Quote:
Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent
as far as not needing God as a basis of morality, I think that if you examine any morality closely enough you can always trace it back to some principle, say 'love' for instance, which is ultimately in some sense being deified. i sometimes take a 'pantheon' or animistic view of the universe, where i think of each emotional state as being a god, for instance there is a god of pain, a god of love, a god of boredom, a god of apathy, a god of contentment, etc. and all life is the eternal drama between these gods, as they change places, dance, fight, etc.
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I may be misunderstanding you here, which is why I will ask you this question. Why do you want to believe this? I feel like you are either over complicating things, or you actually believe that your emotions control you. In that case you have no control over yourself. What value could be given to you then? What can you be responsible for? This sort of attitude makes a human seem like a battlefield. Ultimately, what is the essence of a human then? If your essence is determined, then ultimately one cannot say his reactions to his experience are truly his. They are of the thing that determined your essence.
On the other hand, if we freely choose our essence (existence before essence) those emotions will have originated in us. The emotions will feel more rich because of the fact that they our ours. As a person we feel more consistent. Surely this view must be looked at as more fulfilling then feeling as though our emotions are determined?
One could say that a human has no essence though, and that is ugly and nihilistic. Ultimately we have no objective essence that sticks with us throughout life. I would agree with that. We create our essence in every moment, and the essences of those moments can be grouped to created the best idea of someone's character that we can.
Really, I would just like you to explain the bolded a bit more. My idea is that you use the word god in a figurative sense in that they control all of us.