[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[C. G. Estabrook]

I agree that we don't know the answer to the question, Why is there anything 
instead of nothing?

But that answer (which we don't know) is "what people have called God," as 
Thomas Aquinas says.


LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
> You can ask all you want; but that does not mean that there are any answers
> that are The Answer.  Thus, the exercise can turn into intellectual
> masturbation, which may give some pleasure although it may not furnish such
> pleasure to all.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G.
> Estabrook
> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 9:00 PM
> To: Morton K. Brussel
> Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???
> 
> 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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