Tom Storm

Yes, I think so. Category mistakes are at the heart of so many fallacious beliefs. I spoke to an observant Jewish man once who told me he hated god an...

I think you're insightful. As someone who works in the general area of addiction and mental ill health I would personally choose different wording. I ...

Yes, I think the idea of god/s is/are incoherent too. What do we do with these stories? The literalist accounts (myths) are easily junked, but the sop...

:up:

Hey, I took offence to that and I'm Dutch...

In many respects this is what makes me celebrate life even more. It's a brief flickering light in the infinite darkness, then it isn't. How marvelous ...

Wasn't there a bit of a flame war here about this definition of being last year?

I agree with this last part. I think of philosophy as a diversity of approaches for not taking anything for granted.

Well, they are good Christian soldiers in the war against humanism, which like Communism seeks world domination...

I quite like miniature dissertations. Thanks.

Fair enough, but I like my swords double edged...

At some level we might say this positon is also a kind of philosophical shoulder shrug.

Nice Adorno quote. I've been looking for quotes expressing precisely this sentiment. In a somewhat cruder form, this kind of thinking informs my athei...

I think this is an important point. I'm assuming from this that you don't think there are moral or aesthetic truths?

That's true. I think Plantinga was inspired by Kant's transcendental arguments.

To be honest this has been my default, without the benefit of any philosophy. I'm curious these days to understand the idealist model better so I can ...

This is a fascinating discussion and not a new one for TPF. As a low-rent pragmatist, I dissolve the problem in a whole different way - by not giving ...

Humans are meaning making animals. I would include philosophy and science in the story telling realm. I don't think being the passive recipient of a d...

Why not? At the very least it fits into political philosophy and the intersection between dominant culture, colonisation, inclusion and reconciliation...

Cool, I'll give it a look. Morality 'in the world'; was one of my initial reasons for joining this place.

Much more elegantly expressed than my attempt at pretty much the same point.

Thanks. This is a very lucid and clear account of your position. Not what I thought you were going to say. Yes, this I get and I guess phenomenology p...

The people I know who defend methodological naturalism may sometimes assume this but they don't generally argue or defend this point should it be iden...

Fair enough. Do you have sympathy for a mind-at-large/universal mind model? I understand what you are saying but I con't quite conceptualise this in a...

They have black performers?

It was a joke. :wink: But it interesting to note that the laugh-track was an American invention to help audiences know when something was funny. This ...

Nice. In my life I have never assumed that people have access to freedom in any radical sense. Some people certainly have more choices and some have a...

That's why you people are the experts.

It's true, by and large your people have made the entertainment industry worth something. It's a small price to pay for the smiles on all those Calvin...

That's bonzer, Cobber.

I hear you. Sometimes where we are being deliberate we are actually unconscious of what it is that is informing our choices. We can be deliberate and ...

Did I disagree? That's not my intention. Depends on what you count as habit. An addiction is a kind of habit. I work in the area of addiction and ment...

In my work I've spent a lot of time in palliative care and end of life services. It's interesting that many religious people I've seen derive no comfo...

I think this is largely accurate. I think this is nice line and it resonates with me. This is a theme which occurred to me around the time I was leavi...

Nice. I'll pay that.

Remember most Americans don't really have a sense of humour (unless they are Jewish) that's why they need a laugh track for their dreadful sitcoms. :w...

I did. I'm not in a position to assess any of this but as you know, the changing nature of science is how science is meant to work, even if it ends up...

RIP

Sure. I'm not wedded to it, it's just a figure of speech, Didn't mean 'made' to be literal. Agree. That's kind of my perspective too. I suspect it mak...

That seems right. Although are there not forms of idealism that hold that everything you see is real, it just isn't what you think - it isn't material...

Fair point.

Thank you. It helps to see this being applied to a problem. Interesting. It does seem as if this particular model is aligned to a secular humanist wor...

So it sounds like this system is only going to have some acceptance amongst secular, not religious people. Are you aware of Christians or Muslims who ...

:lol:

Agree. And Roger Penrose. My point was idealism has not been constantly mainstream in the West since the Greeks - it had fashions, especially the Germ...

Sure, by blip I wasn't talking about potential future dominant world views.

I enjoy reading your perspective. We may disagree about some things, but I'm no philosopher and I'm here primarily to understand more about world view...

Yes, well put. I agree with you. I find idealism fascinating and am not running a campaign against it. I might be an atheist, but I am not committed t...

Ok, I'm not really convinced - we've also had 2000 years of Christianity without much commitment to the Gospels or social justice and the creation of ...

Perhaps I don't understand the crux what you are trying to articulate. All I am picking up so far is the notion that morality can be understood as an ...