A few more things about me (part 1)

Well... Let's put it out there:

Let me start out by saying that, even though I have a BA in English, this may be rife with grammatical errors due to rules of which I may be unaware. And even with the rules I do know, I can still be unsure of where to put or not put a comma at times. I am also a bad speller (even had to spell check that last word; spelled it correctly, btw) and can miss heteronyms when proofreading. Also, I apologize for being such a pretentious ass.

Politics: I--at least ideally--look at any issue from both sides. But I have my biases: I'm a liberal who thinks, for instance, that marijuana should be legalized and that gays should be allowed to marry. I have nothing to gain from the legalization of either one(I don't smoke weed, and I'm not gay). Also, I'm definitely more of a socialist than Obama (sorry, tea people, neither one of us is a socialist): I wanted single payer (but I understand the role of compromise in a pluralistic society such as ours--but goddammit, that was what the "public option" was). On most occasions, I do try to find the happy medium between principle and pragmatism. In fact, I will say this, I defend Rand Paul's recent statement about the civil rights bill. I respect his argument because it is an honest exposition of the principles of his political libertarianism. I hate these racism charges levied against him. What he advocated is not necessarily racist, but he IS completely wrong. In fact, what he stated is the best argument I've ever heard against this extreme kind of libertarianism that people like him and his father advocate. What, then, should be the federal government's role in America? I'm with Obama on this one: "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works". Hell, that's all I want.

Belief: I believe the theistic interpretation of God. But I don't believe that God is some old man in the clouds who grants my wishes. In fact, if that were the case, I would be very disappointed. For the most part, I think atheists and fundamentalists hold the same childish notion of God, only the atheist rejects this notion (and rightfully so, in my opinion). Why am I not an atheist? I should be one, but I keep to my faith. I guess I align myself with the ontological argument of St. Anselm. But more about that in Philosophy (to be published at another time).

Religion: (I separate this from belief because, at least to me, religion is set of values, attributes, and/or practices that are predicative--not essential--to a belief in a deity. In other words, I believe someone can be "spiritual but not religious"). I am a Christian. It might be for the same reason Gandhi said he was a Hindu: tradition. Are my ideas completely within Christian thinking? Nope. There is some paganism in my Christianity. Instead of casting out my demons, I embrace them (I love Metal and horror movies). What mostly informs my religion, however, is Western Philosophy. Overall, the path I follow is based on the practical ethics of Immanuel Kant, and the "Christian Existentialism" of Soren Kierkegaard [I'll be damned, according to this blog's spell checker, I actually spelled his last name correctly]. After all that, it simply comes down to St. Augustine: "love god and do as you please" , along with these somewhat-related words from T.S. Eliot, "The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: Humility is endless."


Getting late and I'm tired. Will have to save the rest for another time.