7 ideas
| 7073 | I am a creative nothing, out of which I myself create everything [Stirner] |
| Full Idea: I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything. | |
| From: Max Stirner (The Ego and Its Own [1844]), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This appears to be the germ of the entire existentialist view, which gives a helpful gloss on the concept of 'nothing' - as the motivation for human creation, the vacuum in the mind that has to be filled. Call it 'creative boredom'. |
| 9425 | Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Later Lewis said we must choose between the intersection of the axioms of the tied best systems. He chose for laws the axioms that are in all the tied systems (but then there may be few or no axioms in the intersection). | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance [1980], p.124) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature |
| 23061 | Free atheism should start by questioning its faith in humanity [Gray] |
| Full Idea: A free-thinking atheism would begin by questioning the prevailing faith in humanity. But there is little prospect of contemporary atheists giving up their reverence for this phantom. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Conc) | |
| A reaction: He seems to be referring to 'humanism', which I take to be quite different from atheism. I take it as obvious that simple atheism is entirely neutral on the question of whether we should have 'faith' in humanity (which presumably mean optimism). |
| 23057 | Gnosticism has a supreme creator God, giving way to a possibly hostile Demiurge [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Gnostic traditions envisage a supreme God that created the universe and then withdrew into itself, leaving the world to be ruled by a lesser god, or Demiurge, which might be indifferent or hostile to mankind. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It doesn't seem to solve any problems, given that the first God is 'supreme', and is therefore responsible for the introduction and actions of the later Demiurge. |
| 23056 | Judaism only became monotheistic around 550 BCE [Gray] |
| Full Idea: It was only sometime around the sixth century BC, during the period when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, that the idea that there is only one God emerged in Jewish religion. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a parallel move among the Greeks to elevate Zeus to special status. |
| 23055 | Christians introduced the idea that a religion needs a creed [Gray] |
| Full Idea: The notion that religions are creeds - lists of propositions or doctrines that everyone must accept or reject - emerged only with Christianity. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: With a creed comes the possibility of heresy. I''m not happy with children being taught to recite something which begins 'I believe…', but which they have never thought about and barely understand. |
| 23058 | Buddhism has no divinity or souls, and the aim is to lose the illusion of a self [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Buddhism says nothing of any divine mind and rejects any idea of the soul. The world consists of processes and events. The human sense of self is an illusion; freedom is found in ridding oneself of this illusion. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear why shaking off the illusion of a self is a superior state. Freedom to do what? Presumably nothing at all, since there is no self to desire anything. |