The Pilgrim's Infinite Regress
Here is the argument, whose latest champion is Sam Harris. Everything is atomic, said Demokritos. There is no spark of the divine. Each thing I have written, it comes from the inevitable working of brain, upon which the universe worked. The universe led inevitably to this argument, whose latest champion is Sam Harris. I had no choice but to believe him.
And so it is meaningless whether I believed him or not. And because it was meaningless, I was under the illusion that I chose not to believe him just to spite him. But that too was meaningless, a striving after the wind. And then I realised or was made to realise that I was sounding like Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, King in Jerusalem.
He too was wise, wise as Sam Harris, or at least under the determined illusion that he was so. And what he said was that there is nothing new under the sun, and the wiser he got, the more he realised that free will was an illusion and hey, the chief end of man is to fear God and obey His commandments, for you have no free will, is that right?
And all the people, they said Amen. Sam Harris, Sam Harris, God loves you and He sits on His glorious throne above all universes and He laughs, and each spark of divine laughter affirms there is but one Will, and that Will creates by its ineffable Majesty the capacity for the tiny wills it creates to be free. And so I am free, or at least...
I am under the meaningless illusion that I am free, and what a nice illusion it is, to me.
And so it is meaningless whether I believed him or not. And because it was meaningless, I was under the illusion that I chose not to believe him just to spite him. But that too was meaningless, a striving after the wind. And then I realised or was made to realise that I was sounding like Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, King in Jerusalem.
He too was wise, wise as Sam Harris, or at least under the determined illusion that he was so. And what he said was that there is nothing new under the sun, and the wiser he got, the more he realised that free will was an illusion and hey, the chief end of man is to fear God and obey His commandments, for you have no free will, is that right?
And all the people, they said Amen. Sam Harris, Sam Harris, God loves you and He sits on His glorious throne above all universes and He laughs, and each spark of divine laughter affirms there is but one Will, and that Will creates by its ineffable Majesty the capacity for the tiny wills it creates to be free. And so I am free, or at least...
I am under the meaningless illusion that I am free, and what a nice illusion it is, to me.
Labels: Eternity, Freedom, Infinity, Philosophy
etched with acid at 7:28:00 am
3 Comments:
it would seem from empirical evidence that despite all overt professions of atheism, the minds of many atheists are as equally enamoured of the seeking of meaning and the meticulous obedience to conscience as theists, if not even more so. thus atheists don't really mean that they are atheists, at least not the way we theists might be prone to view atheism. meaning and conscience are after all major hallmarks that the theist would regard as essential aspects of theism. thus this seems like the fundamental mystery of what the atheist really means by the word "atheism". it could be conjectured that one big difference is that meaning and conscience are in the minds of theists linked to the personality of a deity, whereas this is not so in the minds of atheists. of course, when said this way, it doesn't sound like the deity believed in by the theist is ontologically prior to the consciousness of the theist. but this is what the theist genuinely knows. but it seems to be a defect of human consciousness/language that the theist is unable through any means beyond that described in John 6:44 to explicitly describe to an external observer the difference between these 2 states.
tfoo: "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" The main thing is, I think, that the atheist would rather abandon attempts at self-will and go for no-will than believe in a God from whom the allowance for such will might proceed. And it's the same with meaning, conscience, and other things that people might profess not to believe in while living as if they exist.
Trebuchet,
if the atheist is guilty of professing not to believe in God while living as if He exists, then, i, a theist, am guilty of professing to believe in God while living as if He does not exist! Lol!! it's funny now when i think about it.
Post a Comment
<< Home