On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 4:31 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 8/6/2012 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> I agree. In fact denying God is a way to impose some other God. I don't >> think we can live more than one second without some belief in some God. >> > > I disagree. We live very well just assuming 3-space and time and material > bodies and people (including ourselves). That is what we all bet on and > evolution has built into us. We may hypothesize different fundamental > ontologies, but it's not necessary and it's certainly not necessary to > *believe in* them. > > Brent > > Here, a more aesthetic perspective as I can't really take sides here: Perhaps belief/disbelief is like color spectrum? For instance, regarding the facism example: I might not believe in it at all in the sense of "standing behind it". But every time I use the term, I substantiate it consciously, even though I know that it does not even approximate standing for a cohesive or consistent social or political concept. The more I study it and make differentiations, the more I substantiate it. The idea is sort of like "don't think pink elephant". It's not that we believe in them in the sense that we'd vote accordingly. Yet, somebody could spend their whole lives investigating "pink elephants" in literature, and even though they would never admit to believing in them, I would still maintain that they do, as they substantiate it more or less consciously. By concretizing a thought, like a carpenter or sculptor in physical terms, it transforms us. Even if we don't in the least bit "like, stand behind, or believe to be true", we make it truer and will increasingly believe it, albeit unconsciously if we want to stay in denial about doing something we don't like. Writing/playing music that you don't believe in works like this. I guess forcing an open mind to defend fascism or some other idea they don't stand behind will have the same effect. Trivial point of all this: entertaining any notion enchants or entrances us, and given enough time uninhibited, will make us believe/disbelieve = same result as some conception of said notion (or its negation) dominates us. Disenchanting ourselves is trickier than most will have us believe as this is close to denial/amnesia. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
