Hello everyone, sorry I haven't been on for almost a month. I've been really busy, but I want to share this with all of you. I've been feeling increasingly hopeless about life in general over the past weeks. That's not to say I was unhappy or life felt like it had no point, just that I started...
I'd agree, but I don't think logic can necessarily tell us the entire truth, even if its all we have. I don't underestimate the philosophical problems of the limitations of our perception.
I would ask when considering this question of 'meaning', if it is indeed a given that everything needs a 'meaning' or 'purpose' as it were. I don't believe it is, seeing as we goof off with buddies, drink alcohol, watch movies, etc- and there's not really of a complex purpose to it.
Except that in the scientific sense a law doesn't mean this- as though we were speaking of a written law, conceived by somebody. Its basically a premise unable to be contradicted through experimentation.
I don't know if there is such a thing, as we would call I thing. I'm very playful with the idea of the Tao, as I think Lao-tzu was. I don't know if there is a Tao, but the conception we call the Tao.
I don't know if there is a fundamental or lasting essence, being of an eastern worldview that puts some emphasis on voidness. I think the western mind likes to think in terms of fundamentals, essence, images, ground, and the like. As I see it, life is a constant changing flux, and essentialism...
Further yet- how could a god give life its meaning when people have not believed in this god in every place and time? Can the meaning for life as some theists believe it be many? If that is so, atheism is just as meaningful as theism by their admission.
You take the laws of existence to come from a being you call G-d then? Even though laws doesn't mean that in a scientific sense? Also, I'm sure plenty of people would debate if the Tanakh is logical. Just bear in mind that science would have no use if human logic were enough by itself.
If I thought it were, I'd still want to safeguard the Tao from the myriad baggage that comes with the usage 'God'. I don't deny you could be right, but are we speaking of a god as typically understood? An entity, a being?
If God were just another name for it, wouldn't that make it subject to all the questions concerning 'God'? I mean, I know pantheists don't really believe 'God' is a being or entity, but many people do.
I don't assume there is such a thing, as though it were a thing I were talking about. I know people find the ambiguity of the Tao hard to appreciate. All I can tell you about my personal 'belief' in it, is that I hold it is the unknown, subtle unity of all life, and that when I practice...
It doesn't have to be called that either, but knowing what we know about Lao-tzu, he may have coined it with no important meaning, almost playfully. He is said to have been the 'ancient child', referring to his maturity and childish playfulness in one individual.
Its a question of a lot of those things actually. Even if the ship were partly renovated with different materials, a philosopher might ask is it the same ship?
I was reminded of this paradox just today by a good philosopher friend, so I figured we should have a thread about it.
This paradox's origins are in the story of the Ship of Theseus. Plutarch said the Greeks maintained a ship they held belonged to Theseus, and philosophers started asking the...
I don't doubt your word here, but is that the tolerance and love of lay Catholics, moreso than the teachings of the Church? I thought the teachings of the Church is that gay people are to aspire to celibacy? I would think that was much like telling a straight person that wants to love and find...