The underlying necessity is the same: to keep living. The layer on top of that is: to live well. The first one is much the same for every being; the s...
'Vastly' is a big word. By quick look-up, the average welder's pay is $22.55/hr, while the average primary school teacher's is $23.44/hr. The teacher ...
I think you said quite a lot more than that. I'm not aware that the elite had been paying for student loans. Citation? Did we discuss restructuring ta...
I'm very cheerful. I don't have to pretend a cracker is human flesh, or that a magic prince will eventually come back and take a second shot at rescui...
Only for people who can't afford it. No i didn't. I said Don't tell me there isn't one single yahoo in the welder's union who wouldn't rather beef up ...
To whom do you refer when you capitalize God? It's perfectly logical to say that Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, Osiris, Jehovah and Allah cannot possibly exist. ...
Sure. But a society needs a variety of skills. And it needs to recognize the need for education, and the need for recognition of talent, in whatever c...
Except things that quite obviously made up. Even if it's not proved 100% beyond doubt, the preponderance of evidence precludes paying homage or tithes...
In a way, that's what a social contract always is. But it's not that simple or two-dimensional. I don't know what that sentence means. We have duties ...
Which I don't have, and therefore should not discuss how it works on the faithful. Usually not an idea that originates with the faithful. While each b...
Profession corresponds strongly to background, expectation, opportunity and the economy. Even the dumbest offspring of CEO's and department store magn...
No, you obviously don't. A pipe-fitter can have intelligent children. Hardly; they're food source, life insurance and pension plan for your dear Morlo...
You're right, I did miss it. I should not have responded. If all the meanings of 'purpose' are eliminated from discussion, there's nothing left to dis...
Only for those who believe in a god. From day to day and year to year until the kids are grown. Had I considered procreation my purpose in life - as s...
If it's not human intentions, then a supernatural will is required to give humans purpose. A god has to make them his tools. I reject the idea of bein...
Or cold, mean and indifferent. It doesn't matter which, unless and until the universe reveals its preference and purpose in action - and we probably w...
Probably. I don't claim that the universe has a mind of its own; I just don't know that it doesn't. If it does, it's as unlikely to care - crave or mi...
Huh? My understanding of a tree has no influence on the universe or the existence of trees. Does thing-in-itself-as-it-is-in-itself mean anything? You...
Well, yes. No mind is insignificant to itself, bot neither is any mind in a position to affect the universe much. The universe is whatever it is. I do...
Correct. Purpose requires will - either that of the living entity with internal goals, or an external entity that has power to exert its will over tha...
Purpose is a property of life and becomes a concept when intelligent minds recognize it. Every snail crawling up a wall has a purpose: to find algea t...
Nobody can 'implement' freedom. In societies where the law does not prevent association among people, freedom to change a community need only be exerc...
A lot of people are. You just need vision, courage and the ability to communicate. Of course, whether you find like-minded people to co-operate depend...
Yes. But the only way you can confirm that is by going outside the universe and then establishing communications with someone inside. Yes. Facts are t...
And technology can provide a reasonable answer (not shipping people off-planet) in the form of cultured meat. Like any new technology, it needs a time...
Because two of the students are his own children, but he doesn't earn enough to pay for their higher education all alone. And because, even if he does...
Buy fewer missiles and smoke granades, give the mega-rich fewer tax breaks and allocate the saved resources to family planning, local clinics, wholeso...
Thought is the necessary precursor of deliberate activity and behaviour. The thoughts are evil before the person decides to do evil and thereby become...
Ideas can be written in words, musical notation or numbers; if visual, they can be represented by a sketch or diagram. The only kind of thought that m...
We have three kinds of action: automatic (motions of body that do not require us to be conscious or aware) instinctive (emotional response to stimuli,...
Of course you can have evil thoughts. Everyone does and we all - non psychopaths - know they are evil when we have them. Having them doesn't make a pe...
Maybe it already has, and a lot of damage is already done. Trouble is, you're right: it's not so much a pendulum as a long spiral staircase upward and...
What's it to do with logic? Reasons aside, you either believe something or you don't. Sometimes it's rational to refrain from identifying as an atheis...
You'd think somebody would've twigged that it's not the best possible system? That's not an alternative; it's a modification, an attempt to cushion th...
For a while, maybe. Depends what you're denying. "Mom's not dead, she just went to visit Grandpa in heaven" is good for a few days. "No, that's not sm...
No, but they can learn new things and question the things they believe. If enough information comes in to convince them, they will change their belief...
Therein lies the rub. When dealing with symbols, you're dealing with abstracts: the interpretation is more important than the thing being represented....
Where? In Australia? I don't know who the 'sides' are there. It would take me a while to catch up. In Canada, I think the sides do understand the prob...
Oh, please don't fall into the 'both are as bad as each other' fallacy. They're not. The billionnaires want to keep taking more and more; the wretched...
It doesn't - at least not in its own time-frame and place. The religious ideas of antiquity or the middle ages nay not seem ethical to us, but made se...
Oh. So, the regulations are designed to protect customers and workers from exploitation. My guess is that the bulk of the abuses to which the governme...
Australia, from all I've heard, is a more democratic nation than the US. Maybe not every administration, but by and large, the governance has been mor...
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