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Registered: 10/20/2006
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The cake sounds wonderful! How did it turn out in the end? And, the old USSR, eh? Haha. Grandpa James went out there between the two world wars, the suspicion being that he may have been involved with secret shenanigans of a governmental nature, but what I do know is that he returned with a faith in the Russian Orthodox Church; and - now - that I think it'd be better if he'd come back with this Dobos thing instead!
It sounds a lovely book. I always felt a pang of guilt at having never read it. You see, I was given a rather nice t-shirt when I was very young with prints of the characters from Le Petit Prince, but when a friend of mine was visibly and bright-eyedly impressed and asked me if I'd read it, I said I had and tried to bluff through. Perhaps it's the shame of the experience that keeps me from reading it still! Who knows?
Why do you think you feel inhibited? I don't think I ever felt the same thing myself, except when I was younger than twelve or so. It can't be much fun. Not of course that it's much better to be an open book to absolutely everyone, but if you hate your current state then it can't be ideal! I'm not too worried, talking about myself to others, except the awareness that I might be boring them, though I increasingly tend to assume if I'm boring someone they'll go away or will guide me onto a topic they find less dull! With strangers, particularly, how open I am depends a very great deal on the stranger, but that variation doesn't bother me much, being just a natural harmony with my feelings at the time.
"Dobos torte"? What's that? I'm pretty sure I've never had one before, what's the origin?
Invictus, ah. Well, I suppose it's the first poem I ever read out of personal enjoyment than out of academic duty! This is way back at primary school. I used to write poetry, and won a biggish competition too, but I didn't really enjoy reading the stuff until I found this poem, and although I've changed a tremendous amount since I was a child, the core sentiments of the poem always seem to match up with how I feel. This is quite something, but it's even more compelling given the way I've swung from Catholicism, to atheism, nihilism, hedonism, humanism and what was - in effect - a sort of non-theistic satanism. It's been an eventful journey, but the poem still rings true.
My attitude to the poem has changed, I suppose, in that when I was younger I'd scrawl it proudly and freely talk about it, whereas now I keep it more silently inside with no more explicit reference (unless someone asks and I feel like talking wink ) than my username. It's no less true, though. We - as people - are for certain imbued with a sort of invincibility, and capacity for heroic defiance of death.
How about you? Any art, music, or literature that strikes a chord with you?
Ah, I remember that now! Crikey, things change so much! I've gone back to the thread you mentioned and with a bit of relief it's not []quite as embarrassing as some old stuff I've posted. When I was first posting online I used to a strange parody of myself, and it always makes me wince when I stumble on a relic from that far back..
The lack of snow, it turns out, didn't matter a jot. I sit now, stuffed to bursting with cake and Christmas dinner, mellowed by wine, sherry and gluhwein, feeling on the whole pretty damned happy about life. biggrin
How's your day been?
(Vegetarian Nazi? Je ne comprends pas. Explain?)
Alberta? What's it like over there? I've not yet crossed the Atlantic, and I don't know enough to be sure if my assumption that Canadian Christmases tend to be white has any grounding in reality. Merry Christmas, and do you in fact have snow this year?
Hm, I've checked the thread and I can't find his comment. I can't even find his account anymore, so I'm a bit concerned that he might have deleted his account and his posts. Pretty disappointing really, because I was actually rather proud of having had Richard Dawkins personally flame me online.. Whereabout're you from, by the way, and how old are you? Now that I'm awake and alert, it strikes me that I have no context for you whatsoever!
Ethics is pretty cool once you get deeper into it. Superficially, there don't seem to be too many issues beyond a nebulous uncertainty over relativism/objectivism, but there's actually some pretty serious philosophy in there.
Can't afford to focus on ethics right now though, I've got my dissertation to focus on! biggrin
Dawkins is a respectable biologist, but he's a lazy philosopher and absolutely delusional theologian, unfortunately. He gets much too emotionally involved in matters, given that he's unable to stop his bitterness clouding his judgement. I remember my crowning moment; I once annoyed him so much that he had a go at me on his own internet forum, willing me a violent death at the hands of some wild beast - hilarious!
Ethics is great stuff. Unfortunately our faculty lost its principal ethicist over the summer, so my Applied Ethics course is being taught by someone not strictly speaking qualified to take the module, it's a bit disappointing to have lost the other chap, because his modules were absolutely fantastic. Would you say you have an ethical position at the moment, or are you still finding your way to a path?
Agnosticism isn't so bad. It's the most philosophically logically defensible of the three reactions to the divine, and a shrug of "I really don't know." gives more space for actual progressive thinking than the militant atheism we increasingly see from Dawkins and Hitchens.
Do you have a particular philosophical outlook, or interest within philosophy?
I never had the chance to be turned on to philosophy; quite simply I was a fairly conscientious Catholic boy considering Holy Orders when we began to read Philosophy at school, and those studies - in a matter of weeks - completely dissolved the foundations of my Faith and the principles of my life!
Decided to follow it, and see where it led, and now I'm in my final year of a four year undergraduate degree having had quite an interesting time of things.
Anyway, what about you - mysterious stranger - where did you pop up from, and what're your interests?
Because I'm at university and can afford it, and the culture is one of hard spirits and harder partying, and - more relevantly I suppose - because sometimes it's really quite hilariously good fun.
I've been compulsively changing my name since I first registered on this site three dozen account bans ago.