THE VIEW FROM A HOLE IN THE WALL
Whew! That was about the closest call I had on the topic of mouse existence or non-existence. Trapped in the neighbor's house by that serial-killer cat was something I would wish on no mouse, not even my cousin Markus. Just because he is a full-blown militant skeptic, that is no reason to wish him harm.
One good thing happened during my absence. The neighbor is a pastor and has a house full of books and bookcases. This allowed me several alleys to run along, as he keeps his books pushed toward the front of the shelves. Other than a few quick trips to the kitchen cupboards for some physical treats, I was quite happy with the mental nourishment the books provided.
Wait a minute. Am I insulting your intelligence by getting food for thought in books? I mean, would you rather I used words like cool, dude, LBGT, YoHo, and dropped the names of popular rappers or sitcoms? Sorry. That's not for this mouse. I'm into books and I don't mean graphic novels. If it's pictures you want, then you have the wrong rodent. I'm strictly text and thinking.
Here you will run into words like genetic fallacy, law of non-contradiction, irreducible complexity, and gulp . . . God. These will require you to think. I also mix in some irony (the use of words that mean the opposite of what you really think, especially in order to be funny). I don't always succeed, but at least should get some credit for trying.
And that's what your experience with this mouse requires. Because of my recent captivity, I had the opportunity to be in a variety of books and as a fellow thinker, I want to share some of them with you.
A few of these surprised me since I didn't expect to find them on a pastor's shelf. One is written by Harry G. Frankfurt. Not even the NY Times could bring itself to spell out the title on their bestseller's list. They threw in a couple of asterisks. I will use discretion and do the same.
The volume could have been entitled "The Age of the Sophists", but that wouldn't have sold quite so many copies. Sophists were ancient "* *'s". They were, and are today, intellectuals who value cleverness and performance over truth, hot air over cheese.
On page 64, this Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University writes that the deeper source of " * * " is found in "various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are." This sounds like post-modernism to me.
But enough on that short, but provocative book. I only mention it to have your " * * " detector go into the alert mode. You only need to open your eyes and mind to see all of it that is within the culture.
Next time, we will go into The Magician's Twin - C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism and Society, edited by John G. West. I look forward to sharing my journeys with you.
Whew! That was about the closest call I had on the topic of mouse existence or non-existence. Trapped in the neighbor's house by that serial-killer cat was something I would wish on no mouse, not even my cousin Markus. Just because he is a full-blown militant skeptic, that is no reason to wish him harm.
One good thing happened during my absence. The neighbor is a pastor and has a house full of books and bookcases. This allowed me several alleys to run along, as he keeps his books pushed toward the front of the shelves. Other than a few quick trips to the kitchen cupboards for some physical treats, I was quite happy with the mental nourishment the books provided.
Wait a minute. Am I insulting your intelligence by getting food for thought in books? I mean, would you rather I used words like cool, dude, LBGT, YoHo, and dropped the names of popular rappers or sitcoms? Sorry. That's not for this mouse. I'm into books and I don't mean graphic novels. If it's pictures you want, then you have the wrong rodent. I'm strictly text and thinking.
Here you will run into words like genetic fallacy, law of non-contradiction, irreducible complexity, and gulp . . . God. These will require you to think. I also mix in some irony (the use of words that mean the opposite of what you really think, especially in order to be funny). I don't always succeed, but at least should get some credit for trying.
And that's what your experience with this mouse requires. Because of my recent captivity, I had the opportunity to be in a variety of books and as a fellow thinker, I want to share some of them with you.
A few of these surprised me since I didn't expect to find them on a pastor's shelf. One is written by Harry G. Frankfurt. Not even the NY Times could bring itself to spell out the title on their bestseller's list. They threw in a couple of asterisks. I will use discretion and do the same.
The volume could have been entitled "The Age of the Sophists", but that wouldn't have sold quite so many copies. Sophists were ancient "* *'s". They were, and are today, intellectuals who value cleverness and performance over truth, hot air over cheese.
On page 64, this Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University writes that the deeper source of " * * " is found in "various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are." This sounds like post-modernism to me.
But enough on that short, but provocative book. I only mention it to have your " * * " detector go into the alert mode. You only need to open your eyes and mind to see all of it that is within the culture.
Next time, we will go into The Magician's Twin - C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism and Society, edited by John G. West. I look forward to sharing my journeys with you.
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