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can i ask why one cannot sense in an emotional way? i understand that rationalism is king in many ways, but i guess i wonder why emotions get such a back seat.
a story that says it very well is by Patrick Henry in "An Ironic Christian Companion." He tells about how he ws facing grief, very academically, living the experience soley in his mind. Ordering emotion with reason, he nearly suceeded at managing the loss. Almost. Then he had a pyschotic break, emotions overwhelming his denial.
He tells it better, and i'd encourage anyone to read the book, but the point that he makes is that he was forced to realize that his power to feel was no less great that his power to think. They make us to an equal degree, human.
Open the paper tomorrow morning. Read the headlines...will it be wrong that people have been killed, maimed, abused, and trod upon because there is a rational principle that decrees otherwise? Or becuase of a feeling in your gut?
See, my reason states that a God that conviently disobeys the laws of physics, causeing floods, 6 day creation, burning bushes...doesn't exist. But i still feel something.
and that doesn't mean my reason plays no role. rationally, equality make sense-that people are not treated differently becuase of race, etc...but that doesn't seem fufilling until my heart sings at the idea that equality is only the beginning of the respect and dignity due each person, and that it is a law that does not depend on human recgnition to make it true.
point of it all is...why is something abstract automatically untrue? I can't prove God in a sight, sound sort of way. but i don't think God is a sight, sound sort of concept. and it is really bullshit to insist that our emotions have some say in determining reality?
you can rationally understand something, and know why you feel a certain way. but that reason can't dictate what is real emotionally. Just like emotion couldn't make something real rationally. but do you really just pay attention to one of those means of perception?
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