Some of the recent discussions on this blog have rekindled my love of philosophy. So, I was delighted to find two separate and distinct philosophical discussions on The Daily Dish.
Could An Omnipotent Being Prove It requires a couple of clicks (Click "ponders the question" from the Sanchez site to get the original question and answer) and, more importantly, reading (as far as you dare) the comments.
The Geist of Credit Default Swaps is more practical (and meaningful), if not more fun.
3 comments:
I've been meaning to leave a comment on this entry for some time now, but never seemed to be able to get to it.
First, I'm glad that you are reading the Daily Dish -- always worth checking out.
Next, re: "Could An Omnipotent Being Prove It?" It's a fun read, but really points out the futility of trying to imagine a god like us in all ways except one: an omnipotent human. I always like George Carlin's line: if God is really all-powerful, could he make a rock so heavy that even he couldn't lift it.
I don't like to think of God as a being at all. I'm going over old material here, but I like the Eiseley story abouth the moth flitting about the stage lights of an outdoor opera. The performance is in plain view but it's still invisible to the moth. God has something to do with the performance that we don't see. We get glimses of it: Sam Harris' peak experiences, or as Rudolf Otto says in The Idea of the Holy:
"The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its "profane," non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy. It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has its crude barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of -- whom or what? In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures."
This is simply not a matter of intellectual conjecture.
"It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy. It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering."
So you mean this-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ0373FD5f4
Classic video. It reminds me when I'd be walking down the street with Bob and he would suddenly flail his arms and legs like the guy in the video. Then he'd stop and say, "Every once in a while you have to do something against the threat that all your actions are determined."
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