Nice analysis Crank, quite informative and detailed. Good work.

the card game being the metaphor x you suggested a journey beyond? — Iris0

Apologies, don't understand your question.

Are you satisfied with the theist vs. atheist debate in general? Are members in general? I don't mean the particular debate being discussed in this thread, but all such debates. Answering this question is the first step.

If a reader finds themselves satisfied with the theist vs. atheist debate in general, then there is no problem which requires a solution. No need to go further. That debate is readily available on every philosophy forum already.

If a reader is not satisfied with the theist vs. atheist debate, then there are various possibilities. Maybe they are already searching for an alternative, maybe they already have an alternative, maybe it hasn't occurred to them that an alternative could be possible. Maybe they wish to invest time in this, maybe they don't.

The atheist's position is a negation, but it's affirmative to the extent it says "I have reviewed the facts, and there is no God," — Hanover

The atheist affirmation begins before that. The affirmation begins when the atheist affirms that they have a qualified method of addressing the question. And then, from that first affirmation, using that method they declare to be qualified, they then go on to some level of doubt or outright rejection of the theist claim.

I'd be interested to know if anyone wishes to try to journey beyond the theism vs. atheism debate. Or is that debate a comfortable familiar routine which provides the entertainment users seek? Is the debate as it is sufficient, and thus there is no problem here which requires a solution?

As example, a card game that has predictable rules. Some people might find the old game boring and wish to invent a new game, whereas others would prefer to play the game they already know.

Perhaps such a question needs it's own thread?

Yeah, I'm not the one justifying actually existing genocide with speculative futures. — StreetlightX

Ok, I will leave you to quip in peace. No offense meant, none taken. Have a good one.

I'm just granting him this point that after WWI the treaty of versailles was unjust and unfairly penalized Germany. There are obviously different sides to this debate and I'm not going to dig too much into the weeds but historical consensus is that the treaty of versailles was very harsh and those conditions were considered a catalyst for hitler. — BitconnectCarlos

Ok, I see your point. My understanding is that Hitler was on his way out, Germany was coming back and losing interest in radicals, until the 1929 crash revived Hitler's fortunes. Wall Street game players. Dangerous folks indeed.

You need to have serious logistics for that and I'm not sure the Germans were really prepared for it. — Apollodorus

Yes, the scale of the effort was breathtaking. You have to feed millions of soldiers, and keep fuel in thousands of tanks. And both keep getting ever farther away from home.

The way Hitler and Stalin divided Poland between themselves looks very suspicious to me. They must have had a reason for that — Apollodorus

Yes, Hitler wanted to lock down Poland before he took on Russia. Russia was hoping the Germans would be happy with Poland, or least that the Russians could buy time. Even after the German invasion of Russia Stalin was still hoping he could negotiate. The irony is that ever a person as ruthless as Stalin didn't fully grasp how utterly ruthless the Nazis were.

It reminds me of the movie Independence Day, where the President asks the alien what he wants from us. The alien answers, "Die!"

Whatever does, it cannot excuse Israeli crimes, so is irrelevant to the point. — StreetlightX

That's what I've been saying all along Street. You don't care what happens next. Nor are you obligated to. Just dents your credibility on the topic, that's all.

We both agree that the Germans were oppressed, i.e. were victims — BitconnectCarlos

How so? They started WWI, and paid a big price. And then they started WWII, and paid an even bigger price. They voted Hitler in to office. The made a choice, and suffered the consequences.

Not EVERY German of course. But the society as a whole. Lots of support for Hitler so long as he was winning.

Is for Israel to stop committing genocide. — StreetlightX

What happens after that in your view?

Or so everyone thought at the time. In reality, a knock out blow would have to have been political, in the sense that the Soviet Union simply looses the will to fight. In retrospect, this seems unlikely. — Echarmion

Yea, good point. But once all your tanks and factories have been destroyed, the will no longer matters. I still think German victory was within reach, but obviously they blew it.

Yeah because apparently it's easier to detonate a nuke in Israel as a solution to it's settler colonialism than for Israel to simply stop committing genocide. — StreetlightX

As has been explained now multiple times, the logical outcome of your plan is a Palestinian state funded and armed by outside psychopaths which will escalate the violence and harm to innocents.

Here's some homework for you. Count up all the Palestinians killed by Israel, and then count up all the Arabs killed by Assad. And then ask yourself why you are laser focused on the smaller number. I will offer no theory on that, it's your homework, and your analysis.

What the fuck is wrong with you. — StreetlightX

Yes, good question, why do I keep reading your lazy quips. Honestly, no kidding, what is wrong with me? I don't have a good answer for you. Whatever the problem is, it seems we both suffer from it, so we can be brothers in that.

The logical outcome is that it removes all justified reasons for Palestinians to commit acts of aggression. — Benkei

Who cares about justified? Who cares about majority opinion? You have no understanding of the Middle East. Many or most Palestinians may very well accept a peaceful resolution, as most are decent human beings like anywhere else. That doesn't matter. DOES NOT MATTER. Reasonable Palestinians don't hold the power, just as is the case in all Arab countries. The issue will be decided by whoever has the most guns, as it is in all Arab countries. You're confusing the Middle East with Belgium or whatever nice little neighborhood you live it.

Surely you are aware of what the Saudis did in their embassy in Turkey. That's the Middle East. Israelis get this. You don't. You're some nice little boy from some safe place who thinks you are a geo-political strategist. Your enthusiasm is admired, your wisdom is not.

This entire rambling warble can be summed up by you saying that Israel should not stop being an apartheid state — StreetlightX

To sum up my own comments, I'm saying that you shoving your finger in Israelis eyes and yelling that they are warmongers from a position of fantasy moral superiority will accomplish nothing other than your own self inflation. Your tactics have zero chance of accomplishing your own stated goals in regards to Palestine. And given that you are an intelligent person who could see this yourself if you wished to, is what has caused me to question what your goals actually are.

I agree that my plan is very unlikely to work as well. We agree on that. It's just a better plan than yours, that's my only claim.

What may work is that sooner or later somebody figures out how to smuggle a WMD in to Israel. It's tragic that it has to come to that, but that could be the game changer. At that point, my plan may work.

If none of that happens, then it's entirely possible the entire Arab world collapses in to one huge failed state, and disease, migration and social chaos defeats Israel in a manner no Arab army ever could. Like I keep saying, the whole region is an unstable ghetto, and it would be wise to exit while there's still time.

And even if we allow this, which is a pretty huge leap, negotiating to invade Russia through other countries means losing the element of surprise — Count Timothy von Icarus

There really was no surprise, everybody knew the Germans were about to invade Russia, except apparently Stalin.

Once they got into a war of attrition they were doomed against the USSR. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, the key all along was a quick knock out blow. They came pretty close. A few changes here and there, and we'd be typing these comments in German.

While Germany could conceivably win WWI without too many things changing, it's very hard to see a situation where they could win WWII. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One can speculate how victory for Germany in WWII might have been accomplished.

Instead of invading France and attacking England Hitler might have done this.

All the capitalist powers feared communism. Hitler could have told the Western powers that he was going to end that threat for them. Forget about WWI, make peace with the West, shower France with love notes, don't rock that boat, and attack Russia first. So long as England and France didn't have a target on their back, they may very well have quietly looked away while Hitler crushed communism.

And then, once Hitler has the vast resources of Russia in his pocket, and no more need to fear a two front war, he then can turn westward.

Hitler wasted vast resources bombing England and the Atlantic sea war. All those resources could have been aimed at Russia.

I personally have a strong bond with a piece of land, so I can get that. If that land were to be lost, that would indeed be a blow to me.

But that land is not the only thing I care about. I care about my wife. I care more about my wife than I do the land. So if both the land and my wife were at risk, if I had to choose one, I would choose my wife, she's my priority.

That's how this gets resolved, if it ever does.

Valuing people over land.

If the youngsters among us wish to learn how to truly challenge Israeli society, and the governments it keeps electing, here's how kids....

Ask Israelis why they are putting their children in harm's way over a piece of land. Ask them why they are valuing a piece of land over their children. And when they point the finger at somebody else, remind them that putting their children in harm's way is their choice.

You don't get to complain about Hamas in the midst of committing and supporting ethnic cleansing and annexing land — Benkei

It's reasonable to complain about Hamas because if they were to achieve their goals they would most likely dominate all of Palestine in the same way Assad dominates Syria, religious psychopaths dominate Iran, and so on throughout pretty much every country in the region. It's not at all clear that this would be an improvement of conditions for the Palestinians. The evidence suggests otherwise.

The fact that the Israeli government does things I don't agree with (and many Israelis don't as well) doesn't automatically equal Hamas not being a subject of concern.

We have to be realistic about the logical outcome of Israel ending all it's current practices. A Palestinian state, funded and armed by Iran. That's not a recipe for peace, but for a larger conflict, with more victims.

It's not clear to me how many Palestinians would consider the establishment of a Palestinian state to be an acceptable resolution of the conflict. And that probably doesn't matter, because majority opinion doesn't matter in the Arab world. What's clear beyond any doubt is that Iran would not consider the establishment of a Palestinian state to be a resolution of the conflict, and so they will fund whoever will continue the conflict.

If the PLO tries to accept a peaceful resolution, Iran will fund Hamas instead, and with that support they will likely defeat the PLO. And then the conflict will continue. The fighting will continue. The pile of victims will grow ever larger. Nothing will be accomplished. Yassar Arafat knew all this. He knew that to agree to peace was to sign his own death warrant, because powers greater than himself do not want peace.

This whole moralism approach is misguided. It leads to nothing but more conflict. The moralism approach is in service to the moralizers, not the victims.

If there is to be any resolution of the conflict it would come in the form of persuading Israelis that it's not in their interest to remain the Middle East. No amount of guilt tripping will accomplish this. I agree Israelis will not be persuaded of this reality by reason alone. Sadly, it's going to take something much bigger.

The Israelis have nuclear weapons. Nobody is going to guilt trip them out of doing what they perceive to be in their own self interest. The constructive road is to try to change their understanding of that interest.

Don't pollute my thread with bullshit — Benkei

Said the fire to the frying pan....

What is most worrying to me is Taiwan. There it's very, very dangerous. And the US has to to stop being provocative, as well as China. Nuclear war is no joke. — Manuel

Wise words, thank you.

I am concerned that at some point there will be a war between China and one of the large superpowers. But, I have thought this for a long time, and believe that it would potentially be the war which may end almost everything. — Jack Cummins

Yes, that could easily happen, agreed. Not on purpose probably, but there are plenty of opportunities for stumbling in to it.

For me the Hong Kong situation is already enough, where they have reneged on clear promises. — Benkei

Agreed, but isn't Hong Kong a lost cause, and hasn't it always been so? Why do people think that a single city is going to be able to resist or reform the largest dictatorship in the history of the planet? Hong Kong is over, if we're going to do anything it should be to help Kongers find new homes elsewhere. Vote with their feet, that's all they have left.

I think we’ve already lost to whatever endgame agenda they have and just din’t know it yet. — DingoJones

Well, they are the biggest country in the world. As example, after WWII America and Russia replaced Europeans powers at the top of the geo-political heap largely because they are larger countries. So, the same process is probably still underway. Example: I've heard there are more middle class Chinese than all Americans total.

One guy on NPR suggested America should have the goal of having a population of a billion people by century's end, just for this reason. That story made me very glad that I'll be dead soon and not around to see that happen.

So, I want to boycott China because of Hong Kong and the Uighurs, and I've been working towards that for quite some time now. — Benkei

Uh huh.... Sure, I believe you.

It's a psychological malady but it sells advertising space on Breitbart, so someone's making mint at least. — Baden

Maybe we could stand back a bit. Imho...

A key problem is that pretty much all the cable news networks, liberal and conservative, are owned by major corporations whose bottom line focus is not news, but profit. This is why corporations exist, to make money, as much as possible.

So, how do you make money in the "news" business? You sell ads. Ad prices are based on audience size. So how do you get a large audience? By catering to the lowest common denominator. Who's that? That's us! :-)

Seriously, all the cable news shows really care about is stimulating viewers by any means necessary to keep us glued to the screen as long as possible. That's the business they're in. Like Facebook for example, carefully designed to feed us anything that will keep our attention.

Point being, the cable news corporations are injecting as much conflict in to the population as they possibly can in order to boost profits. It's not a crime, it's legal, but we should be more aware that we're being played.

Conflict addiction - it's real - check it out:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11211/conflict-addiction

Imho...

All these perspectives are rooted in faith, so any perceived difference is an illusion, or at least a substantial exaggeration. Faith is the human condition. There's no running from it.

Faith is the human condition for a simple reason. We want to know everything, we can't help it. And there's lots and lots of things we don't know, and many we probably can't know.

I'm not religious myself, only incurably philosophical. But, imho, generally speaking religion has a pretty realistic understanding of the human condition. The evidence for this is that religion has thrived in every time and place for a very long time. No perspective that was way out of touch with the realities of being human would have accomplished that.

Think of it this way. If religion was a creature, we would have to admit it's very well adapted to it's environment, the human mind.

But, are you sure your movie isn't just Stalinist propaganda or something — Apollodorus

No, I really don't think so. It's more like the kind of social studies history lesson you might have seen in high school. I don't detect any agenda. But of course, this film was made in the West, so it's not exactly trying to be fair to the Nazis. So I'll do that.... :-)

Imho, the Nazis were clearly world class evil doers who needed to be shot on sight. Would posters, and especially mods, please read that sentence again. Thank you very much.

However, the Nazis were really just trying to do the same thing that the Brits and Americans did in the creation of their empires. I know the American story better. First we committed genocide of the native peoples, and then we brought in some slaves to improve the land which had been stolen. This is the same game plan the Nazis were working.

The problem the Nazis had was that they were late to the game, and they played the role of evil doers too honestly, thus mobilizing global resistance more than they should have.

One thing that interests me is the degree to which Americans truly and sincerely believed there was a complete total difference between America and Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, while the Nazis are getting rolling in the thirties, we're still lynching blacks in the South, and the Klan was on the march. We'd only finished our big genocide project a generation before.

But anyway, America has slowly moved beyond the worst of that, and I doubt Nazi Germany ever would have. So yea, death to all Nazis. Thank God for the Russians, cause we could have never done it on our own.

agree. In fact, I know of no place on the Internet that permits free speech (as commonly defined) because many people fear the truth if it threatens to topple their long-held beliefs. — Gladiator of Truth

Yes, the vast majority of sites that have anything to do with ideas are tribal sites. People of like mind gather to validate their own perspective. It's an incredibly popular activity.

Philosophy forums are somewhat unique because, at least in theory, everything is supposed to be challenged.

A "troll" is someone who trolls. A definition of a "troll" isn't particularly useful imho, — Ying

Yes, the word troll has come to mean whatever a speaker wishes it to mean. That happens in language I guess, some words become placeholders for an infinite variety of meanings.

Will it cover both the war in Asia as well as the war in Europe? — Bitter Crank

As best I can tell, yes. But Pearl Harbor hasn't happened yet. Coverage of the war in China seems minimal so far. Mentioned, but few details.

The WWII story is a horror show too, so it's not for everybody...

The German Army would race forward, typically crushing anything standing in their way. Normal warfare.

But right behind the German Army came the SS. While the German army fought other armies, the SS fought the civilians. They would round up anybody who posed the slightest threat to German rule and execute them.

As example, an order came down from on high to get rid of the gypsies. So the SS rounded up all of them, some 14,000 in one incident, and slaughtered all of them, men, women, children, everybody, without mercy. A tidal wave of such insane evil madness swept across Eastern Europe deep in to Russia. The scale of it is just breathtaking....

American men when they turn 55 turn into either a World War II nut or a Civil War nut — Maw

There's truth in that. But I've been a WWII nut since childhood. In the fifties WWII was still very much a part of the cultural landscape.

It's just a great story. I mean, looking at it purely from a story telling perspective, as a novelist might. It has all the elements of an epic tale about good and evil etc. The Nazis played the villain role to perfection. There are too many hero stories to begin to count.

Here's an example, specifically suggested to the young folks among us. The guys who flew the bombers over Nazi Germany in the middle of the night, night after night after night, were your age. Twenty somethings. Usually early twenties.

You're up there in the dark, high above some enemy city. Flak is exploding all around you. Your pals in the plane on the left get hit and go spiraling towards the ground. The plane on the right of you gets hit and one of it's engines catches on fire. And you keep flying on towards the target.

And then you do it again the next night. And the next.

Balls of steel!!

Just kids. Barely out of high school. Sticking it to the man. In an incredibly impressive manner.

And then they had their own kids. Who turned in to hippies. What a let down!!! :-)

Day by day? You'll be done watching it in about six years then. — Apollodorus

Yes, the film goes on forever, just as the war did. Each daily segment is not a day long though. :-) Usually maybe five to ten minutes, depending on what happened that day.

Anyway, who's winning? — Apollodorus

At the moment the story has just reached the critical turning point. The Nazis have invaded Russia, an enterprise of Biblical scale. They've been doing great up until now, but problems are just starting to arise. Their tanks are out running their supply lines and supporting troops, so they are forced to slow down. This gives the Russians time to organize their reply and, we know how it goes from there.

Everything he said was posturing, my guess is he was hoping to barf out enough words that he could have plenty of weeds to hide in when he inevitably evaded addressing the actual topic of debate. — DingoJones

I'm just happy that could never happen in this thread. Phew!! :-)

Perhaps it would help to further define the word troll?

I don't claim to own the word, but this has always been my understanding. A troll is someone who says controversial things they don't actually believe or care about for the sole purpose of stirring up trouble. As example, Trump is a troll. Not because he's conservative, but because he's not. He doesn't care at all about issues, he just feeds conflict as a purely personal political tactic.

It seems "troll" has come to mean, anything somebody doesn't like. The original poster's confusion on the topic may arise from the sloppy nature of such a definition.

It's a politics not a philosophy thread, so it will be full of contention and conflict. Qualify tends to be lower as a result and yes, we all contribute to that, including mods. Such is the nature of such threads. But it will be kept on topic as a minimum effort at maintaining coherence. If that's too silly for you, so be it. — Baden

Ok, so this is an honest clear statement, and I do agree that this is part of your writing style as well. So thanks for that. I will return to my own silliness now.

Indeed, it is a horrible and unfair place — Baden

Look, just saying, it's hard for the mod team to retain credibility when at least some of them routinely engage in food fight behavior. You yourself have been repeatedly seen applauding such behavior, and then immediately erasing any mention of it.

And so often the mods just aren't objective honest rulers. As example, I'm convinced beyond any doubt that had my "off topic" comments in the Gaza thread been in support of the ideological position the mods prefer, the mod team would have been perfectly content with those comments. I don't care about that thread, but this is a consistent pattern.

Just look at the Gaza thread. Everything I'm saying is documented in print for anyone to see. The thread is filled to overflowing with personal insults, a tsunami of pointless little quips, thoroughly unobjective one sided propaganda making no attempt at understanding, and various other kinds of low quality content, much of it contributed by mods.

And then a mod will jump in and declare how concerned they are about quality. It's not a crime, it's not horrible, it's just silly.

So I know that on this site trolls are not tolerated — HardWorker

Unless they are mods. So long as you can find a seat at the cool kids table in the high school cafeteria, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Otherwise, trolling is often defined as anything a mod finds inconvenient to whatever position they are articulating.

As example, check out the banning thread, the whole thing is basically one long troll fest run by the mods. And to be fair to the mods, this service of making snotty comments behind the backs of those who are no longer here to defend themselves is a popular service with many in the general membership. And if you should truth tell like this, you can quickly find yourself one of the topics of that thread.

It's true there has been some debate about what the real topic of this thread is. I mean no harm, just trying to rescue the thread from fantasy. Obviously not working, so your advice is accepted.