They have science!

[RomanRussia]

They have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man's being is rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For the world says:

"You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires." That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air.

Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners visits, carriages, rank, and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honour and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it.

 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

[RomanRussia]

Discuss, learn, agree, try to disagree

[SFG75]

The wikipedia entry on Dostoyevsky has an interesting section of his disdain for the various "isms" that were floating around at the time.  If memory serves me correct, rationalism and science were included in the list.  the second paragraph that you quoted appears to be a commentary by FD highlighting that the "ism" of science lacks a moral framework from which decisions can or should be based on.  At the same time, can it be seriously argued that you lack morality because you don't believe in talking snakes or that the earth is 5,000 years old?  Writers are somewhat captives of the time periods and circumstances of which they live.  When your culture is transforming into modernity, it can be a frightful thing, perhaps that is what we see in FD's commentary here? 

[RomanRussia]

The wikipedia entry on Dostoyevsky has an interesting section of his disdain for the various "isms" that were floating around at the time.  If memory serves me correct, rationalism and science were included in the list.  the second paragraph that you quoted appears to be a commentary by FD highlighting that the "ism" of science lacks a moral framework from which decisions can or should be based on.  At the same time, can it be seriously argued that you lack morality because you don't believe in talking snakes or that the earth is 5,000 years old?  Writers are somewhat captives of the time periods and circumstances of which they live.  When your culture is transforming into modernity, it can be a frightful thing, perhaps that is what we see in FD's commentary here? 

 ism's??? Science is science! Nauka est' Nauka in Russian...

[RomanRussia]

 About that the earth is 5000 years old! Never I ever read the bible nor anyone would ever quote me the text from the bible saying that the earth is eactly 5000 y o I was asking in the heated debate once. Those were hard core atheists I'd describe...

[RomanRussia]

 A wanna be die hard scientists!!!!

[SFG75]

The 5,000 number comes from a Bishop who counted backwards based upon the Bible's genealogy.  He was far off.

Yes, science is not an "ism" but it does smack of rationalism.  Even with a description of everything, from how the planets move to how and why we are here, the ultimate question of meaning is what science misses out on.  This may have been FD's concern, however stated in a peasant slavophile kind of way.

[RomanRussia]

The 5,000 number comes from a Bishop who counted backwards based upon the Bible's genealogy.  He was far off.

Yes, science is not an "ism" but it does smack of rationalism.  Even with a description of everything, from how the planets move to how and why we are here, the ultimate question of meaning is what science misses out on.  This may have been FD's concern, however stated in a peasant slavophile kind of way.

 The one and only question for a die hard blood and guts hard core atheist a wanna be prominent scientists should be - who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of things on earth...


 'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then,
one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of
things on earth?'
'Man governs it himself,'Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this
admittedly  none-too-clear  question.  `Pardon  me,'  the stranger responded
gently, 'but in order to govern, one needs, after all, to have a precise
plan for certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask
you, then, how man can govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity
of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period - well, say, a
thousand years - but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?
 `And in fact,' here the stranger turned to Berlioz, 'imagine that you,
for  instance, start  governing, giving orders to others and yourself,
generally, so to speak, acquire a taste for it, and suddenly you get
...hem... hem ...  lung cancer...' -  here the foreigner smiled sweetly, and
if the thought of lung cancer gave him pleasure -  'yes, cancer' - narrowing
his eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word - 'and so your governing
is over!
     'You are no longer interested in anyone's fate but your own. Your
family starts lying to you. Feeling that something is  wrong, you rush to
learned  doctors, then  to quacks, and sometimes to fortune-tellers as well.
Like the first, so the second and third are completely senseless, as you
understand. And it all ends tragically: a man who still recently thought he
was governing something, suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box,
and the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer good
for anything, burn him in an oven.
 'And sometimes it's  worse still: the man  has just decided to go to
Kislovodsk' - here the foreigner squinted at Berlioz - 'a trifling matter,
it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly, no one knows
why, he slips and falls under a tram-car! Are you going to say it was he who
governed himself that way? Would it not be more correct to think that he was
governed by someone else  entirely?' And here the unknown man burst into a
strange little laugh.

 'Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst
of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal - there's the trick!

 Quoting Mikhail Bulgakov another great Russian writer...

[RomanRussia]

Berlioz,  not  stopping  to  listen   to   the  cadging   and  clowning
choirmaster, ran up to the turnstile and took hold  of it with his hand.  He
turned it and was  just about to  step across  the rails when  red and white
light  splashed  in his  face.  A  sign lit  up in  a  glass  box:  'Caution
Tram-Car!'
     And right  then this tram-car came racing along, turning down the newly
laid line from Yermolaevsky  to  Bronnaya. Having  turned, and coming to the
straight stretch, it suddenly  lit  up  inside with electricity, whined, and
put on speed.
     The prudent Berlioz, though he was standing in a safe place, decided to
retreat behind the stile, moved his hand on the crossbar, and stepped back.
     And right then his hand slipped and slid, one foot, unimpeded, as if on
ice, went  down the cobbled slope leading to the rails, the other was thrust
into the air, and Berlioz was thrown on to the rails.
     Trying to get hold  of something,  Berlioz fell  backwards, the back of
his head  lightly striking the cobbles,  and had  time to see high up -  but
whether  to  right  or  left  he no longer knew - the  gold-tinged moon.  He
managed  to  turn  on his side, at the same moment drawing  his legs  to his
stomach in a frenzied movement,  and, while turning, to make  out the  face,
completely  white  with horror, and the crimson armband of the  woman driver
bearing down on him  with irresistible force. Berlioz did not  cry  out, but
around him the whole street screamed with desperate female voices.
     The woman driver tore at  the electric brake, the car dug its nose into
the ground, then instantly jumped up, and glass flew from the windows with a
crash and a jingle. Here someone in Berlioz's brain  cried desperately: 'Can
it  be?...'  Once more, and for the  last  time, the  moon flashed,  but now
breaking to pieces, and then it became dark.
     The  tram-car went over Berlioz, and a round  dark object was thrown up
the  cobbled slope below  the fence of the Patriarch's walk.  Having  rolled
back down this slope, it went bouncing along the cobblestones of the street.
     It was the severed head of Berlioz.

[RomanRussia]

 Last and for all

  'Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal - there's the trick!

[SFG75]

The "whole order of things" is arranged through reason and acceptance of life as we know it through science.  Sam Harris on that:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTKf5cCm-9g&ob=av3e

[RomanRussia]

The "whole order of things" is arranged through reason and acceptance of life as we know it through science.  Sam Harris on that:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTKf5cCm-9g&ob=av3e

 Wow that's a long video! The questions is not how it is arranged but who governs human life and the whole order of things on earth! Hope this helps.

[DrK]

Who governs human life and ... the order of things on earth?" That which has always governed and which most likely always will... Mankind. The question should be which metaphors we draw upon to create our moral framework? Zossima's comment "They maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air" is at once beautifully prescient (as I tap my smartphone) but belies the philosophical dated-ness of the lecture. I'm constantly amazed at how relevant Dostoyevsky can be to the modern world but in this area he shows his time. Modern philosophy would be hard pressed to argue that rationalist approaches cannot create a moral framework or be incompatible with a spiritual life. Personally I've always baulked at this type of attack on a rationalists ability to create moral and spiritual meaning. There is plenty of 'evidence' that rationalists drawing metaphors from nature, evolution, and our own history of cooperation, create a more just and righteous system of meaning than faith based approaches. The contention that faith and god are required to sustain the human soul is falsified not only via evidence to the contrary but by the argument's circular nature.

[RomanRussia]

 Sounds complex and winded. Or may be it's just me.

 How mankind can govern if no body of us knows whether he would awake up tommorow and would be not wiped away by a sudden nuke bomb blast for instance? You can't tell certain for yourself but you take courage to speak of the whole mankind ehh???

[SFG75]

Sounds complex and winded. Or may be it's just me.

 How mankind can govern if no body of us knows whether he would awake up tommorow and would be not wiped away by a sudden nuke bomb blast for instance?

It is exactly because of the impernancy of mankind that we seek a narrative by which to live our lives.  For some it is Christ, for others it is Islam.  For yet others, it is rationalism and to some degree, science.  The fact that we all meet the same fate, does not mean that the narrative that you espouse, is the one and only alternative for us.  DrK's response is dead on.  to be honest, I'm not certain entirely which narrative is the most correct myself.  I have lived thirty-seven years and have observed many narratives.  I am still "looking" I suppose and I am still open to certain answers, or purported answers for our human condition.  What I do know, is that the nihilism that Dostoyevsky despised, is not the answer.