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Michael McMahon

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My blog isn't exceptional at any single thread but is very good only in how it combines a lot of good threads. Perhaps I'd need to describe one thread...
November 14, 2022 at 16:30
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One reason it's easy to be confused about Christianity is that we're forced to ignore large swathes of its militant history. For example it's easy to ...
November 14, 2022 at 11:07
One way to understand the extreme complexity of the brain would be as of each neuron could be quickly pressed twice for a different command. This woul...
November 14, 2022 at 09:33
In: Pantheism  — view comment
I'd a dream a few months ago in which I was travelling around an Indian city for a tennis tournament. I was confused by various return flights and tri...
November 12, 2022 at 20:01
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One way we could interpret hell is that God might not throw anyone there directly. Yet if a God knows everything about the inner workings of a person ...
November 10, 2022 at 22:44
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Keeping your thoughts pure is often an important component in religions. Perhaps from a moral perspective the only redeeming factor of perversion is t...
November 10, 2022 at 12:17
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One way to tame a fear in reincarnation is that our unconscious mind might need an affinity for the unconscious being in our next life. So we might no...
November 09, 2022 at 20:48
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One way we could assess the language of ancient religious texts is through amnesia. For example most amnesiac patients can't speak coherently because ...
November 09, 2022 at 12:36
A trouble with emotional versions of anti-realism is that natural scenery could produce subjective happiness on a wider spectrum than consciously poss...
November 08, 2022 at 16:16
Perhaps to fully understand our own mind we'd nearly be so dissociated as to be dead! Maybe the mind could be viewed as existing outside our perceptio...
November 08, 2022 at 08:22
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Perhaps heaven is much like flying away from your body; the better behaved you were the higher you go! Or maybe Christianity developed primarily to fi...
November 08, 2022 at 08:18
In: Pantheism  — view comment
An amoral God is neither good nor evil. Thus an amoral God that sent you to hell would be unlikely to throw you away for a very long time simply becau...
November 08, 2022 at 00:32
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Religion doesn't actually have to present detailed arguments to compete with a post-grad maths book. Religion merely needs to present analytical argum...
November 07, 2022 at 21:24
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Evil people can have extremely violent mindsets but they often don't blaspheme simply because they're not aware of God. Yet if evil people wanted to h...
November 07, 2022 at 06:17
In: Pantheism  — view comment
A difficulty with faith is that the mind is partially deterministic such that your subconscious mind forces you to reconcile conflicting beliefs. So r...
November 07, 2022 at 01:23
We're sometimes pressured to limit idealism in order to reconcile it with science and prevent tribal divisions. So an argument of last resort is that ...
November 06, 2022 at 20:55
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One difference between Jesus and a stereotypical war hero is that He wasn't a vigilante type of person. In other words Christianity presents itself as...
November 06, 2022 at 14:18
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Perhaps a meditative version of Christian prayers would focus more on the underlying message than the history much like an R&B song(!): https://m.yout...
November 02, 2022 at 09:38
In: Pantheism  — view comment
That's true from a purist perspective on Christianity. Yet what if there was an atheist who didn't really want an afterlife but still found peace in c...
November 02, 2022 at 09:03
In: Pantheism  — view comment
"Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") an...
November 02, 2022 at 07:59
In: Pantheism  — view comment
There are many atheists in Asia but if we went centuries back in time we could say that they were all descended from meditative beliefs like Buddhism ...
October 31, 2022 at 12:55
I was watching a thriller on TV and was almost on edge by the mere visuals and cinematography angles rather than the actual narrative! Sometimes it ca...
October 31, 2022 at 11:22
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Well let's imagine that Jesus somehow hallucinated both speaking to "God the Father" and resisting the devil. The mere fact that other people wholehea...
October 31, 2022 at 10:56
If we can detect consciousness in the brain through correlations, then what if consciousness itself can work through indirect physical correlations? F...
October 31, 2022 at 06:38
In: Pantheism  — view comment
What if we viewed the temptation of the devil when Jesus wandered the desert for over a month as arising from within Jesus? Then we'd interpret this t...
October 30, 2022 at 14:59
In: Pantheism  — view comment
I think religious scholars are correct in using scientific and cultural analogies for religious terms. The only downside of using metaphors is that th...
October 28, 2022 at 17:07
I'd never dispute the honesty of atheists in asserting their disbelief in religion but is there a residual level of transcendence in their materialist...
October 26, 2022 at 12:25
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Criminals can sometimes try to manipulate technicalities in the court system. However what if they tried the same with divine judgement? For example w...
October 26, 2022 at 07:25
In: Pantheism  — view comment
If we view prehistoric people as being less self-aware then it might be possible to say that God "found" the universe rather than created it. In other...
October 25, 2022 at 19:54
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Ironically it might be acceptable from a religious point of view for an atheistic convert to view God as an imaginary friend. A collective imaginary f...
October 24, 2022 at 14:30
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Whatever about original sin, there might still be an argument that people are born atheists. Death often seems a million miles away for young children...
October 24, 2022 at 09:07
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Even if religious people were to believe in hell then there'd really have to be safeguards against an abuse of power. For example if an evil soul were...
October 20, 2022 at 18:59
In: Pantheism  — view comment
If we were to believe in an afterlife then perhaps we might be wrong to expect divine judgement to be like a court system. Who knows what to expect! O...
October 17, 2022 at 23:45
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One way to think of God is through anti-realism. So God would be a subjective impression that relates to associations in your pre-existing consciousne...
October 16, 2022 at 00:50
In: Pantheism  — view comment
I had moments of existential angst this morning. Something deep down in my psyche started to fear about my faith beliefs. To some extent I endorsed bo...
October 15, 2022 at 18:31
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One problem that might be encountered by agnostic-style theists is that they might expect to hear a theory-of-everything so-to-speak when we die. We d...
October 14, 2022 at 22:36
In: Pantheism  — view comment
One caveat with Hell is that if it is eternal than the souls sent there simply wouldn't last as no one is as resilient as that. Only a God could be de...
October 14, 2022 at 15:55
In: Pantheism  — view comment
How do we know if souls in the afterlife were to meet a thoroughly deterministic prophet given the age of such a being? Or what if some of the message...
October 13, 2022 at 21:15
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Many religious people believe that heaven is blissful beyond all comprehension. This is certainly a reassuring belief. Yet some agnostics might fear t...
October 12, 2022 at 21:46
In: Pantheism  — view comment
A haunting problem is that God created a vast universe and yet appears unable to stop evil. Is the necessity of human free will really enough for such...
October 12, 2022 at 20:33
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Perhaps there are certain metaphysical paradoxes that might contribute to why God doesn't stop evil directly. For example those in harsh circumstances...
October 12, 2022 at 17:09
In: Pantheism  — view comment
If we were to take a militant approach to pantheism that you were God you'd be forced to conclude that other people must also be a God of themselves i...
October 12, 2022 at 02:52
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The separation of powers is vital when we think of how America tolerated poverty while utopic versions of communism became hellish. Although religious...
October 11, 2022 at 18:42
In: Pantheism  — view comment
I often find myself bewildered by the clash of science and religion. To some extent I'd struggle to give up science even if I knew there was a God sim...
October 10, 2022 at 20:20
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Is it ever possible that God could send well-intentioned people to hell much like our concept of natural evil? For instance evil is contradictory and ...
October 10, 2022 at 18:17
In: Pantheism  — view comment
Could a belief in eternal hell lead to complacency against evil people in this life? For example if people believe that God will not only confine evil...
October 10, 2022 at 16:00
In: Pantheism  — view comment
A trouble with telling evil people that they're going to hell is that it runs the risk that they'll become demons long before they die and reach the a...
October 08, 2022 at 21:42
In: Pantheism  — view comment
"Good deeds are a natural result of your faith and salvation. So in essence, they are one. Faith and good deeds go hand in hand, and you need both to ...
October 08, 2022 at 17:39
We know that green, red and blue are primary colours where other secondary colours can be made by mixing the primary 3. Yet does this mean that the pr...
October 02, 2022 at 02:22
As day becomes night every colour becomes darker and blurrier even though the fundamental colour of each object is said to remain the same. A non-real...
October 01, 2022 at 18:19