I'm sure you have all noticed this from various comment boards to Reddit and 4chan. "I'm a Christian but (communist bullshit)" or "I was a Republican but (more communist bullshit)". It never turns out well, the atheists will still say youre an idiot as will progressives. Why placate them? Why does nobody stand up for their beliefs? Are we that scared of cancel culture or are we just that scared of possibly offending someone? Who will be the first to say, "This is what I think. Dont like it? Tough titties, now get out of my way".
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I browsed that christianity .win for a bit. Does not look hopeful. I'll check on them once in a while, though, as they might mention alternative places.
I saw you mention over there that you're a quaker. Did the religion come before or after you researching determinism?
I haven't read any of his stuff, but my current fixation (Nietzsche) was supposedly inspired by him. The theories on Will sound relevant to me. Might add him to my backlog.
As interesting as it all is to me, I can't act like I'm a serious scholar or anything. A lot of my motivation comes from a love of metaphor in fiction, and a desire to make boring stories more interesting due to how many boring stories I've encountered. So to explain the path I walked to some philosophically-inclined conclusion is likely to sound ridiculous or embarassing.
I remember being really fixated on quantum stuff for a while. All evidence I could understand pointed to determinism, but I was simply disgusted by some of the ideas I saw associated with it, so was forced to invent my own ideological compromise. Reading more books probably would have saved me a lot of effort, but it's fun to reinvent the wheel sometimes.
A few years ago, I made some bad choices that demanded reflection. I ended up updating my prior beliefs to something like "You have opportunities to change paths right up until you hit the crossroad - at that point, you'll only have the illusion of opportunity." This was because no matter how much I thought about how I could have made better choices, I realized I was stuck in that path and just couldn't see it at the time. Yet it was important that I struggled even when it was futile, because to do otherwise is to degrade oneself to the level of a puppet. Though, yeah, that's just one of many factors that predetermines where I'll end up.
This is amusing, thinking back on it, so I'll share. What really struck me along these lines was when I learned to cheat at dice and cards (for fun, I don't cheat for profit). An eye-opening moment for me, to realize that something I always assumed was random could actually be manipulated and controlled with skill and without an observer understanding what they're seeing. It had a lot of far-reaching implications to me at the time.
They were, yes.
Schopenhauer was the Obi-Wan to Nietzsche's Anakin, in that Nietzsche was angsty and angry and wanted to change the world, where Schopenhauer just wanted to be right.
His effect on philosophy was basically... to kill Kant. Figuratively of course, but kill really isn't strong enough. He eviscerated Kant, burned his pieces, and then pissed on the ashes. But he didn't build anything to replace Kant. That fell to Nietzsche. I think maybe Schopenhauer simply couldn't pull himself to go the next step because he understood what the result could be.
Anyway, perhaps the most insightful thing Schopenhauer did have to contribute was that he felt the only pure artistic expression of will is music. All other forms of art are subjective.