Tom Storm

By the way, it would help if you separated your ideas with paragraphs - it is hard to read long slabs of text. I have no idea what the future holds an...

Back in the 1980's I remember reading letters, with content just like your OP, in environmental and left leaning newspapers. Back then, many thought t...

I'm not entirely sure what point you're making. Hey, I'm just a simple minded skeptic. I often think that many of the stories human tell each other (e...

I hear you; for a lay person this just sounds like a more academic version of, "I'm better than you because I know secrets". Essentially this:

Fair point. As someone whose values and worldview are secular I agree that this is essentially a debate between competing cultures (apologies to CP Sn...

I don't see what fidelity has to do with whatever achievements a 'great' figure can achieve. Take J Krishnamurti, the famous 20th century sage. He was...

:up: Well, I'm a skeptic, so I find notions of justice and goodness pretty nebulous too. It's fairly easy to tell with a partner whether they are ther...

What would be a tangible example of what you have in mind?

What would be useful would be to avoid general abstract statements of affirmation on behalf of the esoteric and for someone to present a specific inst...

That's for sure.

I fixed the problem with some regular special exercises for back problems. No pain for several years. I never take advice from an internet forum. Than...

I tried acupuncture 3 times via well regarded practitioners here (back pain). Useless. I know anecdote isn’t proof but no one I know who has tried it ...

Well, I would say that preferences in ethics and politics are significantly about disposition too. I would not say this to dismiss them, I would say t...

I tend to agree. I hasten to add that while I am a pessimist I am not someone who complains or is constantly negative. I hate that shit. I tend to be ...

Probably it's often a case of thinking: There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise. I have come to cons...

:up:

Agree.

I remember seeing an interview with Gore Vidal (who had an extraordinary life), he said that there were plenty of golden moments over his long and suc...

An excellent response. Yeah, could be. Certainly more plausible than a magic man from where I sit. You are also right to question the supposed inheren...

What you write here has often interested me. I am a person with limited interests and no hobbies. I find most activities boring - from travel to sport...

I'm no expert, but it goes something like this. How does reason guarantee its own truth - this is circular and offers no meaningful explanation. The p...

You're probably right. I'm not a big fan of speculative thinking, so I cheerfully rule myself out of a lot of discussions.

I hear you. For me most things revolve around the ordinary. What practical difference does a belief make? For me deism makes none. Setting aside the s...

:up: My issue with deism is that if all we have is an inferential relationship with some creator with whom we have no relationship and who asks nothin...

Yes, he's really tacking both. Can't find much to disagree with. I think a lot of folk are afraid of pessimism and work hard to deny their own tendenc...

America is the land of irony. But what you say is only ironic if one shares your frame.

Seems to me that many Trump supporters think that the system is utterly corrupt, so for them it takes a brash vulgarian, a maverick outsider like Trum...

Interesting. Do you get deism? I may be missing something but it seems a banal position. "Yes, I think there is a creator, but we have no knowledge of...

The only McCarthy book I have really liked is Suttree - which I adore. I found BM forced and mannered. But I recognize I am an anomaly...

I'm not saying it is abnormal. I just don't think that way. My favorite books are celebrations of language and ideas and are aesthetically pleasing to...

Interesting. I can't think of a single book that has changed me like this. The notion of being a better person or progressing in some way seems very q...

Sounds like a good contender

I suspect it's more than that. It's a sublimation for transcendental categories via management theory, as if 'true management' is an equivalent to phi...

Fair enough. I wonder are there any generally agreed upon key indicters for when a paradigm has shifted? @"Joshs"?

I guess one could say that centuries of philosophy have yet to demonstrate that Platonism and transcendence are true. But I'll concede as faith based ...

That's fine, I am just curious. So you don't see Derrida or Deluze, say, as philosophers. Maybe I should have said post-modernism.

Incidentally - where would you put post-structuralism in all this? Footnotes to Kant?

I've heard variations of this too. A question for you. If God grants intelligibility and autonomous reasoning is possible, doesn't this just allow for...

I find it hard to trust those who haven’t wasted their youth. I wish I could have pissed about forever but I was forced into a real job. I find her sy...

Most big companies do a variation of this which often used to be called a 'values alignment'. Corporate culture and management theory regularly spins ...

I've met a few people who were converted by this approach, so I suspect it works on some and for a while it was a refreshing change from Aquinas' five...

:up: Yes, Malpass is good on this.

These are all fairly standard questions/observations which occur to many at some point in their lives. My question is a respectful, so what? What are ...

Mainly because, as you say, they're ingenious. Quite a stunt to take reason (the skeptic's prized tool against 'superstition') and use the very possib...

:up: In light of recent fashion, I think, 'they/them.' My favourite apologists are the currently burgeoning presuppositionalists, who bypass empiricis...

:up: Thanks. Indeed. I have never understood why a god would ruin his weekend (the crucifixion) and (as per the old quip) sacrifice himself to himself...

I get the point and it interests me. Reality is constructed for us via an intersubjective human experience. This seems to me to be a similar point Nie...

it amuses and surprises me when people think an obedient servant to corporate power, a conservative like Biden is significantly of the left. Just goes...

The problem is how this might play out cannot be separated from how such beliefs may be held. It depends entirely upon what kind of theist or what kin...

Understand. Thanks.