What's my question, FK?
The problem with your (and their) view is that you have no answer at all to the problem of unifying the universals with the particulars
If I have a problem with a problem, then there is no problem, FK! :) What answer are you talking about? All I said was that we detect the world through our senses and, depending on what we receive is what we see and believe. If you were born in some slum in Rio DeJaneiro your outlook on life and your values would probably be quite different.
Under your (and their) view you have no hope of ever answering the eternal questions that give meaning to a man's life, to his very existence
Some people accept their ignorance and know their limits; others fill the gaps with fantasy and pretend it's real. As far as Orthodoxy is concerned, man's true meaning is to be Christ-like because that's how God created us, in His image and Likeness. But there may very well be no meaning to man's life, and to all this existence. So what! You don't like it? Make one up!
That's because man wasn't around when all that happened. One can NEVER reach eternal truth by starting with finite man
Well, we can tell what happened before we were here. We have learned to connect the dots from the clues left behind and see what caused what even if we don't understand why. I don't think a single Renaissance man would say that the purpose of Renaissance was to (re)define eternal truths.
Kosta: No Renaissance man will ever say that mankind created the world.
FK: That's right, they will say what you say, that some unknowable "thing" did it
Somehting caused all this to exist, and we call it God. The rest is made up with human fancy. That's why we have so many different "Gods" on earth. But there is only one gravity, and everybody believes in it!
And, that we can never understand anything about that thing, which we will call "God"
We can't because it's above our level of comprehension. Claiming we do is to claim that our mind is on the par with God's; it is denying man's own limitations, and as Clint Eastwood says "Man's gotta know his limitations." :)
Therefore, for answers we must start from what we do know, man
Well, honestly, that's a heck of a lot more objective than starting with a burning bush and saying God hides in it! It's also a lot closer to our capacity for understanding than trying to figure out God.
Kosta: It doesn't really explain the ultimate Cause, but only the secondary ones. No one ever claimed to know how it all began.
FK: . :) We always have.
I would have to qualify that with Reformed and other Bible-believing Christians believe they DO
What's my question, FK?
You asked where else we could begin (implying that man is the only answer). My overall point is that beginning with man is futile if one is searching for real truth.
FK: The problem with your (and their) view is that you have no answer at all to the problem of unifying the universals with the particulars.
What answer are you talking about? All I said was that we detect the world through our senses and, depending on what we receive is what we see and believe.
The answer is in starting with God and His word rather than starting with man and his guesses. Men too easily believe that their own perceptions are the whole of truth. That viewpoint cannot give eternal meaning to anything relating to God or the actual world around us.
Some people accept their ignorance and know their limits; others fill the gaps with fantasy and pretend it's real. As far as Orthodoxy is concerned, man's true meaning is to be Christ-like because that's how God created us, in His image and Likeness. But there may very well be no meaning to man's life, and to all this existence. So what! You don't like it? Make one up! (bold added)
Yes, it has long puzzled me that you seem to be very comfortable with this proposition. Indeed it is well suited to your views. I just know that many important thinkers have spent years of their lives agonizing over these issues, only to wind up in despair because there are no answers when starting with man. But, apparently for some thinkers, they are content in the intellectual wilderness. :)
Well, we can tell what happened before we were here. We have learned to connect the dots from the clues left behind and see what caused what even if we don't understand why.
Would you consider yourself a Darwinist?
FK: And, that we can never understand anything about that thing, which we will call "God".
We can't because it's above our level of comprehension. Claiming we do is to claim that our mind is on the par with God's; it is denying man's own limitations, and as Clint Eastwood says "Man's gotta know his limitations." :)
You must then suppose that it was God's intention that we understand nothing, since He created us this way, and you say God does nothing to allow us to understand. To me, that is a VERY unloving God. It seems that we have extremely different ideas about how our God relates to us.