On Tuesday we touched on the authentic self and the inauthentic self and whether or not a person would still have the same Being if they were born in a different time or place. What if instead of being raised in an American Christian home, they were born in China and taught that Christianity was illegal? What if that was all they knew? Would the Being inside them long for the void left by the absence of God in their life to be filled, or would they even notice that something was missing? I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that Heidegger believes that they would feel something missing and search for something spiritual even if it wasn't THE God they needed.
I apologize for the short blog, I accidentally deleted it the first time... :(
I agree with you. I think that is what he's saying, but I personally don't agree with him. I don't see how someone can miss something if they never knew it existed. In the instance that you mentioned about the Christian home versus the non Christian one, The person could feel the Holy Spirit drawing them to themselves, but I don't think it would be classified as missing something.
ReplyDeleteIf my parents in one universe had me and in another they had a different child, the parents with the different child would never miss me because they didn't even know I existed.
In the real world, If a girl gets pregnant and gives the child up for adoption, she could miss the child because she knew he existed. But if she never told the father that she had the baby or was even pregnant, he would never in his life miss the child, because he didn't know it existed. Just like children don't know what toy they want or "have to have" until they see a commercial. They didn't know what they "needed" until someone showed them what it was.