Let's definitely do that. There are loads of beer fests going on in Boulder this summer, I think Avery's doing one of them, if memory serves me right.
I remember after high school I swam the high seas of religion, trying to find a spiritual mindset that best fit me. I was born and raised Catholic, and after high school I got really interested in my Irish heritage, so I tried Celtic Spirituality. It was interesting, but ultimately I felt silly. I then looked into Taoism and found it interesting but impractical. I then became a vehement atheist which I think everybody does their first few years of college. Then I became interested in Buddhism but found I'd make a shitty Buddhist. I really liked the philosophies and frequently read the Dhammapada.
In the end I've just decided to try and be a decent person and not a douchebag. That's my religion.
In the end I've just decided to try and be a decent person and not a douchebag. That's my religion.
I'm too unfocused, indecisive and inattentive to logical coherence to be anything but a postmodern eclectic when it comes to philosophy and religion, so I simply use it as a means to keep perspective on things as personal as my daily choices and as broad as modern politics and social phenomena. I mainly study ancient philosophies and religions, so that contrast keeps me at a safe distance from fully embracing anything modern and progressive at face value. For example, when considering a political issue I think of how similar approaches to them in the ancient world have turned out, i.e. democratic Athens' conduct during the Peloponnesian War, as well as how thinkers such as Plato would conceptualize social dynamics in terms of their organic coherence.
But I also believe that a degree of dogmatism and faith in institutions is the key to their positive success, and that rampant skepticism has potentially destructive advantages. It's still a quixotic notion that world socioeconomic equality and prosperity will reach a point where education will be of such high quality (social equality/prosperity and education are chickens and eggs, however) that any form of peaceful harmony can exist at such a large scale without the arbitrary boundaries of institutions to enforce it. That global garden of Epicurus envisioned by Vergil in Book VI of the Aeneid is still too far off and may never happen.
I haven't quite had a chance to finish the Republic yet, and while I intend to follow it up in the future with more of his writings, I think his ideas can fuck right off. Despotic elitism and misery-inducing ideals.
The Republic of Iran, which Ayatollah Khomeini structured largely on Plato's Republic, is a case study of Plato's ideals in action. Draw from it what you will.
But what constitutes decent and what constitutes doucheyness?
:Smug:
I remember after high school I swam the high seas of religion, trying to find a spiritual mindset that best fit me. I was born and raised Catholic, and after high school I got really interested in my Irish heritage, so I tried Celtic Spirituality. It was interesting, but ultimately I felt silly. I then looked into Taoism and found it interesting but impractical. I then became a vehement atheist which I think everybody does their first few years of college. Then I became interested in Buddhism but found I'd make a shitty Buddhist. I really liked the philosophies and frequently read the Dhammapada.
In the end I've just decided to try and be a decent person and not a douchebag. That's my religion.
No one goes to the philosophy forum.
No one goes to the philosophy forum.