Ideas Have Consequences Again

This book was visited before and it will be visited in the future. I like to highlight my books, but I may as well not highlight this one, or come up with a new standard, because it is almost all highlighted now. I'd love to start just putting in great quotes here, but there are so many that it isn't really worth even starting.

The bottom message that can't be stated too often or too well is that the "ultimate decision" is; "Is this all there is"? Meaning: is the material universe all there is, or is there something more? That something more can be named "perfect forms", "spirit", "God", "intellect" or a number of other names, but at the core, it is the "heroic assertion", "wishful thinking", or "prayerful acceptance" that there is truth beyond particles and bits that is the genesis point of departure for the ultimate cleavage of world view.

While Weaver doesn't directly say this (probably because he would find it beneath him to say), when man continued his rebellion against God and Religion in the enlightenment and set science on the throne, he threw "the baby out with the bathwater". Philosophy went out with Religion, and at least western man was left with no "unifying story".

It would be interesting to see how Weaver would see the current Islamic / Western culture clash. Is a bad transcendent idea better than no transcendent idea? My belief is that Weaver might say "yes", but I'm just putting words in his mouth. The decision is one for Theology and Philosophy, and our culture is so lacking in both that the number of minds available to help us answer such questions of ultimate truth are very small. We have also lost the cultural context to even respect the answer, were it to be presented.

I am again awed, and left in somewhat the same state as a primitive that has wandered in the ruins of a great city by this book and others. Thousands of years of thinking on the state of man in the universe has been cast aside and but a tiny remnant of humanity is even interested in discovering concepts like meaning and truth. The vast majority would rather focus on the firing of 8 attorneys under one political party while having had no concern over the firing of 93 others by the opposite political party 14 years earlier. They are perfectly willing to let "truth" be all in context of time and party.

99% of the population is completely unaware of the consequences of making those decisions as to the loss of meaning, direction, value, and understanding created by such a willingness to flee principle and consistency. Our limited reason can only find purchase in the context of consistency against some standard not fluid in time and application. Science provides no meaning, only data. Correlated data relative to physical perception at times, but no values in any sense. So we continue to drift, hoping that "bigger, better, faster, easier, more comfortable" will provide happiness, or at least comfort.

Why ARE we so fascinated with Anna Nichole? Could it be that she is a bit of a blond "canary in the coal mine"? She seems to be a worthy symbol of the direction of our general culture.