kerrin
11-25-2009, 09:56 PM
"There is only one kind of inspiration, and all work is inspired which makes us respond to truth, beauty, or goodness and makes us feel the appeal of those ultimates."—Leslie Weatherhead
Do you think the concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are inherently ultimates?
Do these concepts belong to religion alone? If one acknowledges these concepts as ultimates does one commit to religion?
Does assenting to the reality of these concepts require the acceptance of ultimates (even if they are unknowable with any certainty)?
Tom Palven
11-26-2009, 06:56 AM
I remember "the sound of ultimate suffering" from The Princess Bride but that's about it as far as my take on ultimates goes.
John A Roark
11-30-2009, 08:14 AM
Doesn't this harken back to the idea of a 'basic premise'?
Beauty is, of course, a value judgment. Many men feel that a woman such as Jessica Alba or Angelina Jolie or (shudder) Janet Jackson is the epitome of beauty. I happen to think that Mary Pierce (tennis player) makes them all look like boys. You know, the whole 'eye of the beholder' thing.
There cannot be degrees of perception in an absolute, such as: either it is true, or it is not. There is no such thing as 'partially true' when an item is reduced to its foundations. So truth is an absolute, an 'ultimate,' to use the parlance herein.
'Goodness?' What's good for you might not be good for me, in some few areas of consideration, and therefore it is relative and not an 'ultimate.'
As for there being only one kind of inspiration, let us not entertain such foolishness.
OF COURSE they don't belong to religion alone--religion always hijacks and/or plagiarizes the human mind.
I don't think anyone's assent is necessary for reality to exist, and there are absolutes all around us whether we accept them or not.
BTW, there is nothing 'unknowable.' There are merely aspects of reality about which we simply have not acquired enough information, that's all. Someday we will know it all.