Janus

Don't all people generally "represent their beliefs as being true" and "act on them as if they were" ? Would you hold a belief that you did not count ...

What do you say to those who claim not merely to believe, but to enjoy a personal relationship with their God? Imaginary friend? But even if so, would...

A "holy reason" is a reason with holes in it, as all good reasons should be. ;) On a more serious, though no less profound, (and curiously related) no...

I experience very vivid visual images (particularly when falling asleep, under the influence of psychotropics, or dreaming) until I try to examine the...

Apologies for my delayed response; I've been somewhat preoccupied with other things. Yes, I think modern forms are often "vacuous in a classical sense...

Yeah, I'm determined to put those damned peripatetics in their place! I agree with you that people should not be put into categories (at least not wit...

I'm..running..as..I...speak...I...didn't...know...you...are...a...woman...and....I.....cannot......see........what.........difference.........it.........

Oh, how I wish... I were Holier Than Thou

Yes, I agree there is no permanently fixed logic in music, and it is the part of imagination to create new forms. But usually this proceeds on the bas...

Think about music for example; there is a logic to, which is to say a reasoning inherent in, melodic and rhythmic movements and harmonic progressions,...

To answer this either in the affirmative or the negative would be to make an unjustified generalization. No doubt, sometimes people hide their insecur...

I never questioned your right to comment; I don't know where you got that idea.

I did say "much of science and everyday life" not "all of it". Perhaps the same should be said of the arts. Of course we cannot but take it for grante...

Well, you know, there are sources of boredom, and then there are sources of boredom. ;) I'd be interested to hear more about what you are hinting at h...

I think what you say here really amounts to saying that projections are harmful only when they are not recognized as such. We have no choice but to pr...

Actually, I wasn't thinking specifically of the idea of Christ as logos, but of the more general idea of the world (flesh) being a symbolic representa...

I was specifically responding to Noble Dust, and I was confident from previous conversations that he is familiar with the thinkers I referenced. I ref...

Enjoy your holidays, mcdoodle; these questions of the nature of truth are indeed interesting and nuanced, and I will be happy to take them up in anoth...

Ever since reading Steiner in more depth recently in response to Barfield's enthusiastic belief in his surpassing greatness, I am wary of evolutionary...

To be honest I'm not too much concerned about materialism unless you mean the belief that the good life consists in owning material things, which I th...

I tend to agree with Spinoza that we know things in different ways via three faculties; which, in order of importance are: imagination, reason and int...

We can imagine things both true and untrue, or good and evil. Imagination is simply the production of images or patterns. It has no value in itself, s...

I really don't see what capitalization of the word 'truth' has to do with the questions I asked. I was responding to the passage below as a whole and ...

So, wisdom has to do with actuality then? And truth has nothing to do with actuality?

It's possible that the final cause ('final cause' here understood in the sense of 'first cause' or 'ultimate cause', not in any teleological sense) ma...

The problem I see is that if we cannot "notice it", then how could we ever know it is the case?

Yes, but notice that I am not arguing against formal causality, or even final causality; I am just pointing out that if they are actual, then they can...

Perhaps we may never find anything out about it... :-O

It seems more like it is the holding of ideas by concrete individuals which is causally efficacious. I cannot see how the idea of formal constraints a...

Yes, and let us not forget that he did not give his money to the poor, but to his family, who were themselves, presumably, as rich as he was. Perhaps ...

Nah, don't be ridiculous: It's only New South Wales and Tasmania.

'God-as-reason' could be interpreted as 'spirit-as-reason', if "reason" is understood in its broadest possible sense. Remember that for Hegel, followi...

Yes, as I said above I think it is the "angst about the angst" that is what Sartre had in mind, not the angst itself, which is an ineliminable part of...

Unfortunately it's not that easy because I think the "existential angst" is an inevitable part of being a human animal. Sometimes I think the more tro...

Thanks for your interesting explanation Punshhh. I too have always been drawn to the natural world. the world of animals and plants. You might find th...

The point is that the truth or falsity of premises cannot be demonstrated by the argument that consists of them, but must be established some other wa...

You can determine whether the argument is consistent but how would you determine whether the premises are true, much less prove that they are?

What would it mean for an ontological argument to work? You seem to be saying that ontological arguments don't work. If so, on what grounds do you cla...

I think it is arguable that the omniscient and omnibenevolent attributes cannot be derived from pure reason. 'God as nature' seems to be perhaps the m...

There's certainly a "manifest mass" out there! :)

That's interesting, I haven't heard of that debate before; but I guess it would be an inevitable topic in religious studies. There seems to be really ...

That's hilarious, gave me a good laugh! Sometimes I am so glad you don't bother correcting your posts too mulch (sic)!

I think there are actually (at least) three conceptions of 'God' vis a vis human experience and thought. First there is the God of organized popular r...

Do you honestly think that people's religious beliefs are motivated by reason?

This is because the (conventional, which is to say, arbitrary) placing of value on being is unnecessary, and actually a kind of devaluation, for Heide...

"Withdrawal from the they" is the movement towards an authentic existence. "The they" represents the generalized conventional social formulations of '...

"Rational enquiry" is the exercise, practiced consistently, of teasing out the concomitants of the premises that are implicit in our understanding of ...

This is true if "man was made in the image of God'. But then if the image of the human is the image of God, then in a symmetrical sense the image of G...

I am not claiming the world is human-shaped. I am asking whether people want the world to be human-shaped . The world is human shaped under the Judaeo...

I guess the salient question is not so much about God, but would be better framed as 'would you prefer the world was human-shaped through and through'...