romansh

And here we have a scientist telling a grieving rabbi what religion is.
I think Einstein nailed it

Letter to Dr. Robert Marcus - Albert Einstein (organism.earth) 

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

2 hours ago, PaulS said:

But what would religion do then!

I don't know about religion itself, but I hope the practitioners might take the word religion a bit more literally and understand all is connected.

There's a lot going on here. There was nothing wrong with Derek's use of expletives recently. Was there any need to censor them? I think not. Would some hypothetical person be put off this forum possibly? Would some passer-by be put off if Derek was censored and possibly censured for using the expletives, possibly?

Campbell quote coming up: 
You yourself are participating in evil, or you are not alive. Whatever you do is evil to someone. This is one of the ironies of creation.

In this case, you are the arbiter of what is civil.

45 minutes ago, PaulS said:

and more about why one would choose to offend.

So was the lecturer or I choosing to offend when we linked to the Islamic art depicting Mohamed? At some point, people might realize, or more like wake up, and choose not to be offended regardless of the others' intent. I understand it is not a free choice. 

22 minutes ago, PaulS said:

Probably just to limit senseless insults which do nothing to contribute and only cause ill-will.

I don't think this would happen unless we were infected by a troll, and that would be dealt with in the normal course of events. I also don't think we need expletives to descend into senseless insults ... we can be far more eloquent than that.
 

29 minutes ago, PaulS said:

regarded by society as more 'severe' in their insult.

And this is by convention, and here we reinforce that convention. To me, it seems ridiculous that I could not quote certain passages from Mark Twain verbatim because of some cultural taboo. Cnut is still verboten but pussy got promoted to the ranks of respectable? You say a line needs to be drawn and you draw that line. Fair enough. But the world, never mind this forum, did not collapse with Derek's expletives. I would argue in the context and intent they were used all is in order.

44 minutes ago, PaulS said:

I think there is a difference between the recognised existence of a word and the intent in using it.

So ultimately, we are policing intent rather than word use, are we not? 

I am not saying don't censor word use, but be aware of what is really being censored.

And back to Hitchens' argument being offended is not one.

 

26 minutes ago, tariki said:

Ah ha! In fact the asterisks are my own! The forum on which I posted the original actually allows all cocks and fuckings et al. 

😊

Ahh self-censored.

Here's a case in point:
 

5 hours ago, tariki said:

But this guy loved the water, offering more freedom of movement, and he insisted on taking a dip. Put in he cried out:- "Cor, its f*****g cold!" which made everyone burst out laughing.

Is this forum somehow better for asterisks?

11 hours ago, PaulS said:

So do you think some censorship here, may be appropriate when it comes to managing the Forum, hence the list of 'offensive' words?

Tricky ... what's your objective Paul?

Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer used a derogatory word. Does it mean we should not use derogatory words under any circumstances? What you are trying to do here (I think) is manipulate intent. There was recently a case where a teacher was censured for telling off a student for using the n-word. But I suspect we give the n-word power by cowering before it. Is this our intent?

Do you think dictionaries should censor words? Or should we enter an Orwellian realm where we can have no thought crime?

Quote

A literary lady expressing to Dr. J. her approbation of his Dictionary and, in particular, her satisfaction at his not having admitted into it any improper words; “No, Madam,” replied he, “I hope I have not daubed my fingers. I find, however that you have been looking for them.”

I think my short answer is "No".

I remember in high school, in English Lit. coming across the term "Spade" for a black person. I had a moment of cognitive dissonance when the expression "call a spade a spade" popped into my mind.

There is seeking to antagonize, being indifferent to antagonizing, and inadvertently antagonizing. I suppose similarly we can have a similar set to being antagonized. Speaking personally, I don't intentionally antagonize (often), but I do find myself reflecting the tone I perceive in someone's interaction. The latter is not intentional, but I can become aware of it.

But I suppose horses for courses, but generally, I don't think being antagonistic works, but then does an emotionless logical argument work? Depends.

A trailer for a discussion coming near you soon:

Here's an interesting article on offence. Though it seems it's gone beyond offence to harm

And the harmful picture is:

Mohammed_receiving_revelation_from_the_angel_Gabriel.jpg (720×542) (whyevolutionistrue.com)

Welcome wandering ... Sounds like your path has had its twists and turns.

If you require any thoughts from a straight old atheistically inclined agnostic, just let me know; I'll be all too happy to oblige  
Have fun with your stay here 

rom

Hmmn? ... OK? At an Aussie rules match, I presume it is similar to a real football match (I'm rattlin' the chain here) do opposition fans sing derogatory songs about one another? Or is it banter?

18 hours ago, PaulS said:

I see I hold the power to pick and choose what words might be construed as offensive!   I have trimmed the list down to just a few that would generally only be used to cause offence.

This reminded me of Hitchens' observation that being offended is not an argument:

Where might we stand on Hitchens' observation? I don't know what and how many words might be considered offensive. The strange thing is we have self censored so that Paul won't be able to us. On another forum, we weren't allowed to snigger for sort of obvious reasons.

But human beings can be a little strange.

Thoughts?

I just tried writing the word ^^^^^ cat (puzzy cat) and your prudish political correctness word filter won't let me. 

2 hours ago, harmonicat said:

I've been reading the replies of many on this forum.  This guy 'David' has already shown to be the type that causes people to leave.

I must admit I read David a little differently. (From my perspective) He thinks he has found some valuable truth, which is fair enough. And he wants to share it, which is also fair enough. But he is not willing to have his "truth" tested. I think that might be true for all of us to some degree.  

The trick is to be "pushy" without being overbearing. Sometimes I stray and that too is OK.

Welcome Jim ... I don't think you'll encounter a problem here. I think I might be the longest lasting member here that might be considered "pushy". And I'm a pussycat really

Welcome again.  rom

Agree completely ... the questions are formulated poorly. I was cooler than you ... more of a teal (blue), a similar level of functionality, but less scientism than you (surprising). But the questions require a fair degree of interpolation.

Just for laughs .... I will add it to my list of things to blog about

Theos Science & Religion Compass (sciencereligioncompass.org)

29 minutes ago, tariki said:

I wasn't proving a point, I was making a point.

😐

You of course are absolutely right.  I got caught up in the idiom. Apologies.

Derek ... it is not fair to quote people to prove a point.

Merry Christmas to the regulars and passers-by.

Definitely getting more than our usual amount of snow so far.

Another bit of Minchin ... not quite spiritual ... but could be:

Asking pointless why questions may well be our dharma. Persisting and still not knowing that too could be our dharma. Our dharmas help hold the universe in shape. This pointless Why? has shaped our bit of the universe. I can't help but smile.

Merry Christmas Derek.

8 hours ago, PaulS said:

I am curious why my garden exists at all

If your twist were true we would be discussing:
The Grand Design Hawking and Mlodinow ✔️
A Universe from Nothing Laurence Krauss
The Big Picture Sean Carroll ✔️
Until the End of Time Brian Greene
Einstein's  Unfinished Revolution Lee Smolin ✔️
The Elegant Universe Brian Greene
The Theory of Almost Everything Robert Oerter
The Fallacy of Fine Tuning Victor Stenger

To be fair these books are not easy and won't answer the Why? that you are looking for. I have put some ticks for the ones I would start with.

9 hours ago, PaulS said:

"perhaps there's more to this life and universe and what we call natural, than we understand presently"

This is purely a semantic issue.  This more to life should we ever find will be natural by definition. I would argue, we just need to reconnect to the universe (not just one another). Not that we could ever disconnect from the universe. And of course, the word religion comes from the Latin for reconnect.

7 hours ago, PaulS said:

I think we largely agree

We largely do

7 hours ago, PaulS said:

hypothesizing about things we can't presently prove might just lead to corroborating evidence one day

Again I will go to my stand-by fairies under the garden shed hypothesis. Of course it is nonsense, but how much time and effort should we spend on this nonsense? You imply we shouldn't not hypothesize. I sort of agree. But hypothesis has a technical meaning ... hypotheses are based on evidence. Avogadro's hypothesis was based on evidence and it pulled together earlier gas laws. 

What is the God hypothesis? What is the evidence for this hypothesis?

7 hours ago, PaulS said:

plenty of claims of 'intuition' (for lack of a better word) that there is more to our existence than meets the eye

Personally, I am certain that there is more to our existence than meets the eye. God arguments seem to be quite often an argument from incredulity ... I can't see how there can be a universe without a God type thing. 

Can you list the possible reasons (for you) to consider the possibility of God? 

For me ... the ignostic part of me does not have a clue what realistically God means; so, until we can define some properties of this God entity the whole exercise seems pointless. Sherwin Wine had a point (Wiki) I think:

Wine coined the word ignosticism. It is the view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed.

And a quote from my favourite author:
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?