SNIP "...We're all quite happy to accept that the world might be more complicated than our senses suggest — but could it be simpler? It's a possibility that Sanjaye Ramgoolam of Queen Mary, University of London, is exploring: he is developing a two-dimensional description of the world. So far the theory only applies to a toy Universe, but his results may one day give us important insights into the real world..."
SNIP "...Christianity and Islam share the paradox of being religions that claim to be universal, while retaining particular dogmas and practices that are exclusive to them. There were times when pursuit of world empire led both religions to more universal claims. Their trajectories seem similar — a small, persecuted faith that acquired an imperial form and expression that led to its dominance across the world. Here both used orthodoxy to bolster the authority of the empire, and defined heterodoxy to deal with political dissent. One of the main differences that has always struck me concerns how orthodoxy was shaped and implemented. On the whole the Muslim world did not have the same mechanisms of central control — councils, creeds and inquisitions — to enforce matters. They sometimes tried to set up such mechanisms, but always failed. When people raise the problem of a crisis of authority in the Muslim world, they forget that this is not just a situation that arose in modernity. What is interesting, however, is that each of the two faiths has significant internal divisions on matters of political theology...."
SNIP This is the 10th in a series of interviews about religion that I [Gary Gutting] am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is Keith DeRose, a professor of philosophy at Yale University and the author of “The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context.”
Gary Gutting: You’ve made the following statement: “Since atheists’ only real hope of knowing that God doesn’t exist would be through some kind of philosophical argument (perhaps some argument from evil), their knowing that God doesn’t exist doesn’t seem to me a very serious possibility.”
I think many atheists would object that it’s wrong to require them to have an argument showing that God doesn’t exist. They’d claim their atheism is justified simply because there are no good arguments in favor of theism. After all, it’s theists who are making an extraordinary claim. Isn’t the lack of evidence for the claim that God exists sufficient grounds for denying it? [...]
SNIP Sam Harris is a neuroscientist and prominent “new atheist,” who along with others like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens helped put criticism of religion at the forefront of public debate in recent years. In two previous books, “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation,” Harris argued that theistic religion has no place in a world of science. In his latest book, “Waking Up,” his thought takes a new direction. While still rejecting theism, Harris nonetheless makes a case for the value of “spirituality,” which he bases on his experiences in meditation. I [Gary Gutting] interviewed him recently about the book and some of the arguments he makes in it....
In any case while it's not compulsory to do so, feel free to say "Hi I'm a new member." either here in this thread or this sub-forum in General.
Doing so will be a great icebreaker between new members and old alike.
(TBA, I will add a list of useful things for new members to look at or know how to get to here in the future.
While current members might think this a bit late, I'm in the process of streamlining new members to the forum and this is one potential stop.)
"A second brain in the heart is now much more than a hypothesis. Prominent medical expert like Doctor Maurice Renard and others discovered that that recipients of heart transplants are inheriting donors' memories and consequently report huge changes in their tastes, their personality, and, most extraordinarily, in their emotional memories. Today new science is testing the theory that the heart is involved in our feelings. So what have they discovered so far?"
"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for."
Is this quote of Wittgenstein's really plausible?
What implications does this statement have for awareness in animals that lack language? If they lack words, how can they know anything? (My dog, now sadly deceased, certainly seemed to know where to find her food bowl.)
Does it imply that the many kinds of supposedly ineffable experience and knowing are impossible? These range from mystical experiences, through aesthetic experiences, to knowing what the color red looks like and what love or fear feel like.
(Given the richness and texture of my experience, I wonder how much of it I could ever put into words.)
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