6/11/08

Howdy

I wanna thank the fellows from this fine site for the invite to share my thoughts with you and potentially make this a less respectable blog. I'll take this time to introduce myself a bit and let you know what you can expect out of me.

Firstly, I'm a regular ol' Protestant with pretty orthodox beliefs across the board. I've come out of a skeptical past (due to an upbringing in a charismatic church- and not the good kind) to have my faith rekindled in college. Apologetics has played an important part in my (re?) conversion so, unsurprisingly, I've taken to devoting a large chunk of my life to the study of my faith in an attempt to help my fellow believers understand theirs. Of course, I waste no opportunity to challenge the beliefs of non-Christians (particularly atheists) but I've grown to enjoy the challenges they offer back to me (hence my association with the blog).

Besides my faith and my wife, philosophy has stolen the biggest portion of my heart (and she can be downright ruthless!). I love to talk about the mind, free will and the arguments for/against God's existence, but feel free to talk to me about anything from aesthetics to mereology to Zeno. I'm a committed libertarian politically, but this year's election has my spirits down (so let's try and avoid that topic for a few more months).

Peaches,

Josh

6 comments:

  1. Howdy

    I've come out of a skeptical past (due to an upbringing in a charismatic church- and not the good kind) to have my faith rekindled in college.

    I'm curious about what your pre-college skepticism consisted in back then (examining the plausibility of theories based on evidence?) and what you learned that made you abandon it?

    philosophy has stolen the biggest portion of my heart (and she can be downright ruthless!). I love to talk about the mind, free will and the arguments for/against God's existence, but feel free to talk to me about anything from aesthetics to mereology to Zeno.

    Oh dear...aesthetics and mereology. You and Jor will get on like a house on fire. I'll be happy to throw in some gasoline and run for cover. I am somehow finding that the more I learn about philosophy, the more useless it seems to me (that's not to say uninteresting, I'm fascinated by it as a source of ideas, but I'm more interested in seeing those ideas tested against reality).

    Looking forward to hearing your arguments for/against God's existence. If it includes a discussion on the importance of evidence and a comparison to what constitutes evidence in some other cases, I might be blown away.. :)

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  2. Hey Adonais!

    I'm curious about what your pre-college skepticism consisted in back then (examining the plausibility of theories based on evidence?) and what you learned that made you abandon it?

    As much as I wish I was a beacon of rationality, I'm not going to claim that study defeated my skepticism or that Apologetics made me a Christian. However, I will say that I was aided by apologetics. But to answer your questions about what my skepticism consisted of, I'd say that I was quite the Humean. In fact, I don't know that I've abandoned many of my Humean intuitions, and a perusal through his works incites that old fire in my mind that philosophers can ne'er do without.

    Oh dear...aesthetics and mereology. You and Jor will get on like a house on fire. I'll be happy to throw in some gasoline and run for cover. I am somehow finding that the more I learn about philosophy, the more useless it seems to me (that's not to say uninteresting, I'm fascinated by it as a source of ideas, but I'm more interested in seeing those ideas tested against reality).

    The more gasoline the better!


    Looking forward to hearing your arguments for/against God's existence. If it includes a discussion on the importance of evidence and a comparison to what constitutes evidence in some other cases, I might be blown away.. :)

    I wouldn't set that bar that high just yet. If you do have something specific you'd like me to comment on- say, ECREE or reasonable doubt or explanatory dualism- I'd be happy to do my best.

    Thank you for the kind welcome you two!

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  3. Welcome Josh,

    I'm looking forward to this site getting more active and you seem to have the youthful fire that will do nicely here.

    God bless you and your family.

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  4. Greetings, Humean.



    (I wish I had somewhere further to go with the joke but, alas, I do not)

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