baker

Only for the desperate prospective adult convert. Don't forget that most religious people didn't choose their religion, but were born and raised into ...

Find an existentialist who 1. has not renounced his existentialism or otherwise moved away from it, 2. has not died by all acounts prematurely (so tha...

This goes too far. By relying on others to clarify moral questions, we're only assuming that someone else might know better than we do, or, at most, t...

It introduces the dichotomy objective vs. merely personal/subjective. "You may think you look good in that dress, but you're not being objective."

I strongly urge you to stop experimenting with oxygen deprivation. The only things that do "fall away" in oxygen deprivation practice are your cells a...

I assume that people are goal-driven, purpose-driven beings, and that therefore, they know why they do things, esp. when those things require concerte...

[ No, you're not. You insist on the external, on the perspective of an external, uninterested observer. You're like someone trying to discern the tast...

A.k.a. hypoxia.

Only desperate prospective adult converts do so.

No, but commitment to a particular religion. The way you're framing your "honest aiming at a deeper understanding of religious notions and practices" ...

And with the processes of teaching and learning that knowledge. Why the wink?

It's not clear that actual religious people think that way about religion. They are not relativists and doubters like that. It's Easter time. The loca...

Scientism does. What usually passes for/as science is actually scientism anyway.

Not if by "seem" one means 'pretend'. Some people don't doubt their perceptual processes, but they doubt that other people and things are honest; they...

The notion of ritual is much criticized in some religions. For example, in Buddhism, there is the cocept of silabbata-paramasa, usually translated as ...

Listening to the Smiths a lot ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r-qDvD3F3c

And contempt wins the day once more.

Not skin color per se, but the specific assumption about the level of civilization of a certain people. The general trend of this assumption being tha...

Someone who hates and despises isn't an "innocent bystander".

It takes two parties for there to be corruption: One who wants to get ahead without doing the work or waiting his turn, and another who is willing to ...

You seem unsure of your purpose. But there is noone willing to engage in dialogue. Exactly like Ligotti says above. Seems ironic then to pursue the ma...

And other countries in other parts of the world have to pay the price for your life quality and freedom. Like those poor South American countries that...

Why should this be a problem?

We have democracy.

The question is how come those standards caught on. There must be something in people that makes them think such standards are not only acceptable, bu...

People have been used as toilets for a long time. It's perfectly normal. When a man ejaculates into a woman he's basically using her as a sex toilet. ...

We have democracy! We must be tolerant! We must respect those different than ourselves!!! Besides, there is no society and everyone is reponsible sole...

Then why this thread?

Nah. Today, it's Russian bombs, tomorrow it's tapeworms (talk about needing very little to make a happy life and said thing being already within yours...

How on Earth can you possibly know that??

Pretty much everyone I know IRL considers themselves to be morally objective, flawless. They are dead sure they are right.

But you didn't answer it. Why should the average person "take on greater philosophical nuances and self-reflection"? Why should the less educated folk...

You make it sound like shit when you put it like that. Religion appears to be a phenomenon that is defined by insiders, and can be done only by inside...

Yes, this is the one thing all religions probably agree on.

Like I said: No, saying that those who doubt and relativize themselves shouldn't expect to be taken seriously by others. Like I said:

As I succintly (perhaps too succintly) made clear in my first post in this thread, it's about contexts and who rules over them. If you try to define r...

The idea is that thinking about things properly makes an end to aimless, useless thinking.

*sigh* It wasn't sarcasm, it wasn't a jibe, it was an honest question. Which you evaded, as if this were a watercooler conversation. I want you to mak...

Yet religious people do it every day.

The issue at hand isn't something that could be "demonstrated objectively" to begin with. It's something that requires effort both on the part of the ...

How can you know a cup doesn't have an essence?

"You're just saying that because you're depressed and cynical, and you haven't learned to 'live in the present moment and enjoy it'!!!" The (upper) mi...

Nah, self-help literature does it for us.

War is "nothing personal", eh?

Sure. But he also said something else, which was what I addressed. If one says things that disqualify one, then one shouldn't be surprised of the nega...

I'm just not familiar with magic.

Sure, but that isn't my scope of interest anyway.

They don't simply shrug it off; they shrug it off _selectively_. For example, about a 150 years ago in the US, many whites believed it was not wrong f...

It's why the US goes to war, for example: They go kill the terrorists, so that social order can be established. Or take on smaller scale example: That...

No, it is goal-oriented, purpose driven: In order to attain goal X, you must behave in such and such ways. If your goal is to never cause a traffic ac...