*sighs*

[conuly]

My Core 10 (Intro to philosophy) class is going QUITE well, thank you very much, as this professor isn't on serious drugs...

But some of the other students are... are.... *sighs*

Example:
Argument: 1. If there is evil in the world, then God (classicly all good, all powerful) does not exist.
2. There is evil in the world.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.

Student: But that's not true!
Professor: Which part?
Student: The first part!
Professor: Why?
Student: (I swear she was whining) Because God does exist!

Way to insult people who disagree with you. I wouldn't say "that's not true because there's no such thing as God" to an argument. That's rude. Not to mention stupid, really, but let's get back to the word rude. You're supposed to say "I believe" before statements about things that cannot be proven. That way you aren't offending anybody. Even if you think you're completely, totally, without-a-doubt correct, you Don't Do It.

Another student, after hearing Aquinas' argument about first causes (every thing that has a cause must be caused by something else, every caused cause can't be its own cause, if you don't have a first cause the whole system collapses, the first cause is god, therefore god exists) kept arguing that it's wrong (factually, not ethically) to call God a cause because even though God caused everything, he's still not a cause. At all. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Comments

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

hey get on aim would ya?

[conuly]

No, I'm heading HOME as soon as I figure out how much a new laptop battery costs. Where are you?

[mhari.livejournal.com]

even though God caused everything, he's still not a cause. At all.

...um...?

Is there some kind of not-being-able-to-read-the-dictionary agent in the water these days?

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

That's one of those times where my mom's favorite answer would apply nicely: "Because."

[conuly]

He'd get some slack for being Russian, but there's a limit to how many times you can say the same stupid thing before "not my native language" doesn't apply.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I disagree with that first argument anyway, even though I don't believe in a god.

If evil exists, and we recognise it as evil, then we must recognise its opposite concept, good must exist. Good and evil are a binarism - without one, the other is meaningless. Now I know the argument wasn't saying that *good* doesn't exist, just that God doesn't exist because he's all good (though I would add that that is a very Western perception of God.) I dunno, I haven't formulated this argument very well (but then, I've never taken philosophy, and I'm eating whilst I type.) My basic point is that I don't think you can disprove the existance of God or a god based on the existance of evil. And that's what the girl should have done, instead of countering the argument with an unbacked statement.

[conuly]

How do you KNOW that good and evil must include each other? Maybe neither exists. Maybe God could have made a world without evil (a la the garden of eden) if he'd wanted to.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I wasn't actually stating my opinion (since I was arguing for the existance of God, sort of, yet I don't believe in God.) I was pointing out a better counter argument.

As it happens, I don't believe in the existance of evil, but that's another kettle of fish entirely *shrugs*

But I do believe in binary opposition, so I believe that without up we can't have down and so on (go, try and imagine understanding the up without having the concept of down.)

[conuly]

But do you believe that you can't have trees unless you have grass?

[eofs.livejournal.com]

No, because they aren't opposites. If they were, then we could have trees, but without grass we wouldn't be able to understand trees as a concept. Kinda like... if everyone you knew had black hair, then black hair wouldn't exist for you, it would just be hair. Except not quite like that, but the general principle is the same.

Bear in mind that I've never gone anywhere near philosophy, psychology, any of that - history is my social science of choice. What I'm doing here is applying a concept that is used in film theory that I am vaguely aware is used elsewhere (and I can see if fitting elsewhere.)

[conuly]

But maybe good and evil aren't opposites. Maybe we just think they are because we're perverse. Maybe there really is only good (or let's just say default) and the other doesn't exist.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

You mean kinda like most people think war and peace are opposites? I guess it all depends on your angle. And as I stated earlier, I don't believe in the existance of evil anyway. But as for there just being default... I dunno. I haven't made my mind up yet on whether or not good/bad (which I think are a better binarism than good/evil) exist. It's a tricky philosophical question, and not one to think about on as few hours sleep as I've had.

[catsluvdmb.livejournal.com]

People in philosophy classes get absolutely retarded when God gets mentioned in the class. When I took Contemporary Moral Issues, every time we would talk about abortion, murder, etc, there would always be 3 or 4 people in the class who would say, "You're wrong because God says your wrong!!"

We're not talking about God here you stupid douche, we're talking about how you would apply different moral theories to the issues at hand. If you can't even handle that simple a concept, don't bother taking a philosophy class! [/bitter rant]

[conuly]

It's a required course.

[catsluvdmb.livejournal.com]

Heh, that sucks. It's a humanities elective here.

[conuly]

We have more required courses than any other CUNY school. And they lie to us, they say there's only 10 Core courses, which is true, but they forget to tell us that you can't opt out of English 1 & 2, that Cores 2, 5, and 7 come in halves (effectively adding three courses to the list), all sorts of things. And you can only p/f I think three of them.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

hey get on aim would ya?

[conuly]

No, I'm heading HOME as soon as I figure out how much a new laptop battery costs. Where are you?

[mhari.livejournal.com]

even though God caused everything, he's still not a cause. At all.

...um...?

Is there some kind of not-being-able-to-read-the-dictionary agent in the water these days?

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

That's one of those times where my mom's favorite answer would apply nicely: "Because."

[conuly]

He'd get some slack for being Russian, but there's a limit to how many times you can say the same stupid thing before "not my native language" doesn't apply.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I disagree with that first argument anyway, even though I don't believe in a god.

If evil exists, and we recognise it as evil, then we must recognise its opposite concept, good must exist. Good and evil are a binarism - without one, the other is meaningless. Now I know the argument wasn't saying that *good* doesn't exist, just that God doesn't exist because he's all good (though I would add that that is a very Western perception of God.) I dunno, I haven't formulated this argument very well (but then, I've never taken philosophy, and I'm eating whilst I type.) My basic point is that I don't think you can disprove the existance of God or a god based on the existance of evil. And that's what the girl should have done, instead of countering the argument with an unbacked statement.

[conuly]

How do you KNOW that good and evil must include each other? Maybe neither exists. Maybe God could have made a world without evil (a la the garden of eden) if he'd wanted to.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I wasn't actually stating my opinion (since I was arguing for the existance of God, sort of, yet I don't believe in God.) I was pointing out a better counter argument.

As it happens, I don't believe in the existance of evil, but that's another kettle of fish entirely *shrugs*

But I do believe in binary opposition, so I believe that without up we can't have down and so on (go, try and imagine understanding the up without having the concept of down.)

[conuly]

But do you believe that you can't have trees unless you have grass?

[eofs.livejournal.com]

No, because they aren't opposites. If they were, then we could have trees, but without grass we wouldn't be able to understand trees as a concept. Kinda like... if everyone you knew had black hair, then black hair wouldn't exist for you, it would just be hair. Except not quite like that, but the general principle is the same.

Bear in mind that I've never gone anywhere near philosophy, psychology, any of that - history is my social science of choice. What I'm doing here is applying a concept that is used in film theory that I am vaguely aware is used elsewhere (and I can see if fitting elsewhere.)

[conuly]

But maybe good and evil aren't opposites. Maybe we just think they are because we're perverse. Maybe there really is only good (or let's just say default) and the other doesn't exist.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

You mean kinda like most people think war and peace are opposites? I guess it all depends on your angle. And as I stated earlier, I don't believe in the existance of evil anyway. But as for there just being default... I dunno. I haven't made my mind up yet on whether or not good/bad (which I think are a better binarism than good/evil) exist. It's a tricky philosophical question, and not one to think about on as few hours sleep as I've had.

[catsluvdmb.livejournal.com]

People in philosophy classes get absolutely retarded when God gets mentioned in the class. When I took Contemporary Moral Issues, every time we would talk about abortion, murder, etc, there would always be 3 or 4 people in the class who would say, "You're wrong because God says your wrong!!"

We're not talking about God here you stupid douche, we're talking about how you would apply different moral theories to the issues at hand. If you can't even handle that simple a concept, don't bother taking a philosophy class! [/bitter rant]

[conuly]

It's a required course.

[catsluvdmb.livejournal.com]

Heh, that sucks. It's a humanities elective here.

[conuly]

We have more required courses than any other CUNY school. And they lie to us, they say there's only 10 Core courses, which is true, but they forget to tell us that you can't opt out of English 1 & 2, that Cores 2, 5, and 7 come in halves (effectively adding three courses to the list), all sorts of things. And you can only p/f I think three of them.