Of dogs, gods, war, peace, and the soul. I have an intriguing and intermittent debate with someone on a different continent, of a different culture, different experiences, one who differs vastly with my belief on the meaning of life, and this has given me two thoughts. a) His dog died. Today, in looking at some of his writings I read the account of his dog's death. He wrote "I miss the one being to whom I was always completely honest." My dog also died a few years ago. She is now buried in the garden under my window, and so I find I have a shared experience. I now have a new dog, and a new relationship (but that is not a replacement for the old one). b) "Thinkers are terrified of this world". I read an article this afternoon that said this, and it talked of how we intellectualize in order to feel in control, because then we hold a safe and tamed perception of reality. We need a tame reality because what's out there is really very scary. On one hand there's genocide, war, poverty, famine. On the other there is corruption, hedonism, selfish individualism, and climbing the backs of others in pursuit of fantasy. The conjunction of these two - the life of a dog and a world in self destruction - is enough to give pause. I love living in my mind, but surely not at the expense of living in the world. I revel in wrestling with intellectual mysteries, but surely not to the point of losing my soul. My soul? Am I not mere biology? Simply the atoms, quarks, and the Higgs Boson? If so, then no problem ... life is simply what I deem it to be. Good and bad are for my making. Death is simply oblivion. My dog gave me a chemical response. The poverty a mere kilometer from my suburban house is ultimately no more important than what I'll have for breakfast. The debate on gay marriage has no real relevance. Abortion is a non-issue. The destitute prostitutes further up the road, shivering in winter night, can do whatever they want, why should I care? Sudan, Syria, Burundi and the rest ... all a big "so what". Wall street bankers, let them be corrupt and exploitive. How can anything be important unless I choose it to be ... its all only atoms. And if I choose a meaning contradictory to someone else's, how can anyone condemn me for that? You might not like it, but you cannot say I am wrong ... there is no ultimate wrong. Sure, you and I may feel some emotion, but that's only chemicals. Any values I might think I hold are no more than societal conditioning. And if I think enough about the right things, I can shield myself from feeling bad and simply enjoy my next personal project. All this will change only if I am more than matter - if there is meaning in life, ultimate meaning. And ultimate meaning necessarily has to go beyond the material existence. For anything material is in the universe, and anything in the universe is sub-universal, and anything sub-universal can only provide relative meaning. So, if there is even the slenderest of chances that I am more than my atoms, that's a reality I dare not hide from. And there I come full circle ... was the relationship with my dog no more that a chemical experience of the mind? Maybe. To me it was a reflection of the fact that I am inherently relational, and that relationships express value, and the value is a conscious recognition that there is a good and a bad that is not simply relative. And if there is something absolute, hadn't I better find out what that is? All I can do is interpret the evidence of experience. We all have the same pot to draw from, and we all have the same task to interpret what it means. Each and every individual has the opportunity to walk this intellectual road - some sadly do not take this journey. The amazing step is when the intellectual road has a conjunction with physical reality -- then we've stepped into a minefield with uncertain outcome. Anthony Flew died in April 2010 ... he died a deist. Until only a few years before his death he was arguably one of the leading atheist intellectuals of this age. But he also had the intellectual strength to look at the atoms, and he concluded there was more ... that there was a God. If there's a God, I have three questions:
And that takes me beyond this post and into a whole new area of trying to understand free will, good and bad, the necessity for absolute love to be accompanied by absolute justice, and how to find this God seen in the inherently contradictory and incompatible plethora of institutionalized religions?
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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