Oh, struck a cord, have I? It seems you're rather quick to give lengthy expository defenses. How odd, the way you act, you might think that being holier-than-thou is a common critique of Catholics or something. I wonder where that critique comes from?
It must be that I'm childish, of course. It...
Not necessarily.
If you really wanted to be an omnist, I'd actually start by reading up on Hinduism, Thelema, Theosophy, Carl Jung, and Chaos Magick, since these are the largest perennial philosophies out there. Oddly enough, you can actually adhere to all of them, because they don't contradict...
The answer is: He didn't. He sent redeemers consistently. Noah's family, for instance. Abraham, too. Moses, of course, brought the exodus and laid the foundation for the rules of Eloah's people. If you take from pseudopigraphia or Rabbinical literature, he even arranged Adam and Eve's education...
Technically, you would have to do this to make any political system universal. We still have Saudi Arabia and North Korea, and the US is a corporate oligarchy now rather than a democratic republic. In many ways, even basic democracy would require this, because we always end up more authoritarian...
I use "spirit" in the alchemical sense to refer to the facet of the mind responsible for awareness, and "spiritual" to refer to a romanticized form of this awareness.
For instance, I might say that one should discipline the spirit, and what I mean is that one should take a step back from their...
Sam Harris. I think he would make a decent philosopher king and wield his position responsibly, with enough humility to lean on the people underneath him. I think we would, at the very least, see climate change being more efficiently tackled and that's sort of the biggest existential threat...
It's funny, in another thread not long ago, we had Muslims jumping to divorce themselves from people like you. I guess they feel like your bigotry gives them a bad name or something. Isn't that weird?
To those still wondering why I think Islam is barbaric, here you go! Celebration of the flawed...
While there are ascetics in Judaism and Islam, the teachings of Christ are probably the most ascetic of the Abrahamic religions. In a way, they're a more extreme version of Jewish morality, while at the same time having very little to do with the Torah. They're both Apollonian, and a...
Technically, they could run parallel in theory. Modern Deism is unfalsfiable and faith-based.
Deism before the discovery of evolution was quite different. It was taken as a serious scientific hypothesis that explained the apparent design in biodiversity, and a solution for the hard problem of...
I'm anit-nudity, anit-seatbelt, anti-helmet, and anti-mask laws, so I guess I'm at least consistent. I do think everyone should be wearing a mask, but I think the laws are not only not working (since most people are still taking their masks off or wearing ineffective "masks"), but are...
As somebody that was once a theistic Satanist, I can absolutely testify that not only do LaVeyan Satanists not believe in Satan but many of them are actively hostile towards Satanists that do.
That said, you're actually sort of right. LaVey was a Pantheist who believed in magic, and a few...
Nothing you've said here actually goes against what I said, although I would say that even many Shias and Sunnis tend to be more extreme than your average Protestant in my experience. And from what I've heard of most ex-Muslims, there's a lot of fundamentalist-level tomfoolery going on behind...
Culture is unfortunately a part of religion in most definitions. That's in large part because "religion" (as opposed to spirituality or magic) is normally seen as communal and about communities. As such, yes, I can critique a religion by critiquing its cultural norms and mores. That's how it...
What about the fact that even moderate Muslims tend to have more in common with fundamentalist Christians than the average person? Or the imperialism, where you have people in Turkey and Somalia being forced into a completely foreign culture, only to be treated as lesser by their invaders?
What...
I'm terrified of the Christian God, and I don't even believe he exists. The thing is, even if I converted to Christianity, it wouldn't matter. I would always be terrified that I was in the "wrong" denomination and facing eternal hellfire.
I wish I never went to church. It's not a rational fear...