Friday, April 20, 2018

My Nephew

This is from my nephew an atheist and Libertarian, but a philosopher, nonethelesss. He wrote this on Facebook, and it is significant--I will respond to it when not going out the door to work:

"To defy the absurd is absurd in and of itself.
The irresolvable contradictions in human thoughts become paradoxes, axioms or unanswered questions."

It seems to me to defy  the absurd is not absurd in and of itself. It all depends upon one's world view.

If one is a diehard pessimist, asserting that there is no ultimate meaning in life, then one could regard all as absurd, and that defying the absurd is an absurd response. One should just live with it, embrace hedonism, just not worry about it or fight at it, or just give up and commit suicide.

One cannot be a theist, an optimist or a Mavellonialist, and agree with this statement for several reasons.

First, the epistemological moderate will agree that some thing may remain unaswerable, absurd, meaningless and inscrutable, while assert that much of what occurs fits an ontological pattern that can be recognized, described, captured in words and mathematics. Reason and faith can make sense of it all, even filling one with hope, love and optimism. Yes, there is senselessness, wanton cruelty and unexplainable tragedies at work in the world. People are basically evil and Satan rules this world, but that does not mean that we must abandon hope, abandon faith in the Almighty, forsake love and human achievement, all for the glory of God whose embrace will take us to heaven if we choose the route of salvation.

Second, the absurd requires the application of reason, rational intuition and an informed leap into the darkness of conundrums to uncover the hidden patterns at work inside them.

Third the irresolvable problems built into human thought may become  paradoxes, axioms or unansweredquestions, but with courage, cheer and the plying of these perplexing puzzles with moderate logic, and hunches sent from the divine, one can make headway against these actual or seeming absurdities. They may never be all resolved, but some will be resolved, and some will be made sense of, or at least allowing the creative-thinking individuator to adopt a posture of survival around these intellectual dilemmas.

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