Thursday, November 26, 2009

Grateful

I never asked to be alive... and yet here i am. I'm very thankful for it! That's what today is about, right? Not about football or over-eating or a bunch of ppl with buckles in strange places landing on a rock... it's about giving thanks. A recent bottom line article stated that scientifically, thankful people live longer. that's pretty cool.

but all this thanksgiving has got me thinking of my ethics paper. i posted these questions over at Jason's site and they keep popping back up for me cause they're prettty hard.

what is alive? are our bodies just vehicles for our consciousness? we understand the mechanics yet can’t understand where personality resides, is this evidence for a soul? how genetically and biologically pre-determined are we?
whatever alive is, whatever consciousness is, i'm thankful i have it. i'm thankful for those that i know in real time and online. thanks for being a part of this. have a great turkey-day! (which btw, is a UCC holiday ;-))

6 comments:

Boz said...

Our current ignorance about how the human brain creates a personality is not evidence for an ethereal soul.

Similarly, our ignorance about how life began on earth is not evidence for the Alterans seeding life on our planet.

Tit for Tat said...

Boz

Our ignorance isnt evidence for any thought system. All we can do is hope we're right when we make our ignorant statements. ;)

Tit for Tat said...

Im grateful I wasnt the turkey on this holiday. ;)

Anglican Gurl said...

Hey! Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for the reminder that the Pilgrims were actually the Puritans which were the Congregationalists which turned into the UCC (see, I remember your polity post!).

We might not know how life began, but I can say I know why we're here, as in here in America. It is because of religion! If not for the Puritans, I do not think the U.S. would have been populated as fast as it was.

Anglican Boy said...

Wow! Those are hard questions. I read another blog post by one of your friends and the questions posted there weren't half as hard as these.

I will have to think and get back to you on this.

@Boz: Our ignorance is simply ignorance. It doesn't mean we shouldn't follow our hunches or have an idea. There is nothing wrong with a flexible and working paradigm contingent on hard evidence.

Sabio Lantz said...

Excellent questions Luke.
The Buddhists have wrestled with these questions in very interesting ways.
Our interest with OUR life, OUR salvation, OUR consciousness are silly. We unfold (I think we are HUGELY genetically and biologically determined). But we can watch -- we can relax. Have you read Herman Hesse's "Sidarttha"?