[humanrebar]

My personal answer is that I'm a Christian and the teachings of the Bible directly address these issues.

Some of it involves a different worldview. Changing the world becomes both less important and more possible. It becomes easier to prioritize important things in life like caring for loved ones or for others who need help. The conflict of the day, whether political, personal, or work related, doesn't endanger the purpose of my life. The worth of my life is no longer defined by "success", power, happiness, or winning.

All this ties back, of course, to the Christ of the bible and His teachings. Ecclesiastes is also a powerful book when I'm feeling cynical. I honestly feel both Christ and Ecclesiastes are at time cynical and curmudgeonly; the positive examples are helpful to me. Reading and praying (about the reading, about life) probably serve the same purposes as the meditation techniques espoused in this thread, but it is more than just body hacking.

> Talk to people helps. But one person can only bear with you for so much. Even though it is a good friend/love you very much.

Talking to my church family and to a much greater extent God doesn't have the same issue. A healthy church family is a bigger group, all of whom are dedicated to your health in every way. And God has more than enough attention and patience for me.

In general people don't appreciate talk about religion, but people are advocating cycling, meditation, yoga, and major career changes. I hope a suggestion to read a bit of the Bible, say a few prayers, and trying something new Sunday morning isn't far off base.

For what it's worth, I've prayed for you Steve, that you can find emotional health and success in your life.

[maroonblazer]

>Reading and praying (about the reading, about life) probably serve the same purposes as the meditation techniques espoused in this thread, but it is more than just body hacking.

Having been raised Catholic and now a practitioner of meditation for many years my experience is that meditation is nothing like prayer nor does prayer confer the same benefits as meditation. I've found meditation to be much more effective.

[christophilus]

I'm also Catholic, and was looking at becoming a Trappist monk a few years ago. I just wanted to mention that there are many forms of prayer, many of which are nothing like meditation.

But there is at least one form of prayer, known as contemplative prayer, which is very like meditation. It consists primarily in being in the moment, stilling your mind, quieting your heart, sitting still, and breathing deeply. It's an ancient form of prayer dating back to the desert fathers.

The purpose of it is to allow God to overtake you, to be receptive to him. Sometimes this happens, but many times, it's just you sitting in silence with God, often, not even really aware of him.

This is by far my favorite form of prayer. Unfortunately, most people never seem learn about it, and instead are taught to be chatty, repeating rote prayers, or rattling off prayer requests or whatever.

[dragonwriter]

> Having been raised Catholic and now a practitioner of meditation for many years my experience is that meditation is nothing like prayer nor does prayer confer the same benefits as meditation. I

Having been raised Catholic, and still being Catholic, having been taught various meditative practices outside the Church and seen some of those practices taught within the Church (and broader Christian community) as means of prayer (both explicitly, by name, as the meditative technique and other times simply teaching the same technique without reference to meditation), I would have to say that Christian prayer overlaps with meditation.

There are forms of prayer that are not meditative, and I have no doubt that even for similar techniques simply the presence or absence of religious loading in the intent makes a difference (in what direction differing between individuals) in practical effect for many people, but they certainly are not categorically disjoint domains.

OTOH, I don't think the suggestion upthread of reading and reflecting on the Bible as an alternative to meditation for the same purpose is a particularly good one,especially for those not already Christian. Reading and reflecting on the Bible—or the Quran, Tao Te Ching, etc., can certainly have value, even for non-Christians (-Muslims, -Taoists). But generally that will be distinct from the value derived from meditative techniques, unless the "reflection" itself uses those techniques. And even then, the use of the religious source material as the basis is more likely to be distracting than helpful in the meditative sense for those not already at least positively inclined to the religious content.

[humanrebar]

Fair enough.

I was just saying that both "Christianity" and "meditation" are pretty broad categories and I've seen overlap in both practices and effects of each.

[j_s]

As a Christian I don't understand how I would be able to put up with reality without the perspective Christianity provides.

I appreciate your attempt to share an unusual alternative (for this forum) in a non-confrontational way.

[lastofus]

> Ecclesiastes is also a powerful book when I'm feeling cynical.

Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible. It's also very much a book I would never recommend to someone trying to cope with negative emotions. Personally, reading Ecclesiastes just reinforces a worldview of nihilism.

This is further reinforced by the possibility the end of the book, which prescribes what to do in the face of such meaninglessness, was added on later. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes):

"Most, though not all, modern commentators regard the epilogue (12:9–14) as an addition by a later scribe. Some have identified certain other statements as further additions intended to make the book more religiously orthodox (e.g., the affirmations of God's justice and the need for piety)."

[humanrebar]

The book elaborates on why the world leads to an emptiness. And it's the Bible, not just some mopey livejournal blog, so it's comforting that it's not just me struggling with human existence. It's not that I'm blind or cynical or weak. The world just doesn't meet what I expect from a fair reality.

We expect a world that is fair. One that leads to lasting flourishing and life. I heard a smart theologian describe Ecclesiastes as a book that paints Christ with negative space. By exhaustively describing why the world doesn't fulfill us, we understand what we hunger for, and in the context of the rest of the Bible, we can see how God and Christ are ultimately satisfying in a way that people and the world aren't.

[negativ0]

i can just say that this comment makes me angry

[0xfeba]

Why?

[japano1se]

I'm not that commenter, but as a former Christian I must say that the most common Christian attitudes towards this sort of thing are highly irritating to non-Christians. Many Christians constantly bring up their religion and their terrible metaphysics* whether or not there was an invitation for them to do so, use their God to smack around people who don't behave the way they think they should, and generally lower the quality of any given discussion. Advice to pray to a God you don't believe in is useless advice. Imagine if I told you to sacrifice a lamb to Thor to cure your toothache.

* By terrible metaphysics, I mean to say that Christianity's incentive to act ethical, the judgment after death, also incentivizes people to disregard the world they actually live in, leading to unpleasant or even (counter-intuitively) unethical behavior. Some Christians also use these metaphysics as an excuse to treat non-believers like dirt. Not to mention taking the Bible as the infallible word of God that supposedly has all the answers, even though it's full of contradictions and blatant untruths.

FWIW, despite this comment probably coming across as quite hostile, I don't want to attack your faith. I'm just sick of the way some Christians choose to represent their faith in public.

[cholantesh]

This is a trait common to religious people. Society's secularization is still progressing slowly, and for a lot of people, their lives and worldviews are still attached to religion pretty significantly. I don't think this is a purely Christian trait. Embed yourself in Indian communities and listen to the conversations among us. Social life revolves around communal prayer and devotional singing, in addition to travelling to temples for services.

Personally, I see no showboating in the above comment. I see a sincere expression of something which helped, and I don't feel that it merits derision.

[humanrebar]

Thanks for elaborating.

> Advice to pray to a God you don't believe in is useless advice.

Agreed. But the act of praying to a god is actually an act of belief (i.e., trust) if you think about it. If the god doesn't exist, it's pretty worthless, though ultimately harmless as an isolated act. I happen to trust in God's existence and the teachings of the Bible, though. So it would be callous for me to see someone have existential struggles and not offer my well wishes and personal experience in the same area.

I'd reply to the rest of your thoughts in more detail, but I'd rather not get too off topic. I will say that your concerns with the behavior of "holy people" and "orthodoxy" is also expressed in the Bible itself. And it's directly answered in very clear words. So in that sense, a problem with many "Christians" (1) isn't blind unwavering devotion to the Bible as much as ignorance about it, or a failure to practice its teachings.

I'll also say that Christian philosophers advocate for abductive reasoning in (a)theist philosophy. It's a subject and train of thought I recommend well-read people be familiar with.

There's a lot of depth and breadth on these subjects, but there aren't many places where Christians are allowed to earnestly share on these matters. I hope HN doesn't mind indulging well-meaning people like me from time to time.

(1) I will point out that there's no regulation on the word "Christian". The Bible recognizes that as well, specifically mentioning in several places that many people will claim Christ falsely.

[lawik]

I've often reacted with annoyance towards the attitudes and behaviors you describe.

I did find the above comment on christianity as an option fairly chill. Might just be my current state of mind. I found it interesting to know what he gets out of it and found it brought up in fairly good (hehe) faith.

[0xfeba]

> Advice to pray to a God you don't believe in is useless advice. Imagine if I told you to sacrifice a lamb to Thor to cure your toothache.

I'm atheist so to me it is as if it was your Thor example. It doesn't bother me though, I just disregard it. However, if I were depressed/stressed I could see it being irritating.

[negativ0]

because my experiences with 'that' have been the worst of my life.

[tehrealjames]

Angry someone has something that works for them?