[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[Morton K. Brussel]

Some questions have no rational answers. Gödel treated this type of  
conundrum [http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html] as it appeared in  
mathematics .

Scientists, as you well know, study and theorize about the physical  
universe, its evolution, its components, the physical laws which  
govern all that, but they don't ask why anything at all exists,  
because there is no compelling answer to that question.

As to insubstantial gods, one could pose similar questions.

--mkb

On Nov 11, 2008, at 9:00 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> 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
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