didyktile » Philosophy

Love, not knowledge

Daniel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:53:51 +0000

hilosophy is, etymologically, “love of wisdom”… Notice here a small point. It’s not knowledge of wisdom. It’s love. Think about this for a moment. If you have an object of love, you embrace it; if you lack it, you pursue it. Philosophy at its best is not just a matter of filling our heads with new questions and deep knowledge. It’s also an enterprise of the heart. It is the passionate pursuit and wholehearted embracing of wisdom, or genuine insight about living.

– Tom Morris, If Aristotle Ran General Motors

Maybe God exists, after all

Daniel — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:14:18 +0000

emember Richard Dawkins, prophet of the new religious atheism and author of The God Delusion? Dawkins has been criticised for his quasi-scientific but definitely ideological advocacy of atheism.

In a thoughtful and interesting article, Melanie Phillips at the Spectator points out that last month in public debate Dawkins observed that “a serious case could be made for a deistic God.” It’s not clear what that means for Dawkins’ debate so far. Admitting past error is likely to be one of the hardest things for a charismatic debater like Dawkins to do. But it will be interesting to see how Dawkins puts together his argument again, this time without simply discounting ‘the God delusion.’

This admission is no doubt in part to Dawkins’ involvement in lively debate with fellow scientists, for example this debate with John Lennox.

Alternatives

Daniel — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 01:33:58 +0000

In the estimation, hear the calculation;
In the definition is the proposition:
Binding minds with knotted wording,
Wrapping, twisting, thought-confining

Let our words be free and fluid,
Not dividing, undefining.
Then our conversation is equivocation
And origination merely duplication.

Playing Christianity

Daniel — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 15:47:54 +0000

We all know what it is to play warfare in mock battle, that it means to imitate everything just as it is in war. The troops are drawn up, they march into the field, seriousness is evident in every eye, but also courage and enthusiasm, the orderlies rush back and forth intrepidly, the commander’s voice is heard, the signals, the battle cry, the volley of musketry, the thunder of cannon–everything exactly as in war, lacking only one thing … the danger.

So also it is with playing Christianity, that is, imitating Christian preaching in such a way that everything, absolutely everything is included in as deceptive a form as possible–only one thing is lacking … the danger.

— Søren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom, trans. Walter Lowrie.

HT: Kairos Journal