On the Nature of Things | Forum

one can argue the opposite aswell, that not having a proper cynical viewpoint on the self serving amoral nature of power politics makes one put too much faith in government and encourages the personal lazyness that leads to social degeneration. I was critiquing the misuse of Machiavelli to justify ...

Not sure if Prof. Ignatieff is completely right about this. Mao was an avowed atheist and manged to snuff out as many people as Hitler and Stalin combined, and neither of them were particularly religious even if they managed to invoke religion when it suited them. The fact that Mao was an atheist i...

Is there suffering without God? This, of course, entirely depends on what we mean by “God,” and that is where most of the problems in such discussions usually arise. The modern sense of that concept vary from considering God as ancient imaginings such as Zeus, Apollo, Thor, a frivolous fantasy akin ...

Great to be back in the good old USA. God bless America!

Have returned, back to work next week. Plenty of catch up to do. Tired, jet lagged. Lots of long hours in a medical compound near Bambasi treating patients and training others to do so. Very poor conditions by developed world standards, endless, unmet medical, nutritional, and other basic needs in a...

Leaving this weekend for an overseas medical mission. Will be there (Ethiopia) until late April. On duty and filling in for my partners the rest of the week. Play time is over. :( Oh well, as the my mother used to say, "God's blessings comes not to those who rely on them but to those who work f...

Endovelico wrote: And even if you are younger and indulge in erotic play with youngsters of the same age, it's fine. Screw all the damn puritans, everywhere in the world!...

Indeed:

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To me personally, this is not so much about acknowledging that conventions and various models serve us very well and many by necessity; this is indeed obvious. But when you want to think about death, i.e. when most likely all our conventions and oh so useful and often necessary models disintegrate ...

These Charts Show What is Wrong With American Capitalism by Yves Smith For the last 30 years, neoliberals have fixated on a simple program: “Get government out of the way,” which meant reduce taxes and regulations. Business will invest more, which will produce a higher growth rate and greater prosp...

Being the father of two daughters myself I kind of understand this. It won't work though. Swearing to be "good" is a recipe for disaster. It is an invitation to the implosions of shame and self loathing. Try as you might, you just can't protect children from the craziness of life. You have...

Jessica Alba - American (French Canadian/Mexican descent)

The job description of the intellect has also been elevated over the years. Not only is it able to humbly serve its master with as accurate as possible subtitles of for instance sensory experience or an occasional suggestion of how to rationally plan a next long term move... while never asking much...

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Hi, Parodite. There is a difference between saying something is an illusion vs saying that it is non-existent. I believe that is an important distinction to avoid confusion. For example, what we call "past" is a convention constructed in the present by inferences from available data, while...

Time for Aerobics Class! Working all the right muscles.

A classic.

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Historical perspective might be helpful. The U.S. has treated Russia like a loser since the end of the Cold War. By Jack F. Matlock Jr., ambassador to the U.S.S.R. from 1987 to 1991 author of “Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.” Published: March 14 One afternoon in September 1987, Secreta...

This whole terrible business has been one of incompetence, confusion, and major cover your butt efforts by Malaysian officials, as well as a complete absence of coordination by the nations of the region. It is unfortunate that such prosaic stupidity will likely spawn conspiracy theories for generati...

Those Arab men in Cairo may have had the manners of drunken sailors on liberty, but, in fairness, Arab men do have other skills than being jerks with women:

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Maryna Linchuk - Belarusian

There are two, fundamental sources of knowledge: the objective and the subjective. The objective is the scientific assessment of objects to understand and predict their interactions and relations. It is the determination of fact . The subjective, on the other hand, is the experience of meaning . Th...

Mr. Perfect wrote:

kmich wrote: "There are no whole truths;"

Except this one, right?

No. It is an isolated quote I offered to make a simple point. If you are actually interested in the intricate subtleties of Whitehead's arguments, I would refer you to Whitehead's "Process and Reality."

The intellect (and its attached self) may not be the door to an open heart and (re-)discovering meaning in the present and a truly felt connection with all-thee-other(s), but I like to see it as a pet that happens to have certain needs, skills and behaviors and best is allowed to be what it is. Liv...

I doubt anyone will ever really know. George Price likely had many of his own demons that we will never know that compelled him to sever his carotid with a pair of nail scissors. i think it is quite evident that it was because of a contradiction he saw between selfishness and selflessness. It's a s...

William Blake's answer to Swedenborg in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," a personal favorite. Swedenborg's error was that he conversed only with angels and not with devils...

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hmn..... my habit of thought has it that generally we live within our own heads so much so that the 'other', the external, has no independent existence outside of ourselves. That might mean I have that emotional flatness you just described. How then, do you relate to others when basically, they're ...