GENIUS FORUMS

Just going back to the original post, one of the best criteria for separating genuine philosophers from pretenders is the output. I have no doubt that a lot of posts here are borne from suffering, but sometimes the people reading them suffer more. Most people have boring, mundane jobs, but these peo...

There is no logical, ethical or rational reason for God. God doesn’t solve any philosophical problems, and just creates more of them. There are many mysteries in the universe and the atheist is not obliged to try to explain them. If there always was an underlying complexity in the universe then yo...

On Earth, everything has a cause. It’s rational to suppose that causal law is true for the universe. Prior to the Big Bang, all matter was supposed to have been concentrated into a single indefinable point. So there was no space or time, because time is considered to be a measurement of action (in...

Please consider signing the online petition at:

http://www.bleats.com.au

(click on HOW CAN I HELP, then ONLINE PETITION)

who are lobbying for tougher sentencing for cruelty offences against animals.

This organisation is led by Brisbane lawyers. I hope something comes of this.

Diebert, you said that Christian thinkers logically conclude the existence of god, but you didn’t offer an example of that logic. An atheist says god doesn’t explain anything. Philosophically, you can have the same universe with or without a god, because both assume an underlying complexity. Mor...

I loath Christianity because of everything it stands for. I’ve yet to hear one logical or ethical argument in its favour. The whole belief is not only irrational; it’s wicked in the extreme. The core concepts are a case study of masculinity at its worse. Christians seek in god a level of comfort...

I don’t have much faith in homeopathic remedies generally. Natural plants can have quite powerful drugs in them anyway, so it’s still using drugs to treat what may be more of a psychological rather than a physical condition. Are schizophrenia/bi-polar disorder physical or psychological condition...

It’s not only flawed it’s duplicitous. I looked up peer assessments on the web and it’s supposed to aid co-operation, team building etc which I don’t believe for a minute. I’m guessing it was invented by academics in America who have the same problems our institutions have: they depend on ...

I've just left a full time course (Community Welfare) because of peer assessments . For certain assignments students had to grade other students. What tended to happen was that friends would form in groups and basically pass each other. They generally used peer assessments for the most challenging a...

Science has a different view of nothingness to our general experience on Earth. In a particle accelerator, if a particle is bombarded with enough force, it splits into a particle and its anti-particle. Some people think at the Big Bang there was an explosion of equal numbers of particles and anti-pa...

It must have taken a fair bit of work to get everything back, so thanks Kevin and anyone else.

People who resort to rudeness betray their own upbringing. Take this up with your parents, Dan. Who, out of the two of us, is behaving like a 15 year old child? Generally “terrorism” is taken to mean the act of violence against civilians outside of the arena of war. Obviously the board considers...

Dan, all Muslims are adherents of Islam? Ask a decent Muslim whether a terrorist is an adherent of Islam. An abortion clinic bomber is an adherent of Christianity? David Hicks, who claimed to be an adherent of Islam, is a Muslim? Apparently he’s now changed his mind. How long, exactly, was he a Mu...

I asked before on the definitive description of a “Muslim”. No-one was able to answer, because there doesn’t seem to be one. Does the whole argument hinge on whether Muslims are a religion or a race? So if I can’t answer this little red herring, then my logic is unsound? They’re the people...

Sapius, the thread isn’t really going off topic. Laird was saying some time back in regards to terrorism that we should condemn the action not the man. I’m arguing that evil is not an absolute force because there is no divinity, there is no point to suffering and that we need to attack evil at i...

Carl, god and the universe aren’t interchangeable. If life evolves as a consequence of nature, and nothing else, there’s no need for a supreme being. Religion requires a controller to provide the original blueprint for life. These are two very different lines of thought. I’m just as qualified ...

Laird, Atheism makes no sense to you at this stage, because you can’t see how complexity can just self-organise itself into the myriad of life we see without a guiding hand, and so there must be design implicit in its structure (god). But this guiding hand raises a lot more questions. How did the ...

I had a battle with alcohol years ago, so I know first hand how destructive it is. I’m a teetotaller now. Physically, alcohol releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical, which is why people drink it. It also destroys pathways responsible for self-control, so you feel euphoric while saying stupid youâ...

Laird, I’m proud of my atheism and wear it as a badge of honour. I can’t see how atheism is a dogma. It’s just a philosophical view that god doesn’t explain anything. I see more beauty and wonder in physics than any religion with its patriarchal values that reduces god to a peevish man. It i...

Yes, Laird. I think that Muslims are more intrinsically violent than any other recognisable group. And yes, we do have limited resources and need to focus on the more likely terrorism suspects. The vast majority of terrorists are Muslim. Terrorist attacks involve the murder of innocent people outsid...

Laird, you originally said that you believed increased security measures were warranted for Muslims, then a quick conversation with Elizabeth, and now you’ve changed your mind. Surely your personal views must run deeper than that. My guess is that your first response was the more instinctive, and ...

I wondered whether it would be a good idea to no longer refer directly to Muslims, Christians or Jews in this thread, and just refer generally to “everyone” or side a and side b, if it needs to get to that. This topic was really designed as a philosophical rather than a political question. Laird...

I agree with previous suggestions that this has gone off-topic, and we’ve probably exhausted the Muslim issue anyway. I did originally say that the belief that racism is always wrong is due for a re-think. Times have changed since the 1950’s when the civil rights movement came into being and wit...

Elizabeth, I would like to respond to your question: Do you make generalizations about other groups with members that do bad things, or just Muslims? I don’t condone violence by anyone. Where I have been disagreeing with Leyla, is in identifying all crime by westerners as “Christian” so as to ...

Laird, Muslims aren’t as much the victims of terrorism as the sponsors of terrorism in the western world. They’re not victims of terrorism at all in the western world. To what degree should the Middle-East wars implicate ordinary Americans and Australians? What exactly, is our individual respons...