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Tag Archives: Sartre
Thomas Aquinas for Beginners
Listening closely to theist arguments–and Aquinas. As an agnostic, I’m not sure whether God exists or not, nor whether Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics is wholly correct, but I’m also not the sort of person who is interested in practicing confirmation bias … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, Catholicism, essentialism, God, philosophy, Sartre, Thomas Aquinas
17 Comments
Who Shapes and Defines the Clay, and Who Cuts the Deck of Definition? Hylomorphism, Aquinas, Sartre, and Evolution
What is hylomorphism? Hylomorphism is a term out of classical philosophy (first used by Aristotle, later picked up by Aquinas) where a designer takes raw material and uses her mind and hands to impose purpose and form on it, as … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, aquinas, atheism, evolution, God, hylomorphism, philosophy, Sartre
53 Comments
Existentialism Defined in Two Sentences
The following occurred to me on waking from a nap this afternoon: Existentialism can be summed up in just six words consisting of two sentences: You’re going to die. Your move. Chess players, medieval Germany, circa 1305-1340. (Image source: Wikipedia … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Camus, death, existentialism, Kierkegaard, life, philosophy, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir
4 Comments
Our Collective Existential Situation in a Nutshell (In Case You Missed It)
Here’s the two-fold problem: (1) each of us is limited to a body we did not choose and that dies, and (2) science since Darwin has revealed living things to be machines that evolve by competition (the proteins in cells, … Continue reading
“You Know Him Not, Sir”: Shakespeare And Limitations On Self-Shaping
How much can you change your life and those of others, really? That’s a question I’ve been gnawing on a bit after seeing this past weekend an outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare, famously, was obsessed … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddhism, existentialism, life, literature, philosophy, Sartre, schopenhauer, Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
2 Comments
Assert Yourself
The below video is a nice introduction to existentialism. And so is this brief passage written by historian Carlin Barton in her great book, Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones (University of California Press 2001, 31-32): On the morning of … Continue reading
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Tagged cheating, choices, existentialism, freedom, life, Sartre, work
1 Comment
Change Your Mind, Change Your Brain?
This was in the Los Angeles Times this past month: For the Trappist monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux, life follows a pattern centuries old. They spend their days in the field and their nights in silence. They gather in prayer … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, Buddhism, Christianity, discipline, habits, hypnosis, Jesus, meditation, prayer, religion, Sartre, zig ziglar
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Ferris Club: Cameron Fights His Demons
Ah, young Hamlet!
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Tagged Camus, comedy, existential freedom, existentialism, freedom, Hamlet, Kierkegaard, life, Nietzsche, Sartre, self assertion, Shakespeare
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Existential Flungness in a Twilight Zone Episode
The first ten minutes of this Twilight Zone episode is Rod Serling channeling Beckett, Kafka, and Sartre. It’s very cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is not on YouTube. I know the ending, though, and will tell you what it … Continue reading
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Tagged Camus, Dostoevsky, existentialism, God, Kafka, life, philosophy, rapture, Sartre, truth, twilight zone, waiting for godot
4 Comments
An atheist’s despair at the universe’s apparent lack of purpose—and a plea for meaning?
Some of the lyrics: Give me something to believe. Cause I am living just to breath. And I need something more to keep on breathing for. So give me something to believe. Is atheism a dead end that leads to … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, Camus, Dostoevsky, existentialism, God, Nietzsche, Sartre, The Brothers Karamazov, theism
5 Comments
Werner Herzog turns “Where’s Waldo” into a haunting existential enigma
Where to begin?
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Tagged atheism, Camus, comedy, existentialism, experience, godless universe, humor, innocence, life, Nietzsche, Sartre, werner herzog
2 Comments
David Hart and Nietzsche v. the New Atheists
I don’t like the snarky and dismissive tone of David Hart’s recent critique of atheism, but I think that, in his essay, he nevertheless hits his mark here and there. He prefers, for example, the sobriety of Nietzsche to the comfy … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Camus, existentialism, God, humanism, Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, Sartre
8 Comments
God does not exist and life is meaningless: existential horror invades a pre-game coin toss
Normally well sublimated atheist meaninglessness rudely and unexpectedly comes to the surface of football players’ awareness in this Onion Network News sports report:
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Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Camus, existentialism, faith, God, reason, religion, Sartre, theism
5 Comments
Where are We? (And Why I’m an Agnostic)
In asking, existentially, where we are, I think that there are two great facts and three great questions: It appears that we live within a paradox—a universe that made itself or has always existed. It also appears that the universe consists … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, existentialism, Genesis, naturalism, philosophy, religion, richard rorty, Sartre, the universe
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Pretty Good Reasons to Believe in God Watch: Atheism’s Guilt Problem
What, you say? Atheists, of all people, surely don’t have a problem with guilt. They can cuss, smoke, and masturbate to their hearts’ content, not feeling morally supervised by disapproving and invisible eyes. They can read any book they want. … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, Camus, God, guilt, philosophy, pretty good reasons to believe in god, religion, responsibility, Sartre
16 Comments
Mental Health Break
I made this video a few months back. I still kind of like it:
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Tagged mental health break, nature, picnic, psychology, Sartre, science
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