to have cake and eat it too

I am very interested in the question regarding what it is to live well. It naturally follows that I am also very interested in answers to the question, or even better are exemplary lives. Moreover, I am particularly interested in exemplary lives which ended in martyrdom.

Anyway, I want to consider here whether or not I ought to be considered a christian. There seem to be some pretty strong reasons for thinking not; I don't think that Jesus was the son of God, or that the bible is anything more than a bunch of paper with words printed in it, or even that God exists. In short, I utterly lack faith.

But(!), there is a fairly significant aspect of christianity which concerns your deeds, and generally the way you live. For instance, the life and deeds of Jesus are held up as exemplary, and his teachings are to be followed. If ones status as a christian were to be decided based purely on actions and not at all on beliefs, then I might be in with a chance. Even then I am left with the problem that my life merely lines up with the good life that Jesus was on about, rather than me actually following the teachings of Jesus.

Now, assume I am somehow counted christian, surely if the term now means “person who lives well in a way which lines up with what Jesus taught” then the term is so vague and broad that it is void.

It might also be pondered at this point whether the good life as exemplified by Jesus was good because it was his, or because of some objective moral standards about good lives. I'm going to go with the latter. But then any reason I might have had to become a follower of Jesus seems to vanish completely, I can just live according to the dictates of morality and rationality.

As you can see, I like to think I can have my cake and eat it too. And besides, if god is as reasonable and lovely as is made out, I'm sure he'll have me in heaven regardless of my lack of faith.

Saving the world

I'm not sure how serious some people are, but the dream of saving the world seems to be a pretty common sentiment nowadays. I don't personally know if people in ages past had similar dreams, but I figure that if anyone did they were pretty rare. The idea that souls might need saving seems old enough, as old as the idea that our souls are in trouble I suppose. But the idea that the world itself might need saving, well that would seem to require the much more recent idea that the world itself is in trouble.

Because I'm doing a MA in philosophy I often get asked what I plan to do with it once I've finished, or more generally what I want to do with my life. I've taken to suggesting that I would rather like to save the world. This is actually a serious decision about what I want to spend my life doing. Given some of the reactions, I'm left wondering whether deciding to do something like that with your life really isn't as entirely insane as it sounds?

Food

It is widely believed that food comes from supermarkets. Just yesterday I was feeling a little hungry, so i went down to twenty four hours to restock my cupboard. Particularly enlightened people have suggested that food actually comes from farms and factories, which seems plausible enough to most people who take the time to listen.

Both ideas seem wrong. They are however a very telling remark about the state of our world and the way in which most people have been lead to view it. Both the factory and the farm are what is known as workplaces. Some people go there for the best part of the day, do some work, get paid for having had their time thieved, and then go home and cook dinner with some food they bought from the supermarket. Most of the rest of people do the same thing, but instead of farms and factories, it is shops, offices, and etc. Food then becomes a a commodity, something that you have to earn by the good honest toil of your labour.

Instead, it might be thought that food should not be a privilege, or something that must be earned, but one of those basic human rights that should be secured for everyone insofar as it can be secured for anyone. That it should not be sold, or bought, it should be free. What a wonderful world we might have then.

4

yes. another one.

no it will not.

nor is it funny.

i am afraid it is not poetic nor just.

i am not.

no one i expect.

thanks.

i am sure they are all dying to know what i think anyway.

mostly because they don't know.

if they did then maybe they wouldn't.

it has all been a bit foolish to date.

this.

so long.

and thanks for all the comments.

in advance.

seems you haven't all left many yet.

i've only had half an hour and i've made 4 posts.

a poor excuse, i believe in equality.

yea. because in its absence it creats a void the same shape as it, in which we are able to see and discover the details of it anyway.

i didn't think you did.

no, i don't, still.

believe.

The Third Post

shrug. smile sweetly. uh huh. kat's least favorite idea... me telling everyone that she has a secret crush on a boy the identity of whom i do not know because she will not tell me. perhaps with good reasons, but likely with bad reason. kat's second least favorite idea... holding bets concerning the stealing of someone's something which even i really shouldn't go into if i want to win the bet. kat's third least favorite idea... that my use of the english language might be the correct one. or perhaps better than her misuse of it. kat's forth least favorite idea... she doesn't have one, girls can only have three ideas at a single moment. anything else? i am very sneaky - watch out for me.

The Most Dangerous Idea in the World

there are a fairly good number of contenders for the most dangerous idea in the world. generally i think that it simply the belief that there is one exclusive right way of existing in this world. but to be more to the point, it seems to be the function of the world religions to explain that exclusive way to live and in consequence attain salvation from what we can probably all agree isn't the most wonderful existence imaginable. no doubt the religions help us feel better about ourselves. certianly some degree of what happens as a direct result of them is all very nice and positive.

Origins, Explanations, and Stuff-Like-That

i am now closer to the end of my life than i have ever been before. simiarly the world is closer to the end of the world than the world has ever been before. i would even hazard the guess that you are also in pretty much the same situation.

a little about myself might be useful here. i am reuben, though i've taken to using the tag "era" because it is shorter to type. era is also are spelt backwards. are also sounds like r. r is also the first letter of reuben. reuben is also my first name. so you see that it really all makes sense. i am a student of philosophy. i am currently trying to write a masters. with any luck it will amount to a guide to saving the world.

umm. i guess when i think of more interesting ideas to share then i will type them up and share them and hopfully hear what some of you think about them.