Thursday, February 10, 2011

Rules of the Blog

This blog has been an open blog for most of its history. The intent of this forum is to provide civil discourse concerning Atheism, its validity, practices and any consequences that derive from Atheism, Philosophical Materialism, Science, General Philosophy, and more specifically Ethics. Also it is the intent of this blog to pursue rational thought, its logical underpinning, and the source of rationality in the universe and in ourselves. This necessarily includes science and its misuses.

Disruptive behavior will result in being banned from this blog. I am the arbiter of which behavior is disruptive. However, the term “civil discourse” covers most of the expectations for acceptable commenting behavior. But also included is the refusal to acknowledge fallacious thinking when it is pointed to, and to making unjustified accusations, rude or arrogant or personal attacks, obscenity, and probably a whole page full of other abrogations of civil discourse.

For most, this will be easily met. And I appreciate those who have, and continue to make thoughtful contributions here. My sincere thanks. Addendum: No comments from "anonymous" will be allowed. Choose a moniker; it's easy.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Greetings,

Clearly, the subjects being discussed on this blog are of such a controversial nature that passions can run high. Perhaps, a bright side can be discerned from the participants' extremely elevated emotional investment in these matters. After all, I hope that we all agree that epistemology, ontolgy, and aesthetics really do matter.

For anyone that cares, a couple of comments about myself. I know very little about formal logic, but I'm very interested. Unlike Stan, I was never an Atheist, but I certainly was not a Theist either- I was way too non-committal for such things. I was antagonized by what i saw of the scientists' crass positivism and materialism and too intellectually imperious for theism. So I settled for a kind of vague postmodern agnosticism with, perhaps a hint of pantheism.

Ultimately, my philosophical impasse brought be into the orbit of Asian metaphysics and eastern mysticism. Ironically, the study of these subjects brought me back west with a renewed interest in modern science, platonism, and contemplative theism.
Currently, my position would be best characterized as panentheistic.

I suppose i ended up participating on this blog because of an interest in the following questions:

* Is material or physical reality the only form, or the central form of reality?

* Is the rational faculty the only faculty, or central faculty of human knowledge?

*Is the most profound and complete definition of human nature given by our knowledge of material reality?

Best Regards

Stan said...

Chris,
Thanks for being here, you are a welcome addition.