http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220827

Poirot, do 2 wrongs ever make it right?

is the broken promise &/or justification, better or worse when the quoted dogma is biblical or party line? asked the same question now, many times over with different wording & still waiting for an answer from anybody?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220828

Bugsy, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sophistry again with the cheap sarcasm & no attempt to debate anything or answer simple questions?

are you intellectually incapable of answering questions or morally incapable of admitting you have no answers?

i have on occasion been wrong & admitted it. how about you?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220836

Shadow Minister, au contraire, "the enlightenment" happened when PROTESTANT christians got access to cheap bibles in french, german, english, attacked corruption in the Anglican & Catholic churches, feudalism, democratised the 1st world & remained christians for several centuries.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220850

Saltpetre, correct & why all left wing politics, so far has failed, no moral compass.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220855

579, have you studied any ancient history at all? lots of wars, murders, mayhem before christianity ever existed. Over the last 2,000 years at least some people have tried to "do the right thing".

How about modern history? WW1 & WW2, Jehovah's Witness would refuse any service at all, while pacifist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers would volunteer for NON combat, medical roles like driving ambulance. Many served in some of the most dangerous battles with distinction, held true to their convictions in a positive manner.

this may come as shock to you 579, but i have spoken to many baby boomers who are looking back on the "sex, drugs, rock & roll" 1960's with regret & are returning to the church.

Social conservatism is growing, rather than dying.

The ruling elites of the loony left are about 1/2% of the population & losing touch daily.

What happened to polite?

Aristocrat,
My tardy replies are born of the exigencies of being an academic drudge

For the empiricists Kant was the last idealist philosopher who made sense, though I don't think they'd really moved on from Hume. Hegel trumped them both, seeing no need for a segregation of perception and thing in itself--that is making an arbitrary distinction between subjective and objective reality. The perception of the former being not so much unconscious as preprogrammed. However there can surely be no consistent distinction between spontaneous and mediated thought, since conceptualisation prefigures all cognition--at the very least there is no empirical evidence for the dedicated cosmological software the Romantics were so enamoured of. There were however "mystical" preconceptions and these were arguably the source of Kant's ingenious rationalisations.
You may be "inclined to agree with Kant's explanation of "empirical objects"", but how is this leap of faith superior to ascribing consciousness, and all that it entails, to non-random causes? Bearing in mind that apparent teleology is equally problematic for the materialist?
The empiricist can hardly be sceptical of subjective analysis without being equally so of empirical or objective data, since they amount to the same thing. This is what makes Hegel a naturalist rather than idealist; he didn't resort to contrived explanations for our otherwise unresolved capacity to make sense of the universe. Hegel inferred that according to the evidence we did have access to the thing in itself and therefore that humanist philosophy was valid beyond the constraints of empiricism. Moreover philosophy is vital to restraining the essentially stupid "progress" wrought by it.
One can see why Hegel saw religion as a form of immaturity, and empiricism as myopic.
The point though is that you last paraphrase of Nietzsche still relies on that Kantian rationalisation whereby sense perception is felicitously conceptualised, "independently" of any psychologised will to power--which is presumably an instinctual or cultural attribute?
You agree then, in effect, that reason seems preordained?

Squeers
"The point though is that you last paraphrase of Nietzsche still relies on that Kantian rationalisation whereby sense perception is felicitously conceptualised, "independently" of any psychologised will to power--which is presumably an instinctual or cultural attribute?
You agree then, in effect, that reason seems preordained?"

For Nietzsche, "sense perception" is part of the will to power; the will to power encompasses the human being as a whole - there is no separation of faculties for Nietzsche.
"Reason" or "rationality" is only a by-product or sublimation of the will to power. It has evolved over time as the most useful and successful tool in order for man to stamp his will on the world. "Reason" wasn't innate in man from the start, it evolved over time and has become dominant because it possesses the desirable human characteristics required in most situations or given Zeitgeist. Hence the often heard phrase "you're being irrational, you ought be more "rational."
Nietzsche is actually much closer to Darwin and Lamarck than any Cartesian.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220864

Bugsy, a question? is a question? is a question? i have never heard of a question being refered to as a statement, allegation or accusation.

still waiting for answers to any of them from any of you, including,

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220875
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220903

Squeers & Aristocrat, are equivocation, M & E relativism ever used as excuses for bad behaviour?

Has the spread of atheism decreased M & E standards in modern western society?

Were we better off morally & ethically say 50 to 100 years ago when PROTESTANT christianity was stronger than it is today?

AJ,

Given your history in our previous (very lengthy) OLO encounter, it is a tad rich of you to accuse anyone of "throwing stones" and stooping low. Your failure to apologise for your slight on my character, after being shown strong evidence against your accusation, simply reinforced my suspicion that you are more interested in dogmatic internet debate than thoughtful discussion. I've generally paid scant regard to your posts since that time.

My response this time was partly motivated by the fact that you addressed me directly, but nonetheless I no longer have any interest in substantively engaging in the issues with you- as you should've picked up by the flippancy and brevity of my two posts.