Posted on 11/04/2002 7:52:21 AM PST by thinktwice
Descartes was a geometrician. He found only in mathematics and geometry the certainty that he required. Therefore, he used the methods of geometry to think about the world. Now, in geometry, one begins with a search for axioms, simple undeniable truths – for example, the axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. On the foundations of such “self-evident” propositions, whole geometrical systems can be built.
Following his geometrical model, Descartes proceeds to doubt everything – de onmibus dubitandum. He will suspend belief in the knowledge he learned from childhood, all those things “which I allowed myself in youth to be persuaded without having inquired into their truth.” Doubt will be his method, a deliberate strategy for proceeding toward certainty. (Descartes is a doubter not by nature, but by necessity. What he really wants is secure understanding so he can stop doubting.)
Descartes finds that he has no trouble doubting the existence of real objects/events – our senses too easily deceive us. And we can doubt the existence of a supernatural realm of reality – figments and fantasies are too often conjured by our native imaginations. But now his geometrical model pays off: in trying to doubt everything, he discovers something that he can’t doubt. What he can’t doubt is that he is doubting. Obviously, I exist if I doubt that I exist. My doubt that I exist proves that I exist, for I have to exist to be able to doubt. Therefore I can’t doubt that I exist. Hence, there is at least one fact in the universe that is beyond doubt. “I am, I exist is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.
Descartes thus becomes the author of the most famous phrase in Western philosophy: Cognito ergo sum, or, in his original French, Je pense, donc je suis. – I think, therefore I exist. With roots in St. Augustine, this is certainly one of the catchiest ideas yet created by the human mind.
It is not God's justice that is in question, it is the belief that one can really get away with doing wrong and that religion is the trick that does it. The Bible does not teach this, but most versions of Christianity do.
If Bible conversion is correctly understood, it is anything but "free." It cost the incarnate God His life and it costs the convert everything. Anything but total surrender is not regeneration. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2Co 5:17)
Most Christians believe salvation is something added on to their lives. Most even talk about, "two natures," the old unsaved nature and the new regenerated nature. If the old nature is not irradicated and replaced with a new nature, it is not conversion, but a superstitious belief in the magic fee ticket to heaven.
One might sin all their life and then enter into a relationship with Him on His grounds, but that doesn't mean one's rewards will be as great as those who remained obedient and bore fruit throughout their lives.
On what grounds does one who, "might sin all their life," receive any, "reward," at all? What are they being rewarded for?
Hank
That's heroic, I suppose, facing off reality with a hope.
Not hope. There are heroes in the world. There are some who love the truth above all things and know it. They are rare, but, that, too, is the way of all true values, all the more valuable for their rarity.
Hank
I had to look "historicism" up and discovered this ...
historicism -- a theory of history that holds that the course of events is determined by unchangeable laws or cyclic patterns.
So I'd like to know what you're talking about because, frankly, it seems to me like historicism most aptly applies to a fatalistic theological approach to history.
When, where, why, and from whom did the concept "demon" originate?
I don't recall any "demon" amongst the Greek gods; there is no concept of demon visible within that cradle of civilization where -- according to Homer -- all souls went to Hades.
Nothing glows better than brilliant thought -- thank you.
My "sadness" is strictly rhetorical. I consider the majority of mankind players in a huge comedy play, both absurd and poignant, provided for my enjoyment, with many laughs and many lessons. It might have been written and directed by Twain.
(What else can one think of a race of beings who are wrong in almost everything they believe and spend most of their time killing and harming each other for the sake of those beliefs.)
You cannot take both life and mankind seriously unless you are also insane.
Hank
Reality changes over time -- there is no "rock-bottom" sameness to reality other than its definition -- Reality is that which exists.
But satisfying the rationalist, this start with self is true, for one person, "I AM" and Descartes makes his start with a presupposition that reflects being created in the image of I AM.
The personally, relationally perceived truth of this brings bring both responsibility and relief to us, meeting not only our rational minds but our hearts (sensibilities, feelings) and forming a wholly suitable position for our whole selves. Truth to us becomes fully truth. We find that thorough objectivity begins with subjectiveness to the ultimate subject and object, "I AM THAT I AM."
Suggest:
For Epistemelogical Distinctions:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/834579/posts
For Political Distinctions:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836099/posts
What does, "Meaning is the problem, not being," mean? We know what existence is? We know what reality is? What else do you want to know?
"Meaning" pertains to only one class of existents, concepts. We sometimes use the word more broadly, in a rhetorical way, to refer to the, "significance," or "interpretation," of things and events, but no "things" have "meaning," not even that "everything" we call existence.
Hank
Am I right in assuming that your approach to reality focuses on a higher power that -- if such exists -- has by definition power over every atomic particle in what appears to be an infinite universe -- while concurrently exercising infinite power over all that might exist beyond our "infinite" universe?
That's a big stretch, to think we have any meaning to such a power.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that such a power -- if it exists and is interested in me -- would measure me much as a parent would -- according to how well I used the gift of life as a thinking and productive being.
That's news to me ... Details, please.
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