Godless Meditations
"Logic fills the world." --Wittgenstein
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Jewish atheists apparently are allowed to believe that Yahweh existed just long enough to promise the inhabited land of Canaan to the descendants of the mythical Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically. It used to be said that God could create anything except what would be contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is that we could not say what an 'illogical' world would look like. It is as impossible to represent in language anything that 'contradicts logic' as it is in geometry to represent by its a coordinates a figure that contradicts the laws of space, or to give the coordinates of a point that does not exist.... In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic.... Self-evidence, which [Bertrand] Russell talked about so much, can be dispensable in logic, only because language itself prevents every logical mistake.--What makes logic a priori is the impossibility of illogical thought. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 3.03, 3.031, 3.032, 5.473, 5.4731 (H/T: Roderick T. Long )
I don't get prayer. Why, for example, are believers asked to pray for the pope? God is said to be perfect, which includes being all-knowing and all-good. But praying implies that God needs help in making decisions, that he lacks relevant information or good will. How can that be? The only way to reconcile this conflict is to believe that God enjoys seeing human beings, whom he allegedly loves, getting on their knees and abasing themselves. He values the sight of people groveling and acknowledging their inferiority. Some would call that pathological. God seems to be the cosmic Trump.
I don't understand why conventional moralists often see benevolence and self-interest as being at odds. Living--action in pursuit of life-sustaining ends, that is, of values--is a challenge, even a struggle. Success is not guaranteed. "There's many a slip 'twix cup and lip." So why wouldn't reasoning pursuers of self-interest view other beings who are similarly situated with favor? Egoists should rejoice over success stories. Examples of triumph in all constructive realms should inspire because they demonstrate that success is possible in this world. This is certainly the case in a positive-sum free-market society, in which entrepreneurs constantly push back the limits of scarcity. Remember what Ludwig von Mises wrote, "The fact that my fellow man wants to acquire shoes as I do, does not make it harder for me to get shoes, but easier." In a deep sense, one person's success is another person's encouragement to succeed. Ayn Rand understood thi...
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