Friday, April 11, 2008
Ultimate Questions
(3)
Time for some links:
The Atheist Delusion. A funny parody.
Sexology 101. I love this woman!
I see that some of you want me to revisit last week. Fine with me. Here is the situation: Ancient 'religion' having been proved to be nonsense, we are left with the startling idea that when we die we will die forever. Bummer. Yet this relevation is also liberating in the sense that it frees us from the priests and preachers who want to enslave us: we are alive and we are free! Astonishing! But unfortunately we will all die eventually. Everything dies. It is the law of Nature. There is no more fundamental law. Meanwhile we must necessarily go about our daily lives until we die. How to proceed?
We obviously need to honor our cultural commitments. We need to observe our economic duties, for example. Our world would collapse if we abandoned these most basic duties, and we would all die suddenly and prematurely. It is our duty to proceed as if the priests and politicians were correct. This is what I call 'our public duty.'
But our new found knowlege (about personal death) suggests that we also have a private duty to 'comprehend our world.' The priests are phoney, and the politicians are phoney too, but are at least correct economically (whereas the priests are correct about nothing).
We therefore abandon religion and focus on science. Science produces technology. Technology produces wealth. We grow economically. But as death approaches, the existential questions become more important. There comes a time when we are ready to abandon 'economic activity' in favor of 'spiritual activity:' we have enough to eat, but 'we want to know the truth before we die forever.'
Time for some links:
The Atheist Delusion. A funny parody.
Sexology 101. I love this woman!
I see that some of you want me to revisit last week. Fine with me. Here is the situation: Ancient 'religion' having been proved to be nonsense, we are left with the startling idea that when we die we will die forever. Bummer. Yet this relevation is also liberating in the sense that it frees us from the priests and preachers who want to enslave us: we are alive and we are free! Astonishing! But unfortunately we will all die eventually. Everything dies. It is the law of Nature. There is no more fundamental law. Meanwhile we must necessarily go about our daily lives until we die. How to proceed?
We obviously need to honor our cultural commitments. We need to observe our economic duties, for example. Our world would collapse if we abandoned these most basic duties, and we would all die suddenly and prematurely. It is our duty to proceed as if the priests and politicians were correct. This is what I call 'our public duty.'
But our new found knowlege (about personal death) suggests that we also have a private duty to 'comprehend our world.' The priests are phoney, and the politicians are phoney too, but are at least correct economically (whereas the priests are correct about nothing).
We therefore abandon religion and focus on science. Science produces technology. Technology produces wealth. We grow economically. But as death approaches, the existential questions become more important. There comes a time when we are ready to abandon 'economic activity' in favor of 'spiritual activity:' we have enough to eat, but 'we want to know the truth before we die forever.'
