It may be that something's been lost in translation. I'm from a country supposedly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men ...
You could contribute to Doctors Without Borders and make justice somewhat more prevalent. That doesn't take faith in humanity. You would need faith in...
I think the opposite of libertarianism is acceptance of human government as either a necessary evil or as a vehicle for the expression of our potentia...
Both Marcuse and Hitler agree with this except the sort of persuasion they favor is annihilation of the opposing view. Voila. No more fear, rigid trad...
Just so reductionism doesn't think it's being picked on... it's a solution to the mind/body problem. Since Leibniz's idea didn't catch on.. How do you...
Yea, but if you think about it, it doesn't matter. The basic form is:I'm right and therefore I should liberate you from your error. It's not that I wa...
I think entropy is the tendency of things to go from higher to lower energy states. High energy states are sometimes pretty disorderly (like plasma). ...
This type of question is a challenge for semantic holism, btw. Atomists can handle it, but they have other troubles... like trying to imagine some cau...
I believe the average pro-lifer genuinely believes that abortion is murder. You asked what accounts for the alternate view.... I was answering that wi...
Energy flow is efficient causation? Apples and oranges? Questions about causation are usually why? questions. When asking why?, we're looking for how ...
Genes can be turned on and off. I think the question on the table was whether epigenetics is an evolutionary factor... so for instance: what did the u...
I'm sympathetic to the attitude that we need to slip from the grip of a strict naturalist outlook. And maybe you're right... that we'll do it a little...
I appreciate your mentioning those various authors. This is one I actually did read, though. A lot of this book is borderline filler. His point is sum...
Interesting stuff. It's also controversial (the quote you provided is, anyway.) It's speculative. And that's great. . At this point, the prevailing vi...
It looks like you're carving a system out of the sexual and asexual reproduction of plants and animals. That's a little bit of a startling proposition...
It's because fetuses prior to 20 weeks gestation can't live outside the womb. Collective intuition (spanning many cultures over an extensive period of...
Democracy is a religion. Voting is a religious ritual. I saw that somewhere. Cult of the individual. The US constitution allows the president to becom...
Have you noticed that one drop at a time, you're turning into a conservative? The saying advises that this happens to everybody who isn't an idiot.......
Come back to the light-side, Luke. The first Superman comic came out the same year Seabiscuit beat War Admiral. It means that there's something Super ...
The average thing can be either a subject or an object. It just depends on the story that's being told, right? For instance, "The ball hit the window....
Per Heidegger, the Latin subjectum was a translation of a Greek word that meant core. The idea of a thing (its unchanging identity) is the thing's cor...
Awesome post, Willow. I could write for a while giving examples of how what you're saying is true of both Christianity and Buddhism. I don't think it'...
I found that studying Tae Kwon Do while getting divorced is a quick way to get cut because you're exercising like crazy, but not eating. I guess the A...
It would have been appropriate for you to have prefaced your earlier statements with "These are my personal thoughts and shouldn't be construed as exp...
So for the record, this statement has absolutely nothing to do with Buddhism (Zen or otherwise). It appears to be some sort of S&M spirituality. As if...
What struck me recently is that those who present the obstacle to gun control apparently aren't feeling the consequences of their actions. It tends to...
The concept of guilt appears in the oldest known work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh. All epics have a philosophical aspect. Interestingly, a se...
True. Mystical traditions sometimes stray into moral ambiguity, though. The Tao Te Ching does. So does Rumi. Maybe this was the Zen lesson about how t...
But the old dying man was sort of pushing it on him... like: "No no! You have to take it and show respect for the sacred documentation!" Where's mcdoo...
Eh... Rumi says you never escape shadow. Seeing the story in a mundane or vulgar way is part of the shadow created by too much piety. I'm not saying y...
Cutting through inessentials. Zen exists because it was part of Bushido. There was some sword play involved. Zen Budhhists vary from the older sort in...
You said: This part just didn't make much sense to me. You and I might look for evidence of consciousness in regard to a third party. In that case, th...
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