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I'm not sure that I follow. My understanding of the notion of 'burden of proof' is that it is used to indicate which side of a debate is to be assumed true (if any) in the absence of positive argument. I am not saying that you should assume an atheist position. I am saying that an agnostic...

No, not with respect to the supernatural claims of the bible. You can't simply assume them to be true in the absence of evidence. What if I were to propose that we accept the supernatural claims of Homer's Iliad and that burden of proof was on you to disprove this. Such a method is too arbitrary...

Some replies (I've tried to use numbers/headings to make it less dense. Forum reading can be a nightmare!): (1) Almighty god: You can assume that god is almighty, but you must realise that the entity you then propose exists on a scale of complexity far greater than that of simple...

Note the part in bold which reads "I'm currently christian because of the arguments presented that god exists". In my post above I was demonstrating that these arguments are poor ones and should be discounted - in other words I was showing that you do not have a reason to believe in the...

It's hard to predict where you might get university placement offers. In terms of interviews: I got 196 for my UMAT (2005) which got me interviews at all the universities to which I applied which had interviews - UNSW, Newcastle and Monash. As Wooz indicated, Monash will undoubtedly become more...

It's a lot easier to demonstrate why you should be an agnostic. None of the arguments you posted on the previous page stand up to criticism: (1) Fine tuning of the universe: David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion identified that if the basic substrate of the universe...

He puts my relativist quagmire at risk :(.

I just find it hard to believe that a hot, 20 year old model who is willing to sell her 'virginity' to the top bidder is actually a virgin. Good hustle nonetheless.

Also, quoted because it struck me as such a rediculous thing to say: ”I looked in Putin’s eyes and I saw three letters: KGB” - McCain

It's interesting how differently two people can see the debate. On 'cleanness' and integrity: I thought McCain overused the "Obama doesn't understand" ploy (playing the young, naive, senator card), which was unfair given his solid comprehension of the issues at hand - you can't put down all...

What constitutes a win for you? (popular opinion? logic/content? percieved dominance?)

McCain's emotive rhetoric was a bit silly (Sen. Kennedy, the bracelet, veterans), as was his frequent condescending tone ("Senator Obama doesn't understand..." etc). Nonetheless, I thought it was a pretty good debate on the whole. Obama and McCain actually engaged with one another and there...

Alas, I have only read one in full - Homer's Odyssey, which is quite fun. It's particularly interesting given how many western cultural works make reference to the Odyssey (and the Iliad). I've read pieces of Beowulf and the Bhagavad Gita but can't really give much comment on them.

Just thought that I would call rhetoric :p.

Or they may be properly subjective/relative - similar to the way in which there is no objectively correct way to set a table, or to determine whether a painting is beautiful.

I love moral psychology. NTB - you should check out the MIT press moral psychology trilogy some time (I recall seeing a number of references to Haidt in volume 1). A couple random thoughts I had while listening to it: - Openness has always been my strongest trait on the five factor...

I'm still trying to pinpoint the concept. Presumably it is not a subconscious zeitgeist which guides everyone towards a common goal (to me this would be a case of metaphysics gone bad). As you have indicated there is not a single leader, nor single set of democratically elected principles...

So how is this class consciousness supposed to work / how does it emerge? Is it democratically directed? Do people merely rally around a figurehead whose rhetoric manages to characterise the collective sentiment? etc...

My shelves are mainly dominated by non-fiction books e.g. some books readable from where I am sitting: Philosophy Rawls - Theory of Justice, and Political Liberalism Nozick - Philosophical Explanations Priest - Beyond the limits of thought Flanagan - The really hard problem Nietzsche -...

It depends on where you set the theoretical bar. If you only consent to the authority of irrefutable, a priori truth then you are bound to be dissapointed. Skeptical defeaters will always leave you just short of certainty. Many would contend that you don't have to know for certain in order...