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There was a folk song I liked in the 80's. I've forgotten almost all the words, but it contained a verse calling on us to remember the fairness of children's games. Young children expect fairness. They expect the rules to be fair. They expect their friends to play by the rules. They also...

Christine, I was intrigued by your plea: The words "human beings are made up of body, mind, and spirit" connote a (perhaps partial) list of ingredients used in a recipe by some super-chef. It implies that body, mind and spirit are different substances or elements which together compose a...

Brian, your question resonates with some of mine, but I think I want to recast it. Many people of many different faiths have proposed that the principal purpose of this life is to prepare for the next, or alternatively that this life of flesh is essentially sinful, and the best we can do is to...

Thomas, I'm new to this thread, I picked your message to reply to as a way of replying to many of the posts, both because you launched the thread, and because you articulated many of the ideas I found intriguing. OK, although I would like to remind everyone that the term "Universalism" was...

If you had offered a simple "Yes" as an answer, that's how I would have voted. As it is I cannot accept any of the answers. Dawkin's hyperbole renders the quotation far from perfect. Myths are special, as even a casual reading or viewing of Joseph Campbell's works will reveal. They provide a...

A few semi-connected observations: The best characterization I've heard is that time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once. I suppose by analogy that space is God's way of keeping everything from being in the same place. Everything in our experience, both physical and...

For the past several years, I've been working with an interfaith organization in my home county. It spans Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Baha'is and others. (Sadly, when the organization decided several years back to admit a jewish temple, many of our so-called evangelical members left. Sigh!) My...

Whoa, Andrew, slow down. I can't handle a philosophical firehose. It's been way too many years. Let me focus on your concluding remarks. [/indent]I like this quote. Thank you. I'm not fond of its objectification of the soul; I prefer to speak of the soul in process terms. Nonetheless, it...

Juantoo3, Thanks for continuing the conversation. This reference was part of a response to a remark by Abogado on November 15, "Morality as a motivating force for human behavior pales in comparison to emotion and self-interest." One of the important points that Lynn Margolis makes is that...

Hi, TE. Thanks for keeping the dialog going. I see no problem in Gaia's tapping into our human-computer information system, learning one or more of our languages, and making contact. The limitation of light speed comes in trying to take the analogy to the level of the galaxy or the universe...

Hi TE, worthwhile dialog. My only point here was to counteract a theme I observed in my quick read of the entries on this thread (and it might not have been a theme you endorsed) that the earth's lack of certain systems analogous to systems we humans have means that the earth cannot nonetheless...

Andrew, You made a number of interesting remarks in reply to my post. I will respond to them individually, and then offer some suggestions for the course of our dialog. Actually, emergent sentience and epiphenomenalism are not the same thing at all. Epiphenomenalism is the theory that...

I wonder. I'm inclined to doubt that any philosophy could offer many people the kind of spiritual experience that they get from religion, which I take to be much more than a mere passionless set of beliefs. And yes I'm fully aware that philosophical arguments can get quite passionate, just not...

Interfaith is my faith. All faiths that teach love and eschew hatred are manifestations of God's love. I am a practicing Unitarian Universalist. It's hard to pry interesting theological positions out of a UU, but at least I don't start out being a heretic. Personally, I am still refining my...

Roderick Chisholm posed this argument in Sydney Hook's Determinism and freedom in the age of modern science; a philosophical symposium. Since my copy of that book is in a box somewhere in my garage, I'll summarize. Chisholm argued that to the extent that our actions are strictly determined by...

Juantoo3, Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately a bit of punctuation got attached to the URL in my previous message. Here's a working URL:http://www.bio.umass.edu/faculty/biog/margulis.html Doug Hofstadter emerged in ancient history, i.e., before the web. For a brief bio...

Akbar, I'm glad to be chatting with you. I've described Unitarian Universalism in my response to Quahom1's reply to you, so I won't say more here. I find much to like in what you say about God, My own working formulation is that God is to the world as I am to my body (and as you are to your...

As the lawyer played by Paul Newman in the movie The Verdict said to the judge, "If you're going to try my case for me, your honor, at least try not to lose it!" I fear that Quahom1's reply to Akbar about Unitarian Universalism leaves a lot to be desired. Q is right that Unitarianism emerged...

I think that Wil and Quahom1 have expressed the essential issue: versus The question is whether God want obedience or morality. Or if you don't like God-talk, is morality a matter of obedience. I'm inclined to think that obedience is something we require of children (for their protection and...

Abogado, I just discovered this interesting thread. I apologize if I duplicate ideas you've already covered. I was particularly struck by your remark that In the context of evolution (which was the original theme of this thread), this assertion is accurate only for individuals. I think there...