On Relativism: 5- Pragmatism

The following is a scene from G. K. Chesterton's play "Magic" (which some say inspired Ingmar Bergman's film "The Magician"). A little clarification may be needed. Smith is a Christian Pastor, and the Doctor is a firm skeptic of all things religious. This scene takes place in The Duke of the parish's house, right after his nephew suffers from a sort of shock after he fails to explain a seemingly supernatural event.

Smith: And what harm came of believing in Apollo? And what a mass of harm may have come of not believing in Apollo? Does it never strike you that doubt can be a madness, as well be faith? That asking questions may be a disease, as well as proclaiming doctrines? You talk of religious mania! Is there no such thing as irreligious mania? Is there no such thing in the house at this moment?

Doctor: Then you think no one should question at all.

Smith: [With passion, pointing to the next room.] I think that is what comes of questioning! Why can't you leave the universe alone and let it mean what it likes? Why shouldn't the thunder be Jupiter? More men have made themselves silly by wondering what the devil it was if it wasn't Jupiter.

Doctor. [Looking at him.] Do you believe in your own religion?

Smith: [Returning the look equally steadily.] Suppose I don't: I should still be a fool to question it. The child who doubts about Santa Claus has insomnia. The child who believes has a good night's rest.

Doctor: You are a Pragmatist.

I had wanted to write this post for over a year now, & start it with that particular scene, but didn't quite know how to approach it best.

I think now I do.

What G. K. Chesterton is demonstrating here and later on in the play, is that Rev. Smith is not a believer at all, in fact he is not that much different from the skeptic doctor in that regard. He is merely a pragmatist. He believes that religion affects people positively in the practical sense, hence it should be adopted.

Now consider this:

Someone says they believe in some religious belief, and it suits them. However, they think it might not suit somebody else.

This is becoming a classical relativist statement. Now I'd like to draw your attention to two things, one of them I've always thought is clear as daylight, the other I've only noticed yesterday.

The first is what I referred to before in the second part of this series, how "A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos." as per -incidentally- G. K. Chesterton.

Which I think is pretty easy to understand; you may say that a certain work of art doesn't suit your taste, but a Religion, a Cosmic Philosophy, can't possibly be personal taste. It is about the Universe, not only about you!

Except if...

What if we sometimes think of a Religion mainly in terms of how useful it is to us?

You know, belief in heavenly reward makes people do good things, belief in hell as punishment stops people from doing bad things to each other, religion in general helps answer existential questions... etc.

That is the second implication of discussing religion as a relative idea... that I might be seeing it only in the light of what it brings to me.

If so, then the idea of "suits me, but not necessarily everybody" can be very true!

For example, it suits me to fear hell as punishment, but maybe it'll drive someone else to rebellion rather than submission to God (An atheist I've actually corresponded with wrote that they'd rather believe in no god than believe in my cruel god), therefore it does not suit them.

This means that what we're talking about now, is how said religion affects you, rather than the beliefs of the religion itself.

That is all very well of course, but that is not belief at all!

Like the Doctor said in the scene from the play, that is just pragmatism.

Believing that practical effects of a certain belief are good is not, of course, a bad thing. But believing in a certain doctrine merely for its practical effects, surely is.

It has nothing to do with how true you believe your religion is.

And I thought we were looking for the Truth... weren't we?

On Relativism: 4- Uncertainty

I have been seriously struggling with this idea for a while now...

Why is it not intellectually fashionable anymore to be certain of anything?

Maybe it's because we have gone wrong too many times, that we no longer trusts our minds enough to claim certainty?

And although that might sound reasonable, I'd like to draw your attention to what's really at stake here.

If we'll discuss certainty vs. uncertainty, truth vs. perspective, or the fixed character of virtue vs. moral relativism, we're treading on the borders of insanity and nightmares!

Anybody who's ever been a real skeptic would know what I'm talking about here, but for those who have been spared, I present this story:

(I'm copying the whole thing here rather than just linking to it because my post is too attached to that essay... you could say that this post is holding on to its sanity by copying the whole essay within its body, even if that makes it too fat!)

The Extroardinary Cabman.

By G. K. Chesterton

From: London's Daily News and Tremendous Trifles

From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair.

On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know if I have really no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening¹s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.

[Editor's Note - From other writings of Chesterton, we know that the "open-minded" friend referred to here is H.G. Wells. Also, we learn from the paragraph to follow that Hilaire Belloc was another of those present at this Soho meeting. And it is quite possible, even probable, that George Bernard Shaw was also in the party.]

Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the corner of Leicester Square to the members' entrance of the House of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a discussion between us which still continues.

It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria Street which I had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine. "Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given me 1s. 8d?" I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you know, sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know that ain't the fare form Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. "What on earth has Euston got to do with It?" "You hailed me just outside Euston Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then you said ..." "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" I said with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west corner of Leicester Square." "Leicester Square," he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near Leicester Square to-day. You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said ..." "Are you mad, or am I?" I asked with scientific calm.

I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever (in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner of Leicester Square. He began with the same evident and ponderous sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said ..."

And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside. "Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester Square. I remember now. I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, is strictly true.

I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect.

The Extraordinary Cabman first appeared in London's Daily News. It was later collected in the volume of essays Tremendous Trifles.

Do you see what I mean now? If you take skepticism to its limit, and wear relativism as your crown, eventually your whole head will disappear!

And I can't stress enough how terrifying that is to me.

Maybe that's why I need Truth, and can't understand for the life of me how anybody can reduce it to a point of view.

On Hijab's Martyrdom

I remember reading in a Cilantro's (a coffeeshop) monthly publication (I know!) a couple of years ago an article about Empowering the Veiled Woman, and thinking "does she really need more empowerement? it seems to me that in Egypt, she's almost invincible!"

Recently, the empowerement campaign took a new direction, for it no longer became limited to peer pressure, repentant-actresses/bellydancers-turned-preachers on TV shows, stickers on public transportation windows or the occasional newspaper article on the importance of Hijab.

After the death of Marwa El Sherbini, our good old media started placing their bets on the "Martyr of Hijab" horse.

First off I have to state (preemptively) that Marwa's death is truly tragic, it is a horrific thing that she was killed, as well as why she was killed.

That said, let's admit we have a very advanced Martyr Complex in Egypt, and that complex has driven us to turn Marwa into an icon.

Which is okay, really... maybe she should be iconized, maybe not... but that's hardly the issue here.

The issue is that iconizing Marwa isn't enough for certain people, because Marwa is a person... and a dead one at that!

Those people would much rather iconize something that is alive and well, and make it even more alive by iconizing it.

That thing is of course the Hijab.

Which is a joke, really!

You want to know why Hijab can't be a martyr? Or a flag under which martyrs can gather?!

Because outside Europe, and particularly in Egypt, there is hardly anybody who wants it dead, so it can never become a martyr!

Go for a walk down the streets of Egypt and take a look around...

If you would rather remain at home, read this

And If you don't feel like clicking on the above link, here's a bottom line:

ولعل المثير أخيراً هو ما يتنطع به أشباه الكتبة بزعمهم أن الحجاب مستهدف فى مصر، وهذا لغو ينفيه الواقع تماماً، فنظرة واحدة على أى شارع فى أى مدينة مصرية، تؤكد أن غير المحجبة الآن هى إحدى اثنتين: فإما أن تكون مسيحية، أو من بقايا النخبة الاجتماعية التى لم ترضخ بعد لابتزاز الغزو الوهابى، واختارت.. وتحملت ثمن حريتها، رغم محاولات مروجى الهوس الدينى لممارسة الوصاية على خلق الله.

Have some logic, because you can't make Hijab both dominant and oppressed.

And if you manage to, well that says a lot about those who buy your shit.

Can It Ever Work?

I've been feeling down today...

Probably because I've read this, watched this, and then thought about this:

Are people really are so impossible to enlighten?

Tarek Heggy seemed to be saying that although he works so that light will somehow get through, his hopes are rather low that it will!

Then there's that video...

The simple question of "Why is a group of Christians praying in a place "without a license" a problem for anybody" simply had no reasonable answer.

I'd understand it being a problem if you're a policemen charged with upholding the law (regardless how outrageous that law may be)... but if you're a layman who breaks a dozen laws a day, and then you get worked up enough about Christians praying "without a license" (ugh, I can't believe I'm actually arguing about this!) to commit acts of violence to stop it, and you happen to have tens or hundreds of like-minded people with you... then you can't possibly tell me it's because "they have no license" or "they're breaking the law"! And the "eye witness" was honest (ha!) enough about it to say his problem is "they're too few"!!!!

The fact that people can be so hateful, ignorant and illogical, and harm others because of that, cobined with the incredible notion that they can get away with it and even get official support from a senator to do it, makes Tarek Heggy too right! There seems to be a lack of will to change on the streets as well as in the top-floor offices.

Then to try & cheer myself up, I decided to read anything for G. K. Chesterton off the web.

It worked for a little while, too well in fact, that it made me think again about why almost nobody knows this guy

And that got me back into the pithole...

Because it seems that being insightful, compassionate, funny, wise and right doesn't necessarily lead to making a change at all!

and I started wondering (forgive my arrogance) if maybe I can be like Chesterton; but like Chesterton, would make no difference whatsoever in changing people or the events they cause to happen, so that it would lead to a brighter future.

That's a serious frustration because as I believe it, things and people on all levels must eventually and through providence, be enlightened.

and like Switchfoot put it, the tension is between how it is and how it should be.

that tension is... well... such a bummer!

Don't Insult Our Intellegence

For self-educational purposes, I've spent some time watching the Eqraa Channel.

At first, I caught that Mostafa Hosny guy... and I must admit that watching him took a lot of self-restraint, because that guy manages to be all touchy-feely while putting on a macho attitude, which is no mean feat I'm sure, but it gets on my nerves like nothing else, even before I've listened to what he has to say!

Then I came across some programme episodes for Basma Wahba, one of them is the infamous "Wa Ma Malakat Aymanakom" show where she plays cat & mouse with two Azhar proffessors.

In that show, she keeps asking & they keep avoiding her questions.

The show features one angry proffessor who storms out midway through the show then comes back (I'm not sure how the producers brought him back, maybe they waved some contract at him & threatened a lawsuit, or maybe they talked him into having a drink of yansoon then grovelled a bit... I don't know, and I hardly care *shrugs*)

The show also features another proffessor whose motto seemed to be "When in doubt, Sing!", as he consistently chanted verses of Quran in response to every question, which would have been useful (although a tad theatrical) had the particular verses he chose provided answers to the questions, which sadly, they didn't.

Now, when I watched that Basma Wahba show, I didn't think of those people as merely addressing muslims (although of course they are), but particularly as addressing Egyptians.

The woman was Egyptian, and so were the Azhar people... and she was trying to get them to respond to Fr. Zakareya Boutros who is also Egyptian... so the whole thing felt like a local problem!

And as an Egyptian, I felt involved (although I admit, not as closely involved as any muslim watching), and as an involved party (no matter how remotely) I have a right to feel insulted by that show!

It's not that they looked like they had no answer, and it's not just that they seemed to think none was necessary... but it's mostly because they wasted more than half an hour talking & still managed to say absolutely nothing of use!

It felt very insulting to my intellegence... it's like I wasn't supposed to notice when they dodged a question by providing an irrelevent answer, or when they lingered on side topics to avoid the main issue, or when they threw up tantrums to divert attention away from their lack of knowledge, or when the "singing proffessor" started chanting to add an aura of "holiness" to the emptyness of his answers! (as well as waste programme time, get more screen time, and advertise for his chanting talents!)

That Egyptian youth have to put up with these games, along with all the arrogance, ignorance and weak arguments (if we're lucky enough to hear any arguments at all) is insulting.

And not only that, the implicit fact that Egyptian muslim youth are supposed to be like them is very, very insulting!

Egyptian muslims are supposed to repeat what those Azharians said (what was that, again?!) in response to questions about themselves, other people and God... from themselves, other people and yes maybe even from God!

So to anybody who ever assumes a position where they become teachers, please don't insult our intellegence. And if not for our sakes, let it be for your sakes, for logic's sake and for your God's sake!

The Question, and what comes after it

A couple of days ago, I was in a bible study group with a few friends, and they started discussing the idea of Salvation and whom it is likely to encompass.

Then came the question everybody who has a heart should ask at some point:

Why would all the others who are not of whatever creed one professes, why won't they enter heaven?

In more compassionate groups (like the one I like to think I attend), the question is modified into:

Can (with a note of hope) others enter heaven? and how??

More often than not, the "how" part isn't about the means with which they may be saved, but rather how that notion can be reconciled with Scripture.

This time, I stayed silent while they debated, because I wanted the conversation to run its full course, before I ask the more or less rhetorical question that mentally knocked me out about two years ago, which is:

In your opinion, what percentage of people needs to be saved before God calls his "Creation" project a success?

I expected almost any response except the one I recieved, which was an uproar of different cries so mixed up that I couldn't understand a word anybody was saying.

This I understood though, people seemed to be saying that I was wrong to ask the question, and this notion of blasphemizing a question was probably the first of its kind for that particular group.

After the initial torrent subsided, a few people began arguing with me in an attempt to defend God, but the rest of the group seemed to want to close the subject.

And so the subject was closed hurriedly, which I didn't mind, since all I wanted was merely to put that question on the table.

The one thing I felt bad about was how the table seemed to want to slip away, and trying to hold it still is something which I wasn't about to do. (I know better than to try that)

I am writing it here though, because I feel the need for it to be out there...

So let me ask that again:

How many people need to be saved, and what is the percentage of humans throughout the history of the world that needs to be redeemed, in order for "Creation" to be deemed a successful project, one worth the trouble it's caused so far?

Oh and please bear in mind, that for an Omniscient God, that number must've been known before the beginning of Time, and with that knowledge, he still went on with creating us.

Why can't that mean something? And why shouldn't we wonder what that something is?!

Tempting Fate

I don't believe in fate, I have God as a more sane replacement concept!

Today I was going to reflect on a certain idea, then I was put to the test while writing... which changed the words before they reached the page.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning.

Yesterday I was watching this on TV, and one secondary character said the strangest thing.

She was planning to get married, and said that according to her mother, she shouldn't have kept the reciepts. But she kept them all, the caterer's reciept, the chapel payment slip, the honeymoon reservations... everything. Her mother said that's "tempting fate".

It's like if you believe that things will go wrong (and therefore take all necessary precautions), fate will be tempted to go ahead and make your worries come true.

So, if I was afraid I'll fail, I will.

Yeah, I've heard that a lot, and even seen it on t-shirts.

But isn't that because I was being a defeatist?

Maybe it's because I thought I'll lose, so I didn't give it a real fight, so I lost... a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy  (I made the term up then found out it exists, check it out)

Well the character in the TV show did call off the wedding after all, is that why?

She ruined something by believing it'll be ruined, and that thing directly depended on her attitude. So the logic holds, she could've been directly responsible for its ruin.

Today I was having a discussion with a friend, and I had to ask myself, can one do the opposite?

Can I make something work, because my attitude towards it is that it'll work?

Logically, no I can't!

Because for something to work, it needs all its dependencies fullfilled.

It's an AND function.

She needed many things (AND her atittude) to have the wedding go well, not to mention the whole marriage.

So it's not that simple.

You can wreck something by your attitude, but your attitude alone can't be sufficient to fix something.

You won't run if you don't think you can, but you won't fly only because you think you can.

On Relativism: 3- Doublethink

“My son, the Giant who had one head was stronger than the Giant who had two. When you grow up there will come to you other magicians who will say, ‘Γνωθε δεαυτον. Examine your soul, wretched kid. Cultivate a sense of the differentiations possible in a single psychology. Have nineteen religions suitable to different moods.’ My son, these will be wicked magicians; they will want to turn you into a two-headed Giant.” The Magician in "The Disadvantage of Having Two Heads" – G. K. Chesterton

Doublethink was introduced in George Orwell's political novel "1984", it is defined as the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs.

This form of doublethink was a very conscious act, it was used by common people & ruling party members alike, & its mechanism was driven by fear more than anything else. It was a means of survival in a totalitarian world, but also a means of maintaining that totalitarian world.

When I consider what it is that I am having trouble accepting in our ambiguous modern mentality, I find it is something remarkably like 1984's doublethink, except that maybe it was driven by different reasons.
Let me explain...

Those who strongly believe in something fight for it, that is essentially true.
And the result of which was fanatics of all sorts filling the world with wars.

What people began to suggest after ages of difference (& because of ages of difference) is that since apparently nothing seems Real to everyone, then maybe everyone's beliefs are Illusions.
So no reason to fight about it, really. It might all turn out to be wrong!
Notice that this isn't saying it is wrong, but that it may be, & this is suggested as a reason to not get too excited about it!

As a proposed solution to religious strife, that is very much like castration as a proposed solution to adultery!
To stop crimes of passion, let's kill passion!
To avoid burning others or getting burned, let's stop making fire!
The result has to be a long and terrible winter.
So people died out inside, at least towards what they believed.

Naturally, this was welcome by Atheists (especially agnostic atheists), but there were also many Theists who wanted to embrace the all-accepting nature of that pseudo-solution to religious strife, and they did.
This resulted in a generation of religious people that advocated belief in a "private" religion.
Obviously, once a religion becomes private you have no reason to publicly profess it, let alone enforce it.

But not only that, once a religion becomes private, it no longer really is a religion at all. For a religion is a belief regarding the universe, it is about the universe, not only about a person. This was elaborated on in the latest entry in this series.

But this "private" religion of a "private" universe -as far as I understand- is backed up & promoted for by Buddhism. Which was getting fashionable at the time when this relativism began to be popular.
In any case many thinkers had no real problem accepting it. It was even considered in style! It became the new "modern thinking".

But I'd like to draw your attention now to the fact that this thinking is actually doublethinking.

To believe in an admitted illusion is doublethink.

To believe in a System of Belief & yet not care if it is false is not Believing at all, it is doublethink.

To believe in a Universal Philosophy & yet believe it to be Non-Universal is doublethink.

Just like doublethink of "1984", our doublethink is done for purely practical purposes, namely neutralizing fanaticism-caused violence.

Also just like doublethink of "1984" had a special sort of language (Newspeak) invented to facilitate its manipulation of reality, our doublethink has its special sort of language as well; as C. S. Lewis put it in the first of the Screwtape Letters as the speech of a wizened old demon to a young unexperienced one:

"Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" of "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary", "conventional" or "ruthless". Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about."

And just like doublethink of "1984", our doublethink was made possible by promoting that Reality (with a capital R) is either non-existent or unimportant.

Or in a more subtle way, by suggesting that Reality is whatever you make it to be, reducing it to your reality. A practical reality!

And right here, Truth becomes excess baggage.

& I think we need Truth... don't we?

On Relativism: 2- Isolation

"The modern habit of saying"This is my opinion, but I may be wrong" is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me" - the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon."

Introduction to the Book of Job - G. K. Chesterton



I have met many people whom after having expressed their opinion, expressed how they considered it merely their own opinion and nothing more. They said that "to them" it was right, however they didn't think that necessarily meant it applied to anyone else's life, or even that they thought it to be it Right in the absolute sense of the word.

This was uncomfortable to me at first because that meant I can't discuss with them any of those opinions. Whenever I'd say something they'd answer back "Yeah, maybe to you that's right!".
Now, what these people were actually suggesting was that they have their own private universe in which these opinions were true. In that universe I didn't exist, hence I couldn't claim that these opinions were either right or wrong.

After a few times of meeting more of those people, & a few more times where I noticed that to those people more subjects seemed to pack up their stuff & move to that private universe, it became downright annoying!

I understand how those people wanted to avoid disagreements. And that may be ok in some cases I suppose, unless they actually believe it! Then the price they pay for that mental peace becomes their sanity!

Many people became convinced that they are apart from all Mankind. In fact, they are quite convinced that all Mankind is quite apart from Mankind!
More people are moving their ideas to a place where they can hear no outside criticism, but the price of that is that they can also get no external help. They have no external point of reference to refer to when in need. A Man alone in a universe isn't a good thing, is it?
This model of thinking as you can see, may lead to an isolation of the individual, if taken seriously.

As I understand it, this translates directly into Hell. Life becomes a place of nightmares & doubts where no external help is noticed or accepted. It's an even more modern angst.

Now for many logical reasons, I'm pretty sure that this private universe people think about does not exist. We may all have different personalities. But there is one Reality and we all live in it.

I'd like to stress here that this doesn't mean that our reaction to that Reality must be the same.

However, when somebody claims that they are satisfied with some belief & that belief describes (& reflects on) that same common Reality. It has to hold true in that common Reality if it is to hold true in someone's personal life.
In other words, it is either Real to everyone or it is actually an Illusion.

In other words, it is either True, or it is not.

& I think we need Truth… Don't we?

On Relativism: 1- Individualism

First of all I would like to apologize beforehand to my friends FW & Python. I am not writing this series of entries now because of our conversations, but rather because this subject has been on my mind a lot lately... Our conversations were one result of that, this series is another.

I want to complain,

I want to complain, not only of myself, or merely of my people. But of nearly all people! For these days they are mostly forgetting to add the word "all" before the word "people".

These are my thoughts & feelings (strong feelings, actually!) on the subject of relativism.

Now, relativism is the faceless daughter of the sweeping popularity of Individualism,

Individualism as a mental school fought very hard to cut the ties people had to their ancestors & their peers. In short it tried very hard to sever all ties between all people.

In stressing that each man should choose for himself, it refused the idea of Common Sense.

In stressing that each person was free to choose whatever he wants to think (which is a noble cause, I am sure), that Men should think for themselves (Ah! if only that could come true), it also refused the use of the word "should"... which is effectively cutting its own throat!

As G. K. Chesterton put it (please don't hate me for quoting him again!) "Individualism kills individuality, precisely because individualism has to be an 'ism' quite as much as Communism or Calvinism.".

Meaning that for Individualism to become a mental institution, people had to belong to it. & when people did belong to it, they no longer thought for themselves anymore. Instead they were once again united under a thought-out idea, and this time it happened to revolve around the self.

"So far from really remaining a separate self, the man became part of a communal mass of selfishness." (conclusion of Chesterton's statement from which above quote was taken)

Which has been proven historically to be an inevitable outcome.

Men will always gather around a flag. To try to tell them to never gather around a flag is useless. The question then arises as to what flag Men should gather around.

Now concerning "should"s, if course there has to be a "should"!

Individualism (with the help of relativism) has led us to believe that we humans are all so different, and that it is quite natural (& healthy) for us to adopt completely different & mostly opposite views on every major & minor subject. It has stressed that this is perfectly OK.

Of course nobody would object to the observations upon which this idea is based, but I will strongly object to closing our eyes to the other plain observations, which show that we are all still humans!

Individualism values Logic above all else, & so implies a common set of rules for evaluating situations & standards. So at least Logic should be common.

But in addition to Logic, we all have the same needs, desires & weaknesses, don't we?

We all are pursuing pretty much the same things & we all are pretty much failing to get them! Now doesn't that mean anything at all?

How have we been led to believe that we are so terribly different?

The ancient thinkers noticed first how Nature was full of goups of things that are very similar. All horses belong to Horse, all men belong to Man. They argued to which extent that made them similar (and maybe even connected). Hiraclites, Plato & others devoted great attention to the problem of universals. They understood that to decide what we mean by Man is to decide whether we can know anything about Man.

It's drawing the line between the objective & the subjective.

It's drawing the border around Truth.

And I think we need Truth... Don't we?

On the Art of Debate in Egypt

I write this entry here after reading this, a very amusing old debate on Socialism (In a sense, the not-so-proud father of Communism) by the two intellectual giants G. K. Chesterton & George Bernard Shaw.
At the same time, I am following another rather different debate, that between some elements of the Coptic Orthodox Church regarding "The Deification of Man".

I had to notice the sharp difference between the two methods of debate.

One main difference is how the first debate is to a great extent a dialogue, although each side takes his time with the microphone. While the second isn't a dialogue at all!
This manifests itself mainly in how the second debate doesn't follow any particular train of thought through to its conclusion; instead each party simply throws a wide variety of statements in the face of the other party, very few of which can be considered a reply to the wide variety of statements thrown at it before...

At the same time the two parties seem to try really hard to avoid saying certain things or certain words, as if they think it quite possible that at any given moment they may find themselves on the other side of the fence!
This results in a refutation that proves little & disproves nothing, & you find that in the end the arguments presented from both sides can get along pretty well.
You can just write most of them down in conclusion & none would cancel another out.

To actually debate the issue, we have to reply to questions asked,
we have to clearly define the problem,
highlight what we agree on & debate what we disagree on,
we have to illustrate using examples that are related to & follow up with examples given by the other party.
And most importantly we have to follow the same rules of Logic! There's no sense in running a math contest if the two contestants neither agree on the multiplication table, nor do they use the same numbering system!
I say this because it seems that the two debating parties don't agree on what it means for two statements to be contradicting.
Nor do they draw from the same history. One very clear example of this is how both parties are labelling each other with the same labels.
I can understand it (though won't like it, it's a cheap shot) if in some debate one debater labels the other a communist, and the other debater labels him an imperial capitalist, but it makes no sense at all for both parties to label the other "Protestant" (unfortunately yes, it is used as an accusation),
it makes no sense that to both parties, the other's theology is always labelled as "Western" (another mis-accusation), this is happening so often that maybe western theoligians should join us at the table to explain themselves!
And of course there also is the endless -and same- names of heretics being flung across that table as accusations.
This can only mean that at least one of the two parties doesn't know what Protestants confess to believe, what Western Theology is, and what the old Heresies were.
In this thicket of ignorance, how can you have a real debate?!

If we were trying to have a debate, the art of debate actually has rules.
Even if that debate is mostly political, & even if it is being conducted on the pages of newspapers & tabloids for amusement, as a replacement to gladiator arenas!