I have listened to your podcast for a decade, you make complicated content easier to understand. I especially appreciate that you have no distractions such as music or background noise. Your perspective is greatly appreciated. 👍🏻X10
One of my favorite episodes. I particularly enjoyed the part about, and I'm paraphrasing, the not so religious being more open to a genuine religious experience. Interesting stuff. Please keep going what you are doing! Thanks.
I have been listening to all of your episodes since the beginning. It has been really a wonderful treat. Your sense of putting the things in language is really amazing.I’m glad that now you have also started covering the eastern philosophies.there were a couple of episodes on Buddha initially.please do dwell deeper into the eastern philosophy also. 43:37
I have been expecting you to mention Martin Buber and his book "It and thou relationships". I think it will be a very good example and application of nihilism and sheniata from a religious approach. I would also mention writings of Sufis who always talk of fnaa (destruction, nothingness, vanishing) as one of most important steps in the way to God, followed only with fnaa-el-fnaa (nothingness of nothingness, vanishing of vanishing) as the step where you find God. And I would end by saying what Sufis said all the time, and as you mentioned, it is impossible to express anything fully with words!
I used to think all religions are superstitious. Thanks to Nishitani and Tillich, I changed my point of view and truly understand the significance of Religion
It always seems like I watch the right video after recent thoughts I’ve been having. Because of recent personal circumstances I’ve been thinking a lot about things don’t make sense in isolation or on their own. For example, I was pulled over for failing to stop fully at a stop sign. I was angry, mad, bitter and felt singled out at first. It didn’t make sense to me why this was such a big deal, couldn’t the cop have let me go? I wasn’t hurting anyone and there was no victims. But then I thought about the reason for this law. Way back when, at some point there was some kid who was hit by a car who didn’t fully stop. Maybe they were unable to see the kid, maybe it was dark and required full attention to detail like a complete stop. Given that circumstance, and then that situation traveling up the court system there was a rule made about fully stopping. Once I understood this law was not a law against me, but something formed from countless incidents decades ago when traffic laws were just forming, I have to humbly admit I couldn’t be mad or bitter. I am part of the decades long learning process that is only just now shining its light on me via a minor $45 ticket. This a small example, but things start to make sense once you understand it’s never you being singled out, but instead you participating in the entire system set forth long ago. I can’t help but to be humble about it now. And it makes total sense once you get over the fact it’s happening to you, at this particular place, at this particular time. So many examples of this once you realize your part of a society that is iterating and learning and changing and indifferent about you (aka it’s not personal)
I really respect the way Nishitani prioritizes confronting nihilism as part of deepening one's understanding of our place in the universe. I think it's a mistake to call it a "religious" quest, however; it seems like most religious traditions thrive specifically because they have comfortable articles of faith (and Gods) that let their followers avoid confronting nihility at all.
I like it, and as a non christian, I find hearing church sermons still very relatable and useful. No matter what label a teaching has on it, sound wisdom stands on its own. Most religions have the golden rule at their base, a person doesn't need to be very religious to try to embody that. I fall short of meeting people where they are because my mind is skewed inward so I try and avoid speaking where I can see no progress will be made. I try but sometimes fail in responding to insults and abuses. If one asks nothing of others but to be left in peace to explore their inner soul, their own contemplative world, it's fair, it's neutral. I understand there is a connectedness of mind and an ease of burden felt be those within a collectively minded network however I cannot imagine the experience. I don't think myself higher or lower but maybe more absorbed into my unique spiritual experience. There's value in each and I don't remember having a choice either way. Like anyone, I'm doing the best I can with the cards dealt. In regards to experiencing boundaries and seperateness, being third eye blind, I do feel myself discretely apart but there's benefits and possibly heightened intuition I've gained because of that. Neurodivergence comes with its blessings. If your experience is otherwise and you're mining value from it then that's all you can do. There's value everywhere. If we were to choose our cognitive skill distribution, we might choose to be perfectly standard but life might deal you a fistful of abnormal and in that you might expect to have extreme gifts balanced by opposing deficiencies. I am not possessed nor have I ever dabbled in black magic.
Not to be this guy, but the 'golden rule at the root of most religions' is only the same when stood at a distance. When you have different definitions of what constitutes reality and the nature of it, this has massive effects on what you consider 'love', 'justice', 'mercy', 'goodness'. Without a myth, a story that shows the unfolding of these things in a certain way, those words are more like vague attitudes. The different religions arrive at tangibly different definitions. The 'wisdom' is thus different when lived out.
This was an eye opener, thank you so much 🙏🏼 Would like to suggest the concept of emptiness and inserting in islamic philosophy and scholarly work, I think it relates very strongly to this school of thought
Thanks for the great podcast! I really enjoyed thinking through your presentation of Nishitani's work, though a number of strange (to me) contradictions arise in his work that are difficult to get past. First, Nishitani having positioned the Zen Buddhist notion of Sunyata as the final boss of all religion (Zen Buddhism just so happens to be one of the dominant religions in his home country btw) strikes me as strange because it posits a single independent stable pathway that leads one to realize that nothing is stable or independent. Additionally this framing of an increasingly deep engagement with religion being the force that moves one along the steps from consciousness to nihility and on to Sunyata strikes me as non falsifiable, i.e. "if you consider yourself religious and haven't experienced Sunyata, well your engagement with your religion must not be deep enough..." essentially Deep Enough Engagement with Religion -> Sunyata as well as its contrapositive !Sunyata -> !Deep Engagement with Religion. The goal posts move themselves. Second, the notion that a person who deeply engages with a system of religion like Catholicism which is explicitly non-nihilistic would somehow, after all that prayer and religious observation, suddenly confront, embrace, and deeply engage with nihility seems a bit absurd, did Nishitani consider all of the Catholic Nuns and Aesthetics who haven't embraced nihiliity to be deeply egotistical with a superficial engagement with their religion? Lastly, his claim that Atheist can't truly understand religion because the do not engage with and experience it themselves is a contradiction. If they were to deeply engaged with a religion they wouldn't be Atheist now would they. In other words "you can't really be a truly informed Atheist unless you are deeply religious" WAT? Anyway thanks again for the podcast!
And the experience is dependent upon other stuff, other stuff is dependent on other stuff. But then you look at the edges and lines you draw between things and realise that the line is made up. There are no lines. Just whatever this all is
Hello, Mr West! I don’t know if you pay attention to YT comments, but since I blew up my Instagram account I can’t message you that way. A future podcast idea: I would love to hear your take on Anna Kornbluh’s Immediacy: The Style of Too-Late Capitalism. I think it’s a brilliant work that will be regarded in the same light as Jameson’s breakthrough work. It seems to dovetail with some of Fisher’s ideas on the cancellation of the future. Anyway I hope this reaches you! From a dedicated listener for the past several years!
Hey Stephen! I am wondering if you'd have any interest covering any fringe philosophers with controversial takes. For example, the Unabomber or the so-called "Dark Enlightenment". I'm particularly interested in the latter, since it seems that several of the people who came to power in the recent election have expressed an appreciation of figures like Mencius Moldbug. As unappealing as I find these ideas, I'd like to understand what is motivating people who I regard as a threat to our democracy. I suspect the answer is "no," and I can entirely understand why that might be the case. But I'm just throwing it out there. In any case, I'm a huge fan of your podcast, having discovered you through Alex O'Connor, and I've been binging your content for about two weeks now. Thanks!
love your content... only if you add video to it and shot it in an podcasting way it would reach much wider audience that would benefit both you and people..
![Chris Langan - The Interview THEY Didn't Want You To See - CTMU [Full Version; Timestamps]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9miVG2xT5jY/mqdefault.jpg)
I have listened to your podcast for a decade, you make complicated content easier to understand. I especially appreciate that you have no distractions such as music or background noise.
Your perspective is greatly appreciated.
👍🏻X10
This was my favorite episode of the series. Thank you, Stephen!
One of my favorite episodes. I particularly enjoyed the part about, and I'm paraphrasing, the not so religious being more open to a genuine religious experience. Interesting stuff.
Please keep going what you are doing!
Thanks.
I find value in everything you put out. Please continue.
very profound; to be listened more than once thank you !🙏🏻
I have been listening to all of your episodes since the beginning. It has been really a wonderful treat. Your sense of putting the things in language is really amazing.I’m glad that now you have also started covering the eastern philosophies.there were a couple of episodes on Buddha initially.please do dwell deeper into the eastern philosophy also. 43:37
Not capable. Sorry to disappoint you.
I have been expecting you to mention Martin Buber and his book "It and thou relationships".
I think it will be a very good example and application of nihilism and sheniata from a religious approach.
I would also mention writings of Sufis who always talk of fnaa (destruction, nothingness, vanishing) as one of most important steps in the way to God, followed only with fnaa-el-fnaa (nothingness of nothingness, vanishing of vanishing) as the step where you find God.
And I would end by saying what Sufis said all the time, and as you mentioned, it is impossible to express anything fully with words!
Religious change -
From utility (how i benefit) to 'what purpose am i here for'
I used to think all religions are superstitious. Thanks to Nishitani and Tillich, I changed my point of view and truly understand the significance of Religion
In your own words what do you think that is?
Yes. Analysis of a Dostoyevsky novel would be interesting: The Possessed, maybe
It always seems like I watch the right video after recent thoughts I’ve been having.
Because of recent personal circumstances I’ve been thinking a lot about things don’t make sense in isolation or on their own. For example, I was pulled over for failing to stop fully at a stop sign. I was angry, mad, bitter and felt singled out at first. It didn’t make sense to me why this was such a big deal, couldn’t the cop have let me go? I wasn’t hurting anyone and there was no victims. But then I thought about the reason for this law. Way back when, at some point there was some kid who was hit by a car who didn’t fully stop. Maybe they were unable to see the kid, maybe it was dark and required full attention to detail like a complete stop. Given that circumstance, and then that situation traveling up the court system there was a rule made about fully stopping. Once I understood this law was not a law against me, but something formed from countless incidents decades ago when traffic laws were just forming, I have to humbly admit I couldn’t be mad or bitter. I am part of the decades long learning process that is only just now shining its light on me via a minor $45 ticket. This a small example, but things start to make sense once you understand it’s never you being singled out, but instead you participating in the entire system set forth long ago. I can’t help but to be humble about it now. And it makes total sense once you get over the fact it’s happening to you, at this particular place, at this particular time. So many examples of this once you realize your part of a society that is iterating and learning and changing and indifferent about you (aka it’s not personal)
I really respect the way Nishitani prioritizes confronting nihilism as part of deepening one's understanding of our place in the universe. I think it's a mistake to call it a "religious" quest, however; it seems like most religious traditions thrive specifically because they have comfortable articles of faith (and Gods) that let their followers avoid confronting nihility at all.
I like it, and as a non christian, I find hearing church sermons still very relatable and useful. No matter what label a teaching has on it, sound wisdom stands on its own. Most religions have the golden rule at their base, a person doesn't need to be very religious to try to embody that. I fall short of meeting people where they are because my mind is skewed inward so I try and avoid speaking where I can see no progress will be made. I try but sometimes fail in responding to insults and abuses. If one asks nothing of others but to be left in peace to explore their inner soul, their own contemplative world, it's fair, it's neutral. I understand there is a connectedness of mind and an ease of burden felt be those within a collectively minded network however I cannot imagine the experience. I don't think myself higher or lower but maybe more absorbed into my unique spiritual experience. There's value in each and I don't remember having a choice either way. Like anyone, I'm doing the best I can with the cards dealt. In regards to experiencing boundaries and seperateness, being third eye blind, I do feel myself discretely apart but there's benefits and possibly heightened intuition I've gained because of that. Neurodivergence comes with its blessings. If your experience is otherwise and you're mining value from it then that's all you can do. There's value everywhere. If we were to choose our cognitive skill distribution, we might choose to be perfectly standard but life might deal you a fistful of abnormal and in that you might expect to have extreme gifts balanced by opposing deficiencies. I am not possessed nor have I ever dabbled in black magic.
Not to be this guy, but the 'golden rule at the root of most religions' is only the same when stood at a distance.
When you have different definitions of what constitutes reality and the nature of it, this has massive effects on what you consider 'love', 'justice', 'mercy', 'goodness'.
Without a myth, a story that shows the unfolding of these things in a certain way, those words are more like vague attitudes. The different religions arrive at tangibly different definitions.
The 'wisdom' is thus different when lived out.
「我並不是想惹惱你」😊...別擔心，我尊重你刻意的嚴謹。意識、虛無和空性這些術語促使我重新思考我如何與我的真實自我連結 和我的家庭. 允許別人以自己的空虛為由來表達自己, 不只是你的。
I apologize, Steven. I know you’re not out for this, but…
I’ve decided you are my new guru.
How is this channel so under subscribed? Crazy. Such amazing content.
Thanks for your hard work ❤
This was an eye opener, thank you so much 🙏🏼
Would like to suggest the concept of emptiness and inserting in islamic philosophy and scholarly work, I think it relates very strongly to this school of thought
التخلية والتحلية if you want the arabic term
Great episode!
Have you ever read the essay "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity"? Sam Harris did a Making Sense episode on it.
I have that essay opened in another browser tab right now. Started reading it some time ago, haven’t gotten back to it. Thanks for the reminder.
Is it online?@@CrazyLinguiniLegs
Thanks for the great podcast! I really enjoyed thinking through your presentation of Nishitani's work, though a number of strange (to me) contradictions arise in his work that are difficult to get past.
First, Nishitani having positioned the Zen Buddhist notion of Sunyata as the final boss of all religion (Zen Buddhism just so happens to be one of the dominant religions in his home country btw) strikes me as strange because it posits a single independent stable pathway that leads one to realize that nothing is stable or independent. Additionally this framing of an increasingly deep engagement with religion being the force that moves one along the steps from consciousness to nihility and on to Sunyata strikes me as non falsifiable, i.e. "if you consider yourself religious and haven't experienced Sunyata, well your engagement with your religion must not be deep enough..." essentially Deep Enough Engagement with Religion -> Sunyata as well as its contrapositive !Sunyata -> !Deep Engagement with Religion. The goal posts move themselves.
Second, the notion that a person who deeply engages with a system of religion like Catholicism which is explicitly non-nihilistic would somehow, after all that prayer and religious observation, suddenly confront, embrace, and deeply engage with nihility seems a bit absurd, did Nishitani consider all of the Catholic Nuns and Aesthetics who haven't embraced nihiliity to be deeply egotistical with a superficial engagement with their religion?
Lastly, his claim that Atheist can't truly understand religion because the do not engage with and experience it themselves is a contradiction. If they were to deeply engaged with a religion they wouldn't be Atheist now would they. In other words "you can't really be a truly informed Atheist unless you are deeply religious" WAT?
Anyway thanks again for the podcast!
And the experience is dependent upon other stuff, other stuff is dependent on other stuff. But then you look at the edges and lines you draw between things and realise that the line is made up. There are no lines. Just whatever this all is
And that’s why humility exist
Hello, Mr West! I don’t know if you pay attention to YT comments, but since I blew up my Instagram account I can’t message you that way.
A future podcast idea:
I would love to hear your take on Anna Kornbluh’s Immediacy: The Style of Too-Late Capitalism. I think it’s a brilliant work that will be regarded in the same light as Jameson’s breakthrough work. It seems to dovetail with some of Fisher’s ideas on the cancellation of the future.
Anyway I hope this reaches you! From a dedicated listener for the past several years!
Those feelings described in the end looks a lot like taoism as described in "The second book of Tao"
Hey Stephen! I am wondering if you'd have any interest covering any fringe philosophers with controversial takes. For example, the Unabomber or the so-called "Dark Enlightenment". I'm particularly interested in the latter, since it seems that several of the people who came to power in the recent election have expressed an appreciation of figures like Mencius Moldbug. As unappealing as I find these ideas, I'd like to understand what is motivating people who I regard as a threat to our democracy.
I suspect the answer is "no," and I can entirely understand why that might be the case. But I'm just throwing it out there. In any case, I'm a huge fan of your podcast, having discovered you through Alex O'Connor, and I've been binging your content for about two weeks now. Thanks!
Please do Dostoevsky, he's one of my favorite authors, also an episode on Carl Jung would really cool
Nothing proves that we are more than nothing
Hi Steve!
Search youtube for: Are You Winning Son? - Song
Cheers ! 🍻
Would love dostoyevsky
love your content...
only if you add video to it and shot it in an podcasting way it would reach much wider audience that would benefit both you and people..
Steven , please don’t change your channel, No video, no music, no distractions whatsoever.
I enjoy just listening to Steven’s perspective and wisdom.
England has won the WC in 1966...
God is dead? The dead god is undead more like.
I feel that it’s the god of religious organizations who has died.