Re: general question to ED members...
Posted by:
Platypus (IP Logged)
Date: 24 August, 2020 09:51AM
Sawfish Wrote:
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> Platypus Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> > "Anti-exceptionalism" and "materialism" have
> > little to do with each other.
>
> Maybe, but to consider humanity as an exceptional
> creation imbued with a spark of God's divinity--He
> creating us in His likeness, you see--seems
> contrary to materialism, which reduces everything
> to conceivably knowable matter--quantum mechanics
> being the logical extension, I would suppose.
The above sentences reference God and perhaps, by implication, the human soul. That, and not the "exceptionalism", are what makes the above Christian teaching inconsistent with materialism.
HPL wrote in his fiction that cats were sacred to the gods, and made in the image of the divine sphynx. That is just as contrary to materialism. Whether or not it is also contrary to Christianity is beside the point.
> So "exceptionalism" is at odds with "materialism",
> to me it seems like "anti-exceptonalism" is at
> least in the same philosophical hemisphere as
> "materialism".
Materialism fails to ascribe any value to anything at all. It seems to me to be meaningless to say that it is either for or against human exceptionalism. The materialist, at least, is capable of appreciating that there exists a tendency, perhaps natural, for humans to be species-centric, ethno-centric, and ego-centric. Materialism offers no particular incentive to resist such urges or tendencies; though of course, neither does it forbid such resistance.
Materialism refuses to allow that reality has any spiritual component whatsoever. Materialism does not allow for the tiniest and most insignificant imp, nor does it allow for the most ultra-powerful god or demon. Debating on where the human soul stands in the hierarchy of spirits, and what the Christian position on this might be, is utterly beside the point. The argument is over the instant you allow that any god, demon, imp, human soul or animal soul exists at all.
On a side note, you will have a much easier time arguing that HPL's fiction was (often) un-Christian or anti-Christian.
Even there, though, you may be a bit unsure what to do with "Psychopompos" or "Dreams in the Witch-House".
And even there, arguing that HPL's rejection of human exceptionalism is an un-Christian aspect of his fiction would be an extraordinarily weak point. Chistianity merely teaches that God in some sense put Man above the animals. It says nothing about whether humans are more powerful than demons, or are more important in the eyes of god than angels or other powerful spirits. And it expresses no opinions on space aliens either. IIRC, Swedenborg, in the mid 1700s, speculated that certain space aliens might be children of god with analogous status to men; and I doubt he was the first. Had HPL used his fiction to agitate in favor of equal rights for bunnies and cockroaches, you might possibly have argued that this contradicts the Christian doctrine that humans are higher than the animals. But HPL did not believe in equal rights for cockroaches. Nobody does. Not really. It's a non-issue.
And HPL could be quite the "exceptionalist" in the sense of being a class-snob and a race-snob. And this does influence his fiction at times. Arguably, he might have been less of an exceptionalist, rather than more of one, had he made more attention to Christian teachings such as "Christian humility", the sin of pride, the value and dignity of the poor in the eyes of God, and the universal brotherhood of mankind.
Christianity does anticipate an apocalypse in which ultra-powerful demons will arise and destroy mankind. Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 24 Aug 20 | 10:25AM by Platypus.