No, not really; it merely entails that we imagined, not the unimaginable, which would be a contradiction, but that there might be the unimaginable, de...
A Black Widow; I just recently found out that the Redback Spider, the second most venomous spider in Australia, which is not really at all aggressive ...
So, presumably, any answer, either 'yes' or 'no' would be equally useless? What about any and all discussion stimulated by the question; also useless?...
It seems pretty obvious that the idea of Islamic Culture is useful enough, even indispensable, to distinguish from others, for example, Christian cult...
You seem to be assuming that the apostle John thought in a manner that philosophers are sometimes thought to think, rather than thinking like a poet. ...
You mean that in order to choose we must first be able to choose to choose? And then choose to choose to choose, and so on. This sounds like nonsense,...
For me, it's not like that. In the times when I have experienced it. it has been what I can only call an ecstatically creative spiritual union; and th...
It's true that there are other ways to interpret the idea that God is Love than to take it to mean that God experiences love, that is that God cares a...
Those are some nice examples, and I have had experiences similar; but they all seem to qualify as feelings of joy accompanied by the idea of an extern...
T'would be nice if it had, it's a great book, indeed! But I think it is more the case that it has become a major cultural influence in a minor area of...
I think it pays to remember that 'emotion' words are polysemous and cover ranges of emotional phenomena. So, I can certainly understand the kind of mo...
As to whether I think of myself as religious, I chose 'maybe' for two reasons. First it would depend on what is meant by 'religious'. And second, sinc...
I agree there is a common distinction between joy and pleasure; but I think really they are essentially the same. It is just that joy is commonly unde...
I'm interested to hear what those factors are. OK, but this does not mean that the absolute is personal. I mean, whatever it is, it can obviously mani...
For me that is a contradictory, and hence incoherent, position. Science either informs us about reality or it doesn't. If it informs us about reality ...
Oh, yeeaahhh!! As Bob Hawke once said "I think we're gonna have to take a long, hard look at this issue". Seriously, though, you're coming off as a bi...
You mean jerkin' the gherkin, floggin the log, chokin' the chicken, whitewater wristing, oiling the mutton dagger, poppin' the purple pimple, grippin'...
Not really, we all have to struggle to see past our preconceptions and preoccupations. Particular preconceptions and preoccupations will have differen...
I think your opinion is very far from the mark, and that it's a view distorted through the much marked and dusty lens of your preoccupations, and I be...
Yes, he wants to show that our ignorance, which is the source of our illusory belief that we are in fact radically free, consists precisely in ignoran...
The irony is that Spinoza is the archetypal modern thinker; his greatest concern is to release our thinking from the oppressions and superstitions of ...
That passage might be OK, as long as you don't fall into imagining that Spinoza thinks we can have a personal relationship with God, meaning that God ...
What you're not getting is that Spinoza understood thought (mind) and extension (matter) to be just two of an infinite suite of attributes of God or N...
I believe the Latin word used by Spinoza in the Ethics, that has been translated as 'love' is 'amor'. As I see it Spinoza is intending to deal with lo...
Perhaps these associated excerpts form Part 3 of the Ethics, On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions, will help clarify the context for you: "Thus we...
I've already given examples and I think your inability to accept them is quite simply the result of your narrow focus; and not of anything more subtle...
Well, if you insist on that very limited definition of 'value', defining it in terms of it being consciously recognized, then I guess there's little m...
I think you are using a more restricted psychological notion of value; so. of course under your definition it will probably rely on recognition-as-act...
For example, fruits, nuts and seeds have nutritional value; but that value must be actualized by being consumed; it need not be recognized in any psyc...
That's an interesting point, but for much more "ordinary" reasons, I think it's easy to see that there are energy constraints on the sheer amount of s...
Such a "disposition" would be conceived as a physical actuality involving some actual set of energetic interactions or relationships, wouldn't it? It ...
The first rule is that there cannot be a first rule that speaks about the impossibility of speaking the first rule. This is because any transgression ...
I don't see what people could really care about beyond what is experienced while in this world. If a person is more concerned about his or her persona...
If no one is forced, or coerced and no one feels that they are being harmed in any way, then what could be the problem? But you don't believe in the k...
When I speak of "human judgement" being the only judgement, I am not advocating egoism or individualism. Human judgement is greater than mere individu...
I think Popper got it wrong when he thought Hegel would valorize a "closed society". I think Hegel saw politics (manifested as the state) as the expre...
I would not want there to be a judgmental God, to be sure. Nor would I want there to be an overarching cosmic agenda. But such Gods are exclusively th...
I think that it is true that there has been a more vigorous earlier intellectual tradition within Catholicism than within other traditions (although I...
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