Summer 2012 Philosophy Foosball Dinner

Important Notice:

Summer 2012 Philosophy Foosball Club Dinner will occur at the VDBs' place on Saturday, July 7, 2012, at 5:30 p.m.  Food, philosophy, foosball—good times for sure! (In other words, we will imitate the Form of the Good in the realm of Becoming.)

For those planning to attend, please RSVP by email to Dr. V by noon on Thursday July 5th at the latest.

Hope to see you all there!

Disclaimer: Objects in photo may appear more glamorous than actual objects in the VDB residence.

Freedom of Speech, the Canadian Myth

More and more in today's social climate it seems that civil discourse that relies on the freedom of speech and expression is becoming extinct. It is becoming increasingly apparent that if you do not agree with public opinion you are made to be silenced. ID advocates have run into this for years as the movie Expelled attempts to show, but now close to home the Homophobe registry in Quebec seems to move even farther in the censorship of this essential freedom.

Democracy can only function properly when all sides are given a voice, we are reduced to some sort of totalitarian fascism if all voices except the officially approved ones are silenced. Democracy ceases to function in a climate of censorship.

This registry would seem to contradict the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On a more alarmist note, when voices are silenced, deeds are resorted to, if homophobia wants to be assured, Quebec has taken the proper steps in ensuring that desperate measures may be resorted to by those who feel as though they have lost their voice.

Please think critically as to how we can have civil discourse about all manner of socially explosive issues, without resorting to leveling lawsuits against those with whom we disagree. Do not allow the chains of censorship to silence the free speech of democracy.

Also, here is a lecture by Slavoj Zizek in which he argues that this so-called "tolerance" banner beneath which such acts as this registry are justified, is actually fundamentally intolerant. He makes an astute observation on the Christian duty to "love thy neighbor". This registry, and other such moves done in the name of "tolerance" are, according to Zizek, our way of keeping the "neighbor" at arm's length, ultimately leaving them unloved.

The Wisdom of VDB

In my brief time at Providence I have taken a few philosophy classes, 7 to be exact. During the time spent in these classes I learnt many things, but on the days where note taking became too tedious a chore, I opted instead for transcribing the wisdom of my esteemed professor. Here are some famous one-liners from the man we all know and love, so let's let the philosophical rubber hit the road and enjoy some truth statements by VDB.

"You are not a robot."
"Sometimes, you gotta get physical."
"A thing is what it is!"
"We can all be foolish."
"You are more than just good, you are something special."
"This is where the philosophical rubber hits the road."
"If it feels good do it!"
"Yay! I like it!"
"The tiger has big sharp teeth regardless of what culture you're in."
"He likes killing young people, I don't."
"The door is open, if and only if, the door is open."
"I also recognize that you are sinners and you will slack off."
"Or I could go into the library and feed everyone poison Kool Aid and then everyone would die and it would be quiet in the library..."
"If evolution is true all we should be good at is making sandwiches and having sex."
"What you should be knowing is sandwiches and sex, kind of an appropriate topic before lunch; sandwiches at least."
"I'm not pulling some sort of biological wool over your eyes."
"Birth is a termination of pregnancy too!"
"Let's do dastardly things to him until the police get here."
"We should shake our heads a little bit."
"The argument is, that size matters."
"Time permitting, we'll think about suicide...so to speak."
"Embryonic stem cell research is still very much in its infancy."
"Fat! God knows we have enough of that."
"I'm gonna let some Scripture be light unto our philosophical feet."
"Cumulative Case Argument, it's pretty powerful I think."
"Some of us are apparently smaller than others."
"If I make a mistake and you call me a jerk you need to know that I will say, 'Yes, I am a jerk!'"
"I'm not wholly stupid, but I will admit I am sometimes."
"When I tell jokes at the dinner table, nobody laughs."
"Also, I encourage you to not drink and do all sorts of nasty things when you're young because it just gets worse as you get older. Just some words of wisdom."
"Sometimes a person just seems like an Orc!"
"It is handy to have a person still alive when you find him innocent."
"We should at least lock them up tightly and surround them with gospel tracts."
"We will not look at pornography!"
"I am not a politically organized state!"
"We need to just say hey!"
"Swords are weapons."
"Hang in there." (Usually said during double block Monday evening classes)
"Sikhism is an attempt to marry Islam and Hinduism which is kind of a bad marriage to make."
"I think prayer is important."
"Sometimes my intentions and what is real don't converge."
"Just the Resurrection and that's it? Yes, and it's pretty cool."
"I would never call anyone a turnip... as much as I might want to."
"It's like he's sitting on an epistemological branch and then sawing it off under him."
"Don't stab people with forks."
"The truth will remain whether you care or not."
"Where the heck are we going as a society?!?!"
"Little bit of a logical whiplash going on there."
"I spent years writing this thing and I just don't want it to go to waste. "(Check his dissertation fools!)
"So far, so good, but not for the demons; I don't know if we should feel sorry for them or not..."
"I continue to report.

And finally...

"But, is it true?"

Thank-you VDB for all of your insightful words of wisdom and hilarious attempts at humour, know that even if nobody laughed, I chuckled inwardly and recorded them for future use.

Infanticide Imanent

A recent article caught my attention on the subject of renewed calls for post-birth abortions. This seems to me to be the same thing that Pro-Choicers laughed at as alarmist reasoning when it was foretold by the Pro-Life camp. Unfortunately, the worst part of the article for me, was that the author merely took this as a challenge to somehow defend the Pro-Choice position, even though he accedes that the line of reasoning is sound. Sad days lie ahead.