Re: virus: Spirituality?
Dan Plante (danp@CS347838-A.gvcl1.bc.wave.home.com)
Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:39:18 -0700
At 10:11 PM 6/26/98 -0400, Eric Boyd wrote:
>
>Tim Rhodes <proftim@speakeasy.org> wrote:
>> You say that like it's a bad thing!
>
>And isn't it?
>I want to change my assertion.
>
>"Spirituality" is the result of festooning the universe
>with large scale meaning... and then claiming that
>this meaning comes from outside of oneself.
>
>The former is not all that bad, but the latter habit
>directly results in all sorts of fanaticism and
>intolerance, not to mention a being radically incorrect
>view of the nature of meaning.
Ahhhh...."meaning". Slippery, isn't it? I've come to notice that
every spiritual/philosophical discussion will, if carried far enough,
always end up at the word "meaning", or, more accurately,
"import" (i.e. having the quality of "importance") and "matter"
(i.e. whether or not something "matters"). Does the existence of
the universe matter? Why? What if there were no humans (or /any/
self-aware entities) in it. Would it still matter? Why?
Who was it that said (paraphrasing):
"Ultimately, Man is the measure of all things"?
Dan