and continued:
This leap of faith, “Salto Mortale”… doesn’t just exist in the impersonal
forces of capitalism or communism, no, as noted it exists in
any religion such as Buddhism or Christianity…at the very start of
the religious process… for example, Buddhism requires an immediate
leap of faith right from the start that we are reincarnated and Christianity
requires a leap of faith that there is a god… right from the get go, both
religions require a leap of faith…….
the next step is this question of science, naturalism, of evolution,
of gravity, of the natural forces that has created the universe…
how do we have self determination in light of those natural forces that have
created and dominate our natural universe? How do we understand Sittlichkeit
in light of those natural forces? How are we to have self determination
and an ethical life when we are fixed and determined by evolution
and gravity and other such forces? Can we have an ethical life given
we are created by such fixed forces as gravity and evolution?
must we make a “Salto Mortale” in the face of such forces as gravity/evolution?
we are forced to exist in a certain way because of gravity and evolution,
we must breath and eat and drink water and procreate as we are the results
of billions of years of evolution and we must obey the laws of gravity or
face rather severe consequences…our self determination is limited
in that sense… our physical limitations are set by those forces of gravity
and evolution… but we are not bound to those forces…we can act in a
self determined fashion regardless of those physical forces that have created
and dominate us…we have choice… we can lead an ethical life because
we are not limited in that way by evolution… we can exist in Sittlichkeit
because gravity and evolution affect us on one way, it doesn’t determine
our ethical choices… gravity or evolution doesn’t say or do anything to limit
our ethical choices, our ethical lives…we can act individually and/or collectively
in terms of our ethical choices…we are not limited by gravity or evolution in this
manner…we can have ethical lives because our ethical choices is not limited
by or determined by those forces of science……
but what about those ism’s and ideologies that require us to
to make a leap of faith, ism like capitalism or communism or
Buddhism or Christainity….if we make a leap of faith, are we really
leading ourselves to ethical choices? can we make ethical choices if
we have to “Salto Mortale” to make that choice? does a leap of faith allow
one to have an ethical choice? for to have an choice requires we don’t
need to act in some prior manner like making a leap of faith to make
our ethical choices work…Kierkegaard is wrong… we don’t need to
make a leap of faith to have ethical choices… we just need to
choose and then act upon that choice… I can have an ethical life
if I simply self determine that I exist within a certain framework, a
framework of forces like gravity and evolution that limits
my choices, but they don’t determine those choices… I do…
Today I choose to be ethical… I will help that old women cross the street
and that is all it takes… to act to benefit others instead of myself…
but that choice Kropotkin, doesn’t that choice require a leap of faith
that helping others is the ethical choice…you tell me…
Kropotkin