That's true, but it appears to have become part of - indeed has insinuated itself to the very center - of the pressing issues. And your suggestion as ...
There may also be room, in the questions about love, for "Would you love any woman who was given to you in an arranged marriage (yes, they are real) e...
Has anyone questioned the identity of humans? Well, I mean anyone outside of humans questioning/denying the right of other humans to belong in the sam...
Maybe none of that is at issue for you. And that's fine. However, nor was it my argument. You see, it wasn't a question of which is more evil, religio...
That's a widely-held opinion, very much akin to witchcraft is evil. But I've never heard an atheist leader write into law: "Thou shalt not suffer a re...
I knew it was a joke... I just couldn't leave it alone for long. Kind of like the cat sleeping on my computer right now - oh, so tempting! And I'm pre...
And therefore: ? I don't think wishing for a little more truth in political and social organization makes me fascist. But i wouldn't dream of suppress...
I'm saying the same holds true of "minds: IOW mental processes. Not separable. When I say "my body" and "my mind", I am speaking metaphor, because the...
aaaannndddd.... Only humans argue over whether somebody is male or female, either, neither, both, too female, not female enough, and whether they shou...
Exactly. But you should start to be afraid. and, of course, lest we forget You figure an emotional, raggle-taggle bunch of unbelievers on a sliding sc...
What about peanut butter? Or electric cars? Or Hemingway? May one judge them according to one's inclination? Where there is no authority, or set crite...
I'd choose a smart dog. But that won't repair the damage we've done to the world. No much. I'll keep growing tomatoes and cucumbers as long as can, tr...
Not this one, no. OTOH, somehow all the people looking for how people are unique neglect to mention the unique human ability to fuck in numerous, vari...
So's an eraser..... but what's the point? unique among thousands of other animals that also unique for the ability to produce honey, a talent for echo...
What for? That's a serious question: For what purpose is it important to define what human is? The taxonomy hasn't been disputed for some little while...
Then you're a lukewarm or moderate atheist, or else at the lower end of the agnostic spectrum. Both are perfectly acceptable and recognized positions,...
But those properties are separate from one another. Or can be arbitrarily separated out of the universe at large for the purpose of limited descriptio...
You don't need a third option. If it's an emergent product of the brain, it can't be separated from the brain - ie objectified out into the universe. ...
So's my brain. So where is a mind in relation to that? Didn't you just do that? ^^^ yup. That's why I regard various external entities and items with ...
I count them as convictions. This a separate class of mind-content from either opinion or knowledge: it is far more complex than any single instance o...
I wouldn't extarnalize my body to lump in with all the other stuff of the universe as "object". The mind-body complex is what I regard as myself. I ca...
E.g. I'm certain that I do not believe any of the deities described by any of the religions I know about actually exist. I do not believe that the dir...
It's very convenient to misdirect criticism to the metaphor - look, look, is that in an invisible hand? - no, it's a moving finger, writing... or pick...
Well, see, whether atheists disbelieve because the scriptures and canon and practice of a religion are not congruent with perceived reality, or they d...
The two aspects of thought can coexist, but should never be confused. You can imagine a "better" life - in relation to something known, charted, quali...
I'm sure. A brutal execution can morph into a ritual of sharing bread and wine, because, that, too, was written. A wrathful deity turns into a benign ...
Yes, you all convinced me: once a work is in the public domain, anyone can bring anything to it, put it to any use and make their contribution as impo...
Somebody else can add an insight, see an extra dimension. That's great. But are you really telling me you didn't know what you intended to write, that...
That's exactly why I'm defending the dead authors - seems like nobody else will. Nothing is privileged. When you read something, anything, even the us...
And that - even if it's about a fictional past, an imaginary present, a non-existent reality - turns it into "philosophy"? Plato might go for it. I do...
They are a 100% certain about it. What makes it worth their while to make the effort - and believe me, constructing a novel is a lot of hard work! - i...
As for central idea of Christianity, it is a horror story. God Omega creates A, B and C, then invents the concept of sin. A&B commit a sin facilitated...
IOW, if it outlives its historical/cultural context, it will be appropriated by the generations that follow and put to their own purposes. That may be...
Of course they're possible! Probable, maybe inevitable, especially if any amount of time passes from one reading to the next. And I'm sure each one se...
Can you imagine a biologist or lawyer or horticulturist or historian doing a day's work for the sake of a general more or less vague sense of allusion...
Their problem, not his. Marx made his observations and wrote what he saw in his own world, in his time. A lot of what he wrote is not relevant today, ...
IOW Turn a straightforward tribal mythology with a heretical post-Greco-Roman twist, into convoluted apologetics for an odiously oppressive death-cult...
Whom? I became an atheist directly through the Jesus story. "They" may have had other reasons. We really are none of us reading from the same chapter ...
I wasn't summarizing; I was interpreting: The book tells us how to live, but we can't understand it, so we need a priest/ rabbi/ pastor / imam to tell...
The book is holy, but the what the priest says, goes. Unless I disagree with the priest, and the book, and go shopping for a different one. Well, at l...
You take away whatever you take away; you interpret however you want to interpret; it says whatever you want it to mean; it's as exactly as profound a...
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