Validity of sources - Who do you trust?

[Techno]

Ok peeps. So we've all got our little philosophical soapboxes and they come in many shapes and sizes. So what do you build your soapbox out of?

Do you adapt your beliefs in accordance with a specific religious tome? Are you willing to take philosophy where you find it? Would you find inspiration in fiction? Could the source be modern? Or must it have the weight of tradition?

Specifically, I recently caught a commentary on Babylon 5 where the writer described a group of neopagans adapting a speech from the show into their ritual practices and outlook.

Personally, I'm fine with it. I believe that religious worship is the veneration of the parts of humanity that the local culture assigns worth to. So any work of man which highlights "worthy" aspects of mankind can be incorporated into my outlook.

[tecoyah]

Life experience + religious texts (all) + scientific journals + meditation + human interaction = my Philosophy

[asaris]

life experience + religious texts(all) + philosophers + meditation = my Philosophy

I try as little as possible to base my philosophy directly on the Bible. Naturally, since I am a Christian, I rework things if they contradict the clear teaching of scripture, but since it's my philosophy we're talking about, and not my religion, I don't like to base it on scripture.

[Paradise Lost]

I get my philosophy from anybody and everyone who lived before Neitzche. 'New-age'
philosophies just don't seem worth anything these days... And every other book written
is just another view on some philosophy that's been around for ages. If you want to
read philosophy, read it from Plato, not someone writing about Plato! This is just how
I do it...

[cmc]

Religion means - a way of living life.

[TheKak]

I base my philosophy on not being superstitious.

superstition

n : an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear

[roachboy]

not interested in relegion except as a social phenomenon that shapes the perception of actors in the world.

one consequence of this is that i find it impossible to generate a little equation that might explain how i think about the world in which i find myself.
its a bit a shame, really--i suspect there is something reasuring about being able to reduce your thinking to a series of functions.

there are many frameworks that perform many operations in terms of shaping data, creating variables, inferring rules, etc. i move around within/between/around them. sort of.

thinking about the world in which you find yourself is an ongoing project it seems. it changes over time. equations dont.

[ARTelevision]

Life experience, personal introspection. Everything else is filtered through these. Filter replacement, upgrade, and maintenance is required.

[roboshark]

My rudimentary soapbox was shaped by the atheist society I grew up in. Finer details were added later, mostly through personal experience and interaction with the world and the events that take place there.

Religion just isn't convincing enough to matter. Science is too controversial at times, inconclusive even more frequently. Philosophy often just boils down to some dead guy's opinions, and as such has hardly more value for me than the Bible.

[hazendcry]

My philosophy is not dependent on other sources; it is objectively valid. A philosophy simply describes the basic structure of reality. Anyone can discover the basic structure of reality using experience and logic; books and sources are not necessary.

Very good question, one of the most valuable of them all.

It all comes down to trusting yourself- it's the only "one" that is always there and really knows. Listening to your heart, and your conscious self.

[mo42]

Although I am a religious person, I generally try to avoid using religious texts too extensively. I use personal experience, scientific studies, and I try to see all of the possible effects of whatever is being speculated on, which isn't really a source, but is usually a very important factor in whatever is up for debate.

Personal experience must be the primary 'source' And I think of all experience, that of nature must be the most profound - And of texts, it's comforting to have something you've come to realise independently confirmed by the voices of those long dead.

[d*d]

lot of people trusting their personal experience as primary source here, understandably this is the only thing with which you can speak with absolute authority (you were there at the time), but I think philosophy should ideally be from a more objective standpoint

Originally Posted by Paradise Lost

I get my philosophy from anybody and everyone who lived before Neitzche. 'New-age'
philosophies just don't seem worth anything these days... And every other book written
is just another view on some philosophy that's been around for ages. If you want to
read philosophy, read it from Plato, not someone writing about Plato! This is just how
I do it...

It is important to build off what previous generations have left but ridiculous to dismiss current philosophers. Do you belive that all philosophical concepts about soceity, existance and sceince have remaind constant from 347 B.C. ? Our existance is the work of thousands of years of human development building on top of itself, where would we be now if we as a species stopped trying to rationalize our existance because previous Philosophers had already exhausted the issue. We need to stop looking to other people for answers and define our own thoughts and ideas as being important.

That's exactly what Plato, Jesus, Buddah and a whole host of other old-time philosophers said

[asaris]

I like the points MichaelVH and d*d made. Of course, it's important to use one's own judgement on these things, otherwise one's judgements are always going to be heteronomous and not autonomous. But one's personal experience is always limited and parochial, and it's foolishness not to try to learn from the many very intelligent and wise people who have come before us.

Fiction is a stange choice of words. The Babylon 5 refrence is funny but aren't all previous concepts simply inventions of man? The events of the Bible, Plato, Socrates, Sartre in my mind can be called fictional. The likely hood is that their life and times took place as most historical books dictate but I haven't preceived their existance myself. If they did exist or not is unimportant because the ideas being communicated exist.

My philosphy comes from how I have choosen to interprut my existance. Their are factors I have no control over acting subconsciously that I have learned from culture and society but with work, as Art stated, I can shape and change my perception how I define.

But one's personal experience is always limited and parochial, and it's foolishness not to try to learn from the many very intelligent and wise people who have come before us.

Speak for yourself, how limited or parochial your life may, or may not be, is up to you.
Published literature is of course interesting, and serves to provide us with a range of new ideas, but everything somewhere down the line must have been based on someone's experience. Would you rather base your thoughts on someone elses parochial and limited viewpoint rather than trust your own?

[livingfossil]

Follow Socrates: All I know is that I know nothing.

Then think about that, and to avoid nihilism, say: Rather, all I know is that everything I know may be proven wrong.

Then search for the transcendant signified.

[asaris]

The point, zen_tom, is not to base one's beliefs solely on the limited experience of any one human being, but to try and understand other's viewpoint in order to broaden one's horizons. That's the point of literature as well, to help us to think differently. Gadamer called this the fusion of horizons; that by understanding, even to a limited extent, a foreign viewpoint, our own viewpoint is made larger by the attempt.

[Willravel]

I've settled with a nice fusion of Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shaolin. It's a matter of choosing a way to live your life and learing what to beleive.

asaris, you are right - valuing, storing and learning from the experience of others is the one thing that has allowed us to become more than the monkey-see-monkey-do animals that we biologically are. Perhaps I'm getting caught up in evaluating (i.e. measuring against my own experience) those documents before I accept whatever they may have to say, vs acknowledging that those second hand documents have vastly enriched my own experience in the way that you describe.