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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (7550)	3/6/2001 2:15:38 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

when I take care of a child, I presume that his fate matters, not that it will merely be another rock thrown into the stream of time to briefly disturb the waters Why do you assume that if the child is "merely another rock thrown in the stream of time...", the child's fate does not matter? In the abstract, nothing "matters", unless it "matters" to some entity at some time. If the child's fate matters to you, here and now, then it matters; all else is mental masturbation of the most extreme sort. The stream of time is not for us to worry about: we are stewards of our own fate at one point in the stream of time; our stewardship matters because it effects our lives and the lives of those people that matter to us. What else would anyone need? just because something is futile doesn't mean that we don't care. fu·tile (fytl, fytl) adj. 1.Having no useful result. That which has a useful result is not futile. Nowhere is it written that the useful result must be eternal. If it is useful to us, here and now, it isn't futile. Are none of you acquainted with ideas like the Abyss and angst?...... I am aware that some people have speculated that life without belief in the absolute and the eternal is irrelevant and devoid of structure or values. Some people have even used this quaint notion as an argument for the existence of the eternal and absolute: there must be a God, since if there is no God, all is permitted. I have but two things to say about these notions. First, the argument that there must be a God (or anything eternal and absolute) because we require one is logically unsupportable: the cosmos is under no obligation to furnish us with what we require. Second, the notion that life without a belief in the eternal and absolute must lead to nihilism and the collapse of values is a load of idiotic twaddle befitting the jugglers of semantics that have become the arbiters of what we now call philosophy. If it matters to someone, here and now, it matters. Eternity will deal with eternity. The abyss is none of our concern; angst is the refuge of the intellectual wanker. Know thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of mankind is man

To: Neocon who wrote (7550)	3/6/2001 8:18:11 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

One of the interesting things that I am finding is that this idea is being treated as novel, when it is a persistent theme of existentialist philosophy and associated literature Neo, it's not that the idea as novel. My pursuit of this line of discussion with you has stemmed from my concerns about the darkness you find in it. When we abandon illusions, life is revealed as nothing; and for the existentialists, nothingness is the source of not only absolute freedom but also existential horror and emotional anguish. The point I've been trying to make is that, faced with an empty space, one doesn't have to get all tortured like this morose bunch of philosophers. Darkness isn't inevitable, it's a choice. One can focus instead on the absolute freedom side of the coin and be like a child who has just heard the announcement of a snow day. Imagine being able to fill that empty space any way you want to. Why would anyone choose to find futility in that? Karen