Give Up Now, Homosexuality Is Not Going To Disappear

I was just looking over this site that has various banned book lists. The list for the top challenged/banned books for 2006 had explanations as to why. Quite often the reasons were because it dealt with homosexuality. I understand not wanting a 4-year old to read a picture book about it----it could confuse them. But, when it is novels for tweens and teens I think it is ridiculous. They are old enough to decide for themselves whether or not they want to read about it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. And, it is wrong, I feel, for a library or a school to not have a book because the main characters are homosexual. I don't really know where I am going with this....I am just frustrated that people are against books because they deal with homosexuality...

2006 list:
“And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group;
“Gossip Girls” series by Cecily Von Ziegesar for homosexuality, sexual content, drugs, unsuited to age group, and offensive language;
“Alice” series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for sexual content and offensive language;
“The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things” by Carolyn Mackler for sexual content, anti-family, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;
“Scary Stories” series by Alvin Schwartz for occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, violence, and insensitivity;
“Athletic Shorts” by Chris Crutcher for homosexuality and offensive language;
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky for homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison for offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group; and
“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier for sexual content, offensive language, and violence.

Site Link:
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.cfm

Religion

I had chosen to read Forbidden Religion, because of its questioning nature. I too question the Christian religion, and in fact all organized religions. They seem to me to be more political than actually about faith.

Sure, the people on the bottom of the rung have true faith. But, the truth is that most organizers of religion are trying to get money and power.

One thing that the book pointed out a lot is that there are parts of even the Bible that the heads of the various branches of Christianity tend to ignore.

I apologize in advance for the rant that is about to come.

Christianity really angers me. A LOT.

So here is a list of things that I think should be contemplated by the people in modern society. I am not trying to be offensive. I just think that a lot of people do not even know what they believe in. I truly feel that it is a person's choice to believe in whatever religion they want [as long as it does not involve the suffering as any living creature] and I believe in a higher power. I honestly wish I could still have faith in the Christian religion, but I feel that I cannot.

Anyways, here are some interesting things that I have thought about:

-All Christians who are racially prejudiced cannot be true Christians. Jesus was born in the Middle East. So therefor he cannot be the Caucasian man that is the common image.
-All Christians who put down the Jewish religion cannot be true Christians. Jesus was Jewish. How could he have possibly been Christian?
-The Bible is not italicized or underlined. If we truly live in a society that separates church and state, why should the book of the Christian religion get special treatment over nonreligious text?
-How can a true feminist also be truly Christian? In the Bible it was an accepted practice to beat your wife. Women were subservient.
-The Bible is very contradictory of itself. Could it possibly be that it is filled with stories that are meant to be read for their moral content, and not taken word for word as truth?
-Incest is wrong...there are so many bad consequences to it. Yet....if the world was submerged in water and only Noah, his family, and 2 of every creature survived.....doesn't that mean that every creature is descendant of an incest relationship?

Book Review

I read Forbidden Religion by Kenyon.

Here is an abbreviated version of my review:

It was overall a very interesting book on the Christian Religion. All of the essays were on aspects of the religion that are generally overlooked for political reasons. While it was fascinating, a lot of the claims made by the various authors had little factual backing. It sounded to me like a lot of them had their little pet theories and used the book as a way of attempting to pick up believers. There were a few claims that were very good and did have a lot of factual backing.

I recommend reading this book for entertainment, and using the crazy theories as a stepping stone to looking into the religion, because I feel that even the craziest might have a grain of truth within it. There is much in Christian history that has been rewritten or left out all together.

Animal Music?

In class the other day, Betsy asked if music made by animals is still considered music. It is organized sound. It is made to be pleasing to others of the species. In my opinion it is still considered music.

However, if music is something that is human made, this would not be possible.

If it is a social construction, it can be though; music made by animals is to get mates, a social behavior.

Perhaps certain creatures (humans included) have an innate sense of music??

My Opinion Keeps Changing

I went from 100% objective to 100% subjective. Now I am at 100% I have no idea.

WHAT IS MUSIC??? I really would like to know. I feel like I don't even know if it is based completely on sound.

In class we discussed deaf people and music. Sometimes they can feel the music. and sometimes it is in their heads, memories of the past when they could hear it Are these things still music? Or does it have to be sound waves actually picked up by an ear?

Also, one thing that I do think is necessary is for someone somewhere to find it to be aesthetically pleasing. There was debate about this in class. But, if no one found it appealing, no one would have ever said that it was music. Yes, we can not like something and say it is music, but for the most part we find music from the store the computer etc. In order for it to be deemed music there, it must have been appealing to at least one person.

Ok, so I read it...

I read the article. I still think that it is 100% subjective.

BUT

I like the definition: "As Organized Sound." That's what I feel that it really is. It is a way that sounds are organized to be pleasing to at least it's creator.

This brings up a question that I feel is very relevant....In Art and Philosophy, we say that art has to be human made. Music is a form of art. So by this logic, music has to be human made. But, what about birds? And other natural music? Are they not music because they are not made by humans?

Music?

"My boyfriend is bang, the boom, the beat
He's beatin' down the door to get to me
Yeah music is the shock, the shake, the shit
The needle in the groove, the grind, the grit
My boyfriend is music"
-Skye Sweetnam

I have not yet read the article on music, but I figured that I would give some preliminary thoughts.

I feel that music is 100% objective. Every culture has different music, and withing a culture there are different genres. I know o many people who would say that rap is not music. I know just as many who say that opera is merely noise. There does not appear to be any set of standards making something music or not.

I included the song quote because I like the way that she defines it. "the bang, the boom the beat" etc. Also part of her interpretation is that music is something that makes her feel good. To other people music is close to godly. There are also some that think that music should be only about God. There are some who say that modern music is not music.

Am I making my point? There are a million ways to define music, and there are so many forms of music that have nothing to do with the rest. I think that it is merely a collection o sounds that are pleasing to an individual, and that it is completely subjective.

Dictators

Dictatorship:
1. a country, government, or the form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator.
2. absolute, imperious, or overbearing power or control.
3. the office or position held by a dictator.

Dictator
1 a person exercising absolute power, esp. a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession.
2. (in ancient Rome) a person invested with supreme authority during a crisis, the regular magistracy being subordinated to him until the crisis was met.
3. a person who authoritatively prescribes conduct, usage, etc.: a dictator of fashion.
4. a person who dictates, as to a secretary.



OK, now, my reason for all of this:
We decided to completely destroy Iraq's governmental system and replaced it with our own. While dictaorships are a bad thing, it could possibly work for some cultures. I jsut put in the definitions, to show that the first definitions of both words do not say anything negative.

Let's Play Pass the Opressees

Iraq was oppressed by Saddam Hussein. This was a well known fact. Many people say that since they did not ask for help, we should not have gone to "free" them. There are just as many people who say that they could not ask for help. The fight goes on and on and on.

One thing that I rarely hear about is how the Iraqi people have gone from one oppressor to another. look, I know that the United States does not want to consider itself an oppressor, but I think that in this case it is. I want so bad to believe that it is one of those things that they do not realize, that it is all based in good intentions. This does not make it any less bad.

But, I mean we are trying to force them to have our government. We are still over there with military force...etc...

But back to the good intentions: In Of Mice and Men, Lenny was filled with love. He smothers others with kindness. I wonder if this country is a more dangerous version of Lenny....

Drowning in Democracy

I wonder if everyone is aware that we are literally drowning the Iraqi people in democracy. You cannot force people to change their government, especially as quickly as we are trying to. There are some points I would like to make about the democracy we have here in the United States:
1. We desperately wanted it. it was not forced on us.
2. It took a lot for us to get it going, and running somewhat smoothly-- look at all of our amendments
3. It is still a flawed system. if we still haven't perfected it, how can we expect to impose it on someone else?

Patriotism?

patriotism: (dicionary.reference.com)
love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it
and
devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.


There is, I believe, a big difference in these definitions and the contemporary notion of patriotism. Many people today appear to believe that patriotism is equivocal to blindly following the government and the rest of the majority. This may be considered patriotism in totalitarian countries, but not in any free nation. In a free nation, part of showing your love for the rights you have is using those rights. Speak up when you disagree, make changes.

There are at least two things that I have found that may be part of the problem (I am sure I can think of more, given time):

1. People don't know what it means to be patriotic
2. People don't know their rights. I commented on this on one of Nick's blog entries. People don't know enough about their rights to realize when to use them and when they are taken away. If they knew about this, then I think that a lot more people would be standing up for what they believe in and being truly American.

A bit of a rambling rant....

This may be slightly off topic, but it is, at the very least based on something that Johnson said in class: He said that Barney, everyone's favorite dinosaur brought up a messed up generation. (Well, not in those words.....I am paraphrasing.)

All of the Barney follower were brought up being told that it is right to have our own opinions and that we are all special. This gives unrealistic views about individuality and self-righteousness. Someone said that having the right does not mean that you are right. And far too many people don't get this. They think that because they have the right to think hat they want that they are automatically right in their thinking.

But back to what I was going to say:
Barney saying that everyone is special reminds me of the No Child Left Behind stuff and the way that so many high schools will push students foreword even if they are not up to the level etc. And it all made me think of a quote from a children's movie that got it right. Dash in The Incredibles said: "I everyone is special then no one is special."

There is no truer statement. Being special is being unique and different. if everyone is that, then how can anyone be that?

Anyways, Nikki is done rambling for the time being.

My Art and Philosopy Expiriment

My hypothesis: If given an abstract work of art with a lot going on in it, we will get a wide range of differing interpretations due to everyone's individuality.

Counter hypothesis: Despite our "individuality," we all think similarly, and we will only get a few completely different interpretations.

Professor Johnson showed his second Art and Philosophy class the painting that can be found at this link http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.pattern/Janson.p766.gif. I believe he asked them to say what they saw. Sadly, all of the responses were not interpretations, and I would like to do the experiment again.

Total # of responses: 14
Said that the work was "busy": 2
Said that it was "Chinese Art": 1
Purely commented on it's form and nothing else: 4
Said that it was "instruments of life": 1
Said there were faces in the work: 1
Said there were "undersea animals": 1
Said there was anger: 1
Made a circus related comment: 2

This last one, I do not know if I can take seriously, because no matter how hard I try, I do not see this, and feel that the remark may have been sarcastic:
"A boy in glasses riding a tricycle through a fiesta where there are balloons shaped as a lobster and an Incan Warrior': 1

The Is-Ought Challenge

We have been challenged to come up with a bunch of "Is" statements in order to get the "ought" statement: "Hurting is wrong."

First off, I am changing it to "Hurting without just cause is wrong."

1. When you hurt someone they recieve pain
2. Pain, according to humans, is an unpleasant feeling in the extreme
3. Humans do not like to have unpleasant feelings in most cases
4. Humans base things on morals
5. Human morals say that causing pain and other unpleasant feelings are not right


We need to attribute the ought claims, which Johnson says makes it an "is" instead of an "ought".

I still think I win...

The Old-Fashioned Emo

Emotivism is a school of thought where morals are looked at as merely emotion, and not something that can be either true or false.

I do not think that they are merely human emotion, but they are a human creation. I think that the lines are fuzzy sometimes as to whether they are true or false. I mean, in some countries is is considered immoral to kill a cow. Yet, many people in this country kill them and eat them. Granted the eating of meat is teetering on the line of moral and immoral in the eyes of the American majority.

Laws are a reflection of our morality. Laws differ from country to country, state to state, county to county, town to town.

I guess that what I am saying is that Emotivists have a point: since morals are a human creation and differ from place to place, it is hard to say that they are true or false.

There are of course morals that are the same for everywhere, and those are accepted as facts, but what of the differing ones?

Lobsters and Serial Killers...

OK it is well known that I work at a grocery store and that I am extremely allergic to seafood. This means lobsters. I hate them. I am afraid of them, I see them and I think about how I will break out in hives if I touch them. I was carefully avoiding touching one one day as the customer buying it was babbling about her son's birthday.

"Wow, that's an expensive birthday dinner for a kid," I said.

"Oh, and he plays with it before he eats it. It's a birthday tradition," she said with a laugh.

Whoa, rewind!

First off, thee way that lobsters are cooked is cruel. Second of all, he plays with it before he eats it. That's just sick!

I went out for hot cocoa with a friend yesterday and I was telling him this story. His reaction was: "That kid is going to grow up to be a serial killer."

This is kind of hypocritical. The kid does something that none of the rest of us would do: he looks his dinner in the eye and then kills it. I don't think that any of the rest of us would have the guts to do this.

I still think that it is sick to play with your food...it is cruel to make it think you are going to love it and then plunge it into boiling water....

But, I don't know of many people can look their dinner in they eye before killing it.

This does not seem right to me...

I was researching reasons to go vegetarian/vegan, and I came across a site with what you can eat i you are vegan. The site boasted of how the changes aren't that bad. After all, they do have bacon-flavored meat substitutes. If you stop eating meat for the sake of the animals, why would you want to eat something that tastes like them? You still are enjoying the taste of their flesh even if you are not actually eating it.

Um, excuse me?

Disclaimer: I apologize if this offends anyone. And whenever I say "You" it is not directed at any one person, it is to all of the people who opress. So please, whoever said the innocent little comment, please don't take it personally, it just got me thinking and I had to vent somewhere...

Today in class, we were talking about laws and morality. A comment was made about gay marraige. What was said was something like: In the state of Massachusetts we have gay marraige, this is someone pushing their morals on us (Yeah, I know that this isn't exact, but it is the gist of it.).

Um...HELLO?

How is that pushing morals on someone? Please tell me. It is pushing your morals on someone saying that they cannot marry whom they want. Saying that gay marraige is not allowed is as bad as sayign that you have to marry within your class. Legalizing gay marraige is allowing people to do something thta hurts no one. If people don't like it fine, they can just ignore it. Making it legal is not saying that it is morally right, but sayign that it is illegal is saying that it is morally wrong.

And furthermore, allowing it but not calling it marraige is crap. I mean, seriously, are you all that petty that you cannot allow people in love to have the same rights as anyone else in love?

Sorry that this is somewhat off topic....

That was harsh

I guess that my title for my last post should not have been "Vegetarianism and Fear" that was harsh, but it is not letting me edit the post.

But, I have more to add. I realize that most people don't see how our prolonged lives relate to the slaughter of animals. It does completely. We are so afraid of our own deaths that we get scared when we see the death of any other sentient being. And, this relates to our discussion on religion. The way I see it, there are two very obvious reasons why there is a sudden push for vegetarianism in our society.
1. The war: there is death everywhere, so we are really getting scared now and are finally seeing every life as a wonderful thing (which we should have anyways)
2. People are becoming disillusioned with religion, so now what comes next is no longer clear to us. We no longer know if there is a heaven or not, so our fear of death has increased.

Vegitarianism and Fear

The article I read for the most recent Q&A brought up quite an interesting point. Today's society has an absolutely ridiculous phobia of death. Hello, everything that lives has to die. It's the way that things work. People no longer look at how a life was lived, instead they look at how long said person lived. Often "living" isn't really living. Being in mass amounts of pain for years or so drugged up that you feel nothing and know nothing of the world outside of your bright white hospital room is not living. i know that no one wants to see a loved one go, and we want to hold on to them as long as possible, but that's just not possible. And with our own lives we want to grasp life as long as possible.

This does relate, I swear, just bear with me...

We see these animals being killed for meat, they live very short lives. But honestly, most domestic animals live shorter lives than humans anyways. We don't look at this all as fulfilled lives. We look at them as short lives. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that death is a part of life, so these animals are going to die no matter what. if not at our hand then there is a good chance that there will be a predator that eats them. Not kills and eats, just eats, because animals don't stop to make sure that their dinner is no longer breathing.

But, I do not under any circumstances agree with veal. How would you like it if we never gave your baby a chance to live?

http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/ethicsmeat.html

This is interesting...

I know that our assignment was to find an article in favor of meat eating, but I came across this when I first did the search and found it to be interesting: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~yount/text/meatarg.html

I personally was most interested in the first argument. It said that the Bible says we should eat meat. I have a few points I would like to make about this (and it connects so well to the last topic).
1. It was a very weak argument (as were most of the arguments listed...it was very biased in favor of not eating meat and decided to skimp on good arguments for meat eating). It was weak to the point of being humorous.
2. The Bible was written by humans,, and therefor can be faulty (probably would probably be a much better word than can in this case).
3. The Bible is filled with stories that are not supposed to be taken as direct truth, you are supposed to learn from them, not take them word for word.
4. The argument in response to that is so obvious, that I would thin that no one would use the Bible as an excuse to eat meat: in the Bible, women are subservient, homosexuality is immoral, premarital sex is immoral, etc. I am pretty sure that the people who follow the Bible oh so closely that they say that we must eat meat do not agree with all of the three examples I gave.
5. This assumes that everyone is Christian or at the very least everyone should be. This argument means nothing to someone who is Jewish, Muslim, or Athiest.

Anyways, I just thought that this was an interesting little tidbit of information...

Our Omnivorous Natures

Humans are Omnivores. We were built to be omnivores as can be seen by the way our teeth are set up. Since the beginning of time, humans have hunted and eaten other animals. Other animals kill other animals and eat them. We are doing what our natures tell us to do. I personally do not eat most meat, but I see nothing wrong with other people eating meat.

I do think that we need to find a more humane way to kill the animals, but I see nothing wrong with eating meat.

Sorry that this is sort of scattered....

What are these fear-filled agnostics then?

I was just thinking, if an agnostic is just an agnostic out o fear, what are they?

I mean, if someone says that they think that there might be a God, but there might not be, and they say it because they are afraid that there may really be a God that is goingto punish them for being a nonbeliever, what are they?

If they are truly afraid that there may be someone to punish them, doesn't that make them a theist? Yet, deep down they believe that there is no God. But it is the slight doubt that makes them say that there may be a God.

What does all of this mean?

I feel that they are theists by default, but I am wondering what others think about this....

Agnosticism is Fear

I personally feel that agnosticism is the easy way out. I feel that it is cowardly. I feel that it is a way for people to not have to be looked down upon by both sides. You say that you are not sure if there is a God, but you are open for it.

This looks good to athiests because you are not saying that you definitely believe in God, therefor you can perhaps be persuaded into believing that there is not a God.

On the other side, the theists are happy beause you may be swayed into believing that there is a God.

I feel that you should have an opinion and not say that you are on middleground to keep from being looked down upon.

There is either a God or there is not.

Going Back to the Idea of Time...

Leanne and I were talking about blogging ideas. Our friend suggested that we discuss Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), because that is what we are currently doing (as we do every night). Leanne said that that couldn't' relate, but it got me thinking. DDR can totally relate to constructing reality, honestly almost everything can relate to constructing reality.

Time is the best way that DDR relates....

We often play from 8 or 9 at night until 1am or later...often we are surprised when we look at the clock and realize that we've been playing for hours and hours. It is because we are not focused on time.

Or, perhaps....

We want time to slow down. We don't want morning to come. We want to keep playing. We want so bad for time to slow down that it speeds up. i think that sometimes how much we want time to slow down or speed up causes us to perceive the opposite.

Ignorance and Evil

I totally agree with Katherine (I think that is her name...) that ignorance is no excuse when it comes to being evil. I do feel though, that her accusations that the author was evil were a bit out of control.

But, that is not the topic of this entry.

The topic is that just because you are not outright doing something evil, does not mean that you are in the clear. If you witness a great wrong and do nothing about it (even if it is tell someone after the fact) you are doing evil. Evil is probably too strong a word, but I cannot think of a better word-so, evil will have to do.

Anyways,

What I am trying to say is that ignorance of something is no excuse for wrongdoing...

BUT!

What if your idea of right and wrong differs from mine? I just thought of this....What happens when someone does something considered right by their belief system, but it is wrong by someone else's? We all feel that our beliefs are right. How do we decide what is universally right?

My Little Can of Worms

I just realized, I never really explained the can of worms that I opened that lead to the discussion on colors, mentioned in my previous entry.

No one was speaking, you could hear the dust settling. I can't handle silence, so I decided to ask a question.

It was something I had thought about but never written down.

I asked if we could somehow compare the lengths of time that two people spend together. I used the example of two people going to the movies together. They spend the same objective time together. They feel like they were there for different times. How do we decide if their subjective time was really different, or i it was just that their perception was different?

Colors!

Today in class, I kind of opened up a can of worms, by asking about comparisons for two people's subjective time. The conversation went on quite a bit, and then Professor Johnson said something about colors and how we only know blue is blue because that is what we have been told since we were young.

This is one of those things that I think about quite often. There is no proof that we are both seeing blue. I mean, what I think blue looks like might be what you think yellow looks like. It is all based on perception. We perceive it as blue because that is what we are told. I really wonder and I wish that there was a way for us to find out.

I used to have this crazy theory that we all actually have the same favorite color. My favorite is what I perceive to be purple. What I mean is, what if your favorite color is green and what you perceive to be green is the same as what I perceive to be purple?

SUPERnatural

Yay for the next topic! Religion and the supernatural! This is my favorite topic!

Anyways...

I personally feel that religion is the construction of our minds. This is not to say that I do not believe in God. I do, but sometimes I wonder if it is just because I am insecure about how else anything was created. Professor Johnson said in Art and Philosophy the other day that we put gods in the places where science can't explain things. I find that this is true.

There are plenty of people who create their entire lives (their realities) around religion. Everything that they see they see with the lens of their religion. They see nothing that does not have to do with their religion, things like science are not real to them.

Calendars

Time as we know it and define it is, in my opinion, subjective. I believe that I have mentioned this before. I think that carrying calendars show this.

The example from class was the Chinese calendar in comparison with ours. Other than this, there have been other calendars in the past. We used to have New Year's on a different day than we do now. Calendars are a human invention. This I feel means that it has error, and can not be truly, perfectly representative of true time. I know this sounds kind of crazy, but it is what I believe.

Time itself is not human construction, but time the way we know it is human construction, and is very subjective.

My Perception of Time

I have been thinking lately about our perceptions of time, and I remembered something that happened when I was younger:

I do not remember the exact circumstances of the event, but I do think that I was around ten or eleven. I distinctly remember laying on the floor, staring at the clock on the VCR and watching time go by. Ibelieve I was waiting for a friend to come over or for my dad to get home from work- something like that. What I do distinctly remember thinking was: "Wow, minutes aren't as quick as I once thought that they were."

This reinforces my ide that time as we know it is subjective, but not because it was a situation where time felt slow because I was watching the clock and waiting, but because after that, I never felt that a minute was a quick little thing that didn't really matter.

Other Dimensions! Yay!

I totally feel that time is another dimension. I do not say 'fourth" only because I am not sure how many dimensions there are. i have no backing whatsoever to believe this, it is just one of those things i have always believed.

But, in class there was a rather relavant point made....

This dimension is nothing like the others, so how can it be a dimension?

I don't think that this means it isn't a dimension, I think it just means that it is a different type of dimension.

I do think that there is evidence of other dimensions...even if it does not point to time. Gravity, as DKJ pointed out, is not able to be explained by the three dimensions that we have. This has to do with string theory. I will look into the theory more, but I totally think that what I've heard makes sense.

Apples and Reality

One thing that someone said when discussing the difficult topic of whether or not there are real apples was "How did the concept of the apple get into the mind?" If the apple did not really exist independent of our conception, there would be no plausible explaination for how we have the concept of the apple. This is what Metaphysical Realists would say. I would have to say that I agree. This is why I cannot figure out what is so bad about Metaphysical realism according to von Glasersfeld. He feels that you cannot logically talk about anything outsoide of your expieriences. I agree with this but, saying that there is in fact a real apple sitting on my desk is not, at least to me, talking outside of my expieriences. I guess what my rambling is tryin to achieve is getting the message across that I feel that the reason we have the concepts of things is because things must exist outside of our reality.

The World Exists Independent of Us

Is there a world that exists free of our perception?? This is harder to answer than I thought that it would be. This is because no matter what I say, it has to do with something that someone percieves. I still stand by the fact that there has to be. But first, I must make it clear that I am automatically discounting the Cartesian idea that we can only be sure of our own existence. We must assume that others do exist independent of us.

Ok, now that we've got that all cleared up...

I look at the existence of a world independent of perception the same way that I look at religion. You have to take in everyone's point of view and sift through for the commonality. My favorite example in terms of religion is that there are three religions that feel that the area now known as Isreal is their holy land. This commonality means that that is the holy land. There are other examples too, and to me, it is these commonalities that are the closest things to truths.

Every person has a different perception of the world. There are, though, commonalities between everyone's perception, and those commonalities must be what exists independent of us. Right?

Last class, we discussed metaphysical realism. One of the things that I liked that was said was that skepticism is essentially the opposite of metaphysical realism. From there, we decided that there does have to be a reasonable limit to skepticism. I fully agree with this. A true skeptic would be skeptical of literally everything. This though, is not realistic. If someone were skeptical of literally everything, they might never leave their bedroom. But, this is an extreme. In most cases, I feel that at least some degree of skepticism is a good thing. One needs to be skeptical of what one percieves, because perceptions can be percieving.

Post Modernism

I cannot remember who it was, but someone in the class defined postmodernism as focusing on the grey area. I liked this definition, but I don't really like the fact that postmodernism is so very broad. I think that it should be broken up into smaller subcategories. This would make them easier to define and also easier for a person to decide what their view is.

Also, I do think that the name "postmodern" was meant to be an oxymoron. Most definitions of postmodernism involve going against the grain. Saying that you are beyond now, or after now is definitely going against the norm.

But, I do agree with professor Johnson that because it has so many definitions is loses meaning. What does it really mean to be a postmodernist?