g0d outside the ethical
Blah, sick. With concomitant blah feelings.
Both the aesthetic and the ethical stages in life ended in despair and it is only in the religious stage that an individual’s real identity and eternal destiny could be found. This picture, however, raises an important issue, namely if the ethical is not the highest then it is possible for a faith relationship with God to call an individual outside the ethical.
from Peter Vardy | Kierkegaard, p 61
listening to nothing right now
Labels: Spirituality
posted by xhile at 9:11 am
2 Comments:
I think true ethics is the very principle of connection with others and therefore, with g0d (by extension). If you think of ethics not as 'morality' but as whether or not something you do adversely affects someone else, and acting so as to minimize all harm and foster benefit to all and not just to oneself - then, In My humble opinion- one begins to break down the illusion of 'separateness of ego
' that permeates our culture - seeing other's feeling as being as valid as our own brings us closer to closing the gap that our separateness of self-interest creates, reducing our separation from the rest of the universe, and therefore by extension, it's creator. This view is incompatible with straight christain morality which states that anyone can have a relationship with god regardless of their actions (which is dangerous codswabble - in my opinion again).
May 10, 2005 2:42 am
thanks, valid comment.
i don't think Kierkegaard would say harming someone else was ok, in general. He studied (in his book Either/Or ??) the story of Abraham being commanded by g0d to sacrifice his son Isaac, and concluded that g0d could call people to do things that were normally abhorrent. K's main point is that one should follow g0d regardless, and that merely living an ethical life, "being good" is not the same as following g0d.
I hope the religious right doesn't get hold of that idea, otherwise we'll have another Osama Bin Laden justifying any atrocity in the name of g0d.
May 30, 2005 2:45 pm
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