"I don’t believe the internet is an appropriate medium for serious philosophical debate [...] ultimately the most basic task of philosophy is to impede stupidity, so I see little philosophical merit in a ‘movement’ whose most signal achievement thus far is to have generated an online orgy of stupidity."
I find myself not understanding the concept of atheism. Who wants to explain it to me in a coherent way for a beginner? With a metaphysical substantiation please, if that is at all possible.
You're making it sound like atheism is an inconsistent position and that's clearly not the case. Even if you posit some metaphysical master concept you'd still need to personify it in order to think about it in theological terms. It really is matter of what sort of conclusions you choose to draw from whatever body of experience you refer to.
Take Prodicus for instance, who is credited with claiming that religions came into being as a result of people portraying what was helpful and sustained life as divine. Then Zeno and the Stoics confirmed that it is indeed true but only because what is divine manifests to reason as anything that enriches and contributes to life.
History of philosophy is ripe with pseudoproblems at least since eleatics. If you wish to avoid a performative contradiction while discussing the 'existence of the universe' you have to assume the existence of other communicating subjects in it first. It's more of a grammatic than metaphysical issue.
But you don't need to perform semi-public speech acts in order to do that. And yet you are. Of course there's always the possibility that you're either unwilling or incapable to be taken seriously as a speaking subject.
My opinion in this matter is of no importance here. What I was referring to was the solipsist argument which is self-defeating as a claim in the process of communication.
I'm curious however what is supposed to be demonstrated in this exercise. That no one can convince you not to deny realness of other communicators? Well, of course not. Anyone can obstinately maintain any sort of inconsistent absurdity, it just doesn't have much to do with philosophy.
"The numbing presence of trash talk [...] is coupled with an intellectual regression, which has become a dogma within all but a very few mainstream media outlets."
Can anyone recommend a good book that is both an introduction to #Stoicism and a guide to practically implementing it in one's life? I'd love a recommendation. @bodhidave, any suggestions?
@jkirkendall@bodhidave@philosophy It's probably best to start with sources and then proceed to secondary literature. Brad Inwood provides a comprehensive selection of fragments in The Stoics Reader and Later Stoicism 155 BC to AD 200.
