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baker

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Because they focus on some obvious and egregious point, which then allows many everyday uses of power go completely unnoticed and taboo to discuss. Yo...
October 12, 2025 at 13:15
That we should push the religious/spiritual to sort things out amongst themselves, until only one religion/spirituality is left. I'm inclined to think...
October 12, 2025 at 12:57
Not to me, though. I think liberalism is both authoritarian and totalitarian in its own ways, and even worse, because it adds insult to injury (libera...
October 12, 2025 at 12:52
Such a discussion of power is a way to distract from the actual power issues. It's factual. If you had read any of the links I provided earlier, you'd...
October 12, 2025 at 11:43
People do this all the time. Some do it under the motto "Fake it 'till you make it" or "We learn best by teaching others". I don't think it's ethical,...
October 12, 2025 at 11:25
I think Kierkegaard is quite useless here. A hopeless romantic. That's not how religious discourse works. But by then it will be too late. Failure to ...
October 12, 2025 at 11:13
That's your projection. I've always talked about the *uses* of power. But somehow, the Western PC discourse rules out any talk of power, as if any tal...
October 12, 2025 at 10:29
?? Not at all. It's not possible to convert to traditional Judaism or Hinduism; one has to be born into those religions in order to be a member. For t...
October 12, 2025 at 10:07
Not everyone uses it that way. And since there is in fact no divine dictionary, nothing is set in stone. And so the battle for the meaning of a word i...
October 12, 2025 at 09:53
And again the conversation about sex is held mostly by men, on men's terms ...
October 12, 2025 at 09:49
This doesn't sound right, not at all. Note how preaching to outsiders is not common to all religions; only the expansive religions (such as Christiani...
October 10, 2025 at 13:03
What exactly does that look like when authoritarianism takes responsibility? In that it punishes, ostracizes, imprisons, or kills those who fail to li...
October 10, 2025 at 12:42
Then I wouldn't see it at all, as there'd be nothing to contrast it against. If everything is orange, you can't tell it's orange.
October 10, 2025 at 12:34
Oh? Or maybe you fail to notice their authoritarianism?
October 10, 2025 at 10:12
I think it's a naive and idealistic to pose such a dichotomy. Most people, and especially religious/spiritual types, hold a stance like this: "If you ...
October 10, 2025 at 10:11
Of course this is how it works. Preaching, teaching, mentoring, advising -- these all make for one-way relationships where the whole and sole responsi...
October 10, 2025 at 10:07
This is a scenario that can be found today, yes, in pluralist societies. But back then, esp. in monocultures? The "struggle for survival" applies to r...
October 09, 2025 at 21:56
Some people seem to do just fine even without such reflections. But I don't think this is a matter of individual choice. Sometimes, for some people th...
October 09, 2025 at 21:37
I presume that whatever were the alternative religions at the time and place, attracted mostly outsiders and outcasts (as they typically do today). So...
October 09, 2025 at 21:29
Possibly by finally accepting that as a culture and society, we are no more "advanced" or "civilized" than in the times of feudalism, and before that....
October 09, 2025 at 21:15
As long as your socioeconomic situation is good enough, or at least tolerable enough, you don't (have to) worry about such things. Socioeconomic succe...
October 09, 2025 at 21:09
If you look at traditional accounts of "enlightenment", "enlightenment" is not something one would normally desire, ever, because for all practical in...
October 09, 2025 at 20:23
Do you really think that religion can be chosen?? (Noting that for some religions, it is not even possible to convert to them because one can only be ...
October 09, 2025 at 19:47
But you have communical cohesion with your fellow co-religionists. Where is the individualism in that? You're a religious individualist only in relati...
October 09, 2025 at 19:26
Agreed. A person's reasons for theistic or atheistic inclinations are connected to their particular life circumstances. It's not clear whether general...
October 09, 2025 at 19:19
This is where the problem is. How do you justify this dichotomy of "someone exists objectively" vs. "someone exists at least for me"?
October 09, 2025 at 19:04
It is so rare to find people treat other people by this standard, to begin with. In daily life, of course the criteria of successful communication and...
October 09, 2025 at 18:56
So the people who are using AI in a let's call that "abusive way", are actually doing us a disservice? I mean people who are feeding the LLMs prompts ...
October 09, 2025 at 18:38
Who are you to those countries to presume to teach them such lessons?
October 08, 2025 at 19:24
To begin with, it's hard to kill and eat a being, on a daily basis at that, or take their land or possessions unless one thinks of them as somehow sig...
October 08, 2025 at 19:18
I want to show you that the "God of philosophers" (which is, basically, what you're arguing for) is impotent and inconsequential. The God you're argui...
October 08, 2025 at 19:12
It's different for someone who lacks belief in God out of becoming exhausted with the search for God. That has a different existential quality than be...
October 08, 2025 at 19:06
If you live in a society where the people who have some power over you (e.g. your employer, family members) believe in God or at least profess to beli...
October 08, 2025 at 18:59
And more: the use of AI is discouraging people from developing personal mastery, personal artistry. It used to be normal for people to do hard things,...
October 08, 2025 at 18:41
Not so much that there's no use in pointing it out. It's a waste of time, for sure. But more importantly, it can be quite dangerous to point it out. B...
October 08, 2025 at 18:26
You're not looking at the bigger picture. Arguments that are in line with what secular academia considers "critical thinking" have a very limited scop...
October 08, 2025 at 18:22
Possibly the relevant factor here isn't that you were interacting with an AI, but that you interacted in the ich-du mode, and deliberately so. Instead...
October 08, 2025 at 18:01
I'd like to know more about this. I used to be involved with Buddhism. One of the important points there is that human life is rare and hard to attain...
October 08, 2025 at 17:52
Most people probably disagree with that. Most people treat other people as things and they don't have a problem with that. What is more, they take off...
October 08, 2025 at 17:29
That's just political correctness. Of course Hitler and Cortez liked themselves! They felt entitled to the wealth of others, that's why they went afte...
September 30, 2025 at 20:03
So often, causality is an important concept in interpersonal relationships where people try to exert control over one another. Often, it's in the form...
September 30, 2025 at 19:47
I think most people naturally accept their mortality and don't fear it. But what they do fear is poverty, infirmity, and living a life that is merely ...
September 30, 2025 at 19:37
The way the question is formulated, it looks like moralizing. "Do people need" ... Who are we to tell others how to live their lives ...
September 30, 2025 at 19:20
Whether you were in fact on the "brink of loss" is a matter of interpretation. It's also possible to conceive of the situation in another way, for exa...
September 30, 2025 at 19:16
For one, I am skeptical about such practices. Does Donald Trump write a gratitude journal? Successful, important people don't seem like the types who ...
September 30, 2025 at 18:52
What exactly do you understand? Wherefrom did you get what you understand? Without revelation, or at least the notion of revelation, one is dealing me...
September 30, 2025 at 18:36
There are several types of individualism, but it seems you're only talking about expansive individualism, or entitled individualism, or narcissistic i...
September 30, 2025 at 18:28
I said more later in the post you quoted. In Buddhism, there is the theme that we are now living in an age in which the Dharma ends: (ironic, the ads ...
September 30, 2025 at 18:18
Dear lord. Let's try again ... It's how the real world works. And, what is more, those you call "tyrants" sometimes call their approach "rational" (an...
September 30, 2025 at 17:43
A blow with a baseball bat. Seriously, arguments from power have a bad reputation in philosophy circles, yet in daily life they are the ones that matt...
September 28, 2025 at 15:18