One of the principles of neomasculinity doctrine is spirituality. We believe that life, in all its richness and fullness, contains more than that which is accorded to us by sense perception alone. The development of our spiritual side proceeds hand-in-hand with the development of our bodies. Body and soul are intimately connected, and one cannot survive without the other.
“But,” you may say, “I have no interest in these things. These matters bore me. I don’t see any value in this sort of thing, and don’t think I need any program of spiritual development. Give me my atheism and you can keep your spirituality.” This is a sentiment shared by many.
But I have an answer for this also. Actually, I have two answers in response to this.
My first answer is this: philosophy without a spiritual grounding is a dark and cold thing. To believe that the material world is all there is, and that this eternal dance of atoms, molecules, galaxies, and nebulae is a random buzzing of matter with no meaning, and that man’s sufferings and trials are pointless excursions down rabbit holes that lead nowhere: is this not the most depressing of conclusions? Does not the very fact that religions have been with us since the dawn of time speak to their utility to man?
We begin to believe that it is better to think, as did the Latin writer Minucius Felix, in the following way:
I cannot but feel that those who regard the design of this great universe not as the product of the divine reason, but a conglomeration of odds and ends luckily brought together, have neither mind, nor sense, nor even eyes. What can be more clear, plain, or obvious as you look up at the sky, and look at all the things beneath you and around you, than that there must be some Divine Mind excelling in wisdom, through which all Nature is moved, imbued, and governed? [Octavius 17.4]
My second answer to your objection is this: you may believe one thing now, but at some point in your life you will believe something else. You will not be the same person in ten years as you are now. There are a great many examples of men who underwent profound shifts in their thinking, and moved from atheism to spirituality with startling speed.
Blaise Pascal
The French mathematician Blaise Pascal was one of the most brilliant men of his era. At the ripe age of nineteen (1642), he had constructed an advanced computing machine. Six years later, he designed an experiment, based on the work of Torricelli on atmospheric weights and measurements, to use tubes of mercury to measure atmospheric pressure at different heights above sea level. He had a founding hand—along with Pierre de Fermat—in the development of the mathematics of probabilities.
And yet, all this worldly brilliance would be eclipsed by a series of profound events that visited him after 1647. He was seized in that year by an attack of paralysis which damaged his nervous system. A patrimony left him financially secure, but he began to be haunted by doubts about the existence and health of his soul; a highly sensitive man, he bore with difficulty the injustices he saw around him in the streets of Paris. He could not find the relief he was looking for in his mathematical tables and scientific instruments.
One day, as he was driving over the Pont de Neuilly, the horses became startled and caused his carriage nearly to be thrown into the Seine. Perched on the very edge of the bridge, his fate literally hung in the balance. He collapsed from the trauma of the incident, but emerged from convalescence a changed man; gone was the rational scientist, and in its place there now appeared a deeply pious man of the Jansenist school. It was an incredible transformation. The energies that had previously been devoted to science now were directed with equal brilliance to theological problems.
A similar type of conversion experience is found in the life of the Islamic mystic Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (1058-1111). A methodical and brilliant man, he occupied a distinguished professorship in Baghdad, and enjoyed the favor of the political authorities. His teaching career was going well, and his administrative responsibilities were always executed with diligence. But then everything changed after 1095.
Al-Ghazali found himself consumed by doubts about the choices he had made in his life. He underwent some kind of profound spiritual crisis, which he describes in some detail in one of the classics of Islamic mysticism, The Deliverer From Error (Al-munqidh min ad-dalal). He could not concentrate. He could not sleep. Eventually, by entirely changing his residence, his lifestyle, and his worldview, he was able to find answers to his questions and the peace he needed.
We cannot foresee exactly where our lives or our opinions will lead us. What seems certain today, may not appear so certain tomorrow. Is it not better, then, to keep an open mind, and adhere to a view that accepts all things as possible?
Pascal’s Wager
But let us look at the matter rationally. Rationalists may find appealing the proposition that has been termed “Pascal’s Wager.” It is found in diluted form in his great philosophical work, the Pensees. It can almost be seen as a “cost-benefit” argument for the existence of God. The essence of the wager is this: you have nothing to lose by believing in God, and everything to gain.
Pascal’s reasoning proceeds in this way. Either God exists, or he does not. Your job is to wager on one of these alternatives. If you decide that he does exist, then you gain the peace of mind that comes from belief. If you decide he does not exist, then you may be denying yourself potential rewards. As he explains it:
Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. [Pensees, 272]
Pascal’s Wager may not convince everyone, but it at least has the merit of trying to offer a rational argument for belief. We are given a choice, and the choice is ours. What have you got to lose by believing in a Divine Force? Nothing.
We return to our original point, which is that even highly rational men of science can radically change their views of the world. The conversion experience is an interesting one, and presents many questions for study.
The Stages Of Belief
My own study of these matters leads me to believe that the religious personality goes through several stages. We can think of them as the stages in the development of the soul. The first stage consists in service to humanity. The person devotes himself to enterprises that help others more than himself. “A true believer,” says an Islamic Hadith (Taysir al-Wusul), is “he whom other people trust in regard to their person or property.” This is an admirably practical, and profound, definition.
The second stage consists in the “purification” of the heart. The person busies himself with removing bad thoughts and feelings from himself, and replacing those with good ones. The third and final stage is self-negation. That is, he begins to recognize his own personal insignificance when compared to the infinite vastness of creation. Feelings of wonder and awe overpower him, and these sentiments can find creative outlets in literature, art, or music.
Al Ghazali. (This face looks vaguely familiar…)
In any case, these are deep waters, and worthy of exploration in measured doses. Perhaps the most we can say is that (1) there is a place for spirituality in the life of man; and (2) we should not become too rigid in our beliefs. What you believe today, may not what you believe tomorrow. Keep an open mind. Some men find satisfaction in the expression of their religion, and we should respect this.
Strong men have strong beliefs. Some of these beliefs may not be to our liking, but we should acknowledge their validity. Spirituality can be seen as an outward expression of love. The two things are connected, and find a home in the heart of a strong man. Sir Francis Bacon tells us, in his own unique way:
I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think it is but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man’s nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars. [cf. On Love]
We should not look for the truth or untruth of spiritual doctrines. That would a debate of absurdities, and one with no end. What matters, rather, is whether spiritual beliefs serve the needs of a strong man.
Read More: 3 Essential Cooking Tools For A Man
Yawn
C’mon ROK…stick to what you are good at. This sounds like new age religion.
you need to find yourself
Resistance is futile
No, because depression doesn’t work that way. Plenty of religious people have suffered from depression because, for example, they feel unworthy of salvation and they fear that they won’t make the cut. Calvinists basically come out and say that most of humanity goes to hell, deservedly so, and that you have absolutely no control over your eternal destiny, period.
You believe this now, but you may believe something different in the future.
You realize that goes both ways, right?
You are bi?
That’s the beauty of God’s grace. He as the almighty Creator who created heaven and earth deigned to save humanity from its inevitable punishment that arose from the fall. He has the power to choose those He saves and those He doesn’t. it’s a great mystery. Unfair? From the perspective of a mere mortal – yes. However, as Creator of all- God has that right. It’s the height of arrogance for us to judge the fairness of it.
With respect Quintus, I believe that these new age spiritual beliefs are what is keeping us down. It’s enabling the tyrants, who in my opinion are utilizing Moses the Raven to keep us pacified and “at peace” with our shit state of affairs. We are too busy practicing “acceptance” instead of PUTTING A STOP TO THESE TYRANTS. The elite sadists who seek to destroy our happiness and quality of life stand to gain from the masses trying to be at “peace” with the violation of their human rights instead of FIGHTING THESE PEOPLE EVERY DAY WITH EVERYTHING WE’VE GOT.
Even on a micro level, this sort of “things will be better in the afterlife” thinking breeds unhealthy contentment. For example when you’ve got a swarm of hoodlums and low lives modding their vehicle exhaust illegally (keeping you and your family psychologically threatened and awake throughout the entire night and on edge during the day), the idea that this is all an illusion or “hey, at least I’m bound for better things after I die” is getting in the way of what should be man’s self esteem and survival instinct kicking in, saying “Fuck this. These criminals have no right to harass myself and my family. I’m going to galvanize my community against this nuisance and gather all my neighbors and even local police officers to solve this problem and put an end to this criminal and sociopathic behavior.”
Again, I say this with respect.
Please understand that I’m not advocating any “new age” spiritual beliefs. I find that sort of nonsense to be little more than hocus-pocus and magic tricks.
What I am advocating is only this: that some form of religious belief system is important for every man. It does not matter to me which one it is: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.
As I noted with “Pascal’s Wager”: what have you got to lose by trying? Nothing.
And what do you have to gain? Everything.
Religion is not what is “keeping you down.” This is not correct. What is keeping you down is the political and economic systems here that force you to be a slave to the top 1%.
There is one thing you lose: your self respect by buying into some mythology you know is wrong. That’s a price I’m not willing to pay
Did you even read the article? Ha ha self respect? I know some atheists and they are the most insecure, maladjusted, self-loathing humans I know….
Funny, I can say exactly the same thing about some religious people I grew up with. All that guilt!
And that is how far we get with anecdotal evidence…
I know many people of faith also. From my experience they are happier and more at one with themselves than atheists. There’s only one thing worse than a religious fundamentalist, an atheist fundamentalist….. would you fit the bill?
Well, then let’s look at the the evidence
(or at least a report of it):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2013/12/22/religion-is-good-for-all-of-us-even-those-who-dont-follow-one/
This article is ok but not really making a strong case for religion. I think it needs to be noted also that the vast majority, if not all modern religions are incompatible with real masculinity. Only Paganism can be really masculine and I think I will need to submit an article to this site so as make my point.
Yes! Please do!
So you are advocating a relativistic worldview?
If all religious people believed this way, I would wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy. Unfortunately, even though most of these religions believe basically the same thing, (and usually even the same God!) they care QUITE A BIT which religion YOU are a member of. Even which SECT you are a member of (See IRA, current Middle East uprisings, centuries of European wars, etc.)
There are a few religions that do not care much which set of beliefs you follow (Buddhists, Quakers, Amish, many Jews). If we could foster more of that, I would be far more in favor of encouraging and fostering religion and spiritual beliefs. Unfortunately, Christianity seems to be one of the worst culprits with the “Only through Jesus will you get into heaven” bit. I suppose there are some more tolerant branches of Christianity that we could encourage, but most people don’t make such distinctions and tend to think of all Christians (and Muslims and Jews..) as the same.
Best kept secret; religion is mocked today because it is useful for building communities and self respect. I am not religious myself, but it is easy to see why the gerrymanders that are prominent in western politics would want people dependent.
I think spirituality can be completely separate from organized religion. Spirituality to me is the pursuit of knowledge , self improvement and ethical living. Just trying to be a better man and help other folks as best you can.
>With respect Quintus, I believe that these new age spiritual beliefs are what is keeping us down.
Saw yesterday a thread about ROK’s neo-masculinity… http://8ch.net/pol/res/2136965.html
Here’s a quote from that thread:
“The problem with Neomasculinity is that its synonymous with “Roosh V.” He’s trying to create an alternative to the Red Pill. Yet the only significant practical differences between TRP and Neomasculinity are:
– Roosh has complete control
– Roosh stands to profit
I respected Roosh until he pulled this lame bullshit move. He’s trying to monetize TRP by changing the name of TRP. I like the guy and I like his work but this entire “Neomasculinity” thing is the most transparently self-serving bullshit ive ever seen.
The only reason I ever trusted TRP in the first place is because I knew no one was profiting from it. By contrast, I am 100% sure that someone IS profiting from “Neomasculinity,” so I will NEVER, EVER be able to trust it.
Roosh, I implore you, read the above paragraph and recognize the folly of your ways. High value men like me and other dudes on here will NOT follow a philosophy that you or anyone else is profiting from. That’d just be another job, except I’d be working to make money for you instead of myself.
I will wager a huge bet that people like /u/archwinger and /u/gaylubeoil only began contributing to TRP because they knew they were laboring to help other men, and not laboring to make money for Roosh V.
Neomasculinity is dead in the water. There will be zero followers of this philosophy who possess strong minds. That’s because people with strong minds are too smart to spend their time making money for someone else.
And following Neomasculinity (or even discussing it) is making money for Roosh V.
This will be the last time I ever comment upon “Neomasculinity” and the last time I will ever even use the WORD “Neomasculinity.” Every second we spend discussing this misguided attempt at re-branding TRP is a second we are spending to make money for roosh instead of actually helping men.
Another one writes:
NeoMasculinity, what a terrible idea. He sells the Golden Carrot of tranditionalism. Traditionalism is a terrible idea. Traditionalism is fertilizer for gynocentrism, feminism, and female hyper-agency. This is why MGTOW reject traditionalism for many reasons. MGTOW has exploded in the last year or so and this is an attempt to grab independent MGTOWs and try to put them on the misandry treadmill. Furthermore he’s a PUA trying to sell MGTOWs traditionalism. Fuck him
Guy sounds full of himself, and a bit unhinged.
The way I see it, why should the guy not profit from his work?
I don’t agree with a lot of things I see on here but I sure as hell agree with a lot of it.
We don’t base our belief systems on what some hater keyboard jockey says in some internet forum.
We base our belief system on the experience of thousands of years of history and anthropology. Time will tell who has adopted a visionary position grounded in fact, and who is a do-nothing keyboard alpha who has nothing to offer.
Yesterday we all had to believe in Game, today it’s Neomasculinity.
Lemme translate that for ya: me and my cronies made up the word, so we get to tell naïve teenage guys how to live. Do what me and my pals say, or you’re just a keyboard jockey with nothing to offer.
That’s a pretty convenient spiritual system you got there!
Every other dood has his Own Movement with attendant title and terminology. But wait! You are The Great Roosh are SPECIAL. :O)
Narcissism and empire-building don’t get the bulldog fed, nor the dragon killed. Get over yourselves.
” so we get to tell naïve teenage guys how to live.”
Not from around here are ya?
The way Game was always presented to me was that it was a system that worked for bedding girls, a reaction to the state of affairs that society is in. If you look at other writings of people in the manosphere, they seem to abhore the promiscuity of society, but realize that since true, stable life partners are not really possible, pump and dumps is the only real opportunity for sexual congress with the opposite sex.
In other words, Game was a system that one could adopt if one wished to bed women in a hypergamous, self centered society. But it was not anything one HAD to believe in, and indeed many seemed to take the MGTOW path.
Shut the fuck up, Ray.
Aren’t you the same asshole telling everyone they should suck up to Baby Boomers – the ORIGINAL anti-feminists (even ignoring all those before you, like Belfort Bax).
Now, here you are, spewing off again.
We’re fucking tired of you.
Go retire and die already.
Hasn’t your generation fucked up enough already? Now you have to do it publicly here too?
You know, the more you dumb fucks yap away like morons, the more I am reminded that it was YOUR generation that embraced abortion… and the more I am inclined to vote to euthanize your costly generation for doing so. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, and the first people I’d like see acknowledge that is the Baby Boomers.
After all, since genociding our generation solved your problems, why shouldn’t our generation genocide you to solve our problems… which you created?
What goes around, comes around.
No.
Free.
Lunch.
Don’t ever forget, Ray, that pole-axing your generation away would solve all of the problems for the rest of life on earth. Puts you in kind of a precarious situation, doesn’t it, big mouth? And.. you were the guys who thought killing your children would be okay… never come back to haunt you… oops!
There would be no more irony fitting than that the first generation to endorse abortion becomes the first to be euthanized.
And I can think of no generation in all of history that deserves it more.
GFY, bigmouth.
Hopefully, the more intelligent of your fucked up generation can enlighten you on how not to fuck up in the future, but quite frankly, I don’t care – my vote is in, and I am SICK AND TIRED of listening to you! And since you were so quick to fuck over me and my generation… killing 53 million babies in the last 42 years… do you even have the right to ask society to support you into old age?
I don’t think so.
You broke rule #1 – you have to actually have children, rather than abort them!
We don’t owe you a portion of our children’s food. THEY are tommorow while YOU ARE NOT!
Screw you and the unicorn you rode in on, Ray. Slink away quietly, please, along with the rest of your generation. That’s what would benefit the rest of us. You created this problem… not us. We are just left here to solve it, and I can’t think of one fucking reason why we should do it according to “your” rules.
I was here long before you showed up, bitchboy. Be here when you’re gone, too.
You got anything else to say to me, you can come and knock on my door. Looking forward to that.
Oh yeah p.s. — the Roosh Global Tour photo looks like Doctor Phil had a baby from Eckhart Tolle! :O)
“Let the world come unto me and receive My Wisdom!”
lol
Little cowards like you sure are brave behind the keyboard. Did you get butthurt about your Hero? :O)
I’ll say whatever I want, whenever I want. And you will never be man enough to stop me. Shit, you’ll never be man enough even to try. Except when you think it’s safe. Like now.
You’re quite the blow hard. Your faux bravado is not intimidating and living out petty revenge fantasies is a sure sign of compensation for…..
Thanks Quintis but Atheism isn’t as hollow and empty and unfulfilling as you believe it to be. I can certainly appreciate the sunset and the galaxies and even be spiritual without attributing any of it to the supernatural
Also isn’t atheism a lot more red pill than your spiritualism masked as religion?
I’ve been on this site for a while and while I do enjoy it immensely, I find it troublesome that many commentors are conflating atheism with leftism/feminism/social justice/socialism/white knight. I’m strongly conservative but I do get that I’m probably an exception to the rule.
in a nutshell, atheism stands by itself, it is simply not buying into a proposed belief based on evidence or lack thereof. I remember not too long ago feminists wanted to hijack it calling it atheism plus but this was rejected by a lot of the outspoken atheist on YouTube
I wouldn’t mind writing an article about atheism and how it relates to neomasculity
Who said God, gods, or the sacred had anything to do with the “supernatural”?
isn’t God by definition supernatural?
No. Not until the past 4/5 centuries when Christian protestant theologies started pandering to the masses on such a grand scale that true cognitive contemplation on the sacred could not take place, hence, simple, fundamental Mumbo-Jumbo that the masses now believe the Abrahamic religions to be.
Me. And there are no ‘gods’. Only pretenders.
Ray, please, help me understand. You say gods and/or concept of “God” is solely based on “Supernatural”. You say it, therefore, it is true?
You don’t want to understand, you want to snark. Buzz off.
No. Religion is serious shit, and too many dumb approaches to it, make more divisive.
“I find it troublesome that many commentors are conflating atheism with
leftism/feminism/social justice/socialism/white knight. I’m strongly
conservative but I do get that I’m probably an exception to the rule.”
There is a historical affinity I think. The movement against religions in the 18th and 19th century (particularly from the french revolution) became allied with socialist, progressive causes. The idea that God is dead lead quite natrually to the apotheosis or deification of man, typically as a collective entity that was seen as wrongly attributing its best qualities to man (e.g. feuerbach / marx). With marx socialist creeds turned their back on religion (although the early socialists were often christian like robert owen) and turned towards materialism / atheism.
If you want to be a conservative atheist there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be but you’re bucking the trend
Atheism used to be referred to as Humanism and was seen as a great source of enlightenment and progress. I tend to see both the strengths and weaknesses of both systems. I think that religion, as Plato suggested, was a noble lie intended to control the masses. I know lots of lower class people who have given up lives of theft, drug use, prostitution, etc. because they found religion.
However, I did go through a phase in college where I was extremely religious, and am open to the idea that I will change in the future, as the article alluded to. I certainly won’t ever believe that snakes can talk or men can part rivers with wooden staffs, but I am open to a future belief in spirituality in my life.
Yes but surely you would agree that most atheists are rabid left wingers, socialist , marxists etc etc. I can only name a few “right wing” or conservative nonbelievers /agnostics /atheists..
I’m certainly willing to listen. Please write your article and submit it.
Anyone can sit back and analyze shit and compile life strategies and troll and mock anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. Takes no guts whatsoever.
A person everyone else considers cool is a closet coward because they never take the risk of exploring issues that could have them mocked.
What Quntius and Roosh are doing now, in the beginning stages of Neomasculinity, are taking a pretty big risk. They are simply and sincerely saying what they believe. And sincerity is the ultimate emotional risk, because when you are being sincere, you are working without a net, putting something out there, without the escape valve of retreating into irony and snark.
I am sure there are many here and on the RooshV forum who are pretty disgusted with the world as it is, even if they have managed to navigate it pretty well, and they are looking for answers beyond the scientific or the strategic, only they have been hesitant to say so since any sort of faith or belief is so roundly mocked nowadays. Articles like this need to be recognized as opening the door to deeper discussions about what is really going on in the hearts and minds and, whether you see it as merely a metaphor or not, even the souls of men today.
Faith is easily dismissed. Always has been. You could toss this whole article away by telling yourself, “Ahh, bunch of scientists got old, lost their nerve, and retreated into childlike fairytale beliefs.” It is easy as that.
I am more likely the believe that it is the hardcore atheists and self proclaimed skeptics who are clinging to a safe belief system as much or more as anyone else. Yup. We got it all figured out. Next.
So I am glad to see articles like this. I am sure QC isn’t expecting you to fall in line with his views, not at all. He is offering you food for thought, and it is up to you to take advantage of it or not. Do you really need another article on five reasons American women suck the big one?
As a final note, for those who feel that even considering any sort of supernatural reality is too big a logical jump to make, move your mind instead in the direction of your conscience and your intuition, and you will be accomplishing the same thing. Even St. Paul offered this loophole in the bible when he said:
2:14-15 –
When the Gentiles, who have no knowledge of the Law, act
in accordance with it by the light of nature, they show
that they have a law in themselves, for they demonstrate
the effect of a law operating in their own hearts. Their
own consciences endorse the existence of such a law, for
there is something which condemns or commends their
actions.
Keep up the good work QC!
Translation: I believe in magic because it’s risky!
Translation: I believe in nothing because it’s safe!
If you can’t handle life without ‘spiritual grounding’ then you probably don’t have much of a life to begin with. I have thought about the cold dark philosophy of existentialism which leads to the more dangerous philosophy of Nihilism. In the end, if you survive, you have a deeper commitment to seize the day. You also have an easier time of letting things go, because… in a hundred years who is going to care.
Let’s see what you have to say about this in another twenty years, when you’ve been chastened and humbled by the cruelties of fortune. The world will look quite different to you then, mark my words.
A great man is always willing to be little. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. — C.S. Lewis
Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected. — William Safire
Similarly, “atheistic-ally”, “nihilistic-ally”, absurdly, “Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That’s us, lost in space. The cop, you, me… Who notices?”
Great article. An understanding of what is sacred is at the foundation of every great, self-sustainng civilization. I may not see eye-to-eye with the author of this piece, but he is asking the proper questions.
I’m not sure exactly where your leanings on this belief are going Quintus, but I follow the general sentiment. I used to practice Catholicism until I lost what purpose it held for me. Then I shifted into a stasis linked closer with outright spirituality, so energetic frequency and the like were all more consistent leanings. This later shifted into straight existentialism. It might have just been the weighted logic behind Friedrich’s thoughts but it made for fascinating reading and spoke to me where religion previously did not. Now that I’m older and and have seen more people pass on, and expect more to go as well as my own being, I believe that it was all connected. That said, my beliefs have once again shifted and it is much more inclusive than previous beliefs held by myself. In truth, we are always changing and in some ways it is a natural shedding of the past, much like we lose our baby teeth or hair line. In time this message may be exactly what you may need to see to accept that you have made a shift into believing in a being higher than you. Or something else entirely. No idea comes before it’s time nor can it be accepted before it’s time. On the plus and what is beauty about it all, no one is 100% right about any of it, and there in lies the point. Live how you need to live so that your life has the best chances for joy for you and those around you.
Great article! Keep up the good work!
But what constitutes spiritual belief? Do I have to believe in a higher power or simply the vast insignificance of the human being?
Is it purely religion based or is it the devotion to a higher cause?
Is it meditation, the detachment of our thoughts, the denial of the “self?”
Is it a conglomerate?
God or no God isn’t enough. Spirituality or no spirituality is a bit better.
Good article. Those who deny personal spirituality either end up cold and empty, or wacky sjws from what I have seen. Confronting one’s spirituality is important.
Nonsense. Proof?
You. You are the proof.
Lol nice try
No, really… you’re coming off as an insecure person replying to every comment and using childish terms, trying to convince yourself that you are in the right path… Because honestly, we all know you won’t gain anything if anyone here convert to atheism… wich makes me conclude that the only reason you are here is because you are trying to reinforce your beliefs by constant repetition, like many atheists I know…
So present counter arguments instead of ad hominems and guesswork about my motivations
Well, since you just dodged the questions I raised in my previous comment, I will assume my “guessworks” were right. Good day.
“you are trying to reinforce your beliefs by constant repetition, like many atheists I know…”
Ever heard of incantations. Catholics are pretty fond of them. Maybe you should say a thousand hail Marys yourself, for the error of not thinking things through.
Our customary penance for slight transgressions is closer to 10 Hail Mary’s 🙂
Game, set, match.
I just see emotional drama in your reply, you come off as very ignorant and arrogant. You try hard not to think things through and just drop judgements and conclusion with minuscule information. Did I maybe miss one of Dr caveman’s “replies to every comment” that maybe relating to content on your reply here? If you are religious; I don’t think it’s healthy to carry you religious belief in this tone.
Swedes, taxed to death to pay for their own destruction, and future minority, by insane Muslim mass-immigration, who return the favour with mass-raping their girls and turn once prosperous Sweden into yet another Islamic third world hell, filled with rampant corruption, crime and horrific human rights abuses.
All caused by idiotic moral relativism and subjective morality, logically inherent within atheism. My-truth and your-truth gibberish. No objective moral standard, as in Christianity, and consequently all religions are the same, all cultures are equal and who are we to judge? – nonsense.
I know there is “beef” right now with Rollo, Roosh, and TRP, but, at the same time after sitting back and watching things unfold for a few days my initial and final reaction is to just say: “Fuck it, why not?”
Meaning, I am not taking sides. That right there is limited and offers nothing. My feeling and new way of viewing life is to seek, find, understand, and become Mastery level in life. I am not looking for trap doors that will have me fall in and leave me trapped going nowhere.
http://associationofchronos.com/2015/05/24/trap-doors/
I understand Rollo’s points as well as Roosh’s points. I get it. But at the same time I am all about any NEW information that can help ALL MEN become better than they were yesterday. This back and fourth fighting offers nothing but division.
At the same time, Roosh is a business man. You don’t become more successful by riding the wave and waiting for someone else to take direction. To quote Jay Z
“Don’t ever go with the flow, be the flow”
If Roosh can offer something DIFFERENT or ADD something new to a system that already had nothing to be fixed than cool. I say go for it. If its just the same philosophies and ideas as the Game and TRP then still, whatever.
As I said above Roosh is a business man and doing what he can to become successful. YET, at the same time I do feel like Roosh genuinely does want to help men. Its not just a business move it works on both ends. Or, hopefully though I am not falling victim to something I wrote about last year.
http://associationofchronos.com/2014/08/21/genuine-advertising/
In any event I want to see how this plays out. I am all for any knowledge that is helpful and can add to helping me as a man reach Mastery level in life. I hope Roosh, Rollo, and TRP can end this on a positive note and remember the bigger picture.
I am saddened by the feud Roosh vs Rollo vs Roisse vs TRP cause it seems they are arguing over semantics, over nomenclature. To me you have to “take the red pill ” to be a MGTOW or a neomasculinist (sp?)
Pascal’s Wager? Really? Can you truly will yourself to believe something based on a game theory cost-benefit analysis. And will the supernatural entity you’re trying to impress buy it?
Sounds like a load of bollocks to me.spiritually, or lack thereof, is a personal choice that has no effect on how fulfilling a life is. It is certainly not for everyone. Scientists and rational minded people find plenty of beauty and wonder in the physical world without the need of some gooey reli sauce claiming credit where none is due
Go back to reading the Guardian or Jezebel troll. Maybe you are a fan of that delightful fellow Brit and former public school girl “socialist” Penny Red – you sure as fuck sound like her what with your right on politics and name calling. You’ll be denouncing those who voted No in the Irish referendum on gay “marriage” next.
you are more of a troll than he is.
Accuse him of namecalling, then call him names. Brilliant.
I also think Pascal’s wager is retarded to base your faith on, many philosophers deproved it. It’s like The Game if you know it. The Game is simple, you loseif you think of The Game. In Pascal’s Wager the implicit assumption is that you have to take part in it. But you don’t.
pascal’s wager does sound crudely rationalist.
If you want a more spiritual take on a similar idea – the idea of faith as a gamble – indeed as a gamble in which the odds may be stacked against you – you might enjoy reading Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Different jargon is required. Neomasculine sounds like the next word to get co-opted by the gay male crowd. They’ve always been searching for a replacement for gay or queer.
we’re proud to be neo-masculine. Put me on a float and I will screech that truth at everyone
The prefix neo sounds wrong.
near- masculine? non-masculine. How about nitro-masculine?
There’s something I’ve never understood about Pascal’s wager. Does belief really work that way? If you promised to give me a million dollars, for example, if I could believe that you and Roosh are actually the same person, would I be able to do it? I could certainly say I did. I could even go around trying to convince others of the same thing. But would I really believe it? Is belief, true belief, really a choice, or is it a product of experiences and judgement?
But putting that aside, as for the question of whether spiritual beliefs serve the needs of a strong man, I think the answer is an unambiguous yes. A look throughout history will show you that religion has been a constant source of strength for great men. A look at modern science will show you that believing in a higher power comes with a whole host of benefits. And a look at the Soviet Union, China, and to a lesser degree the United States since around 2001 (This was around when organized Christianity started to really drop off in power) will show you that without a large religious segment of the population, society goes to shit.
For Christ’s sake, look at our culture now. There’s a story going up on Reaxxion today about how a former producer of cuckold pornography is now doing a kid’s show for Nickelodeon! 20 years ago that would’ve been completely unthinkable. If I went back in time to 1995 and told Disney that, they’d laugh in my face. And now it doesn’t even make the top 10 list of the most degenerate things to happen this year. And I think a large part of that is due to the decline of Christianity in our culture. Marriage rates are plunging. Out of wedlock births skyrocketing. You know in my age group, 24-32, only 30% of the population is married? That’s the age when in a healthy society you’d have a family and several children.
It doesn’t need to specifically be Christianity, of course. If we had a huge traditional Jewish or Muslim, or hell, even Buddhist segment of the population they could serve the same purpose. But I’m starting to be forced to come to the conclusion that an atheist or agnostic state like a terminal cancer patient: it’s going to die and you just don’t know when.
michael eisner became CEO of disney in 1984
Re. the million dollars, one rather sad thing I’ve noticed is that when people have sufficient incentive, material or otherwise, they really can find it in themselves to believe anything
I don’t personally believe it to be a choice. I didn’t choose atheism, it is just the logical conclusion.
Probably comes down to how (ir)rational a person is.
I don’t think so. I know plenty of devout Christians who are very, very intelligent.
There is an element of emotional maturity to it. Some form of courage, I believe. Pascal found religion when he hung over a bridge. I did not when I got hit by a bus, or during the following several years of the most intense pain of my life. Nor years later when I turned the car upside down on a dirt road.
An otherwise intelligent person who believes in the supernatural in this age of information has some childish immaturity to them. Something is missing. Basically, Pascal was a wuss.
No, that doesn’t sound right at all. When I look for “childish immaturity” in modern discourse, I see it on the side of the atheists, who as a whole can’t go five minutes without shouting about “sky daddies” and “sky faeries”, and other such silliness. Look at the atheist commenters here, who talk in all caps and scream about gays.
The Christians I know, the devout ones as opposed to the ones who just do it for a social group, seem to mostly have their stuff together.
Well in any case there is a difference in mentality. Just trying to figure out what that is.
Nope. No religion for the rational man. It is the height of immaturity, even knowing that it is necessary for a functioning society.
The height of immaturity is to believe that one man, with his limited experience on this earth of 35 years or so, sees himself as fit the judge the previous ten thousands years of his people’s traditions.
Religion is irrationality. It is the belief than lightning happens whenever mighty Thor fells a giant and that thunder is his victory roar. You can’t pretend to be both scientific and superstitious.
You are mistaking superstition for religion… although I suppose you are correct there is a lot of overlap. But religions were a lot more than just trying to come up with supernatural explanations for what human beings didn’t understand about our material world and “reality” before the scientific age.
I see religious practice and their corresponding rituals as means of correcting the crooked timbre that is human nature and as a way of dealing with the tragic nature of human existence. Religion, when it is at its best, offers human beings a healthy and necessary outlet to explore the existential issues of human existence and to exorcise the deep existential demons that are the result of the tragedy of existence and of the human condition and which will NEVER go away. To live is to suffer; to be human is to suffer. Being is suffering. The engines of life are the very engines of suffering: to be finite and to never be able to comprehend the infinite, i..e, God ( allegorically speaking); to be subjected to, and the result of, biological processes of natural selection and evolution that are inherently amoral and even immoral, pitiless and cruel; to live in an incomprehensible and unfair world full of suffering and misery; to be subjected to the fickle nature of fortune that can break you physically, mentally and spiritually.
I don’t believe in grand, political revolutions.. because the one thing most religions got correctly was that human beings are fundamentally and tragically flawed. This is a sharp contrast to the false, post-Enlightenment view about the perfectibility of human nature and its belief in inevitable human “progress.” Human beings are self-interested, selfish, amoral and even immoral, cruel, lustful, greedy and power-hungry. This is why all revolutions fail eventually, and there will never be a Utopia.
Revelation and religion and myth are also a non-rational means of arriving at truth.. usually about reality .. human experience.. and human nature. But “non-rational” and non-scientific does not necessarily mean “irrational.” This is why Biblical tales about lust, jealousy, greed, ambition, power, and the great cruelty man is capable of inflicting on his fellow man, resonate so strongly with us. These stories may not be “literally true”.. but they contain within them great wisdom and truth about human nature and the tragic nature of human existence on this planet… which is to be “limited” in our understanding of reality.. to be subjected to the capricious whims of “God” or reality or the uncaring universe whose motives are inscrutable and whose vastness and design we can never fully understand. This is, unfortunately, our lot as human beings.. and it could not be any other way.. because being the limited beings that we are compared to the infinity that is God/reality, our perceptions of reality can only be based on our limited senses. Human existence is tragic on a fundamental level and religion is a way human beings try to deal with that tragedy. To quote Jordan Peterson from the excellent lecture below, “tragedy is the inevitable consequence of the essential existential condition of human beings, which consists of the confrontation of the bounded finite with the unbounded infinite.”
Here’s an excellent lecture by Jordan Peterson that elaborates on some of what I’m trying to say above:
Jordan Peterson on Evil and Tragedy:
Sure, religion is a means to control the masses, to make them behave in a constructive way so society doesn’t break down. It gives people unity.
But religion without superstition is just ideology. Which is perfectly fine. Just decide what you are going for and stick to it.
I am a devout Christian. Please explain how I am being “controlled”. By whom and how?
By your own beliefs. You didn’t arrive at the conclusion of “god” on your own, others invented it. And you chose to join the group delusion because humans are social animals.
That I am “controlled” by my own beliefs is an absurd statement.
Please present logically sound argument for your claim that the Bible is not the Word of God, but “invented” and based on “delusion”.
I don’t need to prove anything. If you insist that your god is real, then the burden of proof rests on you.
Also, I am curious what you think you would have believed in if you lived 2016 years ago?
Of course you are the one documenting your own claims. You whine about delusions, you prove it. If you have no documentation, then it is nothing but baseless rant.
If I had looked into different religions/philosophies as I have done now in this life; Judaism.
Says the guy with the yin-yang
I follow the Aristotelian school of thought (among other things). Too much of anything, no matter what, is bad. Even pumps and dumps, as popular as it is among certain patrons here. So yes, balance. The fact that a religious symbol symbolizes it just means that religion got some of its ideas right.
what a bunch of dippy the hippy California commune crapola. Stick to concrete steps to a specific end goal and you’ll keep my attention.
“Beyond the reasoning intellect, beyond beliefs and what passes today for science and culture, there is a higher knowledge. There the anguish of the individual ceases, the darkness and the contingency of the human condition dissolve, and the problem of Being is resolved.” Julius Evola’s “Introduction to Magic” (magic not in the modern sense) seems to be a good book on (alternative) spirituality.
Maybe, but only real Paganism can really be compatible with (neo) masculinity. See, for instance, excerpts below from Indo European mythological poetry and compare to the ‘suffering’ of christ and ‘redemption’ found in christianity, rather unmanly ideas.
I WILL declare the manly deeds of Indra, the first that he achieved, the Thunder-wielder.
He slew the Dragon, then disclosed the waters, and cleft the channels of the mountain torrents.
Impetuous as a bull, he chose the Soma and in three sacred beakers drank the juices.
Maghavan grasped the thunder for his weapon, and smote to death this firstborn of the dragons.
When, Indra, thou hadst slain the dragon’s firstborn, and overcome the charms of the enchanters,
Then, giving life to Sun and Dawn and Heaven, thou foundest not one foe to stand against thee.
Indra with his own great and deadly thunder smote into pieces Vṛtra, worst of Vṛtras.
As trunks of trees, what time the axe hath felled them, low on the earth so lies the prostrate Dragon.
Footless and handless still he challenged Indra, who smote him with his bolt between the shoulders.
Emasculate yet claiming manly vigour, thus Vṛtra lay with scattered limbs dissevered.
Rolled in the midst of never-ceasing currents flowing without a rest for ever onward.
The waters bear off Vṛtra’s nameless body: the foe of Indra sank to during darkness.
Guarded by Ahi stood the thralls of Dāsas, the waters stayed like kine held by the robber.
But he, when he had smitten Vṛtra, opened the cave wherein the floods had been imprisoned.
A horse’s tail wast thou when he, O Indra, smote on thy bolt; thou, God without a second,
Thou hast won back the kine, hast won the Soma; thou hast let loose to flow the Seven Rivers.
Nothing availed him lightning, nothing thunder, hailstorm or mist which had spread around him:
When Indra and the Dragon strove in battle, Maghavan gained the victory for ever.
Indra is King of all that moves and moves not, of creatures tame and horned, the Thunder-wielder.
Over all living men he rules as Sovran, containing all as spokes within the felly.
I’ve been put under for surgery twice. The anesthesiologist told me to count backwards from 10, and from what I remember I only made it to 6. Then I was out. No consciousness, no dreaming…just complete nothingness.
That is what I believe will happen to me when I die. Your purpose in life is to make the best of your time on earth. Do whatever makes you happy. Simple as that.
It is. Anesthesia is an Indian (Native American) word for “little death”. That’s why they have to intubate and breathe for you. I was put under once. Same experience. Point two seconds later in waking up. Amazing.
no consciousness, no dreaming. The end. But then you woke up. Halleluliha!
The purpose of life is to find a purpose with life.
Everyone is born with a biological disposition towards a specific work or lifestyle. Discovering which kind you have and then following it is the road to a happy life.
QC, since I have been reading your articles it has inspired me to get back into my faith. I was raised Roman Catholic but I did not care much for attending church when I was a younger and much more naïve lad. Now that I have been attending church service every Sunday I see how “red pill” the Church and its teachings are. A lot of the priests’ sermons are in line with some of the values of neo masculinity: Patriarchy, family, discipline, self-improvement, and many others.
We are the selfish generation, it’s all about me. I want to travel, I want a big screen, I want that big promotion so I can buy that big house, and we are constantly living for ourselves and no one else. Although there is nothing wrong living your life like this, it always ends up with an emptiness inside. We have been trained to think that only material goods and self-pleasures will bring joy and happiness into our lives
and self-restrain and discipline only restrict ourselves to have “a good time”
If you believe that we all have an energy inside of us then you cannot deny the law of conservation of energy: Energy cannot either be created or destroyed. We all have an energy inside of us, (the human soul) strengthen this by meditation and prayer. ROK advocates strengthening our bodys and our minds so why not the soul? Take the leap, as QC has suggested you have nothing to lose but everything to gain.
Denying our spirituality it to deny our instincts, much like the feminist deny their femininity and their loving and caring nature.
The popular versions of Christianity today (See: Joel Osteen) combine this greed and materialism with spirituality. Basically one is taught that the pious shall be rewarded with trinkets.
I think this is a dangerous direction for the (I Guess) former red pill movement to move in. We might risk that the whole thing gets swamped by more traditional conservatives, who generally have a more “white knight”, beta outlook on life and women. (I see a few of them in the comment board below already.)
Neo-masculinity could go more mainstream than the Red pill ever would, but it might lose its essence.
its a broad church: everybody but SJWs and femi-nazis
Loose is what your sister is.
Sorry, pet peeve. Otherwise agreed.
Then up-vote you fucker!
No, just kidding.
I agree, and if we want to translate this into political power in the future, we do need to be aware that religion is declining as a force in that realm.
But I don’t think that ultimately religion will be the defining aspect of this philosophy, just a part for some adherents to it.
You have two main areas in the Western world where there are still manly men. Predominantly Christian USA, where they have their guns and are proud of their land and heritage. Second is Russia, only country in the West to truly ditch feminism, rampant homosexuality and Frankfurt School cultural Marxism. I have never seen more men with crosses around their neck as in Russia.
Compare that Europe with rampant atheism. Thanks to insane moral relativism and subjective morality logically inherent with atheism, we pay for Muslim immigration totally out of control, that will turn us, the indigenous population, into a minority with zero democratic political control over our own countries.
You can go to any transgender conference you want, or any hate the heterosexual man conference, and the vast majority of them will be atheists.
Case in point. Our Norwegian girls are the world’s greatest sluts, according to a peer reviewed science paper. Our girls get raped, pumped and dumped in the parks and streets by every man from every nation on earth. And the godless Norwegian men couldn’t care less.
I will either find me a great Christian Norwegian virgin wife, or a Russian Christian virgin lady.
I am not a hypocrite and a Christian, and do not sleep around. Even though I got an offer as a professional model. In my world, this is just as much being an alpha male as sleeping around like crazy. Both being alpha, but with different underpinning moral systems.
You can brag all you want about your atheist Alpha male fantasy, while you end up with some atheist white trash, that has been pumped and dumped by Arabs, Negroes and Pakistanis for years and yeras. Mentally scarred for life with enormous emotional baggage and completely unfit for motherhood and marriage.
Good luck.
The traditional values that existed in for example Norway in the 60`s are gone, and there is no way of going back to that. In the US as you mentioned, those groups still exist, but they do not own the culture anymore, not by a long shot. My experience with the Christian environment in Norway is that it is extremely beta and pussified. In fact I attended a Christian high school, and most of my former classmates are now leftist academics or politicians.
Christian western women might be less slutty, but they are hypergamous as heck, and will divorce you in a heartbeat if you don’t deliver the goods.
“a Russian Christian virgin lady”
Well…good luck with that.
Also, I think Swedish women are even more slutty, but who cares.
I Norway, and I guess most of Europe, you have two kinds of Christianity. One belongs to state churches, heavily influenced and dominated by atheist and leftist politicians for generations. They are for the most part extremely liberal, and hardly Christian at all, in the classical sense of the word. They just love Islam, multiculturalism and hate conservative Christians standing up for traditional morality.
Then you have Christians outside the big state sponsored churches, where atheist politicians choose the bishops. I am Pentecostal/Charismatic and for us divorce is only accepted due to infidelity. Some churches accept divorce if the man really beat his wife. Other than that, divorce and infidelity is not accepted at all, and really rare.
Russian girls outside the cities are for the most part virgins or they lose their virginity to their fiance. Sometimes 2-3 sexual partners. Anywhere closer to the Muslim areas, in the southern and eastern part of Russia, virginity is expected, as it would be great shame if Orthodox girls were sluts, while Muslim girls pious.
I find Swedish girls more sophisticated than Norwegian girls, but they are more brainwashed into insane levels of liberalism, so hard to say. It is a disaster.
Hanne Nabintu Herland is a typical Christian woman outside our state church. She calls for traditional values and hate feminism. Same with Asle Toje and most of the people behind document no. Hans Rustad, also Christian.
Did you read Roosh’s book, Don’t Bang Denmark?
He analysis was spot on. Really funny. Very similar to Norwegian girls as well. It was really strange to see how much of our culture that he could comprehend and extract in such a short time-span, just a couple of months. Very impressive.
First paragraph, agreed!
The other groups (and people) you talk about might exist, but they are at the extreme fringe of society, and very small in numbers.
The Russian girls you refer to can`t be landed if you`re a foreigner, at least it will be extremely hard.
Well, you have the newspaper Norge i Dag and TV station Visjon Norge, both Christian and staunch anti Cultural-Marxism. There is a full boycott of any Christian conservatives in the main-stream media (tax supported of course, unlike the Christian driven media).
There are 500 million Pentecostals/Charismatics world-wide.
As the Cultural Marxists control every aspects of life in Norway, and Norwegians are turning more and more stupid/brainwashed by the day, I will most likely emigrate to Russia or the USA. Russians like blonde Scandinavian guys as son-in-law. Especially if they are Christian.
In my view, best an most efficient way to fight Cultural Marxism and the downfall of Norway, is from the outside. Having a financial base totally independent of the power-drunk socialists in Norway is paramount.
A thought provoking article Quintus Curtius. I appreciate the need for spirituality in a man’s life. If one understands that men have a need to love others to paraphrase your Francis Bacon quote, and one further understands that this love is generally seen to be weak and is abused by the opposite gender, then truly how does a man express his heart?
I believe spirituality linked with charitable action is the answer. You can’t go wrong doing good, kind, and loving things for your fellow human beings and aligning your beliefs with this way of life. Of course you want to be wary of those that would take advantage, and be wary of becoming, “too big for your britches” so to speak.
I tried very hard to embrace nihilism, being one of 108 billion that have existed and currently exist, it is easy to see how insignificant we can be. There is a bitterness in it that I simply could not accept and live with. I like life, I like to think that mine has meaning, even just a little.
I’m still figuring it out. I don’t much like modern religion. It is far too easy to warp the ideology. I have kept the notion that God exists, I just have no idea what kind of God he is, and what, if anything, he expects of me. Every religion and every person in that religion has a different take on that question. While I will always seek and learn, I have resigned myself to discovering the answer, if it is there to be discovered, after I die.
I like the argument of “religion vs. the gospel” for your conundrum. The religion is what men institutionalize and tell you that you must do to be in line with the herd (i.e. don’t drink alcohol, don’t see this movie, etc.). The gospel is reading, interpreting, re-reading, and re-interpreting the texts throughout life to extract wisdom for oneself. While the religion is important for community, it needs to be tempered by men who are willing to do the leg work and think instead of blindly believing in men. Faith is about putting God first, and to do so, one must go to the source.
Do yourself a favor and look up “Orthodoxy” on YouTube. You will have found the salvation to our civilization.
The missing component to neomasculinity is Orthodoxy.
Great video. I am Pentecostal, and clearly don’t agree with everything he said. But I really liked the priest. Orthodox churches are really beautiful. God Bless him.
Religion, they say, is for people who believe in heaven. Spirituality is for people who have been to hell. Which includes me, and is why I follow a 12-Step program, but if you ask me what “spirituality” means, my first answer would be a shrug, my second would be something about “new age twaddle”, and my third would be “it’s something for messed-up people who are apt to turn to booze, drugs or other damaging stuff to handle the shite that happens in their lives, and if you are an ordinary bloke, you don’t need it. Anymore than you need a leg-brace if you have two working legs.” Religion and spirituality were and are for handling plague, storms, bad harvests, locusts, typhoons, tsunamis and all the other disasters and random losses and injuries Nature and primitive life throw at those still living it.
As for that whole “meaningless universe” shtick, the world I live in positively hums with human purpose, from the farmland that speaks of hundred of years of cultivation and management, to the trains and buses that carry us where we want to go, and the buildings that house us and are where we work. I see decoration, art, achievement, failure, splendour, laziness and hard work all around me. And a few other not so edifying things where I work.
As for changing beliefs and ideas? Ideas are tools, not restraints, and we use what works. Keynes famously didn’t say “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” but he probably should have done. Karl Popper’s definition of holding a theory rationally is being prepared to specify circumstances under which you would abandon or change the theory. (Which builds in a whole chunk of anti-fundamentalism right there.) But that’s not spirituality. It’s pragmatism.
And Pascal’s wager? Well he was a professional gambler and one of the founders of the intuitive theory of probability (Kolomogorv provided the axiomatic theory in the mid-twentieth century), so he knew it was a put-on, a necessary compromise to avoid things like, well, jail. Back in those days clever people were often better off if they got God and Religion into their philosophy tout de suite.
I’m no happier with or without a Divine Force. (What I am happier without is a Malicious Universe – aka “everything is against me”. But I didn’t need to get religion to live in the Fair but Mostly Distracted Universe I live in now.) What do I have to lose by believing in a Divine Force? Depends. What am I supposed to be doing as a result of that belief? Am I supposed to believe with the Christian Scientists that the DF will cure my friend’s illness? Then I’m going to lose my friend, because he needs anti-biotics stat.
What I guess you’re getting at is that there’s more to living than getting rich, fat and laid. There’s service to others, self-respect, dignity, considerate behaviour, contribution to the economy and participation in the society. All that good stuff. And it’s within everyone’s reach. Be polite to those who deserve it; help those who ask and who are not free-loading; work at a job that pays, and pay your taxes. With direct and indirect taxation taking 40% of your salary, that’s enough. Contributions to art, science, mathematics, politics, law, medicine, philosophy and the rest are for the gifted. Whatever a spiritual life is, it must be one that an ordinary person, with ordinary abilities, dreams and appetites, can live if they choose.
Just a few thoughts. Nothing etched in stone here or ready to be graded in school. I went to a protestant seminary in my 20’s. Sacrificed much in doing so. I was hand picked, by the church, to be in the ministry because of my talents in scripture retention and hermeneutics (as well as charm, leadership skills, etc). I studied and studied and studied (way beyond what was taught to me) and questioned and second guessed everything seeking THE TRUTH. Eventually (over time…not overnight)….it was the bible (more so my fundamental belief in the infallibility of it) that talked me out of God. When I first stepped foot into the “freethinking” world I was a radical (reading everything in sight on the subject and a tad outspoken) and a bit peeved that I had been so mislead and wasted so much time. I was confrontational. After all….I would of been set in the ministry. Taken care of. But at the age of 32 (I’m 45 now) I was starting over. And I remember that temptation to just keep my mouth shut on my lack of faith. I remember thinking about all that I had built and worked towards was going to be flushed away BUT I WANTED THE TRUTH MORE THAN ANYTHING (eventually landing me with TRP)! I had prayed for it (the truth) vehemently for years. I lost all my church “friends” by being ostracized. I eventually lost my marriage (more crucial….control of my kids) because my (ex) wife was one who needed religion (an anchor for many people) to stay on the str8 and narrow. I also viewed her more clearly once Jesus wasn’t a factor and I didn’t like what I saw. And boy did she (along with all women) HATE the truths I was discovering.
My divorce came when the economy crashed. I’m in construction (self employed) in the Detroit area so we had both the housing bubble burst and the auto industry go belly up. Went from making a solid 12/15 Gs a month to 1/1.5 G if I was lucky.
AND I had redefined myself as a worker/provider (always was but I really amped it up after I left the faith). Worked 12 hr days 6/7 days a week. So losing my “manlihood” and family was something I can’t explain except with the word despair. If ever I needed God. If ever He could make Himself known. And He kind of did; or it did (be it energy or laws of attraction or a personal God….fuck if I know).
I started reading self-help books. Dale Carnegies “How to stop worrying and start living” and Eckhart Tolles “Power of now” for examples. They make sense. They are actually deadly accurate and very spiritual in many ways. Many religions (and their Holy writ) have those same universal principals and truths contained in modern books like those. Making me ponder…..universal truth might equal a universal God? So I made truth…GOD! And God is found in the bible (the good parts). AND in Christendom (which I’m defending these days because of it being top on the hit list of Cultural Marxism). It’s the spiritual minded man (truth seeker) who must seek it and decipher thru life experiences, people, and writings (both secular and Holy) to discover that truth and or GOD! It is GOOD to love your family, to do the golden rule, contribute/give back to your community, love country and your spiritual family (perhaps the manosphere, perhaps a local church), stay in shape, men and women marry and rear kids together, read and grow in knowledge, etc. Tell me it isn’t! BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE REALLY GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT THE TRUTH? Not many these days. I never run into them. And anyone who thinks on these things is SPIRITUAL in my estimation. Atheist, agnostic, or religious. It’s soul searching to take TRP. It really is.
Two plus two equals four. OR….if you hold up two fingers on one hand and two fingers on another you have four fingers total. Thats FACT! You are going to die! There are, without a doubt, absolute truths. And TRP is ALL-THAT-IS-TRUTH. And TRP is way more encompassing than just the dynamics of women and men (but also religion, politics, race realism, economics, etc). I believe TRP may be the very path to God!
Most people need spirituality or they become totally neurotic, in my opinion. I think those of us around these parts are strong enough not to, but I thought about what the benefits might be while walking by an episcopal church in my neighborhood today. There’s always something calming about the place, tucked inconspicuously away underneath the concrete and steel of this high-paced city of mine.
I walked into an Episcopal church this Sunday for the first time. I like the music and enjoy some of the pomp and circumstance, and paid attention to the small details, like how the mother and father put a hand on each of their 2 small children as they sang the opening hymns. It may sound silly and unimportant, but when else does a child feel the loving touch of a parent for 5 minutes straight? It was reaffirming and warming to me.
Also thumbing through the printed material I found a class for women entitled “Getting off The Crazy Train” How to Realize that some things are beyond your control. That’s when I realized this place needs some more research.. Not to mention saw a couple of super hot girls in tight dresses.
I should add that I am completely agnostic and don’t believe in a higher power, but think there are real benefits to spirituality.
The book by Sam Harris ( who is the General Patton of the Atheists it seems) has a good book I’m reading called “Spirituality Without Religion” …
No matter how hard Sam Harris tries to hide it. Atheism creates a spiritually and morally void that always has been filled with a death cult and cult of personality.
Every nation that has tried “scientific atheism” has ditched it. Russia now is the main defender of Western Civilization and Christianity. China has now more devout Christians than Europe.
Insane moral relativism and subjective morality are logically inherent within atheism and are the root cause for hard-left atheists to push hard for multiculturalism and Muslim mass immigration to Europe totally out of control.
Spirituality without religion has been proved again and again to be a total disaster.
And before you start with great atheist nations like Norway. With more atheism we got more murder, suicide, divorce, rape, other crime, mental cases, drug abuse, incest etc, not less.
There is a subtle distinction which is avoided.
You can believe something in an amorphous, abstract way that makes no difference but feels good. This is “spirituality”. On a fine day, or seeing something beautiful in nature, you can have a spiritual moment.
Contrast that with God. The one who gave commandments. That says he is your judge. Who created you and gave you free will to be grateful and love him, or reject him. But the choice has to be to love God out of knowledge and truth.
Pascal’s wager fails. The devil knows God exists but does the antithesis of trust. “Believe” has both meanings, exists and trustworthy. Jefferson was better when he said question God, even his existence, for if done honestly, God will reveal himself.
And we must be perfectly rigid in our beliefs if we think something is true. We should try to smash it and test it as we may be wrong, but there is more honor in two two honestly disagree than in a dozen who are squishy to not insist anything is really true. If you are wrong, then you must change your belief and be rigid in the corrected truth.
Thank you for the excellent article, Quintus. I smiled when I realized you were going to talk about Pascal’s Wager.
I’m not for new age spiritualism, I’m for the bible and being born again. Before I couldn’t find a ryhme or reason for life at all, if there’s no God life is chaos. Why follow goverment or rules there’s nothing enforcing anything no ultimate authority to reward and punish the good and the bad. Like has anyone considered how much we don’t control at all period. I’m tall and muscular I literally did nothing to get it or maintain it. Even how I perform at work is all just what I can do, like what wakes you up in the morning and keeps you sane. We have a scientific explanation but can we really just explain things or prevent them. Picking up the bible the best thing that I ever did, everything else is just a distraction, money, women, sports on and on. You got millionaires stealing sandwiches out of stores because there bored, I thought money was the key. Fine women get divorced like nothing married three times, if she’s so fine why can’t she keep a man. Of course mindless sports and he scores so what. You have to be saved from hell that’s a Literall place and a figurative one. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the wages of sin is death, your physical one the inevitable one and the avoidable one the spiritual one. But whosoever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be saved.
In a sense it was Pascal’s Wager, many years ago, that made me withdraw from “church” simply because the stakes were so stacked in one direction the choice was far too easy. Further, how honest a decision do the faithful make when confronted with the choice between eternities in damnation or the kingdom of heaven. Do you get in the shortest line at the grocery checkout or the longest?
In the ensuing years, life confronts you in all matter of ways that Christianity becomes more than Pascal’s simple calculus. Two minor, non-moralistic questions come to mind on a frequent basis both having to do with the beginning of life. Secular or atheistic answers to the beginning of life are (to put it nicely) incomplete.
The idea that life sprang from primordial goo by sheer accident in this vast universe is completely unconvincing. The secularists have explained evolution and the big bang, but sadly what occurred prior to both is quite glaringly left unanswered leaving their theories incomplete.
My beliefs embrace both the big bang and evolution along
with the son of a Jewish carpenter who was crucified so that the church elders could maintain their franchises. Churches and religion are flawed institutions because they are made of a fallen people. Still, within lay the answers and I seek them on my own terms for which I shall be judged.
There have been numerous comments made on ROK that adhere a dark blue pill stain to Jesus and Christians. Read “Killing Jesus” by Bill O’Reilly and you will find the most Red Pill man to walk the earth.
Whole article but nothing about actual spirituality. That’d be spelled J-e-s-u-s.
If you study the development of collective feminism from the mid-nineteenth century, you’ll find ‘spirituality’ at its core, wedded to the gynarchy at every step, Seneca Falls etc. — the kind of spirituality discussed herein, in which everybody does whatever they want, then calls it ‘spiritual’. Actual spirituality/religion was tossed away, incrementally, in favor of Personal Spirituality — willful and vain nonsense. The Church of Me.
What was it called before christianity was invented?
It was called ‘Yo Mama’.
Shut up, ray, for christ’s sakes.
We get it! You were an overlooked boomer!
Now SHUT UP!
Fuck are we tired of listening to the likes of you!
If you actually had anything worthwhile to add, you would have contributed it a couple of decades ago… but you didn’t, so STFU!
Stupid fucking never silent Boomers!
Here we go! Let the pro/ anti religious shitstorm comments BEGIN!!!!!
I haven’t heard discussion of Pascal’s wager in a long time. Thanks.
There is probably nothing after death.
I thoroughly recommend Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.
Dawkins is nothing but an amateur logician and hobby theologian. There is a reason why he is running away from any debate with William Lane Craig there is.
He does not even comprehend basic logic. If you want to, I can demonstrate it to you.
Please do.
It is funny you mention logic. People use logic, and the limitations of the English language, to try to prove or disprove anything. I prefer the scientific approach.
Dawkins constantly ask “who created God”.
He fails to understand logically that a universe, with a beginning (according to the scientific consensus), MUST have a cause logically. Everything that come into existence must have a cause.
Contrary to things that come into existence, an eternal being do NOT logically need a cause. It has always been there. Said differently, there are no time “before” eternal, where the eternal being could have been created.
Dawkins never stop ranting on about his “who created God” routine, and then smile as if he had some kind of superiour intellect. What a clown.
I’m not familiar with his who created god routine, but I’m picking the answer is the same type of people who created polytheism. Either that or some word game explaining how omnipotence and omniscience are a contradiction in terms.
As for the creation of the universe, well there are ideas which do not require a divine creator, although I expect these ideas could never be proven . .
He uses the “who created God” routine all the time.
Dawkins acknowledge the highly improbability of spontaneously self-creating life from a rock (dead matter), without any divine intervention whatsoever. To solve this, he claims that life could have come from outer space. This is an extremely illogical explanation. He does not solve the probability problem at all with shifting it from dead planet A to dead planet B.
A universe with a beginning requires logically an uncaused cause with power of creation. What we normally would call God.
Only exception would be the multiple universe theory, with at least one universe eternal, and thus without any beginning. This is just a mind game, and are very far from any empirical documentation.
A welcome article. Spirituality and strength go together. Speaking of which, I miss Cui Pertinebit. I hope he can be prevailed upon to write for us again, though perhaps it’s more a case of persuading his Abbot to let him.
Quoting Nobel Laureate S. Weinberg:
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would
have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.
But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
There are lots of Nobel Laurates that are complete morons outside their scientific field. Your atheist hero. Weinberg, is one of them.
Good people, good atheists that only wanted to create social just world, murdered, tortured and raped more than 100 million innocent people. More than anyone else in the recorded history of mankind. Worse, nothing within atheism says it is wrong to murder, rape and torture, so nothing will stop you “good people” of atheism from doing it again.
You can go to any Pentecostal church and you will always find several extremely well-functioning families, no divorce, happy, kids doing great at school, and when you ask them you will find out that dad/granddad is ex mafia/murderer, drug abuser etc, or mother/grandmother crack whore etc. But they are totally changed. There are tens of millions of examples of this, throughout the world. But I have NEVER seen a devout Christian being a drug abuser/prostitute with a hellish life, and then after turning fanatic atheist, suddenly turn into a very happy and healthy person and parent.
Your quote is a lie and joke from atheist fantasy land.
I rather like Freeman Dyson’s rebuttal (Dyson is a brilliant physicist as well): “Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: ‘And for bad people to do good things – that takes religion.’ The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, ‘Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?’ he said, ‘I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.’ Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.”
In my opinion it is not necessary to follow organized religion to be spiritual. The most important thing is to have depth of character/introspection. The ‘curve balls’ life randomly throws at us aim at our core beliefs, to the point they challenge our sense of self (ego)…so the primer for change is that ability to insulate oneself from all the ‘noise’, dig deep, and look inside – ugliness and all, then come out with an answer. What that answer will be depends on the person, and will differ from another man’s. But I dare say, we all have a need to believe in SOMETHING greater than ourselves.
Quintus, I commend your article for how thought-provoking it is.
Fantastic article Quintus. A man needs a guide to navigate the potential misery of the world. It’s much easier to face reality’s horrors with the belief in a higher power.
I heard the phrase, “I am enough. I have enough,” in one of Mike Cernovich’s podcasts and I thought about it quite a lot. Why am I enough? What do I have? Belief in the divine helped me to answer those questions in a way that I can believe I will never be less than “enough.” God made men to be strong. God gives his grace to bolster men’s strength. Every man has the capacity within him to meet his challenges, and spirituality adds a flavor of joy to meeting challenges.
the problem with spirituality is that it forces you to realize your are a small blip in a large universe. but if we’re trying to be successful alpha males we have to be selfish as possible and not give a fuck about anyone else. sorry but being a peaceful spiritual hippie is not compatible with being a player.
This is a great post. No matter how anti-religious a person might be or just how illogical organized religion presents itself towards us rational thinkers here we must recognize and constantly remind ourselves that although a skeptical worldview is healthy, a nihilistic one is not necessarily the desired end result of the previous. It reminds me of the Ecclesiastes section of the Bible where King Solomon widely known as the acme of wisdom in the ancient world and after accomplishing pretty much everything a man could want discusses the meaningless and how the “wicked get what the good deserve and vica-versa” and how he found women to be “more bitter than death” amongst other things. Yet at the end of it all it still reminds the reader to not lose focus on the creator and continue to obey his commandments, although his aphorisms in the passage seriously challenge his goodness or even existence.
We know nothing about [God, the world] at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. Possibly we shall know a little more than we do now. but the real nature of things, that we shall never know, never. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres.
Albert Einstein
You can’t fault anyone who has love and compassion for mankind, such a person could never go to hell (if such a place existed) regardless of their faith and spiritual inclination, Buddha, Jesus and the prophet Mohammed would have nothing left to teach such a person.
I am an atheist but do not seek to mock religion or anyone with a spiritual path. I used to be a spiritual seeker myself and it does bring some contentment, perspective and meaning. However, you either believe in something or you don’t. Belief cannot be contrived or chosen like a steak or a bacon sandwich. During the inquisition many professed a belief in God under threat of being burnt at the stake. This doesn’t mean they really believed in God. They were just saying what they needed to to stay alive.
Comparing religious belief with rational science is an inappropriate comparison. Religion is based on personal conviction and feeling, where as most Atheists come to their position through a kind of red pill process of facing the cold hard evidence based facts. This was an incredibly difficult process for me, after spending years invested in religious and spiritual beliefs. I really didn’t want to lose a sense of a higher power or deity, I just did based on my life experiences and accepting the overwhelming evidence.
Atheists are often accused of having no meaning or purpose in their lives but this is simply not true. I give my own life meaning and purpose through the choices I make and my actions in the world. I really believe we are our choices, as hard as the good ones can be to make sometimes. Just because I don’t like the overwhelming evidence that life is finite and there is no higher being looking after me does not mean I bury my head in the sand and pretend the opposite.That would be blue pill in nature and taking a child’s view of the reality of our universe.
However, even though I disagree with the fundamental premise of the article I thought it was a good primer for men seeking spirituality and a wider metaphysical perspective on their lives. And it is true that our beliefs change and involve throughout our lives, so who knows maybe I’ll come back to the flock in time and see some of you in church. It brings to mind a quote, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire
Pascal was brilliant but his wager is sleight of hand. Look into William James for some pragmatic spirituality. Even if you buy into the lie that there is nothing more than matter in motion , then read Daniel Dennett, he is the most intellectual atheist.
.
That is if you are out on the edges, men.
.
An ubiquitous theme here is “LIFT”. I agree, but Roosh and the boys have to get the message out: “READ”.
.
We can add to that FIGHT, LOVE, and FUCK, but without READ you are a blind man.
Interesting write up. Funny to see the comments between atheist and the believers.
I was fortunate enough to be exposed to eastern philosophies which flat out said it is better to be an atheist, with firm confidence in yourself, than a half assed believer.
In terms of a spiritual need in life, I agree with this article. There may be some, perhaps more in this current era, who will never change their minds. It’s exactly like this site however.
Some, maybe most, will never accept the red pill.
And that is their own right. I do not pity them. Those that are enjoying the current blue pill agenda are my verification that I have awoken from that level of perception.
I remember watching sports and movies as a child. Completely unaware of the subliminal advertising going on. Completely ignorant to the difference of plot and story. No knowledge of various plays and formations put on the field.
Then as I aged, my perception of such things grew much deeper.
I always enjoy Quintus’ articles, by far my favorite contributor to ROK. With this article though I must disagree. As an atheist I don’t see the need for spirituality; I don’t believe that “some form of religious belief system is important for every man”. I used to believe in God (in the Christian sense), but don’t anymore. There was no great trauma in my life (not worse than anyone else, anyway). There are some comments here that “atheists are angry” etc. I’ve met plenty that are, and plenty faithful that are just as angry.
One can look at the universe with wonder and think there must be some intelligence behind all the complexities and such, but I look at the chaotic nature of the cosmos (and our own planet/ecology/biology) and come to the OPPOSITE conclusion. I don’t think that “To believe that the material world is all there is, and that this eternal dance of atoms, molecules, galaxies, and nebulae is a random buzzing of matter with no meaning… is this not the most depressing of conclusions?”
No. And why does it have to be?
I’m not sure of what notion of God is being advocated by the article above and some of the comments below, but if the concept is an omniscient, omnipotent being that intervenes in the course of human events, I just don’t see it. I appreciate what QC is saying when he asks “what have you got to lose by trying? Nothing.
And what do you have to gain? Everything.” But how does one “try” a belief that in your heart (and mind) you don’t really feel?
I completely understand what you are saying. I’ve asked that same question, how to have faith without really feeling it? Have you thought about the humbling idea that we, humans, simply don’t have the capacity or we don’t have the tools needed to fully understand our existence. Here’s where spirituality comes in, reason only takes us so far…but that belief in something greater is as limitless as the universe.
Neomasculinity will lead to neofeminism.
Quintus,
I’m beyond happy to encounter this article. I strongly agree with the idea that spirituality is an essential aspect of a healthy and fulfilling life, not only for men but also for women. You definitely don’t find articles like this in Jezabel. Good work.
Fantastic article! It’s been a long time since we heard about intelligent men in history who believed in some sort of intelligent design behind the universe. We may never know how that creative being would like, however, to assign a description to such a force that resembles our creative selves sounds more appropriate than the dogmatic narrow minded nonsense from Darwinism.
Spirituality = a weak, beta, New Age term. What next, perhaps we should practice a tad bit of mindfulness? Some of that Yoga crap?
Don’t fool yourself people. The only way is Christianity. Deny yourself, pick up the cross and follow Jesus. You will never be happier.
Excellent article.
Good to see Islam mentioned in a positive light (for once) on this site, and of course the greatest Muslim scholar/mystic of all – Ghazali.