From: ddavis@cass.ma02.bull.com (Dave Davis)
Subject: Re: Survey on Hope
Summary: hope is a field of dreams
Organization: Bull World Wide Information Systems Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 12:55:25 GMT


I've had only a few responses to my survey; my thanks go out
to those who did answer. Maybe this compilation will spark
some more discussion. Do atheists, as a group, have less
hope than other folks?

I asked, more wordily at the time,

>Where, if anywhere, do atheists (in particular, the atheists
>in this forum) find their hope? 

and

>Do you have long-term hopes for yourself, for your family, for
>humankind? How so?

and 

> Where do you get your hope from?

I had offered these definitions:

>	1. n. A feeling that what is wanted will happen;
>	   desire accompanied by expectation.
>	
>	2. v. To want and expect.
>	
>	3. v. To want very much. 

In Message-Id: <9208061929.AA190362@nike.calpoly.edu>
(Null CYpher) answered:

>I hope to be secure enough to be able to pregress on my "spiritual" path
>without worrying too much about biosurvival and/or territorial problems.
>I hope my family and humanity also attain this security.

And, further on, he (?) writes,

>The "hope" I described above fits more into #2 and #3.  I limit my expectations
>in order to not be too disappointed if/when they fail to come to pass.

And, 

>Most of my expectations are not particularly positive, exceptions being
>in the realm of technological advance, etc.  Most expectations are taken from
>analyzing current trends and extrapolating.  "Hope" does not really come into
>it, as your "hope" seems to me to be intertwined with "faith" which is
>something I generally lack.

I think I understand this view, though for my own part I don't see
hope (drifting towards 'progress') in technological advances
(I think of more efficient killing machines). I see a good many
current trends (vide former Yugoslavia) which are obviously
distressing. I tend to have a pretty bleak viewpoint, with
one or two exceptions, whether the realm of discourse is my personal
life, or the long-term prospects of humankind.
-------------

In another response, KlugeMaster  (Steve)
<bittrolff@tincup.enet.dec.com> wrote, in response to
my paraphrasing of Kaufmann/Kant's question to read 'what is
it reasonable for one to hope for?': 

>At any rate, it is reasonable for anybody to hope for anything, their theosity 
>(or lack thereof) notwithstanding.

To which I'd suggest some qualifiers (some hopes may be self-contradictory,
some may have no route from the current situation (ex: 'I, Dave Davis,
hope to be as wealthy as Perot within the year').

In that exchange, I clarified one of my questions to read:

>Do you see your hope as mostly personal
>(based on, and regarding, yourself) ?

And KlugeMaster answered,

>Wrapping up, the hope I was referring to is for humanity, and is based on the 
>trends I perceive to be occurring. Of course there is no guarentee that I am
>correct, but isn't that why it is called hope?
-------------

In Message-Id: <9208080017.AA26087@wpi.WPI.EDU>
johndunk@wpi.WPI.EDU (John Dunkelberg)
responds:

>hope.
>
>i hope that i will be able to find someone that understands me and can
>love me
>
>i hope that i will be able to find life interesting, challenging, and
>ever changing
>
>i hope that i will be able to look back and always say that the majority
>of what i do is for the better of myself, people i care about, and
>people i have never met

>i hope that i can continue until i choose to end

>and then end

>i hope

Which is really kinda nice. Thanks John.
------------

mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins), in Message-ID: <70960@apple.Apple.COM>
writes,

>I hope that, if I survive for a long time, I will find opportunities
>to live in a way that will satisfy me. I hope that, whenever I die,
>the manner of my death will not be unduly miserable, and that I
>will look back on a life that has been, on the whole,satisfying.
>I hope for the same for my family, and for other human beings in
>general. And I hope that, on the whole, such satisfaction for most 
>people will coincide with increasing, rather than decreasing, the 
>satisfaction of others. I derive these hopes from a sense of what is 
>possible for human beings to accomplish.

I don't recall that Mikel wrote of his sense of the likliehood
of these hopes (for self, family, humanity) coming about. This
goes back to my bleak view- I can look at the destruction and misery
that it possible for human beings to accomplish (proof by inspection :-) )
I suspect that, if I weren't better described (religiously speaking)
elseways, I'd characterize myself as a Buddhist, since the focus on 
suffering in the 4 Noble Truths suits my view to a 'T'.
--------------

At one point, I had asked/stated in responding to (Null Cipher) 

> But if that's the case, I don't see where 'faith'
> (undescribed so far) comes into it. I can hope that the Red Sox
> win the World Series [someday] but I have 0 faith that they will.

And the response ( swoodwar@nike.calpoly.edu (Null Cypher)
in Message-Id: <9208110003.AA507914@nike.calpoly.edu> was: 

>Your use of the word "faith" in that previous sentence is equivalent to my
>use of the word "expectation".  I guess what I'm getting at is that I would
>like to divorce the idea of "expectation" from "hope".

Hmmm. This is away from Definition #1 (desire & expectation) and
more towards the 'to want very much' (Def.#2 & 3). But how reasonable
can a hope be, as one divorces it from expectation?


Dave Davis, ddavis@ma30.bull.com
These are my opinions & activities alone

QOTD:

'There's always tomorrow, for dreams to come true.
 Tomorrow is not far away.'
			Johnny Marks, from the old TV 
			show 'Rudolph the RRR'
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:15523 alt.politics.bush:2352 alt.politics.clinton:2436 soc.motss:36217