TheEncogitationer

Simon,

It may or may not be a godawful book, but I think it’s an interesting question to ask what it’s like for some totally different organism to experience the world.

An interesting question, but all for naught if we couldn’t communicate and share the answer. Again, this is the kind of stuff that encourages hatred of philosophy as empty egg…[Read more]

Reg,

What is it like to be a Bat?

If you want to numb somebody’s sense of empathy, as well as any love of philosophical thought, just have them read that essay, as well as the others in Nagel’s What Does It All Mean?

I had to read that in a philosophy class with several other majors and to a class member, everyone was totally nonplussed by it!…[Read more]

Reg,

What makes MAGA anti-Christian?

Atheists lecturing believers about their own doctrines strikes me as concern-trolling. If they’re making a mistake, let them do so.

Reg,

Harvard, do you hear yourself?

The Government defunding of Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia is right, but the argument used here is flawed.

When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when…[Read more]

Reg,

Once MAGA replace all the State Library boards, the mess will be cleaned up. But the range of books will be all under the same section. The Dewey Decimal system will become redundant. They will probably have hundreds of copies of the same book. Any other books will require crayons.

Good. Then they’ll sit and collect as much dust as…[Read more]

PopeBeanie,

Wow, I haven’t seen any problems close to that in a dozen libraries nearby here in northern California. I imagine our taxes are significantly higher. 🙂

You smile like that’s a good thing. I’m sure the taxes are even higher in L.A. and San Fransisco and other spots in southern California, yet Skid Row spills over into hallowed h…[Read more]

Robert,

Aw, Gramps Bradbury! You can read probably all of those books and more on The Guttenberg Project or The Internet Archive without a library, a place where you don’t want to live because nowadays, everyone else lives there and brings their worst ways.

The last times I went to a library, it had loud, noisy kids who chased each other in the…[Read more]

Reg,

Abiogenesis is the study of how life might have originated from non-living matter, while evolution deals with how existing life changes over time through mechanisms like natural selection and genetic drift.

They’re distinct domains: evolution presupposes life already exists. The fact that we don’t yet fully understand how life began doe…

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Fellow Unbelievers,

Dress it up in a lab coat but it is still a plain old god-of-the-gaps argument.

What is James Tour’s hang-up about Abiogenesis?

Anybody who has taken Jr. High biology and chemistry (at least from my day) knows that living things have Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphurous, and Sulfur, all of which are nonliving…[Read more]

Reg,

That ballad only addresses superficial age spackling, not the prospect of replacing worn parts with your own personal stem cell-cloned “body shop.”

Fellow Unbelievers,

You think the doctrine of Papal Infallability would end if an especially deranged Trump Pope were to procaim that a Pope cannot die as long as he holds his position?

Robert,

Hey, Pope Francis was from “The Global South,” so any racist or tribalist sensitivities he has are all right with the Woke Globalist crowd.

Which gives a new sinister meaning to “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.”

Mike had to pull Tom Servo to the side during the commercial break and do some…[Read more]

Reg,

Who would be deceiving whom in that case? Would it be mutual? And would Bigfoot and Mothman get Beatified as Saints or at least get a St. Francis blessing of the Beasts?

Reg,

Any smoke signals on who could be taking the Pope’s place?

Reg,

What was JD Vance doing there? Was he trying to MTVGFO (Make The Vatican Great For Once)?

Reg,

Is there any validity to life extension technology?

Maybe not yet, but Physicians wouldn’t be living up to their oath if they didn’t keep trying.

Almost to a person, everyone I’ve seen who believes in Heaven will still say without a hint of self-awareness: “Every day above the dirt is a good day.” So which is it?

Unseen,

If Israel stopped its genocide and seige warfare against refugee camps, it might make the protestors less sympathetic. And I don’t approve of victimizing Jews on any campus anywhere. I’m for treating innocents as innocents be they Jews or Palestinians.

If anything, isn’t what is happening an auto-genocide by Hamas against Pal…[Read more]

Unseen

“What-it-is-ism”… Not a thing.

What-it-is-ism” is calling things as they are. It’s not only a thing, but should be applied to all things.

Like which circles? Trump introduced it the way he ciharacterizes all of his opponents with negative adjectives. I’ve never seen or heard a non-MAGA or non-Trumpist use the term, but I’m open to l…

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Jake

Well i can’t argue Enco. You were present to assess the spirit of the comment.

I was tempted to tell him to “consider the lillies” or to go get his carob and locust from the wilderness.

Unseen,

The Zombies I refer to are not the 60’s British Invasion band. The crisis in Little Rock predated them. I’m referring to undead things in human form who travel in hoards and prey on real humans with brains.

The mobs in Little Rock met that description. The mobs on campuses today are little different. An armed escort for the would-be…[Read more]