bobby12 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I did A Level Philosophy so I read the works of a ton of thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Sartre, B.Russell, all the phil. of science guys, and so on. I think Russell and Sartre were the most interesting. In practical terms, Sartre has had the most influence on me, in that he changed the way I look at responsibility. Popper and the likes kick the shite out of religion but that doesnt really interest me. It almost feels like bullying. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 bobby - I'm pretty interested in the phil of religion. Would be able to point me in the direction of some of Popper's writings that deal with religion? Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 Bertrand Russell is hardly easy on religion himself. I actually quite enjoy reading Russell's thoughts on religion and science. But again, it takes me 10 minutes to process each page and then I am still missing half of what he is saying. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Author Share Posted October 31, 2003 barok, you're right, not only did I poison the well, I mined it too. db, do you ever suspect that your difficulty with understanding is due to a fault with the writing and philosophy itself? When I read books that require such processing, I often wonder about that... Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 SBF - I reckon Bobby could answer far better than myself. But my very ignorant involvement into this area brought me to own, amongst others, the following books: "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Nietzsche and for something not so subtle: "Why I am not Christian" by Bertrand Russell. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I was of the understanding that a theory that's refutable has no value, in strictly scientific terms. No theory can be proved, only disproved. A refutable theory is on the way to being disproved, thus... popper-poppycock Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 As for anti-religious writing... here I might agree with Popper. All the refutations, in this day and age, of religion, only serve to reinforce it's value. For any philosopher, religion is a very easy target. Bullies, the lot of 'em. C'mon, logic buried religion centuries ago. Those left with it go the blind faith route anyway. Non-religious types hell bent on an expose are only chasing their own demons. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 Cheers db. I did study some of Nietzsche writings at uni and quite enjoyed it. Although I did find that I had to read it a couple of times to get it into my head properly. It is was some of his arguments against the existence of God. That was a while ago now and I can't remember a lot of it. I'll see if i can track down those books. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples. from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human, Link to post Share on other sites
Siren 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 Got stuck with work whole morning! Ocean, I agree with you that these subjects (rhetoric, civics etc) are important thinking behind a developed and sophisticated society. Does it make the society ‘better’ or more ‘ productive’? Maybe, depends on whether you think about the European (particularly French) culture for example. Some people are just more interested in other things e.g. money, science or spiritual enlightenment Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 miteyake - By 'refutable' they mean that you give a case where your theory can be proved wrong. So for example, the theory that 'all swans are white' is a refutable theory, because if we find a swan that is not white then we can say the theory is wrong. So a non-refutable theory is a theory that cannot be proved wrong. This is NOT GOOD in Poppers opinion. Religions give non-refutable theories. This is why they suck. They do not say 'If X happens, I will accept that my God does not exist'. On the contrary, when things like X happen, they tend to amend their theory (reinterpret it, and reduce its scope) or dismiss X as irrelevent. To sum up, this is basically what Karl Popper says: Science should develop by people making good (ie. useful) refutable theories, and then trying our damndest to prove these theories wrong. Its only through trial and error that we can advance our knowledge. But in the Middle ages, we just had crappy religious theories for why, for example, there were earthquakes or something. These theorys were non-refutable. They would say 'this earthquake happened because the god is angry.' But this theory is of course impossible to prove wrong, because we cannot meet God. Even if we met God, they would say 'oh, thats not God' or 'God is by definition un-meetable' or something. And some people, such as astrologists, still try to trick us today with such crappy non-refutable theories. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I see, so open to being refuted, not refutable, as in flawed... Thanks for the clarification. Link to post Share on other sites
snobee 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 So where's my said prize - stogie or requested coin? Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Author Share Posted October 31, 2003 Oh yes, sorry. I'll write myself a memo now. "To snowbell, the value of an old cigar for cabbage rolls" You'll be getting your prize soon. Link to post Share on other sites
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