In my live Philosophy in Action Webcast on Sunday morning, I’ll answer questions on being pragmatic, feigning indifference to attract a man, explaining atheism, “ignostic” versus “atheist”, and more. Please join us for this hour of lively discussion, where we apply rational principles to the challenges of living virtuous, happy, and free lives!

• What: Live Philosophy in Action Webcast
• Who: Diana Hsieh (Ph.D, Philosophy) and Greg Perkins
• When: Sunday, 29 January 2012 at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET
• Where: www.PhilosophyInAction.com/live

Here are the questions that I’ll answer this week:

• Question 1: Being Pragmatic: What’s wrong with being pragmatic? My dictionary defines being pragmatic as “dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.” What’s wrong with that, if anything? Is that the same as “pragmatism”?
• Question 2: Feigning Indifference to Attract a Man: Should I act uninterested in a man to attract him? One common theme in romance advice is that a woman should act aloof and unattainable in order to attract a man or to get him to commit to a relationship. Is that dishonest? Is it counterproductive?
• Question 3: Explaining Atheism: How can I effectively explain my atheism to religious believers? When I discuss religion with believers – mostly Christians – I find that I can’t easily explain why I don’t believe in God. Should I appeal to the principle of the “primacy of existence”? Should I explain the problems with the arguments for the existence of God? Or should I try a different approach?
• Question 4: “Ignostic” Versus “Atheist”: Should rational people describe themselves as “ignostics” rather than “atheists”? By rational principles, no cognitive consideration should be given to arbitrary assertions. Since the concept of God is invariably a floating abstraction and incoherent in its definition, shouldn’t the claim that God exists be dismissed as arbitrary and invalid – rather than being answered in the negative? If so, shouldn’t rational people describe themselves as ignostics? In contrast to atheism, ignosticism is “[the] view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless.” [Wikipedia]

After that, we’ll do a round of totally impromptu “Rapid Fire Questions.”

If you can’t attend the live webcast, you can listen to these webcasts later as audio-only podcasts by subscribing to the NoodleCast RSS feed:

• Enhanced M4A Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader
• Standard MP3 Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader

Be sure to connect with us on social media too.

You can listen to full episodes or just selected questions from any past episode in the Webcast Archive. Also, don’t forget to submit and vote on the questions that you’d most like me to answer from the ongoing Question Queue.

I hope to see you on Sunday morning!