huinare: (nathan explosion)
So I was sitting out here in the nice breeze and two people at the table next to me were talking, and the one evoked the rationale laid out in Pascal's Wager.  Frankly it's probably a good thing the fellow didn't leave for the restroom for a minute, because I -would- have turned to the other party and been like, "So yeah, I couldn't help overhearing your friend's apologetics.  His argument is old and it doesn't work. What if you wager on the wrong religion?"  I really do not initiate conversations with strangers often at all, but I wouldn't have been able to bite that one back.

Same guy was heard to say, "Scientists think they know everything."  Now I'm all for believing what one will, but don't let's make assumptions about topics and professionals we clearly know nothing about, eh?

The Q-word

May. 26th, 2012 11:12 am
huinare: (reason)
Unsurprised much.

Which philosopher are you?
Your Result: Sartre/Camus (late existentialists)
 

The world is absurd. No facts govern it. We live well once we truly accept the world's absurdity. YOU give our life's meaning, and YOU control your world.

(see Nietzsche for very closely tied beliefs)

--This quiz was made by S. A-Lerer.

W.v.O. Quine / Late Wittgenstein
 
Nietzsche
 
Aristotle
 
Early Wittgenstein / Positivists
 
Immanuel Kant
 
Plato (strict rationalists)
 
Which philosopher are you?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz
huinare: (serpent)
School is back in session. I had a lethargic semester or so (by my standards, which are what I would call Grangeresque--3.8 is not where my GPA should be), and in classic overcompensation mode I leapt back into business with a vengeance this time around this week. I've made a lot of decisions that force me to focus solely on schoolwork four days a week, which includes the elimination during those days of certain distractions of sundry sorts.

This semester is going to be enriching and amusing. =D Three of the four professors are ones I've had before, and they're my top three favorite prof at the college to boot!

Excellent professors, metaphysics and theology invade the kitchen, LeGuin, and Shakespeare: A manic rant about my classes. )
huinare: (reason)
- Take a song people usually interpret as being about a romantic relationship.
- Interpret instead as a relationship between the finite/mortal and the universe/deity/ultimate/what-have-you.
- Note improvement in song.
huinare: (melek taus)
It's been about 15 years since I've seen Schindler's List, and this conversation is the thing I remembered most clearly from it.

The ideas therein expressed are things that have influenced my themes, characters, and plots ever since I started writing. I had to go looking for this out-take because I'm sorely tempted to epigraph a chapter with part of it (but probably won't due to a particular attachment to epigraphing that thing with pre-19th-century history/philosophy etc.)
huinare: (emerson)
So I was aware that Emerson was influenced by Thomas Carlyle while abroad in Europe, but no one bloody well bothered to tell me that it was John Stuart Mill who effectively introduced them (THE J. S. Mill of Utilitarianism--w00t!)

Typical

Dec. 12th, 2011 07:44 pm
huinare: (gethen)
Evidently Emerson and Poe did not think at all highly of each other. </3 I love them both.
huinare: (picketed by agnostics)
As the semester draws to its close, I reflect that my Philosophy of Religion class has been one of my favorite classes ever.

This is partly because I really like the professor (in fact, when I talked to him during office hours, I was a little starstruck and my social anxiety popped up a bit, despite the fact that everything he said was quite complimentary and he went so far as to ask if I was in fact a philosophy major).

It’s also partly because I am not invested in either a theist or atheist viewpoint. This was not the case a couple years ago. I was a staunch atheist for a long time, after being raised in a conservative monotheism and rejecting it. Having seen the issue from both those angles, I can say that it’s liberating for me to take an agnostic stance on things. I have no defensiveness when I read these essays, only curiosity.

The course introduced me to my favorite 20th-century philosophers of religion:

John Hick (pluralist christian)

William Rowe (“friendly atheist”)

Anthony Flew (atheist-allegedly-turned-deist) [Actually, I didn’t much like this fellow, but I want to read his book because it would be fascinating.]
huinare: (melek taus)
In foro conscientiae.
“In the forum of conscience [as opposed to that of law].”

Thank you, W. K. Clifford.
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