Contents Page Two

I'm creating a second contents page because the first was too disorganized. This page will be organized only by chronology, not by topic.

All posts prior to November 9, 2005 are on Page One.

On The Road Again - November 09, 2005
An attempt to create a plan for the next few posts. Rubbish, of course.

Roots - November 16, 2005
Part 1 in the presuppositionalism series.

What Kind of Humanist Are You? - November 16, 2005

Answering the Ready Answer - November 25, 2005
Part 2 in the presuppositionalism series.

For Whom The Bell Tolls - November 29, 2005
Sneering at the fall of the Liberals.

Lacanfest - December 10, 2005
My questionable attempt at translating Jacques Lacan's psychological stages into understandable terms. This is where I really start to lay out and systematize the stuff I've been thinking about the last 2 years.

Year That Was - January 1, 2006
A recap of 2005's best entertainments.

Bloggin' - January 14, 2006
A list of blogs I was reading at the time. I still regularly read Right Reason and Vox Popli.

Suicide is Painless - January 18, 2006
Possibly my favorite post ever. It's a stew of Lacan, Camus, Nietzsche, Bataille, and The Last Samurai.

Loose Ends - January 24, 2006
Attempting to clarify and develop what began in Lacanfest.

Laboring in the World - Febuary 1, 2006
An account of how humans interact with their environment: we change it, and in doing so become something.

Justified - March 20, 2006
Forming and developing our self image.

Empiricism and Death - April 6, 2006
Setting one foot down the ill-fated road of the epistemology project.

Another Mile Down the Road... - April 22, 2006
Just like the title says.

. . . another hour deep in the night - May 2, 2006
Just like the title says, part 2.

Webs - May 11, 2006
The conclusion of the attempt at epistemology.

Symbolic Representation - May 23, 2006
A very basic intro to semiotics.

Truth and Such - May 23, 2006
The difficulties in defining "truth."

Uses of Truth - May 29, 2006
Just like the title says.

A Revaluation of All Values - June 8, 2006
The first round in a discussion of morality.

Words as Pockets - June 13, 2006
More semiotics. This post is pretty essential, in my opinion.

Thinking - June 25, 2006
Asking why philosophy matters.

Bloggin'

Look! An update!

I decided I'd list a few of the blogs that I've recently begun to read.

Sacra Doctrina - The newest addition to my blog role. SD boasts probably the best blog writing I've ever come across. Written by some professor at some university, it's a fine showcase of conservative Christian thought and philosophy. Visit for the scholarship and writing, stay for the warm yet uncheesy stories about his family.

Mormon Philosophy and Theology - Another addition to my blog role. MPT is an interesting counterpoint to SD, because they sometimes cross philosophical paths. The best thing about MPT: it is a front row seat to the development of Mormon metaphysics. Endlessly fascinating. The second best thing about MPT: I was able to download almost an entire courses' worth of Hubert Dreyfus lecturing about Martin Heidegger from it. Champagne all around!

Vox Popli - One of the denizens of World Net Daily. The writer, Vox Day, is a libertarian who thinks voting rights should be greatly restricted and that women are prone to fascism. It makes for interesting reading and interesting discussions. Discussions that mysteriously end once certain people run out of quips and generalizations, though.

Right Reason - This blog has a stable of Conservative writers. It's interesting reading, a bit less polemic than Vox Popli. I rarely agree with anything I read here.

Radical Goddess Thealogy - That's thealogy, not theology. All about how male centred religions have destroyed the world and that mother religions would make it all better. Aaaactually, I shouldn't be so dismissive. I've pressed Athana on several issues, and have come to accept that we don't need to quarrel with each other. Or rather, I don't need to quarrel with her, since her answers were never anything but polite.

What kind of humanist are you?

What a strange quiz result...

Haymaker

You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.


You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.


Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

On The Road Again

I was eating a snack during my break today, wondering if I should write a post about George Bataille's and Rich Mullins' mutual fascination with death. I haven't quite developed that line of thought enough, though. So I'll take jump back into explaining my new interest in theology.

I think it will help keep me on track if I present a bit of a plan. So here's a summary of some upcoming posts:

1. Explaining my method. I will use particular arguments and follow certain lines of thought that may seem superfluous or strange - unless you understand why I'm writing. I have a primary audience - people that know me. I'm not primarily writing for a general audience.

That matters because it explains my choice of topic for the first post: What is the necassary initial starting point in any discussion of reality? My answer will be man; that leads to an immediate disagreement with at least one of my friends, who is a devotee of presuppositional apologetics. Discussing presupper views will give me a platform for contrasting my own ideas, and nothing brings clarity like contrast. And if there's anything these topics could use a dose of, it is clarity.

2. Expanding my discussion of the personal centre. I'll explain more about the imago, discourses, dividing lines, and the ultimate concern.

3. Expanding my discussion of how we projection our personal centre. This will cover morality, a bit of politics, empathy, control, a proper account of presuppositions, and will have some overlap from the topics of (2).

4. Language and rationality. This would technically be a part of (3), but that post will be long enough anyways. I'll talk about how rationality must introduce divisions and separation , and how language cannot possibly have a 1:1 correlation with anything other than language. In other words, language can only ever describe language.

5. Argument for God as ultimate concern.

6. How (1) - (4) must necessarily shape our theology.

Whew.

Open Texture Contents

Posts by Topic and Date:

Current Events / Politics:

2004 Federal Election Preview - June 13, 2004

2004 Federal Election Aftermath - June 29, 2004

Missile Defense and Abortion - August 25, 2004

Gun Control I - September 1, 2004

Gun Control II - September 17, 2004

Watershed: 2004 U.S. Election Aftermath - November 3, 2004

Book Burnin' - June 7, 2005

Abu Ghraib Isn't Over Yet - July 29, 2005

Bush Family Spirit Guide? - September 20 - 2005


Philosophy / Culture / Ethics

Young Man Syndrome - April 27, 2004

T.V. and Story Telling - May 20, 2004

Kurt Vonnegut - August 12, 2004

Hazing, Dionysian Style - October 13, 2004

Becoming Perplexed - January 30, 2005

Structuralism: 2, Two, II - April 14, 2005

Michel Foucult: Discourse - April 16, 2005

Martin Heidegger: Artificial Intelligence - April 20, 2005

Ernst Cassirer: Magical Language I - July 8, 2005

Ernst Cassirer: Magical Language II - July 13, 2005

Epistemology I: No Archimedean Point - August 8, 2005

Albert Camus: Resistance, Rebellion and Death - August 11, 2005

Evolution / I.D. I: History - September 10, 2005

Postmodern Relativism - September 13, 2005

Evolution / I.D.: Meth/Meta Naturalisms - September 15, 2005

Evolution / I.D.: Falsifiability, Anti-Science, etc. - September 21, 2005

Evolution / I.D.: Scientific Young Earth Creationism - September 30, 2005

Solzhenitsyn on Violence and Falsehood - October 2, 2005

Evolution / I.D.: Intelligent Design - October 3, 2005

Evolution / I.D.: Education Concerns - October 6, 2005

A lazy post about war - October 13, 2005

Creating Yourself and the World (cross indexed to religion) - October 17, 2o05

Philosophy of Law:

Aristotle and Aquinas - April 25, 2005

Austin's Command Theory and Holmes' Realism - April 29, 2005

Hart's Rules Theory - May 13, 2005

Dworkin's Principles - May 25, 2005

Critical Legal Theorists - June 29, 2005

Power and Recognition - July 27, 2005

More Than Just The Text - July 28, 2005


Religion:

Christian Right Declares War on Homosexuals! - May 4, 2004

Challenging Faith - May 28, 2004

The Bounds of Credulity - July 19, 2004

Augustine on Genesis - July 21, 2004

Slacktivist's Left Behind Archives - April 30, 2005

A Functional Theory of Religion - July 20, 2005

Back in the Game! - October 10, 2005

Creating Yourself and the World (cross indexed to philosophy) - October 17, 2o05

Reviews:

Christopher, Great Big Sea, Spirit of the West - July 6, 2004

The Village - August 3, 2004

Collatoral, Alien vs. Predator, The Exorcist - August 25, 2004

Sarah McLachlan - May 17, 2005

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - May 21, 2005

Batman Begins - June 17, 2005


Miscellaneous

Inaugural Post - April 26, 2004

Saved! Preview

Blogger Book Tag - June 4, 2005

The End of the Hiatus

Some business first. I know comments aren't working, I hope to have that problem fixed soon. Since I hate code, all I've done is scavenge the source code of smarter bloggers. Which means I don't understand where the problem is. I guess I'll keep looking.

It's been a long time since I posted. I've been busy, and have had no desire to write anything. That'll change in 2-3 weeks once I'm done school.

I'm just polishing off a philosophy of law class. Basically, it's about discussing the structure of legal systems, and what content should they have. The final exam questions can be seen here. Click on "Final Test."

Questions 3 & 4 will be particularily interesting. #4 - "What is the law" - is a giant subject encompasing layers and layers of theory. Who comes up with the law? Why do any of us care? Who gets to enforce it, and how? What is the law's connection to morality? Whittling all this down to a managable exam-sized answer will be a bit of a challenge.

The question concerning same sex marriage is going to require a complicated answer as well. My own thoughts about it revolve around changing gender roles, and translating that into my conception of the legal system will again, be a challenge.

Once the exam is finished and plagerism concerns are out of the way, I'll post my answers to both questions. That'll be April 12th.

Once the exam is over and I don't have plagerism concerns, I'll post my answers to both questions. I'll even expand on my answer to the same sex question.

Except I suppose to make my answers clear, I'll have to provide a bit of background to my thinking... ugh. I'll post again sometime before the 12th.

Inaugural Post

The inagural post on my new blog, complete with spelling mistake.