When I started postgraduate study the first time round we talked a lot about ontology and etymology, which were words I really struggled to understand. Eventually I got the hang of it: what we know and how we know it. How do we think the world is made up, and how do we know this? So for me, among other things, I'm a feminist - in part, we're split into men and women and that affects how we'll get on. And I'm a social constructivist - I think society is created through the language we use and how we behave.
I have discovered a downside to not believing in God. I have no basis for believing in anything. Until recently, having the certainty of an existing authoritative God and the Bible, I had a solid basis for everything I needed to have an opinion on, and room for lots of interesting debate within safe parameters.*
Now, I don't have that. In an uncertain world, I have no idea how to know anything. There are lots of theories and I can tell you which ones I like and why I like them, and also discuss the merits of them as theories, but how do you know anything? Is it just a case of deciding something and sticking with it, hoping for the best? Or making a best guess? Do I just have to earn to live with uncertainty?
*Actually, it was always much more painful and indecisive than that, but that's just the outworking of my personality. I've learnt to live with it.
1 comment:
I'm a firm believer that we'll really never understand what's going on in the universe. It's best to nail your colours to something run with it.
I'm reliably informed by the mighty google that that makes me a theistic agnostic. Not sure I'm happy with the term myself.
Of course if you want to get all philosophical you can't assume anything is real so you end up with the only truth being "Cogito, ergo sum" which is far too deep down a confusing hole for me. I'm sure that there are psychiatric wards full of people who've taking that kind of thinking too far...
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