Brief Update

Not really any recent musings... so I thought I'd just update my life on this blog.

Well, the semester is over. All my long nights of studying didn't quite pay off the way I'd hoped. I still got one A-. My goal was 4.0 and like last semester I came within a hair of reaching that goal. Logic & Epistemology was the class. Dr. Muller seemed like he would be a pretty easy grader, so unfortunately I didn't take that class as seriously I wish I had in retrospect. Next semester I'm taking two classes with him by the way.

These are the classes I'm registered currently for next semester:

ECO 301: Intermediate Macroeconomics
ECO 307: Catholic Social Thought
PHL 302: Ancient Philosophy
PHL 304: Modern and Contemporary Philosophy
PHL ELE: Issues of the Age: Capital Punishment and Homosexuality

As you can probably tell, my major is philosophy and my minor is economics.

Anyways, since I've been home I've been exercising, reading, and doing other various things. I've been working on a paper for my Christian Marriage class that I had to do on my honor that is due Thursday. It's pass or fail, but it's on a subject that interests me (I got to choose the topic). I'm writing on "Responsible Parenthood" and the Church's understanding of it through documents such as Humanae Vitae et al. I'm almost done with it. I've been going to the Ela Library. They have these private study rooms that you can reserve, which are very nice and conducive to studying. The other good thing about that library is that they have free wireless internet access.

I also finished Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" today. Very interesting book (actually I listened to it on tape, but who cares). She has searing insights into the utter stupidity and inconsistency of socialist thinkers. Yet her philosophy that she counters the world with as a solution is one of pure selfishness, which in itself is mired with contradictions and philosophical errors. Her philosophy is very attractive and thus I can see why many people embrace her, especially atheists. She is very anti-Christian. The reason her philosophy is so attractive is because she does have many valid and legitimate intuitions, but she draws erroneous conclusions and obviously does not fully understand authentic Christian philosophy. Her characterizations of it reveal her ignorance. She cannot comprehend the Christian paradox of only really finding your best interest in selflessly serving the interests of others for their own sake and not for the benefit you derive from your service. I'm sure I will have a much clearer vision of how she errs and what exactly Catholic social teaching is. I have picked up bits and pieces from my philosophy and economic classes so far, but I'm sure next semester will go much deeper in to the matter.

Well, I have a little less than 4 weeks before I take the LSAT and I'm also supposed to be giving a little talk about JPII's philosophical foundations for the Theology of the Body to a discussion group my parents are in. So keep me in your prayers.

Till next time...