Have you gone back to look at testimonials about the spirit world? In the mid to late Victorian period a lot of bright, educated people were very interested in communication with the dead, attended seances, and thought there was something to it. To be fair, there were a lot of Victorians who also thought it was total nonsense.

Indeed there might be one ethical position that is best. However, whether TR is trying to be too pure or not... well, some of this is an effect of age. Younger people, swept up in enthusiasm for the topic, (or crotchety old cranks swept up in enthusiasm) tend to take up "pure" positions rather than more equivocal positions. We think more clearly when we are not possessed by a god. enthusiasm, (early 17th cent.: from Greek enthousiastikos, from enthous ‘possessed by a god')

Then there are people who are possessed by the devil, which is a lot like god-possessed enthusiasm, too. They just aren't as nice about it. (I'm not referring to you, btw.)

Almost all will be found wanting — Jake Tarragon

They may be wanting, but why do you think they will be found deficient?

Obviously. But in discussion, calling someone's ideas stupid and a waste of time is a "terminating response". Calling out "stupid" and "waste of time" ends useful talk.

If you want to convince someone that there is a better way of thinking about things than the one which they are displaying, you have to be polite, and specific. Sure, I think a lot of people are full of shit. If I want to just dismiss them then telling them they are full of shit is an effective, if crude, way of doing it.

TranscendentRealms' OP was not defective. He related his experience (which we do not know the details of, so can't really dismiss as stupid) and then he related a positive upside of his very negative experiences.

Above you say "everyone thinks their life is the worst, get over yourself" but you know nothing of what he experienced. Most people don't, but some people actually have world class bad experiences, and they aren't exaggerating. You don't know (I don't either) but philosophical discussions are supposed to tease apart problems with a fine surgical knife and not a chain saw, which is kind of the way you're going about it.

You can do better.

I think you two have passed the point of diminished returns for this topic.

I just realize that humans have such a poor grasp of reality and they like to make up stupid crap to deal with that lack of understanding. — Jeremiah

In what way are you exempt from your own judgement?

Look, the point is that telling someone that their ideas are stupid and a waste of time doesn't advance a discussion. We are all prone to the practice of believing our own bullshit, me and thee included. But someone telling us we are full of shit sheds very little light on our sad state.

I prefer materialist explanations of mental events; but if someone frames their experience in spiritual terms, then we are just not going to agree on what is going on. That fact of our differing frame of reference doesn't mean that the spiritual framework is just BS.

Most the people in the world are stupid. — Jeremiah

Hmmmm, yes, I've read that too. Everybody is stupid except me and thee, of course, but even thee is as blunt as an ox at times.

Mixed Emotions: Now, if you were in a situation where you had mixed emotions, then you would be perceiving both good and bad value at the same time. It would be something like 20% good and 80% bad in regards to certain things and situations. It all depends on the degree of positive and negative emotions that are there. So, the fact that these miserable genius artists still saw their lives and art as beautiful means they would have to have had some degree of positive emotion mixed in. Otherwise, they would just be deluding themselves.

Lastly, as for life experience and getting out, I do this all the time. I go out in nature and out in the community. So, there is no problem here. — TranscendedRealms

The reason why everything got underlined here is that you are missing a "[/u]" at the end of what you wanted underlined. Every "u, i, and/or b" in brackets [ ] has to be followed by a "/u, /i, and/or /b" in brackets [ ].

When I am in my most miserable and hopeless state due to an emotional trauma, then my whole entire reality is the most horrible hell. But when I reach a state of full recovery, I am able to see harmony, peace, joy, beauty, and goodness. This is a perception that I never had during that miserable moment. This is a perception that goes beyond a value judgment. In other words, it goes beyond a mere thought and it is like a blind person recovering his sight. — TranscendedRealms

Yes. When we are walking through our personal valleys of death, the horror of it is pretty much 100%. But then, with any luck, we come out of that dark place, into bright sunshine, lush green fields, peace, and serenity.

Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. I would personally call it the "Divine Sense." It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science. When we are in a positive mood or emotional state, then that is this sense allowing us to perceive stable qualities of good value as well as enhanced and more profound qualities of good value and beauty in our lives. Likewise, negative emotions such as misery and hopelessness are this sense allowing us to truly see things as horrible, bad, disgusting, etc. That is why I say that positive emotions are an objective good while negative emotions are an objective bad. So, this objective good and bad would be an intrinsic quality (our positive and negative emotions). — TranscendedRealms

Maybe we have a "Divine Sense" but it is not "new" as much as you have recently discovered it. One might identify this sense as an inner light; one might also identify it as the loving presence of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, or an inner illumination. Various terms in various traditions.

"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!

John Henry Newman, hymn, Lead Kindly light — Cardinal Newman

Even from a rather dry materialist point of view, we have the capacity to experience what other people would call transcendent peace, happiness, love, beauty, and so on. Whether one calls it Grace or a flood of oxytocin and serotonin, it feels much the same. And so does the opposite -- one's nightmarish experiences.

So, when a person is completely miserable and hopeless and a person comes along, giving the suggestion to just work at developing a new mindset, then that is only focusing away from one's own inner light which is the very vital and precious thing that allows us to see the goodness in our lives in the first place. — TranscendedRealms

Right. "Just snap out of it" is extremely unhelpful advice. If one could just snap out of it, or just upload a new mindset, obviously one would.

I am fed up with people in my life dismissing my inner light as nonexistence and all in my head. They think it is just my value judgment. — TranscendedRealms

Just tell them to fuck off, and stop casting your pearls before swine.

Look, I don't know exactly what you are experiencing. I know next to nothing about you. I have no idea what you will be thinking a year from now or in the next 15 minutes. But good heavens, you are hardly alone in thinking there is a divine light which you can follow. Millions of people have expressed this idea in various ways.

We live in a time when bold materialists thinkers are going to dump on any sort of spiritualism. They hear "Inner light" and alarm bells ring. They think the vote is in and materialism has won the election by a massive landslide. It seems that way to them because they talk to each other, and they keep hearing the same thing. Actually, most of the people in the world believe in some kind of religion, and accept the idea of God, transcendent realms, divine light, and so on.

the fact is, killing a sleeping person is murder — TheMadFool

It's murder because persons have rights that are protected by a host of conventions (legal, ethical, social, moral, religious...). Whether a person is awake or sleeping is irrelevant. Even if someone had been in a coma for 10 years, just shooting him or her would be murder (there are legal procedures for removing life support in cases of brain death or the patients previously expressed wishes...)

Of course you are right about that, and then where would we be?

The whole argument about free will and predetermination of an act is a waste of time IF we can not distinguish between acts that really are freely chosen and acts that are really determined by other factors. I think I can make that discrimination some of the time but not all the time -- and that is in my own case. I have only the vaguest idea of what is going on in your case (or anybody else).

Like, sometimes we find that we have done something without really intending to do it. "It just happened". Like, I wasn't intending to go to the bar and pick up a stranger and go home with him but you know, without my making a decision about it, that's what happened. It isn't that I was in a trance, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I just intended to go have a beer.

Now I have gone to the bar with every intention of picking up a stranger and going home with him, but not that time.

I wasn't intending to buy a blueberry pie when I was at the store -- I went in to get some milk, breakfast food, and some lettuce. But there the display of pastries was and I just picked up the pie and put it in the cart. Now, sometimes I intended to buy pie, but not that time.

When I started to write a paper on ethics and decision making in a time of epidemic transmittable diseases, I didn't intend to conclude that people should be quarantined if they are found to be infectious, but that's where the logic of my argument took me. Now, I have written policy papers with unpopular conclusions, but not that time.

Another problem with free will (or not) is that the agent about whom we are talking is also the agent providing the evidence for free will, or not -- a clear conflict of interest.

If we can't prove it on the basis of what the brain--producer of mind--is doing, then we just can't. Some philosophers (and neurologists) have suggested that we might not be able to understand our minds beyond a certain point -- because we are both the subject and object of that study.

No smoking Edit: Everything is perfect.

the conscious I, in a sense, dissolves into the lower levels of this stratification in the mind’s agencies — javra

a conductor to the orchestra of the mind’s agencies — javra

I like your idea of consciousness 'dissolving into the lower levels' much more than Blue Banana's 'ceases to exist'. To play off your idea of the orchestra and conductor, let me propose a model based on the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra or the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra which perform without a conductor.

I suspect the conscious mind is produced by the brain, the same way a directorless orchestra produces music. The parts put it together and put it out there. Similarly the brain constructs our consciousness, but it doesn't 'spin it off' as a manager. Where is the brain's manager? There isn't one, there are several. For instance, whether you are awake or asleep isn't managed by your conscious mind. As I mentioned, there are two small cell-clusters in the brain stem that signal other parts of the brain to sleep or to awake. If people experience strokes in the wakeful manager, they go to sleep (not die) and don't wake up again -- because the trigger that wakes us up is broken. These two clusters don't do much else.

The conscious mind doesn't alone decide what it will think about, if it decides at all. There are 100 billion neurons between one's ears, and more connections possible among those 100 billion than there are atoms in the universe. So... whether the number of connections is real or hyperbole, there is clearly lots of power under the surface, and my guess is that it isn't waiting for the conscious mind to think of something. More like the other way around.

Where, for instance, do "intrusive thoughts" come from? Here you are, sitting in your chair reading a good book and annoying, distracting thoughts keep occurring to you. Who is sending these messages? Aliens? Hackers? Commie agents? Advertisers? Maybe it is a small area of the brain which monitors blood sugar, and it wants you to eat--so food thoughts burrow into your conscious mind's nice reading experience. Or maybe some memories of a slightly unpleasant nature are being accessed and the message of discomfort is being telegraphed to your front desk, covering up the text of the book your were reading.

Consciousness is emergent rather than a stable feature like language production. (We know exactly where language production is located. We don't know where consciousness is located.)

Thoughts — BlueBanana

"Consciousness" and "self-awareness" are features of mind of which we are especially fond, but they are not the only components of a person. The brain where "I" dwell does not close down when a small cluster of cells in the brain stem sends the consciousness into abeyance and I fall asleep. (Another cluster of cells near by signals the consciousness to come back in full force, and I wake up.) While sleeping, some areas of the brain are quite active. Memory, for instance, is being processed. We dream, and while we dream the brain paralyzes are muscles so that we do not thrash about. Plus the small clusters of cells that watch over blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, peristalsis, and temperature are active all the time--24/7. All of that goes into "me".

There is so much about us that is processed out of reach of the conscious mind. "I" am witnessing some of these words flow into the computer through my fingers. I am not consciously composing the sentences, for the most part. Composition flows from below, through the motor cortex and the 9 busy fingers (my left thumb doesn't do much on the keyboard.)

As one drives, bicycles, or walks one doesn't calculate the arc of a turn -- one just turns. Clearly some facility in the brain has figured out how the curve can be negotiated, but I am not aware of it. Only when we do something unusual do we consciously think about it. I consciously figure what size can on the shelf is the best deal. When I come across a French word in an English novel, I'll try to guess what it means, and decide whether to look it up in the French dictionary.

Then too, our body is part of the unified self. We disposed of mind/body dualism, right. My arthritis-annoyed knees, shoulders, fingers, and ankles sometimes wake me to complain. "Wouldn't a little anti-inflammatory be nice about now?" they say. Or maybe we awake aroused and turned on. Or feeling sad. Or feeling hungry. Or full bladder. Or nauseated. Or any number of things that is part of our experimental 'flow'. Sometimes we wake up feeling existential despair--not just thinking it, feeling it.

Does killing a sleeping person count as a murder? — BlueBanana

Killing a sleeping person is eminently murderous. You'll hang for doing so.

I don't know about you, but I don't stop existing when I sleep.

If biochemistry didn't apply to the gods, why were they drinking on Mt. Olympus? (granted, they were drinking nectar -- but what was that? High fructose corn syrup soft drink. Was Coca Cola stolen from the gods too? Also, there's a reference in the Gilgamesh epic, a sacrifice is offered to the gods who were hungry. "The gods gathered around the altar like flies in their eagerness to eat the meat." Apparently the Gods can chew.

When I googled Ganymede to check out what he was pouring, the first return was "Bizarre Bulge Found on Ganymede" -- I thought they were referring to a statue or a mosaic. Oh, intriguing! But no, just some moon.

The last time I checked, murder means killing someone who actually, decidedly, and emphatically exists.

Your pronatalist argument is as weighty as the antinatalist argument that having children violates the rights of persons who did not exist. After all, if you didn't get the consent of the unborn to be conceived, their right to not exist has been violated.

You remind me of Anna in the King and I who sings...

A flock of sheep and you the only ram
No wonder you're the wonder of Siam. — Oscar Hammerstein II

I know, it's such a drag that nicotine and its associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and ethanol should have such negative effects on us. Just thinking about it makes me want a beer and a cigarette, or several.

Did Ganymede know how much risk he was putting Zeus to when he brought him the god-sized flagon of gin?

I don't know whether we have absolute free will or not. My suspicion is that we can not know whether we are perfectly free to choose.

If I say I freely decided to eat a yellow apple instead of a red apple, someone will say "Ach! It's just physics and chemistry." I can't prove that physics and chemistry weren't directing my behavior a little, some, or altogether. On the other hand, when people portray themselves as puppets of physics, it sounds like a choice to think that way.

The truth is almost certainly somewhere in-between those two extreme positions. Let's say I am very hungry. I am presented with a raspberry / lemon danish on my left and a slice of 100% whole wheat bread on my right. How much free will might I exercise? My guess is that the chemistry of low blood sugar will drive the decision towards the danish. On the other hand, when I am shopping, I'll choose a loaf of 100% whole wheat over a box of danish. I freely decide to avoid the pastry counter.

It's difficult to imagine what kind of chemistry and physics would favor conversion to Buddhism. It would seem that the reasons would be "meta physical" rather than physical or chemical.

We'd all be better off if we carnivores limited our meat consumption to 3 oz. of meat per day, on average--including fish and eggs (or 68 pounds a year). 3 oz. is the USDA recommendation for a 2000 calorie daily diet. It amounts to using meat as an enhancer, rather than a twice-a-day main course. The amount of animal protein a carnivore needs for good health just isn't that high.

Instead of 68 pounds a year, Americans on average eat an average 270 pounds of meat per year, or 12 oz. of meat per day. All that greatly exceeds what anyone needs.

It's a long ways back, but agriculture was a major innovation, if not a discrete invention. Presumably it began inadvertently: proto-agriculturists started collecting seeds -- barley grains, maybe, and planted some of them. They apparently discovered that the biggest seeds produced more big seeds. The people who created the 15th century tomato that the Spanish brought back to Europe started with a very small fruit, more like champaign grape (1/4" in diameter). The maize/corn plant was a very short plant, bearing just a few seeds. Most of our crops started out as rather unimpressive progenitors.

The domestication of cattle, donkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, and horses was likewise very important. For the most part, these animals are all herd animals, and relatively calm in their wild state The American buffalo, on the other hand, is a quick-to-respond aggressive herd animal.

Every improvement on a sharp stick moving towards a proper plow was important inventive work. Figuring out how to use animal power was important -- from pulling things to carrying us on their backs. Learning how to ferment food (cheese, bread, beer, wine, sausage, etc.) was a big innovation.

Agriculture may have been a very early "invention", but you know, it took us a long time to get there after we became homo sapiens.

If we are going back as far as agriculture, what about the atlatl -- the spear thrower? It enabled the North American aboriginals to hunt mastodons successfully -- by the simple expedient of leverage. They also developed the detachable dart head.

Or stone knapping technology that enabled all our predecessors to make tools?

Obviously, and obviously not what was meant.

All of which are conditions on what love is. — John Days

A description isn't a condition, in the sense that "if you don't pay the overdue rent, you will be evicted". A description isn't an "if/then" statement. A description is just a description. "The house is painted a light gray" isn't a conditional statement. It either is gray, or it is not gray.

Do you consider erotic love to be conditional? Is "You turn me on - I want to have sex with you" a conditional statement? It's conditional.

Do you expect erotic love to be 100% in order to qualify as erotic? If you are 80% turned on by somebody, you are still experiencing erotic love, even if it isn't 100%.

Further, "unconditional" is perhaps not the best term. When agapē was imported into English in the 17th century, it was used in the sense of 'selfless love". Erotic love isn't normally thought of as "selfless" because the physical self is so intimately involved in erotic love--it's really physical and selfie.

agapē is about the other person, not the self.

Of course, Men's Liberation isn't very concerned about women's suffering either.

Try this; think of it as a 12 step program. These will put you well on your way to unconditional love. I Corinthians, 13:

• Love is patient
• love is kind and is not jealous
• love does not brag and is not arrogant
• does not act unbecomingly
• it does not seek its own
• is not provoked
• does not take into account a wrong suffered
• bears all things
• believes all things
• hopes all things
• endures all things.
• Love never fails

An old time socialist identified certain party members "who liked games of uproar". They liked to start disputes they weren't especially interested in -- the gamers just liked the sturm and drang they produced. Not quite the same thing as a cloak of maliciousness, but related.

Don't expect an enthusiastic embrace by the moderators of your proposal. It isn't that they are hostile to criticism, or that they are dyed in the wool feminist, antifa, SJW types who will brook no deviance. Rather, they have a difficult, unpaid, mostly thankless job of policing badly written, badly conceived, poorly thought out posts, and enforcing rules.

Even generally good posters at times have a yen to delve into subjects which lead to conflict with the rules -- like people who might want to open a discussion about... Nazis, pedophiles, or lesbian-separatist vegan (not all in the same thread, one hopes). They don't want the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable to get too muddied so they can't tell where the line is. Therefore, some topics are verboten.

Is the Bell Curve by Charles A. Murray and Richard Herrnstein debatable? Maybe. Murray is very unpopular among leftists, but he apparently presents evidence to support his views. A recent thread that asserted that Africans were, at best, dull-normal was shut down pretty quickly. IF one had some sort of evidence that several hundred million Africans were stupid, that would be one thing -- but to just make a claim that they are all stupid, is outside of the permitted boundary.

I would assert that many poor children will grow up with intelligence deficits because they are plagued by parasites, chronic enteric bacterial illnesses, and poor nutrition. They just can't develop normally. That's not the same as saying that poor people are stupid and so are their children.

So, HOW sensitive topics are approached makes a difference.

I suppose you have some sort of logical grounds for your moral edicts regarding child raising, or ought i suppose these to be merely your arbitary opinion and conjecture? — Victoribus Spolia

Since you are living in "The Cold and Snowy Part of The Heroin Addicted Rural Rust Belt" I'm sure you've seen the tragic consequences of people who aren't really able to take care of their children. Children born of addicted mothers are born addicted, and fairly often damaged as well. Same for fetal alcohol syndrome.

Logical ground: Children who are nurtured and protected from harm and guided by their parents as they grow up tend to be more successful and happier adults than people who were not nurtured and protected from harm. It isn't rocket science: We know what healthy children look like and sadly, we know what unhealthy neglected children look like.

So no, it's not just my arbitrary judgement.

Not that its any of your business — Victoribus Spolia

Well, Victoribus, I didn't pry into your drinking and smoking habits -- you acknowledged that you smoke and drink. Fine by me -- I spent quite a few years smoking and drinking as well, and I liked it. It's something of a knee jerk -- I've spent quite a few years doing public health education. Sure, some people who smoked a lot lived to be very old. My father lived to be 102, and he smoked. However, he suffered from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease which made the last 15 years of his life more difficult than they otherwise would have been.

I will eat bacon, drink beer, and smoke and kick ass while doing it....with a name like "bitter crank" I would of expected you to sympathize itstead of being such a pussy. — Victoribus Spolia

I like to eat bacon, drink beer, gin, and whiskey. I quit smoking because it was becoming noticeably counter-productive for me. Bitter cranks come in many varieties, including pussies. I don't think I am a pussy, and I'm actually not bitter either. It's a handle, not a personality summary.

As for being a crank... Well, that's possible, but I'm a fairly happy crank. And my profile picture is the philosopher Isaiah (not Irving) Berlin. I don't know much about Berlin, but I liked this portrait of Berlin by Richard Avedon. He was a liberal Jew, so I'd probably like him just fine.

I wouldn't expect unconditional love to occur in a 3 month (or 30 minute) romance begun in a bar unless, of course, I happened to pick up Jesus. Would he be simply divine? Don't know. However, people who live in ordinary life may, on occasion, express and experience unconditional love. And even if one doesn't achieve Agape in combination with other kinds of love (like eros or storge) one can move toward unconditional love--dismissing one's own conditions, one by one.

Agape stands apart from eros, filio, and storge, but if one can not love at those depths, one certainly will not be able to experience the deep, deep love which characterizes unconditional love, either.

Then beside ourselves, for those who believe there is the unconditional love of God. They who believe in God believe that God loves them unconditionally. Unconditionally, because that is the only way God can love creation, of which were are a part. We can love unconditionally if God gives us that capacity.

(I think that is an accurate reflection the theology of believers, whatever I may happen to believe.)

Thanks for responding and don't go away, unless you really want to.

Hanover likes sarcasm which is good, because a fair amount is aimed at him.

NOBODY on earth likes having their writing style critiqued. EVERYBODY thinks they are doing just fine. This is the cross the National Association of English Majors has volunteered to bear. Reducing the superfluous complexity of one's writing is hard work, and it doesn't mean avoiding any terms longer than 5 letters. Better to use long words only when a shorter word won't do. The truth is, I like long words. I collect unfamiliar, obscure, and long words. I treasure them. You do too -- that's good. Keep treasuring them. Just don't give away your treasure too quickly. Or, as Jesus put it, don't scatter pearls before swine. See, now there's a very pithy, meaningful concept expressed in nice short words. We could say, A promiscuous distribution of prodigious erudition will have the consequential result of exhausting one's interlocutors.

BTW, if you smoke and drink a lot you should also plan to be a cancer patient--probably oral or gut cancer. It would be a shame to die early on your 15 planned children, design business, and PhD advisors.

My guess is that most children arrive in this world through the good offices of sexual pleasure and not through the fine reasoning of philosophers. I also doubt that many people who are anti-natalists avoid having children purely as a result of reading philosophy. Indeed, many people who have decided they do not want to produce children haven't even heard the term or the arguments for antinatalism.

Thank you for posting some actual information about yourself in your profile. You have a busy life, what with smoking, drinking, screwing, hunting, killing, interior designing, history of philosophizing, attending divine worship, and whatever else it is that you do. You and Agustino should have a good time together.

Too many of the wrong kind of people are having children. Wrong kind? People who can not support their children, do not really know how to rear children successfully (for this time and place), or are very screwed up and will likely pass their screwed upedness on to their unfortunate children. Some people are just plain having too many children. God to the contrary, there just isn't room and resources for everybody.

I don't think you have shown that unconditional love DOES NOT EXIST, let alone that it CAN NOT EXIST.

Yes, there is always hope -- the blade of the guillotine begins it's rapid decent. Let's see... why would there be hope here? Oh yes, an explosion a second before the blade was released sends a beam into the certain trajectory of the slicer and knocks it athwart, saving the victim till things can be put back in order. Then the execution resumes.

Yes, there is always hope -- the plane has exploded and one's miraculously intact body and mind are plunging toward the earth. But just then a flying saucer catches you in its tractor beam and sets you down on the ground, while your flight mates rain down all around you, along with the plane and the cargo. Then an ambulance rushing to the scene runs over you, squashing you to death.

Yes, there is always hope -- the metastatic cancer has romped all over your abdominal and thoracic cavities, multiple organ failure is in progress, you are comatose. Suddenly a doctor rushes in with a miracle cure, and 15 minutes later you are demanding your clothes so you can go home.

Magical thinking. 100% of all persons who are healthy, merely sick, or terminal die. Miracles do not intercede on behalf of the hopeful 999 out of 1000, and then it wasn't a miracle at all. In 1 case out of 1000 it was a mis-diagnosis and when the wrong medicine was suspended grandma got better and lived another 3 weeks.

Bad faith, too. "The helicopter crashed, but my two relatives survived while the rest of the 8-man crew died in a fiery crash." God performed a miracle." a Deaconess told me. Miracle, indeed! If God performs miracles, why save just her not particularly remarkable relatives and send the 6 others to an agonizing death? Maybe God performs miracles. I didn't step off the curb and was therefore not run over. A miracle. I decided not to come visit you in Europe so I missed the latest bombing in London that injured 22. Another miracle. I didn't feel like potato salad, so I missed the the salmonella that were swarming in the bowl, and later killed several people at the picnic. A miracle.

999 times out of 1000 isn't "hope" it's grasping at straws which 999 times out of 1000 will be very disappointing.

What you need to do, Agustino, is plan on dying one of these days. Have you seen the Bergman film, Seventh Seal? You should see it before it is too late. I hope you have time -- it's one of those films one should see before one dies.

since your body wants to stay alive, and will do anything in its power to do so — Agustino

Your body might do anything to stay alive when it is healthy and merely being chased by a long-legged ferociously angry feminist wielding an already bloodied axe. However, when it is dying, I think the situation is different. At some point in an illness one passes the point of recovery and starts down hill to the grave. The body is no longer strong, suffering is constant, and death becomes more welcome as time passes. The dying are not necessarily in terrible mental shape -- they can be reconciled, patient, and even cheerful while they lay in bed.

It is vital that the dying not be given false hope, so they can reconcile with their dying. "Oh no, there is always hope" is cruel bullshit when there really isn't any hope.

As for the fiery pit... it is another piece of cruel bullshit cooked up by vindictive theologians.

The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps — Wayfarer

Thanks. It's philosophy instruction just the way I like it: Short and to the point. Audio only is an underrated media style.

I am in sympathy with anarchists, through anarchy-syndicalism, a combination of industrial unionism and anarchism -- represented in the Industrial Workers of the World, abbreviated IWW.

When you say 'contemporary' do you mean 19th century? 20th century? or 21st century?

For the latest, go to the web. Wikipedia has some articles on contemporary anarchism which are a good starting point (of course I don't know what your starting point is -- have you already read older anarchism writing?). There are quite a few sites specializing in various strands of anarchism. Google/Bing/Dogpile/etc. a search for anarchism, and hunt around.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice by the Englishman William Godwin, 1793 is one of the earliest writings on anarchism. Then there is a German Max Stirner (1806-1856), a Frenchman, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), and two Russians, Michael Bakunin (1814-1876) and Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921). Emma Goldman should definitely be read. She was a leading Anarchist thinker, speaker, organizer, and writer.

During her life, Goldman was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and denounced by detractors as an advocate of politically motivated murder and violent revolution.[3] Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, and homosexuality. Although she distanced herself from first-wave feminism and its efforts toward women's suffrage, she developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. After decades of obscurity, Goldman gained iconic status by a revival of interest in her life in the 1970s, when feminist and anarchist scholars rekindled popular interest. — INFO SHOP (Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of the truth)

Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays is an enjoyable read. she lived from 1869 - 1940.

A god, or logos, some kind of transcendent spirit is wanted. When one contemplates the immense complexity going on in 1 cell, never mind the biosphere and the universe, it seems to many of us just too damned complex to have happened without guidance. This isn't a scientific reaction, of course. On an intellectual level, I'll say "Yes, life did self-assemble, but it had a very long time to work out the details. Life has self-assembled on many planets in the universe. Matter can self-assemble into more complex forms, and it does--inorganically as well as organically. Mind is not beyond the capability of matter." On an emotional level, given the faith I received as a child, a God-directed biosphere and universe beyond is preferred.

That's where the tension comes in: Does one go with the intellectual approach of science, or the intellectual approach of religion? I don't hold them irreconcilable; we can accept that God was the primum mobile -- the first mover. But combining scientific and religious thinking doesn't resolve the tension entirely, because "how God was the first mover" still has to be resolved.

We've been stewing over this pot for a long time.