In one sense, globalization has already happened. Communication, trade, and travel have greatly diminished the sense of 'separateness' that people exp...
Your friend has zero reasons to be confident in his economic predictions for 60-100 years hence. I know nothing about your friend; he might be a geniu...
Worse. Philosophers have more fire power in their armories to defend their entrenched positions. Not only that, they are entrenched about opinions tha...
China is still building coal fired plants, however, and even in a command economy reasonably safe nuclear plants take quite a while to bring on line. ...
Global warming won't result in evenly distributed consequences, beneficial or not. For instance, the earth's polar regions are -- and will continue to...
I think there are several things at work: 1. As people watch the debate, they rehearse arguments to themselves that support their previously held opin...
Yes. There has been research that debates reinforce beliefs already held and do not dramatically change opinion. An example: https://journalistsresour...
OK, I'll drop the claim about UUs. I'll also back off my assertion about ethical societies, since my actual experience with them is pretty limited. Ma...
I consider them "religious" because they seem to think they are practicing a religion. I attended socialist meetings for a long time, which had a simi...
Why do we use just one word for love? Well, that's just English for you. There are many other words and phrases in English that describe nuanced under...
I - and others - have mentioned them. They are Agápe (????? agáp? means "love: esp. charity; the love of God for man and of man for God. unconditional...
What you are experiencing in this pointless discussion is what passes for pussy (errr, meaningful relationships) among philosophers. Actual pussy is n...
There are no disembodied institutions or belief systems apart from people. No matter the institution or the belief system, it is always peopled (or it...
Well, there are these r u m o r s of polygamy, child rape and organized crime (Mormons tied in with the Mafia -- Italians and Mormons??? -- very odd) ...
Have the Mormons been blowing things up lately? Unless you consider Mormon missionaries terrorists, they don't seem to be appropriately grouped with J...
Thanks for the clarification. I hang around Lutherans, but was raised a Methodist -- they think it strictly symbolic. Pretty much, anyway. But I could...
Most religions require belief in the central supernatural elements. For instance, mono- and poly-theistic religions require belief in god(s). Must one...
And this, boys and girls, is an example of a meaningful life relationship for philosophers. Were they not separated by the chasm of cyberspace, they w...
The story is "No Exit" and the passage is: “All those glances that I eat … Ha, you’re only two? I thought you were much more numerous. So that’s hell....
There is much more ritual in religion than in philosophy. Singing is far more common in religion than in philosophy. Religion is far less 'open ended'...
Perhaps, but what of it? I just finished up IRON WIND, a book comparing French and Polish, Jewish and Catholic responses to the Nazi occupation of Eur...
I liked your post except for that one word, spiritual. It has become a very "spongy" word, profoundly vague, indefinite, with no solid definition. I w...
Our predecessors spent a long time in the stone age without apparent innovation, invention, or creative product--at least as far as we can tell from t...
First, change the names in one of the scenarios. It's confusing to have two situations with Bob and Alex. How about Lewis and Vladimir for one case, B...
I am very sorry. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you, but I meant to type "Van Gogh" not Pablo Picasso. Apparently I wished to ...
My guess is that all trees started out as bushes, and it became very crowded. Some clever tree decided to expand up, rather than out, and this worked ...
Well, I am a socialist, after all, but I picked up the term before I started thinking a lot about capitalism. Lot's of people have used the term "filt...
Haven't read it. I picked up the term from English literature, or background reading, some where. Sounds like an appropriate read, though -- consideri...
Were the disrupters of realistic and traditional representational art in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century managed by the Old Elite? ...
Exoskeleton. They're on the way -- maybe 2030? the Wall Street Journal said. Hang in there. You won't leap out of bed in the morning, but your exoskel...
My apologies for blithely stepping into a subject area about which you know a great deal more than I do. Thanks for the very interesting comments. I d...
PDQ = Pretty Damned Quick. Yes, I think we do. Now, whether somebody else LIKES IT is another matter, and quite often people who don't like something ...
So let me clarify: In the present world where today's posters live, whether you are religious and conservative, religious and progressive, atheist and...
Now wait a minute here... Art is something we create ; we get something out of something that we do that makes us want to do it again. Yes, "just resu...
I said art was an integral part of the human enterprise. We can say it either way: "The mind that can draw a map can also paint a picture" or "The min...
Yes. Posters have offered various reasons why religion is associated with conservatism, and they are good observations. But the effect of inter-genera...
Rather than art being a superfluous add-on whose function isn't clear, art is an integral part of the human enterprise. The mind that can paint a pict...
expression (especially if one performs an artistic act, like singing in the shower, writing a poem) pleasure in doing art as well as in consuming art ...
Why is social conservatism generally associated with religion? How many adult atheist progressives migrate to the opposite end of the spectrum and bec...
Right. Some theorists want to find an evolutionary advantage in anything that they find common or persistent. Like I said, I don't really buy this the...
Comments