Ciceronianus

Israel exists, now. That's not a matter of debate. I don't expect it to vanish and don't think it should. I refer to its creation, and the reasons for...

America's my home because I live there, and always have. It's the place of my birth. My native land. These things can be said of a person, without qua...

I understand. But I think to call a place where the ancestors of a group of people lived and were sovereign for a relatively short period of time in t...

Fools rush in, it's said. It may be one of my many peculiarities that I think this way, but I wonder whether it's significant, in considering any clai...

Perhaps the speaker is an antinatalist, to whom all existence is harmful, being full of harm, and thinking that white people are less inclined than ot...

There are some references in ancient sources to a person who was worshiped by Christians, which may refer to Jesus or may not. Pliny the Younger refer...

The cross on which Jesus was crucified wasn't necessarily the cross as depicted by Christianity. It could have been, but could also have been a simple...

That unabashed apologist, C.S. Lewis, called Matthew 24:34 "the most embarrassing verse in the Bible." A refreshing moment of honesty from the man who...

That we may be free to do something may be a desirable condition to be in, but I don't think we derive glory, or infamy, from being in that condition....

We all have the ability to oppose reason, in a manner of speaking, but it seems less than clear to me that exercising that ability is glorious, though...

Immanuel taken from Isiah, who used it in reference to the messiah, and the house of David, not necessarily a divine figure, as I said. And Paul also ...

Well, no. And that's part of the problem faced, more or less, and debated over centuries. Immanuel, or the Son of God, isn't necessarily God. There we...

"Borrowed" may be a better word. They borrowed so very much. This particular borrowing (of "logos") was likely a part of the gradual deification of Je...

Well, Pierce actually wrote it, and it was published, about a century after the U.S. was founded. Maybe someone noted that already.

Perhaps "Enmity" would be a more appropriate choice of name. But then irony may be intended. (Flagged!) Regardless, I think part of Stoicism's appeal ...

https://entertainment.theonion.com/noam-chomsky-announces-las-vegas-residency-1819578692 There is no escaping Chomsky. Like God, he's omnipresent.

Truth isn't dead. Truthfulness has been coughing up blood for some time now, though.

Most of the old pagans probably accepted there were masters wherever there were people. Gods as well, I think. I don't think the existence of God was ...

Yes, I think Nietzsche correctly noted the difference between the pagan perspective and the Christian perspective, though Dionysus isn't the god I'd a...

It strikes me it would make more sense, and show greater respect, if we propitiate, rather than petition, God (or the gods). The ancient pagans were w...

I think that generally speaking, we have become like people who have soiled themselves and are well satisfied to have done so. Smug about it, even. Of...

Alas, I am indeed a voice in the wilderness of philosophy, crying out "Make straight the way of the Law!" In this, as in so much else, the Law rules. ...

Well done, Wallows.

Old Ben Franklin said we had a republic, if we can keep it. Turns out we can't. Nor does it seem we want one. We want to eat well and get laid, and if...

i'm uncertain what "philosophy of religion" is, frankly (nor do I know what "philosophy of law" is, for that matter). While I think debating the exist...

I used to comment now and then as ciceronianus in his old Rationally Speaking blog. That was before he became interested in Stoicism, though after I w...

Is there a difference between "nothing" and "the nothing"? As I recall, The Nazi wrote that we encounter "the nothing" only when we're "suspended in d...

I suppose this is another way to describe the divide between the traditions. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/146

Damned if I know. What formal training I had was analytic, and ordinary language, with pragmatism thrown in. Now some say pragmatism "bridges the gap"...

Thank you, I like seeing you, and others, are still around as well. I have a tendency to be silly, I admit, but am generally stable except of course w...

Neither cranks nor bigheaded jerks will survive the return of Jesus, though it seems at least one horsee will. My return, of course, only added to the...

I'd have thought that would be a German breed of horse.

Turnover rate here, you mean? I abstained from the forum for some time but returned eventually, as Jesus will do to this world, so it is said, though ...

Ah, the easy pleasure of setting up, and knocking down, straw men.

Well, God's Form perhaps.

God's pets. That's us.

The efforts made over the years to explain that the God portrayed in the Book of Job is just, merciful, and loving are so sophistical, so brazen, so s...

Unfortunately, Epicurus was right: "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little."

If I understand you correctly, you're saying the fact that there are no alternatives is a part of the existential dread that you suffer. I'm uncertain...

I'd say there's nothing heroic about Stoicism, or at least my version of it. It's merely to take the universe as it is, without imposing on it any of ...

It's hard to think of the author of Beyond Good and Evil as a tolerant man, but I may not be giving him his due, true.

The justification for patience regarding what comes, if justification is required, is that for the most part what comes will come whether we wish it t...

He knew a great deal, especially of the classics, but it was never enough for so intolerant a man.

Listen to Horace before Nietzsche, and others. Ode I. 11, Tu ne quaesieris (Do not ask): Leucon, no one's allowed to know his fate Not you, not me. Do...

I see too much of Frantic Freddie Nietzsche in this thread. The man who lambasted the Stoics and yet shamelessly borrowed from them the concept of amo...

I don't think Stoicism is a religion, as typically conceived, but I do think a Stoic can be religious. It's hard to judge Epictetus, as it happens he ...

I'm telling nobody to "get over it." I'm simply noting that the spiritual crisis is due to an assumption, and that the assumption need not (and i thin...

Nihilism, schmihilism. I doubt whether nihilism, and some other isms for that matter, would be the subject of much concern but for Christianity. Chris...

Homo demens we are, then.

Ah, Pat Buchanan. The man Bill Buckley concluded was an anti-semite. Speechwriter for Spiro Agnew. Thought we should just have let the Nazis alone. Ye...