Wayfarer

You tell me. Is the protection of the poor based on a reasoned analysis of the comparative value of individual lives?

Sorry I didn't intend to do that. I'm trying to make a more general point about naturalistic ethics. Think about this point. What is the origin of the...

What I mean is this - I don't think I have ever believed in that kind of God - the film-director pulling the strings behind the scenes; I think that i...

that's the assumption that any naturalistic account will provide, but it is reductionist. 'Everything in service of survival' is what it amounts to.

I can't see how that can be anything other than a utilitarian ethos - 'greatest good for the greatest number'. Nor can I see any 'intrinsic good' in n...

Note that the way the question is posed, it is really about the nature of belief.

I know I'm talking too much (in the dying stages of a contract) but there's another line of approach which I think can accommodate both post-modernist...

Let's see if I can assist. For example, one of the standard texts that is often quoted as an expression of 'seeing the transcendent in the immanent' i...

Agree. I see Calvinism (and Protestantism generally) as a radical break with Catholicism. (I'm reading an interesting historical study The Unintended ...

I don't believe in that model of 'God'. It is curious, then, that Catholics and Calvinists both believe in the Bible, yet Calvinism is fatalistic in a...

science is in no way related to religion. They are different methods of seeking truth. One is based on authority and tradition, while the other is bas...

But that still amounts to a kind of artifice. Maybe you could say that freedom requires the real risk of failure. If there's no risk, then there's no ...

Nevertheless, nobody ever experiences consciousness in anything but the singular - even those who have had a split-brain operation.

I don't think that is an accurate depiction of the Calvinist view, although it would be useful if someone with knowledge of it could respond. I have d...

It's not a non sequitur. What I was responding to was this: The point about this remark, is that it demonstrates lack of knowledge of what the Christi...

I had understood that 'immanence' only ever had meaning as part of a pair, the other part being 'transcendence''; this being an understanding that dev...

You are aptly named, that is all I can say.

You are sadly misinformed about that. I do understand why you think it, but it's not correct. What I think you're commenting on, is the idea in all th...

I have noticed the way 'immanent' is used - as a kind of bulwark against the dreaded 'transcendent', the 'beyond'. I've never seen any indication from...

Agree. So they might criticize 'scientism' and the 'instrumentalisation of reason', and so forth, but their shared intellectual background is still ve...

But I think the general point is that 'post-modernism' is not a school of thought (unlike, say, Marxism or German idealism). It may be the case that a...

Also, look at Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.371: 'At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of n...

That is the reference I meant, although on reflection 'in the world but not of it', is more a saying than a quotation (albeit one with sound provenanc...

'Be in the world but not of it', says the Biblical verse. But what does it mean to be 'not of it'? What could that even be? I think that to understand...

You're babbling. This is a thread about 'exorcising the Christian notion of God', if you have anything useful to contribute then please do. Otherwise,...

I'm not here to trade insults, and am not sure why you are.

I think a lot depends on your ability to. Otherwise, where is your humanity? If you choose, because of the inhumanity of others, to become callous or ...

OK here's a moment of inspiration for y'all. When Christianity says 'creation ex nihilo' it mean 'something that comes out of nothing'. And that is th...

Excellent jazz trio piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUtZ5zGkmAk Hey I'm a Jaco fan. Saw him live with Weather Report, Sydney, 1979 or so. Sensat...

no, but this conversation is, so I'll leave it for now.

Interestingly, the one-volume anthology of postmodernism I mentioned in the other thread, The Truth about the Truth, has an impassioned essay by Husto...

Right. That citation also includes the point about 'measure' that I mentioned. Same linguistic root as 'metre'.

It is thought 'm?y?' is actually from a Sanskrit root m? meaning 'to measure' (although that is not definitely established.

It could be a unity that is reflected in, or embodied in, the plurality of smaller wholes; not that the parts are components of the whole, but embodim...

But how could I have 'a belief I have a pain'. You either have a pain, or you don't. Even if your pain is entirely psycho-somatic, it appears as pain,...

Good example Thorongil. But, how I would express it, is that God is, and cannot be, an existent, or 'something that exists'. Because everything that e...

There's a good article on the topic here http://www.iep.utm.edu/substanc/ 'In contemporary, everyday language, the word “substance” tends to be a gene...

But in all those cases, you are using the word to denote 'beings' as distinct from 'things', which is only the point I am labouring to make. As regard...

I had unintentionally ommited a qualifier in my above post, which I have subsequently added in bold, which changes the meaning of the paragraph in whi...

Thanks, illiminating post! Self-and-world are 'co-arising'.

I think possibly you're a Putin troll. It's a shame, but in any case, I wish to have no further interaction with you.

Well, explain to me what 'immaterial substance' might be, then. As I said, 'subject' doesn't quite transpose correctly, but 'substance' is not right e...

The middle section of the above, with 'subjects' in place of 'substances': The transposition is not perfect but I think it conveys the intention.

Right! I'm sure it is an allegory for the beginning of language and tool use. Because there, we have things, things that we can loose, and ways to tel...

The Christian teaching is, if we were not capable of evil, we would not be capable of good, because we'd simply be robotic.

well, they were capable of evil, precisely because they were capable of making judgements about it - hence the apple was from 'the tree of the knowled...

Because beings are subjects of experience, which objects are not. It is precisely that ontological distinction which materialism denies.

Well, if it helps, this might have been better written: 'I have serious problems with the word "grammar" '.

I have just gone back and read the OP again, about which I made some dismissive comments some days back, but anyway I shall reply now. I was asked in ...

There's also a lot of Russian disinformation being circulated, its scary to see how easily people swallow it.