There is a difference between being true and being known or believed true. Hinge propositions can then be true yet unjustified. — Banno

:up:

That the Palestinians don’t intend to create an apartheid state on whatever land they govern and/or an Islamic state. — Ennui Elucidator

Lol, Jesus tapdancing Christ. :grimace:

"Apatheid is necessary because if we didn't do it to them, they would do it to us"

Seppo, grow up — Ennui Elucidator

:roll: If you prefer to argue with strawmen rather than the people actually participating in the discussion, why are you wasting everyone's time- surely you don't need our help with such an exercise?

but Israel will remain at eternal fault with no moral standing to question the resistance. — Ennui Elucidator

This is still just a silly strawman. Israel is at fault for human rights abuses (!!!) they have committed and continue to commit. Not for merely existing. If they, you know, stopped violating international law and murdering civilians, they wouldn't be criticized for doing such things- so much for being "eternally at fault".

Like, I understand that you wish you were arguing against fanatical anti-Semites opposed to the very existence of the state of Israel, but you're not, and so you should probably adjust your arguments and rhetorical strategy accordingly. Or you can continue to post this sort of nonsense, and continue to fail to meaningfully contribute to this discussion.

Some Israelis do bad things. — Ennui Elucidator

When people criticize Israel's actions towards Palestine/Palestinian (as many are doing here) they are typically criticizing Israel as a political/military entity- criticizing Israel as a state that is engaging in various violations of human rights and international law... Not criticizing Israelis as a people. Maybe this explains your confusion about anti-Semitism.

When a 10 year old is blown up in the street, it doesn’t matter which side did it, whoever did it was wrong. — Ennui Elucidator

This is a strawman, one I've explicitly denied a couple of times, and a good example of the sort of silly inanity I noted already. This sort of nonsense is why people aren't taking you seriously.

Go ahead and quote what I said that you take issue with and I will respond. — Ennui Elucidator

Yeah, I did that already.

Is this just "I know you are but what am I", or do you actually want to make a claim or argument here? Yes, the rejection of an empty position/pseudo-proposition is itself in some sense "empty" as well- so what?

I already said that we can only evaluate theism as a substantive factual claim if it has some concrete truth-conditions and excludes rival hypotheses. If your theism is consistent with any and all states of affairs or pieces of evidence, then we cannot say that it is empirically false, only point out that it is empty. Either way, atheism is warranted.

My reading comprehension is just fine, thanks. Your writing and communication skills, evidently, are not up to par. I can only respond to what you've written; I'm not a mind reader.

Atheism (atheistic metaphysics) has a responsibility to examine the same question, with intent to show impossibility. — ucarr

No, it doesn't require impossibility, only falsity. Atheism is the position that theism is false, not necessarily the position that it (or any of its core truth-claims) is impossible.

And so its not incumbent upon the atheist to work out the details of how a non-physical agent effects physical changes or to show that such a thing is impossible, only to show that we have sufficient reason to disbelieve such causation has actually occurred. Obviously showing it is impossible does that, but it isn't necessary.

Exactly. If you steal someone's house and murder their family, you don't get to plead self-defense or whine about your "legitimate interests" when they try to defend themselves (even if in so doing they themselves cross various moral lines).

Increasingly you seem to have no idea what you are talking about — Ennui Elucidator

Pot, meet kettle.

It would be swell if, on a philosophy forum, you could do some. — Ennui Elucidator

You as well. Not really appropriate to demand serious philosophical replies when all you've posted is silly inanity and disingenuous apologia for the murderous actions of an apartheid rightwing government and its military.

Do you allow that transduction between spirit-matter being possible is the premise of the atheistic seekers to whom you've been referring? — ucarr

I'm not sure the matter is sufficiently well-defined to answer the question definitively. It doesn't appear to be logically impossible (it doesn't appear to entail a contradiction), but whether it is nomologically/metaphysically possible is ambiguous (which is, again, itself a problem for theism's credibility).

And since its not obviously impossible on any a priori grounds, the matter is to be decided on empirical ones: we look to see if there is any evidence of such causal interactions between God and the observable world (and, finding such evidence to be lacking, decrease our confidence in the truth/probability of theism accordingly).

trying to save face, eh? :lol:

or is it that you want people to know that your abuse/mis-use of the term wasn't done out of ignorance, but out of a deliberate attempt to deceive/mislead?

I'm doing fine, you need to worry about yourself; I'm not the one attempting to justify/hand-wave away human rights violations and apartheid and trying to dilute the term "anti-Semitism" to meaninglessness by throwing it around without regard to either its definition or the facts of this particular case.

being wrong in the right way is an art to which I've dedicated the better part of my life :grin:

If the speaker is reacting to claims made to that effect, then the seeker must proceed from the premise that the immaterial being possesses a physical component that makes contact with material onjects. — ucarr

Well, no, not if that has been explicitly denied, as it is with most theistic traditions. And the incoherence of a non-physical entity causing physical changes in the observable world is itself grounds for doubting the truth of theism, apart from the fact that such interactions would imply evidence (evidence which is conspicuously absent).

I wonder if you know what anti-Semitism is — Ennui Elucidator

You're the one mis-using the term, not me (and so we can probably safely pass on a lecture about what anti-Semitism is, from the person who has demonstrated in this very thread that they don't know what it is). I imagine my Irony Meter would be going off frantically right about now, if you hadn't broken it last time.

It isn't that the Palestinians are wrong, but rather that one must consider Israel to have legitimate interests at least equal to that of the Palestinians. — Ennui Elucidator

:grimace: Yikes.

No, it is textbook "Here is the way in which what you are doing right now is emblematic of anti-Semitism". Yes, Israel does bad things. No, Saudi Arabia doing bad things doesn't excuse Israel's bad things. — Ennui Elucidator

So, in other words, it was whataboutism, and you are, once again, abusing the term "anti-Semitism" as a way to silence legitimate criticism of a government/military that is committing human rights abuses and operating an apartheid state. False and disingenuous accusations of anti-Semitism undermine and distract from legitimate accusations of anti-Semitism, and actual anti-Semitism is a thing... so you should probably just stop. Seriously. Try to be wrong in a slightly less disgusting and harmful way.

Exactly. This bothsidesism bullshit is just plain delusional/in denial of the facts. Israel is using one of the most advanced and well-equipped/well-funded militaries in the world to indiscriminately kill Palestinians and steal their land (and consign them to second class citizen status), in violation of international law. Obviously attacks on civilians are still wrong when committed by Palestinians, but there's nothing symmetrical or equivalent about the situation, whether from a military/political standpoint or a moral one.

Well, yeah, it is. Fairly explicitly so; not just in practice (although it is so in practice as well, obviously).

My question advances a line of attack on a type of atheist argument that uses the invented abstract structures of logic. — ucarr

Then make that argument. Because so far as we've been given no explicit reason why it should be relevant. Nominalist or Platonist (or neither/non-commital), both accept proof by contradiction, and so it doesn't really matter what position one takes on the matter to advance a priori arguments against the existence of God on the grounds of contradictory attributes.

No evidence is contradicting it either. Who says a lightning striking a church is not caused by the gods? — Dijkgraf

Um... Anyone who understands how the physical phenomenon of lightning works? If we are taking theism seriously as proposing a substantive existence claim/factual assertion (rather than as, say, mere poetry), then we treat it as an empirical hypothesis and check to see whether the world looks like what we would expect if theism were true. And that involves excluding the truth of alternative hypotheses.

So if we find, as we do in fact find, that the evidence we would expect if theism were true (evidence of special/theistic creation, evidence of miracles, evidence of the divine revelation of genuinely new/novel information, evidence of the efficacy of prayer, evidence of a moral world order, etc) is lacking, and the evidence we would expect if an alternative hypothesis were true- naturalism/atheism in this case- then that constitutes strong contrary evidence, i.e. evidence that theism is false. If your version of theism is consistent with any and all states of affairs, otoh, then its unclear what exactly it is asserting, if anything (and so atheism wouldn't be the negation of this position, but rather a rejection of its making any intelligible proposition in the first place).

has anyone characterized e.g. Hamas militants as the victims? Anyone?? Or, rather, have they characterized the countless non-combatants who had their homes or places of worked bombed as the victims?

Oops, eh? :grimace:

Israel isn't an apartheid state — Garrett Travers

It sure is: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/

Is it not true that before the question of God's causal relationship with the physical world can be examined via the benchmark of physical evidence, the examiner must presuppose a physical component within God's being?. — ucarr

No, or at any rate I can't think of any reason why it should. It is the fact of these causal interactions that entails (in principle observable) evidence, how God accomplishes it is the theists business. Having a physical component would certainly provide an easier/more obvious answer, but theism tends to insist that God is pure spirit or some such. And so that's the claim we evaluate: and any evidence for such interactions is conspicuously lacking.

There's a perennial debate whether numbers are discovered or invented. I'm asking a parallel question about logic. — ucarr

Right and my point is that such discussions are not directly relevant here, the sorts of a priori arguments against God's existence (for instance, arguments from contradictory attributes) we're talking about don't presuppose or commit one to any particular position on nominalism/anti-realism vs. Platonism/realism wrt logic or mathematics.

It doesn’t take much reading of tea leaves to see the rampant anti-semitism in the hand waving about Palestine — Ennui Elucidator

Its unfortunate how frequently spurious/arbitrary accusations of anti-Semitism are used as an excuse to wave away legitimate criticisms of the Israeli state/military. I'd say that the victims of actual anti-Semitism deserve better than to have it turned into a cheap rhetorical ploy.

You want apartheid? Go to Saudi Arabia. — Ennui Elucidator

Sure. Or to Israel. This is just textbook whataboutism; someone else doing a bad thing (or even a worse thing) doesn't make the bad thing you did any less bad. Israel should not be an apartheid state. They should not be continuing illegal settlements. They certainly should not continue to indiscriminately attack non-combatants and non-military targets. Gesturing at Saudi Arabia isn't a substantive response to any of these criticisms.

There is a massive difference between Israeli apologetics and seeing Israelis as a group with legitimate interests just the same as Palestinians. Both groups cause harm to themselves and others as they struggle against their oppression. — Ennui Elucidator

And there is massive asymmetry between the two groups, since the Palestinian's oppression consists in having the boot of the Israeli military on their throat.

Pretty silly that such a wildly disingenuous post opens with an accusation of someone else (!!!) being disingenuous: my Irony Meter just about exploded!

Is it your understanding that God's being includes a physical component? — ucarr

No, but nevertheless, theism almost universally affirms that God stands in various causal relations with the physical world (most especially creation), and causal interactions imply, at least in principle, observable evidence.

Are you saying that grammar of logic is extant independent of human reasoning? I ask because if not, then you suggest atheist logicians, in refuting God, access the physicalist-spiritual point of contact. If this is denied, then independent grammar of logic is an objective idealism. — ucarr

Why would that follow? Why would linguistic/conceptual analysis showing that certain terms or predicates are mutually exclusive require "access to the physicalist-spiritual point of contact", or imply that "grammar of logic is extant independent of human reasoning"? Once again this just appears to be a gigantic and unwarranted leap.

the distinction that most folks might make between civilian and military, for the Palestinians, absent qualification, is disingenuous — tim wood

This strikes me as completely disingenuous. We're not talking about the killing of non-military guerilla fighters who qualify as civilians under some strict technical definition, but attacks/murder absent any sort of military target or combatants anywhere in the vicinity. Bombing high-rise apartment buildings and restaurants. The killing of women and children. People minding their own business in their homes. Killed by the Israeli military/security forces, with the funding of the US taxpayer.

There's no justification for any of that, none of these people "earned" such treatment, and making excuses for it is stupid and gross.

I'd have them stop committing human rights violations, for one thing. Reverse/repeal nakedly apartheid/discriminatory policies. Shouldn't be too much to ask to, you know, NOT murder civilians or steal their homes and stuff like that. But, evidently, it is too much to ask.

You've claimed that murdered civilians have "earned" what they got. And you're somehow expecting people to treat this as a serious philosophical position (and respond in kind), rather than what it is? :grimace:

C'mon, man...

The gist of my argument is that God, being immaterial and therefore not subject to empirical observation, can only be denied via pure reasoning — ucarr

No, there is empirical content to theism; God stands in various causal relations with the physical world, having created it and periodically intervening in it. Causal relations which would entail observable evidence... and the fact that such evidence is lacking constitutes evidence against theism/God's existence.

pure reasoning, as a channel to valid conclusions, necessarily entails some measure of Plato's objective idealism — ucarr

I don't see why it should. Logic is "pure reasoning" if anything is, and it consists in the manipulation of symbols on the basis of agreed-upon rules and procedures. And the a priori arguments against God's existence (paradoxes/contradictions between various divine attributes, for instance) are essentially just linguistic analysis of various predicates (omnipotence, etc). Hard to see why any of this should "entail some measure of objective idealism", its appears to be completely neutral to such questions (and thus is perfectly consistent with a realist/physicalist/etc metaphysic).

Since to deny God means denying objective existence of an absolute moral sentience, such denial entails embracing objective moral truth of a different sort from theism, or wholly denying objective moral truth, which entails embracing objective truth of a sort that excludes objective moral truth. — ucarr

This also appears to just be non-sequitur. If God's existence isn't being denied on any moral grounds, then one has taken no position on "objective moral truth", or its possible non-existence and so isn't committed to any of these positions.

Whatever the particulars, denial of God entails embracing a priori mental constructions of objective-transcendent idealism. — ucarr

Maybe it does, but this remains a conclusion in search of an argument; we haven't been given any compelling reason to think this is so, its more or less just been baldly asserted.

The suggestion that Palestinian civilians have "earned many times over" their treatment at the hands of the Israeli security/military forces, treatment that includes murder, violence, apartheid/legal discrimination, and forcible removal from their homes.

If that's not insane, then nothing is. And I'd say that "insane" is putting it mildly; its positively disgusting.

Let's have your argument supporting the sameness of a) questioning God's existence and b) judging claims about God's attributes. — ucarr

Not sure what you're referring to here, can you quote/link the post where this claim is made?

Do you know the sign God has no referent, or do you theorize the sign God has no referent? — ucarr

It makes no difference in this context; either way, God's existence is what is in question, and so talking of "judging a being", as if there is a being there to judge, is question-begging at worst, an extremely awkward way of speaking at best.

Inertial reference frames of relativity assert the lack of a universal time. What we know in our frame is not known empirically in someone else's frame. So authoritative knowledge of the date, speaking empirically, is local; nonetheless authority is authority, whether local or otherwise. — ucarr

Right. In other words, authoritative knowledge doesn't require omniscience. Maybe some knowledge claims require or imply omniscience, but that would need to be shown on an individual basis; it is not generally true that "authoritative" knowledge implies or requires god-like attributes.

Wasn't that Popper? If a proposition or theory doesn't exclude anything- if it has no conditions under which it can be falsified- then it is, in a certain sense, vacuous: its consistent with any and all state of affairs or pieces of evidence, and its truth is indistinguishable from its falsity.

He doesn't often hit you with a real argument — Gnomon

(some serious irony going on here, I must say... 180 is the one who "doesn't often hit you with a real argument"? You sure about that?)

which is why its ludicrous when people claim that God is somehow a superior explanation, or is the best or only explanation for something... God isn't an explanation at all! Invoking God is to abandon the search for an explanation.

In one ear and out the other. Materialism =/= physicalism. You don't know and haven't met anyone who is a materialist, in the sense in which Banno and others have used the term here.

The Professor where I studied philosophy was D M Armstrong, whose magnum opus was on materialist theory of mind. He wouldn't have accepted that. He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained. — Wayfarer

That's not a "materialist theory of mind". That's a physicalist theory of mind. A materialist theory of mind would be that the mind = matter. Because materialism, in the sense that's being used so far in this thread, is the position that everything that exists is matter. And its a position that no one has held in a long time. Physicalism is the position that everything that exists is "describable in terms of the entities explored by science", specifically physics... not materialism.

Really, really basic stuff here Wayfarer.

What else than gods can be the answer? How can such ingenious structure exist by itself? — Cornwell1

The point is, from the fact that we currently lack an answer, it doesn't follow that there is no such answer. For the theistic explanation to follow, the very possibility of a non-theistic alternative must be ruled out (not merely presently lacking).

You mean God is litteraly placed in the inflaton field? As the Great Pusher"? — Cornwell1

I would hope not, but then again, theism is stuck with increasingly small gaps to shove God into, so who knows...