comments on a undergraduate philosophy club.

first off, i would like to state that in the gathering we did not discuss philosophy, and secondly that i do not know everything but i believe that i was the only person in the group who was attempting to do philosophy. you see i signed up to become part of the university's undergraduate philosophy club. contrary to what you would expect we did not discuss philosophy. let me explain:
the group was a small group of five people including myself, which should've made for a great discussion, but as you already know it did not. to start of the meeting the leader of the meeting opened with this greeting: "so, first off, I want to say that I don't give a f*** about what you think or what you think about my beliefs. my beliefs work for me and if they don't work for you then f*** off." (relativism) needless to say I was not impressed. i thought to myself if this is how the leader acts how about the rest of the group. luckily, i came to find out that he was among the most self-rightous, arrogant, and ignorant people i know; and that, the rest of the group wasn't as near as arrogant. although, all of them were still pretty arrogent and i wouldn't consider any of them actual philosophers. this is why: the word "philosophy" in Greek literally translates to "the love of knowledge". now we know from epistomology, the study of knowledge, that in order to have knowlege we must give good reasons for holding a belief (proposition). in other words, to have a justified belief is to have knowledge.

*In order for a subject, S, to have knowledge of a proposition, P, S most provide justification for believing P.

Note: it is possible to hold a justified false belief.

the above statement is agreed between all serious, practicing philosophers; although, the means used to justify a belief differ greatly between philosophers.

now back to the discussion, everyone in the group other than me kept ranting on about their beliefs without providing any justification for them. many of the group members held several contradictory beliefs without even realizing it. this is not how a philosophic discussion should go along. in order to be a philosophic discussion we would've needed to show how our beliefs are justified. in doing so we could learn new things.

another thing that really frustrated me was that everyone but myself was a relativist and several people in the group did not even know what relativism was! now relativism has been practically abandoned by all serious philosophers, because in order to be a relativist you cannot hold beliefs. (read my blog on the fallacy of cutural relativism) i don't know if i will ever go back to that group, because of how unintellectual the discussion became. if i do go back i will certainly make this clear to them. i want them all to grow in knowledge and espcially the knowledge of God. i ask that all my Christian readers will prayer for them, and for me if i decide to go back into the frontlines.