Janus

It hardly seems likely that an infinite number of sentient beings all across the universe would suddenly decide not to procreate. I haven't said that ...

I don't believe that is a genuine possibility unless humanity were somehow rendered infertile en masse. There may be billions of other planets, infini...

Even if souls' do pre-exist bodily life, there are alternative possibilities that may be imagined when it comes to the question of whether these souls...

I don't consider it to be far-fetched, although I don't deny that it would be in today's world fairly widely, and mostly prejudicially, considered to ...

What is the evidence for the obverse? In any case, my point was not to advocate this view, but to show that we are radically ignorant about the origin...

Yeah, sure, I won't hold my breath... >:O It's not "off-topic" at all. If it were true that souls pre-exist bodily life, and also true that all who ar...

You acknowledge that it is possible that souls exist prior to birth. What if all those souls born into flesh do consent? It's true that later they may...

Why do you say the scenario of souls existing prior to birth is "far-fetched"? Just because not many people believe it? (Actually countless millions o...

So you are saying that it's not possible that persons are souls, which exist prior to death? It's hardly a trivial possibility. I can't think of anyth...

I agree with you that marriage should be invested with significance, and I also agree with you about how tiresome and childish the anti-life, anti-nat...

I doubt whether people in traditional cultures, whether married or otherwise, gave, or even today give, much thought to planning childbirth. They coul...

Again untrue. Firstly my "if-then" is simply an examination of a purely logical possibility. It is neither lightweight, superficial, ill-considered no...

I agree with this because i do think all possibilities are explored and played out in human life; or at least in our 'dialectical' 'linear history'-fo...

OK, fair enough, I do agree there is a difference between being pregnant and semi-naked, or even naked, on a beach, and posing semi-naked and pregnant...

Rubbish. My comment was not intended to be flippant or significant, I just responded assuming that you must have been silly enough to seriously believ...

Fair enough, but although your "serious" points were perhaps not intended to be flippant I found them too lightweight/superficial/ ill-considered/triv...

So, you were merely being flippant then? And now you contradict yourself in saying both that you are surprised I didn't realize that, and that you rea...

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with having sex, either with or without contraceptives. I am not claiming that the only reason for sex is procr...

I'm surprised you didn't realize that was not my statement, but was quoted from the OP.

I can only applaud that kind of thing. Much more of it is needed. I am aware that a great deal of horrendous violence is perpetrated behind closed doo...

Maybe the soul chooses which fertilized ovum to enter. No "forcing" is necessary since the parents would know nothing of it. If there are good reasons...

I'm pretty sure I had heard of her, and probably read a little about her at some time (but I read so much) since the writing about her and her face wa...

I thought maybe you were being sarcastic, but now I'm not so sure...I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or not. Am I deficient in some way? ...

OK, thanks for your excellent explanation. I find nothing to disagree with here; and I begin to get a glimpse of where you are coming from. I haven't ...

Yeahh...wow...really...???

"People can't consent to being born." Firstly, you don't know that. If people are souls, and souls exist prior to birth, then it is possible they do c...

Serena is showing neither genitals nor fully showing breasts in the image you apparently find so morally appalling. You would see at least as much at ...

OK, so it seems to me you are saying that microphysical processes, including I would assume, cellular processes, do not exhaustively determine (at lea...

OK, I read that, but it just seems to me to be saying that the Laplacean 'perspective' ( which is really the God's eye 'view from everywhere') is diff...

I am yet to see any arguments; all I've seen are vague assertions.

You say there is compatibility, but you provide no account of how it could be so. I'll believe it when I see a clear, convincing explanation of how mi...

Then you are saying that human actions are somehow not determined by the causal order of nature, as all other physical processes are. You are thus not...

The question is though, whether those who claim compatibility between free will and determinism really mean to say both that the world is causally clo...

All this seems to say, without acknowledging that it is saying it, is that free will is really an illusion caused by our lack of knowledge and underst...

Hate the beach, then?

This kind of analysis cannot be anything but playing with words if it is not consistent with, and coherent in terms of, easily understandable common s...

No, free will is concerned with one's free will being responsible for one's actions. If determinism is the case, then one's will is not free, and resp...

I think a better term is 'influence'. "Determinism" carries the baggage of the notion of absolute constraint. Otherwise, I agree with you, there must ...

This sounds like obfuscation. The point is not that the ability was not actually exercised, but that, in a deterministic world, if it was not exercise...

As opposed to being total slaves to many causal chains? A slave with many masters is no less a slave than a slave with one master, no?

So, it's not "good" sense we're speaking about here, but merely your sense, O Goddess? :P

"Good sense" according to whose assessment?

Premises are generally believed on the basis of what the believer considers to be evidence. What you think evidence consists in and what another think...

There are no purely deductive reasons to believe in God, or anything else, independently of premises which are not themselves logically derived (the p...

Indeed!

I'm torn as to whether that's a good or bad thing. (I love some aspects of astrology, and the way the symbolism it embodies maps onto other sets of tw...

Yes, that's interesting, and you could argue that it is only the fact of conventional use (along with the associative imagination) that allows it to h...

LOL, it is "strangely poetic" or perhaps poetically strange. So, it seems you don't hold with the dynamic interrelated cosmos of astrology?

I think that's the one.

Aw, I wish I'd had a Dad like you! :-! Maybe 'conjunction' or 'convergence'?