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Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

Humans-Only Club for Discussion & Debate

A one-of-a-kind oasis of intelligent, in-depth, productive, civil debate.

Topics are uncensored, meaning even extremely controversial viewpoints can be presented and argued for, but our Forum Rules strictly require all posters to stay on-topic and never engage in ad hominems or personal attacks.


Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
#336463
Jklint wrote: August 21st, 2019, 4:26 pm
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 21st, 2019, 8:12 amAh, Feminists. They don’t like me.
Don't be so one-sided! Please to consider the other side of the chromosone bucket.
I know how much you like poetry. Here is its future. I rather like it.
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
#336464
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:03 am
Jklint wrote: August 21st, 2019, 4:26 pm
Don't be so one-sided! Please to consider the other side of the chromosone bucket.
I know how much you like poetry. Here is its future. I rather like it.
The future seems to be my forgetting things. No surprise there. http://www.ubu.com/papers/object/03_bok.pdf
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
#336506
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 21st, 2019, 8:14 pm
Greta wrote: August 21st, 2019, 5:01 pm
3. Gay men and heterosexual women are very often natural allies, each being afflicted with the same problem ;) What you forget is that, while some women and gay men b1tch against each other, those personalities tend to bellyache about anyone who crosses their path, not just the competition. For them, life is intrinsically unfair.

4. Just in case I missed something.
Number 3 has nothing to do with me. Nor with what I wrote. It is also where you are being a feminist. You seem to have a one-track mind. As for your being a rockist, I certainly have nothing against that because I was also that when I was a boy. What do you mean "your God"? You've got things all screwed up. Do you have any more "experimental" music I can listen to? I liked it.
Gary, your one track mind is the issue here. It's a bit hard to avoid typecasting you as gay when you keep pushing the point, over and over.

Funny thing about theists, they don't seem to like discussing stuff. It always has to be personal. They are always telling people who and what they are.

Theist inability to avoid the personal may explain why they mistakenly interpret the universe as personal.
#336508
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:04 amI know how much you like poetry.
A past pleasure only of total indifference to me now. Besides, poets are a defunct species and what remains is corruption only. The same for music.
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:04 amHere is its future.
Sigh!
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:04 am I rather like it.
So would I if I had necrophilic tendencies. Ever heard of Erich Fromm? He added a new layer of meaning to the word necrophilia by considering it as a worship of technique, the non-living, the inorganic. Taken to its limit it's as if humans are trying to turn themselves into machines.

The obscenity of Dada - a name as ugly as what it produces - is already one among many such indications which for me is like living one's own worst nightmare in a state of Eternal Recurrence. I know you and many others like Dada though it remains thoroughly alien to me. But there is also no sense of discomfort since what alienates can no-longer be of any concern to someone whose distance from those beside him becomes ever more palpable.

As Nietzsche said, humans are sick animals that being literally true. It's dubious he'll cure himself; less dubious is that the chronically sick usually die prematurely without any postmortem examination as to the cause. But all may not be lost! By then there may be artificial intelligences composing RIP eulogies in blank verse and rhyme in honor of their preceding founding fathers...you know, the organic ones! :lol:
#336509
Greta wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 5:12 pm
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 21st, 2019, 8:14 pm

Number 3 has nothing to do with me. Nor with what I wrote. It is also where you are being a feminist. You seem to have a one-track mind. As for your being a rockist, I certainly have nothing against that because I was also that when I was a boy. What do you mean "your God"? You've got things all screwed up. Do you have any more "experimental" music I can listen to? I liked it.
Gary, your one track mind is the issue here. It's a bit hard to avoid typecasting you as gay when you keep pushing the point, over and over.

Funny thing about theists, they don't seem to like discussing stuff. It always has to be personal. They are always telling people who and what they are.

Theist inability to avoid the personal may explain why they mistakenly interpret the universe as personal.
Here I will tell you why number 3 has nothing to do with me. And why you have a one track mind. Yes, I am gay and yes, I have been a sort of gay activist all me life. But, and this is important, being gay is not a problem for me and it never has been. I have not suffered prejudice against me. I have had invectives thrown at me but it is not because I am gay. What really gets people riled up about me – especially because I have lived in a liberal university town – is that I am a theist. Even on this forum, my being gay has not really bothered anyone. But my being a theist, a philosophical religionist, has gotten people close to a rant against me. I have talked about the Boy as a god and people are ready to call the police. Nobody is against me for being gay, but they are very suspicious of me because of that peculiar brand of theism I have. The Boy.

Your one track mind is that you always think under the category of the social, whether human or galactic. I think you want me and all gay people to be a part of a loving, caring family. Existence is a social community of animate and inanimate things. A boy-god is a disrupter, a trickster, a breaker of social laws. At least that’s how I see him. Theists are, for you, anti-social.
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
#336510
Jklint wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 5:37 pm
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:04 amI know how much you like poetry.
A past pleasure only of total indifference to me now. Besides, poets are a defunct species and what remains is corruption only. The same for music.
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:04 amHere is its future.
Sigh!
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 1:04 am I rather like it.
So would I if I had necrophilic tendencies. Ever heard of Erich Fromm? He added a new layer of meaning to the word necrophilia by considering it as a worship of technique, the non-living, the inorganic. Taken to its limit it's as if humans are trying to turn themselves into machines.

The obscenity of Dada - a name as ugly as what it produces - is already one among many such indications which for me is like living one's own worst nightmare in a state of Eternal Recurrence. I know you and many others like Dada though it remains thoroughly alien to me. But there is also no sense of discomfort since what alienates can no-longer be of any concern to someone whose distance from those beside him becomes ever more palpable.

As Nietzsche said, humans are sick animals that being literally true. It's dubious he'll cure himself; less dubious is that the chronically sick usually die prematurely without any postmortem examination as to the cause. But all may not be lost! By then there may be artificial intelligences composing RIP eulogies in blank verse and rhyme in honor of their preceding founding fathers...you know, the organic ones! :lol:
Andy Warhol said, when asked, that he wanted to be a machine. Maybe you saw this when I sent it to Belindi, but I think it is appropriate for you too. Robert Hughes, the art critic, absolutely hated post-modern, pop art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQvoi6i8TA I love Andy Warhol.
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
#336513
Belindi wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:07 pm But god has no attributes. If you persist god has the attributes of a boy then you idolise . To idolise is not to be theist it's to worship your own creation.

The boy you worship is the boy you perceive but not the boy for himself.
Your understanding of theology and philosophy is certainly different from mine. I doubt you want to argue the point, though.
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
#336514
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:04 pm Andy Warhol said, when asked, that he wanted to be a machine. Maybe you saw this when I sent it to Belindi, but I think it is appropriate for you too. Robert Hughes, the art critic, absolutely hated post-modern, pop art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQvoi6i8TA I love Andy Warhol.
Being stupid can make one original provided there is some minuscule skill in the background. After that it's simply a matter of hitting the copy button.
#336515
Jklint wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:31 pm
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:04 pm Andy Warhol said, when asked, that he wanted to be a machine. Maybe you saw this when I sent it to Belindi, but I think it is appropriate for you too. Robert Hughes, the art critic, absolutely hated post-modern, pop art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQvoi6i8TA I love Andy Warhol.
Being stupid can make one original provided there is some minuscule skill in the background. After that it's simply a matter of hitting the copy button.
Skill and originality are waaaaaaaaay overrated.
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
#336517
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:22 pm
Belindi wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:07 pm But god has no attributes. If you persist god has the attributes of a boy then you idolise . To idolise is not to be theist it's to worship your own creation.

The boy you worship is the boy you perceive but not the boy for himself.
Your understanding of theology and philosophy is certainly different from mine. I doubt you want to argue the point, though.
Theism asserts the dubious position that Faith trumps reason. In fact the more absurd the religious claim that is believed, the more faith is seen as an achievement.
In such a atmosphere, belief is seen as something you just take off a smorgasbord, rather than something that can be established as knowledge through the rigorous use of reason and evidence.
In such an atmosphere cherry picking the facts, and simply asserting an idea that seems pleasing trumps cold hard truth.
#336519
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:36 pm
Jklint wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 6:31 pm

Being stupid can make one original provided there is some minuscule skill in the background. After that it's simply a matter of hitting the copy button.
Skill and originality are waaaaaaaaay overrated.
...which is how mediocrity justifies it's lack of talent. If you can't compete then level what you can't ever hope to accomplish. Zombies are always in the majority and the majority rules! When it comes down to real talent the deplorables have a flat earth policy.
#336525
Belindi: But god has no attributes.
Or every possible attribute.
GaryLouisSmith: I have talked about the Boy as a god and people are ready to call the police. Nobody is against me for being gay, but they are very suspicious of me because of that peculiar brand of theism I have. The Boy.


If you define religion as the worship of what you love, that makes sense, but that's a rather pedestrian (some would say puerile) conception of religion.

Reminds me of what Charlie "Yardbird" Parker said when a reporter asked him, "Mr. Parker, are you are religious man?" Bird: "Yes Sir, I am a devout musician!"
#336526
Greta wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 7:35 pm
GaryLouisSmith wrote: August 22nd, 2019, 5:58 pmTheists are, for you, anti-social.
Define "anti-social" in context and then I'll decide if what you say is true.
That’s a good question, Greta. I will define the social as the inter-connectedness of all things in the cosmos. Everything has its place and function in the great ordering of things. Everything is important and necessary and has value. The Whole depends on the well-being of its parts. Every part must be cared for. In the past that was called the Balance of Nature. And that Balance extended to humans living together. Everyone had his/her place and function in the group. And that ordering was enforced for the good of all. It was very conservative.

The anti-social then becomes any act by thing or person that tears apart the tissue of inter-connectedness.

Up above Belindi was trying to correct my theology, but informing me that God has no attributes. In the past the most important attribute of God was his phallic member. A God without attributes is a Goddess. As I read religious history that Goddess is that very tissue of domestic inter-connectedness I described. The great disrupter, the anti-social Thing, is the God’s Phallos. Rape and all that.

Theism as I am describing it is about a male god. It is about the Phallos, the anti-social instrument par excellence. The Boy will come and totally disrupt the order of society with his impertinence. He will incite the lower social orders to revolt. All hell breaks loose.
Favorite Philosopher: Gustav Bergmann Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
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