Open College Podcast

EP #55 | Jordan Peterson’s Religion

Where do we find the meaning of life? In answering that question, we look to Professor Jordan Peterson a man with a foot in two worlds. He is a man of science, proficient in the biological bases of psychology and the developments of psychology as an applied science.

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EP #54 | Socialism: Scientific or Religious?

While communist/socialist/social democratic have always had a scientific-pseudoscientific verneer about it, time has worn away much of this verneer, exposing much of the ideology as hyper-idealistic/proto-religiousist in many regards. Despite this verneer being largely washed away, many if not the vast majority of communists/socialists refuse or cannot see their views as anything except entirely rational. In this podcast, Professor Stephen Hicks delves deep into this phenomenon.

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EP #53 | Morality Without Gods

In this episode Dr. Stephen Hicks addressed the philosophical question, does morality require the existence of the gods or a God or is morality part of our human nature?

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EP #51 | Would Immortality Be Worth It

Even though we humans have lots of knowledge, we do not necessarily have a good and full theory of knowledge. Yet we should not let the lack of a good theory, deny the existence of what the theory should be explaining.
Humans have cognitive faculties with limitations. One can form snap judgments, but one can also recognize and pursue the objective principle of viewing as many perspectives as is necessary. One learns about one’s cognitive limitations over time, so one learns that to make a judgment about something beyond one’s immediate cognitive limitation, one needs to do extra work.

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EP #41 | PPP & the Soul of Free Market Liberalism

The Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) is a 2020 government program available to businesses and organizations, primarily in response to the economic damage done by Covid-19 slowdowns, shut-downs, and lock-downs. What are the moral arguments and principles one should consider when assessing the consequences of PPP and what is the context of decision-making with regards to PPP in a free-market liberal organization.

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EP #40 | Defending Explaining Post Modernism: Cuck & Multiversity

Two intelligent, non-professional responses to my book explaining postmodernism. A study in contrast. Content, method, and civility.

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EP #39 | God: The “Evil” Argument

The standard conception of God that is offered to us by theists suggest there are three major features of interest: God is said to be omnipotent or all-powerful, omnis­cient or all-knowing, and omnibenevolent or all-good. However, if the God who created the world is supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, why did he create a world in which so much evil exists? And not only why did he create a world with so much evil in it, why did he create a world with any evil in it at all? An all-powerful, all-knowing, completely good creator of the universe would not have created an imperfect world with evil in it or would he?

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EP #38 | God: The “Design” Argument

Do the gods exist? As mature and more sophisticated reasoned arguments for and against the idea of god have evolved, we can evaluate eighteen possible arguments, about seven are interesting. Argumentation about the natural world: time, causation, morality, beauty, logic, mathematical precision, and so on. Can they be explained in self-sufficient natural way or only by going beyond the natural?

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EP #37 | Thomas Kuhn’s De-Structuring Science

Thomas Kuhn was professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a classic in the history and philosophy of science. Still relevant to our philosophical and cultural debates over science, for Kuhn challenges claims that science is or can be an objective process based upon observational facts that makes progress toward truth.

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EP #36 | Democratic Socialism for Beginners

In contemporary times, most socialists have shifted away from overtly dictatorial socialism. Among the younger, there is some level of awareness of its terrible history but they still think of it as an ideal to be striven for despite obvious concerns. What are the aims of democratic socialist, what do they wish to achieve and how will they achieve their goals? Should socialism be Monarchical, Aristocratic, or Democratic? Who should have power over you: one person? An elite group? The majority?

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