unenlightened

We are not having to do it without China. At the moment, we are having to do it without you.

Thanks! every thread needs musical soundtrack. That'll do nicely!

I am a bit unclear myself, and thank you for your perceptive comments and questions. Here is something one can hear from time to time on the streets: ...

Some folk may find an echo here and there of this: ? Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I find this really annoying, please never mention it...

Sure. Who are you? I'm sure you could say a lot more, but you have said something very similar before, and I guess it is a fairly honest summary of ho...

I agree with this, but what can one possibly want that one has not experienced in the past? Only unnameable novelty. But we call that emotion boredom,...

My ignorance of big John is profound, but Yes to the drama. It emphasises what I need to get to next, which is the social interplay of mutual and anta...

People do that too. "I am totally innocent". Sound familiar? I am telling a meta-story which I believe to be – Let's say 'realistic', instead of 'true...

Well I would say that there is no need for any of the stories; but people do make theses stories and identify with them and they feel guilt and shame ...

Intelligence is not enough, you need hands. Or equivalent extendible manipulators. Ask any large brained marine mammal.

Yes indeed. Take a simple example: "I went to the shop and bought a bar of chocolate, and ate it all on the way home." No doubt this story could be ex...

It's not an imaginary character, necessarily. One can be more or less honest in one's thoughts about oneself. But I think the internal monologue, once...

Thanks for your interest. I assume it is recorded in the brain and the highlights written on the flesh, but also perhaps in the state of the world, th...

The unfortunately rare triumph of principled democracy over party politics.

So far, so good. My skin connects me to the world; my hands play with the world. "As if." The visual world is remote; the eye touches, not the objects...

It is a dogma that dogma is bad. Dogma is the bedrock of one's understanding; the bars on the cage of the mind that stop one falling out into the blis...

Extinction Rebellion. Only the devil wants to make work; luddites want to make a living. they have the reputation of being against progress, but they ...

Dogma warning: Donald is not Jesus.

Listening to that joke reminded me of opening the Christmas present from the aunt and uncle that you've never met who always send something frugal and...

I had to have a tie for my last job; the final humiliation for an aging hippie.

I like reason, and I use it. It keeps our thinking straight. What you say about unconscious desires, hard wired or not, may very well be true. but to ...

Because saying something is natural is simply saying it is; life evolves so as to survive but for what reason does it survive? No reason, it just does...

That is not an argument. I am not interested in who is eviler than whom, because it is not relevant, nor is who by and large has had the political pow...

Of course, Dogs like dog food, but it's not a dogma, because if you don't like dog food, no dog will argue with you. But the position here is that rel...

If there is evidence for anything, it is evident to someone who is conscious. Therefore, all and any evidence is evidence of consciousness. This will ...

What do you feel? Do you feel rational? It appears you are incredulous that I even mean what I say. But perhaps you can tell me the rationale of love?...

No, I'm not backing away, but that is a matter of fact, not a matter of argument, which I support with a wiki link. Clearly there are other sources (p...

Yes, you are on the side of the angels! Hurray for you! So rational and freethinking.Thank goodness you have put us all straight at last! Hang on whil...

No. Not my argument at all. I have said more than once, that I am not even interested in who the good guys are. On the contrary, that is the vacuous a...

Let's get personal: My dogma is the stuff you have to already assent to to even make sense what I'm saying. The disbeliefs you have to suspend. What's...

And when confidence is lost, the economy goes to hell.

Of all the criticisms one might make of this, and they are serious and fundamental, I think the weakest and most pointless would be to argue that invi...

I think religion is highly problematic. This is very binary, and rather the problem with this thread - and that is my fault for framing things that wa...

Science does not do politics very well. Margret Thatcher was a chemist. she had opinions about what was wrong with society - which was that people tho...

Hence use plastic instead. Canada is home to a perfectly respectable cheddar, at least as good as New Zealand, so there's no excuse, but wilful ignora...

Here is a relevant modern lesson gleaned by an atheist from Saint Paul. https://archive.org/stream/BADIOUSaintPaulTheFoundationOfUniversalism/BADIOU%2...

Ditch the rulebook; try it with honey and cinnamon. Live dangerously.

Here is yesterday's recipe, Its a bit 'jazz'. Her majesty wants coleslaw - we only got red cabbage, but what the fuck. Slice it very thin, only to dis...

Absolutely nothing! But try telling them that!

At this point, I think I'll take a break before starting a new thread. But the conclusion of this thread for me at least, is that personal identity is...

I'm not in the business of defending any church, priest, or book. But look, the story says what you say! Only it says it more forcefully. That is inte...

On the whole, I prefer Lao Tzu and Zen Buddhism, personally. But when one is brought up within a Christian and post Christian culture, one has to wres...

When a thread suggesting that arguments about the existence or nonexistence of gods entirely misses the point of religion which rather is about how to...

The Lord of the Flies taught me that people can also descend into violent barbarity and cruel superstition when their civilising restraints are remove...

Winnie the Pooh taught me that people can be all different and all have different weaknesses and strengths, and yet be good friends to each other and ...

It is. As if we have overcome already, which of course we have not. Other religions are also available. But I am waving vaguely at a story, not a fact...

I don't know you, except that you are alive and have access to the internet, and have decent literacy skills. But that is already a couple of things t...

No. I think I just used it in my last post. Observation: there is a Story of a man who taught love and was killed and lived again. That story has perm...

He's saying a whole lot more than that. But the cell as a self-defining self, as membrane and contents seems to be the beginning of that caring that g...