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The Greeks were wary of this thing called hope. They saw it as a passive and dangerous emotion for the naive and gullible. You aren't supposed to wait for a solution to your problems; you're supposed to have courage and the will to act.
Aristotle said virtuous action requires hope, but you shouldn't practice hope without action.
The ancients saw hope “mostly as an attitude to reality that [was] based on insufficient insight into what is true or good.” Seneca saw hope and fear "bound up with one another… like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to.”
I see Americans increasingly using hope as a way to avoid adapting to present realities. Christianity contributes to this problem by making hope a central feature of thinking. Just believe -- don't base it on anything but what you want / need to be true. You don't need to act; you can send thoughts and prayers. Prefer passive hope over decisive action, politeness over confrontation, acceptance over questioning, and perhaps above all, conformity over needed disruption or change. After all, god is in control and knows what's best and has your back -- if you're sufficiently "good" -- this absolves you of directly confronting or wrestling with issues.
I wonder sometimes what the world would look like if people weren't so conditioned to "go along to get along" at all costs. Look at what Greta Thunberg has accomplished for example, since her mid-teens -- this little wisp is an implacable force of nature. Not unkind, but not caring really what people think of her either. She has a moral imperative and she acts on it. This is contrary to the kum-by-yah religious sentiments that seeks agreement and compromise and deference before anything else.
Maybe I am misunderstanding religious thinking on this score, but I don't think I'm misunderstanding it in terms of the fundamentalism I was raised within at least. I confess that I have had to work against a strong bias toward being conflict averse as a result.
Is atheism necessarily an antidote to passivity rooted in hope? Not with certainty, but I think it removes the learned helplessness and magical thinking of religion, and that can only be a good thing.
I see hope resulting from genuine inability, as well as the other causes summarized as laziness.
Reduction in poorly placed hope, though, for the non-believer especially, tends to raise accountability for results, or at least a decision not to be as concerned. Once we realize we alone are responsible for change, we are faced with the decision to take action, or alter our expectations.
My daughter is a non believer, her grandmother a former pastor and active believer. My daughter is trying to plan moving out of state with some new roommates. Grandma advises, "sometimes you have to just leap and hope for the best, just trust god honey". My daughter is gracious, while boiling inside knowing full well that if she carefully reviews her budget, and execution plans, she will know for sure the feasibility, and that it is NOT an option to fail and then be stuck without recovery far away. (Now of course her parents will always be a safety net if we are able and she genuinely needs it, but she refuses to plan for failure.)
She sees her grandmother living on less than $900/mo because she placed her hope in god all of her life instead of planning for her own future. Now grandma has to live on the backs of other's compassion for her bad choices. Now all grandma has left is hope.
Hope is a very interesting behavior. Love can be communicated non-verbally by hugging a family member, but how can hope be shown without words? I can pause, put my hands together prayer-like, and close my eyes. So the question becomes when should that happen or when is it appropriate? It looks more appropriate to do that when I have tried to solve some problem and wait for an outcome. It doesn't look appropriate when I open my credit card bill and just stand there in a hope-like position.
I don't see religion using hope as the second scenario. A religious person probably wouldn't tell me that God is in control from now on unless they want to see my downfall. Yes, saying ”just believe” sounds very passive, but it does carry some underlying meaning and expectations. For the most part, religion may assume that we have been taught right from wrong. The hard part is avoiding the temptation to do the wrong thing and that is where religion attempts to step in. What might not be addressed are the contradictions we face every day. For example, if I tell the truth instead of lying, it might get me in more trouble. But if I lie, people will be happy. This is where religion may say "just believe". To be honest, I think any institution struggles with maintaining morals and expectations while dealing with contradictions.
So this brings me to mental health. The nice thing about the interest in this topic lately is that it is now being recognized that there is more than one solution to a problem. Religion or belief in a higher power is one of many solutions often mentioned. But if a person chooses to join a church, it might help to point out that the institution chosen may have very limited approaches to problem-solving.
Hope is a very interesting behavior. Love can be communicated non-verbally by hugging a family member, but how can hope be shown without words? I can pause, put my hands together prayer-like, and close my eyes. So the question becomes when should that happen or when is it appropriate? It looks more appropriate to do that when I have tried to solve some problem and wait for an outcome. It doesn't look appropriate when I open my credit card bill and just stand there in a hope-like position.
I don't see religion using hope as the second scenario. A religious person probably wouldn't tell me that God is in control from now on unless they want to see my downfall. Yes, saying ”just believe” sounds very passive, but it does carry some underlying meaning and expectations. For the most part, religion may assume that we have been taught right from wrong. The hard part is avoiding the temptation to do the wrong thing and that is where religion attempts to step in. What might not be addressed are the contradictions we face every day. For example, if I tell the truth instead of lying, it might get me in more trouble. But if I lie, people will be happy. This is where religion may say "just believe". To be honest, I think any institution struggles with maintaining morals and expectations while dealing with contradictions.
So this brings me to mental health. The nice thing about the interest in this topic lately is that it is now being recognized that there is more than one solution to a problem. Religion or belief in a higher power is one of many solutions often mentioned. But if a person chooses to join a church, it might help to point out that the institution chosen may have very limited approaches to problem-solving.
Belief in a higher power does not have to mean join a church. I know that may not becwhat you are saying, but the faults and failures of an institution belong to the institution. Not the higher power. Two different unrelated things.
I can pause, put my hands together prayer-like, and close my eyes. So the question becomes when should that happen or when is it appropriate? It looks more appropriate to do that when I have tried to solve some problem and wait for an outcome.
If you have truly done what can be done and all that's left is waiting, that is where thinking god has your back can reduce anxiety. I occasionally miss that deux ex machina for that floating "waiting anxiety" but in truth it was never all that effective because I understood at some level that it was without substance, and I am not constitutionally given to anxiety anyway.
I am not of course suggesting that all religious persons always and exclusively escape into faith (which is just hope in god) to avoid personal responsibility, only that faith as a way of life colors everything such that the goal becomes, not planning and acting, but "having faith" as an end and virtue in itself and expecting at least on average, better life outcomes because of faith in god, which presumably is rewarded by action from god.
Things are complicated by the fact that life has so many inputs and we cannot know so much (e.g., what "would have" happened absent this or that action on our part) that you don't necessarily see clear outcomes from your own efforts that are positive, either. Sometimes life seems downright Sysyphian. In those times, displacing life's randomness on the gods and their ineffable Plan can seem like a way to relieve the tension. But then life and its parade of vicissitudes and sorrows remains. The tension is part of the human condition, whichever way you go.
I guess for me it comes down to the fact that my best chance at improving my situation is to correctly identify what is lacking in it and what would truly and sustainably remedy that lack, and then trying to work towards that remedy. Even when I fail in the remedy, it can be dog-fooded back into my process to hopefully improve it, which to me is way superior to "god's Mysterious Ways" and the possibility of him actually WANTING me to suffer -- to be "tested" or "chastened" or to "learn patience" or faith. The notion that I am just a tiny cog in some cosmic plan that's at least potentially indifferent to whether I suffer or not, is far more depressing than that I am just a tiny and relatively powerless actor in life that is just trying not to get run over by this inexorable steamroller of events that just keep coming at me. At least I have a clear fix on what is helpful and what is harmful and the ability to avoid or protect myself from harms, and even occasionally transmute them into benefits.
The other big problem with assuming some amorphous "higher purpose" is the reason for failure is that it deprives one of the feedback loop that might guide further actions. One just shrugs and "leaves it with god" and then quite possibly does not adjust their actions going forward.
Good thoughts for discussion, mordant. I have been in the process of becoming more aware of the uselessness of hope myself, as it has become clear to me that it's mostly just another tool we use to avoid the pain of reality. I recently listened to a book that addressed how much of our actions and thoughts are centered around our need to avoid pain rather than feel it. There's a lot of truth to it. I am working on learning to acknowledge and feel the pain rather than seeking ways to pretend it doesn't exist.
So, perhaps when we feel hope strike, we need to ask ourselves if our hope is for what we wish to happen that we know we cannot control, or if there is anything we can actually do to make the desired outcome happen.
As we have discussed recently, it has become clear that waiting for relief from some supernatural source is a waste of the limited minutes of our short human lives, just as it is holding the supernatural source accountable for the poo that's thrown our way.
As an atheist—and consequently someone who doesn't connect "hope" with any kind of higher power—I tend to think of hope as motivating factor. If I feel hopeless, I do not act. If I feel hopeful, which is most of the time, I do. When it is not a motivating factor, it's when the situation I am hopeful for is genuinely out of my hands. "I hope my nephew does well on his SATs."
Greek is not my strong point, academically, but I think that elpis, the Greek word for "hope," doesn't quite track with the English. Although commonly translated as "hope," I think elpis is more like "expectation," and I think this is the sense that is being conveyed through its use in the New Testament... but biblical studies aren't my academic field, either, so I defer to religious scholars on that nuance. Regardless, expecting something is not the same as hoping for it, and the Greeks were wise to be wary of relying on expectations. Just as people should be wary of relying on "thoughts and prayers," however helpful those might be to them psychologically, instead of other actions.
As an atheist—and consequently someone who doesn't connect "hope" with any kind of higher power—I tend to think of hope as motivating factor. If I feel hopeless, I do not act. If I feel hopeful, which is most of the time, I do. When it is not a motivating factor, it's when the situation I am hopeful for is genuinely out of my hands. "I hope my nephew does well on his SATs."
Greek is not my strong point, academically, but I think that elpis, the Greek word for "hope," doesn't quite track with the English. Although commonly translated as "hope," I think elpis is more like "expectation," and I think this is the sense that is being conveyed through its use in the New Testament... but biblical studies aren't my academic field, either, so I defer to religious scholars on that nuance. Regardless, expecting something is not the same as hoping for it, and the Greeks were wise to be wary of relying on expectations. Just as people should be wary of relying on "thoughts and prayers," however helpful those might be to them psychologically, instead of other actions.
Maybe what it comes down to is whether we expect good outcomes based on our acting on a plan based on remedying the actual cause of a problem, or if we just want good outcomes because we want life to be "fair" or just or to realize an ideal, and we feel entitled that this should be so. And of course religion -- the Abrahamic ones anyway -- are only to happy to tell us how things "should" be, and will be with god's help. So our sense of entitlement is sort of "baked in" either religiously (it is god's will) or culturally (my country / nationality / society wills it).
If there is one thing I had to get clear on when I left theism is that life / god / the universe / existence doesn't owe me anything, and since there's no agency animating those things, it's not personal or directed anyway. It is a series of things happening, and I have to learn to flex with it and/or alter the course of events when I occasionally have the ability to do so.
If you have truly done what can be done and all that's left is waiting, that is where thinking god has your back can reduce anxiety. I occasionally miss that deux ex machina for that floating "waiting anxiety" but in truth it was never all that effective because I understood at some level that it was without substance, and I am not constitutionally given to anxiety anyway.
I am not of course suggesting that all religious persons always and exclusively escape into faith (which is just hope in god) to avoid personal responsibility, only that faith as a way of life colors everything such that the goal becomes, not planning and acting, but "having faith" as an end and virtue in itself and expecting at least on average, better life outcomes because of faith in god, which presumably is rewarded by action from god.
Things are complicated by the fact that life has so many inputs and we cannot know so much (e.g., what "would have" happened absent this or that action on our part) that you don't necessarily see clear outcomes from your own efforts that are positive, either. Sometimes life seems downright Sysyphian. In those times, displacing life's randomness on the gods and their ineffable Plan can seem like a way to relieve the tension. But then life and its parade of vicissitudes and sorrows remains. The tension is part of the human condition, whichever way you go.
I guess for me it comes down to the fact that my best chance at improving my situation is to correctly identify what is lacking in it and what would truly and sustainably remedy that lack, and then trying to work towards that remedy. Even when I fail in the remedy, it can be dog-fooded back into my process to hopefully improve it, which to me is way superior to "god's Mysterious Ways" and the possibility of him actually WANTING me to suffer -- to be "tested" or "chastened" or to "learn patience" or faith. The notion that I am just a tiny cog in some cosmic plan that's at least potentially indifferent to whether I suffer or not, is far more depressing than that I am just a tiny and relatively powerless actor in life that is just trying not to get run over by this inexorable steamroller of events that just keep coming at me. At least I have a clear fix on what is helpful and what is harmful and the ability to avoid or protect myself from harms, and even occasionally transmute them into benefits.
The other big problem with assuming some amorphous "higher purpose" is the reason for failure is that it deprives one of the feedback loop that might guide further actions. One just shrugs and "leaves it with god" and then quite possibly does not adjust their actions going forward.
All good points and I am glad that we agree that the majority of religious people don't turn to blind faith to avoid personal responsibility. Perhaps in some contexts, hope carries a negative connotation, but not everybody is having that same perspective. Perhaps a different word might work in those situations: rest, certainty? Certainty runs the risk of being too sure of oneself, so people turn to another kind of certainty: the problem will be solved someday. What if it doesn't get solved in my lifetime? It is easy to see how the concept of God and hope fit in. So maybe it is used to reduce anxiety as you suggested. Therefore, I am going to go with rest (or pause) as an alternative perspective.
If there is one thing I had to get clear on when I left theism is that life / god / the universe / existence doesn't owe me anything, and since there's no agency animating those things, it's not personal or directed anyway. It is a series of things happening, and I have to learn to flex with it and/or alter the course of events when I occasionally have the ability to do so.
QFT, and this may be why more people aren't atheists, they are too afraid to accept that there is no cognizant guiding force in their life, the world, or the universe. Jesus take the wheel? Heck, NOBODY is at the wheel. There isn't even a wheel.
This is one reason why I believe religion is an aspect of psychology and culture. I would say so in the thread about why atheists participate in the R&S forums, but I really do not want to get involved in that conversation! I barely have time to post even this.
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