IN PHILOSOPHY THERE ARE NO SOLUTIONS
A philosophical problem never has a
philosophical solution, not necessarily
because philosophy does not manage to
solve anything, but because if it does,
the problem moves from philosophy to
science or common sense and the solution
becomes a scientific one or the problem
a non-issue.
53.EQU
A POWDER KEG SOCIETY
Obscene, that is, great or extreme
differences between rich and poor create
a 'powder keg society'.
Especially when there is no real or
imaginary foreign enemy, and especially
if the line that separates the rich from
the poor is also a racial, religious or
other such divide.
b.51.NML
WITH SO MANY PEOPLE CLUTCHING THEIR GOD
With so many people clutching their god,
We should be glad of an inclusive Norm.
b.51.NML
UNITED WE ADVANCE
United we advance the neutral,
divided the exclusivistic.
48.SEM
BE YE NOT UNEQUALLY YOKED TOGETHER (1)
'Be ye not unequally yoked together with
exclusivists, for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness?'
BE YE NOT UNEQUALLY YOKED TOGETHER (2)
'Be ye not unequally yoked together with
theodemonists, for what communion hath
enlightenment with obscurantism?
And what concord hath a normist with a
theocentrist? Or what part hath the
person that believeth in the primacy of
norms and values with him that believeth
in the authority of a god or demon?'
47.NML
NOT TO BE RETROFITTED
Many religious people attempt to adapt
their ideology to the times by
reinterpreting the supernaturalist and
exclusivist passages in their sacred
writings.
But truth and inclusiveness are not
things to be added on later.
They have to be there from the beginning
and cannot be retrofitted.
47.NLY
TWO TENETS
A theocentrist tenet is
"To hear is to obey".
(This is the way one may treat non-
persons that do not speak the language;
that, like dogs, only react properly to
certain sounds, harsh or less harsh.)
Its normistic counterpart is
"To be convincing is to be obeyed".
(This is the way one treats fellow-
persons.)
46.EQU
THE RIGHT QUESTION PRECEDES ANY ANSWER
Creatures believing in a god before
anything else ask themselves "Who
created life?" (a matter of authority).
Evolutioners believing in a norm before
anything else ask themselves "How should
life be lived?" (a matter of value).
46.EQU
THE LIAR'S LYRE
What is not true need not be false but
may be hypothetical or fictional
-- lyrical, for instance --
dependent on the way it is presented,
and on its source.
When we listen to the lyre we hear
lyrics, but when we listen to the liar
we hear falsehoods.
No wonder, a lie or supernaturalist
belief often deceives people by being
much more lyrical than the truth,
unfabricated and unadorned.
46.EQU
THE COIN HAS TWO SIDES
Money
makes people independent --
of others as almgivers,
of the pecuniary worries of daily life.
When getting it it satisfies.
However,
the _lust_ for money
makes people dependent --
on others as victims,
on the worries
of enlarging their wealth,
of safeguarding their acquisitions.
When having it it no longer satisfies.
46.NLY
COMMUNITY
Community unites and community divides.
There is only one community that unites
human beings without dividing them:
the community of all humankind.
46.NEY
AN ETERNAL STRUGGLE
Should there necessarily be such a thing
as an eternal struggle in the world,
then not between good and evil but
between evil and evil, between the
wrongs that straddle the right.
43.EQU
A PITIFUL SIGHT INDEED
It is a pitiful sight indeed to see how
a few conscientious present-day
monotheists are desparately trying to
eke out the life of their religious
ideology with a number of modern, quasi-
scientific and quasi-inclusive additives
that are essentially foreign to their
supernaturalist, exclusivist culture.
42.SLL
FERTILIZED HUMAN EGGS
For religious antiabortionists human
persons are no more valuable than
fertilized human eggs. In questions of
war it is not only the cruelest
soldiers, and in questions of capital
punishment it is not only the vilest
murderers, who are the victims of this
type of moral thinking -- or should we
say "non-thinking"?
42.SEY
WHEN WE CANNOT AGREE TO DISAGREE
For some things the following holds:
If we agree, we agree on something
trivial;
if we disagree, we disagree on something
crucial.
We cannot agree to disagree.
38 ASWW-39.SLL
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