Kierkegaard and Apologetics

[fredbloggs02]

Which of his works have you read m8?

[bhima2001]

why don't some of you critics make your own video so folks round here can get the truth

[TheGadfly1234]

My dear sir, you have made an absolute straw man out of Kierkegaard. 

[wildhias]

its may be old news, but your last claim is not an empircally proveable assumption

[cliffordeberhardt]

If religion is in the same realm as science which I don't think it is then yes it needs to be subject to empirical evidence. Now if it is in the realm of personal choice and personal comments then you can try to apply reason to it but you won't get very far. Say I have to choose between two girls I want to date. Well reason may say that I should date girl 1 cause we have more in common but there is just something about girl 2. So which is the right choice?

[mysticresistence]

Now, why oh why should empiricism be immune to criticism? It shouldn't. Empiricism, Reason, the scientific method, all should be questioned. As for what you said in the end?...SAVE THE WORLD??!! Give me a break! Hitler said the same thing. No, forget the world and give the individual the individual power to save themselves as individuals and do not shove one philosophical school of thought amongst many (Empiricism) down people's throats. Also, Kierkegaard was counter-enlightenment, so what?

[mysticresistence]

I think you are missing the point entirely. Kierkegaard is indeed saying that we should not look at things empirically...AND???!! So, we should all mindlessly follow the scientific method, empiricism and Reason and never question them. That is the great hypocrisy of empiricism: they question everything, except the way in which they do the questioning, i.e., empiricism. Who says empirical evidence is the only valid evidence? Empiricist, that's who.

[darkwaterhermit]

@mysticresistence very nicely put, Pavoreax acts like empiricism and the scientific method are free from presuppositions, which apparently is the fatal flaw of Kierkegaard's method, thats pretty funny.

[cliffordeberhardt]

I think Kierkegaard is saying that personal relationship with God can't not be reached with rational thinking. Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works, but those are objective truths. Kierkegaard is saying a person's subjective truths can't really be based on reason. I wouldn't say this for all situations, but the example Kierkegaard uses is that of falling in love. Love is usually based on passion and not reason.

[oreilzac]

Whats with the frickin Hairdryer in the background.

[Pavoreax]

That's a lamp. And it's awesome.

[ZacharyDBrooks]

This is completely wrong. Kierkegaard never made any comment whatsoever about a dichotomy between religion and atheism. Kierkegaard concerned himself solely with whether one can reconcile being a Christian with being a member of society. Empiricism is completely irrelevent for Kierkegaard because it can never tell us what sort of person one should be. Kierkegaard rejected apologetics not because it tried to reconcile science and faith, but because it tried to reconcile respectability and faiith

[Pavoreax]

Empiricism may have been irrelevant to Kierkegaard, but it's not irrelevant to the real world.

Kierkegaard's problem was that he started with the assumption that faith is a virtue and that the fable of Abraham wasn't a story about a paranoid schizophrenic who nearly murdered his son because of the voices in his head.

And I completely disagree with the assertion that empiricism (i.e. evidence-based thinking) can't guide one's morality. But that's too big of a topic for this little window.

[ZacharyDBrooks]

Having actually read the book Fear and Trembling, I can say with certainty that SK most certainly did consider Abraham a murderer. He also probably did think Empiricism could guide one's morality. You are framing SK in a debate that he never had any interest in. I am not making any sort of point about atheism or science- I am saying you are missing the point from a purely philosophical and literary standpoint.

[codehendrix]

If religion is founded on faith... than in a rational world it is negated ...... this is why explanation is against christianity.... because explanation is against faith.... for faith is precisely the belief in the absence of rationality.... and this has to be so because immediate truth (GOD) cannot be mediated (rational)....

[kirrmy]

Not a very good interpretation. What was important to Kierkegaard was not protecting religion as such, but recognising that a meaningful existence is not made by inert facts. Instead it requires the kind of passionate commitment involved in a leap of faith. Today we can substitute religion for any kind of emotional risk, the main point being not to defend religion, but to suggest what is needed for life to have meaning to an individual as an individual, rather than another member of the herd.

[eskimojoe]

I'm not sure what sources you are referring to when you talk about Kierkegaard in this video, but i was always under the assumption that he ultimately rejected the Christian church as he did not view it as, what he felt, was Christian. I believe he stated, when asked why he stopped attending church, that he wished to stop making a fool of God.

[kbjorem]

Any argument I may concoct would only be more bricks on your pile. All I can do is continue to point until someone stops looking at my finger and looks at what it is pointing to.

Kierkegaard's Faith "faith is precisely infinity" p.401 of Stages on Life's Way.

Not belief, not even belief IN infinity, but PRECISELY INFINITY. It might be useful to say faith is one who is infinitying... one who infinitizing... but both are misleading. Precisely infinity. No seperation.

[kbjorem]

The quote is actually "faith precisely is infinity", got a couple words flipped around.

In any case, if you are to "argue" against the Faith of Kierkegaard, which is impossible, you would have to argue that the human being has no access to the infinite, to an eternal 'self.' More in line with the Christianity of Eckhart or St. John of the Cross or even with Buddhism and Vedantic Hinduism.

If your argument is soley against modern evangelism, I agree. That is nothing but idolatry/nihilsm.

[kbjorem]

And as a final note, Kierkegaard knew, along perhaps with Samuel Beckett, that his "point" could not be communicated directly, with conventional arguments, conventional logic, conventional methods, conventional language.

Hence, the "indirect authorship" and blatant contradiction in his writing (Paradox is paramount, please remember!).

One is advised to read Kierkegaard while not thinking that it was written by Kierkegaard, take the texts as they are presented, as credited! Okay, I'm done.

[ridelious]

you said: "..to say 'yeah I know what I believe is factually wron, but I still believe it'. This isn't of course an argument. This is emotonal and irrational and should not be encouraged"

How do you define faith, then? What is faith to you?

[Pavoreax]

I assume you mean "faith" in a religious connotation, in which case, faith is exactly that: holding strongly on to an idea when there is no evidence for it, or even when there may be evidence against it. Faith is intellectual dishonesty. Essentially lying to yourself for emotional reasons. The idea that faith is a virtue -- that the denial of reality is noble -- is one of the most damaging and dangerous notions ever conceived and one of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by religion.

[ridelious]

I (roughly) agree with your definition of faith.The question is now transformed to "What is of higher quality: Faith or Reason?". History has proved that reason has not 100% complete knowledge of anything and thus, many times gives incomplete answers and possibly wrong.

[ridelious]

The fundamental problem with reason is that it fails in a "self-referential way". It starts with the claim that it's above and beyond everything (and thus Faith) and only never arrives at that point, but it can be proved that it will never arrive at that point.

[ridelious]

What Kierkegaard did (among other things) is to point out exactly this: Even though reason plays a very important role, faith is of higher quality. IIRC, he writes about it in "Fear and Trembling". If Abraham would decide based on reason, he would have failed.

[Pavoreax]

I have not read the full text of "Fear and Trembling" - But I will this weekend, and get back to you on it.

My initial response is that a Reasonable person, operating under Human Morals, rather than God's Morals, would say that Abraham did, in fact, fail. But I'll have more on Kierkegaard's interpretation after I've read it.

[kbjorem]

The fundamental problem of reason is that it is based entirely in language which is based entirely on subject/object dualism.

Try to *reason* without language. You can't. You can however still *think* and *be*. Reason is just another human construct, and along with dualism, something which does not actually exist outside of your little 'ol noggin.

It's time to move beyond 16th century "thinking."

[Pavoreax]

Reason is as fallible as the humans who employ it, to be sure, but Reason is ultimately based upon First Principles, and our interpretation thereof. As such, the products of Reason may be wrong, and are subject to change as our understanding increases and our interpretation adapts, but the principles of Reason remain.

Faith, on the other hand, cannot be questioned within its own framework and retain its principles. It claims to have knowledge, but to challenge that is to delve into Reason.

[Pavoreax]

So, that demonstrates that Reason is of higher quality than Faith. It can be challenged within its own framework, and using the principles of Reason, the products thereof may be reconsidered and even discarded without causing injury to the principles.

[ridelious]

Thanks for your reply. It's really interesting discussion. Reason vs Faith is an amazing topic.

You said that "Reason is ultimately based on First Principles" and they are infallibe but it's our interpretations that are fallible.

I see two problems with your answer:

1. Reason is not A single statement (or if want Principle) which can be true or false, but the *sequence* of a series of statements. Therefore, what you call "interpretation", I would call Reason.

[ridelious]

The second problem with your response is what you call "First Principles". Whatever they are, they need to be proved with... (guess what) ... Reason. So, in order to trust reason, we need to use reason. This is how you end trapped into an infinte loop.

These two points I made, have consequences which in my opinion make reason ... uhhhm.. less attractive than faith... :-)

[kbjorem]

Silly little game proposed by Merleau-Ponty: Reach out both of your hands. Touch one hand with the other. Using reason, explain if the hands in front of you are subjects touching, or objects being touched. Which is which, etc.

The truth is that each is both and neither. Aristotle's foundation for all of western logic crumples to the floor. (A cannot be B) Just by looking at what's right in front of your face.

[kbjorem]

Note that belief in a Deity is a standpoint of reason.

The minute you begin arguing, using reason, for "God." You have lost "it." Kierkegaard was correct...

There is a Zen saying that if you are ever to meet Buddha on the road you must kill him immediately.

This is what Kierkegaard is saying.

[kbjorem]

Western Philosophy basically reaches it's endgame with Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Whitehead. The logician, the poet, and the scientist, three paths, one destination. The same one Buddha and Jesus were blathering nonsense about.

[HonestObserver]

What about Slavoj Zizek? Supposedly he's trying to bring objective morals and thought back in a post-postmodernist flourish. Though he's a Marxist!

[kbjorem]

Kierkegaard's faith REQUIRES doubt. In fact, it requires that you KNOW God CANNOT exist. Kierkegaard's faith is not BELIEF. In fact, it is antithetical to *mere* belief.

Read more Kierkegaard, you don't understand yet. The *authorship* is something similar to a Zen koan. You're trying to pick it apart with logic, which is impossible.

[littleskittle2]

Read Charles Taylor.

The claim that reason operates or can operate in a vacuum is fallacious. Ironically, that's an assumption in itself. It's not difficult to understand; even Ralph Kline, an Atheist, wrote about this. Why do you think Russel failed?

[trh526]

This is a decent video. I think your points on the apologetics are reasonable. I think your final point on "irrationality" fails. In Kierkegaard the conflict between objective theory and the subjective is critical. This is his importance, this is what has been carried on into later existentialism. To say "yes, I accept an objective worldview on the facts, but it does not describe my life subjectively" is not to claim a seperate realm of logic or to deny rationality. It's a subjective point.

[cosmicjackpot]

good vid

[helgihg]

Brilliant point, you get it out well.

[getonwithitgawd]

Actually I'd rather put a second step forward from his claim.

I don't think you *can* approach religion with reason. They are opposing states of mind. Trying to explain either from the other's prespective will not never fit. And most people have beliefs that can't be substatiated, most athiests believe they will die and simply cease to be.

There's no evidence for that at all, which makes the belief just as irrational as anything else that people believe about death.

(cont.)

[getonwithitgawd]

Which is all religion really is, it's a mechanism for people to explain away the things which they do not understand. Which is why nearly all peoples have had some form of religion. Even if you explain away the possibility of God 100%, the next mystery is right around the corner for someone to build an irrational belief system around.

In short- it's easier to make shit up, than it is to shrug your shoulders and admit that you don't know. Heh.

[spinhook888]

Religions do not develop for the sole purpose of explaining the physical world's mysteries. They develop to outline, identify, and define the uncertainties and anxieties of our condition and present them to us in a way that is easy to relate to. It is only when the religions become highly institutionalized and literal that they come to be regarded as authorities on things like natural history or cosmology.

Look to Bronislaw Malinowski's work.

[getonwithitgawd]

"They develop to outline, identify, and define the uncertainties and anxieties of our condition and present them to us in a way that is easy to relate to."

Which, 3000 or so years ago, still boiled down to Zeus's wrath on land, and Posidion's at sea. I think we're singing the same tune but you're putting it in more precise language.

[spinhook888]

The assumption you made is that if people don't understand something they'll tend to make up superstitions to explain it, as though people from primitive cultures have a lack of mental capacity that prevents them from thinking in a rational manner.

Prayer and magic develop as tools for humans to come to terms with things beyond their control. Myths are stories that allegorize real-world phenomena in a way that we can relate to. They aren't meant as explanations for the phenomena itself.

[mistawulf]

I will agree that apologetics is dead as it approaches with apriori assumptions (or hypotheses) and attemtps to prove them true (rather than to disprove them that good science generally attempts).

However, the problem that Kierkegaard and Kant don't address is the question "why must we be 'rational' in all facets of our lives".

Kierkegaard was not against rationality, but felt that it lie in the world of objectivity and not subjectivity.

[BoozyBeggar]

Very well spoken.