[MD] What all is about.

[Ham Priday]

Dear Peter --


> I certainly reject the idea of God and the super-natural,
> so in your terms I am a nihilist.
>
> For me nihilism has the strong connotation of immorality
> and that there is no sense to life, even one's own; in these
> terms I am not a nihilist as I value my own life and that of
> others and I seek to add meaning, sense and purpose to
> my own life.

A concept is beyond human understanding when it can't be explained by the 
laws of nature.  Hence,  Essence is supernatural.  It also transcends the 
conditions of finitude which are time, space, form, and impermanence.  You 
told me in your previous post that, as an atheist, you "have to confront the 
question of how did the idea of God arise?"  You don't really have to 
confront that question but you do, which indicates to me that you may be 
more of an agnostic than an atheist.

Actually, the idea of a god, spirit (or gods) running things is quite 
reasonable if you can't account for the phenomena that you experience.  The 
pagans observed the sun rise and set each day and concluded it must be a 
god.  Similarly there was a god of storms (or thunder), a god of fertility, 
a god of war, etc.  As man learned enough science to explain the workings of 
nature, he eventually reduced the number of gods to one.  As he became more 
inquisitive and learned to observe, measure and predict natural events, the 
gods or spirits were eventually reduced to one.  But for all his scientific 
sophistication man is still unable to account for the beginning of 
existence, the separation of being from awareness, and the meaning of life. 
If he's totally "objective" he can be persuaded that the world he 
experiences is all there is and that he is a product of it.  Because he 
doesn't realize that value is the pre-intellectual source of his knowledge, 
the nihilist assumes that it doesn't exist apart from his experience.  He 
"invents" his values, starting of course with the value of his own life, and 
he assigns "meaning" to what makes sense in terms of physical reality.

I define nihilism as a state of denial in which the individual excludes the 
possibility of any reality which does not have a rational (i.e., empirical) 
explanation.

> You've said that you think being cannot be divine - have you seen any
> pictures of Marilyn Monroe?. Seriously though, 'Divine Being' was a
> phrase you used.

If I used this phrase, it was not in reference to Essence but to theistic 
notions of an anthropomorphic deity which is metaphysically inadequate as 
the primary source.  Divinity is a term generally associated with gods or 
goddesses, and its euphemistic reference to human beings such as Marilyn is 
a romantic anthropomorphism.  (Personally, I think the term was more 
befitting an ingénue like Audrey Hepburn.)

> I go along with you when you say that the essence of reality is beyond
> human description, but I think probably the 'Essence' you refer to is not
> the same as my essence. I am opposed to theism but I'm not proposing
> religion should be outlawed either. I don't believe in spirits and I think
> people trying to pursue a spiritual way of life are really just trying to 
> be
> more happy.

By "spirituality" I don't mean belief in spirits.  The word connotes the 
"psychic nature" of man as distinguished from his biological organism.

> The Muslim extremist is nihilist because he does not value his own life
> and his actions are immoral.

All normal people value their own life, no matter what their religious or 
philosophical persuasion.  What makes the extremist's behavior immoral 
(perverse) is the externally forced abandonment of his innate values. 
Suicide bombers, for example, are literally walking zombies.  They've been 
brainwashed by a social order that sacrifices human life for the Will of 
Allah.  Jihadism is a form of genocide that not only destroys individual 
freedom but uses the individual as a weapon of destruction.

> You'll have to try to get me to understand what you mean by 
> 'transcendental
> essence' before I can say whether I think it qualifies you as an atheist. 
> It
> may be something like a fundamental principle you are proposing though I
> suspect it may be Creationist (you did refer to creatures before); but who
> knows, we may be singing from the same hymn sheet after all!

Immanuel Kant called transcendental the "condition of experience and 
anything related to it".  He maintained that transcendental knowledge is 
possible, but "transcendent" knowledge is not.  I think of transcendental as 
all-encompassing and immanent, whether it is experientially accessible or 
not.  Essence is my term for the primary source of existence, hence is the 
"Creator" with or without the cap C.

Encarta has a good primer on Transcendentalism as developed by Kant, 
Schelling and Fichte in Germany, and also as applied to the mid-19th century 
movement represented by the American poets Emerson and Thoreau.  I quote the 
opening paragraph:

"The philosophical concept of transcendence was developed by the Greek 
philosopher Plato.  He affirmed the existence of absolute goodness, which he 
characterized as something beyond description and as knowable ultimately 
only through intuition.  Later religious philosophers, influenced by Plato, 
applied this concept of transcendence to divinity, maintaining that God can 
be neither described nor understood in terms that are taken from human 
experience. The doctrine that God is transcendent, in the sense of existing 
outside of nature, is a fundamental principle in the orthodox forms of 
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam."
    --  
[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761565054/Transcendentalism.html]

This is consistent with my concept, although I have some problems with 
"absolute goodness" and the theistic relevance of "divinity".  I would say 
that Essence is compatible with the doctrine of a "transcendent God" in the 
sense that it is "absolute", "knowable only through intuition", and "exists 
outside of nature".  While Essence is not directly accessible to human 
experience, it is immanently sensed as Value, and thus is finitely 
"realizable" as the beingness of existence.

So, am I an atheist or not?

Essentially yours,
Ham