In the past few weeks I’ve started up a little rhetorical back and forth with a buddy of mine from college, Joshua Burkett, and we’ve decided to start posting it over on his blog, fourfingerculture.com.
The budding column, if I can call it that, is called Dueling Liberals. Think Dueling Banjos, only much less redneck. And with more quotes from classical philosophy. Actually, it’s nothing like Dueling Banjos.
The story goes: We both attended the same religious college, and even though we are both much more liberal now than we were then, and, at times, probably more liberal than our parents and/or spouses would like, somehow we have not gone in the same direction. At all.
He’s a liberal theist and finds his worldview rooted in the Christian Bible, though rather loosely at times, I’m sure he would admit; I’m essentially a materialist. No, not in the capitalist sense of the word. I’m a materialist in the strict philosophical sense: I don’t believe in anything but matter and energy. And again, not energy like crystals and auras and all that hippie bullshit. Energy like E=mc2. Stuff that can be studied by the scientific method.
We’ll be going head to head presenting our differing takes on any number of matters related to religion, morality and culture, in order to both admit where we agree and flesh out those areas where our philosophies differ.
If you’re into that kind of thing, I’d say hop on over to his blog and check out the first installment; The Death of Bin Laden : How Should We Respond?. It’s pretty damn good. And his piece ain’t too bad, either.
Then, if you dig it, you ought to show him some love by subscribing in your favorite feed or reader. Speaking of which, I ought to do that now.
In other news: I’ll have some more fiction up here in a couple weeks, and now that I’m essentially done moving, and once I’m over being sick, there ought to be some more tasting notes coming your way.
As always, thanks for using those three extra calories it takes to click onto my blog and read my words. Every hit in my stats page makes me feel like less of a failure.
Cheers!
ADJ
Dig it.