Cultural was the other half that set of motivations. The plane flying wasn't an all-of-a-sudden new fad; it evolved from a long cultural history of co...
And yet the taboos and commandments come from someplace. In the absence of an irrational deity, they must have sprung from the minds of men. It's conc...
No. I don't think any god ever talked to anybody about anything. Men made up the laws of their kingdoms, according to what they considered needful, us...
I think he also believed in/hoped for social stability and good order, which in his time and mind was represented by a unified Catholic church. (Islam...
To be fair, they were not talking to or about children, but grown men. The nomadic - or possibly fugitive - tribe had fairly recently ousted another t...
No. Watch a nature documentary. It sometimes does something entirely different. I'm not an advocate of cobblers sticking to their last -- or, indeed, ...
God is not mocked! Whatever you fake, even if you're just faking it in the hope that you'll eventually make it, if He exists, He knows. Which do you t...
God had nothing to do with writing up the laws of ancient Israel. It's in the interest of militaristic regimes to keep women in the home, making more ...
of course you should! How else can you know that you actually believe it, rather than just repeating what you've been told? You have a whole life to l...
Very few people are. All teaching is difficult; all teaching requires special aptitudes and personality traits, besides the knowledge one is assigned ...
And yet, the home/computer education to which children were restricted during Covid lockdown was not beneficial, either to their well-being or their e...
Both have been answered. I was. And so should everyone, including the working class. Education is not 'intervention'; it is a basic necessity to all i...
I do approve of critical thinking. I approve of reason, mathematics, the scientific method, literature, music and history. I approve of knowledge. I b...
Huh? I have no idea what you're on about. Much earlier in this thread, somebody suggested that public education should include critical thinking - for...
...and another thing... liquor prices just took a wallop in taxation. I have to cut back on beer. An excellent reason to refrain from diluting it with...
Of course not. Half-hearted bigotry is worse than no bigotry at all. I'm not into deifying a whole class of people, and I don't delude myself into bel...
Indeed. That has never persuaded them to stop voting against their best interest. Ignorance may be blissful - though I doubt it - but it's neither a v...
And yet, as a pessimist, what I see as most probable is just that. Here on the precipice, on the eve of lemmingfall, I don't see any sign of reconcili...
And its comical flip-side: Jeeves and Wooster, and its serious exemplar: Wimsey and Bunter. Yes, I do understand that --- without subscribing to it. O...
Only, that's not a question of context; that's a question of judgment. So? All cognitive function has to do with the brain. How people use logic, inte...
Yes, only that's been labelled neoliberal. There is - or there was - a brand of conservative who fits that image, but then adds anotherr dimension in ...
You's one discontented li'l badger! It hardly matters which way you direct the anger, does it? Plenty to go around. Just one tiny correction. In my 'm...
For me, the dilemma - more pragmatic than ethical - might be in contemplation of the post-disaster quality of life. Who is best suited and prepared on...
Rupert Murdoch, Meredith Koch.... They used to call it 'civics'; came in a package with history and geography. An insane middle-class immigrant one: t...
That's an excellent example! Of values?? More of fang-gnashing fear. To me, he represents the rising rabid conservatism that will finally bring down t...
I didn't learn to walk by myself. I had a mother to help me stand up, who picked me up when I fell and held my hand when I was unsteady. I didn't lear...
That's true. We're all hoping for a chance to tell people how to live their lives. But I still think there is some difference between telling people :...
Maybe just the ones whose state governments have forbidden them to read books or study science or learn their own history or ask questions. And I don'...
Maybe so; I'm not partial to the idea of aristocracy or monarchy. But given how well the US republic is doing just now, that may not be an ideal to st...
But you were not born in the 19th century. Socialism has changed; attitudes have changed; the basis of the economy and British identity have all chang...
And, as is often the case, instinct prevails. As Forrest Gump's mother would tell him: you should not judge a person by his IQ score, but by his actio...
I read some of his early stuff and some of his post-conversion stuff and found both unconvincing, leading me to wonder whether he had any convictions,...
That's exactly what I wanted to say! I don't know what the world will be like after the emergency, but if it's much more of a mess than it is now, I c...
I understand The Passion of Donald Trump is complete. Can't wait till tomorrow, when the disciples find Mar-a-Lago empty. (Psst. Look in Trump Interna...
You mean the Murdoch influence? I completely agree that his outlets were instrumental in shaping this version, but not unique; the same sentiments and...
It's not a complete mess! It's an amalgam. It's grown so big and rich that you can express in it just about anything a conscious entity is capable of ...
I have no brief with coriander. Don't wash my hands for a long time after picking it. Of course people tend to become less radical as they take on the...
Not at all; I routinely make the effort to clarify my position, out of a personal distaste for ambiguity. I don't expect anyone to share it. Wondering...
That resonates. It sounds like the conservatism of Premier Bill Davis and federal Conservative leader John Diefenbaker, to whom Doug Ford and Pierre P...
Yes, that! Maybe I'm not supposed to understand.... I'm old and have always been a progressive socialist. The last conservatives I understood and resp...
Yes, I was aware of that, though the process by which this happens is less clear, given that the personal perspective is a desire for peace, prosperit...
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