I think philosophers must be crazy, or at least well on their way. How else can one explain thousands of years of attempting to answer questions about questions which have no answers? I cannot imagine the sleepless nights they must have spent in agonizing contemplation. I do not even consider myself to have a fraction of the wisdom of the historic philosophers and there have been times when questions inside my head cloud my ability to accomplish even the simplest tasks.
Descartes and Kant state that any concepts or words that we use to describe things in our world can only carry us so far because they are limited by our experience. Therefore it seems that absolute truth can never really be reached. These concepts merely represent the current development of human thought even though scientists are searching for objective truth and at times believe they have found it. We can never really consider anything absolute because it is dependant on our present experience and surrounding information. The ideas of space and time and universe and the soul, and God for example, are given the label and definition simply so we can have a vague means of describing them for the moment but really we can have no complete understanding of any of these because we are limited in how far that definition can be stretched to suit our present needs.
The fact that God has been a driving force in the heart and mind of so many for thousands of years and yet we are unable to even remotely grasp the concept of what it means, is just one example of how words can actually complicate concepts rather than simplify them. Who can define God? Who can describe the complex connection that so many feel? We feel the need to personify because it is the only way we can even begin to comprehend. So we use terms such as He in order to help facilitate understanding but really all that we have succeeded in doing throughout history is waging wars and driving wedges between nations. Based on what? On a belief that can never be proven to be right or wrong. If we were to establish that God is not a person to be worshipped and prayed to, not a source of income, not a means of controlling the people, not a man in the clouds dictating right and wrong, but instead, a driving life force, an energy present in every living thing, the voice that speaks to and through all of us (not just a select few-although one could suggest that the prophets were those most capable of eloquently explaining the purpose of life to the masses), a mysterious and unexplainable unknown that can only be speculated upon, maybe we could actually find a way to agree that all we know is that we don't know.
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