Reformed Nihilist

It wasn't necessarily meant as a retort. Just trying to get some clarity about your tone (to what degree you were speaking tongue in cheek), which was...

And you sit outside it all, watching, but not belonging, the lonely man of insight, seeing the folly of everyone else?

Definitions aren't the specialty of philosophy. For definitions, you should turn to a lexicographer. If philosophy has taught me anything, it's that n...

I think those of us who are not spiritual (I don't think I am anyway) are sometimes a little too dismissive. I have often asked for clarification on w...

It's pretty well established, as far as I know. Why wouldn't someone buy into it? General well being? Absolutely. I find that our modern fetishization...

So let's say that this is my idea, not his. I can assure you that the spirit by which I propose it is sincere. Now can we talk about it like rational ...

In a geology section of an elementary school science course, we don't teach kids that rocks are good or bad, we teach them they are igneous or sedimen...

It's still fallacious. It does not logically follow that the idea is bad because it's inspiration is somehow flawed. I agree with most of this, so I f...

That's the genetic fallacy. You can't conclude an idea is bad based solely on it's source. Even if Dennett was the most fallible, wrongheaded thinker ...

You might want to look into Kuhn as well. He did philosophy of science with a focus on the fact that science is an inherently social practice. His sem...

Different people can have different experiences of the same thing. That doesn't make it a different thing. Some people hate cilantro, some people like...

And what is your exposure to academia? How many professors have you discussed this with? How many have you observed? Are you familiar with how post se...

And your evidence for this is what? What you're saying sounds exactly like a garden variety conspiracy theory. Why should I believe it isn't?

Again, you're free to use whatever method you choose, but I'll take studies over your intuitions.

You understand why anecdote is not a good basis for drawing conclusions? I really don't find your anecdote very compelling, not only because my experi...

You're free to choose whatever method you prefer to arrive at your conclusions, however I would personally recommend choosing academically researched,...

Social dynamics (which accounts for resource aquisition, but also in group identity issues) does a pretty good job describing Mao and Stalin or Rwanda...

I think the spirit is that indoctrination is bad, and making sure that children can make properly educated decisions regarding religion. I would hope ...

Regardless of your opinion on Dennett in general, I would be curious if you dispute that it would be a worthwhile enterprise to teach the cultural/soc...

Of course not, and like with virtually every complex phenomena, there is no bright demarcation line. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be consider...

Here's the problem I have with this response.You haven't really clarified anything. When you use the word "spiritual" do you mean "feeling of belongin...

Aye, and there's the rub. Justification, in real life, is a post hoc process, unlike how it is regularly viewed in philosophy as being the reason for,...

While I think the point in the original post is reasonable to an extent, I also think it is reasonable, to an extent, to make judgments about how some...

Sorry again. Added on edit: "I'm not sure how you conclude that "A morally perfect being would also be concerned with the well-being of his creatures ...

Beliefs exist in a context. The majority of people on earth worship one of a number of gods. Atheism, in practice, is a characterization of the common...

I'm curious. What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation? I don't consider myself to be spiritual (nor homeless), and I consider...

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. When I said "in most cases", I was making an allowance for the ontological god to be worthy of worship. None the less, ...

I am skeptical that anyone's religious practices are products of the first mover argument (or it's analogues). There is exactly zero reason to conclud...

I guess that what I'm saying is that philosophy directly informs my everyday approach to religion, spirituality, and theism. Namely, it informs my rej...

What does "the world as experienced" mean, if not making a distinction between the experience and that which is being experienced (The world )? The ph...

It turns out that if your self esteem is low enough, positive self talk can actually have a negative effect.

I think that it can be more complicated than that. For years, the self help industry was based on ideas like positive self-talk. Remember Stuart Small...

So what do you mean by caring? I'm not aware of a use for the word that isn't roughly synonymous with being emotionally invested in the object of the ...

Although we can't usually directly will ourselves into altering our feelings, we can consciously exploit our own emotional and psychological make ups ...

Perhaps a thesis along the lines of "the basis for ethics is empathy"? No tautology, and I think it's supportable.

It's a tautology. What is caring if not being emotionally invested? It's like saying "You can only eat if you can ingest food". My advice is to rework...

Do you think that philosophy is, or should be, detached from the everyday activities of our lives? If so, I disagree, and wonder why you would think s...

There are no philosophical arguments for the existence of the god that people go to church to worship.

That is what I was saying, in a nutshell.

Not necessarily merely cultural, but for the sake of this discussion, calling them cultural should be sufficient. That's why I was asking why you felt...

To further clarify on what I believe is John's point, is it not possible, and even likely, that the dictator truly believes that remaining a dictator ...

Unless I am greatly mistaken, QM interpretations are absolutely not science. If they were, they would be falsifiable. Rather, each interpretation is e...

I am saying that people regularly make category errors when speaking about morality, by ignoring the grammatical implications of a point of view. By s...

I don't really see that as the particular dichotomy. The reason I personally identify (or not, as the case may be) with people are vast, and religious...

I like the way you frame this, but I think that you make an obvious oversight here. It is not just an existential question, but more specifically it i...

I don't understand why attempting to disabuse someone of what I believe to be a false and personally and socially unhealthy belief would be any more o...

There. Not so mysterious after all. A simple answer to a simple question. I'm not sure where this comes from. Was anyone suggesting dismissing believe...

I'm not sure how this distinction matters in the context of this particular subject. Do I have to once again protest that I am not a naive idealist? I...

This comment seems off the mark to me. I am not proposing any philosophical claims that invoke QM, I am trying to discuss the relative merits of QM in...

To be fair, what sometimes passes for philosophy rightly gives philosophy a bad name, and I can't fault anyone who only has a passing knowledge of phi...