180 Proof

Understood. But ethical problemata (rather than "shock") that's followed from your "loss of religion" has still followed for me (& other mostly thinki...

In my opinion...human suffering makes a direct moral appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing w...

:yawn: (Pardon this 'I'm stuck in an airport' ramble ...) In ancient or Classical eras philosophy, it's said, began with / in wonder - that there is a...

Slavoj's definitely on to something ... :eyes: “They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.” ~F.S. Fitzgerald Love is both ...

:cool: If you explain it like you want to be understood, then I won't need you to understand it for me, Wayf. Y'know, I'm quite clever ... and I under...

@"dazed" - Like you I was raised Catholic but, unlike you, bible studies + church history made me a teen apostate. The last year at my Jesuit high sch...

Yeah "expecting reason" is almost always a mug's game. Playing the odds, like Swan suggests, I only expect to shame 'em a little ...

Since you question whether of not 'atheism' has (the?) "whys", it's not at all a stretch to assume you believe not-atheism, or theism, "provides" them...

More precisely: Theism is false, therefore (1) every theistic g/G concept is an empty name - without referent (e.g. "5-sided triangle" or "flat earth"...

"(T)he impious man is not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many." ~Epicurus @OP - Seems to me qu...

:up: :up: :clap: @Wayfarer - I'm still waiting (since 10/12) for you to explain - demonstrate, and not merely assert - in what way, or sense, "philoso...

:victory: :death:

My working formula: Prejudice (e.g. "racial"-color stereotypes/biases) + Power (i.e. majority/over-Class) = Racism (i.e. modes/strategies of discrimin...

:up:

"The only excuse for God is that He does not exist." ~Stendhal

Ain't facts a mofo, Hal? :eyes: Like a MEGA boss! :strong: :clap: :party: Also, thanks, BC, for the relevant literature. :cool:

If only we weren't the kind of species that learns to believe before we (struggle just to barely) learn to think, maybe more believers would be(come) ...

How do you/we know this? Cite some data or sources. Thanks.

@OP I know this: I can't think of any 'grounds to doubt' that I exist which do not also presuppose that I exist; 'doubting that I exist' is, in fact, ...

I'm dubious of your move from "me and mine" anthropology to "Nazi" ideology which seems to suggest "whiteness" - racial essentialism - in your implici...

Ditto. It seems Bible/Qur'an-thumpers & other pimps of Woo can't help themselves.

:roll: If they are "theories", that is, conjectures attempting to explain X, then yes - because they, being properly "metaphysical", must be so genera...

Harold Bloom 1930-2019 "I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike — and I don't think there really is a distinction between th...

In other words, how descendents of poor Euro-immigrants became American In-Groupies, thereby privileged enough to (eventually try to) blind themselves...

Clearly, you're responding to what you've read into what I wrote and not to what I wrote.

Thanks! For a contrarian take on liberalism, I've just read Jean-Claude Mishea's angry but brilliant (anti-liberal?) critique Realm of Lesser Evil. I ...

Though foot prints are not blueprints - Perhaps the Xtian 'Dark Ages' were, after all, dark enough for thinking men (& women) to lucidly see the stars...

Setting aside an apparent genetic fallacy for the sake of discussion - so what? Much, if not most, natural philosophy of the Scholastic centuries - me...

This is why I've always preferred Freethought and considered myself a Freethinker - free of sectarian dogma, revelation & superstition, free of appeal...

My sketchy sketch ... A religion justifies - exegetes, preaches, proselytizes - its fundamental sine qua non claims (i.e. doctrines, rites) primarily ...

I disagree. e.g. Deism (i.e. NOT INTERVENING g/G) is the opposite of Theism (i.e. INTERVENING g/G). e.g. Pantheism / Animism (i.e. NOT TRANSCENDENT g/...

You can't outrun your (people's class' society's ...) own shadow. Or jump out of your own skin-color with its historic scars. A "PC" parlor game for h...

When in the master's house, learn from the master to use the master's tools in order to Master Oneself and/or master the master himself if one can. Li...

In many public and most professional situations if one is a racial minority - member of an out-group or caste - one doesn't have the luxury of "racial...

:up: Lack of g/G belief isn't an alternative faith commitment to g/G belief any more than being celibate is an alternative sex act to sodomy.

And my philosophizing began in the 10th year of a 12 year regimen of mandatory biblical studies & church history in Dominican & Jesuit parochial schoo...

Ineluctably so. 'Meaning' denotes that which matters - material that's relevant (i.e. significant) to at least one agent (e.g. her own body/life). Eve...

Please explain in what way, or sense, "philosophical/scientific materialism is fallacious".

This old atheism of mine is merely a consequence of (my) philosophizing.

:chin:

:up: Amor Dei Intellectualis.

:up: :strong:

The degree to which "a coherent set of ideas" is dogmatic - appeals to Mystery (Ignorance) / Authority / Tradition / Popularity / Emotion - is the deg...

:roll: 0. God does exist. True or false or something else? Atheism is merely (a) consequence of answering ... e.g. "the deep questions of existence". ...

"When it is dark enough, men see the stars." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Buzzin'. Flypaper. "Nihilism is as dead as god." ~Thomas Ligotti Avoids flypaper, and keeps buzzin' ... :death:

:clap:

oktoberfest readings :yum: • Aporetics, Nicholas Rescher • Proof!, Amir Alexander • Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition, Patricia Churchland • ...

For clarity's (or precision's) sake, allow me to rephrase: Lack of hair lack of belief ... ] is a hair-color is a belief ]? It's an epistemic, not ont...

:up: :up: :wink: