Philosophy Basics

It seems that much of what is posted on the internet which goes, in one way or another, more or less, against orthodox Christianity--advocates a kind of ambivalence, mystery, dialectic, suspended belief, disbelief, pleasure vs. ethics dilemma resolved by "love" or "passion"--quoting from all sorts of men and women in a non-systematic, if not deliberately obfuscating way. This is seen as an ultimate kind of virtue producing creativity, innovation, art, joy, freedom.  Those would be the very same kinds of things we would hope to reap from an orthodox religious faith, also.  So, I don't really get the dichotomy.

An orthodox faith, has enough vagueness in it, as religion is by definition talking about things not seen and metaphysical.  It has been my hunch all along that the ditch is always deepest when it comes to sexual ethics. They will say that rules in love are contrary to real love and pleasure.  The orthodox person would say that you don't know a thing about love if you don't know about fidelity and sacrifice.  A person living in self-indulgence only will not be able to experience a true depth of love.

Anyhow, whether or not it takes me to far afield, I am always interested in what other's are thinking and how they are putting it.  And so, I am interested in getting an overview of the history of philosophy.  While driving along listening to the radio, I came across this broadcast, yesterday, on the CBC "Ideas" program:  

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2013/03/11/philosophy-bites/

It is an interview with a Nigel Warburten, who has lately been popularizing the stories of philosophers and their works.  There are also short, concise podcasts of his lectures available, in places such as below:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/podcaststream/listen.php?url=http://www.philclassics.libsyn.com/rss&all=1&title=23666

Hence, he is also called the virtual philosopher.  I listened to the 15 min. talk on Kierkegaard, which right away hit our false dichotomy between pleasure and ethics. Nice. 

It all seems pretty manageable:  philosophy in bite sizes might work for me.