Tom Storm

Well argued.

I don't want to die today or any day soon. But if it happens, I am ready. My affairs are in order. My death won't matter in the wider context of life ...

Certainly. Or it's part of your job. Me too.

I'm not so sure of this. In the suicide interventions I have conducted, many are theists. While they fear god's judgment in the afterlife, they still ...

As a sideline, I worked as a contributor and feature writer for almost 20 years and I ghost wrote speeches and papers for various folk. I watched news...

Does this principle apply to this statement? :wink:

Thanks for the background. I thought as much. You're definitely interesting, even if we disagree about many things. I appreciate your generally good n...

I’ve not met many atheists who would argue this. How would we know? Atheism is as botched and bungled as any religion in its range of strident and mod...

No. Of course journalism proper is hard to find these days, obscured as it is by all the corporate shills and entertainers. But some pretty serious co...

Do you consider him a journalist or a document dumper, with Wikileaks a mail box?

So you would have 'don't care' mapped to unknown?

:up:

I don't have a problem with suicide. If people experince life as so miserable that they would prefer to die (and this can come about through mental il...

As someone with actual training in philosophy, what do you make of arguments?

That's irrelevant. The point is that Marxism has had way more power than the Taliban. The point is that this - - might have been done by any number of...

We are talking about god and math. Religion is politics. Forget it. To call religion effective is an equivocation fallacy. It's not the same kind of d...

Not so. We accept science and math because they work pragmatically, subject to contingent factors like communities of practice, culture and language. ...

From American Atheists website: It's important to understand how people use words. I would call myself an agnostic atheist - A fairly common category ...

Omniscience? Straw man, there. As an atheist I put it: I do not belive the proposition that gods exist. I have heard no good reason to accept it and t...

Can you demonstrate that god exists or not? We can demonstrate that math exists and works. Nicely put. But unconvincing. The quesion we are addressing...

The difference is it misses a key factor. Demonstration of effectiveness. We have good reasons to accept math and the axioms because we can demonstrat...

That doesn't address my points. Equivocation. Have another look.

Is this an example of faith? We know numbers work and can demonstrate their efficacy on demand. No one can do this with gods. I wonder if this is an e...

I have no belief in a 'sky wizard' or 'magic man'. My thinking about gods hasn't changed much since I was around 8. The idea simply doesn't resonate i...

Not god necessarily. Here's what a currently limited AI thinks (ChatGPT)

I think it may also be down to most people not being all that interested in this issue and not having any theorized frameworks with which to understan...

I was brought up in the Baptist tradition. But I was never able to belive in gods, even as a child. You either believe or you don't. For me the idea o...

Yep, that's reasonable.

For you perhaps. I could never get enough and almost always enjoyed it. Even the stumbling, falling down parts. Indeed. There are several well underst...

I thought so. I wonder why you think this way? Care to elaborate?

Yes, and more broadly the same is true for many people who identify with 'New Age' spirituality and Eastern religious ideas - even those who follow th...

You asked this from the beginning and it seems to me this has been answered. Is it that you don't agree or do you not like the answer? And as I've sai...

:up:

In countries with more reflective governments (Holland, for instance) drugs are decriminalized. I don't really care what government's say. Not that lo...

quote="Shawn;911227"]Now, it might seem perplexing that a person seeks out a high or mind alteration by the administration of already mentioned substa...

That's good. I was going to say something similar about happiness being free of stress and anxiety (pain?). I wonder if we sometimes confuse happiness...

I think that goes without saying. My curiosity is with the notion that there is a 'reality' out there to be discovered and described - when it seems t...

I can only imagine that it might be argued that the distinction between empirical questions and philosophical questions may not be as certain as our m...

Never have. In people I tend to associate goodness with behaviour.

Nicely put and helpful. Especially this : It's interesting to me that humans make sense of the world with narratives and models which may often be use...

I think this is ultimately why I am an atheist and you are some type of 'believer'. I think what we call reality (human thought and perspectives) are ...

:up:

I hope Mouseart composes more than 2 symphonies in a minor key. I hate it when hamsters pander to the market with jolly, emotionally shallow compositi...

. I've always felt this point needs sharpening. Why is it that some people seem to need substance use as a substitute for all other things? In talking...

I wonder if that's what he thought or if he was paraphrasing conventional AoD discourse. My background is in counselling and support for people with a...

I'm not sure what your question is. Can you clarify what you mean here? Are you talking about the future of human beings per say, or is there somethin...

I'd probably refuse a last meal.

I think it's one of those subjects if you have to ask, it may not be possible to readily explain. Obviously drugs are fun. They are enjoyable. They of...

Huh?

I rate Kristofferson over Plato. When it comes to complex ideas, I struggle with anything that isn't in plain English. :up: