zodiac10 Oct 2005

I think the point is, any set of beliefs/truths written by someone else is bound to have things you don't entirely accept as true - or, at the very least, aren't expressed exactly the way you'd express them. Religions like Christianity and Egoism have tons of these, of course, and people who claim that Christianity/Egoism perfectly express their set of accepted truths are entirely full of shit. You accept some of what the Summa said as true, but why say "I hold with Summa philosophy" or "I believe in the Summa philosophy"? (note: I know you haven't.) Why bring in the Summas at all, instead of just saying, um, "I accept that nothingness is governed by some law, and you can create nothingness by uniting matter with anti-matter, and matter comes from the potential of something somehow getting an edge over the potential of nothing"? Same goes for Nietzsche.

It strikes me that the only advantages of claiming adherence to some preexisting-but-flawed philosophy rather than simply expressing what you hold to be true (barring the actual existence of a God who can put hot coals on your feet) are:

1) it saves time, and
2) you think it lends some credibility to what you believe, so your not just a wacky guy who believes wacky things, but a follower of Summa.

That's all fine, but REALLY? I mean 1) the time you save is bound to be re-lost explaining or justifying all the things you don't accept in your claimed preexisting philosophy, and 2) if you need to give yourself credibility you're not such an ace believer, are you?

Secondly, the rest of your comment shows you make what we'll call THE POETE'S DISTINCTION between things making sense and things feeling right (or being a "personal preference"). I believe a reasoning person would say "things that make sense feel right and things that don't make sense don't feel right." Only an unreasoning (and therefore, dupish) person would say "things that make sense don't feel right, and things that feel right often don't make sense." These are people constantly on their guard for scientists and Democrats trying to trick them into committing evil with their everpresent 'facts and figures'. Balls to them, I say. Balls, balls, balls.

Thirdly: I doubt if Socrates would have said he was Socratic. Plato would, though. Jesus probably thought he was a Jew.