Which philosopher, theologian, or other thinker has influenced you the most?

How so?

Q: How many Vorlons does it take to change a lightbulb?




A: No.

and Swami Vivekananda. And Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, and the Kama Sutra.

Hard to say with so many influences.

Fortunately they all three of them were birds of a feather, so I don't suffer much system shock from day to day.

His insights into the human experience in his many works on the Civil War are extraordinary.

His writing changed mine as a young man profoundly, and I have made a living since off my writing abilities. Would never have done it without Catton.

I realize I should cite a philosopher, but I will go with Catton. If you have read him, you realize that he was indeed a philosopher.

"Player Piano" is the most insightful volume on human behavior that I ever read.

Ghandi's autobiography, "My Experiments With Truth" is inspirational.

The Ascent of Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mIfatdNqBA

If all teachers were like him, I
would never have left school.

:dem:

All of his works.

I read the Fountainhead and realized she was talking about me! This allowed me to focus on achieving greatness for the sake of greatness, without being ashamed of my greatness but rather being proud of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand

Her political philosophy, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasizes individualism, limited government, and the constitutional protection of the right to life, liberty, and property. She promoted the concept of the hero standing against the mob, amid derisive depictions of trade unions, socialism, and egalitarianism, arguing that rational self-interest, properly understood, is the true standard of morality and that altruism is profoundly immoral.

Arsenic in your water from the plant up the street? Sheeesh! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps young man and make your own water filters out of rags and leaves from your yard!

And I thought this thread was about great thinkers, not people who wrote derivative works.

The rest of the book was relatively appealing to me as a teenager, but that was just too much. Fortunately, Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land) had a much greater effect on me.

Then I grew out of it when I realized she didn't think that I was one of the great ones who deserves everything. Easy come, easy go.

Judging from her works, I'm guessing Nietzsche's much misunsderstood "SUPERMEN" - not only appropriated by Rand, but also appropriated by the Nazis back in the day.

:P

The story was about a woman who treated her employees like garbage, and then wondered why they did not work super hard for her.

There was also something about a person who designed a bridge which could not be built since the materials needed did not exist, and another person who designed some new material but had nothing to build with it. The story was like a REESE'S peanut butter cup commercial, except everyone was dumb and mean.

it's my goal in life to do nothing but eat, sleep and shit while having someone take care of me

:evilgrin:

I'm serious!

Plato, for his use of logic and the courage to let his thinking evolve thereby.

Twain, for his insights into human nature - unflinchingly honest, and infused with wit.

And Siddhartha Gautama, for the eightfold path. Admittedly, I don't follow it for shit, but it's a damned good path.

(On further reflection, I'll add one more - my boss, who can teach more with an eyebrow than most people could with ten volumes of print.)

This is but a few of my favorites because they have made me look at life a little bit differently than before I read them ...


Cat In Seattle

Spent many a late night in the 70s listing to him on the radio explaining Eastern Thought.

Mohandas Gandhi, Buddha, and me

Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut and Gore Vidal. There are others, but this is off the top of my head...

but it bores the hell out of me. Life is not so complex that it requires 1000 pages of contemplation to decide the reality (or unreality) of things. One can think about the nature of the world to the point that the world passes one by. If any single thinker has had an influence on me it was my mom who said "Don't sweat the small stuff."

eta: all

I feel like an intellectual moron because, so often I have to read what he writes two or even three times. The man makes me think, change my mind, question my
strongly held beliefs. I'm in awe of his compassion for humanity. A year or so ago Mr. Goff wrote an article on why he was no longer a Marxist. I think it says a great deal about his character, even his ego to let go of a political persuasion and cite the reasons so well.

Anger and fear are the path to the dark side!

and i suppose his teacher, DJ. Takes awhile for it all to sink in, but it stands the test of time.


dp

It made me realize how many of my influences were not thinkers per se, but historians, novelists, comedians, and essayists.

My ex was a trained philosopher and loved Sartre, Peirce, Merleau-Ponty, and some others. She said I thought like a philosopher, but I always found that kind of writing difficult.

Among thinker, I prefer those who are practical rather than abstract:

--Eric Hoffer of The True Believer: because of his self-educated status, the pithiness of his writing, and because I was a true believer myself at the time I read him.

-- Ivan Illich: because of his different and humanistic vision of preindustrial societies.

--Jiddu Krishnamurti: partly because of his biography, growing up worshipped as a deity and walking away from it, and partly because he explored how to incorporate much of the worldview of Eastern religions without belief in a deity or the trappings of religion.

This could go on for hours, but it would quickly go outside the bounds of philosophy and theology: EB White, Robert Eisenman, Fernand Braudel, Robert Townsend, Mark Twain, Lawrence Durrell, Chuck Palahniuk, Peter Drucker, Stewart Brand, and so on.

Made me realize it's all been done.

he did more than most anyone to expose and shut down oppressive religion. I wish more evangelicals would read his stuff today; he has a surprisingly bad rep even in churches today.

Luther said that individuals know best, and in fact, people can use common sense and their own brains to criticize orthodoxy. Revolutionary stuff, in that culture.

Some conservative churches use the word "autonomy" to belittle what most of us would call "common sense."

He participated in oppression of the peasants to maintain the support of the nobility.

Some of his anti-semitic writing, particularly On the Jews and Their Lies, wouldn't have sounded out of place in Nazi Germany. His bad rep may have something to do with that.

But I don't think that's the main reason why he's not so popular in conservative circles. Years ago, I searched for an English translation of "Against the Jews and Their Lies", and couldn't find it. I'd think most evangelicals aren't even aware it exists.

I don't think this is in question. Like you, people admire Martin Luther not for the bad stuff. I don't think people would see you as condoning Luther because you admire him. But one would have to turn a blind eye to the ugly stuff in order to admire him instead of seeing the whole person.

Luther's antisemitism was highly available to the Nazis in their antisemitic propaganda which lead to the holocaust.

"On the Jews and Their Lies" has been useful to some to promote hate but it says a lot about Luther's own bigotry. At first he defended Jews saying that Jew hatred and persecution led to Jews rejection of Christianity. But that defense turned to explicit hostility when he discovered how stubborn Jews were and would not convert.

The so-called "revolutionary against orthodoxy" made a lot of effort persecuting those who disagreed with him. And that says a lot about Martin Luther when looking at the whole person.

His work and thought helped bring Judaism to its modernity. Spinoza attempted to replace superstition, prejudice and hypocrisy with truth and reason as the basis of piety.

Uriel da Costa is another "heretic" philosopher of his time that I admire.

Particularly that seminal treatise on war and politicians, Duck Soup.

Ingersoll's works always make me think of the bright sun piercing through dark clouds - because that's exactly what it felt like was happening when I first encountered them, right as I was really doubting my religious beliefs.

And Sagan, well, no explanation needed. One of the top 5 minds of the 20th century, I think.

Or Bill Shatner. It's a toss-up.

My whole approach to the nature of perception and reality was influenced by his work. His historical Illuminatus series had a big influence on the eventual nature of my artwork. Also Umberto Eco for the same reasons, but I read RAW at an earlier age, so he wins.

Wilson dives deep ... not always successfully. But at least he doesn't shirk the task.

ETHICS INVENTING RIGHT AND WRONG by J. L. Mackie

He explains the subjectivity of morality perfectly!

Both of them have had a huge impact on my life and who I am today. Their writings changed my life.

Sherlock Holmes, Marcus Aurelius, Horace Mann and Julius Caesar. Oh, and James T. Kirk, Kelly Robinson, Alexander Mundy, Napoleon Solo, Simon Templar, Bond James Bond and Admiral Harriman Nelson.

Oh! And the guy currently in my sig line.

Ha, kidding!

Seriously, probably Carl Sagan has influenced me more than anyone.

After all has been said and done, I think the three that have proven the most useful to me have been

Robert Pirsig. Thomas Kuhn. Joseph Campbell.

But no one has expressed it better than Ranier Rilke, who observed that the truly big questions have no satisfactory answers, and that one must love them anyway.

Trav

showed me the way.

Next show at 10:00 and don't forget to tip the waitrons.

























I guess I should keep my day job.

Doreen Valiente, Gerald Gardner, Janet and Stewart Farrar

After reading her book on Mythology I could never again take any religion seriously.

Epicurus was the first philosopher to develop a complete Secular Humanist worldview. He was an egalitarian who let women and slaves into his school and treated them as equals. He was a defender of Atomism against the BS spewed by Plato and Aristotle. Ans he famously used the "problem of evil" to criticize the notion of an all-loving, all-knowing creator god. There are many parallels with Buddhism, except that Epicureanism lacks the religious baggage Buddhism inherited from early Hinduism.

Hume and Kant demolished the notion of inductive reasoning, preparing the way for Popper to put the philosophy of science on a firm foundation based on falsifiability.

Popper also defended Liberal Democracy against Marxism on the Left and Fascism on the Right.

Simpson.


Seriously... Nietzsche, Camus (Existentialists). Can't forget Darwin.

He blew me away when I read 'Why I Am Not a Christian'.

is one inspired by love and informed by knowledge." Bertrand Russell.
Did I get it right? I think I will look it up to be sure and maybe change my sig line.

Not kidding. That was THE most level headed dude I ever heard of.