Blog post every UU Humanist should read

Per his usual, I found CAUTE’s latest blog post to be very well-written, informative, and challenging: What can be shown cannot be said.

or click here

The argument is not new to me… but the whole point of CAUTE’s post is that it’s not an argument.

If it’s not something that is seen, it’s not something that can be made clearer by talking about it.

An exerpt:

Towards the end of the Tractatus Wittgenstein says “There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical” (6.522). Those things which cannot be said are ethics, aesthetics, religion, the meaning of life, logic and philosophy. Ray Monk observes that “Wittgenstein appears to believe, there are indeed truths, but none of these truths can be expressed in language; they all have to be shown, not said” (p.21).

I liked CAUTE’s list of things which cannot be said. Humanists might find themselves less put off by religious texts if they allow themselves to place their words in the same de facto realm as art. To view the works as art might allow the reader to open up to its beauty and meaning in a way previously withheld.

This framing takes some of the magic out of religious texts, but adds more in its place.

Advertisements