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> Why not? Because "we're all equal in the eyes of the Creator" requires a Creator. Take that away and you end up with Hobbes: "nasty, brutish, and short". Any

by aaronem 11y ago

> Why not? Because "we're all equal in the eyes of the Creator" requires a Creator. Take that away and you end up with Hobbes: "nasty, brutish, and short". Anything beyond that requires a sustained miracle of human ingenuity, along with an extremely congenial environment which grows ever more obviously improbable as our knowledge of the universe advances, and which is almost as fragile and delicate as we are and could easily, by random coincidence of forces set in motion long before our first forebears came into existence, be upset entirely and spill everything we were, are, and could ever hope to be, by the wayside, without even noticing. Mostly we choose to concentrate on the miracle, which is how it should be, not least because our believing in it is the only reason it exists. But there's value in someone seeing it clearly for what it is, if only because there's no other way for us to really understand how improbably amazing we are.

lawpoop 11y ago
I wasn't thinking so much as the 'creator' aspect of it, thanks for pointing that out. But as far as equality, nastiness, brutishness, shortness, and amazingness, they are value judgements that originate from human beings. Insofar as the universe being a nightmarish phantasmagoria in most places and continued human existence a 'good' thing on the order of a miracle, those are perceptions of mind, not objective realities. That is, if the scientific revolution in the West has disabused us of fairy-tale notions of love, mercy, equality from a Creator, simply by doing away with the creator, it does not follow that that leaves only misery, horror, desolation, etc. in their absence. The Eastern philosophers remind us that such dualities of good/bad, love/hate, bliss/horror, are projections of mind onto reality, not states of the universe. If you get rid of one, you have necessarily gotten rid of the other, because they are interdependent, like two sides of a coin. The actual reality is neutral.
- aaronem 11y ago
  Well, yes, of course you're right. Reality doesn't give a damn; reality doesn't even notice, because there's nothing there to do any noticing. You don't need a lot of imagination to see the horror in that. What you need a lot of imagination for, and a particular kind of imagination besides, is not seeing it. Not everyone can do that, which is why people who could do it invented gods, for the use of those who couldn't. And now we've outgrown gods, or think we have, because we've grown up to a point where we can do things which in the past only gods would dare imagine, and where's the place for gods in that? But it could all still go wrong for us, because reality doesn't give a damn, and if our descendants find themselves surrounded on every side by the bones of fallen dreams and a world that doesn't care, then people with the right kind of imagination will give them gods again. Because in times like those, gods are what people need, and there's no reason in the world why people shouldn't have what they need. And where's the place for Eastern philosophers in that? There's such a thing as too much navel-gazing, and the point at which it becomes too much is the one where you fall in and stop being of any use to anyone. Of course, some of them climb back out again and set about helping other people, and those, called bodhisattva, are the only ones worth the trouble. The others there's no point to, because what good does it do to go around telling people that reality doesn't give a damn and there's no meaning to existence and everyone lives and dies in a universe that might well casually wipe out the whole lot of us without even noticing, only it hasn't happened to happen yet? Going around doing that is rather missing the point, because, like Martin Amis, you haven't thought it all the way through.

by aaronem 11y ago

lawpoop 11y ago

I wasn't thinking so much as the 'creator' aspect of it, thanks for pointing that out. But as far as equality, nastiness, brutishness, shortness, and amazingness, they are value judgements that originate from human beings. Insofar as the universe being a nightmarish phantasmagoria in most places and continued human existence a 'good' thing on the order of a miracle, those are perceptions of mind, not objective realities. That is, if the scientific revolution in the West has disabused us of fairy-tale notions of love, mercy, equality from a Creator, simply by doing away with the creator, it does not follow that that leaves only misery, horror, desolation, etc. in their absence. The Eastern philosophers remind us that such dualities of good/bad, love/hate, bliss/horror, are projections of mind onto reality, not states of the universe. If you get rid of one, you have necessarily gotten rid of the other, because they are interdependent, like two sides of a coin. The actual reality is neutral.

aaronem 11y ago
Well, yes, of course you're right. Reality doesn't give a damn; reality doesn't even notice, because there's nothing there to do any noticing. You don't need a lot of imagination to see the horror in that. What you need a lot of imagination for, and a particular kind of imagination besides, is not seeing it. Not everyone can do that, which is why people who could do it invented gods, for the use of those who couldn't. And now we've outgrown gods, or think we have, because we've grown up to a point where we can do things which in the past only gods would dare imagine, and where's the place for gods in that? But it could all still go wrong for us, because reality doesn't give a damn, and if our descendants find themselves surrounded on every side by the bones of fallen dreams and a world that doesn't care, then people with the right kind of imagination will give them gods again. Because in times like those, gods are what people need, and there's no reason in the world why people shouldn't have what they need. And where's the place for Eastern philosophers in that? There's such a thing as too much navel-gazing, and the point at which it becomes too much is the one where you fall in and stop being of any use to anyone. Of course, some of them climb back out again and set about helping other people, and those, called bodhisattva, are the only ones worth the trouble. The others there's no point to, because what good does it do to go around telling people that reality doesn't give a damn and there's no meaning to existence and everyone lives and dies in a universe that might well casually wipe out the whole lot of us without even noticing, only it hasn't happened to happen yet? Going around doing that is rather missing the point, because, like Martin Amis, you haven't thought it all the way through.