Tom Storm

Review https://secularbuddhistnetwork.org/a-review-of-evan-thompsons-why-i-am-not-a-buddhist/

I've read some of his writing and I have seen Thomson lecturing on YouTube. He has a nice manner. The quote about Buddhist modernism is a killer. I fe...

Thanks.

No worries - these are all good questions. And yes, I have used this very argument about art (I think we both did on here somewhere...)

A big if. Janus we just disagree on this. No point in going on. Take care.

It's not about me or you Janus I would have thought. People are free to call themselves philosophers without ever having read or undertaken any actual...

Who knows? But it's more than just an ethical system. I follow almost all Christian moral values - but I do not consider myself Christian - perhaps cu...

I can't get there.

I think that's right too. What do you think of contemporary Wester secular Buddhism in its various expressions? This is more or less the question that...

Interesting, thanks. So often people are fixated by identifying a practice in its purity or as originally intended. Hence pietist movements like Hasid...

Yes, I've been struck by this aspect of modern secular Buddhism too. Do you consider what Wright et al practice to be Buddhism or is it simply secular...

I understand your argument and it has merit. Humans see red so it matters almost nothing that a bee sees something different. Why would it not - it ha...

Red.

I feel like having this put on a T-shirt and sending it out to Christian apologists of the motherfuckin' presuppositional variety.

I think this is a good summary. What the bee is experiencing is of an entirely different nature to what the human experiences. Such a distinction is s...

I'm a little puzzled by the term faith in humanity. Does this mean a trust in people to do the right thing (however this looks)? I don't generally hav...

Sounds like a very challenging situation. Hard to comment on specifics unless one knows the ins and outs. I've worked in the area of mental health for...

Why? Couldn't it just as well be the other way around? How does one even understand 'make the world a better place?' In what sense 'better'? This same...

Pretty sure we are socialised into Western musical taste. Seems likely to me that the music we know would just be a series of sounds - wails, booms, t...

That much is clear. But we can find exactly the same kind of 'preachy' subjective speculative views from Hindus and Islamic believers. Although their ...

Here is Australia in some sectors there are people that have reduced their hours per week. Working 25 to 30 hours a week is common enough and is encou...

Fair question. I don't think it is the Protestant Work Ethic that holds this in place so much as capitalism and faith of free market economics - every...

I did understand this and you are right to highlight this as a difference.

Are you being too concrete with his one liner? I'd say Carlin is an acute observer of how skepticism is used by people. They accept some claims (witho...

Of course, I have met many Christian skeptics. Most people use skepticism in daily life, it's just that they are selective (and often inconsistent ) i...

Nicely put and I think that's right.

Crossing the floor is hard to do. I see another independent candidate in the making.

No, the man's a national hero and a savior of.... some shit.

I don't think there is a prejudice going that can't reemerge if the situation is right. But Christ, I wish you were right.

Yes. And then there's the fact that all that fear of God and Jesus worship in the Land of Freedom helps to lubricate the process for them.

No question. Progress exists. So does regress...

I'm not sure what a genuine change of mind really amounts to. I have some time for Quentin Crisp who knew a thing or two about prejudice and stigma. H...

Yes. People I have known have called this meditation.

I didn't mention Richard Gere... :gasp: When I say 'numinous' I simply mean people's sense of mystery, awe or majesty when out in nature, say, or list...

I have no doubt of this. And I've noticed that for many Westerns who are rebelling against the religious culture of their parents and grandparents, Ea...

I think this is true but does it not also remain that any account of anything becomes an interpretation? So much more ironic when people are not aware...

Thanks James I just got the question. Yes. :up:

I don't understand what you just wrote.

I think they simply mean that human made is not something that occurs in nature, like rocks or trees and is, by contrast, 'manufactured' and the proce...

It's been an impressive and amusing discussion. Sometimes like a colonoscopy of the mind but I think I have retained my girlish enthusiasm. I just wis...

I can see that.

Indeed. If we believe in an omniscient God (which I do not) would it not be the case that human understanding of good and evil is severely limited and...

It would help me to understand your thinking if you used fully formed sentences and appropriate punctuation. I think most of what you say here sounds ...

Epoché?

That's my point. It can't be done. Your whole project is predicated on a critique of people's current worldview and values. This is bound to generate ...

I can't see this working. The so called scientific method is problematic even to philosophers of science. This is a worldview - you affirming its valu...

Thank you. I don't quite get what this more might be either.

I've learned that it is possible to fill 23 pages about one not very interesting word. I'm not sure it makes philosophy look particularly effective or...

You wouldn't be the first person to recommend a radical program of critical thinking amongst their fellow creatures. Privileging a methodology for cor...

Not sure this illustrates what form intuition takes in Husserl's phenomenology which distinguishes it from conventional intuition.