Subject: Re: Tantalizing times - arguing for atheism....
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 09:17:04 +0800


Hugh,

> Let's spare our colleagues on the List by chopping the prelude.

Ok, sorry everyone.

> Your own views, in plain language, must include valuable information they
> gave you.  And plain language helps avoid misunderstandings.

Fair enough.


> Like the terror of death IMMEDIATELY.
> As opposed to the expectation that  beauty and sublime experience will
> enrich a probable future.

My query is with different points of view held by people with different
beliefs. There are possibily unbalanced individuals who desire to die.
Therefore the feeling of immediate death is a good thing.
Of course, this is an extreme example, and, normatively, I think you are
probably right.
What does everyone else think?

Hugh, I like your idea of terror being the feeling of death (immediately).


> Interesting - are there sensibilities unaffected by ideology and/
> or people's ideas?

No, I don't think so. Sensibilities are constituted by ideology. But there
is ideology that is not part of sensibility. Rather it is part of someone
else's sensibilities. That was the point I was making. Then it becomes, is
there ideology unaffected by sensibilities? Yes. Example - the Chinese
Government's absolute control and Tienimen Square.
I was touching on those instances when people hold beliefs or opinions that
don't make any sense at all from someone else's point of view. Or they do
make sense if a particular way of thinking is used, it is the way of
thinking that doesn't make sense.

> Perhaps the world/universe/cosmos fashions each human being
> from the multiplicity of what "is", i.e.fields, forces, photons, quarks,
> molecules, genes, proteins, etc., in such a manner that homo-sapiens, of
all
> species, is the only one conscious of a present, hopeful of a future, and
> presumably the only species that can experience an inexpressible feeling
of
> sublimity.

Cool. I agree. We have been lucky enough (in the game of evolution) not only
to be able to think, but also to be able to think about what we are feeling.


I hope that was a less convoluted posting,
Glen.