Well, are you familiar with Heidegger's notion of truth as alethia? Huh? — Erik

Yes, I am familiar with his use of aletheia.

Being is historical, and therefore Truth (as unconcealment) is historical. There's no Being without Truth and no Truth without Being. (capitalizing for dramatic effect) — Erik

Yes, I would disagree with Heidegger here that Being is historical. Being obviously reveals itself through history, but that wouldn't make it historical.

But please give my previous recommendation a read and get back to me on this. — Erik

Okay, I will read this and then get back to you! :) Is there a particular translation or can I just read this one:
http://pacificinstitute.org/pdf/Letter_on_%20Humanism.pdf

But the cost of this is the giving up of the isolated and a-historical ego, which is somehow impervious to historical forces and desirous of eternalizing a particular understanding of things. — Erik

Ah precisely, so he's trying to sell me a wine bottle, only that he's replaced the wine with water. I see.

But what would this eternal Truth be? And how do we, as radically finite beings, ever attain an understanding of it? My guess is that whatever it is, it has a history; and one which, incidentally, may not diminish its significance in the way I'd imagine you think it would. — Erik

Why would Truth have a history? Quite the contrary, Truth must be that which does not have a history, that which remains the same through history. The truth which has a history is not interesting, because it is a changing truth.

They tried to make sense, each in his own unique way, of the trajectory of philosophy from the ancients to the (post)moderns, and the heavy influence these developments had on affairs well beyond philosophy's seemingly narrow confines. — Erik

What if philosophy doesn't have a trajectory? What if Truth is, like I said, perennial? So it's always about recovering this same Truth, and not about going anywhere?

If philosophy has a trajectory, then that's a disaster. For we shall never attain to Truth - Truth will always be the future.

That's one reason why I never had that much appreciation for the historical philosophers thinking here primarily of Hegel and Heidegger. They are archivers in many regards, not innovators in my opinion. Same would go quite probably for Thomas Aquinas though. I'd say he's more correct than Plato/Aristotle, but not even close in terms of originality.

He probably did know a lot of Plato, but not Aristotle.

Well, I'd argue that an influence can be indirect, and can therefore go undetected and unacknowledged. So Witty is working off of Frege, Russell et al and they were clearly influenced by previous sources within the unfolding tradition of Western thought. — Erik

Sure, but ultimately he did break from the Frege, Russell, et al. clique especially by the time of Philosophical Investigations. His method is also quite unique.

I'd admit that Wittgenstein seemed much less read than, say, Heidegger or Nietzsche, concerning the main thinkers in the tradition.

Maybe his path was more intuitive than historical. He and Heidegger shared some surprisingly similar positions (e.g. primacy of engaged activity over detached theorizing) , and may have reached these in different ways. — Erik

I don't think the historical path is as important as you make it out to be. Truth must be perennial - more like a cycle than linear in form. So Schopenhauer is attempting to approximate the same truth that Plato tried to approximate, for his generation, for example.

But can you give a single example of someone who worked in complete independence from other thinkers, Agustino, and still made a significant contribution in any area of philosophy? — Erik

Not complete independence, but I can give you examples of philosophers who did not study seemingly very important philosophers. For example Wittgenstein, who never studied Aristotle or Hegel, and presumably a host of other philosophers too.

Yeah, seriously, that was a surprisingly dumb comment of Agustino's. — Erik

Thank you, that may actually be one of the smarter things I've said, usually it's a bit dumber :)

This seems an interconnected tradition in which significant thinkers engage with their predecessors (and contemporaries) in order to make some "original" contribution. I'd imagine that takes a lot of skill and a tremendous amount of effort. — Erik

That might be so, but it may also be a large mistake. I believe that many of those philosophers achieved greatness precisely when they could think independently from tradition.

You have misunderstood me. I object to Calvin and Aquinas precisely because of this fact. Calvin's sovereign God is stuck in Calvin's pocket — Beebert

You are correct with regards to Calvin, but not so with regards to Aquinas. Aquinas did allow for truths that are beyond our understanding and that we take on faith. Furthermore, at the end of his life after his mystical vision, he abandoned the writing of his Summa, saying it is "like straw" compared to what he had seen. Thus, he would probably agree with you himself.

If God is so completely Other as you describe him to be, so impossible to understand even the slightest, then how are We in his likeness? — Beebert

Being in the image of God doesn't mean that we can comprehend God though.

And wasnt the distinction between good and evil, all these judgements, something that occured Because of the fall? — Beebert

No, I don't think so.

Because how can a difference exist if evil doesnt exist as before the fall? — Beebert

What about the serpent? The serpent was evil before the Fall.

Considering how you reason though, how can you so confidentely reject a doctrine like double predestination? — Beebert

Because it's not based on Scripture or Apostolic Tradition - in addition it also makes little sense.

The world Will be judged based on how their hearts meet the image of the weak, humiliated God in Christ. So the weakness of his Will be strength. — Beebert

I don't understand your obsession with the weak and humiliated Christ. Yes, Christ was weak and humiliated, yes Christ also turned the other cheek, but don't forget when Christ grabbed the whip and chased the money-lenders out of the temple. You keep giving a false portrait of Christ, as if that was His only side.

I dont know What I seek, But I definitely dont want to live under the terror I have experienced for over a year Now, and Nietzsche has just helped me a little bit, But far from completely. I never meant God is so and so, that is What I experience that christians have done that I have spoken to and that is not possible to accept for me. But if I can say God is so and so in any way, I can say that he is as revealed in Christ. And he is there crucified and the opposite of a rulling King as We normally understand the world. He rules in Christ by being humiliated and crucified and yet he resurrcts — Beebert

Yes, but don't forget about the Second Coming of Christ. Christ will not be "humiliated" and crucified that time. It seems to me again that you're refusing to accept the fullness of God, and instead prefer a truncated kitsch of an idol.

Then every moral valuation is blasphemy in a certain sense if it is made by someone who stands in a true relationship with God and it would be unchristian of you to not agree with Nietzsche that all true acts of Love are beyond good and evil, wouldnt it? — Beebert

No, that wouldn't follow. I didn't say humans are beyond good and evil, I said God is beyond good and evil. We have been given commandments to follow by God, so we're not beyond good and evil. That is one of the differences between creature and Creator, which is emphasised in Orthodoxy.

But yes, God's Love is beyond good and evil, in that it is prior to both. That's why God is Love.

When it says, for example in the Psalms - "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" - that refers to the fact that God is maximally great. When I say God is perfect, I do not mean that imperfection is the absence of God. I rather mean that God subsumes both perfection and imperfection - He is, so to speak, more perfect than perfection.

So then if a man uses his own limited reason etc, the faculties thay makes us intstunctively value what is good and evil (the very thing you criticize Nietzsche for questioning), then it would not be so wrong to say that God is evil in a sense? — Beebert

Yes, it would be wrong to say that. Because it would fail to see that God is beyond good and evil, the Creator of both, who rules over both. It would amount to blasphemy as it would degrade God's greatness & transcendence.

"You deserve damnation because you are a wicked sinner" or "If you dont believe you will suffer in an everlasting fire" is wrong and wicked too — Beebert

I agree. Only God knows and decides who deserves what.

because God created man without man's consent. — Beebert

Not because of this. You don't seem to get it. God is SUPREME - He doesn't need to ask you for permission! How can you even conceive of the absurdity that God would need to ask you for permission to create you?!

In a godless world, the hope of suicide and death at least exists if suffering becomes inendurable, but christianity eliminates this and demands a Faith I can not achieve. — Beebert

Oh, so you have read Nietzsche, but you can't affirm life with all its suffering?

My problem with christianity is that I dont find it Good news, because considering what you just said, the fact that God even created a world that would unfold in this way and, according to Christ's own words, a world where many will inevitably be damnned (narrow is the gate etc.), is bad news. — Beebert

I find it curious that Nietzsche out of all people did not cure you of your weakness which perpetually demands salvation as if you or anyone deserved it in the first place... Why are you so worried about your salvation? Did you not hear that:

"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it"?

A discussion with a Talmudic Jew cured me of this anthropocentric and I believe fake view of God. God is not out there to "please" you. When God showed Himself to Moses, Moses trembled in fear and fell on his knees, unable even to look towards God! Abraham approached Mt. Moriah after God had asked him to sacrifice his own son Isaac with fear and trembling. Job called for God and there was no answer as everything around him was collapsing. Jesus Himself shouted from the Cross "Father hast Thou forsaken Me?"

If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. — Jeremiah 26:3

You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me — Exodus 20:5

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. — Isaiah 45:7

To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. — Deuteronomy 32:35

The Bible describes a God who is beyond good and evil, who is beyond logic and beyond understanding, whose ways are incomprehensible, who decides who He shall destroy and who He shall exalt. It also describes a God who is Love, who sends His Son to die for the sins of the world. A God who will drag ALL people unto Him. A God whose Love is so strong that NOTHING shall escape it. But God is Loving in his Strength. The God described by the Bible is a God for whom nothing is impossible - a God who can create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it, and then proceed to lift it too. Indeed, that is why God is worthy of worship and reverence - otherwise he'd just be a more powerful man. The God of the Bible is One, and yet Three. God changes his mind, and yet He is unchanging. God transcends all understanding, and in that lies His Greatness and Mystery.

It seems to me that you're seeking for a "god" who will fulfil your desires, who you can control, because He's so and so, because he's a good guy, etc. And then you complain hypocritically that Schopenhauer rejected life because of his pessimism, that he's just an inverted hedonist. Well what are you when you're trying to make God in something that you can put in your pocket, that you can bound by your understanding, if not just another hedonist looking to control God for your own satisfaction (read salvation)? Why aren't you on your knees worshipping, and instead are here to complain that you don't like God's behaviour like Job? What did God answer to Job? Who are you to question my creation?

And he was the image of God. To me that suggests Only one thing: God is all These things. — Beebert

Yes, but He is also the God who comes in judgement, who will visit your iniquities unto future generations, who came to bring a sword and not peace, who allows even the righteous to be crushed (Job), who demands that those who follow him sacrifice even what they hold most dear (Abraham and Isaac), who is vengeful and jealous, who will cast all the unrighteous into a lake of fire, etc.

But from Paul onwards, God is this all-powerful and ruling Other, that only takes the ROLE of being an outcast, a sufferer, a weak man who gets crucified, while in reality being a ruling King, a judge with absolute power. This I find untenable. — Beebert

This is precisely the scandal of the Cross. And it's not from Paul onwards. It's ever since the beginning, ever since Noah, ever since Moses. God in His infinity and His greatness is multi-faceted and impossible to comprehend for us. That's why the highest truth we know about God - the Trinity - is a logical contradiction.

It is too influenced by ancient Greek and its worship of passionlessness and a God that can neither feel passion mot suffer. But I believe God the father to be filled with passion and to suffer. He IS in need of man. Is this out of Place and wrong? In what way lf so? — Beebert

Because that's an anthropomorphic god (an idol) that you have created just because you're scared, He's not the Hidden God that has revealed Himself in the Old and New Testaments.

Universalism isnt about what you know Will happen, it is about belief. Nothing in christianity is about what you know. It is about that you trust in the claims made by the person Jesus. — Beebert

There is a difference between something that is a doctrine and something that is a hope. Universalism is the doctrine that all will be saved. That doctrine is heretical.

Nevertheless it still follows that the cruel person fails to love.

But if the Only true sin is failure to love, then the Only true virtue is love and its fruits, correct? — Beebert

Nobody would disagree with this, it's just that the other virtues that are predicated by Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy do stem from love anyway. They are the expressions of love.

And as Nietzsche said: "All true acts of love are beyond Good and evil" — Beebert

I wouldn't quite put it like that, but if by that you mean that acts of love are beyond "herd morality" then I would agree.

True, but Kierkegaard did not Believe anyone would be eternally damned, it is quite obvious. That doesnt mean he knew that to be the Case, but he believed it — Beebert

Yes, his belief that none will be eternally damned is his hope that all will be saved. He doesn't claim to know that all will be saved, which would be to adopt universalism. It's not a matter of doctrine for him in other words.

Wonder means amazement. He obviously believes all Will be saved, why does he otherwise say so? — Beebert

Because we should pray and hope that all will be saved, we shouldn't wish anyone to be damned.

when you say one is cruel and one is virtous; are you saying that one is in a way better than another? — Beebert

What does "better" mean?

I side not with Aristotle but with Dostoevsky. The only real sin is failure to love. — Beebert

Sure, but a vice is a failure to love. The person who is cruel, fails to love.

No he clearly says he even believes it, and his conviction of this belief is what awakens his deep wonder — Beebert

Why does he wonder then? Wonder only makes sense if he doesn't understand how it will happen.

All, but it expresses itself differently. Have you read the catholic Thomist-Aristotelian philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre? He rated Nietzsche as one of the absolutely greatest of all philosophers because of his deep and true realization that our morals are expressions of something else than we have traditionally admitted... Otherwise why not ask the same about original/ancestral sin? Has it really affected ALL and not just SOME? — Beebert

Sure, but there's a reason why he ultimately sided with Aristotle in his After Virtue :P

Now, why would the will-to-power express itself differently in different people? I'm specifically now thinking about the moral v. the immoral, the cruel v. the kind, etc.

You can see how he says "this awakens my deepest wonder" - precisely because he doesn't understand how this would happen, but he hopes for it.

"What the old bishop once said to me is not true–namely, that I spoke as if the others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell then I say something like this: If the others are going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that we will all be saved and this awakens my deepest wonder." — Beebert

Yes, I am aware of this, which is especially why I said he hoped all will be saved.

With the exception of the negro passage, what seems to be the issue? As it stands the OP is just a kind of extended 'I don't like this. Don't you not like this too?'. — StreetlightX

Oh yeah, what seems to be the issue >:O

when people would not have missed for anything the pleasure of inflicting suffering, in which they saw a powerful agent, the principal inducement to living.

So you too share Nietzsche's admiration for "aristocratic" morality where joy is found in inflicting pain on others? You don't find anything wrong with that do you? Instead, the negro is the issue - typical leftist thinking.

Exactly. He was quite likely also a universalist ;) — Beebert

:s I doubt it. He does hope all will be saved, but that doesn't make him a universalist. You do have a tendency to brush off such distinctions :P

I also Believe that many of the quotes you listed, tries to reveal the in many eyes hideous truth about man and his inner wants etc. Mostly an overstatement and provocative tour the force in order to establish New values so that nihilism would be overcome. — Beebert

But this is precisely the point. We have to question whether those really are the inner wants of man as such, or they're only the inner wants of SOME men.

As Bentley Hart, the orthodox Christian theologian said: "Above all, Nietzsche understood how immense the consequences of the rise of Christianity had been, and how immense the consequences of its decline would be as well, and had the intelligence to know he could not fall back on polite moral certitudes to which he no longer had any right. Just as the Christian revolution created a new sensibility by inverting many of the highest values of the pagan past, so the decline of Christianity, Nietzsche knew, portends another, perhaps equally catastrophic shift in moral and cultural consciousness. " — Beebert

Yes, which is why Nietzsche is deeper than Hume and his ilk :P

Nietzsche's famous fable in The Gay Science of the madman who mentions God’s death is not precisely a hymn of atheist triumphalism. In fact, the madman despairs of the mere atheists to whom he addresses his terrifying proclamation. In their moral lazyness and weak sensibility though, he sees that they do not despair over the death of God... This is almost prophetic, because look at our culture today and the last 90 years or so. God's death as a cultural thing has been quite true... And concerning the madman in Gay Science: The atheists that the madman talks to are we today, must of us, the indifferent once who has lost the sense of the sacred: Look at the atheists in this fable: They grasp not that humanity’s heroic and insane act of repudiation is gone and has left us with only our own resources, with which we can only helplessly try to combat the complete meaninglessness that the universe now appears to be... — Beebert

“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How can we console ourselves, the murderers of all murderers! The holiest and the mightiest thing the world has ever possessed has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood from us? With what water could we clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what holy games will we have to invent for ourselves? Is the magnitude of this deed not too great for us? Do we not ourselves have to become gods merely to appear worthy of it? There was never a greater deed - and whoever is born after us will on account of this deed belong to a higher history than all history up to now!' Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; they too were silent and looked at him disconcertedly. Finally he threw his lantern on the ground so that it broke into pieces and went out. 'I come too early', he then said; 'my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder need time; the light of the stars needs time; deeds need time, even after they are done, in order to be seen and heard. This deed is still more remote to them than the remotest stars - and yet they have done it themselves!'” — Gay Science

Yes, I am aware that Nietzsche diagnosed the modern condition very well. He is right that God is dead - or rather appears dead - to us moderns - because we have killed (rejected) Him. Max Picard (a Jew/Catholic) in his book The Flight From God does read all of man's history as an attempt to run away from God, while God is in active pursuit. The forgetfulness of God of today's Western world does represent, as Nietzsche would say, the condition of the Last Man. There is no doubt that Nietzsche was right, that without God, there is no morality.

For an honest and good Christian view and standpoint on Nietzsche, I really recommend David Bentley Hart :

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/05/believe-it-or-not

Read that article, he of course Believes Nietzsche was wrong in the end. But yet necessary, and correct in many of his diagnosis etc. — Beebert

I've already read that article :P I'm quite a reader of the firstthings.com website lol This one is also really good:

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/02/a-philosopher-in-the-twilight

It's mostly about Heidegger, but there's stuff about Nietzsche as well.

Nietzsche's critique against Schopenhauer's final rejection of life had some very valid points. A pessimist is in the end a brother of the hedonist in that he values life baser on suffering. Suffering bad, opposite good. But the pessimist focuses on the bad and therefore rejects life. Nietzsche knew that Schopenhauer was correct in that life was suffering, and therefore Nietzsche hated hedonists. But Nietzsche also saw that suffering was needed in order for man to reach his creative heights — Beebert

I would read it differently. Schopenhauer did not reject life as such, he rejected what Nietzsche would call will-to-power. Why? Because he perceived, just as Nietzsche perceived, that will-to-power leads to cruelty, indifference to the suffering of your fellow men, and violence. But unlike Nietzsche, he did not admire these things. So he perceived something that is beyond will-to-power - a different way of existing, which he never much described positively, but just negatively - as denial of the will-to-power. As he says at the end of the first volume of WWR, what remains after the annihilation of the will appears like nothing to those still full of will - but the inverse is also true - for those in which the will has completely denied itself, this very real world appears as nothing.

I think Schopenhauer is in many ways more far-seeing than Nietzsche.

Firstly, that has no bearing on the quality of their works. The fact Heidegger was able to integrate the works of such brilliant varied philosophers as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Nietzsche, Eckhart, and even Kierkegaard into his work is an accomplishment in itself the other two didn't approach. — Thanatos Sand

Oh yes, some are great archivers, no doubt about it. But an archiver isn't remarked by originality and genius. There are some great things in Heidegger - I especially like the way he understands man's relationship to technology and how technology alters our perception/consciousness of the world - how he understands the role of anxiety for Dasein, how we see the entities in the world as equipment ready-to-hand, and also how he understands our shift where the modern scientific thinking and philosophy obscures aspects of Being.

That's all quite relevant. But at the same time let's not kid ourselves. Heidegger ain't the kind of philosopher who will make you take out your sword and follow him >:O - the way Nietzsche or Kierkegaard could. Heidegger does reveal some useful matters, but he is not, in this regard, life altering.

Ignoring the explicit contradiction, it's import is that there are no truths, only beliefs. This could be believed with a sort of internal consistency, so long as one does not expose one's beliefs to reality. — Banno

No it couldn't. Lies presuppose the existence of truth. "Truths are simply lies people believe in" must necessarily be a false statement. To lie means to deceive someone - but how can you deceive someone if there are no truths to deceive them about? :s

LOL, I was just writing the below yesterday but hadn't posted:

"Can we have an "UnModerated" category like old PF? It would be sort of like the Feedback section is at the moment. It only appears to logged in users, and the posts wouldn't appear in the main feed. "

Being and Time — Beebert

It's easy to define Heidegger in terms of other philosophers, but harder to define N or K in terms of others.

I thinked he hoped it but he admitted in the end that he didnt have what he would call faith — Beebert

Yes, at least not in a Christian sense. He also said he aspires to be a Christian and greatly desires to be one, but avoided calling himself one.

Because he knew himself to have almost grasped Faith, but in the end, he didnt receive Regine back... And well, he never became this man of action and inwardness that he thought a Christian must be. — Beebert

If you read Works of Love (which in my opinion is his best work - also one of the few that he wrote under his own name) you will understand that when one has Faith, one doesn't only have faith only with regards to temporal existence, but also with regards to eternity. Indeed, in time he has lost Regine, but he will regain her in eternity. That would be the position. Whether he had made this movement of faith, and really believed unto his dying moments, I do not know.

I will have to reply to the other messages tomorrow, as I'm now going to sleep.

plus one quote from a work you Said you have never even read? — Beebert

I've never read the Will to Power but I did give it a brief look after you told me to look into it, and skipped through its contents here and there to gather what it's about. It's quite long.

Well to start with, Nietzsche wasn't precisely the ubermensch he proclaimed just as Kierkegaard wasn't the Knight of faith he proclaimed — Beebert

Hmmmm sure. Though Kierkegaard did live through the motions of the knight of faith in his life with Regine Olsen - did he not believe, absurdly, that he would marry her, even though he had rejected her earlier and she married another?

Is this thread a sort of public reply to our discussion? Shall I counter-post with quotes from the bible? — Beebert

No it has nothing to do with our discussion it has to do with my discussion with Erik which you can read here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/92719#Post_92719

But by all means to feel free to join the discussion :)

If that's your definition of proof, why are you then not a skeptic? — Thorongil

Sorry, I was never warned of this message, and just accidentally saw it now.

Because I don't think we need undeniable evidence (proof) of God to believe. Rather I, along with Pascal, take it that there is enough light for those who want to believe to believe, and enough darkness for those who don't want to believe, not to believe. Christianity does talk, in the end, about a Hidden God.

I 100% agree. Though it's fair to say we can only predict anything and everything based on the information and references we currently have. There's no logic in doing it any other way. So is your point that if we can never be certain, then there's no point even trying at all? If so I baffled to why you'd be on this forum. — ThinkingMatt

Sure, but you do realise there's a huge difference between predicting something in a few days, months or years, and an entirely different story in predicting something many billions of years from today right?!

We suck even at predicting the next economic crisis, you think we'll predict the end of the Universe? Give me a break >:O

What works at our tiny timescale (100s of years) may not work at billions of years. The laws of physics could actually change over such timescales.

As for why I'm on this forum, well mostly I'm not here to discuss science, but rather philosophy. I sometimes discuss science, but that's less frequent.

If this was true then at some point the universe would be in equilibrium (meaning no energy could move from one place to another) Jensen the end of the universe. Though we decided that the purpose of the universe was that it had to continually be moving and for this to be true then the universe could not have a beginning and an end but would have to be 'circular'. Which means the end the universe is what inevitably cause it to start - meaning it never actually end and just exists in a never ending paradox. — ThinkingMatt

This is speculation. Scientific theories don't cease to be speculation just because they're undertaken by scientists. The truth of the matter is that the so called "end" of the Universe is so distant, that we actually have no clue what it even means physically. Physical laws are useful at predicting things assuming that thing stay the same, but in limit circumstances the laws may be different. There's no way to take this into account in our speculations. We have "models" about what the end of the Universe will be. We won't ever know.

We were discussing whether existance was circular or whether it had a beginning and end. Proving this from our our perspective being fourth dimensional (meaning we perceive space and time as changing and moving) relies on this understanding.

The universe is actually stagnant and only made up of space. Time and movement is only a stubborn allusion we hold on to from a 4D perspective. — ThinkingMatt

No we weren't. We were talking about the purpose of life, not whether existence is circular. What the hell does existence being circular even mean?

I just saw the "spectacular" additions to your post ...

What's kenosis? — Mongrel

Kenosis means self-emptying through loving activity.

Anyway, we're done. Life's too short for me to spend much time talking to a sexist jerk. — Mongrel

:-} Just because I find your comments in this thread stupid and you're a woman doesn't make me a sexist, nor a jerk. You just don't know what you're talking about with regards to Kierkegaard (or Christian mysticism for that matter). Your judgement is so dominated by your 1960s atheistic/humanistic/leftist ideology that you can't even see beyond your own nose. It's pathetic. Everyone who disagrees with you is labeled a sexist.

If you were to conduct the same experiment in terms of the universe you would have to travel in the same linear direction in time (like we are) until you reach the end of existence of the universe or time and space and see if ends completely or in Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián case you arrive back where you started. Whether humans can come up with a way of surviving this experiment is another question. — ThinkingMatt

:s I don't remember we were discussing whether the universe has a spatial or temporal end or not...

Though if you agree it's circular (as in its begging ist started by its own end) then it is theoretically possiable to prove. — ThinkingMatt

Proving that the Earth is "round" (ie spherical) is an empirical matter. Proving that an argument is circular is a logical matter. The two aren't proved in the same manner.

Furthermore, there's nothing to be circular in the first place. What is circular? Your question asking what's the purpose of the purpose? Your approach isn't circular, but it's unfruitful because you're starting from the wrong assumptions and therefore asking the wrong questions. You should first determine what kind of questions you should ask from a final purpose. If you're looking for a final purpose, you cannot go around asking what is it's purpose, because you'll end up in an infinite regress (and not only that but if you ask what is its purpose that logically presupposes that it's not a final purpose). Rather you have to change the criteria based on which you're searching for the final purpose of life, because clearly inquiring what's the purpose to each purpose you're presented only leads you to an infinite regress, and is therefore not going to be conducive to your investigation. If you really want to find out what this final purpose is, then you need to adopt a better criteria of truth.

Fair statement - essentially when you can not derive any further. Which as you stated is difficult or impossible to identify. — ThinkingMatt

If you cannot provide a means to identify it, then we'll have to treat it as impossible, in which case it's time to dismiss your concerns as children's play. You were merely trolling us afterall.

And it will certainly cure you of your idea that Christianity is dead.

Yes what about it? Why aren't you happy about it? It will dispel your misconceptions about the Christian spirituality that K. was advocating and you'll see that it's actually a very Orthodox view.