GOD IS NECESSARY: A Conversation with the Sophist Zachary

----------ZACHARY to FLIGHT----------

 
One must believe in God or else there is resistance in the last vestige of one's soul. Cut it up, divide it however you will. It's no use. This is known only by being brought to the very brink of Self, where the vistas are open and clear-sighted, no longer clouded or fogged by doubt, insecurity, dogged anger (or vengefulness) and one can fully go on one's way. You, however, I believe, do not truly trust yourself.

[I hope you don't mind, as shallow as I feel I've made it, a little reading between the lines of the last letter. It, by things prudently enough unsaid, does away with popular sentiments such as "we all believe in the same God, at last" and also, in another sphere, shows how wars throughout history with God behind them have not been silly or trifling affairs but actually very serious -- as serious as you can get...]

Where is all this coming from? The inevitable contrary.
-- The waves come in, the waves go out...

 
--------------FLIGHT--------------

 
The first question that comes to mind is what's wrong with resistance? I must admit, I am totally ignorant when it comes to the soul.

You might consider the way your thought seems to work:

Emotional affirmation of a suggested proposition is not proof that one's suggestion is true. Perspectivalism is severely limited.

You may have "felt" this knowledge in your experience, but that is not enough to substantiate the claim.

Lack of belief in God is evidence that one is strong enough to confront reality, as opposed to projecting idealism against reality. 

 
--------------ZACHARY--------------

 
If you said "what do you mean by God" I would've taken you a little more seriously. But it follows that you must, based on the avenue you took above, draw the broadest assumptions in so many areas of your thought (including the supposed "emotional affirmation" you think I made). I'm completely aware of how my thought seems to work to you...

Anyhow, would I have even answered you? Life needs to be lived. I have no interest in quibbling which, by the way, is proof of how much of a "theist" and/or "idealist" you still are...Haven't you learned: a blade sharpened too much bends.

I want to help you. I'm going to give you something you might have never come across and save you much time of your life. Read Pascal's Pensees -- 135 and 139. I think, if you really understand him, it will help you to feel less despair and to get beyond the sickliness and confusion of searching for "truth" and many of those sickly spheres of thought (including much dialectic...), and to help you realize just WHAT you're doing and getting out of it. At least it will, I hope, set you out on a better, healthier path.

 
--------------FLIGHT--------------

 
I honestly and sincerely thank you for your reply (as well as your original letter). It is certainly not my intention to draw forth a battle with you. It was a bizarre paragraph you sent (and I was entirely aware that I may have missed the gist of your thought, as your style is rather cryptic).

I appreciate the Pascal references. I will certainly read them. As for being in despair (this is not something that plagues my life these days). My inclinations toward self-extermination are the result of intelligence (not despair). (And God knows I have no desire at present to engage in my own extermination).

As I see it you are sorely mistaken in your revolt from dialectic. It is intellectually irresponsible (not to mention hypocritical) to shirk the burden of proof. It is reckless to go about making metaphysical statements without any standard of falsification.

In many ways I respect you. I know you think about things, but the problem (as I see it) is that your thought proceeds from a very small and selfish space... you don't seem to think things through.

Allow me to speak directly (and here you must be tough as this is not personal) your dialectic, upon entering the arena of thought, would be obliterated in seconds. I find it exceedingly unchallenging and underdeveloped... there is no rational force attached to your ideas... it is perhaps best described as a series of interesting thoughts that lead nowhere. And because you have not done the dialectical work (in the process of thinking) this means the reader must do it for you, but what he finds is that there is not enough dialectic (in your thought) to carry your thought.

A good thinker begins with hard to refute premises.

Just take your fallacious reduction, which you created by using the word, "quibbling."

"Anyhow, would I have even answered you? Life needs to be lived. I have no interest in quibbling which, by the way, is proof of how much of a "theist" and/or "idealist" you still are...Haven't you learned: a blade sharpened too much bends."

The fact that life needs to be lived does not exempt the act of answering from the act of living. To answer is also to live.

Is a quibble a negative thing? (but this is more direct): is something a quibble just because you say it's a quibble? Basically you have injected, assigned a negative identity without establishing the identity you assigned. To say that Mr. Flight is a brigand means there is no need to refute Mr. Flight. By reasoning thus you may very well end up isolating yourself from legitimate dialectic! Poisoning the well is often a form of cognitive dissonance.  

Quibbling is proof of theism? Very well, I can think of many ways in which I affirm this premise, but I am tired and haven't the patience for this procedure, allow me to skip ahead (I'm afraid you will have to connect the dots): quibbling and rational discourse are not the same thing. In order for authority to be authoritative justification is necessary. If "quibbling" is never necessary then what is necessary? Surely at some point rational discourse is necessary? (Eventually one must draw a distinction between quibbling and discoursing).  

At some point the thing you don't want to do becomes necessary, and when we deny the thing that is necessary the outcome is often delusion, weakening by unwarranted isolation and repudiation. To repute something is very different from refuting something (the former is empty while the latter has substance).

If you make an assertion (and someone challenges the premise behind that assertion) it is your responsibility to defend and substantiate your claim. To attack the challenger at this point is to shirk the responsibility of your metaphysics. A man or woman who proceeds thus robs themselves of the right to object.

It would seem that your complaint (like so many other complaints) is that one should not be rational or careful in the process of establishing authority. Needless to say, this is not only a dangerous position to take, but it is also dishonest.

As per Pascal (having now read your references)... surely you are aware of the fact that he affirmed the idea of original sin? Hence, he condemns existence to despair. Further, the fact that he thought all of man's problems stem from an inability to sit with himself in solitude is the surest sign of his social ignorance. Man is only what his social and material conditions permit him to be. If he would be greater therefore, he must alter his social and material conditions. 

I must bring my thought to an end (as I suspect this letter has already tried your patience).

If your assumption is that of infallibility in relation to your views (if you do not think a refutation can come from a beggar) then you are the maker and keeper of your own bondage. Seek truth not power!

Those who challenge us are not our enemies, but our friends... by travailing with us in resistance, by objecting to and challenging our assertions, they often help us to escape our error.

I have carefully considered everything you said, and it seems to me you are saying that it's not necessary to be critical or rational?

"...to get beyond the sickliness and confusion of searching for "truth" and many of those sickly spheres of thought..."

Does this mean we should deny the existence error? If the search for truth is sickly, then what should we call the cultivation of error?

Here I would offer a much needed qualification: the search for Truth is sickly, not the search for truth. I agree that there are sickly spheres of thought in the world, but in order to gauge those spheres one must apply some kind of standard. It would seem the complaint is the affirmation of the thing rejected. In order for Truth to be sickly something else must be healthy. "What then is healthy," said the quibbling dialectician to the philosopher?      

respectfully yours,


--------------FLIGHT--------------


(In one sense) we are largely on the same page when it comes to philosophy. Contrary to what you might think, I do not play the game of philosophy. I have spent a great deal of time rebuking and refuting the futility of Analytical Philosophy.

I am very distant from the last place we parted. Dialectic directed me back at life like a meteor shot to earth from the gods.

But there is a large difference in our views... one cannot dispose of rationality and criticism; one cannot legitimately use life as an excuse to evade thinking; one cannot forgo the burden of proof in relation to authority.

The real test of any thinker is his ability to resist nihilism given the collapse of his precepts, which means the disintegration of their authority. (We can also say that this is the test of any truly moral man).

Most men, at this point, conclude the futility of everything... this is weakness, this is not real transcendence (which refers to natural transcendence; which refers to the act of creation against the absurdity and hatred of existence). Real power is resilience in the face of a subjective ontology, resilience against a subjective epistemology; real power is not thwarted by the despair of this reality, but instead, brings forth value, not as a deduction or a discovery per se, but as a creation! The future can then deduce from these values, even as they must learn to create their own values. In the absence of all supernatural value the man of power does not despair, he creates value precisely because he is a moral man! [and the fact that he is moral to such a high extent of resilience is the very reason for his transcendence.]

Transcendence is the act of bringing forth what is not there, it is the act of creating even though one has experienced the collapse of all formal systems and precepts. The latter reality is not enough to thwart the power of the transcendent man. Nihilism cannot stop him because he does not rely on the authority of formal systems; because his essence is not derived from the certainty of logic.

respectfully yours,

 
--------------ZACHARY--------------


More assumptions on your part. I'm sorry, I don't want to get bogged down in all of that muck...

I will simply ask: where does all this lead you to? I see none of it, I hear none of it manifested in your personal life. Nothing a person says, regarding the real respect gained for their character, matters. What a person does, what a person succeeds at matters. I see people every day acting superior to everyone else, I hear moral and/or spiritual constructs, some of them ingenious, for strength and courage and "going against the tide" -- but these people exhibit none of that! I see no action whatsoever!

When everything is dissolved to its last contents, I don't care about words, I care about deeds -- only backed by words (the echoes of accomplishment) if need be.  Generally, words are so cheap, they cost nothing. Why should we think them so valuable?

But, notice: when a person of ACTION uses words people tremble, prepare, they shed tears, they smile and are filled with energy, they respond according to the substance because it is a person of substance! All else is misunderstanding, deceit, pageants of eloquence and cowardice always lurks in the background with sly evasions.

The worst of it all, and it is all too common, is perfectly put by Napoleon: "When small men attempt great enterprises they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity."


--------------FLIGHT--------------


What more can I say... if you declare that something is "muck" I have no choice but to conclude that it must be muck. I suspect only a fool would deny your classification.

[Of course, I could ask you why you consider rational discourse to be muck, but I suspect your reply would amount to the same re-assertion. And should I be mad enough to probe for the substance behind this assertion, I suspect your reply would amount to a personal attack, articulating defects in my character, defects no doubt, that have the same authoritarian grounding as your assertions against reason.]

         ------------------------

Now by god we must get this out of the way: if Crutalis claims to be the strongest man in the world, then he must be able to lift the most weight in the world. This is because his claim to strength was a reference to his action. I don't know of anyone who would deny this. It seems rather simple to me. In order to have substance action words must have a physical correspondence. Indeed, substance must equally be present for all claims of authority. So one can legitimately ask (according to your own criteria)... you are claiming a certain thing about words, but where is the substance?
      
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"I will simply ask: where does all this lead you to?"

Aside from the fact that I find this to be a rather vague question, I'm not exactly sure how to answer. I suspect I don't know where "all this" leads.

"Nothing a person says, regarding the real respect gained for their character, matters. What a person does, what a person succeeds at matters."

I suspect this means that speaking is not an action? (It is a strange metaphysical stance to claim that words don't matter). Isn't speaking a thing that people do? Perhaps you are referring to speech without success, but is there such a thing as successful speech, and if so should this speech be considered an action? I would think that a person who does words is a person who does something. I would also think that a person who succeeds at words is a person that succeeds at something.    

"When everything is dissolved to its last contents, I don't care about words, I care about deeds -- only backed by words..."

I must admit, this is quite difficult to understand. Are deeds backed by words or words backed by deeds? Do deeds inspire words or do words inspire deeds? Could it not be a kind of mutual exchange? (In either case it would seem your calculation here is flawed).

"Generally, words are so cheap, they cost nothing. Why should we think them so valuable?"

Truly I would love to probe your assertion that words are cheap, but I suspect this might lead to the conclusion that they are not so cheap as you think. Whether or not words cost something depends on what we mean by cost? Surely they must cost something?

If you reject the value of words then why do you not reject words altogether? (Here and now you would use words to solidify the valuelessness of words?) Is this because words have no value? (Or perhaps they only have value in a negative sense?) In sharp contrast to your assertions, words are one of the most valuable things I have ever encountered... in all truth my friend, I would be lost without them.

At times it is action enough simply for a man to use the right words. Using words powerfully is one of the most important things a person can do. To be a success with words is one of the greatest successes one can ever achieve.   

"...when a person of ACTION uses words people tremble, prepare, they shed tears, they smile and are filled with energy, they respond according to the substance because it is a person of substance!"

While I don't deny a legitimate contrast between words and action, I believe that words are a form of action. Words can and do precede action, and in many cases great actions require great words.

This is my advice, when you land on a conclusion land in humility, always know that a refutation can come from the lowest beggar. {And here I must defend beggars as I am one myself.} Do not be so definitive in your declarations.

If there is indeed substance to what you say I most certainly want to know it; I would that God should strike me down before I negate the truth! In my experience the most valuable people I have ever come into contact with have been people of words, no doubt, they have also been people of great character (but perhaps never apart from words). I agree that there is a contrast, but I do not agree that it is so distinct as to negate the value of words.

"I see none of it, I hear none of it manifested in your personal life."

It seems to me there is a silent scale attached to your idea of action (in other words) you fallaciously assume that one's actions must achieve some kind of immediate and universal status? You also seem to assume that your perception of substance is the criterion of all substance. Surely it is possible that your grand and unrealistic perception is the problem? We act where we can with the limited resources we possess. How many people must our words (or actions) affect before we can say they qualify as substance? If "a person of substance" is only defined by action (in your sense of the term) then how do you prove that words are not a form of action?    

Whether I am a good man or a bad man has nothing to do with the truth of my speech. I am indeed a man of words, but from this, I am not exactly sure how one gets to the conclusion that my words are wrong (unless of course, one generally assumes that words are in themselves wrong)?

In believe that words should lead to action, but I also believe that words are a form of action. I believe Marx's quote on philosophy is the most important philosophical quote ever uttered:

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

Your moral claim seems to be that words are inferior to actions, but this is simply too general and vague to have much value. Many men have altered the world with words.

How will you teach a man to act nobly without using noble words?

[In order to cultivate strength as a thinker it is necessary to offer a refutation, as opposed to making oneself feel better by constructing an ad hominem. The latter rarely makes contact with the subject.]

I suspect the reason you are so down on rational engagement, is because you know your ideas cannot stand up to criticism (one might call this a lack of substance in authority). I would never be content to live this way. I want people to challenge my assertions because I want to know the truth; I am not content to live in delusion; I am not content to conduct my life on the basis of error.

He that seeks power cares little for truth.  

respectfully yours,
Jersey Flight



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