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Where to start... Firstly, if you have read Strawson or any of the Ordinary Language philosophers you will have some insight into the conflict there e...
December 19, 2017 at 18:45
So, if I claimed there was a god and posited that this god was not all powerful, but was responsible for the laws of physics. He was entirely consiste...
December 19, 2017 at 10:30
An 'all good and loving' creator of cancer, malaria, Aids, famine, Hitler, Pol Pot, earthquakes... ? Sounds a bit disturbing to me. Is it some kind of...
December 19, 2017 at 10:01
I don't object to the logic of your definitions, but you are making an error in conflating your very logical, and specific definition of Theism/Atheis...
December 19, 2017 at 09:47
I don't think it's an exception, based on your initial proposition, that faith underlies every belief, it's pretty much something required on a daily ...
December 19, 2017 at 08:20
No, Position A is completely rational. Where there is no evidence but you need nonetheless to take some action requiring knowledge you must simply bel...
December 19, 2017 at 07:29
I;m baffled. You said I'm struggling to see how that's not a statement clearly suggesting that an accurate assessment of the Church's virtues is essen...
December 19, 2017 at 07:10
No, of course, someone brings up that Catholicism is benign... ... and its perfectly on topic, good point to make. Someone brings up some of the atroc...
December 18, 2017 at 13:22
Of course it refutes your points, you said I gave you examples of them existing before, or in opposition to, the establishment of the church. it doesn...
December 18, 2017 at 12:53
No, that's my point entirely, you can't have one without the other. Either the Catholic Church is no force for anything whatsoever, or it is a force e...
December 18, 2017 at 11:17
I still have a problem with 'demon' because of its anthropogenic connotations. Nothing in my understanding of the term 'demon' would predict such cons...
December 18, 2017 at 10:37
Why? I can list the horrors caused directly by Catholicism - The inquisition, the persecution of 'witches', the sanctioning (and more horrifically, la...
December 18, 2017 at 08:50
No, I did, it's my opinion of who Buddhists I've spoken to treat his words and how his words are treated here on this thread, as if they alone can tak...
December 18, 2017 at 08:07
Yes, I don't quite see how my having predicted the outcome of this discussion at the outset has any bearing on the argument. I'm not yet fully aware o...
December 18, 2017 at 07:54
You've entirely missed the point of what I was saying. There's nothing at all wrong with your interpretation, but how do we know it's the right one? A...
December 18, 2017 at 07:48
So, here I'm talking about the 'real' evil demon hypothesis, which results from what I said about the public meaning of words. The words 'evil' and 'd...
December 18, 2017 at 07:40
Yes. It might be easier if we split our terminology into 'hypothesis' and 'explanation'. The Realist hypothesis might be something like "if I open my ...
December 17, 2017 at 15:04
Yes. It might be easier if we split our terminology into 'hypothesis' and 'explanation'. The Realist hypothesis might be something like "if I open my ...
December 17, 2017 at 15:03
You don't even need to restrict your search to anthropological factors. Even in something as cold and unemotional as game theory, 'always cheat' basic...
December 17, 2017 at 14:23
From grace?
December 17, 2017 at 11:22
To clarify; We assume we do not personally know what is 'true' (otherwise we would not be seeking the advice of Buddha) - I have no problem with this....
December 17, 2017 at 09:45
The idea that philosophy is a search for the truth is nonsensical. Bertrand Russell put it best "Science tells us what we can know, but what we can kn...
December 17, 2017 at 09:16
A four letter word beginning with 'f', now you're just being rude!
December 17, 2017 at 09:08
Well, that all makes complete sense, except for three major problems. 1. You mention confidence, peace, and stability as evidence that the prophet kno...
December 17, 2017 at 08:59
Is it 'fad'? Maybe 'fob'?... Mmm, 'Fake' has four, can't be that... 'Fraud' is far too long... 'Phoney' doesn't even begin with an 'f' really... OK, I...
December 17, 2017 at 08:17
OK, so 1. How do we judge soteriological claims then, because there certainly seems to be quite a lot of them around and most are contradictory? 2. Ho...
December 17, 2017 at 08:07
To an extent, yes, but there's a massive difference between 'sloppy' thinking to justify a position we've already decided to hold, and really good thi...
December 16, 2017 at 13:12
I'm not at all sure what you might mean by the first sentence. What does intrinsic mean in this context and how can a value be valueless? Wouldn't tha...
December 16, 2017 at 13:02
It depends if you're taking an ordinary language approach or an analytical one. Either 'moral' is the thing we collectively use the term to describe, ...
December 16, 2017 at 12:23
Fair point. I shall refrain from attempting to condense an entire essay's worth of critique into a single epigrammatic sentence in future.
December 16, 2017 at 11:46
It's you who appealed to an objective truth by implying that that parable was definitely 'about something' which I must therefore have shown no insigh...
December 16, 2017 at 09:34
Can't stand her. No different to religious anti-realists in my opinion. She takes one very general logical truth (we are all rationally self-intereste...
December 16, 2017 at 09:05
So 'what the parable is about' is an objective truth which people can either have insight on or not. I thought you were set against being dogmatic abo...
December 16, 2017 at 08:42
Apart from that truth, which you seem to think is obvious.
December 16, 2017 at 08:37
So presumably you're comfortable with the idea that we can tell when someone is happy, sad, angry, even though we cannot 'read their minds'. We do not...
December 16, 2017 at 08:35
Firstly, you're confusing normative morality with meta-ethics. The issue of what 'right' and 'wrong' actually are is meta-ethics, the question of what...
December 16, 2017 at 08:25
No, of course not because the raft is definitely heavy, ideas aren't definitely heavy. The whole parable is a category error, he's basically saying - ...
December 16, 2017 at 08:10
No, it's easy to. Do (kill people very strongly suspected of murder) unto others (the others in this case being the population of society as a whole) ...
December 16, 2017 at 07:53
Do we? What does it mean to live our lives as if death were a certainty, how would someone who didn't think it was a certainty live any differently? D...
December 16, 2017 at 07:24
I think we're finally converging on a joint understanding which seems like a worthwhile achievement, but I'm not sure what you mean by "That premise i...
December 15, 2017 at 17:38
No, this is the major problem I have with the general argument (not your argument personally), I do not think that he is meaningfully different, it ha...
December 14, 2017 at 16:40
I'm going to just respond to this proposition for now because I think it gets to the heart of what I'm trying to say. If the Idealist has the concept ...
December 14, 2017 at 14:30
The figures you quote are disgraceful and I'm certain there are a hundred more such examples, but I'm not seeing the link you're making between these ...
December 14, 2017 at 11:54
Only a hundred years ago entire landscapes were planted which the owner would never see come to fruition, orchards, plantations, all projects which wo...
December 14, 2017 at 08:46
Not at all, 'remaining safe' and 'helping out others' are just two desires among hundreds, the top of which is always 'living in a healthy and co-oper...
December 14, 2017 at 08:14
Yes, unless we no longer rely on ecosystems for our health and well being (which I admit might be a technical possibility, but a long way off) then th...
December 13, 2017 at 10:13
No, our intelligence created the car, our stupidity drove it everywhere despite being fully aware of the consequences. Our intelligence devised weapon...
December 13, 2017 at 09:10
So first, I certainly notice you had mounted a robust critique of both proofs, I think I'm failing to grasp quite what it is about Plantagina's argume...
December 12, 2017 at 20:51
People have been doing so, though just not by name. gurugeorge's argument about the camera is the corroboration argument, no matter what device we use...
December 12, 2017 at 18:15
So tribal peoples are not moral, that's quite a claim. One I think the colonialists would have some sympathy for but few others.
December 12, 2017 at 16:41