Lars

@simonpaynton what exactly would I be throwing away when I throw away everything religion related?  “Some stuff” doesn’t really enlighten me.

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]

@simonpaynton You said  “if we abandon all religion as having zero value, we are fools”.  What in religion, should we abandon religion altogether, would we not have?  Why would we be fools?  What would we lose that is otherwise unavailable?

The Golden rule has nothing to do with religion, other than occasionally being co-opted by a religio…[Read more]

Thanks, Reg, I will indeed and yes we are

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]

@belen You’re telling me you learned something mind blowing but you can’t tell me what it is? That’s not very reassuring.

Bellen wrote:

Can there be an atheistic religion?

No.

Agree.  No.

@belen can you please paraphrase? I’m not in a place where I can play sound.

@unseen We are discussing genital ‘editing’ of babies, in order to safeguard them from experiences that they aren’t likely to be exposed to until they are an adult.  If this is the case, then there is no need to ‘edit’ genitalia at birth, since the protection apparently provided by this operation is not expected to kick in until they are ad…[Read more]

Hi @belen. You stated, “There are things I’ve learned from him that are ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON and I wish I had known years ago.”. Could you give me an example or two of what you were referring to there, so I can better understand your overall view of this guy?

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]

Not sure that many babies have sex, Unseen.  What do you imagine would happen if we moved the age of circumcision to 18 years?  Fully informed by the available information on STD reduction potential, and any other alleged health benefits, what proportion of men would choose to be circumcised, in your opinion?

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]