Art48

Is there any reason using that logic we cannot group all the universe's entities together and call the grouping the one supreme entity? I think of the...

There's a big difference between "tends towards" and "posits". You are attacking a straw man.

Good question. Refer https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14272/why-monism

The OP appears to be assuming the exterior world is real and the house is in the real external world. But information might just as well lead me to a ...

My pet cat reasons as follows. 1. I can conceive of nothing greater than MO (my owner), who takes care of me, feeds me, provides me catnip and a comfo...

:smile: Yes

I used "objective" to indicate the ultimate ground IS, unlike unicorns. But your point is well-taken. Dionysius the Areopagite (Pseudo-Dionysius) woul...

That a tall order. Here's a response. Epistemologically, science and philosophy accept the supremacy of human reason; religion has sacred texts and pe...

Of course, no one has a patent or trademark on the word "Christian" but most self-described "followers" of Jesus don't even know everything Jesus said...

In Schopenhauer's view: "Schopenhauer . . . believes that the supreme principle of the universe is likewise apprehensible through introspection, and t...

My name for Christian culturist is "Jesus fans." The don't actually follow his teaching, but they say he's a really great guy.

I'm not sure there are more compelling reasons other than actually having the experience. Even then, some people interpret mystical experiences as of ...

Wayfarer, Thanks for your thoughtful reply. As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I’m working on an article. (links below to the current draft version)....

See my response to Banno, about 7 entries up.

OK, you have much more experience on this forum than I, so I believe you. But I'm puzzled. Why is there no point in discussing a "a perennial philosop...

Banno, OK. People can "see stars," and weird things may occur when someone is dying. But people "see stars" when they are bumped on the head and don't...

It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the es...

The Cleveland Clinic page on Hypoxia doesn't mention the experience of white light. > https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23063-hypoxia Can...

I already acknowledged that experience of uncreated light may be illusory when I wrote "Quite possibly." Are you now arguing that it is illusory?

Don't you mean "God was not talking to or about children, but grown men."? If so, can you explain how you know what was in the mind of God?

OK, let's imagine some horrible person who turns to Jesus moments before death and ends up in heaven, enjoying the beatific vision of God. Does heaven...

Quite possibly. W. T. Stace in his Mysticism and Philosophy points out in chapter 3 "The Problem of Objective Reference" that severe alcoholics common...

I was taught in Catholic school that the Roman Catholic Church is the "One, True Church." Which means God allows almost everyone to be born into one o...

Yes. Even in Christianity, some denominations say they have the means of salvation and other Christian denominations do not. So, Pascal's wager become...

The belief that a book with a talking serpent represents God's will is the fundamental false belief that engenders lots of questions like the one in t...

OK, but I don't believe the idea is that consciousness is like a mirror which reflects physical, emotional, and mental sensations but is unaffected by...

Without cultural appropriation, Western science would still be using Roman numerals!

Cultural appropriation is a concept for which I have no sympathy. If China uses quantum mechanics, is that cultural appropriation? If someone in India...

Excellent questions. The answer is to think of consciousness as the subject, entirely independent of objects of consciousness. Consciousness is like a...

Ultimate ground of existence is a purely secular/philosophical idea as is the idea it can be directly experienced as uncreated light. That the idea oc...

I don't understand. What can't be instantiated? The visual perception of white or black? The auditory perception of the rain? The odor of food cooking...

Sensations (or sense data) IS reality. They are what I directly and immediately know to exist. Ideas such as mind, matter, ego, etc. are concepts. In ...

Sight, taste, touch, smell, sound

I’ve encountered this attitude many times. To me, it demonstrates just how far some religious people are from reality. Let’s see, God created an etern...

Sensations are what I directly, immediately experience. Mind and matter are ideas which make my sensations coherent.

You are free to define "sensation" however you wish. For me, sensation is primary. It's what I actually experience. It's reality. Mind, on the other h...

The common sense view also says the Earth is flat and stationary.

If I call them fictions, then I have a burden of proof. But it seems plain they are hypothesized entities, theoretical constructs. Sensations are fund...

A different perspective is that sensations are ontologically primary and fundamental. Mind is the idea of that which experiences sensations. Matter is...

We can define sin as doing something against the will of God. But if God doesn't exist or if God doesn't care one way or the other what we do, then si...

I've argued elsewhere if sin is doing something against God's will, then it is impossible to knowing sin because God hasn't bothered to make his (or h...

Good point. However, I don't mean act as intentional agency. An event can be seen as the act of the field. The field is doing something as opposed to ...

I've seen energy (which cannot be created or destroyed) used in that way but, of course, there are differences between that and Buddha's unborn and th...

I hear you. He had some truly atrocious teachings. For instance, the Old Testament in two places says a child who curses a parent must be put to death...

I agree. Calling them steps of a method implies a certain order that must be followed. For instance, beginning with epistemology, we'd have epistemolo...

Because evolution is in the headset, it explains what happens in the headset. But "conscious agents" is Hoffman term's for what lies beneath the heads...

Human flourishing is one, admittedly vague, answer. But it's far superior to the Bible's "morality" which says "witches" are to be put to death and wh...

Untrue. Hoffman says objects and spacetime are part of the headset, which implies that evolution is, too. There's no contradiction. Science, so far, d...

At the risk of diverting this thread, I'd say that science + goals can give us oughts. Think of science as a map. I want to go from A to B. There are ...

Do scientists have a gulf between theory and practice? If science says plutonium is deadly, do some scientists nonetheless carry plutonium in the pock...