Philosophy // Current

Top 100 Networks for People Who Want to Change the World

These 100 social networks offer the chance to get involved, make a difference and meet people that share your ideals and... more

sunnyspeaks
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America’s thirty-year flirtation with conservatism is over.
I realize this sounds like a strong statement. That’s because it is – and as uber-right-winger Grover Norquist pointed out on Harvard’s WHRB-FM Tuesday night, obituaries for conservatism have been written after every election for decades. But I contend that Tuesday’s results, taken in historical context, are especially persuasive: American politics are realigning away from the freakish, unnatural, destructive paradigm of the Reagan-Clinton-Bush era and back into their usual, characteristically progressive mode. It’s a great time to be a young liberal.

Remember, conservatism as we understand it has been a brief and abnormal phenomenon. Prior to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, there hadn’t been a single government that we could identify as “conservative” on today’s terms; just look at the prior 50 years.

FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, and Carter were all progressive Democrats to varying degrees, Eisenhower was a moderate who frequently repudiated the right wing, and Nixon (people forget this) ran a progressive administration that opened relations with Communist China, experimented with price controls in the domestic economy, founded the EPA and passed the Clean Air Act, and even made a push for universal health care.

None of this is out of the ordinary in an American context; what’s out of the ordinary is Reagan’s experiment and the years of conservative wingnuttery that followed it. This was the work of a few Wall Street cowboys, who effectively browbeat the Congress and media into supporting their radical deregulationism, and underwrote it by harnessing the untapped power of the religious right.

It appeared to be a successful experiment for a while — certainly its simplicity and lack of moral relativism made it well-suited for campaign commercials and TV commentary — but as the left knew all along and as has become clear to everyone during the Bush years, conservatism just does not work as a governing philosophy. It is an inherently stupid ideology founded on inherently bad ideas, and there is no reason to think it’s coming back anytime soon.

Now consider this week. On Tuesday Americans gave a strong mandate to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, a party that, under the leadership of Howard Dean, has moved boldly to the left in its policies and tone. The themes Democrats sketched out in 2006 — universal health care, fair taxes, keeping big business in line, social progressivism and pluralism, and reality-based foreign policy — were affirmed in 2008. We have overwhelmingly elected an unabashedly liberal government.

But in historical context, the breaking of racial barriers aside, this isn’t a particularly big deal. Clear-eyed liberalism is just returning to its natural role as America’s governing consensus ideology, and it’s likely to remain there for some time to come. This sounds strange and implausible to us right now, but trust me, you’ll get used to it.
I’m especially confident of that because the Republican Party is in a shambles right now. After a universally loathed presidency and two consecutive humiliating defeats, the GOP has no credible public voice going forward. America’s thirty-year flirtation with conservatism is over. I realize this sounds like a strong statement. That’s... more

BuddyP
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15 responses

12 days ago

"VISION 2019 AD" WILL THE WORLD UNITE FOR PEACE ? | The News is NowPublic.com

Interesting informative and alarming stuff affecitng the world future. More info on www.the-comforter.org

pressdsp
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14 days ago

"VISION 2019 AD" WILL THE WORLD UNITE FOR PEACE ? | The News is NowPublic.com

It's about the future of the world, interesing stuff. More info on www.the-comforter.org

pressdsp
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14 days ago

Brain's 'hate circuit' identified

People who view pictures of someone they hate display activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as... more

stelman
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0 responses

16 days ago

PROPHECIES OF HOLY BIBLE COMING TRUE ? | The News is NowPublic.com

The Bible speaks of the divine transformation of the mankind that the Comforter will usher in thus: Daniel (12:3&4) -... more

pressdsp
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17 days ago

BEST WAY TO FIGHT MENTAL STRESS CAUSED BY FINANCIAL CRISIS

Financial Crisis has badly effectetd the mental health of people all over the world, health studies say that 80 % of the diseases arise from mental stress, it clearly hints the coming health disaster ready to engulf the Mankind accross the world. As there is no effective cure for mental stress, the modern medical science can only give drugs having enormous side effects and addiction. Guru Siyag, a Spiritual Master from India has proved that, mental stress can be easily treated using the original Yoga Philosophy( Not the present form of artificial Yoga and Meditation involving a mere physical exercise).

Guru Siyag’s Siddha Yoga is a practical method of complete development of Human Being, based on solid principles of Vedic Science, the ancient Indian Philosophy. When we say complete development of Human Being, there is no question of any Mental, Physical or Spiritual disorder remaining untreated in the Human Body, Guru Siayg clarified that the Siddha Yoga aims at the next development of Human Body, divine transformation of Mankind, to attain a divine bodily-form.

At present, the prevailing financial crisis have badly effected the world economy, causing mental stress and related diseases, making it more difficult to live a peaceful and healthy life. The newly invented “Method of Meditation” as discovered by Guru Siyag, has proved to be a effective method to treat mental stress and all other related diseases, without any medicine or drugs. Surprisingly, it is imparted absolutely Free of Cost by Guru Siyag, to every Huamn Being of the World. No training, nor learning and nothing to practice, it is absolutely “Automatic” process controlled by the Supreme Power which resides in every Human Body, under the Control of Guru Siyag, ” Telepathically”. Yes, a mere Photograph of Guru Siyag serves as a Medium to induce this “Automatic” Spiritual Meditation and Siddha Yoga in any Human Body, sitting in any corner of the World, you dont even have to meet Guru Siayg, face to face, because he induces this spiritual power telepathically. All you need is to download a colour print out of the “Method of Meditation” page from www.the-comforter.org Guru Siyag is the “World’s Only Non-Commercial Guru” , imparting the benefits of his new invention, “Siddha Yoga” to every Human Being, absolutely “Free of Cost”.

It takes “ONLY 15 MIN’S TO EXPERIMENT IT PRACTICALLY”, NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR ANY KIND OF LEARNING OR PRACTICE REQUIRED, NO EFFORT FROM YOUR SIDE, IT IS A TOTALLY AUTOMATIC PROCESS, IN WHICH YOUR BODY WILL UNDERGO AUTOMATIC PHYSICAL BODY MOVEMENTS, INDUCED AND CONTROLLED BY GURU SIYAG’S PHOTOGRAPH. IT IS SO SIMPLE THAT EVEN A CHILD CAN DO IT AT HOME. THE BENEFITS ARE UNLIMITED AND BEYOND IMAGINATION, AS IT HAS HAPPENED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, “THE TRANSFORMATION OF MANKIND” TO ATTAIN A “DIVINE BODILY-FORM”.

Financial Crisis has badly effectetd the mental health of people all over the world, health studies say that 80 % of the diseases... more

pressdsp
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19 days ago

Logic

Logic and philosophy, despite what many people think, can have their applications in everyday life and science. This article... more

stelman
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1 response

20 days ago

Pope: Science Plus Faith Will Get to God's Message

Notes Two Facets Needed for a Good Bible Reading VATICAN CITY, OCT. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Both scientific exegesis and a... more

walesjames
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22 responses

22 days ago

New Perspective on Duality

Food for Thought. I completely understand that the 10-14-08 prediction of a mass ufo sighting damaged all credibility in channeling entities. The following information was allegedly received via a channeling. Regardless of the source, the concepts below resonate with truth in my opinion. There are no predictions - simply a new philosophical perspective and the hope for a better tomorrow.

The New Earth
message from Jesus/Yeshua
by Pamela Kribbe
In this day and age, a transition is taking place on earth. A new consciousness is dawning which will take material shape sooner or later. How exactly this transition will come about, what form it will take, is not fixed. The future is always indeterminate. The only thing that is really given is this moment: the Now. From the well of the Now, countless possible roads are springing, an infinite web of possible futures.

On the basis of the past, we can predict that one particular future is more probable than another, but the choice is always yours. It is you who decide whether you let the past determine your future! Predictions are always based on probabilities. Probabilities are related to the past. It is in your power as a human being to break with the past, to set out a different course. You are endowed with free will. You have the power to change, to recreate yourself. In this power rests your divinity. It is the power to create from nothing (to create ex nihilo). This divine power belongs to the very essence of who you are.

In speaking of this day and age as an age of transition, never forget that you are the master of your own reality. There is no such thing as a predestined Plan or a Cosmic Power which overrules your individual soul’s path or your individual power to create your own reality. It doesn’t work that way. Every soul on earth will experience this transition in a way that fits their inner propensities. There are many realities. The reality you choose will answer your inner needs and desires.

What makes this time (1950 – 2070 approximately) special is that there are two different cycles of consciousness coming to an end: a personal cycle (or a set of personal cycles) and a planetary cycle. The completion of these cycles coincides, so that one reinforces the other.

For a part of humanity, the completion of their personal cycle of earth lives is near. Most of the souls involved in this completion are lightworkers. We will speak in much more detail about this group of lightworker souls. Here we would like to explain the nature of this personal cycle: what it means to go through it and what is the purpose of living all these quite complicated lives on earth.

The personal karmic cycle
The earth lives you experience are part of a greater cycle of your soul. This cycle was designed to enable you to fully experience duality. You have within this cycle experienced what it is like to be male and female, to be healthy and ill, to be rich or poor, to be “good” and “bad.” In some lives you were intensely involved with the material world, being a farmer, worker or craftsman. There have been more spiritually oriented lives, in which you carried within you a strong awareness of your spiritual origins. In those lives you were often drawn to religious callings. Also there have been lives in which you explored the worldly domain of power, politics etc. There may have been lives devoted to an artistic expression of yourself.

Often souls tend to specialize somewhat in the course of all these lives. This can clearly be recognized in people who possess a natural gift in a certain area. It seems they have a potential there, even as a child, which only needs to be awakened at the right time and which is then easily developed.

More @ link (left-hand side "New Earth I" link)
Food for Thought. I completely understand that the 10-14-08 prediction of a mass ufo sighting damaged all credibility in... more

walesjames
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2 responses

22 days ago

10 myths about Atheism

"SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States... more

DeliaTheArtist
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161 responses

24 days ago

Useless Facts are What I Live For

Music is my addiction.

CutestPrincess
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0 responses

25 days ago

A sweet start up website that deserves RESPECT!

One of my high school classmates started this website with her college Philosophy professor. It is really interesting because it... more

evanwhartwig
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25 days ago

For Immediate Release: Obama & The DNC Has Defaulted On A Federal Lawsuit

ONCE YOU CLICK THIS LINK PLEASE CLICK THE BUTTON THAT SAYS "READ ARTICLE" THERE IS A NEWS VIDEO THERE ALSO PLEASE... more

critic
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12 responses

26 days ago

NEWS WORLD IMPACT

T’S NOT A MERE NEWS BLOG, ITS A MANUAL DESCRIBING A PRACTICAL METHOD TO EXPERIMENT SPIRITUAL SCIENCE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND... more

pressdsp
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1 response

1 month ago

Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death

Key Concepts

* Almost everyone has a tendency to imagine the mind continuing to exist after the death of the body.
* Even people who believe the mind ceases to exist at death show this type of psychological-continuity reasoning in studies.
* Rather than being a by-product of religion or an emotional security blanket, such beliefs stem from the very nature of our consciousness.

Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

It should strike us as odd that we feel inclined to nod our heads in agreement to the twangy, sweetly discordant folk vocals of Iris Dement in “Let the Mystery Be,” a humble paean about the hereafter. In fact, the only real mystery is why we’re so convinced that when it comes to where we’re going “when the whole thing’s done,” we’re dealing with a mystery at all. After all, the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it’s more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn’t it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?

And yet people in every culture believe in an afterlife of some kind or, at the very least, are unsure about what happens to the mind at death. My psychological research has led me to believe that these irrational beliefs, rather than resulting from religion or serving to protect us from the terror of inexistence, are an inevitable by-product of self-consciousness. Because we have never experienced a lack of consciousness, we cannot imagine what it will feel like to be dead. In fact, it won’t feel like anything—and therein lies the problem.

The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn’t the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego’s inexistence.

According to proponents, you possess a secret arsenal of psychological defenses designed to keep your death anxiety at bay (and to keep you from ending up in the fetal position listening to Nick Drake on your iPod). My writing this article, for example, would be interpreted as an exercise in “symbolic immortality”; terror management theorists would likely tell you that I wrote it for posterity, to enable a concrete set of my ephemeral ideas to outlive me, the biological organism. (I would tell you that I’d be happy enough if a year from now it still had a faint pulse.)

Yet a small number of researchers, including me, are increasingly arguing that the evolution of self-consciousness has posed a different kind of problem altogether. This position holds that our ancestors suffered the unshakable illusion that their minds were immortal, and it’s this hiccup of gross irrationality that we have unmistakably inherited from them. Individual human beings, by virtue of their evolved cognitive architecture, had trouble conceptualizing their own psychological inexistence from the start.

Curiously Immortal
The problem applies even to those who claim not to believe in an afterlife. As philosopher and Center for Naturalism founder Thomas W. Clark wrote in a 1994 article for the Humanist:

Here ... is the view at issue: When we die, what’s next is nothing; death is an abyss, a black hole, the end of experience; it is eternal nothingness, the*****CONTINUESKey Concepts * Almost everyone has a tendency to imagine the mind continuing to exist after the death of the body. *... more

goldenways
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1 month ago

The Federal Reserve & The Fiat Monetary System

Please Vote On The Live Poll On The Right Hand Side Of The Article. The fiat money system is not backed by anything physical... more

critic
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8 responses

1 month ago

The philosophy of liberty - self ownership

This philosophy is based on the principle of self-ownership. You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you have. No other person, or group of persons, owns your life nor do you own the lives of others.

"You exist in time: future, present, and past. This is manifest in life, liberty, and the product of your life and liberty. The exercise of choices over life and liberty is your prosperity. To lose your life is to lose your future. To lose your liberty is to lose your present. And to lose the product of your life and liberty is to lose the portion of your past that produced it.

"A product of your life and liberty is your property. Property is the fruit of your labor, the product of your time, energy, and talents. It is that part of nature that you turn to valuable use. And it is the property of others that is given to you by voluntary exchange and mutual consent. Two people who exchange property voluntarily are both better off or they wouldn't do it. Only they may rightfully make that decision for themselves.

"At times some people use force or fraud to take from others without willful, voluntary consent. Normally, the initiation of force to take life is murder, to take liberty is slavery, and to take property is theft. It is the same whether these actions are done by one person acting alone, by the many acting against a few, or even by officials with fine hats and titles.

"You have the right to protect your own life, liberty, and justly acquired property from the forceful aggression of others. So you may rightfully ask others to help protect you. But you do not have a right to initiate force against the life, liberty, or property of others. Thus, you have no right to designate some person to initiate force against others on your behalf.

"You have a right to seek leaders for yourself, but you have no right to impose rulers on others. No matter how officials are selected, they are only human beings and they have no rights or claims that are higher than those of any other human beings. Regardless of the imaginative labels for their behavior or the numbers of people encouraging them, officials have no right to murder, to enslave, or to steal. You cannot give them any rights that you do not have yourself.

"Since you own your life, you are responsible for your life. You do not rent your life from others who demand your obedience. Nor are you a slave to others who demand your sacrifice. You choose your own goals based on your own values. Success and failure are both the necessary incentives to learn and to grow. Your action on behalf of others, or their action on behalf of you, is only virtuous when it is derived from voluntary, mutual consent. For virtue can only exist when there is free choice.

"This is the basis of a truly free society. It is not only the most practical and humanitarian foundation for human action, it is also the most ethical.

"Problems that arise from the initiation of force by government have a solution. The solution is for people of the world to stop asking officials to initiate force on their behalf. Evil does not arise only from evil people, but also from good people who tolerate the initiation of force as a means to their own ends. In this manner, good people have empowered evil throughout history.

"Having confidence in a free society is to focus on the process of discovery in the marketplace of values rather than to focus on some imposed vision or goal. Using governmental force to impose a vision on others is intellectual sloth and typically results in unintended, perverse consequences. Achieving the free society requires courage to think, to talk, and to act—especially when it is easier to do nothing."

Please Join The Peace, Freedom & Prosperity Movement
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23747821829This philosophy is based on the principle of self-ownership. You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a... more

critic
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17 responses

1 month ago

Beer-Filled USB Drive Raises Disturbing Questions

I can't pretend like the world is the same after this. The sun doesn't shine as bright. The air doesn't taste as... more

marcozarco
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1 response

1 month ago

Big Bang or Big Bounce?: New theory on the universe's birth

Key Concepts: * Einstein’s general theory of relativity says that the universe began with the big bang singularity, a moment when all the matter we see was concentrated at a single point of infinite density. But the theory does not capture the fine, quantum structure of spacetime, which limits how tightly matter can be concentrated and how strong gravity can become. To figure out what really happened, physicists need a quantum theory of gravity.
* According to one candidate for such a theory, loop quantum gravity, space is subdivided into “atoms” of volume and has a finite capacity to store matter and energy, thereby preventing true singularities from existing.
* If so, time may have extended before the bang. The prebang universe may have undergone a catastrophic implosion that reached a point of maximum density and then reversed. In short, a big crunch may have led to a big bounce and then to the big bang.

Atoms are now such a commonplace idea that it is hard to remember how radical they used to seem. When scientists first hypothesized atoms centuries ago, they despaired of ever observing anything so small, and many questioned whether the concept of atoms could even be called scientific. Gradually, however, evidence for atoms accumulated and reached a tipping point with Albert Einstein’s 1905 analysis of Brownian motion, the random jittering of dust grains in a fluid. Even then, it took another 20 years for physicists to develop a theory explaining atoms—namely, quantum mechanics—and another 30 for physicist Erwin Müller to make the first microscope images of them. Today entire industries are based on the characteristic properties of atomic matter.

Physicists’ understanding of the composition of space and time is following a similar path, but several steps behind. Just as the behavior of materials indicates that they consist of atoms, the behavior of space and time suggests that they, too, have some fine-scale structure—either a mosaic of spacetime “atoms” or some other filigree work. Material atoms are the smallest indivisible units of chemical compounds; similarly, the putative space atoms are the smallest indivisible units of distance. They are generally thought to be about 10 –35 meter in size, far too tiny to be seen by today’s most powerful instruments, which probe distances as short as 10 –18 meter. Consequently, many scientists question whether the concept of atomic spacetime can even be called scientific. Undeterred, other researchers are coming up with possible ways to detect such atoms indirectly.
----------more at link
I believe this plane of existence is composed just like an atom as well. It seems like there is a Universal architecture that is huge (the solar system, Universe), to the smallest particles we know starting with the atom. No matter what, I know I am 'here' and 'now' and however the Universe is built, no matter how fascinating this subject is, I exist with the rest of the world, and my existence depends on the rest of the world, therefore, all of our existences are dependent on one another, just like the Universe is dependent on it's architecture. So, with that said, I feel we all have a responsibility to help the world in one way or more and that world peace is possible with the collective consciousnesses of all people now living. namaste
Key Concepts: * Einstein’s general theory of relativity says that the universe began with the big bang singularity, a... more