philosophy

A Christmas Grab-Bag

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Hi folks! Today is Christmas Day. I started this post two days ago, but company and outings and cooking interrupted me. Probably no one is going to read this post until tomorrow, but if you do get to it today—Merry Christmas! You can think of this as a holiday grab-bag.

First, an idea articulated by my husband, one of those blindingly-obvious statements that never occurs to anyone:

One of the reasons why you had less trouble with your weight as a child then you do now as an adult is that children aren’t in control of what food is available. Adults are.

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And the Author of the Week Is . . . Ayn Rand.

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Picturephoto credit: Wikipedia

Normally I keep political commentary off of this page, but since I usually have a book, podcast or film of the week I thought I’d showcase a writer who may be helping to shape the worldviews of people who will be shaping our world for the next four years. So far the incoming administration is planning to nominate huge Rand fans as Secretary of Labor, Secretary of State, and head of the CIA. The PEOTUS names Rand as a favorite of his:

The president-elect said this spring that he’s a fan of Rand and identifies with Howard Roark, the main character in “The Fountainhead.” Roark, played by Gary Cooper in the film adaptation, is an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because the builders did not precisely follow his blueprints. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything,” Trump told Kirsten Powers for a piece in USA Today. (from an article in the Washington Post)

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“The Lord Doesn’t Change My Feelings

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. . . uNarrow sandstone canyonntil I obey Him” (Rosaria Butterfield’s book, discussed on the previous post).  I discuss this idea of the connection between our feelings and our actions in chapter two, “How Our Emotions Work” of my book.  It’s very true that the main source of our feelings is our thoughts:  “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 22:7 KJV).  But where do the thoughts come from?  They seem to arise spontaneously most of the time, don’t they?

Those who say that we are just products of chance and our entire mental processes are therefore  chemical reactions would then have to go on and say that our thoughts are simply random.

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A Great Shot in the Arm

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Book cover for "A Shot of Faith to the Head" A Shot of Faith {To the Head}:  Be a Confident Believer in an Age of Cranky Atheists 

by Mitch Stokes, Ph.D., published by Thomas Nelson, 2012.

Dr. Stokes has had a double career that prepared him beautifully to write about the ideas in this book.  In his earlier life he earned an M.S. in mechanical engineering and worked for an international firm where he earned five patents in gas turbine technology.  Pretty impressive.  But then he must have gotten bored or something, because he went off and earned an M.A. in religion at Yale and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame.  He is now a college senior fellow in philosophy. So, whatever you may think about his views, you can’t say that he doesn’t have the background to write about them.

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Two for the Price of One

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Cover for Plato at the GoogleplexPlato at the Googleplex:  Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.  New York:  Pantheon Books, 2014. Link is to the author’s website.

So . . .a 400+-page book on philosophy.  Real promising, isn’t it?  I hope I can persuade you to read it, even though parts of it are quite challenging and dense.  Sometimes you finish a book with a feeling of satisfaction:  “I made it through.”  Sometimes with almost a sigh of relief:  “So that’s what happened!”  But once in a great while, at least for me, there’s a feeling of regret:  “Now I won’t get to be in the company of these characters any more.”  And that’s how I felt about the character of Plato in this book.  Suddenly I realized, “Oh no!  I’m almost finished, and I don’t want to be.  I want to go along with Plato into more of our modern world, hearing his take on all sorts of other situations.”  I hope I can get across in this post what a charming, gracious, focused person Plato is in this book.

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