Philosophy Now Forum

Yes, for sure. We believe that the almighty and divine goddess of science created the universe, sacrificed her son, is handing out punishments (for christians, for sure) created a heaven (universities) and hell (churches) and is omnipotent and omniscient at the same time, and does not want us to as...

Rel, you are, of course, referring to scientology. No, of course, I'm not. Science absolutely operates as religion for many people. EDIT: I'll let Wikipedia lay some of the foundation and then we can erase it out. If you miss this edit, I'll just repost it as a response http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

OK. Then it seems to me that, at least at the start, you're presenting two propositions with respect to ultimate reality. No. I stated what is 'ultimately' reality. Not 'ultimate reality' - just goggled the term. Proposition 1. still stands. There are three propositions. Well, I think your use of q...

- on the one planet where we can observe consciousness at work, only one species out of many thousands appears to have any kind of concept of the supernatural, and that's the most imaginative one The argument that follows is pretty interesting, but I wonder if you've not made a mistake with your ve...

3 would really just be a refinement of 1, no? Correct. OK. Then it seems to me that, at least at the start, you're presenting two propositions with respect to ultimate reality. Not that it particularly matters unless you were trying to categorize this sort of belief system vs that. As for me, I thi...

The jokes. So good.

And as for me, I'm partial to darker ales. Pale ales don't really do it for me.

Obvious Leo wrote:Hell is when the brewery workers go on strike.

Fire & brimstone pales in comparison.

Dalek Prime wrote:Thanks for pointing me to this book. I may just buy it, as I would never, ever, freeload off the Net.

It's worth having, however you go about getting it

"If I get my call-up papers from the army, does not mean I chose to sign-up." I get it now...agreed. On the flip side, if you're told that filling out Form A-7163 will exempt you from the draft, but you refuse to sign it because "The draft will never happen," have you volunteere...

Melchior wrote:http://www.vw-resource.com/burning_oil.html

Interesting read. Thanks!

Yes, and since hardly anybody goes there and survives, their culture will remain largely unknown till such time as that changes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaPYwlXOTzQ https://youtu.be/0Kf9ZF1NLXQ These people have lived in total isolation for 60,000 years, and so they would represent a cultur...

I'm not sure they would distinguish between 'natural' and 'supernatural' with the degree of coherence that we might. I'm not an expert on 'primitive' religions. Yes, it's a good point, and the Sentinelese certainly help to illustrate your point. So I guess the degree to which we would consider them...

Certainly some peoples are more 'primitive', and our notion of religion and theirs would be very different. For many primitive peoples, 'unseen forces' are behind everything. For us to call this some sort of 'theology' would be a mistake. Agreed. At the same time, if they consider those forces to b...

Melchior wrote:Yes, European engines do consume oil as a method of improving the lubrication.

Adding that to the long list of Things I Learned on the Internet.

It might, however, explain horrible actions committed by men in the name of God. "I was just following orders" certainly seems to be part of the human condition, but I don't think this is at the root of religious violence. Instead, there seems to be a sense of being an agent of God, rathe...