Philosophy

[Lotesse]

What are you doing here, Lief? Shoo! Shoo! Go back to the theology threads, this is out of your jurisdiction here!!!

[Lief Erikson]

(Sticks out a meter long tongue)

[inked]

Aw, Lief, don't be so crude! Just remind them that THEOLOGY is the queen of the sciences and philosophy is jealous!

[Lief Erikson]

I might remind you that you just stuck your tongue out at me , Mr. Pot .

What person can change the size of his tongue?

[inked]

The Toad, as I recall, from the X-men! (Hey, wait, isn't X=Christian? What's up with that? ) No, there's Dudley after the Ton-tongue Toffee in HP!

[Lief Erikson]

And there's the character I'm currently playing on the RPG forum. I was pretending to be him, with the tongue thing. Lotesse and I are in the same RPG at present, and I've been criticized some about my character, so I was teasing her .

[Bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

How is meaninglessness meaningful?

Believe it or not, meaning a concept I've never come close to grasping. Most people apparently feel compelled to ask "what is the meaning of life," and I don't know what's so attractive about the question. If by "meaning," the asker means "lesson," nothing suggests to me that life itself if trying to convey some huge point that it wants me to understand. If the asker means "reason," nothing makes certainly clear that we exist for any specific cause. If they mean "what can we infer, based on the fact that life exists?" I think that's insignificant, because we could speculate about it to no end and accomplish nothing in doing so, or else science might actually one day discover the answer to that and I know I wouldn't have been involved. The best way I have ever been able to answer is with a dictionary, which I'm sure doesn't satisfy anyone who's looking for the meaning of life.

I guess I don't understand the question.

[Lief Erikson]

Lotesse, you may wish to not read this post. I love analyzing and discussing/debating, but I know you don't, so just to be merciful on yourself, you may wish to not attempt following my train of thought .


Bombadillo, in trying to define meaning, here are some of the words that immediately come to my mind. Purpose. Relevance. Impact. Importance.

I can't see how meaninglessness fulfills any of these. Impact is the only one a non-believer can hope for, and even then it is only hope. As Solomon said in Ecclesiasties 9:15, "I saw a wise man who through his wisdom saved a city, yet no one remembered him." Give a generation or two, and this applies to most people. I can remember my grandparents, but my great grandparents little, and my great great grandparents not at all. Impact can still be sometimes felt through the works of one's hands. If one president focuses on improving the environment, he can end his term pleased that he has succeeded in something good. However, the president that comes after him may tear down all the works of his hands in a second. The same can happen for most good works. Only of the pyramids can one truly argue differently.

In view of all this, I think that meaninglessness hardly offers meaning.

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Lotesse, you may wish to not read this post. I love analyzing and discussing/debating, but I know you don't, so just to be merciful on yourself, you may wish to not attempt following my train of thought .

Lief, don't patronise me. I have always enjoyed analysing, discussing, debating - just not with you. Don't friggin' patronise me. It makes you look like an a sshole.

[Spock]

The wise man says, "you can't handle the meaning of life"

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

I have always enjoyed analysing, discussing, debating - just not with you.

Sorry; I've been slow to catch on. While I can't promise that I'll avoid the threads you're in (many times the subjects fascinate me too!), I will try to stop responding to your posts.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

LotesseImpact is the only one a non-believer can hope for, and even then it is only hope.

* clears throat *

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If a believer believes in something which is false, then not only have they missed the point of existence but they've wasted their time with an elaborate delusion.

Consider a beautiful garden. Is it not enough to experience, enjoy and nurture its beauty without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it?

This is the fallacy of religious belief: it artificially separates the physical world from the spiritual. Material things are "downgraded". Suffering, disease, poverty etc are mere fleeting distractions from the real stuff, which is the hereafter. We see ourselves as separate from our environment

To me, life is meaningless in an objective sense. However, it is all about the construction and experience of subjective meaning which is intimately tied to making sense of the physical world we live in. Religious belief is a cop-out and distraction from what really matters.

Here's an interesting essay about the consequences of religious belief (as we currently practice it) upon our environment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...566820,00.html

[Rían]

Interesting thread! I was the second poster on it, back when Millane started it. I miss him! IMO, he was a very clear thinker.

Perhaps it might be useful to have us define what we mean by "philosophy". The definitions that interest me the most are the first and second one in my dictionary:

Philosophy:
1. Orig., love of, or the search for, wisdom or knowledge
2. theory or logical analysis of the principles underlying conduct, thought, knowledge, and the nature of the universe: included in philosophy are ethics, aesthetics, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, etc.

I esp. am interested in the logical analysis part, as many of you prob. know by now. IIRC, that was the direction of the original thread, but Bomb bumped it to discuss another aspect of philosophy, it looks like, which would probably fall under my dictionary's 4b definition:

4b. a particular system of principles for the conduct of life

(I don't mean to be a definition twit here, btw! I think some of the posters here have misunderstood each other because they're working on different angles of philosophy, so I was trying to clarify the situation. For example, Lief was applying philsophy in the definition 2 sense to a statement by Joseph Campbell quoted by Lotesse which fell into the definition 4b sense, and Bomb bumped the thread with a statement about beauty that also fell into the 4b sense, which I would tend to analyze in the #2 sense)

(does that make sense? )


(and Lotesse - I'm sure Lief wasn't patronizing you, altho I can see how you took it that way - he wasn't saying that you couldn't follow his train of thought, he was saying that he thought you wouldn't wish to, and he's prob. right, right?)

Now I have a lot of philosophical #2 sense type comments to make on Gaffer's post, but I have to work on the candy sale some more first...

[Rían]

and Bomb, could you please elaborate on your beauty statement?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by inked

Aw, Lief, don't be so crude! Just remind them that THEOLOGY is the queen of the sciences and philosophy is jealous!

actually, theology is one of the oldest forms of philosophy

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

p.s. the meaning of life is that life has no meaning - paraphrasing Joseph Cambell...

one of my favorite author/philosophers!

he really had a great way of addressing the basic points in life and how they tie in the the multitude of belief systems that exist in our world

a few great quotes by campbell...

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.

[rohirrim TR]

The meaning of life, the universe, everything is .... 42 according to douglas adams one of the funniest authors i ever read

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

* clears throat *

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If a believer believes in something which is false, then not only have they missed the point of existence but they've wasted their time with an elaborate delusion.

I definitely agree.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Consider a beautiful garden. Is it not enough to experience, enjoy and nurture its beauty without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it?

Depends. If a fairy were one day to flutter up in front of your face and declare that she sustains the garden, you might have to think again. Especially if she provides you with further and extremely powerful evidence, aside from that of your own eyes. Your appreciation and enjoyment of the garden would probably expand, especially as the fairy teaches you more from her more advanced perspective.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

This is the fallacy of religious belief: it artificially separates the physical world from the spiritual. Material things are "downgraded". Suffering, disease, poverty etc are mere fleeting distractions from the real stuff, which is the hereafter. We see ourselves as separate from our environment

I don't believe that that is true. The Bible never downplays human suffering, and never pretends that it doesn't exist. Even the God the Bible describes experienced human suffering at its worst. Christians don't deny the material things- they simply claim that they aren't all there is. They claim there is more. Many of the most powerful Christians are the ones that have suffered a great deal. They frequently are among the most loving and compassionate people, the most certain of their destiny, but also the most in tune with what is happening of the world.

Look at Operation Blessing's (Pat Robertson's organization) outreach to the hurricane victims of Katrina. Look at how Christians and many caring people of other religions respond swiftly and compassionately to those in need. These are people that do believe in an afterlife. This belief does not involve declaring the material to be irrelevant, but rather gives a new purpose to our behavior in this world.

We don't downgrade the evils of life, but rather refuse to admit that that's all there is. While we experience fully the horrible things, we (we including people from just about all major religions) see beyond them.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

To me, life is meaningless in an objective sense. However, it is all about the construction and experience of subjective meaning which is intimately tied to making sense of the physical world we live in. Religious belief is a cop-out and distraction from what really matters.

The world's great moral teachers have been religious. They have inspired people to billions of gracious and gentle acts that would not have been committed without them. How is this a distraction from what really matters?

[The Gaffer]

Thanks for replying, Lief.

I agree that many of the greatest moralists have been religious, and that Jesus was probably the greatest of them all. I also agree that religion can be a great force for good in the world.

I was trying to show you how lack of belief does not necessarily imply that existence is pointless: if anything, it's the other way around because it's up to us as individuals to do what's right.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

I agree that many of the greatest moralists have been religious, and that Jesus was probably the greatest of them all. I also agree that religion can be a great force for good in the world.

i prefer gautama siddharta...

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

jesus was a bit too radical