It seems that some of us are closer to the truth when we are stung with confusion than when we claim to know.

At least when we are confused we are open to all possibilities.  When we think we know we are often closed to any possibility but one.

The god Apollo through his mouthpiece, the Oracle of Delphi, tells Socrates' friend that Socrates is the wisest man in Athens.  After this is reported to the then scientist Socrates, he begins to doubt the judgement.

An all powerful god has reported a fact and the reciever of this fact doubts the message.  To doubt the message of a god is to doubt the power and abilities of that god or to doubt the god himself. 

Of course, the pre-Socratic Socrates, that is to say, the scientific Socrates and not the philosophic Socrates may not have believed in God or gods.  This "fantastic" and "incredible" decree was spoken by an Oracle, but speaks to Socrates' ego and seems to point to something further than himself.  The god seems to challenge Socrates' reason.

Why would Apollo have chosen Socrates, after all?  He was just another sophist?!  He was just another person who questioned the whole and looked beneath the earth and above the clouds for answers.  He was  an Athenian scientist. 

With his head full of wonder, Socrates set out to prove this "god" wrong by finding someone who is wiser than him.  Athens, being the pinnacle of civilaztion, would be full of wise people.  He went to the Athenian market and found people who seemed to know things. 

Artists, politicians, artisans, sophists and so on were interviewed by Socrates' sharp wit. He soon discovered that these "experts" surely knew about their field.  However, when the questions that he asked led to higher or different levels of knowledge Socrates found that they guessed as they pretended to know.  They were ignorant while they pretended to be wise.  This made them unwise.

They knew their place found within the whole, but were ignorant of the whole.  They pretended that their piece of the whole was the whole or was at least the most important part of the whole.  "How can they know that their knowledge is THE knowledge unless they know where in the whole of things their knowledge belongs?" Socrates might have asked from time to time.

As their ignorance surfaced, Socrates saw that he was wiser than those people he spoke to because they pretended to know, and did not really know, while he knew that he did not know.  He knew this by the simple fact that a god had declared him to be the wisest while he doubted the Decree.  The fact that he searched for an answer revealed his ignorance.

Actually, the very fact that Socrates doubted the god's decree seemed to prove the god correct.  As Socrates attempted to be impious by doubting the word of God he was proving God correct the entire way.  And yet, he could not know if he was the wisest until he had interviewed everyone who might be wiser than him.  Socrates' radical doubt would not allow him to interview A FEW people to assure him that the god's decree was correct.  He had to interview everyone. 

Socrates's doubt compelled him to continue his questioning until he had proven the god to be either right or wrong.  The more he questioned the more sure he was in his answer, but that nagging doubt would not allow him to stop his questioning until the job had been completed.

Socrates also inadvertently showed himself to be pious by showing how weak human reason is as it attempted to challenge the gods.

By asking his questions, Socrates is assuming, incorrectly it seems, that Apollo had incorrectly identified him as the wisest of the wise.  The more he questioned the more he proved his doubt to be unfounded and Apollo to be correct.  But his doubt insisted that he continue his quest until a true aswer had been reached.  While attempting to prove God wrong he continued to prove God right.  By attempting to act impiously he continued to give credence to piety.  By the use of his keen reasoning abilities, Socrates showed the weakness of reason.  Socrates was a failure and a success at the same time.

Reason would seem to point to the fact that Socrates was not pious and yet all of the evidence points, argueably, in the opposite direction.  No final answer can be attained by the use of reason.  It seems that only faith, one way or another, can give that final answer to the Socratic quest.

Reason can investigate a role within the whole, but it seems that it cannot investigate the whole.  For it to investigate the whole it would have to step outside of the whole for a safe vantage point.  This seems to be impossible.  Reason seems to devour itself or dilute itself as it investigates itself.  Reason then reveals to itself how limited it is within this "whole."   As stated in another post, this usually leads to what the Geico caveman mentions as an "existential meltdown."

Socrates did not meltdown however.  He converted from a scientist/sophist to a pious philosopher.  A philosopher who investigates, but a philosopher who also leaves well enough alone as he investigate.  He cannot replace other people's opinions with knowledge because he doesn't possess true and permanent knowledge himself. 

He replaces bad opinions with better ones and he speaks to the level his audience requires of him.

Socrates can investigate pieces of the whole, but cannot get outside of the whole to investigate it.  He is ignorant of the whole as the whole (even the existence of a whole), but is open to the possibility of a whole. Socrates becomes a philosopher who still doubts the god's existence, but since he has no answers of his own cannot fully argue against the gods just as he cannot fully argue for the gods. Socrates, through Apollo's decree and his own doubt, has become as pious as a philosopher can be.

quote Originally Posted by priority0ne

we've abandoned generations of cultural wisdom. I think this wisdom was worked out long ago (maybe not consciously) with aim of long term happiness. We've abandoned it and now we are paying the price.

Some would say that "tradition" is the accumulated result of the trial and error of our forefathers. Many traditions are not scientifically filtered or researched and thus are discounted as an unintelligent "that's the way we've always done it" approach.

Going along with the comment about today being all about "me me me me me me," we then seem to want to go along with only those things that are verified or verifiable. What is lost is the notion that you can't reproduce 100 years of trial and error with 6 months of "experimentation."

That's certainly not to say that all traditions should be permanent. Socrates was fond of walking around Athens and interviewing those who thought they knew something. Eventually his evaluation showed that they did know a little something, but not as much as they thought they knew.

Plato, who wrote the dialogs that starred Socrates (and from which we've learned most about Socrates), seemed to agree with Tradition. Plato, through his writings, points back to Socrates and his life. Plato did not point to himself, or at least not in an obvious manner.

Plato said horrible, radical, and very challenging things in his dialogs, but they were usually hidden so as not to disturb those who didn't need to be disturbed.

It seems that in looking for and prizing freedom above all else, we're leading ourselves to a very selfish society. We can't pay attention to the radical things others are saying because we're too self involved.

Since those Truths (God, family comes first, always act virtuously, do unto others, the Founders were noble men) that were formerly believed by previous generations have been shown to be either incomplete or inaccessible to our short attention spans, our society has thrown tradition overboard (the good and the bad) in the name of "creating" a tradition of non tradition.

I'm sure you can see the problems that arise when an approach of (attempted) absolute individual freedom is married to a tradition of non tradition.

quote Originally Posted by catluver

Huh?

You are blaming your divorce on the government?

Are you saying that society or its manifestation through the government has no bearing on what we do in our daily lives? Does government not educate its citizens through the laws it chooses to pass and/or enforce?

Isn't the enforcement of a simple speed limit a moral choice that the people in the government choose to act upon?

Are laws not divinely moral, not to mention divine in origin, if they really do represent the will of the people in general?

quote Originally Posted by Jeni-CD

The Govt has made it too easy to get a divorce.

Way to easy.

I was going to prevent mine due to the fact the only problem we really had was she is immature (we have 2 kids) and doesn't understand the concept of placing your family before yourself but I found it to be a lost cause.

It's sad for my kids, for me and even for her because she will eventually realize what she did to everyone.

My political hero (which is not the same as my overall hero) Ronald Reagan helped to make divorce easier in California when he was governor there.

Divorce destroys a "whole" that is at once greater that the individuals in that family and more fragile than the individuals in that family.

You can refer to a family down the street as "the Basses", but once the parents divorce "the Basses" die and a bunch of individuals take the place of that larger entity. I mention the parents because the children rarely, if ever, get a say in the issue. They are part of the family and yet "the strong" overpower "the weak" in the act of the divorce (ie. Might Makes Right). In most cases, it is truly a selfish act. While not all selfish acts are bad, these seem to be. I'm sure you can see that it is essentially a type of suicide.

A death occurs and it should be mourned.

I'm sorry for your loss.

quote Originally Posted by Parafly9

I think that's the big thing. A lot of people will say that; 50 - 100 years ago it wasn't "acceptable" to get divorced and that a lot of women & men stayed in bad marriages.

A "bad" marriage by today's standards was not necessarily a "bad" marriage back then. A "bad" (by today's standards) marriage back then could have produced a "good" family. Marriage and family are not necessarily evaluated by the same rubric.

I largely agree with what you said and I would change the view of the issue just a little bit.

50-100 years ago it seems that giving in to your selfish wants (not to say "needs") wasn't "acceptable." A marriage that is considered "bad" today might be one in which the individuals in the marriage aren't allowed to be "who they are." Little notice is given to the fact that they are no longer "who they were" when they get married. Who they are as individuals has been radically changed. It seems impossible to be an "individual" and be faithfully married at the same time.

Today, it is acceptable to be selfish. As a matter of fact, it seems that many people are commended on the heights of their selfishness these days.  However, I've heard that there is a way to be selfish and pointed towards "the good" at the same time.