Humility: Good or Bad?

[Probius]

Sometimes men do not act rationally, but they always have the ability to do so.  While much of the population is very stupid, there are men do science who are remarkably intelligent.  These men have and will continue to solve extremely difficult problems.

Even in your worldview, I would imagine that you wouldn't accept that God would put a puzzle in front of us that we can't solve, especially since he made us with a nature that makes us incredibly inquisitive.  Man naturally wants to know, why put a puzzle in front of him without giving him the means to solve it?

[james03]

So why do I have a right to kill a cow?

[Probius]

So why do I have a right to kill a cow?

Because a cow is an animal, and has no rights.  It is an asset, a piece of meat.

[james03]

But a cow is alive.  Therefore the right to life is not axiomatic.  Proven.

Which means you don't have a right to pursue a goal of life based on this premise.  Which returns us to the ability to be owed.  Which you can't explain.

[Probius]

This has become beyond silly.

Here is another great video:

[JuniorCouncilor]

Sometimes men do not act rationally, but they always have the ability to do so.  While much of the population is very stupid, there are men do science who are remarkably intelligent.  These men have and will continue to solve extremely difficult problems.

Even in your worldview, I would imagine that you wouldn't accept that God would put a puzzle in front of us that we can't solve, especially since he made us with a nature that makes us incredibly inquisitive.  Man naturally wants to know, why put a puzzle in front of him without giving him the means to solve it?

Man is finite.  Some puzzles are just too big for him.  And a sense of mystery is good for him.  A know-it-all loses his capacity for wonder.

To shift into Aristotelian terminology, you might say that most enigmata are potentially soluble, but not actually soluble (kind of like the solution to Zeno's paradox).

[Probius]

Would you place a piece of candy in front of a baby, but not let the baby eat it?  If not, why would God?

[Probius]

We are slaves to the state:

[james03]

This has become beyond silly.

No, it is not silly.  You are going to hell.  That is not silly at all.

You have no premise to base your beliefs.  You know that, because you have to bail every time you face that fact.

[Probius]

The entire world is silly if you really think about it.  We let idiots in government control us with violence, and we accept this as necessary.  We are lied to on a daily basis, and we ignore it.  Everything I have ever been told is a lie.  The average man in this country is a bumbling idiot, and doesn't care either.  He cares more about American Idol than he does about philosophy.  He hates truth and loves lies, this is the American citizen.  This is all beyond silly, and it is amazing that almost no one sees it.  Try speaking the truth to the public, and see how much hatred you bring down upon yourself.  In a world of lies, truth is seen as a lie.

[james03]

The entire world is silly if you really think about it.  We let idiots in government control us with violence, and we accept this as necessary.

The world is perfectly rational.  High points were reached when men knew how to think.  This was based on the Aristotelean premise that Truth, Justice, Beauty, and Love were due to a Prime Mover and First Cause.

Then came the atheists who denied the First Cause and inserted Materialism.  So there is no longer a basis to believe in Truth, or Justice, or Beauty, or Love.  After the rise of atheism, the logical, necessary results followed.  Perfectly rational.  It is irrational to expect anything else to result.

[Probius]

Xenophanes (sixth century BCE) famously said that if cows and horses had hands, "then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cows like cows."  This man lived before Aristotle.

[ResRev]

The entire world is silly if you really think about it.  We let idiots in government control us with violence, and we accept this as necessary.  We are lied to on a daily basis, and we ignore it.  Everything I have ever been told is a lie.  The average man in this country is a bumbling idiot, and doesn't care either.  He cares more about American Idol than he does about philosophy.  He hates truth and loves lies, this is the American citizen.  This is all beyond silly, and it is amazing that almost no one sees it.  Try speaking the truth to the public, and see how much hatred you bring down upon yourself.  In a world of lies, truth is seen as a lie.

Absolutely. I see that every day. Do you think there was a time when this wasn't so? (Not rhetorical, here). Or not so...painfully so? If there were such a time, what has changed?

[james03]

This man lived before Aristotle.

And Aristotle did not draw the forms of God as man.  Instead he derived the forms of man from the forms of God.  Plato believed we could never perfectly understand the forms of God.

That is why Aristotle's Prime Mover does not resemble zeus.

[james03]

Interesting quote from Xenophanes.  Seems like he was arguing against polytheism, but had a Platonic belief in the One God.

"One god, greatest among gods and humans, like mortals neither in form nor in thought."