On Feb 6, 10:25 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> 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
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Received on Wed Feb 07 2007 - 01:20:13 PST