Arkady

Some apologists for radical Islam (and you are clearly not one) decry what they believe to be the apparent homogenization of Muslims by its critics, c...

The one and the same. Yea, I once said that I'm sometimes curious as to what transpires on websites which recruit jihadists, and that I'm also curious...

Ecologist and author E.O. Wilson once called human beings "absurdly easy to indoctrinate" (or something close to that). I think people sometimes under...

ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, etc, are drawn from the ranks of Sunni or Shiite Muslims. They are not a particular, separate denomin...

Men are more violent than women, and people rationally fear men more than they do women (just as they rationally fear young men to a greater degree th...

Yes, there are monsters of every variety. Some groups have a higher proportion of monsters, than others, however. Islam has a higher proportion of rad...

And for the record, I don't believe that Christianity has had a history of tolerance, either. It was essentially forced to tolerate particular social ...

You forgot Al Shabaab. And the PLO. And the machete-wielding mobs of Bangladesh. And the Saudi religious police. And the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. ...

Depressingly, yes: radical Islam is all too real.

I'm not sure that I follow all of this. I think you're missing the point in saying that "people can disregard all sorts of things if they like." My po...

The religion of peace strikes again. My condolences to the victims of this peace, and to the broken families they left behind. https://www.washingtonp...

I would point out that the truth value of the cognitive relativist's claim that their statement "all truth is relative" is only relatively or subjecti...

Your initial post actually pertained to Osteen in particular, and how his message was optimistic, not religious people in general. But, we can discuss...

This seems to be a somewhat physics-centric view of "science" (a not-uncommon view in discussing the philosophy of science - sometimes fields other th...

Where in my post did I say that "all is underhanded, dishonest, and untrustworthy"? And while I'm not a student of the good Mr. Osteen's work, it is f...

If I were as wealthy as Osteen, I would probably be brimming with unrestrained optimism, too.

I think that some philosophers might raise an eyebrow at your claim that explanation is "perfectly concrete and definable." The voluminous literature ...

That sounds painful, Tiff. I wish you a speedy recovery. Just out of curiosity, why are you not taking any pain relievers? The use of cadaver bones is...

I amended my above post to say "many employers," because certainly, university degrees are not necessary for every job (luckily, since most Americans ...

Whether or not one obtains useful skills in a university education (which probably greatly varies by major: engineering or accounting majors on averag...

I think the distinction between expected and intended harm is also salient: one can expect a certain amount of harm to result from an action without n...

My condolences to the victims of yesterday's bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester (22 dead and counting thus far, plus scores of wounded...

And my question was nothing of the sort: I didn't say "why are you a hypocrite, Tiff?" She may well have been likewise disturbed by Obama's treatment ...

Well, thanks for filling me in, then. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle (as GI Joe used to tell me). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFthiZ_J...

I wasn't aware that questions could be ad-hom. I think you need a basic course in logic (is that ad-hom, too? Please let me know). In any event, wheth...

Tiff, I take it you were likewise disturbed by the hecklers who yelled at Obama when he spoke at Notre Dame in 2009? Indeed, I would expect you were m...

Even the former proponents of logical positivism admitted that they threw in the towel, and that LP has largely gone the way of the dodo. I understand...

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism I can't speak to the Australian census, but the U.S. census, as far as I'm aware, has no category for apa...

Isn't the latter a better description of "apatheism" rather than atheism?

Relevant, sure, but not the only thing to talk about. The OP raised a number of other issues, including whether porn uses people merely as means rathe...

Ok, ND, just take a deep breath and calm down. The world will soldier on and survive the scourge of porn addiction, I promise you. Perhaps porn addict...

You seem fixated on the issue of porn addiction, to the exclusion of virtually every other consideration. There are other aspects of the topic, and I ...

We know that some people are into bondage, S&M, etc in their personal life, and we know that some people have a taste for violent porn. I think we bot...

Then I am in good company, apparently. I neither claimed to have a deep insight into the psyche of those who consume violent porn, nor did I dismiss t...

I simply suggested that some people who consume more violent brands of porn or S&M, or bondage porn or what have you may have a taste for such things,...

I don't think that more relaxed or permissive social mores surrounding sex are necessarily a problem, so I don't believe that any solution is required...

I would say that it likely has the causal arrow reversed, to the extent there is a causal relationship between the belief that "all consensual sex is ...

I don't want to get too bogged down in this, but this was our exchange: You said that porn is "harmful and addictive," not that it can be harmful and ...

Yes, I did see your questions, but you clearly also made multiple assertions, contra your claim that you were only asking open questions about porn.

Isn't it just possible that some people have a taste for more violent forms of porn, just as some people have a taste for S&M, sado-masochism and the ...

You said: These look more like assertions than questions to me. What's "classic porn," just out of curiosity?

Firstly, I don't deny that vast numbers of children have access to porn. What I called an anecdote was the story of the child who became addicted to p...

Yes, porn can be harmful and addictive. It doesn't follow that it's inherently harmful and addictive, unless you wish to maintain that anyone who has ...

Again, I don't deny that porn can be addictive or otherwise taken to excess. Likewise, alcohol, gambling, junk food, and a host of other things are po...

I'm not conversant with the technical issues, but I have little doubt that with enough technical saavy, those who wish to purvey and consume porn woul...

Sure. And labor abuses are also rampant in the agricultural and seafood industries. Perhaps something like a certification process for "clean" porn sh...

I don't think I have a comprehensive theory of morality which will cover every possible case of moral vs. immoral action (and I'm skeptical that the w...

Surely. http://www.theonion.com/video/use-of-n-word-may-end-porn-stars-career-14174

I think this may speak to some of the confusions surrounding the notion of "identity" which I pointed out. Clearly, logical identity is more stringent...

Perhaps I misunderstood you, then. My mistake. So, you are saying that your hypothetical interlocutor might say that if something is immoral (whether ...