I'm assuming...the christian bible.
>>"This assumes that the sun rising tomorrow is sufficient basis for carrying on with the status quo. The sun would still rise tomorrow if I decided to commit mass crimes against humanity (and club baby harp seals!), but I would not use the sun as justification for those actions."
I disagree with this interpretation of the authors title. I believe it is an old saying that is used to bring people into perspective about their own lives, that the probability of the things we do affecting the world going on the next day is fairy small. This is, of course, the summation of all the things that have ever been done since the existance of humans of every human. How many people out of those who have ever lived, actually needed to be alive in order for the sun to rise the next day?
From the original post, "The following essay will argue that the sun will still rise tomorrow, despite whether or not you contribute anything towards anything,"
This implication is saying that the sun will rise tomorrow, even if you do nothing to affect anything. Although, there may be scenerious to be contructed to disprove this (and it is not to say that no one has ever saved the world before, b/c how are to know?), but straight-forwardly, the author was merely saying that if we all died today, the sun (most likely) will still rise tomorrow. (As far as statistical truth, there is no reason for it to not rise, if we were all dead.)
>>“righteous will live by faith,” without telling us what righteous means in this context.
Perhaps a poor construction of the essay itself, however, the author defines both faith and righteous people in the essay.
"As righteous people, they are, however, living for justice and morality,"
This coincidentally also coincides with the merriam-webster definition 2a: "morally right or justifiable" and 2b: "arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality."
“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
It is appropriate that through (religiously unspecified) faith (although clearly, the author is closely tied with the judao-christian faith) a scholar must believe what he/or she wants to do in research is not of "selfish ambition or van conceit," (Philippians 2:3) but of righteousness, based off of the premise that, "the righteous will live by faith." (Galatians 3:11)
>>"Science is a discipline which concerns itself with reason and empirical evidence to ensure validity."
And what is the ontology of science? Science is something we created to be able to systematically predict the world and its functionalities as precisely as possible. It is, at most, a pseudo-truth, a statistical truth. Every scientific theory is valid until proven wrong. Remember back when the world was flat? Reality is far bigger than our meager senses can percieve accurately.
>>"It depends on free will and theological will, which are mutually exclusive."
This is an entirely different discussion. In the authors defense, I'd like to say that relative to our perception of self, we do have free will which can function with that of divine will. These aspects of will can coexist on different iterations of conciousness. I believe it was C S. Lewis that used as example of a story writer, who writes half of a protagonist's adventure, puts down the book to rest, and then completes the story the next day. As far as the conciousness of the character (or the reader's perception of the character, if the reader should read straight through), it is one continuous line of events and experiences to break in the story, as the author did on his/her higher iteration of conciousness.
>>"According to what moral law?"
I'm assuming...the christian bible.
This matters to the world. Hence, our author’s conclusion is baseless.
I think the author was trying to say that if you are living for yourself, you might as well be dead. Similar to the late Martin Luther King Jr. who said, "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." If you live for yourself, then you have 2 objectives: #1 is to live, #2 is to live in self gratification. In that case, you really aren't living at all, b/c #1 "you aren't as important as you think you are" and #2 the world is just that much bigger than you.
>>unprovavble notions of objective morality
In an example that campus renouned athiest, Professor Richard Hanley of the philosophy department gave: It is not morally wrong to physically harm and torture babies for the sole intentions of sexual arousal. Find me a right-of-mind person who agrees and if there exists none, then that is one aspect of objective morality.
I shall now refer the responder to an older post...
http://forum.asiaco.com/cgi-bin/forum/forum.cgi?c=msg&fid=udmcnair&mid=71
I disagree with this interpretation of the authors title. I believe it is an old saying that is used to bring people into perspective about their own lives, that the probability of the things we do affecting the world going on the next day is fairy small. This is, of course, the summation of all the things that have ever been done since the existance of humans of every human. How many people out of those who have ever lived, actually needed to be alive in order for the sun to rise the next day?
From the original post, "The following essay will argue that the sun will still rise tomorrow, despite whether or not you contribute anything towards anything,"
This implication is saying that the sun will rise tomorrow, even if you do nothing to affect anything. Although, there may be scenerious to be contructed to disprove this (and it is not to say that no one has ever saved the world before, b/c how are to know?), but straight-forwardly, the author was merely saying that if we all died today, the sun (most likely) will still rise tomorrow. (As far as statistical truth, there is no reason for it to not rise, if we were all dead.)
>>“righteous will live by faith,” without telling us what righteous means in this context.
Perhaps a poor construction of the essay itself, however, the author defines both faith and righteous people in the essay.
"As righteous people, they are, however, living for justice and morality,"
This coincidentally also coincides with the merriam-webster definition 2a: "morally right or justifiable" and 2b: "arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality."
“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
It is appropriate that through (religiously unspecified) faith (although clearly, the author is closely tied with the judao-christian faith) a scholar must believe what he/or she wants to do in research is not of "selfish ambition or van conceit," (Philippians 2:3) but of righteousness, based off of the premise that, "the righteous will live by faith." (Galatians 3:11)
>>"Science is a discipline which concerns itself with reason and empirical evidence to ensure validity."
And what is the ontology of science? Science is something we created to be able to systematically predict the world and its functionalities as precisely as possible. It is, at most, a pseudo-truth, a statistical truth. Every scientific theory is valid until proven wrong. Remember back when the world was flat? Reality is far bigger than our meager senses can percieve accurately.
>>"It depends on free will and theological will, which are mutually exclusive."
This is an entirely different discussion. In the authors defense, I'd like to say that relative to our perception of self, we do have free will which can function with that of divine will. These aspects of will can coexist on different iterations of conciousness. I believe it was C S. Lewis that used as example of a story writer, who writes half of a protagonist's adventure, puts down the book to rest, and then completes the story the next day. As far as the conciousness of the character (or the reader's perception of the character, if the reader should read straight through), it is one continuous line of events and experiences to break in the story, as the author did on his/her higher iteration of conciousness.
>>"According to what moral law?"
I'm assuming...the christian bible.
This matters to the world. Hence, our author’s conclusion is baseless.
I think the author was trying to say that if you are living for yourself, you might as well be dead. Similar to the late Martin Luther King Jr. who said, "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." If you live for yourself, then you have 2 objectives: #1 is to live, #2 is to live in self gratification. In that case, you really aren't living at all, b/c #1 "you aren't as important as you think you are" and #2 the world is just that much bigger than you.
>>unprovavble notions of objective morality
In an example that campus renouned athiest, Professor Richard Hanley of the philosophy department gave: It is not morally wrong to physically harm and torture babies for the sole intentions of sexual arousal. Find me a right-of-mind person who agrees and if there exists none, then that is one aspect of objective morality.
I shall now refer the responder to an older post...
http://forum.asiaco.com/cgi-bin/forum/forum.cgi?c=msg&fid=udmcnair&mid=71
posted by ffpaladin at 9:33 AM
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