[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[C. G. Estabrook]

As usual, the poets get there first:

	The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
	No traveler returns -- puzzles the will,
	And makes us rather bear those ills we have
	Than fly to others that we know not of?...

	A serious house on serious earth it is,
	In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
	Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
	And that much never can be obsolete,
	Since someone will forever be surprising
	A hunger in himself to be more serious,
	And gravitating with it to this ground,
	Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
	If only that so many dead lie round.

Does becoming end in being, or in nothingness?


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> …That which we don't know is what People call god, which shows its 
> emptiness.
> 
> --mkb
> 
> On Nov 11, 2008, at 10:05 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> 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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