Interesting idea. Christianity is an easy target in its limited literalist formulations. I have a soft spot for Christianity and unlike Nietzsche and ...
Of course around here it is usually - "I say there is an objective reality." Everyone says, "What are you an idiot?" I think people accept their presu...
The other, somewhat more interesting question from my perspective is, how is your life different if you doubt fundamental first principles? For the pe...
Politicians say 'no comment' because their default setting (and their job) is never to give the game away. Someone is always looking to nail a politic...
No comment is best not read into as it contains a universe of potential meanings - including: 'Fuck you!', 'I don't know', 'I don't feel like sharing ...
Thanks for that response. My problem is that people feel or experience all manner of things, from the risen Christ to self transcendence and connectio...
You're not repeating, you're clarifying. I would argue that science does have a privileged position - that's one area we differ. Can you describe thes...
You're right, I expressed this poorly. I have no problem with meditation and focused self-awareness and contemplation. Some atheist materialists pract...
Fifty is pretty young to be thinking like this, even with some modest health issues. It strikes me that 10 years from now is a pretty safe and distant...
Are you even qualified to venture an opinion on this subject - what science qualification do you have? Is there one robust documented example of anyth...
If that's what you think you either haven't read me or are not able to understand. You sound like a Christian apologist except with Deepak Chopra inst...
Neither of those quotes mean much to me and they seem to reflect personalities rather than shed any insights on the nominal subject. Feynman seems to ...
Depends on why. Caucasian guy I knew was attracted to Asian women. Unpacked it with him and the following reason was provided. "They are more likely n...
I am not a philosopher. I practice critical thinking with a philosophical bent. I'm not into labels. I have spelled out what I consider to be reliable...
GMBA - nice work. I would say the same. FL may be an atheist but the trajectory of FL's ideas are word for word apologist-protesting-the-atheist-world...
Thank you, I thought you might have more detail. But this is fine for now. I have no reason to accept that there is supreme consciousness - this needs...
You have given me no useful information about method or experiment or even what it is that is being tested. Just claims. By the way, ancient people wo...
I'm comfortable with saying materialism is the natural world or physicalism. I'm also comfortable with saying reason works as the most reliable tool w...
I only raise souls or ghosts because they often come up, and these ideas can stand in as place holders for pretty much any claim of access to a differ...
Yes, I disagree but I certainly understand the thinking and have often heard it before. For starters no one has established what a 'God-thing' even is...
That seems unverifiable. And Scientologists, say, would argue the same point. What method do we use to determine which occult system is true? If someo...
I don't know. Good questions. I do think an element of pragmatism ( a presupposition, if you like) is involved in as much as none of us can prove that...
There is no end of games we can play with language and ideas. I can't, for instance refute the problem of hard solipsism. The question for me is this:...
Yes, this is a robust and familiar argument against materialism. Bertrand Russell described this one well decades ago in the History of Western Philos...
One last thing. In the 1980's I knew some people from South Africa. I was against apartheid. They were not. They were devout church going Christians. ...
When they contradict, perhaps. But hey, I am methodological naturalist as I have said. Not a philosophical naturalist - that would also require eviden...
Reflection is a good thing. I think there's an easy distinction to make - you comment on the ideas not the person's character. In this case you could ...
I doubt there is any evidence for what you say, but that said, faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good rea...
Sure. But as I said 'where they happen' coming down on people too hard is not possible if they are homophobic, transphobic, racist and misogynist as s...
Many religious people (Christians especially) don't accept the big bang. Big bang cosmology can be described to fit any version of God and visa versa....
You can only reject it if you are a mystic or deist wherein God is imprecise and ill defined. Where there are specific faith traditions/scriptures tha...
Appreciate this perspective, thanks. Yep, we may be stuck here in the badlands forever. As you would no doubt expect from me, I would say texts are no...
I understand the folk who said God had human emotions - rage, jealousy compassion also said God was morally perfect. But that was the Bible and Koran....
I was unclear - I agree with you. My point was that believers keep making this old argument from personal experience . The problem with it is we may k...
The reason I said who are you is presumably you might have felt not part of 'we'. You were speaking for others, perhaps 'enlightened' parties. I think...
180 Proof is a hard act to follow and he provides a good roadmap of approaches. I would add media driven images of beauty and attractiveness as a cont...
Lewontin is just one of many people who have proposed this kind of response and I think I responded to it fine. This is a disingenuous line of reasoni...
Early or late Wittgenstein? You may be right. I would like to hear a solid academic account of this. We know the axioms are tautologies. They are also...
We are having a debate about complex and personal things. Look out someone might get hurt! That's how it works and I was only responding to something ...
T Clark - have some respect and do not resort to name calling. If you think what I said about science destroying the fantasy life of many people isn't...
When I said no consciousness without a brain I was not referring to simple celled creatures which may or may not have awareness or brains. Given I bel...
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