Atheist Nabbed In Tennessee

Charles Van Dodge, allegedly was reading Jean-Paul Sartre and eating a melted cheese sandwich when he was spotted, chased through the streets and apprehended entering a shopping mall. Three Christians recognized him. (More at link below) Are you saying, that the Three Christians recognized him, because he was a fellow atheist also? Since Christians didn't believe in more than one god (Roman gods), and did not recognize Caesar as being one with-of the Roman gods, they were called atheists!

Sartre thought he was enslaved by the ding-an-siche (go read Immanuel Kant if you need to know the translation). Sartre should have listened more closely to Kant, when Kant pointed out rightly, that you only had certainty within pure mathematics and science, when the categories of the understanding were able to put order to the some aspects of the categories of the sensibilities (being what your mind perceives via the 5 senses), and that the left side of your brain must bring logic and order to. But since I don't know what it is to be a Rock, a Tree, or a Star, or a God, I am left with making judgments, and that all knowledge, outside the certainty of pure mathematics and science (physics), has no certainty. Sure, I am aware of my self, but even that knowledge has limitations or you wouldn't have to learn and acquire knowledge as your grow. We have to make a judgment value on all knowledge, and that involves faith!

Point being, you drive a car or cross a bridge. You don't have to have an engineering degree, before you have enough faith, and knowledge to be able to start a car or cross a bridge. You simply put faith in your fellow mankind, that they have made safe cars that won't blow up like a plant, that they have the engineering skills necessary to build a bridge that won't fall down, and so you cross that bridge in simple faith every day! Kant also pointed out the all knowledge that is fact, is simply established theory that has been tested and proved true, but even your facts can change with time, if a new theory is established that displaces the first. Case in point, it was a scientific fact until the 20th century, that the atom couldn't be split. Was accepted by scientists everywhere, although some theorized, it might be split. Once the atom was split, all the facts changed, and then you had new theories (sub-atomic).

Maybe you consider yourself clever because you cut and paste something on Sartre because it sounded clever, but you yourself never read his teaching. Maybe you had an introduction to Philosophy Clbutt or even started to minor but stopped at 20th Century Philosophy (of which Sartre is from). You really need the foundation of Ancient and Medieval (History of Philosophy I), Modern Philosophy, (History of Philosophy II), Postmodern Philosophy (History of Philosophy III), to understand many of the presuppositions in Sartre's own arguments and statements of belief and proof from the advanced clbutt you'd take in 20th Century Philosophy (History of Philosophy IV).

It could be argued that Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre simply set the stage for Derrida's later and better, but incomplete work in deconstructionalism. Sartre basically seemed to wallow in the Hindu concepts of nothingness and nirvana, but it would seem his greatest struggle was with what he perceived was the oppressive nature of Christianity. Now with European Catholicism, one could see his point, and whether he was ever aware of the far right Protestant Fundamentalism, one may never know. However, in general Protestant Evangelical Christianity, there is more freedom than what someone like Sartre might comprehend, but when he tried to argue with Kant on the very foundation of metaphysics, that was his undoing, as it has been with just about every philosopher who has followed Kant.

Sartre's anbreasthesis would have been Nietzsche, who did not find a problem in being enslaved by the fire of existence in being, but rather his character, Zarathrustra, went to the mountain to acquire the fire, and then use it for his own purposes. Of course Nietzsche's brand of Humanism was read by the Nazis and run with, because they quickly adopted the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest, and that that not just the survivors, but the most fit, by sheer will and rule of iron will, make reality, and decide what it is right, and what is wrong. And if you don't like being defined as wrong, simply wipe out all your enemies until only your powerful right exists! Very fascist, but the Nazi's also found it very fashionable, and literally lived out Nietzsche's philosophy in a practical (put into practice) manner.

Meanwhile, Sartre, so antagonized by the Catholicism that dominated Europe and especially his home country of France, never bothered to read S�ren Kierkegaard, and his existential views. For S�ren Kierkegaard, Socrates was right, we were blind, and needed a teacher, but that teacher couldn't be just a fellow man (who was also blind as he believed Socrates' very human mid-wife to be), but they had to be a God to cure you of your blindness, and bring faith and sight to you. But a God you can't relate too, unless that God is also human, who can then teach you once He has brought you the sight you lacked through the light of faith.

I don't think I've met any real atheist, at least not any very educated ones. I've met plenty of agnostics, deists, unitarians even, but if you want to stick with Darwinian Evolution, then everything that has a beginning must have an end and you are left with the dilemma that Agent Smith presented Neo in Matrix Revolutions when it comes to Existentialism: --------------- "Why keep fighting? Do you believe you are fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. Its pointless to keep fighting!" --------------- The other alternative is to live as the ancient Epicureans of Socrates' day, who believed the purpose in life was to live for pleasure and self-gratification, but you can go too far with that as many in the Counter Culture of the 60's did, and helped usher in an additional 124 STDs to add to the old standard 4 STDs that could be cured by anti-biotics alone. Plus if Sartre was such an atheist, why was he seeking a spiritual experience through mescaline convinced him it was a pleasurable experience, but history proved it to be otherwise for Sartre.

PR 19:2 It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.