From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 16:42:30 BST
Ham,
This is part 1 of 2....
On 7 Apr 2005 at 3:13, hampday@earthlink.net wrote:
One thing that should be clear by now (and that probably accounts for
softening your antagonism) is that I'm not an advocate of religion;
I'm an advocate of the core belief which drives people to religion.
msh:
I'd say you are an advocate of a fear (belief is too kind) that
drives SOME people to religion. Insofar as your belief system
(Essentialism) helps ameliorate that fear, in fact by your own words
was designed and created to do so, it's difficult to see why it
should be regarded as something more than religion. So I guess I
disagree with your statement, above.
ham:
The tendency of agnostics like yourself is to counter with "That's
not philosophy -- it's faith in a belief system".
msh says:
To be clear, I'm not even agnostic. So far, no one has been able to
explain to me what they mean by "god" or "afterlife" or "continued
awareness sans physical body." This always makes me suspicious
because I can understand some pretty complicated things. Anyway, I
don't even know what it is I'm supposed to believe in, or not believe
in, so I guess I'm some kind of hyper-agnostic.
ham:
To which I say, our knowledge of physical reality is faith in a
belief system. Why, therefore, is philosophy (which may or may not
claim to be empirically based) any less a belief system?
msh says:
This is an old can that's been kicked around the block, here, a dozen
times. There's a huge difference between pragmatic acceptance of
scientific or metaphysical principles, and faith-based, fear-driven
acceptance of religious beliefs. To deliberately conflate the two as
"faith-based" is simply dishonest and non-productive.
msh before:
But why do you feel it's necessary to inject "spirituality" into
philosophy, that's the question. Whose void other than your own are
you seeking to fill?
anonymous via Ham:
"If you believe that your existence may end at physical death, you
are accepting the idea that 'nothing' may follow death, and you are
by definition accepting the possibility that 'nihilism' is correct.
Once we realize that the acceptance of nihilism is a necessary
consequence of our humanistic beliefs, or non-beliefs, we will be
able to decide for ourselves if what we currently believe to be true,
is what we really want to believe is true. Until we understand the
nature of 'nothing', we may well have difficulty appreciating
'anything'."
msh says:
This is actually refreshingly clear. One's suspicion of nothingness
after death is a powerful motivation for appreciating the something
we have. While we have it. Now blend in Arlo's idea that wanting
something to be true is not sufficient for making it so, and you're
driving toward the light..
ham continued:
It occurred to me that the desire for "continuity" is not only
universal in humans, but on a par with the desire to survive in life.
msh says:
It is evident that this desire is certainly not universal in humans,
so the rest of your paragraph is without foundation. But some
comments...
ham continues:
This is true whether one believes in a deity or not. As egotistical
as it sounds, assurance of continuity may well be man's highest
value.
msh says:
Although it's evident that some people crave assurance of continuity,
it's hard to see the value in such an obsession. In fact, it seems
to me that such an obsession diminishes the possibility of living a
valuable, full, and useful life.
ham:
Survival in life (for a normal life-span at least) is assured by our
biological metabolism; there is no such assurance for pyschic
continuity beyond the death of our biological organism.
msh says:
Right. No assurance, and no evidence or reason to believe it. In
fact, there is abundant evidence to support the opposite case.
ham:
Such assurance can only come from a belief system based on reason and
faith.
msh:
There are plenty of such faith-based systems, that's true enough.
There are none none based on reason that I know of. You CLAIM
Essentialism is such a system but, so far, your claim is
unsubstantiated.
ham:
For lack of a better word, I've called this core belief
"spirituality". And I repeat my assertion that a philosophy which
does not address this core issue is pointless because it offers no
meaning for man's existence.
msh says:
But your assertion is invalid, as I'll argue in part 2.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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