Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On the Question of Absolute Undecidability', 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript' and 'fragments/reports'

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3 ideas

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / e. Fideism
Without risk there is no faith [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Without risk there is no faith.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Inwardness')
     A reaction: Remarks like this make you realise that Kierkegaard is just as much of a romantic as most of the other nineteenth century philosophers. Plunge into the dark unknown of the human psyche, in order to intensify and heighten human life.
Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective')
     A reaction: The word 'highest' should always ring alarm bells. The worst sort of religious fanatics seem to be in the grip of this 'high' passion. The early twenty-first century is an echo of eighteenth century England, with its dislike of religious 'enthusiasm'.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal [Pherecydes, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: As far as the literature tells us, Pherecydes of Syros was the first who pronounced the souls of men to be eternal.
     From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.xvi.38
     A reaction: Presumably before that it was the physical person who arrived in the Underworld. The Hindu tradition seems to require the soul to be very long-lived, if not eternal. Why did Pherecydes come up with this idea?