Readings?

What do you guys think of having some sort of short weekly or bi-weekly philosophical reading we do? That way, we can actually have a basis for our arguments instead of just random loud and obnoxious debating.

I was thinking one of the following:
Book I of Plato's Republic (deals with the question "What is justice?")
St. Thomas Aquinas's Book II of Summa Theologica:states of life (a look at man's duty by one of the greatest theologians of all time).

I'm sure I can think of a bunch of other good ones if I go through my old schoolbooks (I had a teacher who's schtick was philosophy). We obviously don't have to do one I suggested, or even do one at all, but I just thought it might be interesting.

College Stress

I know that this may not exactly fall under the genre of philosophy, but I thought it might be a good way to get a dialogue going about a topic that concerns us all. thats right folks.... College! I know that I for one have been majorly stressed out about acceptances and financial aid and scholarships and I think that blogging about it might be a good way to get stress relief. Plus, I'm sure that the more philosophical members of our little conglomerate will find a way to link college woes to philosophy, so no worries. Well, comment if you want to, and if you don't want to, then don't comment. Either way, this is The Phisherman, signing off.

A T-Hawk Philosopy Mission Statement

would it behove us to create a mission statement of some kind, take a few things that we see as important characteristics for the group to have and distill that into a something. 

The two that I would like to  see are:

1) To quest for truth in a non-judgemental setting through Socratic Dialogue

and

2) To provide a knowledgeable forum in which to argue about anything and everything. 

 I like the idea of the group having some duality, both able to be serious, and having the ability to argue passionately about trivial things, I don't think we should really take ourselves too seriously. Mabye mission statement is the wrong term, mabye what I mean is, what exactly do we hope to get out of this? I think that can do a lot to answer questions later on, help focus conversations. I could be wrong though.

Pathway Analogy

I have a very cliche analogy about life, but it works if you think about it.

Everyone has their own individual pathway. While walking, you pass a lot of scenery, some you like, some you don't. Friends are those who's pathways converge with yours for a while. Although the pathways may converge, some friends may walk in front of you, while some may walk behind. Wisdom is the effort of calling on those friends to walk with you in your direction, while truth only arises when they catch your pace for a second.

I've heard before that love is another person walking with you in the same direction, and I believe that analogy is correct. However, you need to be walking in the same direction at the same time in order to find true love.

When friends stray, they have taken interest in different scenery than you, thus choosing to branch their path from yours.

Mmm I could go farther but I think you have the basic principle.

The Ultimate Goal

What do you think the human race is striving to attain?

Laws

What are laws--are they purely legal?

Is it right (however you may define "right") for individuals to decide laws for a whole?

And then the big'un: ARE LAWS NECESSARY?

Space Limit

Hey everybody,

Jen told me that there is only space for one hundred people to post on the blog, and I thought that one hundred people wouldn't be a problem since this is only one of a wide variety of clubs forming at the Gonk. But Jen thinks that we might be able to get one hundred different people to join the club and post on the blog. So what do you guys think? Opinions, Comments, Concerns, or suggestions on increasing membership, please post your ideas!