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  • What caused the Big Bang, in your opinion?
    ↪kindred
    God-of-the-gaps (appleal to ignorance) fallacy. See Hitchens' Razor.
  • The Myopia of Liberalism
    I don't think the answer is found in a dicitionary but a history book. Liberalism and capitalism developed in tandem and share core assumption about the individual, property and greedom (that was a typo but I like it). — Benkei
    A pessimistic view is that capitalists need freedom to operate, so they champion liberalism because it diminishes religious and governmental interference. — frank
    :100:
  • Demonstrating Intelligent Design from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    ↪MoK
    No, I don't agree as I pointed out on the first page of that thread ...
    Assume that the physical in the state of S1 has the caus[al] power to cause the physical in the state of S2. Physical however is not aware of the passage of time. Therefore, the physical in the state of S1 cannot know the correct instant to cause the physical in the state of S2.
    —MoK

    These misplaced concreteness & anthropomorphic fallacies render your (latest) OP "argument" gibberish, Mok.
    — 180 Proof
  • The Myopia of Liberalism
    And the essence of liberalism is to justify capitalism with the ideology of equality, individual liberty and property rights.

    And not only to justify capitalism, but to justify colonialism, slavery, and class hierarchy.
    — Jamal
    :strong: :mask:

    most collectivist thought wants to maximise democratic processes where they are currently barred due to the structure of liberal/capitalism. — Benkei
    :up: :up: e.g. Demarchic-Economic Democracy (i.e. libertarian socialism) ... as you, no doubt, know.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
  • Demonstrating Intelligent Design from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    On your logic, if someone goes looking for the Loch Ness Monster, then there must be a Loch Ness Monster.

    Very good.
    — Banno
    ↪Banno
    :smirk:
  • Demonstrating Intelligent Design from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    ↪Banno
    :up:
  • PROCESS COSMOLOGY --- a worldview for our time
    an update of Spinoza's deus sive natura, to accommodate modern cosmology — Gnomon
    Funny thing, though, Einstein didn't see a reason for "an update of Spinoza's Deus, sive nature, perhaps because he actually studied Spinoza, unlike you, Mr Enformer-of-the-gaps, and therefore does not conflate, or confuse, metaphysics with physics as pseudo-thinkers do. Fwiw, the philosophical speculation I find most parsimonious and consistent with "modern cosmology" is pandeism¹ (not your "PanEnDeism" or panentheism or pantheism).

    (2022)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/607424 [1]
  • Demonstrating Intelligent Design from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    I agree that the laws of nature are enforced by an entity called the Mind — MoK
    Fundamental physical regularities are not legistlated "laws" that need to be "enforced" but are mathematically derived from countless, extraordinarily precise observations (measurements) of the most explanatory physical theories available (SR, GR, QFT, Standard Model, etc). The term "laws of nature" is a metaphorical shorthand that it makes no sense to attribute some hidden (occult) agency such as "the Mind" to – which only begs the question 'and whence the Mind?' leading either to an infinite regress or unwarranted, arbitrary terminus (e.g. "first cause", "unmoved mover", "intelligent designer", "creator", etc).
  • Demonstrating Intelligent Design from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    But we need a reason for the existence of the laws of nature in the first place. — A Christian Philosophy
    Why?

    continuation of ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/981975
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    [deleted]
  • Phaenomenological or fundamental?
    The search for metaphysical causes is essentially religious in its origins, and has been a great hindrance to the advancement of human knowledge. — alan1000
    :up: :up:
  • In Support of Western Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism.
    There is an impressive lack of self-awareness in that article — Count Timothy von Icarus
    When you say "lack of self-awareness", are you referring to the article's author, American readers? American writers? or ???
  • In Support of Western Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism.
    @Bob Ross

    An incisive précis on literature in Pax Americana ...
    https://lithub.com/viet-thanh-nguyen-most-american-literature-is-the-literature-of-empire/

    addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/961000
  • Demonstrating Intelligent Design from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR): For every thing that exists, there is a sufficient reason/explanation/ground for its existence or occurrence. — A Christian Philosophy
    And the "sufficient reason" for (every instantiation of) the "PSR" is what exactly? :chin:
  • Is there any argument against the experience machine?
    Matter doesn't exist. This is all an elaborate dream. — RogueAI
    :roll:

    I guess you didn't get the memo, Rogue: There are no antirealists (immaterialists, disembodied minds, etc) in foxholes.

    On the one hand you are saying it's all just chemicals and yet on the other you say that these thoughts about it all being chemicals are not due to chemicals but are "logical conclusions". Do you not see that you are contradicting yourself? — Janus
    :up: :up:
  • British Politics (Fixing the NHS and Welfare State): What Has Gone Wrong?
    ↪Jack Cummins

    This cannot be repeated enough (esp. here in the effin' United States of Kakistan since 1980) ...
    Translating the bullshit we have been sold in plain English, the trade unions have lost their bargaining power, the population has been taught that it is not the rich that are responsible for their misery but gays and foreigners, and that a state that supports the poor and the sick is undesirable and cost them too much. Hence taxes have gone down, real wages have gone down, and government spending on social care has gone down. This is also partly because we no longer have an Empire covering a third of the world to exploit. Those wretched foreigners again wanting to run their own lives. — unenlightened
    :100: :fire:
  • Is there any argument against the experience machine?
    if it's all just chemicals — Darkneos
    From what perspective? At what level of analysis? Why not instead: if it's all just quarks ...? C'mon, the premise is weak, reductive nonsense.
  • Is there any argument against the experience machine?
    Here's a 2022 post from a thread Experience Machine ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/655601

    A 2024 post from another thread Boethius and the Experience Machine ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/889496
  • PROCESS COSMOLOGY --- a worldview for our time
    I think of Whitehead's actual world as equivalent to Spinoza's immanent Nature-god [ ... ]. Yet, Whitehead's logically inferred deus sive natura[panentheism] was described as "transcendent", in the sense that any creator or programmer stands apart from its creation. — Gnomon
    :rofl: Again, "immanent" is "equivalent to" not-immanent (i.e. "transcendent"). Good job! :clap:
  • British Politics (Fixing the NHS and Welfare State): What Has Gone Wrong?
    What went wrong?
    From across the pond over here in Kakistan¹ it looks like, iirc, a clusterfuck of knaves: the Royals, Margaret Thatcher, the Tories, Tony Blair's "New Labour" & fuckin' UKIP. Just a wild guess ... but hey I get the latest on the collapse of the UK from that singular, man-in-the-street jounalist Jonathan Pie².

    [2]

    [1]

    :smirk:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    I'm assuming that God [ground of Being] can’t or doesn’t act like a being in this world [contrary to accounts of "miracles" in religious scriptures / teachings], but instead provides the conditions that make action [e.g. "sin"] possible. — Tom Storm
    It seems to me that "faith" in such an abstract, impersonal deity doesn't serve a religious function or even makes sense (despite theology/theodicy).
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Tom Storm Count Timothy von Icarus
    This is a great discussion.
    — T Clark
    :up:

    Even our arch-atheist 180 Proof Is playing nice.
    :smirk:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Spinoza is not a pantheist but a... I forget... is it an acosmist? — Tom Storm
    Yes, from the perspective of eternity (like e.g. Brahmanism), as I understand his thought:

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/#GodNatu

    or more succinctly ...

    (2021)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/528116

    (2021)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/578506
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    What does it mean to say God is the fundamental existence or essence that underlies everything in the universe? — Tom Storm
    This reminds me of Spinoza's natura naturans, Schopenhauer's World As Will, (Hindu) Brahman or the Dao – even though, in a more pragmatic sense, I prefer Democritus-Epicurus-Lucretius' swirling atomic void.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    ↪Tom Storm
    I'm not sure what you're looking for when you write "outline a clearer picture" of "Being" (with respect to "God"?) Please clarify.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    ↪Relativist
    :up: :up:

    ↪Banno
    :smirk:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    I certainly see problematic aspects of theism, especially the whole emphasis on 'sin', including original sin and sexuality. — Jack Cummins
    Afaik, "sin and sexuality" belong particularly to Abrahamic forms of theism and not to most others like Mesoamerican, Aboriginal, Greco-Roman, Aegyptian, Celtic, Norse & Hindu traditions. As a concept, or category, of god/s, across all religious traditions theism seems to me to consist of only three claims:
    (1) a deity is the/an absolute mystery,
    (2) a deity is the/a creator of the whole of existence;
    (3) a deity is the/a providential intervener (i.e. cause of impossible changes) in the universe-nature-world-creatures.

    what I mean by magic [ ... ] whatever is impossible magic [ ... ] "makes" possible — 180 Proof
    magic is about patterns and connections, and there being more to sensory (or extrasensory) perception than Cartesian-Newtonian thinkers have acknowledged — Jack Cummins
    As superstitions gave way to theodicy and astrology gave way to astronomy and alchemy gave way to chemistry and teleology gave way to mechanics & natural selection, magic was rationalized (i.e. domesticated, deflated) into parapsychology (or pataphysics) especially in the 19th & 20th centuries. Remember, Jack, Newton was an alchemist and Descartes postulated occult or miraculous interactions between different physical (body) and spiritual (mind) substances. Until recent centuries, magic had always been considered much more than just "perception" (such as miracles, curses, blessings, transmutations, shapechanging, exorcism, necromancy, oracles-divination, fetishes amulets & talismans, etc :sparkle: :pray:).
    .
  • PROCESS COSMOLOGY --- a worldview for our time
    So,↪180 Proof's 2025 solution to the God problem seems to be to just ignore the evidence for Big Bang & Big Sigh (the standard model of cosmology), then assume that the natural world has been ticking right along for eternity. Hence, no gap to be filled, and no need for [non-explanation]super-natural "help". — Gnomon
    :roll:

    As always, more of the same, troll is as troll does.

    My interpretation of cosmogeny from p.1 ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976427

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976662
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    In particular, atheists often attack the most crude arguments for theism as opposed to being open to more in depth analysis. — Jack Cummins
    Given that the overwhelming majority of the religious worship "the most crude" forms of theism, we atheists (or, in my case, antitheists) don't bother wasting our efforts on arguing against a "God" so devoid of distinctions by this "in-depth analysis" that no one (including theologians and philosophers) persecutes or kills or martyrs themselves in the name of ... "the ground of being".

    When someone says they don't believe in God, the reasonable next question is: "What do you mean by God?" — Tom Storm
    Well, I don't believe in magic, and what I mean by magic is "God" (i.e. whatever is impossible magic=god "makes" possible :sparkle:).

    a return to earlier thinkers — Tom Storm
    Maybe, but not a return to earlier believers ... who are still the vast majority of God-worshippers (e.g. Abrahamic theists who believe in "miracles", etc). After all, nobody prays to "being itself" – what would be the point of that?

    ... deep roots, going back to the early Church Fathers who wrote extensively about the nature of God
    You have to go back a millennia or more before the derivative logos of "God" to the ancient Hebrews, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, etc (just in the West) for the existential mythos of "God". The Church Fathers were apologists-come-lately even in the recorded history (of histories) theist religion.
  • What is faith
    The claim “atheists live by faith too” trades on a confusion about what faith means. Atheists acknowledge basic assumptions but generally would treat these as provisional and open to revision, not sacred truths. Foundational beliefs like causality are not equivalent to teleological or theistic explanations, because they don’t posit an agent or a purpose we must subscribe to without evidence. — Tom Storm
    :100: :up:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    ↪Tom Storm
    Westerners worship "the God of Abraham", for instance, rather than a "more sophisticated" god of the philosophers (e.g. "the ground of being", or "being itself", or "the one", or "the unmoved mover"). Arguments against the latter "god" (absolute) are far less consequential culturally and existentially, it seems to me, than arguments against the former "God" (creator).
  • PROCESS COSMOLOGY --- a worldview for our time
    ↪PoeticUniverse
    :up:
  • Could we function without consciousness?
    ↪T Clark
    :up: :up:
  • What is faith
    ↪kindred
    Read the OP and the rest (almost all) of this thread. The predominant context within which "faith" has been discussed so far is religious.
  • What is faith
    What about faith in oneself ... — kindred
    What about it? That's nothing to do with the thread topic and mere equivocation.

    Some theists attempt an equivocation fallacy by equating faith in God with faith in things like air travel. — Tom Storm
    :up: :up:
  • Do you think AI is going to be our downfall?
    ↪Darkneos
    Your obstinate dismissals without argument, sir, are now dismissed by me without (further) argument. Hopefully, someone much more thoughtful than you will offer credible counters to my arguments.
  • PROCESS COSMOLOGY --- a worldview for our time
    ↪180 Proof's ironic fairy tale of acausal (random) fluctuations as the First Cause ... — Gnomon
    And another strawman. :roll:

    Pay attention, troll ...
    Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo NO 'first cause' — 180 Proof
    ... just as there is no edge to a sphere, no beginning of a circle (or Möbius loop) and NO 'first' random vacuum fluctuation. — 180 Proof
  • Do you think AI is going to be our downfall?
    Suffering is [a fact] though it is a personal thing. — Darkneos
    Yes, "a personal" objective fact like every physical or cognitive disability; therefore, suffering-focused ethics (i.e. non-reciprocally preventing and reducing disvalues) is objective to the degree it consists of normative interventions (like e.g. preventive medicine (re: biology), public health regulation (re: biochemistry) or environmental protection (re: ecology)) in matters of fact which are the afflictions, vulnerabilties & dysfunctions – fragility – specific to each living species.

    addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/980498
  • Do you think AI is going to be our downfall?
    ↪praxis
    :smirk:
  • Property Dualism
    ↪flannel jesus
    :up:

    spontaneously assembles itself — Wayfarer
    Red herring.

    Wayf, you're not one of those evolution-deniers who mischaracterize natural selection as "a process of random chance", are you?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis
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