Favourite Philosophies

[thatguy Andel]

I thought it would be a pretty cool idea for people to post their favourite philosophies. They can be any philosophy on any topic, like life, war, logic, etc, and why you think they are good. (Although I think it would be best not to post any religious philosophies and why you think they are better than others.)

[ribena Homewood]

w/e

[Cygna]

Philosophy: educate the uneducated and you will have peace.

[Gulliver Carpool]

Shit happens.

[Kynnaria Merlin]

Shit happens.

Hi5! Took the words right out of my mouth.

[Gulliver Carpool]

Philosophy: educate the uneducated and you will have peace.

Weimar Germany was one of the most highly and widely educated places the world has ever seen. Their children grew up to be Nazis.

[RazorFox]

"Weed is a plant that grows in the ground

If God didn't want it, it wouldn't be around

So all of you motherfuckers who won't even try

Get out of my way because I'm getting high."

-Lord Byron, 1871

[Agares Tretiak]

I am a Buddhist Metanoian Stoic, with some classical humanism and northern European humanism thrown in there.

[Cygna]

Weimar Germany was one of the most highly and widely educated places the world has ever seen. A small handful of their children grew up to be Nazis.

Corrected.

Also: some of the most notable scientists from Germany in the 30s and 40s fled Nazi Germany. *cough*EINSTEIN*cough*

[Scientific Waffle]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

- Carl Sagan

"Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anyone who doubts it is invited to jump out a tenth story window."

- Richard Dawkins

Rational skepticism with a healthy dose of naturalism serves as the basis for my philosophy.

[thatguy Andel]

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

-Socrates

[Aelus]

“A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.”

-Carl Sagan

“The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

-Hannah Arendt

[RazorFox]

according to the United States Census Bureau, atheists and agnostics compose of the least fraction of individuals in prison.

To be fair, a whole lot of otherwise highly immoral folks "find Jesus" in the clink.

It's really a form of foxhole religion. Prison is a shitty place and people find and cling to faith as a coping mechanism there.

But I have something of an inherent mistrust of uneducated, unsavory types who suddenly found Jesus and decided to change their lives because even with the introduction of certain lifestyle and attitude changes, these people generally don't change their core personality and still retain a lot of negative or unhealthy psychological elements. In other words, the whole born-again phenomenon takes assholes and turns them into self-righteous assholes, which is just plain irritating to me.

[Steff Flintoff]

don't get angry. Smile and plot your revenge

- unknown

[Gulliver Carpool]

"Everyone's gotta plan 'til they get hit in the mouth."

--Mike Tyson

[Kynnaria Merlin]

"Everyone's gotta plan 'til they get hit in the mouth."

--Mike Tyson

Yesssssssssss.

[Tiridates Mikadze]

Faith does not inherently mean blindness. It can mean, to some people, a willingness to trust that we do not in fact know everything. Faith should be separated from fanaticism just as patriotism should be from jingoism.

Faith should mark it bearer not with hubris, but humility and openess to the possibilities of what we don't know.

I strongly believe that just as there is such a thing as pseudo-science, there is pseudo-religion, or if you will, pseudo-faith.

There was a time when people insisted racism was scientifically supported, and similarlly, those who insisted it was religiously supported. The meeting place of morality is not in science or religion alone, but rather in the rational dialog we can have between the two.

Abuses arise not from faith, politics, or science alone, but by the misapplication of such ideas by individuals and groups, in the service of selfish goals and purposes, no matter how lofty they may seem.

I may be an ivory-tower centrist for thinking this, but I do not see any harm in science seeking to explain the functions of the universe we exist in, nor in faiths or philosophies seeking to understand the meaning or means by which we can best function within that universe, and what may be beyond it. Looking at facets of a greater Truth does not make either wrong, or either absolutely correct. It is in the balance, tensions, and dialogs of opposing or seemingly paradoxical concerns that we are perhaps the most human, and the most rational.

I find Truths that strike me subjectively and objectively in concepts found in Tao, Absurdism, Positive Existentialism, Utilitarianism, Zen and other forms of Buddhism, and the more liberal rational traditions in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

I also tend to agree with the following quotes:

Look at all the sentences which seem true and question them.

- David Reisman

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

- Frank Herbert

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

- Bertrand Russell

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

- Voltaire

Of course, it would be absurd to think that this little post could outline the entirety of a personal philosophy ;_;