Martin Buber said there are two distinct ways of i...

2007-02-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

Martin Buber said there are two distinct ways of interacting with the world (this includes God, others, and the natural world): I/it and I/thou.

We can either treat others, and the world, as objects, or as subjects. To treat them as subjects means we believe they have a unity and autonomy that we perceive ourselves to have. Thus we should seek to understand them, to serve them, and benefit them. To treat them as objects is to treat them as part of the background, or furniture, of the world we live in, to be manipulated for our benefit.

I would say that these religious people are exhibiting a simple form of I/Thou thinking. They believe that God is interacting with nature, and with them. The problem arises when interaction with nature and God becomes superstition. If they believe they can manipulate God into saving them, then they are in fact still treating God as an object to be manipulated for their benefit.

So I don't want to defend the comment completely, but as a parent of four I'm sure you have discovered what I've found as a teacher of 125. What is good for one kid is not always good for another. Kids don't understand that very well, but as the adult, you know better what each of them needs. Sometimes one needs mercy from something while the other one really wouldn't benefit from it.

So it isn't quite as inconsistent as you make it out to be for them to believe that God saved them. It doesn't necessarily mean He was punishing or not looking out for the other ones.

This is a solid piece of thought. I'm going to mak...

2007-02-07T18:03:00.000-05:00

This is a solid piece of thought. I'm going to make two comments. This one will be an apologetic response to the general thrust of your post, and the next one will be
an apologetic for those religious people you mention.

It may be that man is alone in his search for meaning and purpose, but it is an equally possible option that meaning and purpose is inherent in the nature of reality, and man is not, in fact, alone in his perception of these things.

We have to ask ourselves, which explanation makes the most sense of what we experience? We know that *in this world* consciousness, arises more or less from simple chemistry. But all the chaos theory in the world can't answer the question of why that is the way the world is. Either there is no explanation, and it is more or less an inevitable but nonetheless surprising accident, or meaning and purpose are everywhere because at its very core, meaning and purpose are built into reality.

I think you are wise when you point to family, community, work and love of actual people as an answer to your emptiness. I don't think you're far off the mark.

But I find it unsatisfying to think that my love for and responsibility to you, mom and my wife is merely good because it makes us feel better and helps us survive.

I concede it may be a sublimation of my psychological need to find patterns and meanings, but I believe that the fact that my wife's love makes me happy, and the fact that I'm convinced I should love and serve her even when it hurts, point to something bigger about the way the world is, rather than just serving to fill needs the two of us have. I believe that those things are in some larger sense, True. That in some way, it would be Wrong to abandon her or you guys, no matter how much I would benefit from it.

If in fact, it is merely to meet our own needs, then it seems to make sense to toss those commitments when it costs me more than I can see getting back. But to me, that misses something that resonates so deep within me that I'm convinced it has to do with the way things really are, and not just my or her needs.

Comments on Singularity and Futurism: What's the Freaking Point?

Martin Buber said there are two distinct ways of i...

This is a solid piece of thought. I'm going to mak...