[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[C. G. Estabrook]

The universe just is, and we can't ask about it?


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> I submit that gods have no substance to answer this question. They are 
> totally insubstantial.
> My guess is there has never been "nothing". There's no need to question 
> existence; it's axiomatic. --mkb
> 
> 
> On Nov 11, 2008, at 8:27 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> Why is there anything instead of nothing, Mort?
>>
>>
>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>> All this preaching on this list!  Perhaps I can insert the opinion 
>>> that "God"
>>> (or gods) are totally empty concepts, explaining nothing, but giving 
>>> rise to
>>> endless ratiocination.  --mkb
>>> On Nov 10, 2008, at 10:35 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> God is not a necessary component of morality for the simple reason 
>>>> that God
>>>> -- the answer (which we do not know) to the question, "Why is there
>>>> anything instead of nothing?" -- is not a component of anything.
>>>> God is not a thing in the universe -- we can't point to something in 
>>>> the universe as the reason for the existence of the universe -- and 
>>>> God and the
>>>>  universe don't add up to two. (Two of what would that be?  Two things?
>>>> But God is not thing in the universe, etc.)
>>>> Morality is a component of human nature (for the existence of which 
>>>> God of
>>>> course is the reason, as for everything), as grammar is a component 
>>>> of language. Just as an intelligent visitor from Mars would think 
>>>> that all
>>>> humans were speaking one language with regional variations, so human 
>>>> ethics
>>>>  might be regarded as the rules (or grammar) for humans' being 
>>>> together --
>>>> with some interesting regional variations... (That's what makes 
>>>> horse racing, or at least philosophical argument -- and literature.)
>>>> Well over a thousand years of Christian philosophical reflection 
>>>> took it as
>>>> a commonplace that the Decalogue is not a set of rules imposed from 
>>>> outside, as it were, that might have been different, but rather 
>>>> rational
>>>> conclusions from reflection on what it is to be human.  (They did 
>>>> think it
>>>> was a little hard to derive the 3rd/4th Commandment -- there are 
>>>> different
>>>> numbering systems -- this way.)
>>>> Christian theologians thought that, although ethics could be 
>>>> descried rationally, that took effort (and time) -- hence all that 
>>>> literature -- and
>>>> so God generously provided in the Ten Commandments as it were an 
>>>> operating
>>>> manual ("documentation," we would say) for being human.
>>>> More on this from me (quoting others), if you want, at "The 
>>>> Subversive Commandments," 
>>>> <http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook03292005.html>. --CGE
>>>> John W. wrote:
>>>>> ... I'd be more interested in hearing one or both of you Bible 
>>>>> scholars
>>>>> explain to Jenifer why God is a necessary component of morality.  Or
>>>>> conversely, how one can be moral without a belief in God. John Wason
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss