BC

Google can be both so helpful and so NOT. Sometimes a frontal assault on the question at hand just doesn't work. One problem is the way search priorit...

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Are you taking the disadvantaged with you?

Yes, Merry Christmas, Glad Yule, Joyeux Noël... The difference between Lutheran theology and liturgy isn't all that different from Roman Catholic. Som...

I'm not stimulated in the direction of righteous indignation by your argument. It strikes me as baiting. But... Gay marriage requires adjustments to o...

Could the elephant succeed in the self-recognition test, if it had no self-consciousness? Regarding the test-passing robot... Who and how was it progr...

Just a small point on English... Don't forget to put the article "the" in front nouns, such as the brain, the product, the instant, the content... Now...

— I do not see how it is possible to NOT receive and build some kind of concrete belief system. A child may or may not have received religious or phil...

So, when do you suppose this very long discussion which I have only noticed getting longer but haven't followed, will move on to the Immaculate Concep...

Isn't "experiencing experience" just consciousness of self--the "I" watching itself do things? I observe myself sitting at a table, coffee to the righ...

here's a picture of Balzak. https://78.media.tumblr.com/446e7404970c7a5a6b0700574a71812a/tumblr_p1i2llMRq21s4quuao1_500.jpg

No. News to me. There's only 1 ball.

I can't address the whole tree, but Baptists didn't come from Anglicans, Mormons and pentecostals didn't come from Methodists, and Presbyterians didn'...

Merry frigid Christmas. Below zero F tonight, stays below zero tomorrow. I heard on the BBC early this morning that only castrated reindeer have antle...

Don't potatoes lose the brownish color as soon as they go into the hot water?

For the record, I'm gay, am not very enthusiastic about gay marriage, and haven't decided whether polygamy is a good idea or not. Whenever some heavil...

Well, ONE reason is that those who are campaigning for legalized gay marriage are not campaigning for polygamous marriage. If someone wants to put pol...

To some extent, it depends on the setting. If it's a class, you have to read what is assigned,. If it's this forum, you really should read the opening...

Let's all think long and hard before we ask the state to "implement means by which to end one's life". Is this a big political issue in Australia? Sur...

What is the meaning of this? Obviously some sort of coded message...

You keep saying the same thing over and over again. But we (the collectivity of society and its various institutions) don't care what your preferences...

Like their very small size and 8 legs, aside from Octopi and spiders. And they are much more primitive than spiders. They don't fossilize well (too sm...

The possibility of earth-contamination (or seeding) from Mars is plausible, because rocks from Mars are sitting on Antarctic ice, for instance, and el...

Excellent cartoon joke. Now, over in the Relief Theory of Humor thread the question is, "Is this relief humor, superiority humor, play humor, or incon...

A Catholic priest and a rabbi were traveling together with President Trump, when their car broke down. The three men went up to a near-by farm house a...

It can be related to the Superiority Theory of humor, but I think there is "Schadenfreude humor", amusement gained at the significant expense of other...

I tasted some raw octopus once. More than sufficient.

There is some astrogeology going on that we know about. What are you going to learn/say/write about astrobiology, of which there is zero evidence, so ...

I remember a panel discussion of this topic on public radio--way back in the 70s when SETI was still being thought about; something along the lines of...

I would really like to know how earthlings would respond psychologically to an alien visitation. Let's assume that the aliens landed in the middle of ...

I saw that video clip; remarkable, especially given it's provenance.

The octopus is an alien? What about the squids, cuttlefish and nautiloids (mollusks) they are related to? Also alien? Cuttle fish, for instance, have ...

Sounds like a French philosophy quote to me. Marcel probably needs bouts of metaphysical disquiet to de-paralyze his superior spirit.

My "Why do you want to know" was just a silly quip. I like Kant's formulation: Also good.

Damn! When I try to see the whole broader cultural issue, nothing happens. You cite many interesting books and articles. I add them to my reading list...

Because Kirk & Company had series continuity, a powerful feature of televised life forms. He HAD TO SURVIVE all aliens, or it would have been the prem...

Or those rovers running around on Mars.

Yeah, well... I'm waiting for several nothings to become something and so far, nothing has happened.

I really hate to acknowledge this bit: The number of guns--all types--in the possession of Americans is somewhere between 100 million and 200 million....

Why do you want to know?

"Biologically" there is no significant difference among mammals, and we have very strong similarity to the biology of fish, for instance. Not that col...

I'm pro-evolution; I assume you are too, in as much as Darwin explains the differentiation of species. You know, we all have our inner fish.*** One ca...

Isn't it the case that capitalist free-market economics proceeded Darwin's book? It seems more like the prevailing zeitgeist more seized on Darwin tha...

There are people who do think of other humans "as soulless creatures of deterministic processes" (which of course doesn't include themselves). They ma...

IF the collapse of traditional culture created a vacuum that sucked in evolution to fill the god-shaped empty space, questions should be asked about w...

Marx did not propose rigid egalitarianism: He said, "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs." Some people are capable of...

You might be interested to know that conservative economists (like Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago) once proposed a minimum guaranteed in...

I'm of mixed and conflicting mind about God. On the one hand, theism (in it's American/Mainline Protestant form) is very familiar to me, is a belief s...

Amazing. Even dogs dislike it when they are not rewarded for effort and they can see that other dogs are rewarded.*** Canine through Primate morality ...

Inter Alia, aren't you doing the same thing (only in reverse) that TheMadFood proposes? You are picking the worst parts of various religious groups an...