Tom Storm

It was either Spinoza or Robert A. Heinlein.

If you feel like you can't contribute it may be (as you already suspect) because you lack knowledge and critical reading. Anyone can have an opinion, ...

Interesting, Baker. I am afraid that wisdom may be as good as life gets... I prefer your fear as it is more straight forward and it would mean I can s...

I don't think there's a substantive difference between egotists and narcissists. A narcissistic personality disorder is a continuum and comes in mild ...

Sure. My experience suggests that most 'activists', right or left are theatrical and certainly don't really want to achieve anything, they just want t...

English speaking countries.

These are the kinds of questions that require specific instances to be meaningfully explored, so it would help if you could provide an example of some...

Yep- in a world that likes to privilege the folk wisdom of 'win/win' this is often an unwelcome truth.

Yep - that's pretty much my argument too.

Sensible ideas however: I think there's room for a lot of acrimony in attempting to clarify points 1, 2 and 3. Just the process of working to summariz...

:clap:

:up:

The New Testament doesn't seem especially unclear on this. Are you saying it is hard to understand what Jesus recommends? If you are saying it is diff...

A speculative thinker who is almost unreadable and readily misinterpreted is unlikely to help. How about one of the numerous physicists writing on the...

Hmm - so this is not what I thought. Simply stated, I found you too dogmatic - on two words particularly. But maybe you are a dogmatic person.

Poetic nonsense from where I sit and I started an entire thread on this here. Of course this section of FN is also an obsession of Jordan B Peterson's...

Not really surprising and old news. The schism between the isms is a reoccurring problem with competing fundamentalists. :up:

I agree. I was referring to how certain laypeople use physics as an empty vase in which to arrange the flowers of speculative bullshit...

Yes, and boy does it play around with the construction work. Often it isn't even up to code...

So it seems is theoretical physics.

Not sure that counts but thanks for being grandiose. :razz: Laat je niet gek maken.

I've had many OBE's (up above the house and through tree tops) and I've also floated through a dark tunnel into the light after sniffing nitrous oxide...

Unless we are elite physicists we have no idea how to even conceive of these matters. Any wonder that literature/religion/myth/philosophy are so attra...

I am an atheist but I grew up in the Christian Baptist tradition which also held that the Bible is largely allegorical. Fundamentalism and literal int...

You're mistaken. Sure, some Christians think the story book is factual. But many also see the New Testament as allegorical. My local Catholic Priest s...

At the temple of Melanoma Trismegistus... :death:

I'm not sure I understand what your argument is. Sounds like you're just having fun with language. That's fine. I do that too. I have nothing to add t...

I often work closely with funeral directors, so my thoughts are based on lived experience. But I'm in Australia which has a somewhat more secular cult...

Spirituality is more nuanced and generally refers to people's connection to place, people, culture or, if necessary, their idea of higher consciousnes...

I would call that a celebration. Religion is a word so poisoned by its associations that it may be better not to use it. In Australia we often call fo...

Of course we don't really know what Jesus/Yeshua might have said, or if he was an actual person. And not even Christian scholars claim to know who wro...

So I have known Christians and Buddhists who were both obsessed with fool's gold. In the former, salvation in the latter, nirvana/enlightenment. Both ...

I think it was William Morris who made the point that no pattern should exist without a meaning. It seems to me that patterns have significance if the...

Isn't there also, 'What the motherfuck'n Christ is that!?' Australians have started to use the term here in recent years probably thanks to the endles...

Islam was successful in the past because it celebrated diversity and pluralism. It practiced religious tolerance. The fundamentalist groups you are ta...

Hypothetical. Let's say you know Jews are hiding from the Nazi's in an attic of the home next door to you. An SS officer asks you if you know if any J...

In 50 years I haven't had that experience myself, but I have occasionally observed the odd coincidence. I see no good reason to make any more of it. I...

Oops typo. Yes, I did mean asceticism. The former would be the spiritual wisdom of Oscar Wilde.

Is it not that case that in most traditions, wisdom privileges aestheticism?

Since the Reagan years? :joke:

Nice summary.

The lie didn't become truth. The liar is not giving an account of a fact - the situation in the lie just happens to coincidentally match the facts ove...

Yes, I've often wondered about that. As you've suggested, how one goes about answering this can lead directly to opposed forms of metaphysics and espe...

Nice. :clap:

Water always finds the lowest level with extraordinary efficiency. Does this mean water has a will and is impelled to do so? No. Physics. We tend to u...

It's pretty clear that many people assume expertise in a subject when they have only read a book on it or done a short course. Many of us do have to m...

Yes - from a phenomenological perspective I guess we could say we are locked in...

Good point. Of course we may be heading into metaphysics when we make the claim that all there is is physicalism. Isn't this a metaphysical position? ...

Yes, we can all be charitable. I believe it is intrinsic to human behaviour. It's certainly a requirement of most religious systems. I can't foresee a...

Was I that unclear? My point was how is an ordinary person expected to tell the difference between bullshit and acuity? Much of the time I can't even ...