Favorite Philosophers?

[Agnosty]

Someone who isn't really a serious academic philosopher but made a big impression on me before I studied it in college, was Alan Watts.  

You're a Watts fan?  Oh, well, that makes things easy regarding your concern in the 'proof of god' thread 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtqtKnWriCM

I'd start around 8:00, but the pertinent part comes around 16:50, which is:

"Now all this is perfectly idiotic.  If you would think that the idea of the universe as being the creation of a benevolent old gentleman, although he's not so benevolent he takes a sort of "this hurts me more than it hurts you" sort of attitude... uh, you can have that on the one hand and if that becomes uncomfortable, you can exchange it for its opposite: the idea that the ultimate reality doesn't have any intelligence at all.  At least that gets rid of the ole bogie in the sky, but in exchange for a picture of the world that is completely stupid.  Now these ideas don't make any sense... especially the last one.... because you cannot get an intelligent organism, such as a human being, out of an unintelligent universe."

Alan (a former Episcopal priest) didn't care much for Christianity, but it seems he had greater trouble with atheism and described it as a "fashion" among the academics, which evolved mainly because folks didn't like the idea of God as a peeping Tom.

He said, "I think the bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more because the spirit is with us.  It's a dangerous book and to worship it is a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone because nobody in his senses can confuse a wooden image with god, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with god... because concepts are more rarefied and abstract."

47:32 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbO0t3srgE4

I'd describe Alan as practicing the Jeet Kune Do of theology in that he takes "what works" from various styles as Bruce Lee (also a philosopher) did with martial arts.  That's the beauty of Alan's mental arts; he brings to the audience in articulate form the best of the rest as Bruce did with the martial.

"Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." Bruce Lee.

I've been in an ancient Asian philosophy mood for some time now.

Due to your avatar, you're my new best friend   

Anyone want to guess my favorite philosopher?  

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We can never truly touch external reality.

Not to mention that we live in the past relative to "now".  The farther out in space we look, the farther in the past we see.

I once snapped a stick and perceived ringing in my ear before the snap.  Isn't that odd?