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Author Topic:   What we must accept if we accept evolution Part 2
JavaMan
Member (Idle past 2309 days)
Posts: 475
From: York, England
Joined: 08-05-2005


Message 276 of 301 (284351)
02-06-2006 8:52 AM
Reply to: Message 273 by Faith
02-06-2006 6:25 AM


Re: the aesthete and the nihilist
This tunnel-visioned answer that we are all just supposed to somehow make our own meaning is psychologically obtuse.
We always make our own meaning. Even if that involves accepting a particular religious tradition. On this point Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky were all agreed, even though the meaning chosen by the latter two was a Christian meaning.
The only difference for those of us who don't ignore the scientific evidence is that we can't base our sense of meaning on a special relationship with a supernatural being.
By the way, Nietzsche would have been horrified at being labelled a 'nihilist'. He considered himself the foremost 'anti-nihilist' - fighting a crusade against nihilist philosophies like Christianity!

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

This message is a reply to:
 Message 273 by Faith, posted 02-06-2006 6:25 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 277 by Faith, posted 02-06-2006 9:15 AM JavaMan has replied

JavaMan
Member (Idle past 2309 days)
Posts: 475
From: York, England
Joined: 08-05-2005


Message 280 of 301 (284367)
02-06-2006 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 277 by Faith
02-06-2006 9:15 AM


Re: the aesthete and the nihilist
No, nobody here seems to have a sense of how much more was lost by Darwinism in an objective sense, of the larger Western philosophical framework in which humanity was given a noble place.
For many of us Christianity was an unfortunate backwater in that Western philosophical tradition, an ignoble regression to primitive mythology that we were rescued from, first by the Renaissance, which rediscovered the Roman and Greek traditions that really stand at the heart of Western civilization, then by the Enlightenment enquiries of the 18th century and the scientific discoveries of the 19th.
The only noble thing that remains admired in the Christian part of that tradition is the ethical teaching of Jesus himself, and the work of those who followed his example.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

This message is a reply to:
 Message 277 by Faith, posted 02-06-2006 9:15 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 281 by Faith, posted 02-06-2006 10:47 AM JavaMan has replied

JavaMan
Member (Idle past 2309 days)
Posts: 475
From: York, England
Joined: 08-05-2005


Message 282 of 301 (284377)
02-06-2006 11:29 AM
Reply to: Message 281 by Faith
02-06-2006 10:47 AM


Re: A very modern outlook?
An unfortunately fitting epitaph for noble humanity your post. So very modern.
Not so very modern, Faith. This battle between reason and superstition has been fought for millenia, wherever some men want to seek the truth and others want to snuff it out.
The nobility of humanity, if it lies anywhere, lies in this honest attempt to face the truth even when it's uncomfortable to do so. To avert your eyes, to persuade yourself to believe in something just to give yourself a sense of meaning is at best irresponsible, at worst selfish and ignoble.
This notion of mine seems very old-fashioned to me. The more modern position is quite different and has different forms, depending on which side of the political fence you lie:
1. On the right there is a tendency, one fashionable I believe in neo-conservative circles, to rubbish this noble quest, to argue that uncomfortable truths should be swept under the carpet and people fed with useful lies;
2. On the left, there is a tendency to argue that there is no truth to quest after at all, that all judgements, even in science, are relative or subjective.
I hope you don't mistake my old-fashioned argument for either of these modern ones!
This message has been edited by JavaMan, 02-06-2006 12:20 PM

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

This message is a reply to:
 Message 281 by Faith, posted 02-06-2006 10:47 AM Faith has not replied

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