apologies for the tangent

Case History: To be found in its entirety at Nato's Blog.

Ross: You [stan] know that life is unfair, when you say:
“A just God would have at least ask for our consent before having us be created into this world” and “If God is truly just, then He would offer either Heaven or nothing, so that non-Christians who die won’t go to Hell but instead just end.”

Those are profound statements, because they’re certainly not something that a purely scientific world-view would teach you. Science and modern philosophy is *in general* indifferent to the suffering that goes on in this world.

era: Are you serious? Because from what I can tell, between ethics and medicine, they have done far more to help remove suffering from the world than the bible ever has.

Ross: Sorry Era, that statement was very broad and written hastily. When I said science, I was thinking of the theory of Darwinian Natural Selection (and what that implies about suffering) and when I said modern philosophy I was thinking of, I don’t know, Friedrich Nietzsche?

The Tangent

So Ross, with your revised understanding of philosophy and science *in general* as Darwin and Nietzsche, how are we supposed to understand the point you were trying to make when you said to stan "Those are profound statements, because they’re certainly not something that a purely scientific world-view would teach you."?

I find myself incapable of expressing how many things I find wrong with this idea that a scientific world view is completely sterile and is incapable of any humanity. I've come across this idea a couple of times now, and it continues to baffle me. So what I'm really hoping for is an explanation of the position which might stand up to a bit of rational critique.

my new favorite word: Praxis

Praxis means the combination of theory and practice. First you decide what it is best to do, which is good, and then you do it, which is also good. So praxis is really good all round. On the other hand, if you decide what it is best to do, but fail to do it, then this isn't really that good. And if you don't decide what it is best to do, but just do whatever, then that isn't really very good either. And to boot, like all good words "praxis" is actually Greek. Thus it is not surprising that the Greek philosopher Aristotle discusses praxis in his Nicomachean Ethics*.

If you actually think that philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle contemplated merely, without doing anything, then please consider whether founding the Academy or the Lyceum were practical enterprises. Unfortunately many of the heirs to philosophy were not so keen on this whole idea of combining theory and practice, and some (neo-platonist christians... grr) positively shunned it. Happily for us we can skip forward to Mr. Marx, who kindly points this out, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." Unfortunately most people don't really think that it worked out so well for Mr. Marx, and so philosophy has largely returned to inconsequential contemplation.

* Note: If you have not read Aristotle's Ethics, and you want to consider yourself as half educated or even a quarter informed, then you really need to. My choice of translation is the one by Terence Irwin.

the nice crisp and juicy red button?

Yahweh: Whatever you do, DO NOT push the red button.
Us: Why not?
Yahweh: Because, pushing it will give you the knowledge of which buttons you should and should not push.
Us: wtf?

[edit: bonus question]
Do any of these red button ideas, which make our lives worse by knowing them, actually exist?