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Philosophical Conundrum
May. 14th, 2006 07:16 pmSo, here's a philosophical conundrum:
1. Absolute freedom requires freedom over all aspects of one's life including belief systems and personal philosophies.
2. An act of true faith requires one to place trust in something one either cannot control or cannot completely understand, otherwise it's an act of belief based on facts, logic or reason.
3. If we hold point 2 to be correct, no personal philosophy can fulfill the pre-requisites of faith. Any philosophy coming from inside oneself is vulnerable to erosion by personal bias and preference. With very few exceptions, a personal philosophy will be comprised of things that are logical to the individual within that individual's life experiences. "True faith" (spiritual, religious or secular) requires that faith to be placed in something external.
4. Can one be truly free and also have experienced true faith? Does faith necessitate voluntarily curtailing our freedoms? Is faith an inherently irrational act?
So there...
I should note that's rather nihilistic, and isn't actual so much what I *believe*. The above requires taking the idea of faith and freedom to extremes. Abstractly thinking about it though - you could argue that the ultimate expression of faith be to believe in the weirdest thing ever, and then you could go back and argue that the ultimate expression of personal freedom would be to choose to believe in the weirdest thing possible. But you can't just say that in the above scenario you could have both by *choosing* to believe in something irrational, because as soon as you move the object of your belief outside yourself, you no longer have control over it, and thus you are surrendering control over an aspect of your life.
LOOK WHAT PLAYING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS HAS DONE TO ME! MY HEAD'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE!
But you know what I have faith in? Chun-Li will never get tired:
1. Absolute freedom requires freedom over all aspects of one's life including belief systems and personal philosophies.
2. An act of true faith requires one to place trust in something one either cannot control or cannot completely understand, otherwise it's an act of belief based on facts, logic or reason.
3. If we hold point 2 to be correct, no personal philosophy can fulfill the pre-requisites of faith. Any philosophy coming from inside oneself is vulnerable to erosion by personal bias and preference. With very few exceptions, a personal philosophy will be comprised of things that are logical to the individual within that individual's life experiences. "True faith" (spiritual, religious or secular) requires that faith to be placed in something external.
4. Can one be truly free and also have experienced true faith? Does faith necessitate voluntarily curtailing our freedoms? Is faith an inherently irrational act?
So there...
I should note that's rather nihilistic, and isn't actual so much what I *believe*. The above requires taking the idea of faith and freedom to extremes. Abstractly thinking about it though - you could argue that the ultimate expression of faith be to believe in the weirdest thing ever, and then you could go back and argue that the ultimate expression of personal freedom would be to choose to believe in the weirdest thing possible. But you can't just say that in the above scenario you could have both by *choosing* to believe in something irrational, because as soon as you move the object of your belief outside yourself, you no longer have control over it, and thus you are surrendering control over an aspect of your life.
LOOK WHAT PLAYING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS HAS DONE TO ME! MY HEAD'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE!
But you know what I have faith in? Chun-Li will never get tired:
