I trust you can forgive the classification. It was only meant to see your tipping of the hat to the common man for what it was.
And that is why I read your last significant post to bb not without some grief. It doesn't take much too realize that your response to bb is insufficient for a people. And yet here you are to play with questions saying certainty matters and then it doesn't bother you. Moreover, your "too deus ex machina for me" is not the view of the common man. Rather it is a sophisticated divertissement and conjuration of the ghosts of Freud and Feuerbach.
Behind the courtesy to the common man we all recognize the common man's assent to revelation. And apart from the infatuation of the common man (this, too, has a long-standing tradition) their naive perception is one in a milieu created by larger figures. And this is exampled by you, as one who is able to carry on this conversation with their very thoughts.
Him too. ;)
Behind the courtesy to the common man we all recognize the common man's assent to revelation. And apart from the infatuation of the common man (this, too, has a long-standing tradition) their naive perception is one in a milieu created by larger figures.
We do. And I do recognize it as being true that this is the general trend of human belief. However, that fact, in and of itself, carries no weight for me - I can no more subject my beliefs to a popular vote than you can. One may certainly derive some comfort from knowing that the conclusions one has reached have also been reached by many others. I cannot fault anyone for feeling that way, and I would hardly deny the importance of that belief to those who hold it. And I readily admit to occasional discomfort at the thought that I appear to be traveling in a different direction from most.
But then I look again at the proffered alternatives, and I realize that none of them is particularly satisfying to me. Choosing another path allows me, for example, to neatly sidestep the sorts of paradoxes that are usually chalked up to "God's mysterious will". It comes with a price of its own, of course, but then again, we all have our crosses to bear ;)
And this is exampled by you, as one who is able to carry on this conversation with their very thoughts.
The fact that I can do as I do is necessarily predicated on others doing as they have done. In a sense, I am a product of everyone that has come before me, and so I owe a certain debt to them - if nothing else, a modicum of respect, at least. I may have no use for religion, but that does not mean that I am prepared to reduce God to a mere object of faith, a simple extension of man, as Feuerbach did. Some days, I think to myself that the fact that we live in a universe that is apparently accessible to reason, and the fact that we are (occasionally) capable of reason, are together more than mere coincidence. But then, other days, I realize that the fishes probably don't see things that way, so maybe it's an accident after all.
Reason does a wonderful job of telling us how things are, but it cannot tell us, so far as I can see, why things are the way they are. Only faith can provide some sort of answer to those questions, so I find faith where I can. The resulting mish-mash is probably silly to some, alarming to others, and incoherent to still others. They may all be correct, in some sense. Then again, I don't feel compelled to evangelize - it works for me, and that's enough ;)