frank

Dark skinned Orthodox people would still seem foreign.

Palestinians are Greek Orthodox, the ones I know are, anyway. Would you toss bombs into Jerusalem?

The Athenians lived on our side of the Bronze Age collapse. Out of the chaotic Iron Age came Athens. What even Plato may not know is that something am...

Pacifists don't usually make the headlines (unless they're being jailed for sedition). Anyway, it's Hamas that handles violence. Kind of like the IRA....

Yea that was a disaster. My point was that they aren't compelled to fight. Many of them are Christian and their religion tells them not to.

I've long been fascinated by culture. In this case there's 2400 years of cultural change that stands between us and Plato. I always wonder to what ext...

They're inextricably linked, that's true.

For the sake of understanding people, you have to see them amorally. Judgement closes the door on understanding. All you'll need to know is facts that...

Is it that Buddhism with reincarnation is a Hindu-Buddhist mixture? There were once Buddhist-Christian churches in Central Asia.

You do sort of come across as mentally ill sometimes.

I think they see themselves that way. It's ok to be brutal to illegal immigrants because otherwise, they'll pour in. Why? How do you see the new Repub...

I think the Republicans are the party of hardened pragmatists. Their allegiance is to people like Netanyahu, not to young Israeli leftists. :up: The h...

I meant when the Jews first started coming. But yes, The Israelis put a lot of effort into making life hard for the Palestinians who remained, apparen...

But they weren't hostile at first. Wasn't it Jewish intolerance that started it?

They can go to Jordan. Most Palestinian refugees in Jordan have full Jordanian citizenship. The Israelis would have forcibly moved the Palestinians to...

I agree. But to be a lying armchair agitator is a waste of good brain cells.

Notice how you can agree with this without making any false assertions?

Sure. They shouldn't have gone there to create Zion. It was a terrible mistake. Those who supported them were used to screwing over the middle east, s...

Palestinians can go to Jordan. The notion that they have no choice but to fight is just wrong. They do in fact choose to fight. Spouting bullshit is n...

Can nobody stay rational for two seconds in a row on this forum?

180s statement that they have no choice is wrong. You don't have to flash bullshit to support the Palestinians.

They could immigrate. Jordan will take them.

Thanks, but I'm not a believer. Damn, thought you were going to cure me. :broken:

Philosophers are trying to see life, to gain a vantage point on it. It would appear that the only vantage point is in death.

That's exactly what the Palestinians I know say.

The Palestinians would settle into Israeli society if the Israelis would accept them. Because this mingling conflicts with their vision, they've been ...

What condition is that?

ok

Which tradition? And why exactly can't you look it up?

I appreciate your poetry. Your logic, not so much.

Aren't you just looking for an opportunity to press your metaphysics? Otherwise I don't get the point of the "what is reincarnated" question. It's bee...

This is my favorite. I look forward to reading your thoughts on it.

True. Scholars agree.

I've read some of the enneads just to see what it was like. I mainly stuck with secondary resources during my Augustine phase. You're pretty defensive...

Fine. They're not even similar. What's a daemon?

In a way it does, animal reincarnation, for instance. What's a daemon?

Neoplatonism does affirm the One, but that's not all there is to existence (obviously). So there is multiplicity in the emanations. There are daemons ...

There are different kinds of animism. To believe that the universe is alive counts.

Plotinus did believe everything is God. You're just not accepting that as a form of animism.

Plotinus' view is kind of like animism. Everything is God. In the US you have the sovereign protection of the First Amendment to 'look into how' divin...

The One is definitely not a personal god. Oh it's only justification is its value, whether it provides for otherworldly justice or it serves to explai...

Well, not like a personal god, right? More like animism of some kind?

Sure. It's just that you said the philosophers believed in god. I don't think Socrates did. Plato used him as a mouthpiece. Plato wasn't the only one ...

Neoplatonism, yes. But I was talking about Socrates. The charge against him was of failing to show respect for the gods.

Isn't Socrates supposed to have said "There is no such thing as Zeus"?

Or there is no god and the evil doer prospers and then turns to dust along with his victims, destined to be swallowed by a black hole in cold dark spa...

Well, by your own account you didn't rule it out. It was too incommensurate for ya.

Unfortunately astrology has a bad reputation, but if you delve into for the symbolism instead fortune telling, it's pretty fascinating. So if you're s...

I have a notion that people can't process masses of unorganized detail. They have to have a 'skeleton' to tell them where to put the bits of data fles...

Sure. Explaining otherworldly justice didn't drive his presentation of immortality of the soul, though. Did it? What am I missing? I think he was more...