Philosophy Discussion Forums

Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 27th, 2018, 8:16 pm
It's sometimes best to take the things you read in the news about distant lands with a pinch of salt. My favourite was Steven Emerson of Fox News and his "Birmingham is a Muslims-only city" comments. On the plus side (for Brummies) it's probably put Trump off going there.

Well, I’m not about to call my Swedish neighbors liars.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 27th, 2018, 7:03 pm Greta:

I already addressed the first part in my response to Lucky. As for the second part, I think this says it all

I don't know your response to Lucky. I can't read everything here.

The nature of demonstrations mean nothing and you know it. That is just gaming - useful for rhetorical and propagandist purposes but says NOTHING about the deeper issue of whether women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates. This devaluing of women is to be expected in all societies to some extent, given that in much of the world women are less valued than farm animals.

Greta wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 3:21 am

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 27th, 2018, 7:03 pm Greta:

I already addressed the first part in my response to Lucky. As for the second part, I think this says it all

I don't know your response to Lucky. I can't read everything here.

The nature of demonstrations mean nothing and you know it. That is just gaming - useful for rhetorical and propagandist purposes but says NOTHING about the deeper issue of whether women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates. This devaluing of women is to be expected in all societies to some extent, given that in much of the world women are less valued than farm animals.

The issue is their respective temperaments, not whether "women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates." Am I to suppose vulgarity and threatening violence is your idea of how civilized people should behave? What I am suggesting is that the Women's March is a display of how secularism corrupts values.

Dark Matter:

The issue is their respective temperaments …

Temperament is extremely important. One precipitating factor of the first Women’s March is the temperament of the President. This time around, the temperament of Congress, their spinelessness and hypocrisy was also a factor.

What I am suggesting is that the Women's March is a display of how secularism corrupts values.

The Women’s March is symptomatic of a society that no longer has cohesive values. Those who wish to preserve particular values will always see change as corruption and will always find scapegoats.

Secularism does not corrupt values, it devalues values that claim to be unassailable because they come from on high.

And yet for all the corruption of secularism we live in the most peaceful, longest life span, best standard of living era of all time which compares pretty favourably with non secular society in the rest of the world.
In fact life is so good that the worst thing we can say about our enemies is that they are messy and say mean things. And then we can cherry pick a YouTube video because it's well know that not a single anti abortion activist ever said a mean thing in their lives.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 3:42 am

Greta wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 3:21 am
I don't know your response to Lucky. I can't read everything here.

The nature of demonstrations mean nothing and you know it. That is just gaming - useful for rhetorical and propagandist purposes but says NOTHING about the deeper issue of whether women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates. This devaluing of women is to be expected in all societies to some extent, given that in much of the world women are less valued than farm animals.

The issue is their respective temperaments, not whether "women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates." Am I to suppose vulgarity and threatening violence is your idea of how civilized people should behave? What I am suggesting is that the Women's March is a display of how secularism corrupts values.

This is just game playing again. The ONLY significant moral issue is whether "women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates", not the behaviour of lobbyists.

Can you not tell the difference between social rules and natural laws?

Greta wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 4:44 pm

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 3:42 am

The issue is their respective temperaments, not whether "women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates." Am I to suppose vulgarity and threatening violence is your idea of how civilized people should behave? What I am suggesting is that the Women's March is a display of how secularism corrupts values.

This is just game playing again. The ONLY significant moral issue is whether "women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates", not the behaviour of lobbyists.

Can you not tell the difference between social rules and natural laws?

Law is life itself, not the rules of its conduct (or lack thereof).

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 10:28 pm

Greta wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 4:44 pmThis is just game playing again. The ONLY significant moral issue is whether "women are more important than what are effectively microbes and invertebrates", not the behaviour of lobbyists.

Can you not tell the difference between social rules and natural laws?

Law is life itself, not the rules of its conduct (or lack thereof).

Law is not life itself but a part of it, a social construction decided upon by influential members of a society.

It's pointless to point to a few demonstrations over some tiny period - and without the context of significant aggravation - and point to that as evidence that secular humanitarian movements over centuries, even millennia are inherently bad.

Otherwise people might start associating you with those who bomb abortion clinics.

Greta wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 10:50 pm

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 10:28 pm
Law is life itself, not the rules of its conduct (or lack thereof).

Law is not life itself but a part of it, a social construction decided upon by influential members of a society.

I guess I'm just not as anthropocentric as some people.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 11:52 pm

Greta wrote: ↑January 28th, 2018, 10:50 pmLaw is not life itself but a part of it, a social construction decided upon by influential members of a society.

I guess I'm just not as anthropocentric as some people. 8)

I was effectively saying that your view was anthropocentric, that the law is only a small subset of larger wholes not an absolute.

Let us first agree that the existence of God is impossible to prove. So is the non-existence of God. In fact, I argue that absolute proofs are impossible in almost all matters. Outside of mathematics, I can think of only one non-trivial claim the truth of which I can prove absolutely; namely, that I am fallible. And it almost follows from this that I cannot be absolutely certain about anything else. I must be content with assigning degrees of confidence to various propositions, and allowing myself to treat as absolutely true those propositions to which I feel justified in assigning the highest possible confidence-values.
So it makes sense to me that people can believe the truth of propositions that are not perfectly provable. Some versions of theistic belief can be quite compelling. Personally, after a very great deal of thinking, reading, and praying, I found myself stuck with the very strong belief that God does not exist. I dragged myself, kicking and screaming, into first agnosticism and then atheism, over forty years ago. This was not a choice. And in a similar way, I assume, some believers do not 'choose' to believe. It just seems to them that their God really exists. What's so hard to understand about that?

It just seems to them that their God really exists. What's so hard to understand about that?

I find it hard to understand because I find the arguments extremely uncompelling. For example if someone wanted to buy something with magic beans I would struggle to understand why anyone would believe them. I mean I get it on an intellectually level, but really I just don't get it.

Eduk wrote: ↑December 17th, 2018, 7:57 am

It just seems to them that their God really exists. What's so hard to understand about that?

I find it hard to understand because I find the arguments extremely uncompelling. For example if someone wanted to buy something with magic beans I would struggle to understand why anyone would believe them. I mean I get it on an intellectually level, but really I just don't get it.

Aahhh, but you are discounting one of the most basic freedoms, the freedom to be... illogical, let's call it.

LuckyR wrote: ↑December 17th, 2018, 4:03 pm

Eduk wrote: ↑December 17th, 2018, 7:57 am
I find it hard to understand because I find the arguments extremely uncompelling. For example if someone wanted to buy something with magic beans I would struggle to understand why anyone would believe them. I mean I get it on an intellectually level, but really I just don't get it.

Aahhh, but you are discounting one of the most basic freedoms, the freedom to be... illogical, let's call it.

What if none logic leads us to a practical outcome? There are things in life that make us second guess ourselves, with or without theism. The question is, who has been guessing the longest and who is best at it. If we reject those that have done the most guessing, aren't we second guessing the guessers? An if we arrive at a conclusion that is helpful, how long until someone breaks it down again?

Perhaps thinking is not what we're supposed to do, there are many things we think on in life, but the answer we get is not a thought. The answer we get is a feeling, and the purpose is to live. Life has many sides to it and we mostly experience things which we cannot express in words. So why believe in God when it is impossible to prove - because God is like those things we feel and cannot express and that is faith. Just like we don't agree or appreciate everything about life, so we will not agree with everything about God, so perhaps God and life is much the same. Think on it, and what answers is not a thought.

I feel like your God doesn't exist.