One of the most difficult things about authoring a web page is deciding who your target audience is. Since one has no way of knowing a priori who (if anyone) will access it, it is nearly impossible to guage the appropriate level of intimacy to assume. This is an especially poignant issue when writing about things that one holds dear. Here in the US, it is considered bad form to inquire about either politics or religion. Some have taken this to the extreme of attempting to trivialize both as if they did not matter. As a philosopher, I find this repugnant. The search for truth should not confined to science alone! Given that politics and religion have a large impact on the daily lives of human beings, there is no more critical area in which we must continue the pursuit of truth.
Since I have the opportunity to work from home, I spend almost all of my time in Chester County. One of my favorite activities is to just spend time with my family. Whatever we are doing, we are building up to joy.
During the course of the day, we try to go to a daily Mass at our parish, St. Peter's, where we are also involved in a number of small groups.
Although I am currently on a leave of absence from my program, I am still working on my MSE in TCOM.
Some people go to school to study philosophy, while others seem to be "born" to it. In my case, both actually apply! I developed a strong interest in philosophy at a relatively early age (10 years old). One of the most distressing experiences of my life was during high school when people insisted that I was an "existentialist" --- despite the fact that I had no clue what "existentialism" was! Eventually, I caved and read some existentialist philosophy - mostly Nietzsche.
By the time I got to college at Carnegie Mellon, I was fascinated by computers and their many uses. Oddly enough, though, I registered in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (H&SS) to study in the Philosophy department. My initial degree program was a B.S. in Logic and Computability. However, my desire to hasten my long-overdue departure caused me to eventually switch into the B.A. program (where about half of the ciriculuum was electives!) As far as I know, there is no other license that one needs to obtain to be a practicing philosopher, so I suppose that I am!
In the course of the (relatively) few years of my life, I have bounced all over the map with respect to religious beliefs. Oddly, though, I never bought into atheism --- I suppose that I have too much of a mystical streak in me. I started off as a Methodist who was attending a Baptist school. Later, after a few years of going back and forth between Methodist and Baptist churches, I became a non-denominational Christian attending a "New Testament" Church. Although I didn't realize it at the time, this church was strictly Fundamentalist in its doctrine. By 1986, I stopped going to church altogether.
But, my interest in the supernatural (metaphysical) didn't evaporate! Instead, I turned toward the occult. By the time I had finished high school, I was deeply into the work of the English mystical society the Golden Dawn and one of the most prominent members of that orgainization, Aleister Crowley. Add in some Discordianism and that's essentially where I stayed from about 1988 - 1994.
In 1994, I got married to Debbie. I distinctly remember part of a conversation that occurred the night before my wedding as I hung around my groom's-men. My best man asked me point blank if I had a problem with Debbie's Catholicism and with her requirement to raise our kids as Catholics. When I indicated that I didn't, he asked if I would at least expose them to other points of view. To which I answered (perhaps a bit too cockily) "Of course. After all, how can I help but be a counter-example?" Little did I realize that 27 months later I would be a convert to Catholicism!
I firmly believe that either one's religion will effect one's politics or else one's politics will effect one's religion. This is inevitably true, as a complicated system of thought and belief such as a religion can not be held as a seperate compartment of one's life - only to be exercised when no one else is watching. Accordingly, my political stance is firmly rooted in my Catholic beliefs.
I believe in the existence of a loving Creator who knowingly bestowed upon every human person the ability to choose between right and wrong. Since God sees fit to distribute the power of will in this fashion, it follows that it is foolish to attempt to construct political systems which do not account for this fact.
I believe that human beings are created in the image and likeness of our loving Father. This bestows upon us an innate dignity; political systems which do not acknowledge the dignity of human beings are fundamentally flawed.
Without life, no person is capable of exercising will or enjoying rights. Therefore, political systems which purport to respect in-alienable rights of individuals, yet reserve the right to take the life of the individual are, in fact, self-contradictory systems. The right to life is the sine qua non of rights. Those who claim that is possible to guarantee the rights of one individual at the expense of the right to life of another are at best seriously deluded.
These formulations are the basis for my political thought. I'm fairly certain that is inaccurate to attempt to characterize them as either conservative or liberal. However, I believe that it is accurate to characterize them as pro-life. As an engineer, I find dead systems to be particularly uninteresting; as a philosopher, I find them repugnant; as a Catholic, I find them deeply saddening.