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Wayfarer

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Sin is ‘missing the mark’. In Buddhism (which I practice), there is no word for sin and Buddhists will often say that Buddhism has no equivalent conce...
September 11, 2019 at 21:10
I bought a book of Monbiot’s columns and generally agree with him. Note that central to this thesis, from the first piece, is this: I think neoliberal...
September 11, 2019 at 20:29
Notice the small 'g'.
September 11, 2019 at 06:28
who was one of the New England Transcendentalists and certainly no atheist., Well, full marks for honesty!
September 11, 2019 at 05:56
and how many Christians do you think actually believe that? Every age has its myths, but the view from inside them is that they're the obvious truth.
September 11, 2019 at 05:28
To which I should add, the renaissance humanists (which is where 'humanism' got started) were generally anti-Church but at the same time highly spirit...
September 11, 2019 at 03:53
The trouble is, atheist humanism has no conception of why humans are in the universe in the first place. Like them or not, religions situate mankind i...
September 11, 2019 at 03:51
There are 'real possibilities'. That a banana can turn brown is a real possibility, that it can turn into a fish is not. So that 'domain of possibilit...
September 11, 2019 at 01:23
Nobody should engage with trump trolls.
September 10, 2019 at 23:27
One point of caution is that the Aristotelian term that was translated as 'substance' was Ousia which is nothing like 'substance' in the every day sen...
September 10, 2019 at 22:54
Interesting. But how do you allow for intelligence? What is it that recognises concepts? And what are concepts? Is that intelligence something you thi...
September 10, 2019 at 22:43
Interestingly, the original debate which was thus parodied, was about whether two immaterial beings could be located in the same space - which I don't...
September 10, 2019 at 22:38
Philosophy of religion is more concerned with clarification of the subject and the application of philosophical analysis to religious doctrine. Theolo...
September 10, 2019 at 20:56
In: Brexit  — view comment
What Republicans could learn from the Conservative Party https://wapo.st/2ZO6Saz
September 10, 2019 at 07:56
He'll campaign on the fact that 'the Mueller report said there was no collusion', and will be believed. Although I also think that a lot of very influ...
September 10, 2019 at 06:55
This seems very similar to your other thread, 'rant on belief'. In any case, the answer to your question is 'no'. A belief might or might not be corre...
September 10, 2019 at 03:48
:up: Absolutely correct. 'Metaphysics' is shorthand for 'anything vaguely spiritual'. Accordingly most criticism is criticism of 'anything I think is ...
September 10, 2019 at 01:36
There doesn't seem to be much insight in this debate as to Christian doctrines of the soul. Those doctrines are by no means uniform or consistent, but...
September 09, 2019 at 22:58
Justice ought not to be avoided simply because a case might not result in conviction. I think the dems are duty bound to make the case to the 'america...
September 09, 2019 at 22:43
We’ll see. Momentum is building for impeachment.
September 09, 2019 at 20:00
In: Brexit  — view comment
Latest: Boris Johnson declares ‘law of excluded middle’ an insult to democracy.
September 09, 2019 at 11:10
To hell with it. That is 'politics over principle'. He must face impeachment. I don't see how the Dems can face their electorates without bringing imp...
September 09, 2019 at 10:50
The original intuition of scholastic metaphysics is that 'intelligible objects' (such as arithmetic proofs and geometric forms) are known in a way tha...
September 09, 2019 at 04:54
Yeah, I think the Dems should 'impeach and be damned'. Even if it's true that the Senate (or is it Congress) will then vote to acquit, there's no way ...
September 09, 2019 at 03:28
What I'm getting at is that the subject of archetypal psychology (which is not at all a mainstream academic pursuit) might provide an interpretive fra...
September 09, 2019 at 00:23
Actually now you mention it....if he had come along 40 years ago, I would probably have talked about him instead! But I think you'd still find James H...
September 09, 2019 at 00:02
'Atheists', said Albert Einstein, 'are those who still feel the weight of their chains'. It's written all over your rant.
September 09, 2019 at 00:00
I wonder if you're familiar with the subject of 'archetypal psychology'? It is generally associated with Jung but was considerably developed by one of...
September 08, 2019 at 23:57
I would imagine that people in this kind of state will generally 'see' what occurs in terms of their cultural background; a Hindu might say 'Krishna i...
September 08, 2019 at 23:39
The particular problems with space programs are that: first, they take enormous amounts of money. There might not be another chance for a lot of the i...
September 08, 2019 at 10:51
To understand philosophy, take an arts degree and also read a lot of history and history of ideas. Context is so important in interpreting philosophy,...
September 08, 2019 at 06:17
The article from which the Quine quote is taken goes on to say 'Instead of starting with sense data and reconstructing a world of trees and persons, Q...
September 08, 2019 at 00:02
how do you interpret the ‘abandonment of the goal of first philosophy’? What do you think that means?
September 07, 2019 at 23:22
But your argument, at that point, depended on it. You were arguing that one didn't have to be a materialist to be a nominalist, because you could posi...
September 07, 2019 at 22:13
Einstein didn’t predict the expansion of the universe, or rather this theory made no such prediction. I think it was Hubble and Le Maître that discove...
September 07, 2019 at 22:01
What would an example of a 'nonmaterial particular' be? Incidentally, I find the argument for 'scholastic realism' quite persuasive, because I believe...
September 07, 2019 at 21:56
And I’m no Russell fanboy, I disagree with his philosophical outlook in almost all respects. But I still honour him as a teacher, and admire him for j...
September 07, 2019 at 11:34
I didn’t know that, but then, at the time, Stalin appeared almost as threatening as Hitler had been. It was the Cold War, and there is a sense of desp...
September 07, 2019 at 11:25
And actually I think the Oppenheimer quote made reference to Siva, which ought not to be left out.
September 07, 2019 at 10:09
In Isaacson’s bio of Einstein, the way the story is told is that a grad student approached Einstein after he gave a talk and told him his theory led t...
September 07, 2019 at 10:03
As I said before - these questions can only be meaningfully discussed within ‘communities of discourse’. In the mainstream Christian community, the no...
September 07, 2019 at 09:46
Best Rees-Mogg meme so far.... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EDnypAwXYAIabej?format=jpg&name=small
September 07, 2019 at 08:19
Trump does a lot of stupid things, and constantly demeans the office of presidency. Yet just when you think Trump can't do anything more demeaning, mo...
September 07, 2019 at 03:12
Rather a desultory article, I felt. Doesn’t do anything to come to terms with the possible imminent collapse of the Western social order. I have these...
September 07, 2019 at 02:39
I don't disagree that there are objective facts and that there are better and worse ways of understanding. The facts that have been disclosed by moder...
September 07, 2019 at 02:25
The view I am coming around to is that 'nothing exists without a perspective'. Even if we are to picture the early Earth before life began, and even i...
September 06, 2019 at 23:01
In: Brexit  — view comment
I read that Corbyn’s polling is dreadful. I must say I couldn’t vote for him, if I were British it would have to be Lib Dems but I can’t see them form...
September 06, 2019 at 07:29
In: Brexit  — view comment
The EU don't want a 'no-deal' any more than most people. But on the other hand, they're quite entitled to deny any further extension on the basis that...
September 06, 2019 at 06:39
In: Brexit  — view comment
How could it be irrelevant? There is indeed an action being taken to prevent it, namely, a law that disallows leaving the European Union without an ag...
September 06, 2019 at 06:14
In: Brexit  — view comment
he's practically as good as, as far as I can tell from 12,000 km away. :naughty: As I said yesterday, I kind of admire the conservatives who stood up ...
September 06, 2019 at 05:05