easily follow a different route and not be passed on in families (such as in Iceland) or be in a different format from parent to child (like Spanish names)?
The use of names is a malleable thing which changes in time and with geography.
It's both true to say that Tess is a victim of a bullshit choice by her relative but also that she's sadly born into a bullshit culture that assumes names can only be used in a single way.
One possibility is belief in an objectively true reality, which is fairly straightforward, as social constructs don't form part of such a description of reality.
Taxes are a social construct and they are notoriously part of objective reality.
("Objectively true reality" is a category error: beliefs and statements, etc can be true or untrue, but realityis not true - it just is.)
Hannah Albrecht in a book I'm reading at the moment distinguishes between the natural and the "artificial", things that just are and things that only have meaning because humans give them meaning. These latter things can become in close relationships with humans to the extent that they condition and are conditioned by humans. Things that are not in this conditioning relationship with humans are "a heap of unrelated articles, a non-world."
I cannot decide whether this is a profound insight or plainly obvious, but it means that one can distinguish between some things which just are and other things which only are because humans give them meaning.
The first question is therefore not whether a certain thing is true/false (or even bullshit/insight) but whether it exists as a thing in itself or is a human construct.
Only then can it be determined whether this thing exists independent of humans, and therefore exists as a "non-thing" or whether it is in a relationship with humans and has this conditioned and conditioning relationship.
It seems to me that "truth" can be said to encompass both conditioning natural and purely artificial things. But equally it seems that many natural things have sufficient human conditioning that it is hard to determine the limits what is true and when it becomes the human conditioning.
I don't know what one would describe as "reality" and "true reality" could refer to either correct measurements of natural things or that the conditioning and interpretation put into these measurements is correct.
One possibility is belief in an objectively true reality, which is fairly straightforward, as social constructs don't form part of such a description of reality.
Taxes are a social construct and they are notoriously part of objective reality.
I would say that taxes are notoriously part of a socially constructed reality, but the question of whether or not these kinds of social constructs are forms of objective fact is contested.
Regardless of which view you hold, taxes are not part of reality in the same way that death is. In this regard, death and taxes represent two different aspects of reality, or aspects of two different kinds of reality.
A wide variety of beliefs about reality are possible. We can believe that there are two (or more) realities - the reality we experience and a deeper reality. We can believe that the definition of reality needs to be expanded to account for the differences between things that are just social constructs (eg taxes) and things that are more than just social constructs (eg death). We can believe that there is no deeper reality beyond the reality that we experience. We can believe that what matters are our perspectives.
By way of topical illustration, the ownership of land is another social construct, one about which different societies have very different ideas.
("Objectively true reality" is a category error: beliefs and statements, etc can be true or untrue, but reality is not true - it just is.)
Or reality is what we believe it is, and some beliefs just are. In relation to taxes (or land ownership) what matters, if we live in a society which includes these social constructs, is that we are familiar with the conventions about them.
I'm open to suggestions about how to refer to a conception in which reality conforms to objective truth, to distinguish it from other conceptions of reality. "Objectively true reality" didn't seem an unreasonable term to use.
Are you (is Arendt) distinguishing between things that exist when there are no humans and thinks that only exist because they are the result of thoughts of humans, and would cease to exist if all the people did? (as opposed to artifacts that are the result of human thought, but would continue to exist if we all dropped dead)
Are you (is Arendt) distinguishing between things that exist when there are no humans and thinks that only exist because they are the result of thoughts of humans, and would cease to exist if all the people did? (as opposed to artifacts that are the result of human thought, but would continue to exist if we all dropped dead)
I should say that I'm attempting a type of reading that engages with the work on its own terms. Which means some level of "suspending disbelief", ignoring previous knowledge and resisting the urge to look things up.
I have also not yet finished.
That said, I am in a state of confusion about what it is that she's saying.
She has been careful to distinguish between the immortal and the eternal, suggesting that in the Greek mind there was great value in acting/speaking in such a way that they are remembered forever. Whereas Aristotle placed highest value on nous, which she calls the ability to contemplate the eternal. Meaning the cosmos, the things way beyond the human that they can't put into words and which is broken by doing anything else, even thinking or talking about it.
Then she says that the fall of the Roman Empire showed that nothing human was immortal which, together with a Christian focus on everlasting life, made striving for earthly immortality futile.
I'm not sure how this maps onto her previous categorisation of things into a) non-things, nature unrelated to humans b) natural things in close relationship to humans c) entirely artificial human constructs
I think maybe she's saying that we can't even use words to describe a) being eternal things so we fall back on things that are actually b) or c), mischaracterising them. And maybe even mistake things that are c) as a) when the former are hardly immortal and things a) are of no practical or political use. Possibly also that we mistake the human construct in b) for the underlying natural element because we have lost the ability to distinguish one from the other.
I apologise if that's not really answering the question. A simple and more honest answer might just have been "I don't know at the moment"
(Are you supposed to map one categorisation onto another?)
It's "the human condition". And I don't know, but I think you are. Because the Prologue suggests the point of the book is to get to a destination and I don't really see how that can be true if the chapters are unrelated essays on different topics.
I think the thoughts expressed are supposed to inform the next in a chain. But I could be wrong.
I've also been thinking to myself that these are categories one could use to think about other things. For example hell could be
1) unknowable, can't even write down or think about it
2) some nugget of something in there which has been in a conditioning relationship with humans to the extent that we can't easily determine the nugget from the conditioning
3) an entirely human construction
Those of faith say it's an either/or, either hell exists or it doesn't. But to my way of thinking it's more interesting to contemplate 2) and 3) given that by definition we can't describe and think about 1).
It's like that fairy story about the princess and the pea. In 2) under the pile of mattresses there's a pea. In 3) there is no pea, it's just mattresses all the way down.
Does it matter if there's a pea there or not. Is there really a difference between 2) and 3).
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
In this regard, as long as people believe that there is a pea, I don't think it matters whether or not there is an actual pea. Nevertheless, many of us feel a compelling need: for there to be an actual pea; to go looking for the pea; for compelling evidence of the pea; to have collective agreement about there being a pea. I think these reveal more about our varied attitudes to trust, authority and belonging. (And in the case of the pea of hell, or hell pea, many of us feel a compelling need for there not to be an actual pea, etc.)
It's still worth living as if it was there.
This puts me in mind of the following part of wikipedia's page on The Human Condition:
Kant's claim that humanity is an end in itself shows just how much this instrumental conception of reason has dominated our thinking. Utilitarianism, Arendt claims, is based on a failure to distinguish between "in order to" and "for the sake of."[Page 154] The homo faber mentality is further evident with the "confusion" in modern political economy when the ancient word "worth", still present in Locke, was replaced by that of "use value" as distinct from "exchange value" by Marx. Marx also thought that the prevalence of the latter over the former constituted the original sin of capitalism.[page 165]
When we say "it's still worth living as if it was there", do we mean that living has "worth", that there's a point to living; or that living has "use value", that it satisfies a requirement, want or need.
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
In this regard, as long as people believe that there is a pea, I don't think it matters whether or not there is an actual pea. Nevertheless, many of us feel a compelling need: for there to be an actual pea; to go looking for the pea; for compelling evidence of the pea; to have collective agreement about there being a pea. I think these reveal more about our varied attitudes to trust, authority and belonging. (And in the case of the pea of hell, or hell pea, many of us feel a compelling need for there not to be an actual pea, etc.)
It's still worth living as if it was there.
This puts me in mind of the following part of wikipedia's page on The Human Condition:
Kant's claim that humanity is an end in itself shows just how much this instrumental conception of reason has dominated our thinking. Utilitarianism, Arendt claims, is based on a failure to distinguish between "in order to" and "for the sake of."[Page 154] The homo faber mentality is further evident with the "confusion" in modern political economy when the ancient word "worth", still present in Locke, was replaced by that of "use value" as distinct from "exchange value" by Marx. Marx also thought that the prevalence of the latter over the former constituted the original sin of capitalism.[page 165]
When we say "it's still worth living as if it was there", do we mean that living has "worth", that there's a point to living; or that living has "use value", that it satisfies a requirement, want or need.
I think it means that I want to live in a world where we collectively believe it.
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
In this regard, as long as people believe that there is a pea, I don't think it matters whether or not there is an actual pea. Nevertheless, many of us feel a compelling need: for there to be an actual pea; to go looking for the pea; for compelling evidence of the pea; to have collective agreement about there being a pea. I think these reveal more about our varied attitudes to trust, authority and belonging. (And in the case of the pea of hell, or hell pea, many of us feel a compelling need for there not to be an actual pea, etc.)
It's still worth living as if it was there.
This puts me in mind of the following part of wikipedia's page on The Human Condition:
Kant's claim that humanity is an end in itself shows just how much this instrumental conception of reason has dominated our thinking. Utilitarianism, Arendt claims, is based on a failure to distinguish between "in order to" and "for the sake of."[Page 154] The homo faber mentality is further evident with the "confusion" in modern political economy when the ancient word "worth", still present in Locke, was replaced by that of "use value" as distinct from "exchange value" by Marx. Marx also thought that the prevalence of the latter over the former constituted the original sin of capitalism.[page 165]
When we say "it's still worth living as if it was there", do we mean that living has "worth", that there's a point to living; or that living has "use value", that it satisfies a requirement, want or need.
I think it means that I want to live in a world where we collectively believe it.
Or to put it another way, if Hell is a lie then you still want people to believe in that lie in order to get them to do the things you want them to do?
No really. The concept of an arc that bends towards justice, alongside everything that the phrase meant in the civil rights movement, seems to me to have great value. The concept of hell seems to me to have limited value.
I thought your previous comment meant you wanted people to live as if they believe in Hell (and are therefore motivated towards justice) even if it's not actually true. Was that incorrect?
I thought your previous comment meant you wanted people to live as if they believe in Hell (and are therefore motivated towards justice) even if it's not actually true. Was that incorrect?
Yes. Not sure where you got that from. I don't think there's any element of hell that implies there's an arc of human history that bends towards justice.
Reading what I wrote I can see where you got that. I was attempting to apply the categories I saw in Hannah Arendt to the discussion of hell but I missed some steps in my thought process when I wrote it down.
I meant to say that I couldn't really relate to a wish to see the value of the idea of hell, because I don't care about it BUT there are other things I do care about which could be a human construct. In that respect it doesn't matter to me that the type of justice I'm attracted to could be a human construct SO on that level I can relate to someone seeing some utility in the doctrine of hell.
I thought your previous comment meant you wanted people to live as if they believe in Hell (and are therefore motivated towards justice) even if it's not actually true. Was that incorrect?
I don't think there's any element of hell that implies there's an arc of human history that bends towards justice.
Well, in the view of some, the concept of Hell is intrinsic to an understanding of justice.
I thought your previous comment meant you wanted people to live as if they believe in Hell (and are therefore motivated towards justice) even if it's not actually true. Was that incorrect?
I don't think there's any element of hell that implies there's an arc of human history that bends towards justice.
Well, in the view of some, the concept of Hell is intrinsic to an understanding of justice.
I thought your previous comment meant you wanted people to live as if they believe in Hell (and are therefore motivated towards justice) even if it's not actually true. Was that incorrect?
I don't think there's any element of hell that implies there's an arc of human history that bends towards justice.
Well, in the view of some, the concept of Hell is intrinsic to an understanding of justice.
How so? Specifically with the phrase I mentioned.
In the view of some, justice is not true justice unless people are held accountable for the ways in which they’ve harmed others (or sinned against God). To use clichéd examples, a universe in which the likes of Hitler or Pol Pot are not held accountable and punished is not a just universe, and Hell is the mechanism that provides that accountability and punishment for those who are not held accountable and punished in this life.
In that view, the moral and of the universe cannot be said to be bending toward justice if avoiding accountability and punishment is not only possible but commonplace.
Ok but I thought avoiding hell in the Christian formulation was about faith not actions.
You’ll notice I couched my response in terms of “the view of some.”
Western culture is full of popular conceptions of Heaven and Hell that differ widely from Christian formulations, and those popular conceptions can be held by churches folk as well as by people who never darken the doors of churches. What churches teach and what lots of people believe are not and have probably never been the same thing.
Ok but I thought avoiding hell in the Christian formulation was about faith not actions.
You’ll notice I couched my response in terms of “the view of some.”
Western culture is full of popular conceptions of Heaven and Hell that differ widely from Christian formulations, and those popular conceptions can be held by churches folk as well as by people who never darken the doors of churches. What churches teach and what lots of people believe are not and have probably never been the same thing.
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
That would be why you repeatedly post on threads discussing them.
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
That would be why you repeatedly post on threads discussing them.
Ok but I thought avoiding hell in the Christian formulation was about faith not actions.
You’ll notice I couched my response in terms of “the view of some.”
Western culture is full of popular conceptions of Heaven and Hell that differ widely from Christian formulations, and those popular conceptions can be held by churches folk as well as by people who never darken the doors of churches. What churches teach and what lots of people believe are not and have probably never been the same thing.
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
Whether you want to live in a world that believes in either of those two options seems rather irrelevant. You live in a world where some people do believe in those options, even if you don’t.
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
It's still worth living as if it was there.
When we say "it's still worth living as if it was there", do we mean that living has "worth", that there's a point to living; or that living has "use value", that it satisfies a requirement, want or need.
I think it means that I want to live in a world where we collectively believe it.
Thanks. I was particularly trying to put this in the context of The Human Condition, where Hannah Arendt considers the vita activa (active life, in contrast to vita contemplativa, the contemplative life), which she breaks down into labour, work and activity. I don't think there's a simple way of asking the questions she's addressing, so just putting it in terms of two of the other phrases I quoted (which are from the book, in the section on Work):
Why do we want to live? Do we live "in order to …"? Or do we live "for the sake of …"?
And it's not quite the same, but it could also be asked, do we live for a purpose, or is living an end in itself?
NB Note that "use value" is different from the philosophical notion of "value".
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
It's still worth living as if it was there.
When we say "it's still worth living as if it was there", do we mean that living has "worth", that there's a point to living; or that living has "use value", that it satisfies a requirement, want or need.
I think it means that I want to live in a world where we collectively believe it.
Thanks. I was particularly trying to put this in the context of The Human Condition, where Hannah Arendt considers the vita activa (active life, in contrast to vita contemplativa, the contemplative life), which she breaks down into labour, work and activity. I don't think there's a simple way of asking the questions she's addressing, so just putting it in terms of two of the other phrases I quoted (which are from the book, in the section on Work):
Why do we want to live? Do we live "in order to …"? Or do we live "for the sake of …"?
And it's not quite the same, but it could also be asked, do we live for a purpose, or is living an end in itself?
NB Note that "use value" is different from the philosophical notion of "value".
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
I want to live in a world where people engage with, or at least try to understand, each other's beliefs. It seems to me that the world we live in is significantly affected, if not determined in some cases, by the beliefs we hold, such as our beliefs about capitalism and hell.
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
I want to live in a world where people engage with, or at least try to understand, each other's beliefs. It seems to me that the world we live in is significantly affected, if not determined in some cases, by the beliefs we hold, such as our beliefs about capitalism and hell.
I have been thinking about whether this is true. Whether there's a close relationship between a majority of a population believing in eternal torment and overall happiness.
I doubt it is a straight-line but then I bet there are few places where a majority believe in this kind of literal hell.
So that being the case in the majority of places where we in this discussion live, I suspect, this concept of hell is a private, personal belief which probably doesn't affect much else. Just one of many religious views about an afterlife, albeit one in my opinion that fails the test of internal logic and consistency.
Unlike, for example, a religious view about abortion or LGBT+ rights, which clearly has a direct impact on others.
About all I can say in reference to people like Hitler or Pol Pot and other evil persons throughout history--no doubt into the future--is the statement in Revelation that all evil will be consumed in a lake of fire.
There are many questions, the Bible does not answer, though. To those questions, I go with what Paul said, this side of eternity we look through a glass darkly, but on the other side of eternity we will fully understand.
Comments
One possibility is belief in an objectively true reality, which is fairly straightforward, as social constructs don't form part of such a description of reality.
Alternatively, it is possible to believe that many aspects of what we perceive as reality are social constructs, and that gender is one of these. I'm not clear what it would mean (or even if it's possible) to believe both that gender is socially constructed and that it isn't part of what we perceive as reality.
But I think it (the statement) is also true if you believe that it's not possible to describe such a reality "correctly" (particularly according to Franfurt's meaning).
In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Tess Derbyville comes to the attention of the horrible man Alec d'Urberville due to kinship of their surname. None of the characters apparently know that a relative of Tess chose the name out of a "phone-book" to disguise his family's humble origins.
So is the family name relationship bullshit. Yes, in a sense it clearly is. Alec and Tess are not related.
But are not surnames also bullshit when a person can take on a name for themselves? Isn't a surname a social construct which could just as easily follow a different route and not be passed on in families (such as in Iceland) or be in a different format from parent to child (like Spanish names)?
The use of names is a malleable thing which changes in time and with geography.
It's both true to say that Tess is a victim of a bullshit choice by her relative but also that she's sadly born into a bullshit culture that assumes names can only be used in a single way.
It was that doggone priest.
("Objectively true reality" is a category error: beliefs and statements, etc can be true or untrue, but realityis not true - it just is.)
I cannot decide whether this is a profound insight or plainly obvious, but it means that one can distinguish between some things which just are and other things which only are because humans give them meaning.
The first question is therefore not whether a certain thing is true/false (or even bullshit/insight) but whether it exists as a thing in itself or is a human construct.
Only then can it be determined whether this thing exists independent of humans, and therefore exists as a "non-thing" or whether it is in a relationship with humans and has this conditioned and conditioning relationship.
It seems to me that "truth" can be said to encompass both conditioning natural and purely artificial things. But equally it seems that many natural things have sufficient human conditioning that it is hard to determine the limits what is true and when it becomes the human conditioning.
I don't know what one would describe as "reality" and "true reality" could refer to either correct measurements of natural things or that the conditioning and interpretation put into these measurements is correct.
Regardless of which view you hold, taxes are not part of reality in the same way that death is. In this regard, death and taxes represent two different aspects of reality, or aspects of two different kinds of reality.
A wide variety of beliefs about reality are possible. We can believe that there are two (or more) realities - the reality we experience and a deeper reality. We can believe that the definition of reality needs to be expanded to account for the differences between things that are just social constructs (eg taxes) and things that are more than just social constructs (eg death). We can believe that there is no deeper reality beyond the reality that we experience. We can believe that what matters are our perspectives.
By way of topical illustration, the ownership of land is another social construct, one about which different societies have very different ideas.
Or reality is what we believe it is, and some beliefs just are. In relation to taxes (or land ownership) what matters, if we live in a society which includes these social constructs, is that we are familiar with the conventions about them.
I'm open to suggestions about how to refer to a conception in which reality conforms to objective truth, to distinguish it from other conceptions of reality. "Objectively true reality" didn't seem an unreasonable term to use.
I should say that I'm attempting a type of reading that engages with the work on its own terms. Which means some level of "suspending disbelief", ignoring previous knowledge and resisting the urge to look things up.
I have also not yet finished.
That said, I am in a state of confusion about what it is that she's saying.
She has been careful to distinguish between the immortal and the eternal, suggesting that in the Greek mind there was great value in acting/speaking in such a way that they are remembered forever. Whereas Aristotle placed highest value on nous, which she calls the ability to contemplate the eternal. Meaning the cosmos, the things way beyond the human that they can't put into words and which is broken by doing anything else, even thinking or talking about it.
Then she says that the fall of the Roman Empire showed that nothing human was immortal which, together with a Christian focus on everlasting life, made striving for earthly immortality futile.
I'm not sure how this maps onto her previous categorisation of things into a) non-things, nature unrelated to humans b) natural things in close relationship to humans c) entirely artificial human constructs
I think maybe she's saying that we can't even use words to describe a) being eternal things so we fall back on things that are actually b) or c), mischaracterising them. And maybe even mistake things that are c) as a) when the former are hardly immortal and things a) are of no practical or political use. Possibly also that we mistake the human construct in b) for the underlying natural element because we have lost the ability to distinguish one from the other.
I apologise if that's not really answering the question. A simple and more honest answer might just have been "I don't know at the moment"
(Are you supposed to map one categorisation onto another?)
It's "the human condition". And I don't know, but I think you are. Because the Prologue suggests the point of the book is to get to a destination and I don't really see how that can be true if the chapters are unrelated essays on different topics.
I think the thoughts expressed are supposed to inform the next in a chain. But I could be wrong.
1) unknowable, can't even write down or think about it
2) some nugget of something in there which has been in a conditioning relationship with humans to the extent that we can't easily determine the nugget from the conditioning
3) an entirely human construction
Those of faith say it's an either/or, either hell exists or it doesn't. But to my way of thinking it's more interesting to contemplate 2) and 3) given that by definition we can't describe and think about 1).
It's like that fairy story about the princess and the pea. In 2) under the pile of mattresses there's a pea. In 3) there is no pea, it's just mattresses all the way down.
Does it matter if there's a pea there or not. Is there really a difference between 2) and 3).
I don't care about hell, it's not something that often crosses my mind. But I do care about justice. So what if the "arc of human history bends towards justice" is just a human construction. There is no pea.
It's still worth living as if it was there.
This puts me in mind of the following part of wikipedia's page on The Human Condition: When we say "it's still worth living as if it was there", do we mean that living has "worth", that there's a point to living; or that living has "use value", that it satisfies a requirement, want or need.
I think it means that I want to live in a world where we collectively believe it.
Or to put it another way, if Hell is a lie then you still want people to believe in that lie in order to get them to do the things you want them to do?
Yes. Not sure where you got that from. I don't think there's any element of hell that implies there's an arc of human history that bends towards justice.
I meant to say that I couldn't really relate to a wish to see the value of the idea of hell, because I don't care about it BUT there are other things I do care about which could be a human construct. In that respect it doesn't matter to me that the type of justice I'm attracted to could be a human construct SO on that level I can relate to someone seeing some utility in the doctrine of hell.
Is that clearer?
How so? Specifically with the phrase I mentioned.
In that view, the moral and of the universe cannot be said to be bending toward justice if avoiding accountability and punishment is not only possible but commonplace.
Western culture is full of popular conceptions of Heaven and Hell that differ widely from Christian formulations, and those popular conceptions can be held by churches folk as well as by people who never darken the doors of churches. What churches teach and what lots of people believe are not and have probably never been the same thing.
I don't want to live in a world that believes in either of those options. There's the rub, for me some human constructions are worth discussing and having and some just aren't.
touché
Why do we want to live? Do we live "in order to …"? Or do we live "for the sake of …"?
And it's not quite the same, but it could also be asked, do we live for a purpose, or is living an end in itself?
NB Note that "use value" is different from the philosophical notion of "value".
I have not yet got to that section.
I have been thinking about whether this is true. Whether there's a close relationship between a majority of a population believing in eternal torment and overall happiness.
I doubt it is a straight-line but then I bet there are few places where a majority believe in this kind of literal hell.
So that being the case in the majority of places where we in this discussion live, I suspect, this concept of hell is a private, personal belief which probably doesn't affect much else. Just one of many religious views about an afterlife, albeit one in my opinion that fails the test of internal logic and consistency.
Unlike, for example, a religious view about abortion or LGBT+ rights, which clearly has a direct impact on others.
There are many questions, the Bible does not answer, though. To those questions, I go with what Paul said, this side of eternity we look through a glass darkly, but on the other side of eternity we will fully understand.