Squeers,

You may be right that our hubris is self-designated. However, our concepts are devices that extend from our evolutionary condition. Concepts such as "justice" are mechanisms to address that state.

Back to "purpose".

Arthur Koestler maintained that "...the course of evolution is through ontogeny.....phylogeny is an abstraction, which only acquires concrete meaning, when we realise 'phylogeny, evolutionary descent, is a sequence of ontogenies' and that the course of evolution is through changes in ontogeny."

Koestler quotes G.G. Simpson's own conundrum about Purposer and purpose: "The Purposer is each and every individual organism, from inception of life, which struggled and strove to make the best of its limited opportunities."

Koestler also quotes H.J. Muller:
"Purpose is not imparted into nature and need not be puzzled over as a strange and divine something else that gets inside and makes life go....it is simply implicit in the fact of biological organisation, and it is to be studied rather than admired or "explained".

This seems to me more in line with Pericles sentiments on purpose in evolution - and I think is a reasonably sound view.

Well I give up folks. It's your latest teasing effort that's evasive, Pericles, but no matter. Of course I use logic, I'm just not seduced by it, that's all. I haven't said anything original, remarkable or even controversial, and my own position remains equivocal. I am simply cautious what I place my faith in, be it physics or metaphysics; the labyrinths of theology or the reductionism of reason. I prefer Socrates to Pascal. Unfortunately I don't have the time to labour the point further.
Have a nice day one and all : )

Dear Yuyutsu,

So Judaism is not a religion because it has a tribal god. What about some other religions? There is Christianity with its God that goes around impregnating a virgin like Zeus and then appears in humanoid form which to me trivialises the godhead. What about Islam which spread around a tribal god worshipped by the Arabs before Mohammed to more of the world? What about Buddhists who have no gods at all? To single out one religion and deny that it is a religion seems kind of silly to me. They are all nonsense, but both Christianity and Islam seem to have been inspired in part by the nonsense of Judaism.

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Dear Brian, Pericles , and Squeers,

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"According to Pascal, Christian faith answers our deepest yearnings in the midst of the messiness of life".

Pascal may well have expressed that opinion. He also declared that "sickness is the natural state of Christians" (because he, personally, was very sick from the age of 18 until his death at the age of 39) and admitted that it is impossible to prove the existence of god but estimated that it was the safest bet (which seems to have been the position he, himself, adopted on the question).

He was a brilliant mathematician, physician, and inventor but apparently offered no explanation as to how he measured the "deepness" of human yearnings nor why he considered that Christian faith digs deeper than any other human faculty including other faiths such as Jewish or Muslim faiths.

Judging from his natural propensity to generalize personal experiences, perhaps what he really meant to say was that "Christian faith answers MY deepest yearnings in the midst of the messiness of life".

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"Justice is a luxury, a word applied by a dominant power to its activities"
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Though it is most regrettable, there is ample evidence that the above statement, as a general principle , is a sad reality.

On the positive side, the possibility of justice exists and there is also ample evidence of this. The problem is that, as the latest Amnesty International report points out, only one third of humanity has access to justice and even where justice systems exist they are often corrupt or discriminatory. Also, of all major crimes, sex-related crimes are by far the most frequent, world-wide, the large majority of which are never brought to justice.

Unfortunately, there is more, much more evidence to prove that justice is indeed a luxury, as a general rule.

One of my deepest yearnings is that the disadvantaged and discriminated of this world may, one day, in the not too distant future, also have the possibility of justice.

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Dear david f.,

Thank you for that very interesting social map of the US. I shall keep it for further reference.

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Banjo,
I'd advise caution and discernment before reading too much into the details of David's map. I'm not sure of his expertise in cartography. That map is more revealing of his prejudices than anything real.

But then again, as David reminds us, we are entitled to our opinion.

Dear Squeers,
I've much enjoyed reading your recent contributions, thanks. But I disagree with what you said about Craibe. I think that to some extent what he originally said was just misreported. I read an 'Out in Perth' article about it and the media release later put out by the Salvos. I've tried to find a full transcript (unedited) to find out what he really said, but haven't been able.