Jake

Belief in God is based on trust in the qualifications of some authority, typically a holy book. Disbelief in God is based on trust in the qualificatio...

Rank, you can't rely on most atheists to explain atheism to you, as they don't understand it themselves. In 20 years of discussing this on a variety o...

You're making a positive claim, you just don't realize that you are.

One thing the "anti-guru" approach (for lack of a better word) may be able to contribute is to help the reader clarify their relationship with all the...

So thought conceptually divides reality in to the "relative" and the "constant". And then, having created the division, thought cooks up the goal of m...

If the focus of such endeavors was on experience, and not interpretations of experience, then a vast ocean of unnecessary conflict would be rendered u...

In the coming forum utopia, all members you experience will be fully customizable digital entities. Seriously. Each of us has our preferences of what ...

What is it that divides reality in to the "absolute" and the "relative"? How does one remain fixed in a "state of absoluteness where all is one" using...

:smile: :smile:

Meaning no disrespect to anyone, and being guilty of excessive typoholic philosophy myself.... What if we were to just sweep all these ideas away and ...

I'd bet we can say it better, so perhaps we could try together. What is the source of the illusion of division? If we answer that the source of the il...

Imho, unity is the reality, and that what is being discussed are various techniques for overcoming the perception of division.

It's not dislike of people to wish that we be kinder and gentler people who aren't inflicting suffering and trashing our environment for no good reaso...

Atheism is a positive claim that human reason is qualified to analyze questions the scale of god proposals, just as theism is typically a positive cla...

In the real world, atheism means a belief in the ability of human reason to meaningfully analyze assertions about the most fundamental nature of all r...

I heard on NPR the other day that during the early days of America the age of sexual consent was 10.

Isn't pretty much every other post on the forum a "wanting-to-convert" type of post?

Agreed, I personally find religion topics pretty interesting generally speaking, but weary of the endlessly repeated notion so common on philosophy fo...

Great points, and well said. Personally, to me the apparent great divide between theism and atheism is mostly a form of mythology. I see a bigger divi...

Well, speaking of good points :smile: it doesn't seem that rational to really hate something as large as religion. Religion is the largest cultural ev...

The solution here is to simply discard that which isn't working for a person, and look for other methods of developing one's emotional relationship wi...

Voting for this.

In an attempt to finally get to the bottom of this subject I found the following video on YouTube which clearly explains the debate between Chatterbea...

A compromise might be to keep talking about Jesus where such an interest exists, but try to talk about his work in a more interesting manner than is o...

I cast my vote for these wise words. The endless comparisons between religion and science that dominate philosophy forums reveal that those making suc...

The logical thing to do would be to not invest time in trying to explain such things to those who show no evidence of being capable of ever getting it...

I thought Mr. Crank had the best plan, manipulating behavior through the price. As example, taxes on animal products with the proceeds being used to s...

Hey, you figured it out! :smile:

Chatterbears is talking about progress, as am I in my concerns. We can't help it that you're stuck in the 19th century, and you think that's progress.

That's not actually what he's expressing, imho. By arguing for a plant based diet, he's also arguing on behalf of human interests. What he's strugglin...

Not the worst morally, just the worst because we have the most power, thus the most opportunity to wreck everything for other creatures in pursuit of ...

I cast my vote for Professor Crank's post. Yes, a price increase, that's probably the only realistic solution. It's like the carbon tax, a method of a...

I agree, but still feel we need some other approach to making the case. Instead of focusing on the harm to animals and the harm to the environment, ho...

But he doesn't have any knowledge about death, nobody does. All we have is a circus of competing speculations.

The amount of life, and the quality of that life, don't matter so much if for example, one is going to spend eternity in heaven. Your analysis is base...

Here's another guess. Check out this documentary about DMT on YouTube. Some quite interesting experiences and speculation regarding the larger context...

You're expressing a common theory, which I am not in a position to dispute. I'm just referencing certain instances when something appeared to be overw...

I would ask the hypothetical person considering suicide how old they are because life experience is a very relevant qualifier for questions of such sc...

I'm really not arguing entirely with your point, I'm just saying, changing people's minds using facts and reason depends on them being on the "facts a...

I'd first ask, how old are you?

I've been attempting to address in other threads, largely without success. The core problem is that knowledge and wisdom develop at different rates, w...

We are totally screwed if our future depends upon us being logic based creatures, agreed. However, there is another force at work which will come to o...

I agree with this theory. But it's just a theory about what should be, not an accurate reflection of the real world. In the real world, masses of peop...

I don't see how we can conduct a rational analysis of suicide given that we have not the slightest idea of what death is. How does one compare a known...

Ok, so the problem with your point, philosophy in general, and my posts too, is that you're attempting to apply logic to a human experience. This proc...

We need to eat animals because they are part of our family?? Ok then, I'm off to eat my wife.

You've got my vote. No. Not worth it. Apologies, no disrespect intended, but this is a common rationalizing fantasy.

I suspect that none of us will know what our relationship with death is until the final days arrive. My guess is that all human beings have some degre...

Well, if the sages are right that "all is one", then every thought is another little pebble tossed in to the global pond, sending ripples out in all d...