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This is arrant nonsense. If you adopt a perspective of totalising scepticism then, of course, you will shrink into a solipsistic disbelief of everything. But t

This is arrant nonsense. If you adopt a perspective of totalising scepticism then, of course, you will shrink into a solipsistic disbelief of everything. But the fact there is no Archimedean foundation of knowledge doesn't mean we ought to treat all truth claims equal. There are logical and mathematical truths that are a condition of the world being intelligible to us, and that structure the internal working of nature insofar as we can understand it. We can have justified beliefs about many things, but we cannot have a justified belief in God, which requires dogmatic faith. Also, there are glaring internal contradictions in the major world religions. If God is good and omnipotent, then why is there pain and suffering? How can God be one and three things at the same time, as the doctrine of the Trinity tells us?

mostertoaster 5y ago
“ Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them” - Dickens, Hard Times Be careful if you truly want to find the answers to those questions, it is a dangerous road. Think of Jesus as just a literary character in an epic myth. I could care less if you don’t believe in the things as facts. Most christians I know believe in a factual Jesus without believing in the mythical Jesus. What actually makes this mythical character from classical literature so appealing? Don’t read the book as a bunch of facts, think about what it means. It is less relevant to me that the creation of Adam was a literal creation from dust, and not some step in the evolution of biological life, it is what that mythical character means, what he represents to our psyche that is of first importance.
- Emma_Goldman 5y ago
  I'm not a positivist, and I think much of life should be approached in the vein of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. By which I mean, as meaning-making tied to real activities within socio-historically specific forms of life. But that doesn't mean you ought to abdicate one's critical faculties and wilfully enter into self-serving delusions. I can understand and appreciate nationalism, for example, without accepting its constitutive myths as fact, or losing sight of its role in sustaining collective delusions. In fact, I would say that you cannot fully understand it without that clear-sightedness.

mostertoaster 5y ago

“ Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them” - Dickens, Hard Times Be careful if you truly want to find the answers to those questions, it is a dangerous road. Think of Jesus as just a literary character in an epic myth. I could care less if you don’t believe in the things as facts. Most christians I know believe in a factual Jesus without believing in the mythical Jesus. What actually makes this mythical character from classical literature so appealing? Don’t read the book as a bunch of facts, think about what it means. It is less relevant to me that the creation of Adam was a literal creation from dust, and not some step in the evolution of biological life, it is what that mythical character means, what he represents to our psyche that is of first importance.

Emma_Goldman 5y ago
I'm not a positivist, and I think much of life should be approached in the vein of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. By which I mean, as meaning-making tied to real activities within socio-historically specific forms of life. But that doesn't mean you ought to abdicate one's critical faculties and wilfully enter into self-serving delusions. I can understand and appreciate nationalism, for example, without accepting its constitutive myths as fact, or losing sight of its role in sustaining collective delusions. In fact, I would say that you cannot fully understand it without that clear-sightedness.