I Friggin Tebowed While Playing Kant in Chess Yall!

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[Tony and Immanuel Kant sit on tenuous maggot infested wooden seats opposite each other in a frumpish malodorous tavern between a chess board. Uproarious heckling, and bombastic, jarring general carousing surround them on all sides. This is 18th century Prussia, the weekend just having freshly arrived to greet all denizens, especially those with a predilection for vice. Various second tier oil paintings adorn the walls of the small venue, as the frequent sounds of horse hooves approaching and simultaneously departing introduce the patron with the concomitant fecal smells mentioned earlier. The mostly masculine clientele amuse themselves with tawdry tales of prostitutes and war, while a select few, Tony and Immanuel joining their ranks, abide their time with board games and scintillating conversation. As the waitress has yet to arrive, all food and drink must be forcefully requested until, and accordingly, Tony has not yet been afforded the honor to eat. The chess pieces are set and ready for use, though neither player has commenced any game activity as of yet.]


Tony: Yo dawg, Im jive like hungry dawg.

Immanuel: Alas, that problem is self wrought my friend. Just yell out and you shall most pleasantly be accommodated (snickering)!

Tony: Funny, funny, philosopher boy. If you wasnt my nigga, I wouldnt even be here in this joint, for real for reelz!

Immanuel (with a deadpan stare): I most certainly am not a "nigga"

Tony (nervously):....okkaaaaay! (emphatically) Mr. I dont listen to gangsta rap, cuz Im too good to socialize with the homies...!

Immanuel (befuddled): ...?

Tony: Forget it son, now back to this game son, Im bout to whip that ash son! Ashes from a fireplace that is!

Immanuel (wearily proceeding in dialogue):....right....now you agree that if I win, you will stop assailing the dignity of my intellect with your fallacious assertion that you KNOW there is a God?!

Tony:.....? whuuuuttt!!!! son, we ALL KNOW there is a God, just ask my man Mitt Romney!!

Immanuel: Who?

Tony:.... Mitt Romney, you bozo, dont feign naivete!

Immanuel (confused):....right.....

Tony: Man, boy, this right here is the US of A, my nigg- OOPS! I mean my man, and round these parts we like our burgers big, our women beautiful and blonde, and our Presidents, Mormon!

Immanuel: oohhhh! George Washington, like him you mean?

Tony:....you old senior citizen piece of....ahem! back to this game son! My move first! (Tony moves his pawn to F3)

Immanuel (giddy with cynical laughter at Tony's move): but ahem! back to the matter at hand - Facts have nothing to do with religion, my friend. No one indeed will be able to boast that he knows that there is a God and a future life.

Tony (looks up from the board):..what? how you gonna say dat, son? You disrespectin my Jesus, son!

Immanuel (spirited in his reply): Listen Tony, listen closely. Any philosophy I espouse you must make certain to dispel any ambiguity or heresay from..you can have Jesus...I passionately affirm his role as a moral leader...that is not my gripe. My grousing originates in the slave mentality that has bound my countrymen and threatens to shackle them again....namely blind adherence to any paradigm without rigorous critique or use of reason. The Clergy tell you not to argue against dogma, but dont you see that this restricts freedom?

Tony (growing agitated): HOLD UP! HOLD UP! [Tony stands] AM I GONNA HAVE TO BUSS YOU IN YO HEAD????

Immanuel: Im sorry, I dont understand your passionate, albeit unintelligible babble. As I stated before, God is unknowable simply because knowledge cannot reach beyond human experience and our experience is confined to the natural world. To every absolute theory (such as unequivocally stating there is a God or a soul) any contrarian viewpoint can be put forth, and we have no way of verifying either claim. We can have understanding only of ordinary objects of nature, that is the only acceptable necessity, and there is no objective reality independent of human understanding. We know the world as it appears, and there can be no knowledge of the ultimate character or essence of it, anything else is purely speculative. So back to Jesus, yeah he was a great teacher and leader, but his eternal life in heaven with God presently...? Purely speculative.

Tony (incredulously, yelling so all the patrons can hear): THIS FOOL DONE LOST HIS MIND YALL! THIS BAMMA SAYIN THE WORLD JUST SPRUNG UP ON ITS OWN, AND THAT GOD DIDNT CREATE IT...OF COURSE THERE IS A GOD HOMEBOY! LOOK AT THE WORLD...HOW IT GET HERE SON HOW IT GET HERE??
[Tony is beginning to foam at the mouth]

Immanuel (with aplomb): listen, like I said...no ambiguity...I never denied causality...there may indeed be an unmoved mover...as Aquinas says...but this being doesnt necessarily or absolutely have to be a God. We can prove later on that something else created the world...right? We just dont know yet, so we can stick with the evidence we have...think of Copernicus! Listen, I will grant you God okay...? I can limit reason to make room for faith...

Tony (beside himself with disdain): Limit reason??? what the fu..?

Immanuel (with a stern expression): now now, Tony, calm down! Like I said, the assumption of God and immortality is not permissible because there is no transcendental insight, i.e. no recognition of how we are conscious of what we are conscious of, into claims of certitude like that in the material world. You are speaking of God...a supernatural...or metaphyiscal being existing in a physical world...now if I can borrow your expression..."what the fu.."

[Tony stands up to swing a punch at Kant, before the bartender orders two burly men to mediate the chess match lest it get too contentious]

Immanuel (moving his pawn to E5): Listen, God is a postulation....necessity can not be treated independently of human reality....you are no rationalist, Im assured Tony...(snickering again)

Tony (breathing heavily, though calming down): Maaaan, all I know is that by faith I know my man Jesus exists! (Tony Tebows)

Immanuel (curious about Tebowing): what in tarnation are you doing? This is not Mass...get up young lad!....but...again we are speaking on two different planes of reality...I cede you Jesus...the man...but we are speaking on God. Listen, the world is a product of our own reason, we musnt just recklessly believe objects just exist! God is a synthetic, not analytical truth...beyond the realm of rationality and reason and science...okay? Our rule of understanding shapes and designs our world, bro. Show me God in the natural world, and I'll believe! Existence is not a predicate! Prove it! Show me sensible datum, using pure scientific method that corresponds to demonstrable sensible evidence for God!

Tony (obstinately): JESUS, JESUS, JESUS! (Tony moves his pawn to G4)

Immanuel (sighing): and here I thought we would get something accomplished....(Immanuel moves his Queen to H4) CHECK MATE. Burly men, get this clown out here!!! (Immanuel waves his hand at Tony dismissively)

Tony (as the burly men carry him out): NOOOOO!! DANG YOU IMMANUEL KANNNNNTTTT!!!!! YOU HAVENT HEARD THE LAST OF ME DAWG!




(My notes.......backstage pass into this work yall!!!)



transcendental how are we conscious not what we are conscious of

knowledge ordered by our understanding
causality for example
scientst never assume events happen for no reason
modes of thought only valid for objects that appear to us in natural
ordinary

critical principles..God
assumption of God, imoortalty not permissible...no transcendant insight
scientific insight cannot ggrrasp God
"limit reason to make room for faith"
religion no rational enquiry
postulate the existence of God
such a being necessarily exists...no modest expression to a hypothesis...laying claim to certainty
concept of necessity found in reason as a condition of thought
necessity can not be treated independent of human reality
material things...real and appearance in thouhght

world product of our own reason - musnt believe objects just out there

rule of understanding shape and design world

knowledge cannot reach beyond human experience and our experience is confined to natural world'

Religion consists of morality, for which Jesus had the highest moral perfection, rational faith, the faith of duty to man not dogma, practical reason

God is unknowable

To every thesis on absolute nature of the material universe, an equally plausible antithesis may be opposed. Pure reason alone we cannot attain a absolute knowledge of the material universe, belief in God is specualtive. Causality can imply a creator but not God

God is a synthetic, not analytical truth

Clergy tell you not to argue, but believe, this restricts freedom! Absurd Divine right to rule...no, only rule by consensus



noumenal