If you strike out every single other reference to any data with equal or lesser statistical rigour. Are you prepared to do that? I'd hazard a guess this thread would end up looking like I'm talking to myself most of the time. — Isaac

Now we're arguing fairness. I thought we were talking about whether invalid data should be considered, but now you're saying you get to argue bullshit because you think you're opponents are arguing bullshit. At least with the Facebook data, everyone is in agreement it's bullshit (as opposed to other data where there is dispute over the legitimacy), so in this instance, you now agree it should be disregarded? Or, do you reserve the right to openly, knowingly, and intentionally argue from data you know to be invalid?

No. I'm not asking you to do anything. I haven't once made any request of anyone here nor have I judged them in any way for their choices. In fact I think you've made the right choice given what you know.

I'm defending my choice against some pretty nasty judgements. — Isaac

So this is just about niceness? Fine, I'm judgy and mean. I would have conceded that before we began and saved ourselves time.

My point is that while you have a libertarian sort of right to make bad decisions, it's a bad decision to make bad decisions, even if you have the right to do it.

I haven't relied on that poll for evidence of anything on which my arguments hinge. I only brought it up in response to others making equally spurious, unsupported claims about the intelligence level of the vaccine hesitant. I would not rely on it. — Isaac

Lovely. I'll strike out all prior references to it now that you withdraw it.

No. The unvaccinated hospitalised are 29.2 times more prevalent than the vaccinated hospitalised. Your likelihood would only be the same as the prevalence if hospitalisation/vaccination combinations were random, and we already know they aren't. See what I mean about statistics? — Isaac

And what is the uncontrolled variable you hypothesize that exists within the vaccinated community that has resulted in this deceptive data? I'd think the vaccinated would consist of the most vulnerable to the disease. The vaccination rates tend very high among the elderly, in many states in the high 90%.

Actually most of the people I've cited opposed to the current policies are epidemiologists. Also my personal experience. It's primarily epidemiologists, statisticians, paediatrics, and the odd few economists. But that's primarily to do with who I'm hanging around with recently. Not much call for experimental physicists in my work! That would be some very long term risk planning! — Isaac

Have you considered you might have a problem with confirmation bias here, considering you call into question basic statistical methodologies when evaluating reports submitted by the scientific community, but you treat as gospel an opinion poll posted on Facebook where people responded to questions and then self-identified their level of education? That is, we have no idea whether people voted 2, 3, or 55 times and whether they were truthful when asserting their level of education.

And even should I accept your data as truthful, do you propose I shrug off the mountain of evidence being accumulated supporting the efficiency of the vaccine reducing the Covid symptoms just because 25% of the US PhDs express some hesitancy about its efficiency?

You are 29.2 times more likely to be hospitalized if you contract Covid if you're not vaccinated. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e5.htm?s_cid=mm7034e5_x

This study came out tomorrow, August 27, 2021, so you know it's recent.

And it just got stupider: https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/569152-bombshell-report-says-cyber-ninjas-leader-seriously%3famp

. My guess is that only at PhD level do you start realising what can be done by 'managing' your statistics, it changes the way one looks at data supposedly proving some point or other. That or we're all grumpy selfish bastards who no longer care because we're going to die soon anyway. — Isaac

The PhD hesitancy rate is curious, but it's still only about 25%, meaning it remains a minority position. That study doesn't identify which PhDs were represented, nor was there any confirmation of the PhD. it would be more concerning if medical based PhDs were highly represented among the skeptics, but we just don't have that information.

No objections at all. I just asked since age adjustment is done for comparative purposes and involves at least one variable. The variable was not listed so the data incomplete. — Isaac

Well, you've now been provided all the data you could possibly need to sort through.

Had the results not been age adjusted, then your proper objection would have been that they weren't age adjusted, not the opposite, as you're arguing here.

Google "Covid-19 associated hospitalizations among unvaccinated and fully vaccinated" and you can review page after page of the analyzed data, all with the statistical methodology you're looking for, as if the jury is still out on this question.

Maybe fight a good fight, like try to convince expectant mothers to maintain proper nutrition or something like that as opposed to whatever you're trying to do here.

https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/chronic/ageadj.htm

If no one was in need then givers would be disheartened and if no one was a taker then demand would leave no incentive, no purpose in life. — Benj96

There are those in need and those who can provide, and we are all both and we should all be both. A life without giving and a life without needing are both limited existences. But, yes, it's a great opportunity to be able to give, and we should be thankful for those opportunities.

None of this suggests that we should purposefully or wantonly fail in order to provide the successful a chance to help us. All systems rely upon mutual aid, so they assume that we all are acting in good faith trying our best to do our best, with the understanding that sometimes our best doesn't work out so well.

To those who aren't in good faith, either as givers or takers, yeah, they're the problem.

But they didn't mean the state should help the needy. — frank

The church was the state. This distinction between a state that had power to enforce and a voluntary morality of religion is a new invention.

He who does not work, neither shall he eat is a New Testament aphorism traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, later cited by John Smith in the early 1600s colony of Jamestown, Virginia, and by the Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin during the early 1900s Russian Revolution.". -- Wikipedia in the quote from 1 Thessalonians — frank

This isn't a fair translation.

From the same Wiki article as your quote above, it is noted to say:

"If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.[1]
The Greek phrase οὐ θέλει ἐργᾰ́ζεσθαι (ou thélei ergázesthai) means "is not willing to work". Other English translations render this as "would"[2] or "will not work",[3] using the archaic sense of "want to, desire to" for the verb "will".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat#:~:text=If%20anyone%20is%20not%20willing,for%20the%20verb%20%22will%22.

Not willing means to have the ability and to refuse, which means you must help the needy, but are not required to help those who can help themselves but just don't want to.

For a general discussion of the Christian NT ethic of assisting the poor:
https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-charity.html

The Old Testament commandments to give charity and assist the poor were just that, commandments, not recommendations.

Def: God - that to which one devotes one's life. — unenlightened

Nice.

Well even if that is the case, that still leaves the question of why there was a Big Bang in the first place. — HardWorker

If God created the big bang, you'd still be left with the question of why. You'd also be left with that question if he didn't.

Hypothetically speaking supposing there was an omniscient being - doesn’t have to be (a) god necessarily maybe a hyper intelligent AI or a genie or whatever but you could ask it one question - anything at all, what would it be? — Benj96

Why is this a hypothetical? People ask God questions all the time. I just don't understand why you limit them to a single question.

Generally, you get banned if you push a particular moderator's buttons. I could see how he would. — T Clark

Oh come now, like we're all so drunk with power that we just can't wait to get the final revenge on insolent posters by clicking the ban button and sending them off spinning into cyberspace (this might be a good plot for the next short story). In truth, we're all just dedicated volunteers trying to maintain standards, which I think we most certainly did here with this banning.

Brother James did not particularly push anyone's buttons. He just posted well below standard with cluttered, rapid fire, vague, self-aggrandizing statements that he was likely cutting and pasting from some larger work he's put together over the years. He was selling some theory he arrived at and he was more interested in showing it off than debating it.

And I also don't think this thread is a ridicule thread. It's a discussion and explanation thread. I wish Brother James well and am sure he can maintain a following without us.

All "gods" are on that list above (i.e. members of the Null Set). — 180 Proof

"Freedom" is a member of the null set as well. Don't abandon Witty now! Meaning is use. These words do a whole lot in our world, identifiable referent or not.

"God" (The empty name!) is a greater mystery used to explain the mystery of existence; of course, a mystery begs rather than answers a question and therefore does not explain anything. Woo of the gaps. Cosmic lollilop. Even an anti-anxiety placebo. Anything but an explanation. — 180 Proof

Assuming you are correct, why is that a reason to dispense with the acceptance of God?

Quoting Nietzsche:

"When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.”

What then happens when we kill God? Two possibilities:

1. "For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred yes is needed: the spirit now wills his own will."

or, the opposite:

2. "What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism... For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe."

So, we either get the soaring will unencumbered by the fetters of religion, free to plot its own course toward a new personal morality or we sink into a sea of meaninglessness, unable to swim under our own power, with nothing to keep us afloat.

If #2 is what occurs, then a ressurection of God might be in order for some. That #1 will universally happen isn't borne out by the evidence. That some wish to return to the pre-death state is an understandable and reasonable choice.

Definitions tend to be overly general, but "God," to me, is a motivator for good. That you can't find a referent to the noun doesn't affect the meaning of that term.

Long answer: There's a dilemma for Christians which is that either the Bible is a metaphor or it's literal. If it's a metaphor, miracles are impotent. If it's literal, explain how genocide is good. — TheMadFool

Why do miracles become impotent if they're metaphorical? They just become not literal.

All of these anti-God threads degenerate into beefs people have against one form of organized religion or another.

There are two ways you can defend God:

1. Prove that the genocide recorded in the Bible didn't occur at all. Finish the opponent before fae even starts :chin:

2. Prove that the mass murder was justified in the sense good.

I'd like to see which you pick and how might you furnish the relevant proof. — TheMadFool

So there was a fox, and he saw these delicious grapes, but they were just out of reach, so he jumped and jumped to try to get them. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to get a single grape. He walked away and said aloud "Who cares! They were sour anyway."

Such is the fable of sour grapes. You don't get what you want, so you claim it wasn't worth getting anyway. It explains part of the way humans behave and gives us some insight.

Archeological evidence has established there never have been talking foxes, and even among non-talking foxes, we've never seen one that has shown such complex psychological behavior that would make us think foxes are able to convince themselves that things they cannot obtain really aren't worth obtaining anyway. In short, after some degree of analysis, it turns out the story is complete bullshit, and it's embarrassing really that adults might have entertained the thought that foxes do as depicted in the story.

Ergo, the entire story of the fox and the grapes should therefore be rejected, right?

If this conclusion is wrong, then why is biblical literalism something I should be interested in?

I don't agree. The problem is not lack of evidence. The problem is belief in the face of the evidence.

It is belief that the wine is blood, that the bread is flesh. It is belief that god would have you sacrifice your eldest son. It is belief that women cannot drive, that guns bring peace, that homosexuality is unnatural.

It's the basic dishonesty of religion that renders it culpable. — Banno

This is a rejection of a religion that holds to those views you have specified, but not of all religion. By analogy, a government that prohibits women from driving, advocates gun ownership for peace, and that forbids homosexuality is a government you might disagree with, but it is not a good argument that there is a lack of evidence to believe in the value of government. You are simply pointing out those things you'd rather not exist in your ideal government.

This is to say that you can hand select the worst qualities of religion to build the weakest strawman imaginable, but it's just as possible to build a steelman, choosing only the best qualities. It would seem the inclination would be to form a religion that didn't violate all you held dear, considering the goal is to establish what you hold as the ideal.

I don't see how to resolve the dilemma to any satisfactory position — Gregory

You'll never know for certain what anyone meant, but that's not to say you can't know anything at all.

My view on biblical interpretation is to focus on the message, not the literal truth. As with any literature, it's value rests in what it tells you of the human experience, regardless of whether it's an accurate recital of events or a well crafted work of fiction.

It's irrelevant whether Genesis 1:1 accurately describes the first act of creation. What is relevant is that the central character (i.e. God) has been identified as an all powerful figure. The reader should now focus on what he says and does and figure out how to remain in his favor.

Literalists, in my opinion, so miss the boat and instead waste their intellect trying to explain how the impossible actually happened. It would be like arguing whether Aesop's tortoise and hare actually held a race. That there was no such race detracts nothing from the meaning.

The Bible says God first created the universe, — Gregory

Actually, this isn't a universally accepted interpretation. Creation ex nihilio is one interpretation, but rejected by others (particularly the Mormons).

See generally,, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatio_ex_nihilo

Richard Friedman in "Commentary on the Torah" offers a direct translation from the Hebrew as "In the beginning of God's creating the skies and the earth - when the earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and God's spirit was hovering on the face of the water, God said "let there be light,."

This would indicate God created order from pre-existing matter, not that he created something from nothing. He brought order from chaos.

The point being that interpretation is from reading the original sources, contextualizing, recognizing that many authors contributed over many years, realizing the Bible comes from an ancient worldview, that all language of all type is imprecise, and that often themes and morals may be more critical to the author than historical accuracy.

Picking out a random line and giving it your best reading really isn't the way to interpret anything. You'll be overlooking the efforts of thousands of scholars over thousands of years. Volumes have been written on Genesis 1:1, the line you cited.

(1) Who "owns" the corporation? Private and public?

(2) What is the most powerful position within a corporation?

(3) Who decides what to produce, how to produce, where to produce?

(4) Who decides what to do with the profits?

(5) Where do the profits mostly go, in today's typical fortune 500 company?

(a) Infrastructure (factories, buildings, equipment)
(b) Workers wages, benefits
(c) Expanding the workforce (hiring)
(d) Dividends
(e) Stock buybacks
(f) Paying taxes
(g) Advertising
(h) Lobbying
(i) Research and development (creating new products)

[There is actually an answer to this question]

(6) Would anyone say that a corporation is run democratically?

Truly interested in answers. — Xtrix

These are legal and pragmatic questions and most responses are variable depending upon the particular corporation. If you're really interested, you can read up on C corps, S corps, for profit, not for profit, LLCs, mutual companies, and I'm sure there are more. Some are public and some are closely held. There are also municipalities and professional corporations. I'm just thinking off the top of my head. It just depends upon what is needed and how people might want to set them up. You have other sorts of organizations that aren't incorporated, like school boards and the like, but that are independent entities.

The reasons to incorporate might include raising capital, limiting liability, creating longevity, etc.

All of your questions would have different answers depending upon the specific company you're asking about. Sole proprietorships might incorporate at some point, yet there might be no noticeable difference to the employee.

There is great flexibility in how you can set them up.

You don't even know what my stance is, and you don't bother to know it. You just judge. Authoritarianism at its best. — baker

Of course I know your position. You've posted it.

It's not a matter of whether I'm an authoritarian or not for me to tell you that you should vaccinate. It's a matter of right or wrong, and you're wrong. Such is true whether I'm a dictator of a totalitarian regime or I live in an anarchistic libertarian society.

This is about you and those similar denying science and people dying as a result. This isn't righteous indignation either. Even if I were a psychotic Son of Sam who enjoyed suffering and death, you'd still be denying science and people would still be denying as a result.

Whatever. There you go. You don't even bother to inform yourself what the arguments for hesistancy about vaccination are. You just spew your contempt and hatred. It's just so enjoyable to do so, isn't it? Righteous indignation feels so good! — baker

I know all the arguments posited to justify the wrong decision. It's not that you're misunderstood. It's that you misunderstand.

Cain v. Abel, Jacob v. Esau, Joseph vs. his brothers. This outcome of sibling rivalry thing is a central part of our foundational myth. Cautionary tales perhaps? http://chqdaily.com/2017/07/rabbi-sacks-relates-modern-conflict-biblical-sibling-rivalries/

My advice is to find better sources of information and advice than this forum. — jamalrob

I usually commend people for bringing their real world problems to an amatuer internet philosophy forum. What could go wrong?

You must play!...said Coach...he refused to play, we lost the match, and Coach never forgave him. — Leghorn

The coach was an idiot. The American worship of athletics and the treatment of coaches as sages is idiosyncratic to America and something that is thankfully starting to be questioned. Parents push their kids in sports where they'd never push them in academics. Your dad should have told the coach to stop talking to your brother. Parents should protect their kids from idiots.

the old days ppl with health problems tended to conceal them. Only consider FDR in his wheelchair, carefully hidden behind the podium. Why did they do this? The fact that they did so proves they thought it shameful, like having sex or going to the toilet, or getting a divorce...all things that are no longer considered shameful... — Leghorn

No one thought FDR's polio was shameful. He got elected president 4 times. At least back then people took vaccines because they didn't convince themselves the polio vaccine was a tool of the government to control the people, or whatever the argument is today.

Man once considered himself as a divine soul trapped in a corrupt body. — Leghorn

The body has been considered holy for thousands of years. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.myjewishlearning.com/article/lets-get-physical/amp/
I don't know your religion, but it doesn't speak for all of mankind and to the extent it holds the human body is just like a rock, that belief is very foreign to me and not one I find interesting.

See also: https://www.neptunesociety.com/cremation-information-articles/the-mormon-church-and-cremation

In any event, whether the ancients once thought the earth flat or whether they once thought mental health disorders didn't exist, they were wrong. Why do you wish to sort through history's garbage can of bad ideas and put them back in use?

also confused as to how to write a maxim within the middle of a sentence.

"Søren Kierkegaard is famous for the maxim, "Subjectivity is Truth.", which appears in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. — thewonder

If leave out the period in the quote, but in the US, the comma goes inside the quote, not sure of other country's conventions.

Not being vaccinated is ok. It's going in public that's wrong. — T Clark

I agree in principle, but in reality, none of us are islands. Never going in public is just not really possible for most of us. Someone visits, delivers food, cleans the floor or whatever. Even our good friend @180 Proof posted that he made fairly extensive efforts to mask and remain isolated but he still got it. I just don't think it's really possible to effectively limit one's exposure. We're social creatures and interdependent, which is why this whole hyper-Libertarianism thing is so maddening. I'm sympathetic toward individualistic views, but the refusal to bend when it could mean suicide or killing others is insanity.

I know I'm preaching to the choir with you, but I just got news my law partner's 56 year old otherwise healthy anti-vax uncle died of Covid, leaving behind a wife, kids, and grandkids. I know what it's like growing up with an empty chair at Thanksgiving every year and knowing that a single injection could have avoided that for this family is so heartbreaking.

What I find much less understandable is heaping praise on the athlete for bowing out for reasons of mental health. We don't say, "So admirable, so courageous" if an athlete drops out because of a badly sprained ankle, badly damaged hamstring, or a bad case of dysentery. We just cross the event off the list. I would expect the same for a mental health issue, not the weepy applause "poor thing, so courageous in her anxiety, depression" or whatever. — Bitter Crank

You would expect the same for mental health issues, but as noted in this thread, you don't get that. You get criticism and a questioning of character. If claiming mental health problems resulted only in people crossing the contest off the list, there'd be no reason to heap praise on the person for identifying there were mental health issues.

By the same token, if claiming a sprained ankle resulted in public ridicule, you would expect athletes to conceal that reason, but if one person came forward and admitted they were withdrawing for having a sprained ankle, that person might be looked upon as heroic for refusing to conceal it and just admitting she had that problem. The heroism, to the extent that term is not being abused, is in accepting some amount of public abuse in order to destigmatize something that is far more common than we generally admit.

Not anymore, Mr. Hanover, if you haven’t noticed. You’re talking about the old days, before “mental health awareness”. Proof of this is the fact that Ms. Biles has been universally supported and applauded for dropping out. I doubt she was unaware of the change in public opinion that had occurred. I think she knew that she would find much sympathy and support afterwards. — Leghorn

It's obviously not universal given the comments made in this thread, where many believe she was wrong to expose her mental health issues and should have persevered because that's what's demanded of heroes who bounce around on gym floors.

Let me restate it then. The soul used to be conceived of as economy of the virtues and passions, the former aided by reason and ruling over the latter, as parsimony over luxury, temperance over insobriety, chastity over lust, etc,...and courage over fear. This economy is no longer believed in, and its elements have either been renamed or done away with altogether: the soul was replaced by the enigmatic “self”; the passions, generally bad qualities that needed restraining, were renamed “emotions”, which are not bad at all. In fact they ought to be “let out” because if you suppress them they will adversely affect not only your mental-, but even your physical-health.

In this new condition of the soul’s understanding it is little wonder that such perversions as this be heard: — Leghorn

You have to overstate it this way in order to make your point, creating a brittle dichotomy, where either we are soulless automatons or we are entirely free spirited divine creatures able to counter any limitation. There is a difference between waking up on the wrong side of the bed and deciding you don't want to face the day and going back to sleep versus feeling an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and not being able to see through the bleakness and contemplating suicide. There is difference between being nervous and having butterflies in your stomach versus feeling an intrusive sense of worry that makes rational thought impossible. There are some things we can work through and others not.

And this works the same for physical disorders as well. We expect people to make it to work with a headache and stomach ache, but not with a disabling brain tumor or projectile vomiting. We can make these distinctions without pontificating on the soul and the deterioration of standards by simply pointing out that there are matters of degree. Some things are excusable and some things not, simply because they are more debilitating than others. That you don't believe Biles' limitations were serious enough to warrant her decision not to compete is a personal finding of fact by you, but it has nothing to do with changes in societal standards.

And speaking of changes in societal standards, I don't know what you mean when you say the soul was recently renamed the "self" and the passions "emotions," as if that is a modern day occurrence. The ancient Greeks spoke of the self and the emotions. Are you arguing that Biles is just part of this "modern" movement that started thousands of years ago?

I'm surprised that so many people get banned from this site and that I haven't been banned. I barely ever even read the entire threads that I post in and almost everyone abandons them once I say anything whatsoever. — thewonder

You have apparently discovered the secret to longevity.

A most generous read of his comments. Yours is an academic discussion of societal changes. His, a rant against decades old change, failing to adjust to a more sympathetic world.

We all know why the old, the isolated, and the uneducated hold to the views of the past, but there's good reason those views have been swept to the dustbin. I'm willing to hear from the sociologists who discuss our social evolution, but less so to hear directly from the mouths of our dinosaurs who don't realize time passed them by.

Her courage was in revealing her mental health issues because those suffering are often condemned in public as being of weak character, just as you've done. Telling the world you have a heart condition doesn't bring such stigma, but telling of a mental health disorder does. I read your initial comment that sparked this discussion and just thought it immature and thoughtless, so I ignored it. For some reason though you want to better develop your position, as if it needs explaining, and you throw in a racist rant about how only blacks and women get to take advantage of the bullshit mental illness excuse.

So, to clarify, mental illness is real, it interferes in all forms of employment, from candlestick maker to gymnast, and your position, if it's truly not racist and not dismissive of mental health issues, needs to be restated because you do come off very poorly in this thread

Catch You On the Flip Flop" — Amity

Slap and Tickle — Amity

Curious selections.

Right. But I thought it was physics? And it's supposed to be hope's own theory. — Apollodorus

Hope's theory is exactly as it ought to be in order for this conversation to be as it is. That's what bitachon demands. There are no "buts." Rephrase your sentence in a positive way. Tracht gut vet zein gut I always say.

How can there be anxiety if we trust every blade of grass is exactly positioned for its purpose? I credit Hope for bringing this up.

Positivity.

Bitachon cures anxiety? — Apollodorus

Absolutely. It's the key. But you've got to believe. Emunnah isn't for everyone.