Tom Storm

Unanswerable - those questions are stilted and already loaded with assumptions.

Yes. I think it happens a lot, actually.

Certainly not an uncommon assertion. Would you class secular humanism as foundational?

I always understood that he arrived at this through Gnosticism not Kant. Personally I always understood intuitive knowledge to be faith dressed up in ...

Agree.

Exactly, and I would imagine that in your case (and this is not a criticism) you would locate the source of transcendental values in idealism?

This is like a William Lane Craig rhetorical flourish, huh? I think societies have 'agreed' it is wrong because in most cultures it is held that actio...

Hey Nick - I was responding to the first part of this and was perhaps a little loose in the OP quote I used.

I think it adds Ayn Rand.

I think that's because under Scotty from Marketing, morality has been suspended in Oz.

Are you asking will we recognise behaviour traits without reference to the person's actions or behaviour? Personally I don't subscribe to 'evil' as an...

Generally only theists and idealists believe that morality is absolute - because for them god/s or the Logos are foundational sources of all that is g...

Fuck yeah! Not being in Treblinka is also quite helpful....

It's a bit of a cliché I'm afraid - George Orwell, Gore Vidal and Pauline Kael (film essays), Susan Sontag, PL Travers, Clive James, Martin Amis, Andr...

Interesting - care to explain why those books? Not trying to be a dick, but they seem to reflect a very deliberate and mid century, Jordan B Peterson ...

Can there be players without a Wittgenstein?

Ok. In that case you left out: Most famous Australians are not actually Australian - Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Olivia Newton John, Guy P...

Everything is funny to someone. What do you mean by life?

That might be true, but can you provide evidence for this claim, or is it just a cheap smear you are using because you resent atheism? Please advise.....

How would I know? I can't speak for others, but maybe you're on track with some of these, hey? Whys, as any child soon learns ends up in an infinite r...

I'd say honest questions don't read like this - Seem like jibes... You keep raising this: As I keep saying, this was answered and they were specific q...

The world is ludicrous. What is it about Australia that is totally so?

Don't know it. Is it funny?

That's true, but I don't think I would want to be stuck in an eternal loop validating the alleged mirth of The King of Queens... In this instance, if ...

TV laugh tracks were recorded decades ago. It is understood that most of the people laughing in those recordings are dead. Orson Welles once described...

It's always opinion, even when it is theistic. That's the point. It's always going to be an interpretation of what someone thinks a god wants or what ...

If you can't work it out from what I wrote I'm not going to spend more time on it. And I think @"Wayfarer" may be right, your sarcasm and jibes are no...

Fuck the dinosaurs - ugly mothers... look at the godawful mess this verkakte deity made of human beings - all those blatant design flaws and diseases....

It wasn't intended as a criticism of anyone. :wink: I'm easily distracted and have participated joyfully here in my own hobbyhorses... I must confess ...

It's not a terrible question, but there are limitations to how one might assess this. For instance, to what extent is a nation in 1720 the same nation...

Inaccurate, much of what we all write here can be found on google as you well know. Ok, I take it this has hit a nerve of some kind. Let's forget it.

How does google assist with this question? My question is can you think of an example of satire that is engaging with serious philosophical thinking? ...

Can you give me an example? The sad clown is a cliché but having met some comedy writers and performers over the decades, I'd have to say that most we...

People are often snooty about Dawkins (even in humanist circles), nevertheless I've found that atheists I have met over the years were once Catholics ...

Indeed. I think this is a good summary of the ongoing debate here. And for all our rehashing of this theme I'm not sure we've really explored it in de...

I'm not sure what this is about, but isn't a type of freeloading built into the human experience in as much as we benefit from the work/ideas/civiliza...

:up:

Satire is highbrow populism. Humor, like sex, is idiosyncratic and people are turned on or repelled by different things. I generally dislike and avoid...

The problem with the word god is that it is used with cavalier imprecision and, as a concept, often becomes blurry as believers realize how problemati...

I think the update is simulation theory.

Ha! :wink: Not a strawman if you were arguing for divine command theory which is why I wrote this. Since you aren't, I can now say it doesn't apply to...

What makes you think god/s are against rape (have you read the Old Testament/Tanakh)? What makes you think a god's moral positions are useful, if they...

:up:

As a criterion of value, be it personal or social. I'm not the only person who has pointed to the horror that is nature and felt a repugnance for some...

:up:

Yes, I made that point earlier - that this is as close to 'objective' as we can get in my view. Why flourishing? I've already said that this is a pres...

Digression - Even if we were to accept a law from a higher power as theoretically possible, how would we demonstrate what that law is and what that hi...

Who are you, Matt Dillahunty? See answer above.

Yep, this is a frequently made argument (as you know) and there are probably just two responses. 1) Yes, you're right. There is nothing objective. Sor...