Life of Pi

[sapphi_snake]

Bong Lover said:

Yes, you are right. 'Goodness' can be its own thing, and does not require religion. As I have stated several times, this question is not about religion. But 'goodness' is not a physical entity, it is a feeling. In that sense it is 'supernatural'. It is a property of exsistence that is outside the pure physical mechanics of matter. From this I claim that if you want to subscribe to a purely rational world where everything can be explained using the laws of physics, then 'goodness' reduces down to a particular configuration of electrons in a human brain and that is it. It is no longer better than 'badness' just a different configuration of electrons. And so it follows that normative statements become meaningless.

For the record, I don't believe in this world view myself. I believe that there is something more to the world than a cold and deterministic collection of atoms. This 'something' is hard to frame in words, and that is why we have so many different ways of explaining it, from the multitude of religions to the concept of human rights, to your explanation of goodness being part of the basic essence of being human.

To anyone who thinks I have derailed the thread: I have brought up these points not to prove someone wrong or right, but to try to encourage critical thinking around the concepts of spirituality and reality. To make people ask these questions is the ultimate purpose of The Life of Pi as well, and hopefully reading through these deep arguments will shed light on the deeper meaning of Life of Pi.

Feelings are caused by chemical reactions in the brain, they are not at all "supernatural". Other then "we want it so", no other argument is needed to make "goodness" a virtue.

Religion was invented as a discourse meant to answer questions regarding our existence. However the answers provided are made-up, have no grounds in reality, and are therefore useless.