Vera Mont

By making it in vats in a factory. We can do that now. That would address the ethical concern, though not necessarily all other concerns. But there ar...

There. The 'we can know' in the second statement refers back to 'it is known' in the first statement; to balance the knowing, not to modify the acting...

I don't think we get a lot of choice, really. You can make shit up; pretend you'll go to heaven if you've been a good little Christian, or the Happy H...

Yes, I've been lucky that way. No serious brain issues, other than the constant search for things I just put down five minutes ago. The rest of the ma...

Objectively, none whatever. Who would be measuring it? Value is subjective. The average earthworm seems satisfied to be physical being; so do most dov...

wars with no material gain in any of them for a group of humans? Amazing! It must have happened before my time, or I'd have noticed, probably.

You can. I won't.

So, you think abstract concepts are not merely alive and have a will of their own, but also have agency and power to manipulate people? Ho-kay... In o...

Does it, when you're placing a dinner order? Or giving instructions to an employee, or explaining to your wife over the phone where to look for the fi...

Sure. Christianity goaded Spain into invading America so that it, Christianity, could propagate itself in the heathen. The Spanish monarchy, using Spa...

I made no assumption about an author's intentions, abilities or desires. I only presumed that they meant to communicate something to other humans. If ...

There never has been and never can be any war between ideologies, methodologies or belief systems. Wars take place between factions of armed humans. T...

Didn't someone have to tell, sing or write it first? If so, they presumably did that to communicate something to someone else. Of course. (Keeping in ...

I only pointed to one cause-effect relationship in one story in a book with thousands of stories. Of course not! That's why I never consult religionis...

This wouldn't keep coming around if somebody just made up two different words for physical and conceptual existence. I usually confine 'existence' to ...

What the book says doesn't depend on their interpretation. I was referring to the book itself. If Christians don't believe it, so much the better.... ...

Well, what else can they be? If mythology is any indication, the early ones were fine with it. They made up entire deities to personify not only their...

I doubt you comprehend that my clarification of the theological position is not an argument for or against anything. I said that, according to the sto...

Somewhat disappointing. The book is better. Huh. I made no claims for or against God. I countered a claim with an if-then argument. Yes. You can take ...

Not so impressive - routine research for an unrelated project. Yes. The Christians did themselves a great disservice when they promoted their god righ...

No, they're just middle-aged.

I see a couple of problematic statements there. Sez who, where? Humans are free to choose God, any of the other gods, or Satan. They didn't create any...

I'm not sure Tesla, Ford and Edison all come from the same mold, but you're still restricted to 20th century capitalist (the capitalistest nation on E...

I do sympathize with your students! Mine were able to arrive at many clever and correct answers, given a little encouragement.

Not nearly as interesting as you seem to think. If you wanted to indict God for some wrongdoing - and god know he's guilty of lots! - then go directly...

Apparently, no response does.

That's a valid opinion. Why drag worlds and omnipotence into it?

Except for the times when a system stops working and is overthrown from within, or suffers a major collapse and disintegrates or is overwhelmed by an ...

Oh well, that happens sometimes.

This the crux of the matter. You have not demonstrated that a new life cannot fit into an imaginary world as it operates. You have not demonstrated ho...

You must have. Religious terrorism; systemic denial of scientific evidence; curtailment of human rights; racial strife; economic disparity; and of cou...

Yes, I did. What was it? By what authority do you hold and omniscient, omnipotent being to the moral standard imposed by society on ordinary mortals? ...

Nor do I. It is merely the most recent dysfunction of civilization. (Organized/state religion and monarchy were two of the previous manifestations.) T...

It's baaaack!

This is also true... of white people, as well. But empathy is not very useful if it doesn't translate to voting for better social services and fairer ...

You can believe as you please. I asked about exact numbers - and they're not as easy to find or correlate as 'popular wisdom'. I'm saying the statisti...

At what stage of its development? Are there animals or just plants? If animals already exist, and they have to compete for survival, they will evolve ...

The operative phrase there is "in the modern context", by which I take it you mean western industrial capitalist society. I do realize that most of th...

There is always a reason to act, or else we lie dormant. Amoeba needs warmth and food, swims toward the busy end of the puddle. Self-interest is prima...

I don't think either character or culture factor into prejudice. It's a political construct. If you look back through history, you see the pattern of ...

Not according to scripture as written in *that book*. God was perfectly all right with drowning all the animals, but one breeding pair of each, when H...

Ho-kay....

Yes, I've heard it, but I think it refers to quantities and ratios that reside in physical reality and make the orderly interaction of elements possib...

Except for Marx's superior intellectual rigour... But never mind. He - or an observant assistant - should have either removed the book or added a copy...

It is necessary, in order to keep the established elite in power, for the rank and file to hold a rigid sense of their own rightness - and if possible...

I know. I don't have much use for deities, either. But I would not turn against them, nor deny access to them to people who need a spiritual reference...

It really is difficult to discuss American politics and societies (all of them, north to south pole) without some mention of race, racism, the theory ...

Another shift? Okay, let's take one step back. I didn't say voting is not sufficient. I said they were prevented from voting. This is one of the major...

What/who generated it? What is it made of? How does it differ from sensory input and experience? How does it travel? Whence did it arrive to your mind...

I wasn't referring to protesters. I was referring to the institutions and constitutional rights that the right actually protects. They only seem to su...