Vedic response to Hume

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by lightgigantic, Sep 23, 2007.

  1. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Hume's arguments revolutionized the european intellectual attitude to religion - to surmise his issues .....


    1) All creatures are subject to pain as well as pleasure but why, if God is benevolent?
    2) The world is controlled by strict laws. But if God has to resort to rule of law, how can He be perfect?
    3) Powers and faculties are distributed to the living entities with great frugality. Why, if God is magnanimous?
    4) Though the different parts of the great machine of nature work together systematically, these parts (for instance, rainfall) are sometimes deficient, sometimes excessive. Thus it seems nature works without higher supervision. Why, if God is infallible?

    1) Hume questioned why a benevolent, loving God would subject all living entities to the duality of pain and pleasure. His definition of living entity was limited to the physical body. The Vedic response is that every living creature is in essence jiva-tattva, an eternal spirit soul. Because of the attraction to lord it over prakrti (material nature), the jiva is entrapped in the bodily concept, and subject to the cycle of repeated birth and death throughout all the species in nature. The jiva's perception of pleasure and pain within these bodies is but an illusion generated by the false ego. By yoga (discipline and purification of the mind and senses), pleasure and pain are transcended. And by engaging the purified mind and senses in Krsna’s service, the living entity is established in an eternal loving relationship with the Supreme Person.

    2) Hume asked why a perfect God would have to resort to strict laws to govern the universe. The answer is that the universe is formed out of the bhinna- prakrti-tattva, the separated material energy of isvara, God. Material nature is separated, and thus organized by the rule of law instead of the rule of love, because of the separate interests of the living entities under the sway of false ego. Hume's interest in a world emancipated from material laws is to be fulfilled within the spiritual nature (daivi-prakrti), which is not separated from isvara.

    3) Hume's next doubt is answered by knowledge of the actual purpose of the material world. The universe is a reformatory for souls who, due to false ego, foolishly aspire to be the lords of all they survey. Nature's frugality is to help the soul understand his real position: he is a servant, not the master.

    4) The last doubt is cleared up by knowledge of the kala and karma tattvas (laws of time and activity). When a person performs sinful activities, reactions such as flood, drought, famine, pestilence and so on are destined by time to fall upon him in this and future lifetimes. Such misfortune is sobering. One should inquire from a saintly person how to become relieved from sin and its reactions. But too often, human beings are stubbornly animalistic. When hit with a stick by its master, an animal cannot understand what it did to deserve punishment. For all the animal knows, the beating is purposeless and chaotic. In this sense, Hume's view of the natural disturbances that befall mankind is animalistic. Hume's philosophical revolution soon became a scientific one. Less than a century after Hume's death, Charles Darwin would confide in a letter to Asa Gray that the theory of evolution had to be reasonable because a beneficent and omnipotent God could not have created bloodthirsty creatures that kill with savage delight.
     
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  3. Roman Banned Banned

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    You're under the false assumption that only humans think. Neanderthals probably had similar capacities to thinking as people did. They even put flowers and stuff at their grave sites.

    Did they sin too hard, then?
    They were exterminated by our ancestors. As were all the other upright apes.

    Hmmm.
     
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  5. SnakeLord snakeystew.com Valued Senior Member

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    Firstly he said:

    "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."

    Nowhere does that say evolution has to be reasonable because.. and is a personal reflection of the writer, not an indication as to why evolution happens to be a fact, (and theories)

    and then goes on to say:

    "On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance."

    ----

    Why would an omnipotent god create servants?
     
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  7. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    I'm not sure how this addresses the OP
     
  8. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    so IOW you think that Darwin's view of god and his presentation of evolution are two entirely different issues - and his talking about god's function and caterpillars being created in a particular way is of no correlation?



    good question

    Obviously not to help him do anything, which is of course we have servants.
    Servants is meant in a more generic sense. Eg a child is affectionately connected to a parent through service, a husband is affectionately connected to a wife through service etc etc.

    Basically we try to exist in this life by surrounding ourselves in an atmosphere of loving service. God is the same

    The major difference between us and god is that god can lay claim to being connected to the service of everyone. Hence the whole "omni" business ....
     
  9. SnakeLord snakeystew.com Valued Senior Member

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    Forget other words, in actual words it stated that his personal reflections are not an indication as to why evolution happens to be a fact, (and theories). It also explains in short that he wasn't saying has to be reasonable because of, but that he could not personally bring himself to believe that a beneficient god would have purposely created such things.

    Ok, we do help fulfill other peoples needs. What does god need?

    I see no gods making claims. Just people making claims of gods making claims. Oh well.
     
  10. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Your so-called answers are nothing more than statements with nothing to support them, unless you regard the beliefs of the credulous as evidence.
     
  11. Gustav Banned Banned

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    ja
    check the concept and premises
    a bare bones god would be a creator and not much more
    i could then id us as an alien school boy's sci experiment
    naughty and playful, an idiot savant rather than omni_______

    creator god(s) work if left in the chain of causation while bogus, unwarranted and contradictory attributes are dumped

    i mean
    for chrissakes

    you fucks parade this god definition as if it is the end all and be all of whatnot
    it is goddamn cultural dogma.

    omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence, divine simplicity, jealousy, eternal and necessary existence. incorporeal, a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, the greatest conceivable existent, whatnot

    aquinas's first cause was similarly bogus. an 800 yr old fallacy persisting in the quantum age.
     
  12. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    erm - hume was proposing problems of logic/concepts .... not evidence

    ... but anyway, thanks for your time
     
  13. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    if that was the case, it kind of makes one wonder why he would say anything at all about his personal views ....



    its more a case of what god provides



    most people also don't see electrons either - only people making claims about them .... such is the nature of our "seeing" I guess ....
     
  14. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    we are very proud to have a personality ... but for some reason god cannot
    :shrug:
     
  15. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    I think that without a conviction in the law of karma and rebirth it is extremely difficult if not impossible to believe in God, especially in a good God.

    People, theists and atheists alike, who do not believe in karma and rebirth, but instead only hold that there is only this one time line as we commonly know it (from the Big Bang or Biblical Creation on), and one corporeal life time (birth-death), come up with all sorts of arguments to compensate for the problems and contradictions that arise with holding such views.

    You've partly addressed this in your first point already. I think it is important to emphasize and take into consideration that "Western thought" does not operate on the conviction in the law of karma and rebirth. I'm not sure how meaningful a discussion will be between a "Westerner" and someone who holds conviction in karma and rebirth. I'm afraid that without a proper grounding in karma and rebirth, a "Westerner" might find your explanations to be too cruel or too mysterious to accept.
     
  16. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Not to put too fine a point on it, the notions of karma and rebirth are nonsensical. They do, however, serve a purpose in keeping people in their place ( caste) and offereing some crumbs of illusory future comfort to those who cannot handle reality.
     
  17. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    as illustrated by Myles's response, I think you are right

    "You cannot teach a crab to walk straight." Aristophenes
     
  18. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Aristophones was a comedian, unlike you who are just funny without being aware of it.

    You rely heavily on quotations. Do you ever have any ideas of your own ?
     
  19. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Thoughts to Steer By.... JUst for LG

    He that walks in a circle shall end up where he began.

    Knowing there is no knowledge, the wise man knows the Eternal Truth

    He that eateth and drinketh not shall soon go beyond the physical realm

    The essence of the Oversoul is its Unknowingness; he that knoweth this shall be freed from the round of birth and death.

    Even a humble bicyle is suject to these immutable laws, for it wheels go round.

    He that hath his head in the clouds will encounter a jet

    Even as the lottery-winner rejoices, so do the losers attain Nirvana

    From " The Wisdom of Bagwash Banergee"
     

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