Tom Storm

Not a criticism, but isn't this a fairly frequently postulated idea? It isn't just our senses that are at issue here but consciousness itself. Hence t...

In the light of your comments, how do you contextualize a phenomenon like, say, climate change and what to do?

“He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something...

:up: Is it possible for any religion to offer nothing but calm and non-judgement?

Dawkin's fight seems to be with fundamentalism not religion. I think he is right on most points even though I find him stentorian and tedious. I'm not...

Probably more the case that I don't see what you see, even with patient explanations.

You're right, TC, but what hope for us all if politics, on whatever side, becomes immune to facts and will only accept and disseminate beliefs of incr...

Nicely done, TC. It does however make me feel quite justified in walking away from any kind of fathomless, inscrutable writings. What possible use can...

As a big budget, mainstream movie for a general audience I think the first film was clever and visually striking. I really enjoyed it at the time. Saw...

What a curious reaction. And here I am thinking this is a site dedicated to making comments on comments.

I'm thinking satisfaction and consolation, not mere survival, but the former may inform the latter.

Indeed. And therein lies the problem. It's experiential not observational.

I don't know. I'm not a philosopher. If you have a stomach ache, I can't observe that but it is still a fact. A person's emotional state is not always...

Ok. I thought I read you say that. No worries.

No idea. I have no religious beliefs. But you do. So I am wondering on what basis you hold these. Or do you run two sets of books?

So how do you determine if religious claims are fact or fiction?

How do we tell good philosophy from bad philosophy? More philosophy?

I can see how philosophy might help us by offering more useful models of considering the world and better ways of managing uncertainty and fear. This ...

So if it can't be observed it isn't a fact? Are you an empiricist?

Well, I never took you for an optimist. This reads like early Woody Allen. And yet despite everything you say there I have known many people who are h...

Maybe. How would we know? It certainly wouldn't be a surprise, or out of character, if he was one. It seems to boil down to whether we think T's a not...

Isn't all of human knowledge derived from human perspectives and experience? So I'm not sure how it can be anything but tentative, constructed and far...

Of course not. Not everyone branded a genius is one, etc...

Ok. It's always an interesting question, but as I say I don't think people in general really care that much. Knowledge is about what is useful to us a...

Really? My point, (which was clear and is really unnecessary in this otherwise interesting discussion) is that if Jesus was not real then Christianity...

You seem to hold a rather naïve view of life. Which is probably why it seems everything always comes down to powerplays for you. Thoughts? Having work...

I hold a different view and don't think that knowledge features prominently in people's lives. I think most people are content to know that which is h...

Perhaps you haven't understood it. Here it is again -

Of course, but I've already stated the important difference, either you are interested in that difference or you are not.

:up:

Not really relevant - what matters about Socrates is a method of doing philosophy. We lose nothing if he turns out to be 'made up'. With Jesus there's...

Well it does seem to be rather similar to what you say it is not, but I agree scripture has had real world impact/repercussions, as have the myths hel...

While I am not a mythicist - do we have good reason to believe that Jesus was actually a living person and that the Gospels contain anything this Yesh...

Agree, flawed personalities are almost always incoherent and inconsistent in my experience.

I have heard this kind of critique often. I agree that personality disorders are over diagnosed and loose and often unhelpful. Narcissism being just o...

Oh, I see. Of course. And I have separated the two. When referring to Trump - given he is an actual person - I was referring to the conventional diagn...

Huh? Please explain.

I suspect narcissism has been insufficiently described and needs to be seen in broader allegorical terms. Hence Martha Nussbaum's observation that lik...

:up: For sure... It seems to me that foundations for paranoid thinking are partly built into some political frameworks.

The era of mass media, News Limited, the internet and some big political scandals like Watergate. Crackpots, the paranoid and the haters have a ready ...

Except it seems with capital punishment and war. And there are a range of other commands that warrant a death sentence. I think the notion thou shalt ...

I think this can be overstated. I have worked a lot with people experiencing homelessness and I am often surprised by the level of virtue - generosity...

Win-win is a common old-school expression used in negotiations, based on the idea that both parties need to feel they got a win or closure will be har...

Everyone loves a rule book. I've personally found this thread helpful. I'll check out Nusbaum. Cheers.

Depends what you mean by 'the world'. Surely it's what we do with that sense data - our thoughts - that creates our reality. You use the term 'make th...

Obedience certainly can function in this way. But obedience itself is an ambiguous term. Consider obedience under the Taliban versus obedience under J...

Yep. I suspect Christian thinking influences these sorts of positions.

There is no rule book to life. I think suicide should be an unstigmatized personal choice. There are many reasons why suicide might be preferable to l...

What's your point? Why not skip the God/Harry Potter stuff, which adds nothing, and just ask: If you had a choice never to have lived at all, knowing ...

I guess because Nietzsche saw music is a pure Dionysian artform - it doesn’t appeal to our rational mind but rather to pure emotions, it is dance, mov...