Why is a \"designer\" so compelling? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 01:24 (5383 days ago) @ dhw

You (and Nietzsche) have asked why we should "base our thought upon something unknowable and unthinkable". Who are "we", and what thought have we "based" on it? If this is an attack on painstaking interpretation of and dogmatic adherence to religious texts written by humans, I share your scepticism. But if your question simply means: 'Why should anyone bother to waste their time thinking about a possible unknowable prime cause?', I can only answer that if I'm confronted by a mystery, it's my nature to think about possible solutions. This seems to be a common human trait. It doesn't stop scientists or philosophers or any other kind of truth-seekers from pursuing their investigations. In short, and in relation to you, me, and the advancement of knowledge, your (Nietzsche's) question seems to me as irrelevant as your criterion of exoteric utility. The question is what is the truth, and it may lie within the various god theories. 
> 
(Next two paragraphs are Nietzsche commentary. Ignore if you wish, it mainly just supplies background.) - I suck at communication sometimes. I'm going to explain alot of Nietzsche here (referred from here on as simply "N." N's comments (in full context) pertain to how western civilization had even into his age completely centered its thought (its philosophy) on God and the Bible. Mythos WAS Logos. N was alive during a turbulent time as the industrial revolution took over from the enlightenment and intelligentsia was firmly establishing itself as separated from the philosophical underpinnings of the dogmatic church. N was primarily concerned with what would happen to the masses when they realized "god is dead." Just as the earth was no longer the center of the universe, no longer was thought centered around God. This is how humans killed God. N recognized that man is a religious creature, and saw a power vacuum in the mind of the masses, that might be filled with a great despair. (Nihilism) Something was needed to fill this void. - N saw this as a time to create a new and human metaphysic, but how to create one that won't become dogma? The goal for man (and for people) should be something reachable... we can't "think" a God, but we can think ourselves better men. His argument here seems influenced by Adam Smith and Hobbes when he says that each person must pick one virtue and be true to THAT virtue. Christ was held up as such a high standard that meeting it created a psychological inferiority complex in Western thought. N was suggesting that western civilization focus on bettering the self as a replacement for god. So when N talks about metaphysics it is to focus oneself on that which is achievable, which according to N is only hindered by your own ability. "Do not think beyond your creating will" is an admonishment to stick to things that are humanly thinkable and doable. - N didn't say that our philosophical questions were pointless as I seem to have expressed, but that the answers to them are not going to come from looking within--which is invariably where the language of the mystics always goes. Although I'm fairly certain he denied the existence of a prime cause. - 
> Thank you for your gracious apology regarding your consequentialist misinterpretation. Happily accepted.
> 
> *** I've just read your reply to David. Dawkins uses a similar argument. As I've said before, I base my (non-)beliefs on what is known, not on what people think they might possibly find. - I think you're mistaking my ideas of "believable" with belief itself. Even if inconclusive there are some explanations that are more believable than others. I know I probably seem like quicksilver in these issues, but I'm in a suspended state of belief on the ultimate question. - I do find it interesting however, that you bring up "prime cause" more than once. - Does there have to be a "prime cause?" Buddhism would laugh at the suggestion, saying that our tendency to think in "cause and effect" distorts the reality of what we perceive. Have you considered their position?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"