12-09-2017, 02:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-09-2017, 02:54 AM by Turly Gang.)
Logic is overrated. You need to use it in order to figure stuff out, but since it's a process of synthesis using two previously-conceived ideas, you need to figure stuff out before you can use it.
In all seriousness though, I believe that there has to be some sort of omniscient being in order for philosophy to have any real merit in the first place. For the reason stated (though in a somewhat joking manner) in the above paragraph, every single school of thought on morality and the purpose of life or whatnot would need to start from one of two places:
1: Divine (or demonic) inspiration, whether or not the person is aware of it.
2: An impulsive and largely chaos-theory-based reaction to an idea or scenario.
So you either need to have a self-perpetuating faith in a thing that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence, or you need to have an intellectually-overriding emotional connection to something that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence. Neither sounds entirely logical, but I suppose that's because nothing that we do is ever really ENTIRELY logical. Treating one's viewpoint as "self-evident" is the most common quick fix, but it's a Band-Aid fix for a wound that most people don't bother sterilizing.
In spite of the fact that I've been called a religious zealot more than once in my life, I basically look at the world in two different ways; through the eyes of faith, and through the eyes of what is apparent. Apparently, everything is chaos. That's all that you ever see, and it's all that any rational being would have any reason to believe in if left to his own devices. And yet, I believe that there is something more, if for no reason other than the fact that the church I go to has a service every weekend, and there are always people there. But there are other reasons why I believe, and one of those reasons is that there are people hunkered down somewhere in their homes, talking about how much better the world would be without religion. As though they're just so sure that it really matters at all whether their side wins and their opponents lose. As though the vision of the world they have, and who they help and hurt, is somehow objectively more important than somebody else's view, and the people who they help and hurt. SOMETHING is either pulling us from the outside or pushing us from the inside. There is a precedent for belief in what can't be seen, and precedents, regardless of how far they've been twisted and turned and misinterpreted, do not exist without reason. At least, that is what is apparent. And..."self-evident," I guess.
Thinking sure is complicated and full of pitfalls. It's no wonder we don't do it more often.
In all seriousness though, I believe that there has to be some sort of omniscient being in order for philosophy to have any real merit in the first place. For the reason stated (though in a somewhat joking manner) in the above paragraph, every single school of thought on morality and the purpose of life or whatnot would need to start from one of two places:
1: Divine (or demonic) inspiration, whether or not the person is aware of it.
2: An impulsive and largely chaos-theory-based reaction to an idea or scenario.
So you either need to have a self-perpetuating faith in a thing that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence, or you need to have an intellectually-overriding emotional connection to something that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence. Neither sounds entirely logical, but I suppose that's because nothing that we do is ever really ENTIRELY logical. Treating one's viewpoint as "self-evident" is the most common quick fix, but it's a Band-Aid fix for a wound that most people don't bother sterilizing.
In spite of the fact that I've been called a religious zealot more than once in my life, I basically look at the world in two different ways; through the eyes of faith, and through the eyes of what is apparent. Apparently, everything is chaos. That's all that you ever see, and it's all that any rational being would have any reason to believe in if left to his own devices. And yet, I believe that there is something more, if for no reason other than the fact that the church I go to has a service every weekend, and there are always people there. But there are other reasons why I believe, and one of those reasons is that there are people hunkered down somewhere in their homes, talking about how much better the world would be without religion. As though they're just so sure that it really matters at all whether their side wins and their opponents lose. As though the vision of the world they have, and who they help and hurt, is somehow objectively more important than somebody else's view, and the people who they help and hurt. SOMETHING is either pulling us from the outside or pushing us from the inside. There is a precedent for belief in what can't be seen, and precedents, regardless of how far they've been twisted and turned and misinterpreted, do not exist without reason. At least, that is what is apparent. And..."self-evident," I guess.
Thinking sure is complicated and full of pitfalls. It's no wonder we don't do it more often.