Tom Caylor wrote: > On Feb 6, 10:25 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Tom Caylor wrote: >> >>> I'm saying that there is no meaning at all if there is no ultimate >>> meaning. >> So you say. I see no reason to believe it. >> >>> Again, I haven't just pulled this out of thin air. If you >>> really read the modern thinkers and writers, that is what they were >>> saying. Hegel, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Russell, Camus, Sartre, >>> Dostoyevsky, Orwell, Godel, Monod, Lewis, Schaeffer... >> I don't think you've read these writers. Russell, Camus, and Sartre were >> definitely advocates of each person providing their own purpose. >> Incidentally they hardly qualify as "modern" anymore. > > They each came to the edge of the cliff, but they responded in > different ways. Some took the "leap of faith" (!) to say that somehow > providing our own purpose is legitimate. Bertrand Russell said this > was "incredible", but he believed it anyway. We are in the post- > modern age now. > >>> I hope that >>> people who are trying to be on the cutting edge of "theories of >>> everything" will go back and pick up from where these thinkers left >>> off. Not just stand on the shoulders of the physics giants, but also >>> the philosophy (and spiritual!) giants. I know that the modern >>> philosophy road is depressing and unlivable. They bring us to the >>> edge of the cliff. It was depressing for people like the young genius >>> Nick Drake who was found dead on his bed in his 20's after a drug >>> overdose, with Camus' Myth of Sysiphus beside him. But we have to >>> face the reality of where the modern age has brought us in order to >>> find the answer before we all exterminate ourselves. ...taking the >>> "leap of faith" that it is bad to exterminate ourselves. >> It's not modern existential angst that threatens our existence. It's the >> religious zealotry of worshippers of the sky god - in Iran, Pakistan, and >> the bible belt. > > Solshenitzyn said that the line between good and evil does not run > between cultures, beliefs, etc. but right down the center of every > human being. (Don't know if I remembered the quote exactly.) > >>> In light of >>> modern thought, your argument about the sky god society begs the >>> question of meaning by assuming that they *shouldn't* "be miserable >>> and kill each other". This is not a dilemma to pass over lightly. I >>> believe it is at the heart of the matter for where mankind is at >>> today, on the brink of something great or terrible. Or is it REALLY >>> all just meaningless? (What would "REALLY" mean in that case? ;) >> Not to me it isn't. I'm all for not exterminating ourselves and I've got >> grandchildren to prove it. > > Congratulations (honestly). > > However, your having grandchildren shows that you BELIEVE IN not > exterminating ourselves, but it doesn't PROVE that we SHOULD NOT > exterminate ourselves. > >>> Isn't that what this Everything stuff is (ultimately ;) all about? We >>> want to solve the modern schizo dilemma of nature vs. grace and bring >>> about wholeness. >> Sounds like a problem invented in the Vatican. >> > > Modern science has attempted to explain away the reality of what man > is, both the good and the bad. However, explaining it away doesn't > eliminate it. Thus the dichotomy. > >>> I'm tired of hearing questions about scientifically >>> *proving* which god is the right one, as if the question is supposed >>> to show that it isn't worth it to pursue the answers to the *ultimate* >>> questions. While we're busy trying to scientifically *prove* which >>> way to go, or show that you can't scientifically prove which way to go >>> (which has been done already cf above thinkers), we're gonna walk off >>> the edge of the cliff. And, pardon my presumptuous risking the danger >>> of a false belief, but "that wouldn't be very nice." >> Scientists never "prove" anything; they observe, invent theories, collect >> evidence, test,... Only mathematicians prove things - and then only >> relative to axioms they assume. > > I agree. > >> Brent Meeker >> "It does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will >> matter." >> --- Thomas Nagel > > We might like to believe Nagel, but it isn't true. > > Tom > > > >
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
