Tom Storm

I can see this. But I'd not be saying that. I'd be asking questions: "Do you accept something as good because you think good wants it? Then how do you...

I can kind of see that, but I would be one to argue about it. I guess it all depends upon how we understand nihilism and whether it comes in various d...

Can you say some more about why?

Interesting. I can see how this might work as a definition of nihilism. But by this account then quite a range of people who believe in transcendent e...

Yes, that’s how I would think about it. However, I would also say I prefer the thoughtful theological thinking of David Bentley Hart over the shallow ...

I'm off up the street to get a curry. I'm in Melbourne, Australia and I've been up since 5am so dinner is soon. I'm thinking samosas, lamb rogan josh,...

I think this is a good point. I wonder where the line is.

It's this: I tend to agree but the implications of this are one can become a snob and eschew certain people and popular culture on the basis that they...

I am a big fan of sausages - German, Polish, Italian... The Germans: Bratwurst, Weisswurst and Knackwurst are my favourites. I also often make hot dog...

I’m not an expert on elitism and I would imagine there are various dimensions to it. I use the word the way critic Robert Hughes used it. I’ll fish ou...

I just mean there is a hierarchy of competence. I think there is a broad intersubjective community which shares such a view.

Just saying Dan Brown is not as good a writer as George Elliot, say, may be seen by many as elitism, rightly or wrongly. And by others as a conservati...

I don't disagree. I am an elitist when it comes to art, literature and movies. I consider that there are better and worse texts - this is, of course, ...

I don't disagree entirely but why do you say failed? Is your assumption that the average person like this should be interested in these matters? Do yo...

:up:

So clearly you are missing the point. I did not disagree (or agree) with the observation. I pointed out that this is exactly the kind of comment eliti...

No. I consider some expressions of religion harmful. Not all. But yes, in relation to your later point I think this has often been true. Nihilism has ...

No, I'm not making my point clear. Sorry. Religion as opiate of the masses, a soperific which has prevented people from taking revolutionary action fo...

Sure, but that's an equivocation - it doesn't change the fact that the religious are often experts at it and I was answering your specific question ab...

:wink:

I think this rather misses the point. I am outlining how certain elitists can employ an elusive criteria of value to exclude certain folk from being s...

As a democratic liberal and (for the most part) a modernist I guess I am cursed to forever find fault. When I was involved with the Theosophical commu...

Not your intention, but that does sound like elitist, status seeking dogma.

I generally hear this argument called an appeal to cynicism. The opposite is also used. People often argue something along the lines of, 'Humans have ...

Wel, religion has been called the opiate of the masses by no less than Marx - meaning that it may effectively stunt people's critical faculties and pr...

Smaller portions: It was a time of less fat cunts.

:up:

I have no idea what any of this means. Sorry. This may well be on me. No one is arguing for absolute skepticism. Is anyone arguing this? This is my ch...

I struggle with these sports of sentences. What does it mean? In general, I don't think humans have the capacity to understand reality beyond certain ...

The only interest I have in Epicurus is how I might adapt some of his ideas for myself. I am naturally inclined to many similar approaches - I am a mi...

Sure. Nothingness is inconceivable by definition. We can't demonstrate that there was ever 'nothing'. Why is there something rather than nothing is on...

I don't see how this follows. We can't make people take up 'better' or choices. I also don't see who is 'giving' anyone else freedom. People make thei...

I can’t speak to perversion and desire. But I am confident that most people don’t know what they want and their active pursuits and ostensible meaning...

Agree. I think the majority of the world’s believers probably hold such a view. In my experience, even those who think their holy book is largely alle...

Yes, you're essentially describing my position on the claims of religion - as someone who prefers empiricism over rationalism or faith, I do tend to p...

Absolutely. I've known many people for whom: 'Nothing at home will fulfill you like your work will.' I think the problem with these sorts of homilies ...

Nicely done. I expect he is still making profitable use of the vacuum in many people's lives, like L Ron Hubbard, Ayn Rand and many others before him....

Hierarchies are necessary because Jordan Peterson has said so. :wink:

Ha! Nice try. I’m not buying into your shtick. This thread’s about science and religion. Cheers.

No. These days many atheists would spell it out as follows. Gnosticism goes to knowledge, atheism goes to belief. I (like many contemporary atheists) ...

I don't think those are scientific arguments as such. They are god of the gaps arguments. The argument is essentially - "How else can we explain x...?...

So you have an interpretation (or one seemingly borrowed form Jordan Peterson). How do you measure the validity of one interpretation against that of ...

Welcome. It would help if you used more paragraphs to separate your ideas for clarity. This argument you put is a standard argument, frequently put by...

He's a little like a cross between a carny barker and Schopenhauer's account of will - blind, striving, instinctive and a teller of whoppers.

Trump recognizes how easily large groups of disaffected people can be galvanized by insinuating paranoiac conspiracies - so he uses it. It's a fairly ...

I think we've all known people like that. Unfortunately that group seems to have swollen to significant proportions. I recently saw a podcast wherein ...

I think the question is vague. For whom are these consequences felt? The sinner or the sinned against? Or does it depend? There are many sinners who b...

Indeed. I personally don't find the term all that useful but you have to start somewhere. Karen Armstrong, a mainstream scholar of religion, famously ...

That's a pretty good definition. It does (to me) slot into a psychological zone as much as, if not more than, a philosophical one. I can also see how ...

I read an astonishing personal account and history of depression written by Andrew Solomon. It's The Noonday Demon - an Atlas of Depression. https://a...