There are few more futile and frustrating activities than trying to discuss assumptions (i.e. metaphysics) with somebody who believes that all answers come from logic (i.e. "philosophy", or indeed theology, science, law, or any other rational discourse)!
And such persons are legion - while those willing and (and capable?) of discussing assumptions seem to be rare.
Which is unfortunate in a world where the main problems are at the level of assumptions.
Logic therefore serves as an ultimate "defence mechanism" by which everybody (at least to his own satisfaction) refutes all conceivable challenges to... whatever he currently believes-in and lives-by.
His assumptions form circular complexes, and each supports the others such that there seems no way out, and there is no way in.
Hence all ideologies (and religions) may be robust to all possible (and actual) human experience and all conceivable world events* - not because they are true, but because they are true by assumption.
I have been banging my head against this for at least a decade; but there is tremendous resistance to acknowledging what seems obvious (once pointed-out) - perhaps because people feel that to acknowledge it would be to adopt a nihilistic relativism.
But this is not so.
*For instance: The voluntary and celebratory self-closure and cessation of Christian Churches in 2020 has not even dented the assumptions of traditional mainstream Christians - whose answer to everything is "do the same as before, only do it harder". Any attempt to challenge the assumptions of that type of Christianity have been pre-empted by immunizing dogmas which are assumed to be definitive of "being a Christian".
"Hence all ideologies (and religions) may be robust to all possible (and actual) human experience and all conceivable world events - not because they are true, but because they are true by assumption.
ReplyDeleteI have been banging my head against this for at least a decade; but there is tremendous resistance to acknowledging what seems obvious (once pointed-out) - perhaps because people feel that to acknowledge it would be to adopt a nihilistic relativism. "
it's rather the belief systems who are impermeable to experience, changing circumstances, etc, which are nihilistic in my opinion (though i suppose not relativistic), because in the end the only thing that really exists is that standalone, impermeable assumption.
though i have tried to make this point to some, using real world examples everyone presumably has experienced, it met with no success. everything looks like a nail to a hammer sort of thing.
Doesn’t your prior post shed light on this? We all see as through a glass darkly strikes me as a way of summarizing how literally what we see are models, and that everyone used to understand this (“the veil” and whatnot). But now virtually everyone (David Icke covers the strangeness of this nicely though obviously remains trapped by his deeper assumptions) has accepted a method of receiving models as Matrix-style downloads rather than as creative joint efforts between each individual and God. And so the best you’ll generally see is someone who applies logic to notice incoherencies of some of the downloads and who rejects a few of those, but not someone who questions the downloading process itself. Among Christians, this is easily seen in selecting a denomination or “looking up the original ‘Hebrew’ word” in whatever Bible verse.
ReplyDeleteLaeth mentioned witchcraft- I am astounded at my own inability to remember my childhood, despite a photographic memory and an intention to remember it and great awareness of the harm caused to children today by adults not remembering…the feeling is not like forgetting, it’s not quite like the head injury sensation of it just being entirely gone, but it’s mostly lost in a thick, thick mist.
Obviously I was not explicitly on-guard against this stuff growing up, but the degree of it makes it very obvious to me that it happened both through some rather direct supernatural spell-like means AND with the consent of the victims.
@Laeth - I remember when I was an atheist reading critiques of atheism - and agreeing with them. But it can only ever be a case of "if not, then what?" and the alternative offered had so many problems and incoherences, that for years I stuck with my atheism.
ReplyDeleteWhen I became a Christian, it was on the same basis that I changed between scientific theories - not on the basis that Christianity was infallible, but that it was overall the most correct, and in some way I needed to establish through "further research".
@Mia - Interesting, and I know others who do not remember what it was like to be a child, in the way that I (apparently) do. I tend to assume that there are reasons for what we remember and forget, and some of them are "good" reasons - or at least inevitable ones. For instance, my hazy memories of most dreams are something that stop me misinterpreting them, in the way that so many who remember dream details seem to do - and I focus instead of very general responses that are probably what I most need. For example, I behave badly in a dream (e.g. trying to create a falsely good impression) in some way that I need to recognize as bad (not make excuses for).