Hurmanetar
New
I can get behind that if....IF, the abyss could be construed as the antithesis to logic.
That is the way to think about the Abyss... But wouldn't that mean the Abyss obeys some sort of rules or boundaries? We can only describe it by saying what it is not. And just like nothing cannot really exist because existence is something... The Abyss exists as an antithetical concept and source of irrationality but must necessarily obey rules to exist at all... Because existence is a type of pattern and therefore rationality. Therefore Logos > Abyss and light > darkness and something > nothing.
Even these flat earther's referenced above employ a certain level of logic. I've read their seemingly bizzare theory, and I couldn't really say it was wrong, empirically, since I admit, my view of the Earth as a sphere, along with all of the physics that go along with that, are entirely faith based. I'm not a physicist, I've never been to outer space and I've never so much as performed a single experiment that could prove to me first hand that the earth is a sphere. But I believe that it is. Why? Because it makes sense. Because I default toward the position that hundreds of scientists over hundreds of years aren't all lying to us. Now, could the earth actually be flat? It's within the realm of possibility. Again, I've never been to outer space and seen first hand that the earth is a sphere. I've never travelled to the ends of Antarctica to find out. But it seems highly implausible. But again, that's entirely based on faith.
Well it's so easy to falsify the flat earth theory on your own just by walking outside and observing the movements of the sun that believing in flat earth is only a half step away from solipsism.... Which isn't invalid but isn't as interesting. Going down that route I've wondered if the existence of the abyss combined with inherent ambiguity in all communication means that explanations for past events can be altogether changed by zooming in or out to a greater or higher level of detail. Sort of like this is a dream reality that is fairly stable but with some dreamlike instability at the edges.
It's interesting, really, to sit down and really inventory your beliefs and why you hold those beliefs. For as much as faith is a dirty word in our modern "scientifically based" culture, the vast majority of our beliefs rely specifically on faith. Faith in a creator is just one more. Though, I'd argue that there may actually be more reason to believe in a creator on a personal level than there is to believe the earth is a sphere. And that is because the belief in God often seems to be one of those things that are based on personal experience. Science, to a great extent for the majority of people, is not. It is something we are taught in classrooms, through boring lectures and sterile textbooks, through pop-science television shows and preached to us by "the experts". Not that science cannot be experienced first hand, given one has enough time and money, it often isn't. We have faith that the experts are telling us the truth.
Then, when we find out that, maybe...sometimes...they lie. Is it any wonder that after years of this scientific renaissance, where we are told "trust us, we know the truth" only to find that so often those truths were lies, we have a certain level of mistrust? That the publics faith has been damaged by years being given misleading information and promissory technologies that never seem to pan out?
When the experts start behaving more like clerics, we've got a problem. When questioning, the cornerstone of science, is disallowed, we've got a problem. When the golden rule of science, repeat until verified, is abandoned, we've got a problem.
Somewhere science as an institution lost its way. And the public is losing faith. Yes, faith, in science. So, then you get those who start to believe everything is a lie, which, I'll admit, is easy to do. That's how you get theories of lizard people, flat earths and intergalactic UN-type organizations. That, and I think on some level there is a sort of romanticism in the conspiracy. Day to day life can be boring and repetitive. Conspiracy theories awaken within us a sense of mystery, a way to break out of the mundane. I think some, not all, are fantasies that start to become reality for some people.
Agree