Agustino

A short term desire cannot be love, love by its very nature is eternal. Thus, when sex is the result of whatever short-term desire you're talking abou...

Yes, people have already been telling me about it! Ahhh, you want to keep it all for yourself - yes, I see, I understand how you're playing this ;)

Casual sex can't be ethical, because by default, by its very means of happening, it involves using the other as a means of obtaining pleasure. If you ...

>:O Do you want to lend me some from your big sack then?

Have you read De Veritate for example? That's mostly metaphysics discussing the nature of truth. Aquinas has wide ranging works, and he outlines, expl...

Replace "during love" with "while in love". Certainly sex doesn't occur in a vacuum and it occurs within the framework of the entire relationship that...

Which work(s) are you referring to?

Fine, if sex is an amoral act, there is nothing contradictory in sex occurring during love. However, there is something contradictory when sex occurs ...

Really? Why Kant over Aquinas?

Hmm I see. Which philosopher of religion who is pro do you find most convincing then? (well I know you find none convincing but certainly one has to b...

Why?

Johann Georg Hamann or Ludwig Wittgenstein

Not necessarily. That doesn't mean that love can't include sex.

Why Plantinga? I've read about 2 of his books, but I wasn't too impressed...

I don't know, what do folks think? I voted Aquinas. (although I think Augustine is close - as for interesting positions, Spinoza and Kant would be the...

But this is most certainly not all from the perspective of the audience. For the perspective of the creator of art, this makes sense - they seek to cr...

This is an interesting point. Note that man is probably the only animal who is an artist in the real sense of the term. We painted before we really de...

This sounds strange - to me. There never was such a time in my life. I did see it in others, but I've never been that way. I've had other sins, or wha...

There. I just changed the objective fact that there was no reply to your post. How bout that?

So you're basically saying that it's a historically contingent fact that social conservatism is associated with religion instead of with atheism?

I expected something grander from post #2000 than a rehash of Hegel's position with regards to concepts and reality ... :D

Justification? Just because there's millions of hours put into it, doesn't mean that it's necessarily yielding good results. No, when my life is on th...

I was responding to Thorongil: But they don't have to fix my home life or whatever. They have to fix my attitude/response to my home life so that the ...

But is it the doctor's job to decide what "better" is for the patient? In my experience, it is your own inner strength, and maybe a few people close t...

I highly doubt that if I go to a doctor telling them that I am depressed, they would just send me out the door, and not diagnose me with anything. The...

I will look into it, but I wasn't referring to your recommendation, but to modern literature in general. Of course there are exceptions, for example P...

Yes but my problem isn't just that they are "new". My problem is that their ideas, and even their characters, seem quite superficial and uninteresting...

I think not. Again, there never is a time when not acting virtuously is better pragmatically than acting virtuously. And thus, even if the character i...

But a doctor could certainly diagnose the latter too, wouldn't he? If he wouldn't, in what sense is it depression?

Yes. If that were so, then you should go ahead and join them. Then there would be no way for social conservatism to win - it would be impossible. If s...

Because that's what leads to well-being and happiness for yourself and others? If you read Epicurean works - take De Rerum Natura by Lucretius - you'l...

I don't think this follows at all. What about someone like Epicurus - you really can't get more atheistic and materialistic than that. And yet, Epicur...

How? The conservative atheist has his own independent reasons for adhering to tradition - reasons which are independent from God. His "belief" in God ...

Objective facts can be changed, and therefore changing them is deciding what the truth is. I see nothing wrong with post-truth, it's merely the logica...

How would one go about distinguishing between clinical depression and non-clinical depression?

Okay but if this is so, then the case against God is political rather than intellectual, and it's good for both participants to realise it is so. Then...

If atheism is true, then God happens to be part of it, and not the foundation.

Unfortunately no. I do read fiction, but I don't really like present-day fiction, I have an aversion to it. It's too progressive for my liking. I like...

But why do you take my retelling so? I never suggested he was inferior or irrational. Quite the contrary, I admire his reason, and looked with scorn u...

Fine. But you don't address the point of the thread. Why is social conservatism associated with religion mostly, and not with atheism? Why are those v...

But then, their essence is certainly being anti-traditionalists rather than merely atheists. For they don't have a beef with God, but rather with the ...

Okay I agree, but again, why would an atheist be less likely than a theist to see the value of religion/tradition for society at large?

Maybe - I meant that achieving it in thought, obviously not practically achieving it.

Okay, yes I see!

Yes, and that goes a long way towards achieving the separation between religion and social conservatism. I think the two should be separated while at ...

But how is Hitchens socially conservative? I mean his position regarding gay marriage, sex outside of marriage, value of family etc. are completely th...

Sure but then it means that - granting atheism - God becomes merely a tool of enforcing morality - a morality which has an entirely different foundati...

Not necessarily - they don't believe in authority for authority's sake.

Well to be honest - I very rarely, if ever come across social conservatives. Most folks are either: 1. Progressive liberals or 2. Reactionaries What I...

I never vote(d) for anything except when I ran myself for something :P Most of the time, I feel 1 vote is too little to make a difference, so I can't ...