Posted by alexandra_k on December 22, 2005, at 12:49:00
In reply to Re: ? ***sensitive*** » alexandra_k, posted by wildcard on December 22, 2005, at 12:37:17
> Exactly!! They want to 'prove' their belief on another person and that is a turn off.
Ah...
> I like your way of here is A,B,C and D. Look at all and decide for yourself.
Yeah, that is how it is supposed to go.
You can think of it as...
person a attempts to 'prove' that they are right...
and person b attempts to 'prove' that they are right...
and person c attempts to 'prove' that they are right...
and person d attempts to 'prove' that they are right...and so you read what they ALL have to say... and you think about it. think about whether what they have to say is plausible or not. whether it is possible or not. etc. (that is where the philosophy skills of critical thinking come into it)
and then...
after thinking and weighing and deciding for yourself...
you write a book about how a is right in these respects but wrong in these others...
and b is right in these respects but wrong in others...etc...
and what you get...
is you get to be person e and you are usually fairly sure that you are right ;-)
and others will read you critically ;-)
and may well agree in some respects and disagree in others...
sigh.
that kind of is what philosophy is about...
there is progress...
but...
it is slow...
because everything that can be questioned will be questioned at some point
;-)
usually the best place to start is to read a relatively simple introduction to the topic. so in this case... philosophy of religion. you already know a couple of questions you are particularly interested in and you may find that other questions are interesting too...you kind of want something that introduces the problem... then tells you one or two or three of the main answers to the problem. the strengths of the answer, the weakness of the answer. then you kind of get to decide which of the three you prefer or you might think of an alternative view (maybe by modifying one of the main ones).
introductory texts like that are the best way in...
eventually... you can build up to the books that the specialists have written where they present their own views. typically... you need to start 'small' to get your head around their terminology.
and it is only 'relatively' 'small' or 'easy'.
plenty hard IMO plenty hardbut then...
i guess we know the answer ain't gonna be simple
poster:alexandra_k
thread:590294
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20051215/msgs/591269.html