What I Remember of Philosophy

In college, I took a couple of philosophy courses. They really broadened my worldview and helped me a lot. I don't remember a great deal about who said what, so you will have to forgive me if I don't give credit where credit is due or get something wrong, but what I'm going to discuss here is important stuff that people need to know.

One of the best explanations of life, that is very easy to imagine and understand, is as a grand dinner, with lots of people eating at a long table. Food is passed around, with one person taking their share and then letting the next person take their share. The different foods are the different things we deal with in life. Using stereotypes, the steak represents the best parts of life, being happy and excited and not having any problems, while the asparagus represents the worst parts of life, being sad and troubled and overcome with problems. When the steak is passed to you, you can only take one portion. Take any more, and the other people will get upset because they won't get their share. Besides, too much steak is bad for you, and you have to eat other stuff, too. So, you have to accept that you can only get a small amount. When the asparagus comes around, you have to take your share of it, even though you don't want to. Everybody has to have some, and you not taking your share will force other people to take more. Besides, it's something that is good for your health, even if it tastes terrible.

This is life. We have to accept that the good times aren't everlasting and that the bad times are eventual. Trying to get around either of those will only result in trouble, either for yourself or others or everybody.

Onto religion - the most important that I've learned about religion from philosophy is that arguing about how one religion is better or worse than another is pointless. Christianity, for example, exists in many different forms, and a lot of smart people have said a lot of smart things about the different forms. Each statement makes sense, but they don't all gel. They can't all be right, but they're all valid, so how do we decide which is right and which is wrong? Is the existence of God obvious because there had to have been a creator-less creator, something that created everything without having to have been created, or does God have to exist because of the beauty of the universe and the rules that guide it? Even if you can proof the existence of God, can you prove that God is intelligent or involved in our lives?

The point is, people have been talking about God and morality and spirituality for centuries, and the philosophers that wrote books on the subjects worked much hard. They didn't just read the Bible, they read things written by other philosophers, they read the stuff that had already been written, centuries before they came along. To succinctly say it, if a person wants to talk about how the Bible says something, he or she had better have read Thomas Aquinas, at the very least. If the person hasn't, then they haven't really studied.

And that's the same with just about every religion. There is a ton of information aside from the holy texts that needs to be read, just like how you need to read about basic algebra before you start messing around with calculus. Or how you need to read essays written about William Faulkner before you write a thesis about him. You have to see what other people have said, the thoughts already communicated into the world. Until you do that, you cannot have a good grasp of the true tenets of the religion, and once you read the philosophy of the religion, you'll see that there are a lot of good points to it. If a Muslim reads Jewish philosophy, and really goes in with an open mind and trying to understand, he'll see that there are good points about it, and same with a Christian reading Islamic philosophy and any combination of any religion. The philosophers are the ones to heed, not the crazy bastards that make signs and scream. Pitching a bitch is easy. Spending countless hours reading and writing, that's hard, and it's the people that do that that deserve attention.

Friendship - the best thing I ever learned is that liking someone's character is what really matters. I tried to be friends with people simply for the sake of being friends, of being able to spend time with another person. But that only causes strife and turmoil. You have to like them as a person, not just for what they offer you. There are a lot of people that piss me off. I can be friendly to them, I can even genuinely enjoy their company, but sometimes, I want to strangle them, and not in a joking kind of way. It's because they do things I don't like or agree with. Now, some things I don't mind; I don't smoke pot, but I don't have a big problem with other people smoking it. But if a person smokes pot around a child, I do have a problem with that, and if I know someone who does that, I won't be happy with them. Hell, I'll be downright angry with them. I may still enjoy their company at times, but I won't consider them a true friend, and I won't do for them the things I would for my true friends. And that is because I learned that true friends are the people you are willing to do anything for; they are people you respect and admire, in some way. They don't have to be perfect, and no one else may respect or admire them, but if you do, that's what matters. If you try to make an unworthy person your true friend, then you're going to end up unhappy, because they will let you down and disappoint you.

For instance, I couldn't ever be friends with someone that does heroin because I couldn't ever respect anyone that does heroin. And it's not solely about the drug; using it shows a disregard for a law that could land them in prison for a long time, a lack of intelligence because you'd have to be stupid to want to keep pumping that shit into your body, and a lack of self-respect because they think they need it, think they are unable to live without it. If I liked everything about a person, but then found out that they were a junkie, I'd be so devastated that I wouldn't ever want to see them again. Just like how I don't want to associate with bigots or assholes, I don't want to associate with people that are throwing themselves under a bus. A friend is a person that makes you feel good about the world. not by doing things for you but by showing you that there are good people in the world. If you don't like your friend's character, who they are inside, then you shouldn't be friends with them.