Re: belief, faith, truth

From: <daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:25:30 -0500

Bruno wrote:
> I think everyone has religious faith...

Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement,
which goes back to why the word "theology" is taboo. As it's commonly
said, the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and
politics.

But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all
have some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions
of our practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like
holding a grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about
our course in life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern
(and leading up to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these
particulars apart from our musings about universals, so that people
typically no longer see any connection between them. (Talk about going
in the opposite direction from "Everything"!) In a way it is rather
convenient because we can live out "personal" lives the way we want to.
  But the reality is that in being set totally free from universals, we
become enslaved. The ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally
closed system is something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end
up in a swirl of confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that
somehow the "system" is set up such that things will work out OK. If
we didn't, then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we
need at least some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic
system. This applies also to the "Mathematics: Is it really..."
thread. So there needs to be a faith that something is fixed, even if
we don't yet know, or perhaps believe that we can never truly know,
what is it. This something is what is called truth.

Tom
Received on Mon Jan 30 2006 - 11:46:47 PST