Jim

Simon Paynton wrote:
I’ve named two metaphors which as far as I know are unique to Christianity – the living waters, and the mustard seed.

A concept can be expressed through an infinite amount of metaphors. Perhaps Jesus was the first to express the concept of the pressure to flourish with a mustard seed…but the only unique part of it was the…[Read more]

1. Indeed @Robert . The concept of a lack of something as still somehow a kind of that something…isn’t hard to understand in just about any life example except with religion. Because…you know…religion…so they say…apparently.

1. I have a blue napkin

2. I have a red napkin

3. I have no napkin

1. Wait there a minute. Take it easy. What…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
How do you apply The Golden Rule if you’re a masochist?

Well…you reincarnate yourself as a human…wait until you are 33…set yourself up for a thrashing fest and crucifixion festival…and then offer the same experience to anyone else who asks for it. i guess the consent part is important. You don’t want to reincarnate so…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
I’ve used the metaphor of the living waters and the mustard seed from Jesus, and the rock and the water from Daoism; “love God, and love your neighbour as yourself” from Jesus, “He is not a believer who eats his fill while his neighbour remains hungry by his side.” from the Prophet Mohammed.  I’m sure there are a lot of other…

[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
in doing moral philosophy, my source materials are pretty much evolution and psychology, with some religious knowledge in there as well.

This discourse has all become so painful its like rust-paper sanding my brain. Simon…you’ve defined philosophy now in like ten different ways over the last few days and none of them…[Read more]

As for your philosophy of life @Simon …the moment you mention “wisdom through the ages” I am extremely skeptical. Folk wisdom and advice is usually not philosophy. There is no DNA of morality. Morality is a human construct which relies less on human instinct and way more on the setting. Morality depending on a DNA molecule doesn’t make sense. Do…[Read more]

That’s pretty much what mine says.

“Philosophy of life” is a non-existent thing. It’s one thing to say you have an ethical code or a theory on the meaning of life but “philosophy of life” is almost invariably followed by a series of folk wisdom, badly worked out arguments with lousy premises, badly fitting logic, unclear and inufficient c…[Read more]

Are you guys reading Boghossian??? His book “Fear of knowledge” is my absolute favorite critique of post-modernists, knowledge deniers, cultural relativists, religion truth butchers etc. Even better than “Fashionable Nonsense”. I imagine you’ve seen his videos? His books are even better. He seems to write in an effortless way, brief, brutal and…[Read more]

Bellen wrote:
No because he didn’t explicitly say that he believes in it.

No. Aboslutely not. Logos is a philosophical term. You don’t “believe” in logos. You use it as part of an argument or as a means of explaining something. He uses the term in a totally tortured and incomprehensible way that, as Reg said…does box him in. Because he uses t…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Can one be both an atheist and religious?

Yes, they are not mutually exclusive. There are millions of people who lack a belief in God yet are religious. None of lacking a belief in God stops you from believing in other supernatural irrational nonsense. An enormous amount of people in Asia and many gullible “new age loving” Americans…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
Without all that, it’s a philosophy.

Thats a pretty big insult to philosophers. His babbling rant barely approaches a philosophy. In response to the 10 minute video I would say:

He has me up until the “I don’t know what they mean by God”. A pretty standard igtheist stance. But then he qualifies that as a “our two concepts o…[Read more]

At least the court proposed that standard services must be made available to customers regardless of their sexual orientation (or race, and gender I would assume). As for customizing a cake? They should provide an unburdomsome alternative, like subcontracting out another person to put male figures on the top and write out any text. But to refuse…[Read more]

If by discoveries you mean bullshit that so many people are all too willing to believe…then I’d say yes…most non-critical-thinking and non-skeptical people are extremely likely to accept this “mind-blowing facts you’ll never believe are totally scientificamal and true-like”.

I don’ think most people here will waste their time. Aliens with…[Read more]

@danielw

I agree with you. For me the most disturbing part of it is the ritual touching and physical violence to a family members genitals. It’s abusive.

But the second most disturbing thing is what you say:

It takes choice away from the child, is yet another forced social conformity, and has potential for negative outcomes.

The loss of bodily…[Read more]

Hi Jake,

I’d say a big yes. If a doctor can properly demonstrate why it is necessary and is sincere about it (absolutely no cultural or religious motivations) then it is a lot more acceptable than a Rabbi performing it (no matter how sanitary he tries to make it).

There are a few rare cases of women having part of their genitals removed to avoid…[Read more]

I thought that an analogy would help. Imagine if it was somehow discovered that if we scrape part of our tastebuds off, we will be a little less likely to get brain cancer (already a pretty low risk), will avoid tongue infections (pretty uncommon), will have 10% less likelihood of having the tonsils removed (few people suffer this anyways) and is…[Read more]

Its no surprise that its almost only American doctors talking about the very questionable efficacy of circumcision as they are also more likely to perform they mostly pointless excision. The UTI benefits are tenuous at best, AIDS protection is about avoiding infection with unprotected sex un places of highinfection rate and none of them take into…[Read more]

African Americans are less likely to be wealthy enough to cover tuition as compared to white people. Based on their disadvantage of being qualified for jobs and in general having less education…should it be reasonable to pay an individual African Americans less because their over all demographic is disadvantaged? No. That’s grossly…[Read more]