I'll talk more about the IRA later but I want to know right now what the specific proven justification for killing children in the hospital i — Baden

They were disarming Hamas who attempted to use a hospital as a safety zone where the IDF said was a Hamas operational center. Hamas had no justification to put children in harm's way under any ethical theory. Self defense was Israel's justification.

If I invade a country with a baby in my backpack, and you shoot me but I'm saved by my baby shield, the ethical violation is on me.

Two factual disputes from what you said above: (1) babies were evacuated from the hospital, meaning the IDF is working to reduce casualties to allow safe passage from an active war zone and (2) Hamas raped Israelis. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/world/israel-investigates-sexual-violence-hamas/index.html

The only known bombing of a Palestinian hospital was by a stray Hamas rocket, which hit the parking lot, but was first reported by Hamas and on this thread as a direct attack by Israel on the hospital itself.

This is a horrible war. It's painful to read the reports. Hamas should never have bombed, raped, butchered, and burned Israeli citizens, but really, this is child's play as to what happened after 9/11. The whole Middle East got re-sorted out. By some reports, the total deaths attributable to 9/11 was 4 to 5 million. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/

Hamas knowingly threw themselves on this grenade.

Imbedded in that response is that the appropriate Israeli response to the 3,000 missles launched in 4 hours on 10/7, the paratrooper invasion of rapists, butchers, and kidnappers onto civilian areas was to kill just those terrorists who made it over and then build a bigger iron dome and then set up a conference to hash out the future with the orchestrators of the rape?

If there were a case where Hamas posed a direct threat to Israel from a military position and the only way to neutralize that threat risked some civilian lives, then it could be justifiable to destroy that position even if some civilians were killed. — Baden

I do believe being raped and butchered qualifies as a direct threat, so that leads me to destroying those military posts that offer Hamas that ability.

Hamas fortifies its positions behind its citizens, builds tunnels throughout Gaza, uses hospitals as military bases, and transports weapons in ambulances.

Those positions have to be destroyed under this logic.

It is a tragedy of epic proportions that Hamas is sacrificing helpless Palestinians, but that tragedy does not extend to the Israelis because they are not helpless, nor are they made helpless by the barbaric tactics of Hamas.

They did not do it by killing Catholic civilians en masse or bombing and destroying their homes because that would have been madness and completely unacceptable — Baden

Do you truly view the Catholics of Northern Ireland as sufficiently similar to Hamas to make this comparison? This isn't a rhetorical question, but do you really believe the same folks who authorized the rape plan can be trusted at the negotiation table?

I mean think about that. You're sitting there with your leadership team and some guy says "let's rape concert goers and burn the babies on the collective farm," and the ayes have it, so it's approved, the parachutes then get packed, and then you tune in to CNN to watch it unfold.

That's kinda fucked up beyond repair, right?

Going after Hamas by first securing the welfare of the civilians would have been smarter. — frank

Hamas uses the civilians as shields and then stopped them from fleeing south to avoid the IDF. You can't assure the safety of the civilians without first engaging Hamas because they use them as their weapons.

You just have to respond, and that's that? No further argument is necessary other than "something happened, therefore a response must happen"? — Echarmion

You have to respond because your country is being attacked.

But why do we need to supply a strategy in order to be allowed to criticize? It should rightly be the other way around. It should be incumbent on the one who exercises violence to justify that violence. — Echarmion

It's my position that the Israeli response is necessary to protect Israeli interests. If you disagree, you can present one of two arguments: (1) the Israeli response is disproportionate to the threat, meaning it excessively exacts damage beyond what is necessary to achieve safety for its citizens, or (2) Israel has no legitimate interest to protect because it is either an illegal occupier of the land or because it deserves this comuppance.

If you choose #1, you've got to set out what the proportionate response is. That no one can seem to do this leads me to believe that #2 is the real position everyone here actually has. The #2 position calls for the eliminatation of Israel, which is why Israel is ignoring the protests.

A political solution. — bert1

Explain how that works. Hamas attacks and you pick up the phone and call their leadership and you discuss how they ought stop raping concert goers?

Are you under any illusion that had Israel not responded as they did that the Hamas attack would not have ended?

The thing is it's impossible to discuss this with you because to me it is country A vs country B. I have no love or hatred for either the word "Israel" or "Palestine". They're just labels to me. I'm trying to look at it as objectively as I can, but to you, understandably, you need to take a side. So, yes, we are talking completely at cross purposes. — Baden

Sort of.

If we were back in the 60s debating America's involvement in Vietnam, with you the uninvested non-American and me the invested, blindly patriotic American, I could at least understand your position that American interests in the region were limited, and a communist Vietnam would not pose any real threat to the US. With that, you might argue that full withdrawal from Vietnam were the correct thing because it posed no threat to the US.

I might then argue otherwise, adopting the domino theory of the time, insisting that if Vietnam falls, soon will the entire region and eventually Americans would eventually lose all their freedoms.

Our respective arguments would be speculative, with neither of us knowing what a communist Vietnam would mean going forward in terms of Western interests, but that would be the focus of our arguments.

What's important here is what you would not be arguing. You would not be arguing that you agree the US will likely fall to communism if Vietnam falls, but that should be allowed because too many Vietnamese women and children will die when the US defends itself, and Vietnamese children are just as precious as American ones.

That is, my partisan position would be squared against your contrasting one, with the correct position ultimately being determined by whose prediction will happen to be right. Neither of us though would be arguing about whether the US has the right to protect its interests. That would be a given. The question would be whether a war in Vietnam will do that.

Back to Israel.

The threat to Israel, unlike in the Vietnam example, isn't a speculative fear of being overtaken by a foreign ideology, but it's of actual rapists on actual parachutes dropping in on concerts and kibbutzim.

So while you could reasonably say in the Vietnam example we need to stop and rethink strategy and withdraw, you can't say the same of Israel. Actual bombs are falling and you have to respond even if it pangs your conscience that maybe you've not been a perfect neighbor in the past.

My position is that Israel's right to protect itself is a given, just like the US's. The question is whether a full scale invasion of Gaza does that. I say it does. If you say it doesn't, again I ask, what does? This seems the question that won't be answered without backtracking on the assumption that Israel has the right to defend itself. All I've heard here is that Israel must concede its sins and accept its spanking.

So, how many Palestinians do you authorize be killed in the defense of Israel?

Actually how about you and Hanover beat each other up with your uberman warmongering. I'll just sit by and watch while you savage each other. Get to it. — Baden

This is just you regretting entering this fray and wanting to bow out. Not that I blame you. I took some time before entering it as well and not sure what headway gets made in these sorts of debates anyway.

I understand that's your viewpoint and it's a necessarily perspectival one. But the people of Gaza can say the same and then what? Are Hamas then being moral in their further mistreatment of you and yours? — Baden

You're fighting a war, not having an internal debate, paralyzed to respond as you wring your hands over the dictates of righteousness. Your passion for being moral strikes me as a Nietzschean described tragedy where you can no longer self defend because you trouble yourself with the thought that all the world are equally lambs, so who am I to ever be a wolf?

The deaths of the Palestinians I lay at the feet of Hamas, not Israel.. Men drape themselves in Palestinian babies with guns blazing toward the innocent and the world stands in shock at those who return fire and not at those men? That is a world gone mad.

And this impassioned plea you make for the children of Palestine as the innocent victims, they don't make for themselves. Where are the Palestinian protesters chanting their hatred toward Hamas and love and support for the children of Israel? I hear these arguments only among those trying to intellectualize this debate, but not by actual protesters and Palestinians.

Your solution is appeasement so that we don't aggravate the situation so that we can limit the population of future terrorists. Here's the reality: the problem can't be aggravated, appeasement will not lead to peace, and the people who need to worry are not the Israelis. You'd think from your description, Hamas has Israel where it wants them. From my chair, Hamas is being devastated and their only hope is in winning a political battle on the streets that will convince Israel to stop the onslaught.

But anyway, no one has actually responded by providing a real battle plan as the bombs fall. They just recite what they think caused it and what they think the consequences will be. They say the response must be proportionate, but can't describe that in concrete terms because it will mean acknowledging Israel's right to defend and allowing a certain number of Palestinian deaths.

And I understand why you are partisan, which is why I am trying to be nice to you. Yes, this is me being nice. — Baden

And this is a kind statement, sincerely, but it does injustice to my position, as if to suggest I'm emotionally traumatized to an extent, and so a certain amount of irrationality and lack of objectivity is understandable.

My point is that morality demands partisanship. You don't go into the battlefield weighing your enemy's interests and suffering. Your enemy worries about themselves and you yourself. That is what war is: pure adversarial efforts at protecting your interests. To do otherwise is suicide.

You don't weigh your neighbor's interests like your family's, and that's not because you lack the ability to be objective. It's because being objective is not how you protect your family. Allowing your family to die a deserved death is not honorable or moral. It's the opposite.

mean, if Israel has the right to kill 4,000 Palestinian children including babies in a hospital as "self defence" against its few hundred casualties of a Hamas attack then how many Israeli civilians, by your own logic, if you are to be consistent, would Hamas be justified in killing in defence of its (much much more vulnerable) population? You're caught in a moral absurdity that pretending this conflict started a month ago and Hamas are the only bad actors is part of. — Baden

They aren't killing in retaliation, as if this is the Palestinians moral dessert, and so we measure their punishment against their crime.

They are protecting their citizens from attack and securing their borders.

And they're not out seeking children or hospitals to attack. They are being forced into a battle where the enemy uses human shields.

In any event, I asked previously, what would you do if this were your land? Would you just withdraw now, leaving Hamas intact and allow Iran to re-fund Hamas so that this can play out again? Do you give Hamas safety zones in hospitals and schools? Since you condemn the response, tell me what you do.

Do you sit down at the table with Hamas expecting they'll reasonably resolve this? If they don't, how many more chances do you give? If you allow a ceasefire, if they send in terrorists again, is it now game on, no more Mr. Nice Guy?

It is absolutely terrible what is happening. All war is horrible beyond compression. We can save the recitations of that, as if some of us have superior senses of empathy others don't.

My question is if this response is unjust, then lay me out your just battle plan, which cannot include placing your citizens at risk if you take seriously your duty to protect your citizens.

I'm not pro Palestinian I'm not pro-israeli I'm Pro truth and I'm Pro Justice — Baden

And then he goes on to say, as if he has special access to this information:

was there a Hamas command and control center in Gaza? answer no, was Hamas's leadership in the basement of alifa Hospital? answer no, were there hostages beneath alifa Hospital? answer no, you just get the lies and more lies and more lies and more lies — Baden

Suppose that's not the truth? Suppose the hospital were a military target because Hamas operated out of there?

This comment declares that Israel just decided to attack the hospital? Why would they do that from a military or public opinion standpoint?

Are they just murderous monsters?

If Hamas did use the hospital as a military base, can I hear the unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and the acceptance that the hospital invasion was justified?

And when I imagine my child suffering in the hospital, I direct that moral outrage at Hamas, not Israel, because they are the ones that caused this.

I've said that in the Middle East when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict / Palestinian-Israeli conflict, you can find both sides being the victim and the perpetrator. That's what happens when extremists take the center stage. — ssu

Compare this to the American removal of the Native Americans. Who were the extremists, the victims, and the perpetrators? In the history of worldwide land acquisition, what other examples do you have of international judgment of who each are to the extent that opinion bears on how that land is to be used or defended?

Consider this, "Since the UNHRC's creation in 2006, it has resolved almost as many resolutions condemning Israel alone than on issues for the rest of the world combined." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel

This is quite a feat, considering Iran, N.Korea, Russia, and so many others. That sliver of land I am to believe results in the majority of all evil in the world.

This is to say, I don't take seriously that the condemnations of Israel are objective evaluations or that the attempts at drawing morally equivalence with Israel and its enemies are valid. Israel's killing of children is not like Palestinian killing of children. Israel kills Palestinian children in the legitimate defense of its nation and it does so out of the necessity because the children are being used as shields. Could there be a higher war crime?

Israel is not invading hospitals because the injured and dying make easy pickings. If they wanted to exact massive death tolls, they'd carpet bomb and there'd be no Gaza left. They are fighting an enemy that is actually using hospitals as military launching sites, and where is the condemnation of that? Could there be a greater war crime and crime against humanity than luring your enemy into your hospitals where children and elderly already suffer?

Is it really that difficult to figure what the outcome ought to be when an enemy invades a sovereign nation with paratroopers who rape, kidnap, and butcher.

When one sees another person in trouble, one doesn't tell them, "Oh yes, chances are you're doomed and science confirms it!" — baker

Yet if you have cancer, that is what they tell you, unless you're a proponent of medical professionals lying to patients.

In any event, alcoholism isn't a death sentence. There are many success stories, but I don't think those were achieved by telling alcoholics that their genetic disposition is the same as nonalcoholics.

If your genetic predisposition was towards acquiring melanoma, it would be good to know so you could be careful avoiding too much sunlight. Should you get melanoma, it would be accurate to say it was due to your choices, but also due to your genetics. Your predisposition made it harder to avoid, but telling you it is all your fault is just inaccurate.

that heavy drinker were to say to himself, "Who says that I have to keep drinking just because I've had a few drinks? I should at least try to stop" -- that would be an utter abomination in the eyes of science!! — baker

You can't will away an adverse reaction.

The idea that different people react to different chemicals differently isn't revolutionary.

The OP muddles the question because it's impossible to know why the shoveler and the field painter arrived at the same decision of how to meander across the field.

If you asked me to cross the field taking the shortest distance, I would walk a diagonal line, as would most people, but certainly not all because some would get the question wrong. When I walked the diagonal line, I would still do it with free will because I could have done otherwise and could have purposefully refused to comply with the request to take the shortest path. But, to the extent someone asks me to do X and I do X and the person predicted I would do X, that has nothing to do with whether I could have done otherwise and had free will. I could have done anything. It was just most likely I would comply.

The real question arises when we posit an omniscient creature who knows all. For example, if an omniscient creature wrote out all the things I would do over the course of my life in the Book of Hanover, it would create a problem for free will advocates, at least to the extent free will entails the ability to do otherwise when faced with a decision.

For example, if you ask whether I'm going to eat a ham sandwich for dinner today, and the answer can be found at Page 6 of the Book of Hanover, such that I cannot vary from what the book says, then it's hard to say I can do otherwise. In fact, the book would say such things as "At 3:00 p.m. Hanover will flip to page 6 of the book and see what he will do at 7:00 p.m. and he will try to defy what it says, but he can't."

Such is the problem with omniscience, which is part of a myriad of problems dealing with infinity and other problems dealing with time travel generally.

My view is that one cannot make sense of the meaning of free will, but neither can we make sense of a world without free will. It is a necessary prerequisite to be taken as a given to make sense of our world, even if ultimately it cannot be rationally reconciled.

Stumbled upon it again. So far above the rest IMHO.

I actually heard them say it. — baker

Click on the website. It responds to your question.

You've got to be kidding. — baker

No, there actually are studies on animals that show the addictive quality of chemical substances, which control for social pressures related to the addiction, since animals aren't subject to human social pressures.

You have a negative initial response to alcohol. Yet unlike so many other people who also have a negative initial response to alcohol, you don't override this initial negative response and so you don't drink. In contrast, many people do drink, despite their negative initial response to alcohol. — baker

The desire to look nice in high heels isn't as compelling as the desire the drug addict has for drugs. It's a matter of degree of such magnitude it's not really comparable. People are not dying of high heel wearing.

What Perry is saying here is a stance that I describe as "typically American". — baker

No it's not. Perry simply pointed out there is empirical evidence supportive of alcohol's measurable effect on people's personalities and Hitchens ignores the science in an effort to support his poliltical narrative. A typically American response is to do exactly as Hitchens has, which is to start with an opinion and end with that opinion no matter what if it challenges his worldview.

It's not much an issue for debate if you take science seriously. The question of whether addictive behavior is a product of physiology as opposed to sociology is easy enough to see by looking within certain family lines and gene pools. And then there are thousands of studies on mice that show exactly what I'm saying, which obviously controls for social pressures that might be faced by humans since mice don't feel those social pressures.

You can Google for these studies, or just click here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=addiction+studies+in+mice&btnG=

Of course, adherents of 12-step philosophy will say that these people are then "not really alcoholics". — baker

They absolutely don't say that. They never dictate who is an alcoholic and who isn't. https://aa.org.au/new-to-aa/frequently-asked-questions/

Why is it you suppose that people cannot give them agency? — schopenhauer1

Well, that actually was my point. I was ultimately placing blame on actual bad actors, not on prior histories that might lead people to bad, but understandable decisions. For example, we can all recite the difficult economic and social situation Germany was in prior to the rise of Hitler, and that certainly had much to do with his emergence, but that doesn't absolve the Nazi regime of the horrors it caused.

It's the distinction between explanations and excuses. The fact that I can find an explanation for why a murderer murders doesn't mean that serves as an excuse for his murdering.

a larger persepective, this was the curse of decolonization: how could you even think of 'capitalism' that your colonizer had, as surely the part of being a colony wasn't so great? Socialism seemed a perfectly viable answer back then. How would Palestinians think about "American democracy" after having lived under occupation that the US supports? Hence the "back to original roots" -movement with islamism is now the 'viable' option. Unfortunately. — ssu

And how can you expect the Israelis to support a two state solution given their experience with the Palestinians?

How can we explain the US alliance with Germany and Japan given their WW2 experience?

How can we explain the US alliance with the UK given the history of colonization and indentured servitude.

Why do Muslims live in the US peaceably, but not in their ancestral homelands?

My point here is that if we want to widen our scope to figure our why people act as they do, the variables are limitless, and are not simply explained by focusing on the select events that satisfy a narrative that evil is explainable as being reactionary.

Another possibility is that bad people assumed power and imposed their will on what might otherwise have been a better society.

That comes to mind as the cause in China, N. Korea, Nazi Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Stalin's Russia, maybe even Putin's as well.

And Hamas

Intentional, malicious leadership.

More to the point, though, can the moral argument for supporting the right of both sides to exist, with a permanent ceasefire, be opposed? — FreeEmotion

Suppose Hamas says it'll commit to a ceasefire, but then it'll build its forces and tunnels back during that lull in the action, and then it'll send people on parachutes over to rape and kill children like it did the last time it broke a ceasefire on October 7?

Then it'll operate out of a hospital and subject its own wounded and dying to more misery so it can blame the Israelis of violating the rule that says you can't attack your enemy when it hides behind an incubator filled with premies.

So sure, I'm in favor of the Garden of Eden you envision. It's unfortunately a myth.

This is almost verbatim from a conversation with a female acquaintance: "I hate high heels. My feet hurt in them. ... But what can one do. Women must wear high heels."

Clearly, she has such a philosophy of life that enables her to override the pain; whereas some women don't. While both groups of women experience wearing high heels as painful. — baker

The enjoyment of wearing high heels at the expense of the pain of the high heels is not at all equivalent to the desire a heroin addict experiences for his drug. That should be obvious from the fact that the heroin addict will steal from his loved ones, break into homes, hold up stores, share infected needles, lie, cheat, and destroy every one of his relationships, and sleep in dark alleys with needles in his vein in order to get his fix.

The finest rehab facilities and the most oppressive of prisons have not eliminated drug abuse.

Anyway, watch this 50 second video:

https://www.tiktok.com/@bbcnews/video/7295729395971427616

I think this is an American thing, although made popular via 12 Step philosophy.
It has that American black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking in it. There is a culturally specific element in how people will interpret their urges. — baker

It's not black and white at all really in that they never claim you're recovered. It's just the basics of things like Alcoholics Anonymous. It's an ongoing program.

I'm cautious of blaming "genetics" for anything, because blaming "genetics" tends to be a way to absolve the blamer for any responsibility for how they treat the blamed. — baker

It's not an all or nothing proposition, but it's just obvious that people react differently to different chemicals. Pollen has no effect on me, but it does my wife, for example.

Genetics doesn't absolve the person of anything. Some use genetics to argue inferiority, for example.

But anyway, how people choose to weaponize information has no bearing on the question of what the facts are, and the facts are that some react in an addictive way to intoxicants and others don't.

A quick and topical video about what it means to be in control of one's decisions as it relates to alcohol.

https://www.tiktok.com/@bbcnews/video/7295729395971427616

So my question to you is: do you think that it is the case for alcohol? That it is mostly genetics and there isn't much we can do about it. — Skalidris

I indicated that 12 step programs seem to be effective and I know that many people are able to deal with their alcoholism effectively.

That there might be a genetic predisposition to certain types of cancer, for example, doesn't mean there are no treatments for it.

What is your point exactly? That society and education are mostly helpless about alcohol consumption and that it's mostly genetic and there isn't much we can do about it? — Skalidris

The OP asked why alcohol was imbedded in our society, especially in light of the fact that it can harmful. You even suggested it had no benefits.

My response was that some of the pull towards alcohol consumption is genetic as is some of the push away from it. I think a good number (how many I don't know) who fall into the problem drinker class, which is the class we're interested in here, have a genetic driver for their behavior and it's not just a matter of being weak willed.

I never offered a solution to alcoholism or said it shouldn't be addressed. From what little I know, I've heard 12 step programs and the like tend to be helpful.

But for the case of native Americans, it's not necessarily because of mental disorders but it could be because of their culture, their lack of information about the dangers of alcohol, or because what happened to them is pretty terrible... — Skalidris

It is the result of genetics. As the study notes, generally, 50% of the cases of alcoholism are inherited. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3603686/

One can control for environmental influences because not all alcoholics reside with the alcoholic relative.

My guess is that Hamas has diverted a large percentage of material imported (or smuggled in through tunnels) into Gaza for its own use, rather than for the benefit of average Palestinians. — BC

The building of the tunnels itself is part of their diversion of resources meant for the building of civilian infrastructure into terrorist infrastructure.

They have a network of tunnels said to be larger than the NY subway system designed for Israel's destruction and the cries for a cease fire are supposed to be taken seriously prior to the elimination of those underground tunnels.

Remembrance day is a thing in the UK, stemming from WW1 and folk like to stand still and quiet for 2 minutes, to 'remember the dead'. — unenlightened

Remembrance Day is meant to remember those who died in war, but I doubt it was meant to remember the enemy combatants, like the axis power soldiers who lost their lives in commitment to the destruction of Britain. That is, it is not just a day to lament death, regardless of who has died, but those who died in war defending Britain.

And so the day gets hijacked by those with a political message, contrary to the intent of the day, with the express message of a moral equivalence of these past wars with the Palestinian resistance, under the guise that all they mean to say is that death of any sort is a bad thing.

I'm opposed to chucking stuff at police, and do hope they, like their political opposites who often do the same, are properly charged.

seriously doubt that someone can be resistant to all kinds of drugs. It's not just about alcohol but about any mind altering drug. — Skalidris

I'm not suggesting immunity to intoxicants. I'm describing the pleasurable reactions varying among individuals, leaving some finding little pleasure and others more. Those who have more pleasure are subject to a greater likelihood of addiction.

What I've heard of alcoholics describe as a lifelong urge that has to be suppressed every waking moment not to drink that first drink or that will result in a complete lack of control is not a struggle I have.

It's unrealistic to think my resistance to that first drink is because I've got greater mind control and not acknowledge I just don't have that predisposition.

The desire one has for alcohol moves from very low to very high, with a thousand points between. It's not as if Native Americans, for example, who have extremely high rates of alcoholism, are just weak willed. It's part of their genetic response to the substance.

What is interesting to me though as a non-drinker is the sociological reaction to the non-drinker. I think non-drinkers make drinkers uncomfortable. I'm not sure if they feel judged or something or if they feel guilty for doing something that they'd feel less guilty about if everyone around them were joining in.

It's like I need to walk around with a glass of melting ice and a skinny little straw so that people can see I am one of them. Walking around a party without a drink is like walking around without a shirt on or something where everyone notices and wants to get you a blanket or something.

Coffee. Another thing that makes me drowsy. If I drink coffee in the morning, I'm likely going to be tired and drowsy the entire day, without getting much done. — baker

This describes me as well, as does your description of how alcohol makes you feel. It's for that reason that I don't think this really is a philosophical difference as much as it is a physiological difference. Some people just don't have the genetic disposition to react to chemical substances as others, which also explains the alcoholic who seems compelled to drink. I haven't drunk any alcohol in probably months. It's not like I think about it any more than drinking a grape soda. It's just not of interest to me, which makes me probably really odd to someone who takes one day at a time (as the saying goes) trying to stay sober just one more day.

The only connection I can make with the people who speak of the wonders and impulse towards alcohol is perhaps sexual pleasure or something like that, where the impulse in me is there. I suspect that there are people who have no sexual drive at all and who would not think that going long streches of time without is any great challenge.

I don't think I can offer any great insight to someone who tells me he has amazing romantic relationships without sex nor would I suggest to that person that sex would enhance anything in his life if he were telling me that he simply lacked that ability to obtain that pleasure but he was otherwise content.

You have the story of King David and Solomon where their riches are written of positively. — BitconnectCarlos

David was a piece of shit. He impregnated another guy's wife and then sent him to the front line in battle to have him killed.

He excused his son when his son raped his sister.

Among many other things.

I never read him in overly positive light. I mean, he was a good king I suppose, but I'd agree with you. He was not a Jesus like figure. Although Jesus was supposedly from his paternal line, because he Bible says the messiah must be, but Jesus had no paternal lineage, being the son of God and all. I never understood that

Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview? — Art48

Do you suppose there might also be educated Christians and uneducated atheists?

I think the more appropriate question is, does God learn something new if Mary sees red. It appears necessary that God must learn something new every time a person learns something new, because God must learn that the person has learned. — Metaphysician Undercover

This only works if free will is knowledge itself, but I don't think God can't know everything, including what is not known by any person currently. That is, God wouldn't necessarily know if Mary was ever going to choose to step outside and see red under your argument, assuming that was purely a function of her free will, but he would know what Mary will learn upon seeing red, even if Mary never does see red.

God could know the result of every unrealized hypothetical, though. He just couldn't know which choice we're going to make if you believe pre-knowledge entails determinism and therefore negates free will.

I don't see the critical problem of free will to be how we can make it compatible with omniscience (which is really the free will/determinism debate recast), but how it makes sense at all as an uncaused cause. I also don't see how it makes sense to say we don't have free will either, so I just hold it fundamental to the understanding, like time and space.

The crux of my disagreement is that you make order synonymous with simplicity
— Hanover

It's not my theory. It's Shannon's. — unenlightened

Where you say "Maximal order is minimal total information," it implies information is an element within a system as opposed to an element within a person's understanding. A more correct statement is that maximum order has a maximum level of predictability and therefore requires fewer binary bits of questions to accurately predict outcome, and thus demands less information. That is, the higher the entropy level, the less predictable the next result, therefore a person is less informed of what will happen next based upon the information he has?

It's not that ordered systems are composed of less underlying causes or actions than an entropic one. It's that entropic ones just require more information to predict results of that system.

This is where I think we're disagreeing, which was in what I took (perhaps mistakenly ??) to be meant by your term "simple," as if something inherent in the composition of ordered systems was less dynamic than in entropic ones.

I think it would be accurate to say that an observation of a chaotic event would yield less information to the observer in terms of what is needed for accurate predictability than an ordered one, not vice versa.

This discussion of entropy therefore doesn't lend itself to the evolutionary debate as I think you suggest, which I took to be that evolution was just another iteration of law of entropy in that it revealed more complex systems from simpler ones.

My position is that complexity in evolutionary biology references the organism's higher levels of organization from a functional level and employs concepts like "organization" and "complexity" quite differently. We would not say a human is more complex than an amoeba because the human is more entropic.

What I'm willing to concede is irrelevant. My whole point was that none of us have the authority or power to impose our moral outlook on people who don't share it. — Vera Mont

I didn't make any reference to imposing anything on anyone. I indicated what would and would not be ethical. If you lie, you are unethical. That doesn't mean I have the power to stop you from lying.

Governments and churches can levy taxes and tithes on their membership, and pass laws for minimum civil behaviour. Beyond that, we are pretty much free to decide our degree of participation in the human race. — Vera Mont

And we are free to disobey our governments and our churches and endure whatever consequences result from that. Sometimes we even have to endure penalties from our governments when we've been ethical because our governments are unethical.

Those are exactly the situations in which the state and the community intervene, because collectively, we have decided such an attitude is unacceptable. — Vera Mont

Intervention might or might not have anything to do with morality. It might just be a rule of covention, like we drive on the right side of the road and not the left. None of this has anything to do with what is demanded us of in order to be ethical people, and none of this is what provides the basis for legitimate governmental authority.

And you are entitled to that opinion, as am I, since I happen to share it. Sure, the world would be better if we all cared for one another. The fact remains that neither of us is in a position to impose it on others. — Vera Mont

I'm not sure where we're disagreeing if you're acknowledging that we should help others in need, with "should" designating that which is ethically demanded of us. I've not suggested that a person who watches a child drown ought be arrested. I just think he sucks. Any by "sucks," I mean he's unethical.

At some point this conversation turned from "what is ethical" to "when is authority properly exercised"? I'm just talking about who are good people and who are bad people. Bad people listen idly by while children are raped in adjacent bathroom stalls.

As to whether that obligation extends to people other than one's own family, community or nation, that is a matter of individual world-view. — Vera Mont

This is a subjective ethic though, meaning that you're willing to concede it's ethical to ignore others if that happens to be your own personal viewpoint. If that is the case, I see no reason not to attach that subjectivism to everything, meaning if I personally don't believe caring for my own children is necessary, I don't mind murdering, and I think lying is perfectly fine, then so it is.

My position is that if you are ethically obligated to help others regardless of your worldview.

How this is sorted out will require you adopt some sort of ethical theory. If you're faced with the question of watching a child drown in the pool or bending down to lift him out, some responses might be:

Which response would result in the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people? (Utilitarianism).
Which response should I choose if I were to will it to be a universal law? (Kantianism)
Which response would be most promoting of personal virtue (like courage, kindness, and charity) (Virtue ethics).
Which response would I choose to be most consistent with traditional religious teachings (love thy neighbor, do unto others, etc. (Divine Command theory).

Knowing Euclid's definitions and axioms does not entail knowing Pythagorus' theorem even though it 'follows' from them. The information of the theorem has to be 'unfolded' from the axioms by a particular series of steps that are not specified by the axioms themselves. Similarly, the unfolding of physical processes in time produces new information even if that information is predetermined. If you like, existence is the unfolding of God's omniscience. — unenlightened

Interesting. Would Mary learn something new when she saw red if Mary were God?

I'll have to think about that one. Omniscience entails knowledge of everything and if certain knowledge is only knowable through experience, then we'd have to say that omniscience entails omni-experience, meaning you'd have had to experience everything to know everything, but it seems a limitation on God to require he do something to know something.

As to the logical implications entailed by certain axioms, I do think they'd be immediately known to an omniscient being. I also don't see that as an example of an unfolding because it's just the drawing out of logical deductions, not the revelation through empirical means.

Everything starts simple and gets more complex and order is simplicity. — unenlightened

The crux of my disagreement is that you make order synonymous with simplicity and chaos synonymous with chaos. Under this view, the primordial pre-bang mass woudl be the most perfect example of order and what followed the big bang would be that of increasing chaos. My position is that order is not simple, but within it all possibliites are contained.