Tell that to the protesters in Iran who are being shot, arrested and tortured. Maybe (just maybe) they think that the government is acting without the...
Huh? Why is the law always right? If (as I pointed out earlier) Robin Hood thinks the law is unjust. The tax collectors are violating the consent of t...
Do you even read my posts? Your position is not viable. Here are some (of many) examples in which violating another person's consent is perfectly acce...
It's illegal in our home state of Oregon, but legal in Idaho. The "Followers of Christ" religious group doesn't believe in using medicine. Some of the...
If ever a thread needed distraction with antics, this is the one. Twenty-six pages worth of excusing rudeness and bigotry with silly justifications ba...
Cromwell may have been like Satan in Paradise Lost. Satan's rebellion is seen as at least somewhat noble. But he wants "to rule in hell", instead of p...
Also, what does it mean to "stand against immorality"? One could "stand against" Trump by refusing to vote for him, by demonstrating in the streets, o...
Good point, although the French Revolution suffered from some of the same problems as Satan's rebellion. Despite its problems, the American Revolution...
I'm asking both that and what people here think about my questions. I'm actually leading a book group on Paradise Lost tomorrow and figure any feedbac...
Perhaps. But other theories abound. The "myth and ritual" school in anthropology argues for the primacy of ritual. Attempts to influence the natural w...
What does this have to do with bathrooms? Surely the way to allow people to feel comfortable in bathrooms is to allow those looking like and presentin...
What if the "dude with a beard" was born a woman? Which public toilet should (he or she) use now? The bathroom obsession about trans people is ridicul...
Abbe Arthur Mugnier, a French divine, was asked if he believed in hell. He replied, "Yes, because it is a dogma of the church -- but I don't believe a...
This is actually incorrect. Word usage comes first; definitions come later. Lexicographers don't determine the definitions -- common usage does, and t...
All judgements are "pre-judgements", because we fallible humans are never privy to all the relevant information. Therefore, complaining that using pre...
Lots of words involve "prejudice" (as you define it). "Kindness" suggests a prejudice for certain varieties of action. "Morals" suggest a prejudice in...
"And, doggone it, I'm not about to change with the times." Any of us who have seen emails where people list their pronouns and identification forms wh...
Oh, bunk. "What planet do you live on" was shorthand for saying language evolves and most educated people are now aware that pronouns refer to gender,...
What planet do you live on? These days, for most people pronouns represent gender indicators. We have freedom of speech. That includes your right to m...
Not true. Of course it's a mere vernal sin to call people by one name when they've asked to be called by another. Nonetheless, kind, well-mannered peo...
Who cares what bathroom people use? OK -- ideally, we would get rid of prejudice. Even if we did, though, some trans people would prefer others using ...
The flaw is obvious. Suppose a black person (maybe one of Thonmas Jefferson's children) -- back in the days of slavery -- wanted to pass as white. If ...
It's not irrelevant to trans people. Perhaps they'd prefer not to be discriminated against, and if "passing" for a gender different from their birth s...
Oh no! Out of politeness, we practice some minor ambiguity! Horrors! To return to the OP, assigning gendered roles is not "sexist" in the normal use o...
I admit I haven't read this entire thread. Nonetheless, nature vs. nurture questions are inevitably unanswerable. My point in this post is that I thin...
The Egyptians had a different view. (I don't know that much about it, but apparently if you prepared properly it was quite pleasant). We can all (I su...
Knowledge doesn't banish fear; it increases it. When we know the possibilities of the future we reasonably fear them. When Eve ate from the Tree of Kn...
I'm not judging them. I'm saying that a perfect judge could judge them. I'm also saying that evil is a human quality. We all must fear and avoid it. I...
Evil can refer to acts or to a state of being. Of course we humans are not privy to the states of being of other humans. Acc. Christians, God can judg...
Actions are never evil. They can be bad. Suppose an innocent person is convicted of a crime and sent to prison. This is clearly a "bad" thing. It is e...
Nietzsche: "I have destroyed the distinction between good and evil, but not that between good and bad." Behavior can be good or bad -- but it is not "...
Romantic novels and movies END at marriage, because stability and adventure rarely coexist. A "romance" can refer to either a fictional adventure stor...
But both love and hate are destabilizing -- the enemies of homeostasis. Ira Gershwin's lyric: I was doing alright Nothing but rainbows in my sight I w...
The meaning of THING is an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated. No "things" don't exist (acc. this definition). T...
The problem with reductionist explanations for human emotions is that they don't explain anything. Of course love and hate have "neurological connecti...
My complaint that this involves the logical mistake of "affirming the consequent" remains. We are (doubtless) products of both natural selection and r...
The logical error here is called "affirming the cosequent." Darwinian evolution is based on the notion that if a trait gives us a (genetic) advantage,...
Actually, it does come close. Adam and Eve are enjoined from eating from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. This (I maintain) represents the adve...
I don't need to have it both ways. It's one way, or the other. The Christian (which I am not) who believes the Bible is the Word of God is confronted ...
By the way, lest I break the rules about careful writing, I know that "I" is grammatically correct. However, some Oxonian writer (I forget whom) once ...
The Mongols conquered Russia, Poland, and much of Hungary by the 1240s. They were noted for their respect for indigenous religions -- many became Chri...
Hyperbole abounds in religious texts. Odin is called "all seeing" -- but we know he relies on those two ravens to bring him the news. The hyperbole of...
In "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" William Blake asserts that heaven and hell are flip sides of the same coin. Heaven is Apollonian; hell Dionysian....
One principle of literary criticism is that it is unfair to criticize a book for failing to be a different book. The critic should criticize a book fo...
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