My philosophical affiliations

Another virtualexile inspired post.

I’m not a fan of religion. Faith and belief, I admire. An internally directed search for belief also admirable. Since I had my profound break with christianity, I’ve assembled my framework from bits and pieces of the philosophical raw materials of unitarian universalism, taoism, and secular humanism. The Rede of Wicca works its way in there too.

I believe that the origins of the universe, like the existence of an omnipotent entity, are entirely unknowable. (SH) I believe that expression and interpretation are two fundamental acts involved in communication and that it is impossible to express any sentiment such that anyone with intelligence but without shared communicational schemas can understand it, which should hardly be controversial. I expand from that point to claim that no communication is perfect or entirely reliable, but I’ll try not to be any more pedantic about it than I already have been. (da big T or D, or whatever).

Ethically speaking, I believe that we all ought to contribute to the public good, while maintaining a relatively laisez-faire attitude towards how others lead their lives, to the extent that they do not detract from public life, or others private lives. We should strive for efficient and moderate consumption of natural resources. We should value both harmony and freedom as the competing principles that they are, in service to the welfare of society and the individual. I strongly believe in egalitarianism. And investing in the future. I _think_ that we all ought to do our best to enjoy ourselves, but as was noted in an earlier comment [in virtualexile‘s journal], that may not be my strongest suit 😉

I reject fundamentalism, much like a strict constitutional interpretation. It is a devotion symbols rather than what the symbols represent. Any articulation of values is subject to fundamentalism, but that does not mean that the articulation is at fault. This is what I love most about Taoism. Their canon starts off saying that some things cannot be known, cannot be expressed with perfection. The point of this is to suggest that we ought not trust symbols unconditionally. Symbols often obscure or misrepresent. =)