From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 16:18:26 GMT
Hi Platt,
> The problem comes in that 1) the statement contradicts itself, and 2)
> temporarily we have to act to live, demanding we take one absolute road
> after another. Having made a decision and taken the action, we can't
> take it back and we have to live (or die) with the consequences.
In theology, it's an axiom that only God can be called absolute. Yet I agree
with you that our decisions, once taken, are irrevocable - and therefore
partake in what is absolute. Which makes me think that it is our
decision-making - and only in our decision-making - that we can directly
participate in God. Which, as Pirsig put it (and as Wim was arguing
recently) "to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is
undefinable, one's behaviour is free." Or - another version - as Augustine
puts it in a prayer to God, 'in your service is perfect freedom'.
Thing is, nobody else can tell us what is right. "And what is good,
Phaedrus..." etc. We just have to make our own choices and live or die by
the consequences.
Sam
"Only the Americans could save us from annihilation. If they do not come,
there will soon be no Muslims left in the former Yugoslavia. The Europeans
will debate until we are all dead."
(Alija Izetbegovich, then the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1993)
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