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Wayfarer

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That is only one interpretation of karma. I agree if it is used to justify misfortune, then it amounts to fatalism - 'it must be something I have done...
March 21, 2017 at 05:36
Useful classroom tutorial on the specific issue of theodicy. Makes reference to some current Christian philosophers, i.e. Richard Swinburne and John H...
March 21, 2017 at 05:34
Well, in one sense superstition is very much a consequence of drawing untruthful conclusions from experiences. But there's a lot more to 'karma' than ...
March 21, 2017 at 05:25
That name 'Yahweh' - are you familiar with the etymology and the rationale behind the etymology? As I say, I think it's because of a deficient charact...
March 21, 2017 at 05:24
Careful, now. There are many things that science can explain about nature, and also a pretty big number that it cannot, some of which seem very simple...
March 21, 2017 at 05:11
Well, I don't know. I don't think the traditional doctrine of 'imago dei' is anthropomorphic. What I think is anthropomorphic, is to regard God as if ...
March 21, 2017 at 05:03
The reason I'm hesitant to go into bat for Christianity is because I don't self-identify as Christian and I don't want to come off as evangalising on ...
March 21, 2017 at 03:28
I think you will find that impossible to validate with respect to any textual sources. The problem is that you (not just you) don't understand what is...
March 21, 2017 at 03:03
It has turned out that way, but it's not the intent. I think that is how it is understood in an unreligious age. I found the quote I was thinking of: ...
March 21, 2017 at 02:53
Well, according to Loyd Gerson, Aristotle remains a Platonist, albeit a dissedent Platonist. And eudomonia includes as its highest form of activity, c...
March 21, 2017 at 02:37
Science fantasy.
March 21, 2017 at 02:30
Your post is entirely anthropomorphic. First, even though, on the basis of what you post, you don't profess to have any actual belief in God, you thin...
March 21, 2017 at 02:28
'Religion' doesn't have a single meaning; the word itself is polysemic (there's a useful bit of terminology). It goes without saying that hardcore ath...
March 20, 2017 at 22:54
I see the myth of the fall as being a parable about self-consciousness. It symbolises the origin of language and identity. I read the synopsis of a bo...
March 20, 2017 at 22:26
I think critters behave like it's a good universe. They have a natural exuberance. Humans loose touch with that - that is part of the predicament of '...
March 20, 2017 at 21:49
I've come to the view that magic is real enough, but that it's generally unwise to rely on it. Me too. The founder of behaviourism, J B Watson, believ...
March 20, 2017 at 21:45
I don't really see how 'imagining how something might be different' makes any actual difference. From a humane viewpoint, it is always sad to see anim...
March 20, 2017 at 21:42
(Y)
March 20, 2017 at 09:59
What you're really asking is, how could God create people who can do that kind of thing? And the textbook answer is - and this is from one who doesn't...
March 20, 2017 at 09:00
Because maybe, just maybe, us humans can do our bit to make sure it happens. Instead of whining about it like a Benatar.
March 20, 2017 at 08:55
It's mimetic - people learning from watching what others do; combined with magical thinking, non-understanding of cause and effect.
March 20, 2017 at 08:38
That thought sprang to mind. I bet how that is how they'll do it. There's no way they'll send actual stuff.
March 20, 2017 at 05:54
Hey thanks for the tip BC! I will definitely get hold of them.
March 20, 2017 at 02:24
There would be no fool's gold if there were no gold.
March 20, 2017 at 01:48
No - but then, neither are a lot of the bio-sciences now, out of necessity. And physics, also. The Cartesian model of mind and matter, 'exhaustive and...
March 19, 2017 at 23:48
I'll have a go. One of the consequences of the scientific revolution was science as a 'mode of knowing' that proceeded by deliberately bracketing out ...
March 19, 2017 at 22:56
The idea that I have had, was for a sci-fi story based on an event which pulverises a good deal of the earth's radiotelescopes, and a very large numbe...
March 19, 2017 at 22:47
I think one of the key points of McIntyre's book is the loss of any idea of telos whatsoever. The SEP entry on Aristotelean ethics notes in respect of...
March 19, 2017 at 22:28
You wouldn't have the instrument on which you recorded that idea wiithout it.
March 19, 2017 at 19:57
(Y) I have an idea for a sci-fi story along these lines, but I've never gotten around to writing it, because I don't think it will be read.
March 19, 2017 at 19:24
I simply wonder why the occurence of such evils is regarded as 'theodicy' when in fact they are done by humans. Natural evils are things like epidemic...
March 19, 2017 at 09:16
Last I heard, sexual trafficking of children was done by persons. As, for that matter, was the Holocaust, and indeed all of the deaths in the Second W...
March 19, 2017 at 09:07
It might be the cost of anything happening. Stuff usually occurs in pairs - up/down, north/south, day/night. And you can't have one without the other ...
March 19, 2017 at 08:54
In: Globalism  — view comment
I worked for eight years for a company with 'Global' in its name. I used to joke that when they had riots in Davos about the evils of globalism, it wa...
March 19, 2017 at 04:05
Are you familiar with After Virtue by Alisdair McIntyre? It is said to be one of the seminal texts of modern ethical theory. The central thesis is... ...
March 19, 2017 at 03:51
Strictly Freudian. Nothing to do with the romantics AFAIK. (New book out - Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity, Denis Noble. The first cu...
March 19, 2017 at 02:07
The nature of number is a fascinating philosophical question, best summed up as: are numbers and mathematical functions invented or discovered? Are ma...
March 19, 2017 at 01:33
It is typical of our culture that religion and philosophy are despised and sexual deviancy is celebrated with street parades.
March 19, 2017 at 00:52
You say 'all four causes', but one of them is a final cause, a telos, which is, I think, what your naturalistic ethos doesn't recognise. Isn't everyth...
March 18, 2017 at 01:13
Not 'understood to be', but 'misinterpreted as emotional manipulation', by you. Anyway, it is plainly pointless to continue, you haven't shown any int...
March 17, 2017 at 23:54
As I tried to explain, twice, the original citation wasn't about 'violence' but 'the degradation of culture', under the title Barbarism, but the point...
March 17, 2017 at 23:42
I go to a lot of trouble to present quotations, citations, articles, and arguments. I'm not the one tossing out assertions here.
March 17, 2017 at 23:32
According to Steve Pinker. And I do accept in the overall upward trajectory in the way humans treat each other, much of it due to the civilizing influ...
March 17, 2017 at 23:25
The quote was from an essay called 'Barbarism', by a French philosopher, named Michel Henry. It was made in the context of the debate about Daniel Den...
March 17, 2017 at 23:07
Because Woz says, right?
March 17, 2017 at 22:06
I think 'competence without comprehension' describes Dennett very well. The word I used, and the passage I referred to, wasn't about violence as such,...
March 17, 2017 at 21:51
That's a very interesting post Ernest. I'm reading a popular account of Plato and Aristotle, received for a Christmas gift, The Cave and the Light: Pl...
March 17, 2017 at 04:18
(Y) It wouldn't be a 'tiny difference' to those who believe that such rules are holy writ.
March 17, 2017 at 03:19
Not at all. He set the template for much of later positivism, and also the emotive theory of ethics (a.k.a. 'boo/hurrah' theory.) The point is that li...
March 17, 2017 at 01:17
It's simply that those criticisms he levels at 'volumes of divinity or school metaphysics' also apply to his work.
March 16, 2017 at 22:44