Friday, May 27, 2016

Leaps of Faith Above and Below

I'm reading a book called The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever Agree, by William Gairdner. I bought it because I really enjoyed his previous Book of Absolutes: A Critique of Relativism and a Defense of Universals.

In fact, I had pulled the latter down from the shelf because I thought it might have something useful to say about King Barry's embarrassing sexual neurosis, which he wishes to force upon the rest of us via federal power. How weird is that?! Talk about violating the separation between crotch and state.

Obviously, one thing -- perhaps the one thing -- that divides liberals and conservatives is the existence and status of absolutes: we believe they exist and place constraints around our existence, while liberals insist -- absolutely! -- they don't.

In a logical world this would end the debate, with liberals hanging their heads in shame over their rudimentary but catastrophic error in reasoning. Fat chance! When your logic is this defective, it cannot be remedied by mere logic.

It's like mental AIDS: when your immune system is that compromised, you cannot expect it to save you from the consequences of a compromised immune system.

Analogously, reason functions very much like a cognitive immune system. It cannot actually bring us to truth as such -- for that always requires a leap -- but it can certainly kill a lot of bad and dysfunctional ideas along the way.

To be only capable of reason would be analogous to suffering from an autoimmune disease whereby the immune system ends up attacking healthy tissue along with the unhealthy. Mere rationalism is always circular and therefore tautologous.

What I find is that liberals are oblivious to this constraint, thinking that their faux absolutes are supported by logic, when they actually result from a leap of faith. Thus, they are the mirror image of religious folk, except their leap is unconscious and not reflected upon. (One definition of theology is conscious reflection upon revealed absolutes.)

Adam's fall repeats itself in the fallen personality. What this essentially means is that man is situated along a vertical axis, such that the fall is not just in the past but very much in our future. But so too is the possibility of ascent. Both the ascent and descent will require leaps of faith.

That is, man cannot go beyond the limits of agnostic rationalism; he is as it were enclosed in a circle, and cannot know what lies beyond this absurcularity without that leap of faith. This goes to Augustine's gag about believing so as to know (credo ut intelligam). Guffaw ha!

You can (implicitly) know a lot without (explicit) understanding, but you can't understand without implicit knowledge.

Which is precisely what the world's greatest logician, Gödel, proved with his ironyclad theorems: not that we can't know the absolutes that lie outside the circle of logic, but that we routinely know them in a translogical way. Frankly, we can't even think without the support of these implicit absolutes. They support everything we do, brainwise.

Thank God for atheists, because these negative agents of humanity perform a vital catabolic function of tearing down bad ideas -- like the logical immune system alluded to above. Being that they are catabolic, they release energy for the purposes of metabolism (i.e., the breaking-down is for the purpose of building-up).

But unalloyed catabolism equates to diabolism, because again, it reduces to an attack on healthy and unhealthy tissue alike. This is how garden-variety village atheism transitions to outright cosmic assoulery.

There are many "sexual absolutes" that are hardwired into man. These are things we don't have to think about or defend -- or at least didn't have to think about and defend until the left began attacking and undermining them.

Many of these absolutes were never thought about consciously, but rather, were settled by thousands of years of natural (and later, cultural) selection. So much for the left believing in Darwinism! For what is Bathroom Barry's peculiar attitude toward sexuality but a war on biology (and above)?

To be continued...

26 comments:

Van Harvey said...

"Obviously, one thing -- perhaps the one thing -- that divides liberals and conservatives is the existence and status of absolutes: we believe they exist and place constraints around our existence, while liberals insist -- absolutely! -- they don't."

Absolutely.

julie said...

You can (implicitly) know a lot without (explicit) understanding, but you can't understand without implicit knowledge.

Via last night's ONT, there's an interesting video of pro-choicers changing their minds after watching a video describing the reality of abortion procedures. It's interesting to see their response: from thoughtlessly mouthing the story they were given, to a state of developing insight, as though awakening from a dream. It's clear that "abortion" was simply an abstract to them before, not something real that happens to humans with terrible human implications.

julie said...

Re. the part that Van quoted, in a sane nation we could look to the example of Venezuela and every other socialist hellhole and, as a nation, understand that whatever it was they did to get that way, we should *not* do.

Instead, we're sowing diabolical confusion in the minds of the young.

mushroom said...

When your logic is this defective, it cannot be remedied by mere logic.

I learned this in high school geometry. Probably not a required subject these days.

julie said...

Nah - they offer it in a variety of flavors: common core, or if that doesn't float your boat there are probably an aray of choices based on favored victim groups. Pass that and you might be able to look forward to an advanced course in black feminist calculus. STEM for everyone!

mushroom said...

village atheism

Yes, a village atheist would be a nice foil/counterpoint for the village priest. In a healthy community he could function much like a jester. Too bad they so rarely have a functioning sense of humor.

Gagdad Bob said...

They'll always be with us. Might as well use them to our advantage.

mushroom said...

"calculus the study of limits" is compelling because of their expansive vision.

Calculus means pebble which is compelling because of the size of their brains.

Gagdad Bob said...

the essence of leftist discourse: take offense; call your opponent names; refuse to let her speak; decline to debate.

julie said...

Just like a monkey flinging poop.

Scatter said...

That's an insult to monkeys.

ted said...

The theologian Bultmann once remarked that “an unchristian state is possible, but an atheistic one is not.”

Van Harvey said...

Same sort of treatment that Barbara Boxer gave Alex Epstein when he tried to make the moral case for Fossil Fuels Unhinged: Senator Boxer ridicules 'philosopher', assails Catholic... (7:20), it's in their DNA (Democrat NA!...na!na!na!na!).




Gagdad Bob said...

Loved his book.

Gagdad Bob said...

Boxer is so far beyond an embarrassment, there's no word for it.

ted said...

I never knew such ignorance could have such arrogance.

Gagdad Bob said...

But enough about Obama....

Gagdad Bob said...

It's all about runaway Dunning-Kruger on the left.

julie said...

Yes; as a result, they have a bad case of "white man's burden." They know so much, why, it is their duty to go forth and inflict their vision upon the world!

Much more difficult to embrace such a mentality when one is convinced of one's own blessed insignificance.

horatio said...

I still get confused. Who are the conservatives? What are they conserving? It's easy to see that Orban is a conservative in Hungary. Very hard to find them here.

Allena said...

Analogously, reason functions very much like a cognitive immune system. It cannot actually bring us to truth as such -- for that always requires a leap -- but it can certainly kill a lot of bad and dysfunctional ideas along the way."

And every little bit helps! :)

Guildofcannonballs said...

"For what is Bathroom Barry's peculiar attitude toward sexuality but a war on biology (and above)?"

War on political opponents using proven tactics. Down ballot people suffer, but Barry ain't down ballot neither.

His Science tells him demographics win, aka Africa Wins*. Focusing on strategy leaves bungled tactics just an awe shucks moment, soon passed. Hey, like Lincoln said!

*Not Africa Wins in the sense brutality inconceivable is common yet not able to be processed by the human brain, even the witnesses and perpetrators.

Africa Wins because fecundity.

At some point, who has more bullets wins. We all know the brain can be a stronger weapon than any gun never fired for whatever reasons. Kamikazzee bullets failed before, will they always?

Guildofcannonballs said...

The philosopher is not characterized by being interested in the discipline 'philosophy.' He is interested in the totality of the world and the totality of wisdom. --Josef Pieper


Bullshit. Every half-wit understands there are parts of the whole forever to be unknown thereby precluding grandiose God divinity on Earth by man such as all knowing or all powerful fantasies tempt with.

Any honest soul thinking they are so special so as to be interested in the world's totality would have to start with a time and explain how they understand that continuous perpetual changes nullify their entire identity driven lunacy each and every moment before and after that micro-nanosecond of time defined.

The philosopher is characterized by impractical speech intended to drive men from God.

Allena said...

Apparently you have a lot in common with even half-wits; to wit, I am not surprised you would miss the forest for the trees.

Gagdad Bob said...

"The philosopher is characterized by impractical speech intended to drive men from God."

That is pretty much Pieper's point. It's called irony.

Allena said...

It's sometimes surprising to me how so many people are blind to irony.
I guess that's a symptom of denying reality.
And in case anyone is wondering, yes I do see the irony in my own situation, lol. :)

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