After getting barely a bit into the Communist Manifesto, you start to realize that it hasn’t aged well at 160.
I just finished the epoch by Marx and Engels, although that word is deceiving because all-in-all it comes in at a mere 42 pages. My opinion: things have changed a lot since they wrote this manifesto.
The first major problem I encountered was that they assume this diametrically opposed class war. It’s the “us versus them” mentality that has led to many conflicts throughout time. The communists (I’ll use this word to denote the position taken by the manifesto) argue that the only way for the working class to ever gain anything is to destroy the current system. It’s a hugely false dichotomy now, however, may have rung truer in another time.
Today (in Western culture), there is no proletariat-bourgeoisie class rivalry. There is essentially a spectrum of wealth from the homeless to the worlds richest – and most are above the poverty line today. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a new book out by lawyer Geoff Henley entitled “Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Lawyers Case for Disbelief in God” and rather than resort to traditional advertising means, he’s created a series of sexed-up YouTube videos to help him sell.
The first I came across was the bikini girls cat fight over atheism:
The sequel to the cat fight features the girls kissing and making up:
Finally, there’s the sexy woman in a towel arguing about the Bible:
I have grudgingly finished reading C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity. I say grudgingly because although I went in hoping for strong, articulate reasons to believe theism, and specifically Christianity, at the end I was left with a tired confused man, who writes from a sexist post-war (WWII) viewpoint, rambling about what helps him sleep at night.
The arguments for Christianity break down as follows:
(1) There can be no morals without God.
This is actually his big one. It’s what made him go from “atheism” to Christian apologist. Never mind that it doesn’t take too much reading in moral philosophy before you realize how pathetic of an argument this is, he doesn’t even articulate it well! Read the rest of this entry »
I finished reading the Secular Conscience by Austin Dacey, and I don’t think my mere words can do justice to the secular philosophical poetry that the man can write.
The basic arguments of the book are:
That secular liberals have lost their soul in being unwilling to debate religious/moral issues in the public square. This was done in the mistaken ideas of “privacy” of religion and “liberty” to believe anything and not be offended. Basically this is seen in extreme efforts to accomodate “multiculturalism” and endagers our free speech, but also prevents us from speaking out for abortion rights, stem cell research and other topics.
That all ethics and morals come from a collective secular conscience that is accessible to all (or at least most, excluding sociopaths). He discusses much moral philosophy in that latter chapters that just build on his earlier arguments. For Dacey, all morality must be derivable from reason which is available to everyone.
I’m going to write a bit more on a few philosophical ideas that sprung from this book, and I highly recommend it to everyone, especially leftists, secularists and anyone who associates with the “freethought” movement.
And if you get a chance, see him speak, he’s sensational.
I am giving up attempting to get through Michael Onfray’s “In Defense of Atheism.” He started off strong, and often sounds very bitter and spiteful toward religion, however there isn’t much more to him than arguments you could find elsewhere (and stated more enjoyable and eloquently).
I liked his review of materialistic and atheistic philosophers through the ages and the often repressed view that needed to be said, but beyond that I found little to keep reading for (FYI I quit after just entering the section on Christianity which made quite a few major accusations with no referential backings).
There are much better books out there discussing atheistic philosophy, look for them.
It also doesn’t help that I have Austin Dacey’s The Secular Conscience and C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity on my shelf (the former I look forward to reading, but the latter I will read in its entirety).
My latest attempt at non-fiction comes from Tom Harpur, writer of the book-turned-CBC-documentary “The Pagan Christ” which asked if Jesus was made up of earlier myths. Harpur however, is a self described
struggling Christian who has found the Anglican Church the most conductive to his own spiritual grown. But, I’m attached to it by an elastic band, not a chain. [Would You Believe? p. 45]
The book I’m reading is “Would You Believe? Finding God Without Losing Your Mind” subtitled “A book for doubters, sceptics and wistful unbelievers.” With this title and his form of liberal Christianity, I went in honestly expecting a decent argument or case for theism.
First, the author Kazanis is a M.S. in Physics from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from The Pennsylvania State University. He also has a lot of experience with Taoism, Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies. One would think this would be the ideal candidate to tie the realms of “science” and “mysticism” together. However, it seems Kazanis failed to learn about how science really works.
The main theme of the book is that dark matter, as posited by quantum cosmologists (as what makes up “95% of the universe” – in fact in only comprises 23% of the universe, with the even more mysterious dark energy comprising 73%), which permeates luminous (or ordinary) matter without being detected, is the source of all spiritual and mystical phenomena.
I recently attempted to read through Soul Cravings by Erwin Raphael McManus. This was one of two books being given out freely by Campus (Crusade) for Christ at the Week of Welcome Clubs Fair on campus last semester (the other was Lee Strobel’s “Case for a Creator”). Below are my (while reading) thoughts and comments on the half that I managed to read.
I can barely get through the introduction to the section “cravings” (there are no page numbers, just “entries” so I’ll reference as such) before running into blazen inaccuracies:
It’s not coincidental that psychology is the study of the soul…
Psychology studies the mental state of people, the interactions between thoughts, emotions, and actions, or from Wikipedia:
Psychology (from Greek: ????, psych?, “soul”, “self” or “mind”; and ?????, logos, “speech” lit. “to talk about the psyche”) is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior.
Then,
Is it possible that much of what we call psychosis and neurosis is really about us being soul sick?
No… Science has shown a strong link between chemical imbalances and these issues.There is no science behind the “soul.”
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