Tom Storm

I wasn't a fan of The Dark Knight but you're right that it had somewhat more complex characters and dialogue.

Makes sense to me and I feel like it may end up being the way forward.

Ok. Bye.

I understand that. We'll see how this one goes, right?

Which burden is that? A la Sisyphus?

Where are you heading with this? What are you looking for? These threads often descend into trans-phobia and become a conga line of suck-holes bathing...

That's a strange way to frame the argument. That secondary issue is, should fanatics have the right to threaten and kill people whose art/opinion they...

My comment wasn't a reference to the rightness or wrongness of anything. It was a reference to 'old'.

So we disagree on this point and the others are not significant enough to follow up. Irshad Manji is a Muslim. When she makes comments about Islam and...

No problem. Thanks Prostitution is often called 'the world's oldest profession'. When someone points to religions being old as a criterion of value, I...

The point is obvious and please try to communicate without name-calling. Lots of things are old. My point is, so what?

Why do you ask, are you a Catholic?

[reply="Adamski;730291" Ok. Thanks.

Do you have a particular god in mind?

So if true, what does this matter? Any unfortunate ripening seems to be predestined, right?

So is prostitution. :cool:

Not really, they voted Vertigo the best film ever made over Citizen Kane just a few years ago. I personally am not a Hitchcock fan these days, as the ...

Rushdie is probably one of the greatest living fiction prose writers in the English language, whose complex stories of identity and colonization are w...

Some people think that. Faith is the excuse they give for believing in something when they have no good reasons. If you have good reasons to believe s...

Hitchcock of course said anything he thought the critics would dig. Hitchcock, like many directors today, relied shamelessly on the ultimate special e...

This is of critical importance. Reminds me of Jacob Bronowski : -

I did, sorry if I missed that part of it. :pray: Nevertheless, I enjoy pontificating about the notion of atheism as a faith regardless of your clarifi...

Sure, that happens. But the point is you don't risk death or maiming by strangers all around the world for decades. Nor will anyone throw acid in your...

Yep, the cool kids never like optimism or happiness - such responses are viewed as gauche, and don't you know life is grave and dreadful?

Literature. What point are you making?

Huh? Isn't this just a misplaced notion that evangelicals sometimes produce? You might call some expressions of humanism a religion. Atheism, however,...

Belief in god doesn't need religion just as religions don't need a belief in god. For the latter I think of Soviet era communism. The distinction betw...

I remember you making this point and I think it's a useful one.

Hear, hear to this.

And to me Simmons appears to be someone who has, what in common parlance might be called self-esteem problems. He is playing a role of swaggering conf...

Do you have a useful working definition of mysticism? Reflective understanding is a term I would use in work or grounded practice with complex individ...

Sure, it's shorthand, I'm thinking of the apophatic traditions in theology as a for instance. So you operate via a presupposition that non-mysticism i...

Examples?

Interesting. To me the first one seems like barely suppressed or symbolic violence and is striking but not beautiful, especially linked with Rossini's...

Perhaps a superfluous question given the ineffable nature of the subject matter, but what would you say is an example of a useful contribution mystici...

Independent exploration is criticism to a theocracy. Don't forget also that Rushdie is viewed as an apostate which in itself calls for the death penal...

But all is not what it seems. The person who appears to have the 'biggest' ego and the most assertive sense of self may well be a fragile individual, ...

I'm more about the truth rather than The Truth.

Thank you. People tend to get fixated by terminology. Generally agnosticism goes to knowledge and atheism goes to belief. I would consider myself an a...

Gore Vidal, although not a philosopher, springs to mind. :wink: Nice. I think this is well put and interesting point. I wonder what a Foucauldian ripo...

Indeed. :up: Pinker defines reason as the use of logic to attain a goal. Which, if you accept this, supports Nazism as nicely as it does Liberalism. M...

I see your point. It becomes further mystification.

Certainly in pop-culture but most people I know admire Islam's past cultural history and its capacity for pluralism and diversity. There's a great boo...

I thought your question was reasonable and apropos given what has happened. And if this claim is true: - - then we have a religion with some considera...

Thanks for your answers to my earlier question. This one strikes me as somewhat tendentious. To me this position - which I generally share - seems to ...

What distinction do you make between truth and values and do you consider it preferable (or even possible) for one's values to be mostly determined by...

I think so. I am a skeptic. I don't generally say this, however.

Food for thought. Thanks.

Skeptics will often say things like they want to believe as many truth things and as few false things as possible. Easier said than done. Whatever its...

Interesting. I personally don't see how the word 'absolute' placed in front of some words does anything useful. It's often a way of rhetorically exagg...