Tom Storm

It's pretty much a form of Christianity. You seem to be intent on pushing yourself to be super good and significant in the world. Is this a bit grandi...

That sounds like a useful position to be in. Thanks.

Sure. Well, those feelings, as you put it, don’t come out of nowhere. We are a social species who are raised to believe in the common good and right a...

I can certainly see how this works. What percentage of Americans do you think are sincere God believers? It's pretty low here in Australia and most Au...

I’m familiar with the work of most of those writers. Kastrup is the most engaging in person and on his blog though his books are a bit dense and convo...

Yes, that’s an interesting point. If you take this material seriously, it’s not easy to find people who are disciplined or rigorous about it. It’s bee...

I think the thread has shown a diverse range of responses to the OP, so I’m pleased. But these things tend to take on a life of their own, as you've s...

Yes, I think these are artists who transcend the genre. Most music lovers seem to like them, even if they dislike Country. I certainly enjoy some John...

Sounds like you have a lot of insight. Indeed.

I've worked with many dozens of people experiencing chronic depression over the years. While everyone is different, it's clear that those who ignore t...

Well thanks, wasn’t sure I was going in the right direction.

Perhaps. I guess it would depend. Many of my leftist friends dislike woke culture just as much as my conservative friends do, so perhaps they would bo...

Interesting. I avoid bread, rock music, Russian novels, and sport. I've never been able to engage with them, despite valiant experimentation. It's dis...

Morality/ethics doesn't strike me as a particularly exciting area. For now I see all our ideas of right and wrong as contingent; historical, cultural,...

Here's AI on the subject: For Kant, disinterestedness means that when we judge something as beautiful, our appreciation is free from personal desires,...

Most of my interests are untheorised. This is simply a personal disposition. :wink: So if you had to summarise what disinterest is in relation to art,...

I tend to think of disinterested interest as untheorised interest, a term I've often used. Untheorised means responding to something without framework...

I'm reminded of the cliché, that a change is as good as a holiday.

Thank you

Recommendations for how to do this?

:up: What do you mean by 'perceives them differently'? There are people I know who I can't label politically, it's impossible to categorise them since...

No, that's a common error. Saying “relativism is self-defeating” only works if you ignore how relativists actually define truth. Relativism doesn’t cl...

Personally I don't often go to books for anything important. But that's me.

I was gloomy and somewhat of a morose pessimist from the age of 16 to around 25. I think it lifted when I started to work to help others. I suspect it...

[ I hear you. We can often do amazing things when young. I used to read, write, work and party. Sometimes all at the same time. Philosophy, as such, n...

I think this is an ideal time (in the West) to be a thinker, be informed, and be well-read, easier to achieve now than ever before, I would have thoug...

I don’t think anyone takes Dawkins seriously as a philosopher, and many atheists I know view him with dismay, the way many Christians look upon grubby...

Sounds like you have a healthy and useful approach. I have respect for the Catholic tradition and a couple of friends who are members of the Catholic ...

You write well, Bill. Most naturalists are not scientistic in outlook, and many are quite open to religious perspectives. Physicalists who embrace met...

Sounds like an argument straight from David Bentley Hart, right down to the wording. I quite like his work and mention it here sometimes. I say “Gods,...

Yes, I like Susan Haack.

I'd say we don't know enough to make any firm pronouncements: we have limitations. From an epistemological perspective, what if idealism is accurate? ...

Isn't t that a false dilemma fallacy? How did you rule out other possibilities? I’m not convinced this is accurate. I think there are philosophers, su...

I'm no expert on logic, but I think you’re referring here to induction and a “law” of nature rather than a logical principle. This is an inductive inf...

I'm an atheist, so for me there'd need to be a good reason for assuming gods before giving them a series of characteristics. Or one god. Whatever the ...

"Laws" is used as a metaphor, many people just call them the principles of logic.

This is an equivocation of the word law. In the case of natural law, law is a metaphor rather than an actual law implying a lawgiver, like traffic law...

Well, no, I think it’s rather more than that. In the end, any debate about God isn’t simply theism versus atheism. It’s about what we hold to be true....

I’m not an idealist, and I’m not claiming that nothing exists. My point is that human knowledge is contingent, constructed through language, culture, ...

Well, it’s delightful when you consider that atheists often claim reason helps us reject theism, and here is a theistic argument flipping this around ...

Pretty much the same thing; I guess it would describe someone whose political views or affiliations shift across issues, rather than consistently alig...

Yes, disbelief is a denial of existence, perhaps put more crudely than someone like David Bentley Hart might phrase it. He would see it as the perform...

Thank you. Cool. We may check this out down the track...

That seems sound, based on the smattering I know about it. The 'Ground of Being' strikes me as an amorphous and unhelpful model, but perhaps it makes ...

Scholars think it actually came there via Zoroastrianism and its supercharged dualism. Binary thinking is simplistic and convenient, so it's no surpri...

I agree we see and use patterns. I’m mildly curious about their origin and the process that makes them so useful to us. But I agree what is it probabl...

Cool. I can get behind that. The how interests me. Thinking along this line kind of led me to writing - But this is more properly your area of experti...

I don't think this is all that challenging. I'd prefer to say things are useful, not true or false. This is my thesis. I'm not claiming to be inerrant...

I’m not sure it is, unless I’m missing something. I identify as conservative or progressive depending on the issue, it’s not a neat either-or situatio...

No. I'm speaking of a 'world' to which we ascribe order by virtue of all the factors I've described several times. My basic (and speculative) thesis i...