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Is the world objectively neutral?

From twitter: Paramhansa Yogananda “Objective conditions are always neutral. It is how you react to them that makes them appear sad or happy.” Right. Not. I doubt someone who is dying of hunger, because of rising food prices in Africa, feels that objective conditions are neutral. It’s of course true that life is what we [...]

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Living in language? On the limitations of words…

I’ve been reading up on Western philosophy lately and one of the things philosophers of the last century have been concerned with is language: it’s limitations, how conversations are constrained by language, that language is the main foundation of culture. Whenever I used to hear people say that we think in language, that we can [...]

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Evil is treating people like things, Granny Weatherfax, #discworld Carpe Jugulum

For those of you who haven’t been reading my tweets: Three weeks ago now I developed a serious case of sciatica that kept me (mostly) in bed because of the pain for a day or two. Luckily, it seems the cause is NOT a herniated disc and I now consider myself fully recovered. I will [...]

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Free will and karma

Free will is an important issue in Western Philosophy – usually contrasted with predestination. This gets us, unfortunately, in a very all or nothing kind of discussion if we don’t watch out.Predestination, karma and fate are all sometimes used as ways of saying that what is, was meant to be. However, unfortunately, this is often [...]

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Conflict resolution and controversy

I remember my grandfather (J.M.S. Baljon) as the keeper of his study, as a gardener who taught me the basics of that craft – and as an ambitious chess and bridge player. When I went to study religion studies at Leiden University, I knew I’d be meeting some of his old students and colleagues. He [...]

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The certainty of truth

Many people believe in old myths that contradict other beliefs and scientific evidence, and this causes division. Religious dogmas and myths were created before people had the benefit of modern science. Science attempts to objectively discover how life works, and religion attempts to subjectively find a way to live in harmony with life, so they both have [...]

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About the Importance of Religious Symbols

The first ‘lecture’ I ever gave, I gave for a very private audience: a few members of the Groningen lodge of the Theosophical Society. I was about 19 and still, ostensibly, studying chemistry. One of my fellow students went along. My main point that evening was that the importance of symbols was as a starting [...]

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Organized religion versus science and atheism

This is one of those topics that just never seems to get stale online. mergyeugnau shared some of her insights on twitter just now that I feel are a mirror of what many out there are feeling about this topic. So, before her tweets get lost in the internet dustbin, here they are including my [...]

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Honesty is the best policy… except…

A debate followed my post on speaking the truth, that I think clarified my position somewhat. Ultimately though I’m amazed that I ended up being interpreted on the side of those who would use white lies in business. However, I’m no longer the outspoken 20 something year old who could shock people with her improper [...]

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Truth and lies – right and wrong?

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this before… but it seems I haven’t (or can’t find it – perhaps it was on another blog?). I got into an e-mail conversation with someone who claimed that I had said somewhere on this blog that one should speak the truth all the time. Since I have [...]

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