That it cannot be accounted for scientifically is no evidence for it being a miracle. The number of unexplained phenomena scientists observe is much g...
Sorry, I just noticed this comment, which is quite distinct to the one to which I just responded. I definitely would not put Catholicism generally in ...
No, I think they are mistaken because: (1) the claims are of exactly the kind one would expect if they were mistaken, ie never anything that directly ...
Sure, but in the case of the Vatican's so-called miracles, they are never outlandish. They are all easily encompassed within the very wide area of thi...
Indeed. When the RC church is able to produce a case where an amputee has regrown a leg after prayers on their behalf, there will be reason for non-RC...
It's interesting to see where this discussion has gone. It's wandered about in an unpredictable way - which is not at all a bad thing. I'm still stuck...
I suppose one could hypothesise that, if mind-independent moral facts existed, they would have causal powers that - through some mysterious, currently...
That doesn't help, unless you are prepared to say that Albert, who was most recently measured as 1770.1mm tall is 'tall relative to' Gunther, who was ...
That reply is a statement of the anti-natalist position. I am very familiar with the position and have seen it discussed often enough that I have no n...
It is not sufficient. I don't know anybody that would describe a 1.51m human as 'tall'. I think it would help to read up on the meaning of 'necessary ...
There is a great deal of philosophical discussion - some of it quite interesting - about the interpretation and implication of a premise like this in ...
TGW is correct. A tautology is a statement that remains true regardless of what interpretation we put on any of the non-logical words in it. Thus 'if ...
We don't even need the whole sentence. The second part 'I am' is a tautology. I am no Latin scholar but I note that the Latin original 'cogito ergo su...
I don't know what that fellow is on about, if what he says matches your paraphrase. I don't know anybody welcoming Islam with open arms, any more than...
With a fuzzy boundary of category C we can identify necessary conditions for C ( in the above example: measured height > 1.5 metres) and we can identi...
There will always be theists and atheists. The reason there appear to be almost no atheists prior to the nineteenth century is that in most societies ...
No worries, let's move on. I think you were asking something about whether I think banning internet pornography and gay marriage would be a reasonable...
I don't think Western is necessarily intended as pejorative. In the minds of some shallow thinkers it is, but not generally. Consider for instance Ber...
That is not what you said. You did not mention scripture. You asked whether gay-marriage-opposing Muslims would abandon their support for terrorism if...
I suggest you read more carefully. I did not say it did. But the post implies that any Muslim that is opposed to pornography and gay marriage supports...
I wrote out an answer to this and then my jaw dropped when I realised the implication of your first two sentences in that post - what it implies about...
Terrorism can bring down the West not by military action but by making the West betray its values in the name of the so-called 'war against terror'. T...
Is your proposal then that, whenever the UN declares Genocide to have occurred in a region, you want the US government to do whatever is necessary to ...
That's reverting to action to prevent domestic terrorism incidents, which I have indicated - without rebuttal - is an insignificant issue in public po...
Either your position is changing, from a focus on Western victims of violence to a focus on victims in places like Syria, or it has been like that all...
We've already covered this. That is a difference. But it doesn't provide any support for your assertion that Western governments are not doing enough ...
If you did, I didn't see it. If you think it was so great, reproduce it here. Otherwise all you have is 'I've got a really great argument against this...
If we spent on those problems a quarter of the money and removal of personal freedom involved in the 'war against terror' we would reduce the annual d...
I'm afraid I cannot tell you how it happens. I can only observe that it does. In my case I was disturbed by the notion of death for the first forty ye...
I agree that there is no absolute distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. I like the co-arising perspective! I think there is a useful pract...
It is a distinction that seemed to made sense at the time it was hotly discussed, which was the 16th-17th centuries. That was before a modern understa...
I don't think it makes sense to talk about willingly consenting to one's death. One can only consent to something from which one has the power to with...
I am not very knowledgeable about visual art, which is why I chose an example from music. Perhaps the reason Mozart does not astonish you is because y...
I suppose where we differ is that whereas I see 'challenging the boundaries' as an important feature of many works of art, I don't regard it as essent...
OK, I was answering the second part of your question, about how I avoid my acceptance of death making me want to end life now. The answer to the first...
I can see the artist's point of view. If he sees the juxtaposition of the additional sculpture as detracting from his art work, it is reasonable for h...
Quantum Mechanics tells us that all position measurements, which includes tallness, are probability distributions rather than exact numbers. Under mos...
Yes. Is hair included in the height measurement? If not why not? If so, does somebody become taller when a puff of wind pushes a single strand of hair...
Yes, it's a question I sometimes ask myself, especially when I am feeling down. For the present, there are both internal and external reasons to go on...
That's not what it's saying. It is saying that the categories typically referred to by words have fuzzy boundaries. The fact that a category has a fuz...
I believe you. You are the best placed of any us at this forum to speak authoritatively about what goes on in your mind. What you are not in any place...
You're right that they both feature notions of individual rebirth. I should have been more clear. I was referring to the ultimate goals - the attainme...
I'm not sure about Socrates, but that seems a fair representation of the beliefs of mainstream Christians about death. But you have not restricted you...
Well I personally feel that a dialogue that tries to make scientific arguments for or against a proposition that cannot be approached by science - suc...
I am not a materialist, but I can't see why the placebo effect should be seen as an argument against materialism. Is there any good reason to believe ...
Negation can mean (at least) two different things. The first applies to a logical sentence and means putting a 'not' in front of it. The second applie...
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