Philosophy (Not family friendly)

It's funny, but I graduated from college some twenty five years ago. I was a philosophy major. Many people think that philosophy is a useless major, but I have never found it to be so. I learned to think in college, and that has made a huge difference in my life.

Whilst studying philosophy, I fell in love with the thinking of a Franciscan friar named William of Ockham (hence the name of this blog). He is responsible, among other things, of the earliest formulation of Occam's razor. He also wrote some very nasty critiques of the Papacy, which Luther cribbed from later on. I'm still a bit of a nominalist to this day.

Which made my readings of the speech linked to here very painful. To be blunt the whole speech is bulls**t. Dr. Adams employs bad logic, false definitions, faulty reasoning and weak rhetoric to reach her predetermined conclusions. There is no intellectual honesty, no charity and scholarship in her thinking and in her speaking. I've read the foul thing twice now. I may fisk it later. But probably not. Every time I think about it, I recoil.

I may use it as a touchstone. If you like it, then you are in league with the devil. If you don't then you probably are not. That may be too uncharitable. But intentional perversion of God's gifts of reason and learning angers me more than anything. It's a flaw. I'm feeling a distinct lack of love and am sorely tempted to crib some of Brother William's works and use them against Dr. Adams.

Addendum: I am ashamed of this post. It is intemperate. I still dislike the sermon, and for much the same reasons, but I should never have written this. However, I made a promise to myself when I started this that I would never delete a post. So I won't. But for the record, I was most uncharitable. I apologize.