Philosophy Now Forum

attofishpi wrote:You still dont consider that God could result from physical, material causes.

Nothing resulting from physical, material causes would fit my definition of God.

If you think about it, you know that you don't actually know anything...

When my own personal well being (what I want) conflicts with the personal well being of others (what they want) the need for ethics arise. ... Wouldn't that be the need arises for politics not ethics? As ones ethics and morals are exactly the source for much conflict. Well, demanding ethical behavi...

I read that for a while the USA had legislation restricting certain classes of automatic weapons, but that the legislation lapsed in about 2004 and has not been renewed. Is that correct? Yes. I find it remarkable how much less insane US politics seemed as recently as during the Clinton era. Wikiped...

The flaw in this is the phrase "personal well-being". Hitler's personal well being amounts to the suffering of others. No one is capable of making his personal well-being, the wellness of ALL others. There are no universal standards to this, and you ought to suspect the motives of any who...

Our natural dispositions do not provide us with any guidance for becoming good, but, we do have the capacity to become virtuous by our own wish to do so. This seems a bit contradictory to me. Where does this capacity come from, if it's not in our natural disposition? Where does our "own" ...

But that's not all, is it? You tell me, as I know you have been holding back, but I think you are ready now. Help me prove/disprove my point. If your point is simply that the environment influences individual behaviour, then I don't think you need to prove it, since nobody questions it. As for &quo...

A flaw is recognized as such in relation to perfection. What would human nature be then, if it was not flawed? This needs to be defined before it being flawed makes any sense. Replace it with malevolent. Assuming that human nature is somehow flawed, regardless of what a perfect human nature would b...

Felasco wrote:3) Accept ever increasing levels of violence.

But the level of violence in society is not increasing.

Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

You might say, if it is natural that human nature is flawed... A flaw is recognized as such in relation to perfection. What would human nature be then, if it was not flawed? This needs to be defined before it being flawed makes any sense. ...how did society arrive at the idea of morality, as this w...

If a person associates with people of "good" character, will that person also become good or if that person associates with people of questionable character will that person become the same. There is a saying, look at his/her friends and you will know the person. Nurture over nature. How ...

for example, would you be for the prohibition of alcohol? yes, there would be alot less violent bar fights and alcohol related problems. but, would you want alcohol prohibited because of it? It has been tried, you know. In the land of the free, actually. USA had a national ban on the sale, manufact...

Tetchy tetchy me says that finite and infinite are the two primary symbiotic realms of existence. You can't have the experience of one without the experience of the other. How are finite and infinite "symbiotic"? In what way are they "realms"? How do you experience infinity? Exp...

"Now" is a slice of time, and like a slice of saussage it has two sides (past and future) and you could (theoretically) add an infinite ammount of time (or saussage) to each side of the slice. How can you do that. The past yes, can contribute to one half, but the future has not arrived an...

An argument I would give about the non existence of the past is that what is here right now is infinite and infinity can't be added to by an entityt such as the past. Why can't infinity be added to? There is no point at which one could connect anything else to it. there is no tail or head, no insid...