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--A
Moderators: Xar, Fist and Faith
Well, you are both wrong. But I won't try to convince either of you that you are.Prebe wrote:Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!![]()
As long as we can admit that there is a right and a wrong there is hope for us all! When we say that it doesn't matter or there is no truth, then we are beyond hope.unicorngirl wrote:Well, you are both wrong. But I won't try to convince either of you that you are.Prebe wrote:Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!![]()
Nice try. But I'm not taking the bait.rusmeister wrote:As long as we can admit that there is a right and a wrong there is hope for us all! When we say that it doesn't matter or there is no truth, then we are beyond hope.unicorngirl wrote:Well, you are both wrong. But I won't try to convince either of you that you are.Prebe wrote:Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!![]()
The question becomes, "Who is right, and on what basis?".
It's good to not be timid about what you believe!
Fine. I'll buy my own cigar!Prebe wrote:
Universal "rights" and "wrongs" are religious/human concepts. Nice try, but no cigar
My view, which was GKC's view and which happens to be the correct view (NO personal pride in this):It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch1.htmlBut there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.
Interesting, but only "True" if there is in fact no true structure to the universe and everyone's beliefs are just rationalizations to make them feel like their life has meaning. If not, then some people are encompassing that truth and others are not. The nature of the metaphysical structure of the universe can be theorized and hypothesized but never tested or quantified. As the person in your first quoted block says, discussion of the nature of the universe is relevant because there are those who say it is not relevant...if it can be debated, it has relevance. Even with philosophy, we pick ones we like based on our own cosmology. For those who are Atheistic, Nietzche is their guy. For those who walk both with God and down the middle path, perhaps we identify more with Kierkegard.rusmeister wrote:A central problem I have with a thread like this in general is that the general attitude is that what we all believe may be mildly interesting, but does not, or cannot reflect a cosmology, a universal philosophy, that also affects me, whether I like it or not. In a word, believe what you like, but what you believe doesn't matter! It isn't really the Truth! Everybody makes their own truth, which is to say, there IS no Truth!
Chesterton totally nails this in his 1905 book, Heretics:
My view, which was GKC's view and which happens to be the correct view (NO personal pride in this):It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch1.htmlBut there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.
Obviously, then, it follows that it IS relevant and that there IS true structure to the universe. Ergo, people encompass that truth to greater or lesser degrees. Some are essentially wrong on the most critical points while retaining only smaller truths. Others are wrong on some details, but right in the essentials. It follows that there must be a 'bullseye', a fulness of the Truth, and then we can debate where that is.storm wrote:Interesting, but only "True" if there is in fact no true structure to the universe and everyone's beliefs are just rationalizations to make them feel like their life has meaning. If not, then some people are encompassing that truth and others are not. The nature of the metaphysical structure of the universe can be theorized and hypothesized but never tested or quantified. As the person in your first quoted block says, discussion of the nature of the universe is relevant because there are those who say it is not relevant...if it can be debated, it has relevance. Even with philosophy, we pick ones we like based on our own cosmology. For those who are Atheistic, Nietzche is their guy. For those who walk both with God and down the middle path, perhaps we identify more with Kierkegard.rusmeister wrote:A central problem I have with a thread like this in general is that the general attitude is that what we all believe may be mildly interesting, but does not, or cannot reflect a cosmology, a universal philosophy, that also affects me, whether I like it or not. In a word, believe what you like, but what you believe doesn't matter! It isn't really the Truth! Everybody makes their own truth, which is to say, there IS no Truth!
Chesterton totally nails this in his 1905 book, Heretics:
My view, which was GKC's view and which happens to be the correct view (NO personal pride in this):It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch1.htmlBut there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.
Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.
If got a 100 people and asked them to describe me(and give me a name), I am sure there will be a lots of different descriptions of me(some will be the same but each one will have something different) based on everyone's perception of me. Same with a place, ask people to describe a place and you'll get lots of different descriptions and feelings.If your God is so bad that you fear him then get a new god that is stronger and has compassion, there are Hundreds of them out there and each one of them has their own version of Heaven.
That's pretty much why I stay out of the religios disscussions.Matthias wrote:Discussing religion makes me nervous, mostly because I'm afraid of argument..