idle hands

[hawkwing_lb]

...Maybe my sore shoulder is screwing with my brain. I find myself wanting to pick an argument over the nature of god and the idea that human morality is or ought to be created by an external force.

(I also want to pick an argument with Kant over his universal morality schtick, but the man's dead. So is Sartre, so I probably should let my resentment at his particular flavour of existentialism die a natural death.)

Unfortunately, the people I would like to argue with would never listen to me. Besides which, that kind of argument makes me angry rather than enthusiastically engaged.

So I wonder, could I interest some denizens of livejournal in a peaceful discussion on the meaning of Life, The Universe, and Everything?

(Probably you should ignore me, and I should go and lie down until the strange feeling goes away. That would be the sensible thing to do.)

Comments

[katallen.livejournal.com]

That could be an interesting discussion -- although I suspect I'd end up taking it bad places :D

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

What kind of bad places would you take it? :)

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

Am I the only person in the world who feels that existentialism is...remarkably freeing? If you're responsible for everything, you're empowered in every way.

Or at least that's how I always liked to read it.

(But, well, yes. I'm up for it. *g*)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

This is my problem with the bits of Sartre I've read. He is depressing.

Whereas I always thought that if nothing one did mattered, then everything one did mattered. A question of perspective. And ultimate personal responsibility works out to ultimate personal freedom: you make your own rules and try to make them good ones.

I like being able to make my own meaning of life. :)

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

I figured Sartre is only depressing if I let him be depressing. ;)

*giggles*

*flees*

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Heee.

[clarentine]

42, of course.

Because the mice said so.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

That would be the ultimate meaning.

*is more interested in the intermediate meaning*

*and the mice*

(You have talking mice? :P )

[clarentine]

Yours must have activated their SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) field!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Damn mice. :)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I am always on for such, practicality permnitting; this is a week in which hellacious busy has a high chance of happening workwise and I have tickets for six plays and a movie premiere because it's Fringe, though.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're having a busy life.

[jennygadget.livejournal.com]

"I find myself wanting to pick an argument over the nature of god and the idea that human morality is or ought to be created by an external force."

I find myself wanting to do this quite often. Including, but not limited to, just about anytime someone starts talking about how God is watching, the rules God has for us, how God wouldn't like that, etc.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

That pisses me off no end. Especially since I've just spent the last three years being edumacated in the historical and social context of bits of the bible. Which rather made my atheist self decide that if I was given utter incontrovertible proof in the existence of a biblical g-d?

I wouldn't give him the time of day. I am Not Okay with genocide, slavery, women-and-children as property, stoning, killing people with whom god is irrationally pissed off, or offering up one's own children as sacrifice. (Abraham did not do good in my book.) To start with.

Not that I have strong opinions, or anything.

[jennygadget.livejournal.com]

"Not that I have strong opinions, or anything."

:)

Yeah, you know that part in Huck Finn where he says "All right then, I'll go to hell!" The awesomeness of that quote lies in the fact that he not only believes he likely will, but that the author isn't completely convinced that he won't either.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I've never actually read Twain. But I know the quote. If god doesn't live up to basic standards of human decency, screw him anyway.

Then again, to be fair, I know a bunch of believer-type people who manage to reconcile holy writings, god, and human decency. Though I've never managed to figure out how (some) people manage to believe in biblical inerrancy, or the like. I mean, have none of these people ever tried to translate anything?