More Thoughts
It is commonly said that people know the difference right and wrong (normal, sane people anyway and for now we'll ignore the rest). If this is so then why is there disagreement over what the Torah says? Orthodox, conservative, and reform Jews all think there are different things that are right and wrong and the picture gets even more muddled when Christians and Muslims are thrown in the mix. It seems to me that we must either reject the idea that people know what is right and wrong or we must reject the idea that religion is the path to discern the difference. In this case I actually believe we should reject the former since it seems that the only way people have a sense of right and wrong is when they are taught the difference. This whole train of thought is just something to keep in mind the next time some religious fundamentalist appeals to what everybody knows in their heart is right or wrong. Even if we all could agree on issues like murder (and even there we can't) how do we sort out conflicts where one person feels that keeping koshrute is the right thing to do and another feels no moral drive to keep kosher whatsoever? It seems to me that what an individual perceives as right or wrong has far more to do with their upbringing than any metaphysical access they may have to an absolute moral thermometer.
On a related topic (as much as any two thoughts in my brain really relate in an intuitive way), I've realized that there is no point to doing anything. This may seem a rather sweeping generalization and I assure you I intend it that way. There is no advantage to being rich or poor, happy or sad, a lover or a hater. None of these things can have any value unless there is some goal or meaning to life. You may notice that I'm assuming there is no meaning to life which may seem depressing, pessimistic, and wrong to you, but consider this: no one has figured out the meaning of life and been able to defend their answer successfully. The closest that people come usually is some appeal to faith in this or that. If you take away the faith and ask for concrete logical accounts with no holes it can't be done. The argument in support of there being no point to life is fairly compelling. It doesn't seem that a point is necessitated, it's entirely possible and likely that everything is due to random chance. When this is combined with the lack of agreement millennia of scholars have arrived at on any sort of meaning to life the case against meaning truly seems compelling. So why do I bother you ask? Well I'm somewhat directionless right now since no goal seems worth pursuing to me on a personal level so until I find some inspiration or universal truth I'm going to follow the advice of Bismarck who said, "There is someone wiser than anyone and that is everyone." I'm not so cocky that I'm going to go against the entire tide of common sense based solely on my own depressing philosophizing. Until I become more sure of my conclusions I'll just pursue the goals that I thought were worthy before I started thinking too hard about it and those which the general population seems to think are good. As stated in an earlier posting, there is some advantage to being part of a horde. Beyond the discounted prices there is also the ability to suspend reason and logic and just follow the herd without thinking.
