Dr. Bud Martin

Absolute free speech is a total fantasy. It is impossible and virtually nobody would support it when you realise how many laws that actually curb free speech exist which are utterly uncontroversial. If you are against libel, copyright infringement, causing a panic or speech that incites a crime but are against laws which curb the most vile of hate…[Read more]

Belle, anyone can reshape a word to suit their narrative. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as it is clear what they mean by that word, that their definition doesn’t cause pointless confusion (or confusion on purpose) and that the audience is given a convincing reason to take this definition seriously.

When someone tries to use a term,…[Read more]

Pope…that is fine. Could you then define these two kinds of spiritual then please?

@davis – whatever definitions I could give, are never going to encompass all the things that people mean by the word.

Simon, unless you are dealing wit poetry…why would you use a term that is this elusive? How can you achieve much (if anything) if people are talking about something different (or at least vaguely overlapping) when you can use so…[Read more]

So…you want to use “spiritual” without defining it?

So then your definition is deficient and needs some refining.

To be clear here Simon, you are claiming that most people playing in a volleyball league would call their membership “spiritual”?

I’m talking about being an active functioning member of an interdependent cooperative group or team of some kind, whose members are all working towards the same goal.  If my goals are identified with those of my group, then it makes me feel better in all kinds of ways.

How is that different than a volleyball team, a knitting group making a big bl…[Read more]

I am with Unseen on this Simon. I know you have been struggling for some time to come up with a meaningful definition of spiritual in a secular sense (as have many people including Sam Harris). I am yet to really hear a coherent definition that makes it worth holding onto all the baggage of spiritual when alternatives are far better (even the…[Read more]

Robert, I think you need only look at the media narratives in the US before the second Iraq invasion and during it. Dissent against the narrative that there were clearly WMD and that the war was wrong showed journalists on mainstream news sources and most newspapers being sanctioned or paying a heavy price for questioning the existence of those…[Read more]

Enco, I do not understand why you have such a difficult time understanding “top tier sports leagues”. I have gone on to specify and fully explain and this multiple times which you must have ignored multiple times (the four big pro American leagues and football premierships of Europe, playing actual league games). I highly encourage you to pay…[Read more]

All I call for is acknowledging that there are out and proud LGBTQ+ athletes and every other profession and that we as individuals make merit and ability the only criteria for admission and acceptance in sports, business, government, and every other area of human endeavor.

Enco you’re talking to yourself. If you failed to read the last several…[Read more]

And very quickly you cotton on to the fact that people just don’t want to hear about the bad and will do anything to deflect from thinking about things that might have to change. Another cheap ploy to dismiss the message without addressing it.

Since experiencing this all too much, I have tried REALLY hard to recognise that in myself. To not be h…[Read more]