Wednesday, May 25, 2005

On the same theme as yesterday...

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

     --Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law

Perfect humility would be a full willingness, in all times and places, to find and to do the will of God.

     --Bill W[ilson], founder of A.A.

1 comment:

stwill61 said...

One of my favorite philosophical topics, Michael.

You asked "Is there no middle ground?"  In a way, it's ironic.  Many believers in Absolute Truth would, of course, say "No."  But then, anyone who believes as Crowley or the Marquis de Sade do, would also say no!  There are absolutely no absolutes!

Me -- well, I'm an absolute truth kind of guy.  However, I do not believe that Man is capable, by himself, of understanding absolute truth.   More to the day-to-day point, I don't think any specific man is capable of knowing, for every situation, what is absolutely true.  However, the search for that truth, and the weighing of things against our interpretation of the truth, is valuable --- in my opinion.  My "middle ground" is to say "While I believe a right or wrong answer exists, I don't claim to know it."

Very few Western people could be true believers of relativism.  We are too interested in being "right."  I think those who are faithful to Zen ideals are the closest to purists when it comes to relativism.