I appreciate the honest opinion. Isn't the imbalance between the 2 at the core of it, the observation that the negative, the suffering is 1. far greater / numerous 2. sensationally far stronger, 3. durationally far longer than the positive? — RAW

I think this is just what I said: exalting the negative, focusing only on the negative. How would you even begin measuring these things? They are completely subjective. There are people who are in objectively negative circumstances that none the less feel like the good outweighs the bad. Likewise there are those in objectively better/positive circumstances that none the less feel the bad outweighs the good.
There is no solid ground from which this argument can be made.

Didn't get this? If you mean what I think you mean, absolutely not. — RAW

Im skeptical, Ive seen many opening posts that sounded just like that, and turned out to be thinly veiled self promotion.
Certainly I could be wrong, and honestly I hope I am.

Considering the unimaginable amount of physical and mental pleasure that occurs every day on this planet, day by day, for millions of years and counting, as well perhaps on countless other planets, which would make the Universe essentially a giant pleasure chamber, the philosophical view of Efilism seems rather… — RAW

Your argument works equally well to establish the exact opposite of Elfism just by replacing two negative descriptors with positive descriptors. Its a weak and fallacious argument.
What are my thoughts on Elifism? Its fucking dumb. (you asked, thats my thought on it.)
Like Antinatalism it depends entirely on putting the negative in a lofty, exalted status and ignoring the positive altogether. It is a philosophy for the weak, the spineless, the whiny the immature and the wannabe clever. Elfism is the same…self indulgent garbage with no philosophical merit.
Also, Im calling it now: RAW is here to plug his stuff, not for discussion.

The ambiguity of what either one is, is part of the argument (points 2 & 3). — darthbarracuda

I know. Premise 1 is vague, and that vagueness is what the rest of your argument depends on. Thats my point, this is an ambiguity fallacy that you are using in your argument.

The ability to communicate and ideas.

A good life is worth living; conversely, a bad life is not worth living. — darthbarracuda

Premise 1 here is too vague for a first premise, it allows too much wriggle room for your other premises to make a really effective argument. I think with more details premise 1 will fail and the argument collapse.
What is it that constitutes a “bad life”? How are you defining what a bad life is?

Dont be intimidated by the philosophical masterbations of those types of threads. Its not a sign of high IQ but rather knowledge/education. People who learn big words like to use them, but the concepts don’t require the academic descriptions. You do have to learn some of the basic terms in order to keep up in the discussion but google will give you the gist of most of it.
If your interested in the word battles, you can ask for clarification on some of the terms. I’ve observed those with philosophical education are happy to clarify as long as they feel like you’ve put in the effort to learn the basic ideas behind the discussion. Otherwise you will be told to google it, or given a link.

You didnt debate it in the first place, you preached it. Also I didnt do any if those things, i asked a bunch of questions to better understand your position. Primarily I was wondering about how you view the soul as it pertains to this issue. You didnt really respond to any if them.

So what were you setting out to do in this thread that you already accomplished?

…so you aren’t interested in answering any questions, responding to any points or even providing counterpoints of your own?
This is a discussion forum, not a ranting forum. Can you please answer my questions and respond to points? If not, there is no reason to pretend youre addressing me by tagging my name to your post. Just leave my name out and rant to a general audience.

Arbitrary means random — Gregory

Ok, we have different ideas about what those words mean. I take random to mean having no reason fir a particular outcome other than chance. Arbitrary I take to mean having a reason, even if that reason has a subjective/personal basis.
Anyway, you didnt respond to the rest:

“These are attempts to find a base definition of what a human/person is, and many are based off of reason and biology, not randomly generated.”

A person is made from an egg and a sperm, from mother and father, not from one. — Gregory

I understand that is where you define personhood, at conception. What Im saying is that conception is just as “arbitrary” a place to define the start of personhood as heart or brain development. You have reasons for choosing conception as the starting point, the other side of view has reasons for choosing the formation of organs or whatever as the starting point. Both are equally “random”, you have just chosen a different starting point and for different reasons.

If it wasn't for the abortion issue biologists would be in agreement that human life starts at conception. It is the desire to make things other than they are they people say otherwise — Gregory

I think biologists ARE in agreement about human life starting at conception. “Human life” and “a person” are not the same thing though, so his is a non-sequitor.

What I was really hoping to get an answer on was:

That sounds like the soul is the merger of the soul and the body/matter, but thats a stretch of coherency. What is this thing that merges with the body to form the soul? The soul? That doesnt make sense. Where does the “pre soul” soul come from? The sperm? — DingoJones

Im interested in how you view the soul here…

Yes. Matter formed at conception is the soul. I don't subscribe to dualism. Humanity is the form but it is not separate from matter. The soul is all through the body and the body is all through the soul. We speak of them as two and must but I think they are really one.
— Gregory — DingoJones

Where does the soul come from? Does it exist prior to taking form in the fertilized egg? Does each parent have half a soul to share?
If the body and soul are the same, does the soul change as the body does?
I understand you are getting grief from people but please answer each of those questions, I mean them earnestly.

Yes. Matter formed at conception is the soul. I don't subscribe to dualism. Humanity is the form but it is not separate from matter. The soul is all through the body and the body is all through the soul. We speak of them as two and must but I think they are really one. — Gregory

That sounds like the soul is the merger of the soul and the body/matter, but thats a stretch of coherency. What is this thing that merges with the body to form the soul? The soul? That doesnt make sense. Where does the “pre soul” soul come from? The sperm?

On abortion, people are arguing, "first it must have a heart", "no a brain and a heart", "no kidneys too", "no it must be born". All these arguments are random. The form is there at conception and blossoms into different shapes of that form throughout life — Gregory

They aren’t random. I think you mean arbitrary? These are attempts to find a base definition of what a human/person is, and many are based off of reason and biology, not randomly generated.
Also, aren’t you making the same arbitrary (what you called random) move by saying “conception”? Why not go further back and consider human life the sperm, or the egg? The sperm or the egg are “ingredients” for a person in the same way the fertilized egg is an
“ingredient” for the person but for some reason you are making the cut off at fertilized egg. Thats no different in terms of arbitrary/random than making the cut off at being born or developing a heart.

Do you believe in a soul Gregory?

A fair point, but not a rebuttal to to my statement. Is your argument that because it takes time that we should just throw the “johns” under the bus? With limited resources choices must be made, priorities serviced. In the multitude of things to put resources towards there is room for both if anyone actually cared, but they dont.

Why can’t you do both though?
It seems like a bad idea to let criminals dictate policy.
Like, “Whoa whoa whoa fella. We can’t make that legal cuz the criminals will act up and we can’t have that”. Criminals will be criminals, the answer for me is to combat the criminal behaviours, not placate them. I mean, your plan is to punish the people (the johns) who participate in something you just made legal (for sex workers to sex work) instead of punishing the people who A) were the problem in the first place and B) are committing more crime and inflicting more suffering that they were before. (The human traffickers).
That seems pretty assbackwards to me. Is that justice?

It's not independent, it's related. Which is why human trafficking increased in the a Netherlands when prostitution was legalised. And while it makes sense for those who chose to become sex workers, or even those who were initially forced into it, for their own sake to pursue legalisation and unions that doesn't mean they understand the wider repercussions of such policies.

You can't just legalise and not expect demand to go up. — Benkei

Sure here are wider repercussions, but the correct answer isnt to make prostitution illegal, its to crack down on the criminal enterprise of human trafficking. Why can’t both be done?

Why do creationists and other stunned dummies get banned but this guy doesnt get banned for advocating the abuse of children? (Whether he admits it to us or himself or not, that IS what he is doing)
Just curious mods…just curious.

Can a bullet kill a guy who can neither see nor hear?
Our senses inform us about reality but reality doesn't give a shit about what our senses tell us.

Yes, that is the fact which underlies my point. While I agree that patriarchy tends to perpetuate brutality, I do not think it causes brutality "ab initio". Rather, I think that patriarchy initially arises from and is sustained by a general climate of brutality, wherein the concepts of compromise and diplomacy are non-existent. Thereafter, said climate of brutality and its patriarchal offspring are mutually supportive. — Michael Zwingli

Chicken and the egg.

One could argue that the brutality of the time was the symptom of patriarchy just as easily. We wouldn't need to have the warriors in charge if the other tribes had less warriors to. To the less enlightened of the before times might made right. We’ve grown up. Sorta.

502
Evolution has no need for love. Well no need for love between partners at least, maybe maternal and paternal love towards offspring yes, but as for partners all that is called for is sexual attraction/ lust. The convention of marriage is very much a legal and political thing regarding possession and responsibility towards children. — Benj96

Are you sure evolution has no need for love? How did you determine that it doesnt, given that we have evolved with love as part of our emotional range? Hasn’t love helped us survive as a species?

What’s the difference between simply being infatuated with someone and loving them? If you subscribe to the idea of love please explain why on earth we would need it. We are animals with a high rate of infidelity I would struggle to believe we are indeed as monogamous as culture and romcoms would dictate — Benj96

Well its hard to say exactly but the difference between infatuation and love seems a matter of degree, no?
Monogamy and love are not the same thing, nor does one require the other. People can and do en masse, love more than one person. Monogamy is a social control, a social contract of sorts.

Thank you. Our thinking is very different and I am curious about why that is so. You speak of a reality that is nothing like life was before the 19th century. Education before the 19th century would be liberal education and only a few men had a chance of being well educated, with a few exceptions. Some Protestant groups focused on the technological skill of reading so people could read the Bible for themselves but from there females were taught the domestic skills by their mothers, and males learned their father's trade or were sent to live with a man who would teach them a trade. However, the Quakers took a much stronger stand on empowering women than any other branches of Christianity and I think it was more influenced by the classics, playing a very strong role in forming the values of the US by participating in government at the Capital. The foundation of the culture was predominately Christian and the man was the head of the house, with God's authority that women did not have except for Quakers. That is patriarchy with Quakers and empowered women, playing a stronger role in shaping democracy than say the Mormons. — Athena

Im not sure your point here. It doesn't seem like any of that is controversial but neither does it seem relevant….I thought you were asking a question regarding which is better not for a history of either.

.

Throughout history, the division of gender roles was based on our different natures. Do you think nature made males and females the same? — Athena

No of course not, but male/female gender roles are not the same as leadership roles.
It seems like we have different ideas of what patriarchy and matriarchy mean. I take it to mean something like “when society is ruled or governed based on one gender”. I would call gender roles a sub category of society. If the society is modelled after one gender role or another then my criticism would be the same. Gender roles are not good metrics by which to build a society, rather they are components within a society.

When the giver of life was a goddess, women held the highest position and the society was organized by family order. Do you have any notion how this was different from patriarchal societies? Can you think of reasons for a matriarchy becoming a patriarchy? Do you understand I am not arguing one is better than the other but I am warning there are serious problems with insisting we all be like men and the homemaker is not an important social role? — Athena

Im not sure who you imagine would disagree with this. Not me.
Im saying it is foolish to insist a society “act like men”, where we disagree perhaps is that I also think it is foolish to insist society act like the homemaker as well. As others have mentioned, it is the “insisting” part that is problematic in the two “archy”’s.
If your going to insist, insist on people being responsible, productive members of society which isnt the purview of gender but rather the individuals within the society.

When the state becomes responsible for childcare, increasingly the paid childcare provider will have to prove merit by showing a degree in childcare education, and the pay will go up. This is a huge improvement over leaving a 12-year-old responsible for children. But no amount of technological education, and pay, will make the caregiver equal to a mother or grandmother. Can you think of any reason why this might become a social nightmare along the line of The Brave New World? — Athena

Again the relevance is lost on me. You’ll have to provide a better trail of logic for me to follow cuz Im not seeing the connecting tissue.

Like, is your main point “patriarchy bad”? Cuz yes, it is. So is a matriarchy. Men and women bring different tools, we should use all the tools at our disposal not one set or the other. Right?

How are both patriarchy and matriarchy flawed? If you can answer that, it would be the discussion I was hoping to have. — Athena

I would say because they are based off gender, and that is a poor metric by which to base societal structures upon. I don’t think one gender is better as leaders of society than another, the better structure will be determined by traits that do not rely on gender like education, integrity, fair and equal laws etc. I don’t think any of those traits rely on a specific answer.
Do you think one or the other (patriarchy or matriarchy) is better? I just din’t think I can agree. Male or female, politicians are all the same variety of lying, game playing scum we all hate.
Society is best run by a system where both genders get a seat at the table, where the “talent pool” of society running folks is at its widest. Why exclude someone based in gender?

Well, that is an interesting comment. Before you decide who is a fool you might want to have more information. But I am pondering what you said and wondering why you said it. It kind of reminds me of the movie Brave New World. The way technology has impacted our consciousness is fascinating, but that is a different discussion I would love to have. — Athena

I can be clearer that was muddled.
What I meant was the merits/demerits of a gender based society would match the merits/demerits of the genders themselves. I’m not making a commentary about what those gender merits/demerits are Im just pointing out the society would reflect them, whatever you think they might be.
The second point I intended to make was that gender is not a very good metric by which to appoint rulership or or who makes good leaders. I stand by what I said, that it is foolish to think a particular gender better equips one to lead or ideas by which to base society. Patriarchy and matriarchy are both flawed ways of structuring society.

I imagine benefits and problems of a gender based social structure would match pretty closely to the benefits and problems of the genders themselves.
Of course a problem common to both a patriarchy and a matriarchy is that it ignores merit in favour of an accident of birth. Anyone who thinks gender is more telling of leadership or social order than individual merit is a fool imo.

He fit the posting profile of the commonly banned folk, no surprise here.

Well stated for once Baker :wink:

Thats the problem principal based ethics, when certain actions are prohibited (ethically speaking). Lying, killing, stealing…as soon as you suggest a particular action is “wrong”, its trivially easy to come up with clear exceptions to the rule.
In the nazi scenario above the person who tells the truth about the jews because its “the ethical thing to do” is a moral monster. These principal based ethics, by which I mean “so and so action is ethically wrong”, lead to logical contradictions and therefore should be rejected imo.
I would add further that principal based ethics are lazy (or hopelessly ambitious) as well. A proper ethical consideration should be case by case, the specifics of each moral situation logged and analysed. While Its understandable that that isnt always practical and ethics will inevitably lose out to practicality at times I would say that in general these sorts of dogmatic servitude to whatever principal don’t even qualify as an ethical principal. In the nazi example we all imagine the truth teller to be quite the opposite of an ethical person and Im not sure the vast majority of ethical principals people have function any different logically speaking/

Nah, Ill keep doing what Im doing. I dont mean to come off as snotty…not all the time anyway. I save my insults for those deserving, like anyone else.
Also, I said I was fine with the mocking. You acted like I was complaining. I wasnt.
Where were you “straight up” with me in the most recent exchange?

You are mistaken, again. Neither agitated nor angry, just not into wasting my time. You’ve decided not to engage and so mock instead, thats fine, it was amusing but inevitably boring.

I never pegged you as the dishonest type, here is the actual sentence:

“So I find your criticism weak, and it has the wiff of prejudice, like its a cherished opportunity to push back with some sort of disdain for psych terms or something.“

Why did you cut the front and back ends off? Am I allowed to call that cherry picking or is that jargon too? Is that your thing? Just commit logical fallacies, dishonestly cherry pick and ignore points and questions in favour of flip dismissal of criticisms as “jargon”?
The parts you omitted provide important context that differentiate my statement between an accusation and an estimation. Do you understand the difference?

Anyway, you didnt respond to argument nor clarifying questions so no reason to suspect you will start now. Good day.

It is bullshit because 1) it is often, usually, used to add a patina of reason to a poorly-thought-through criticism. 2) Many people who use the term don't even know what it means. 3) The prime sign of jargon - the term's meaning can be easily and clearly, more clearly, expressed in everyday language. — T Clark

All of that was noted and rebutted in my initial comment.

I think, perhaps, you overestimate your own ability to understand the motives for my opinion, which, by the way, are not relevant to my argument and shouldn't be part of your response. So, maybe, you also overestimate your ability to reason effectively. — T Clark

You think wrong. I never offered an estimation of your motives for your opinion therefore no overestimation could have been detected. Your response attacks my “ability to understand the motives of my opinion” rather than the two things I offered in my comment: the wiff of prejudice and the accusation of pushing back against psych terms “or something”. Do you know what that's called? Is there a term one might use to describe attacking someones ability to understand rather than what they have said/claimed?
As for relevance, well it is entirely relevant to bring those things up if they are in-fact true, which they may not be. Are they? You can dispel them with a proper response instead the the…what are those called again? Whats the word?
And lastly, this:

“So, maybe, you also overestimate your ability to reason effectively.“

Is the last step in completing a logical fallacy, so what is a person supposed to do? You want to dismiss the “jargon” of that logical fallacy but here you are making one so whats a guy to do? Am I not supposed to correctly point out a logical fallacy because ignorant people on the internet dont know what they are and misuse (or fail to identify :wink: ) a specific logical fallacy?
Again: your problem isnt with those terms, its the people misusing the terms and we should never, ever concede language to the clowns among us.

Just because it is a term abused by some doesn't mean the concept is bullshit. Also, of course it is a way of saying “I think you are wrong”, it is one of the ways in which people can be wrong, what else would you expect it to be? Thats like complaining “youre contradicting yourself” is just another way of saying “I think your wrong”. Yes, yes it is.
You aren’t describing a problem with the term, you are describing its problematic use by problematic people. Jerkoffs will be jerkoffs, but we should never concede language to them.
Also, it is more than the appearance of insight. If used accurately insight is exactly what the concept is describing, insight into why a person is in error, the nature of their mistake.
So I find your criticism weak, and it has the wiff of prejudice, like its a cherished opportunity to push back with some sort of disdain for psych terms or something.

Oh just shut up and get shot.

I cant believe you two knuckleheads (meant playfully!) this long to figure out he’s full of shit. I suppose you also think it a coincidence this “atheist” is dishonest and disingenuous in precisely the same way as every other religious clown that stumbles in here looking to prove some pet theistic point. Leave him be, he will find his place among the turds of this site. :naughty:

Im sorry to say that the question doesn't make much sense, there is no difference in “if statements” logic when it is applied to agency or human intent. The logical principals remain unchanged, only what is “X” or “Y” would change and again that really doesnt effect the application of a logical principal. Hence why I asked what you had in mind…

Im not sure how the logic would be different with agency or human intentions. Di you have something good n mind?

Same thing.

Wiccans are not comparable to Nazi’s. Your boss IS being stupid. Someones wrong, ignorant idea of what a Wiccan is or the different meanings of a pentagram is not the same as someone actually having some heinous, genocidal ideology. The uppity catholics are offended by their own misconception and ignorance rather than something real, while in the case of the Neo Nazi a person would be offended for very real reasons, very real evils.
So you hold contradiction, no two faces, no hypocrisy.

Good thing they aren't predicted on an unsustainable trajectory then, or you might have a point there.

Pretty confident, i would stake lives on it sure.

The future is unknowable. But according to our best predictive efforts, it will be quite bad indeed. — hypericin

Thats not true. Our best predictive models are based on the patterns of the past and present. Those patterns indicate that the world is and has been getting better, not worse. Poverty, well being, infant mortality, disease, murder and every metric of a better life except 2 which escape me at the moment. Look into Steven Pinkers work, all these things are better than ever. Taken as a whole, mwnkind has never been safer or better off.

Is this a situation that you would prefer to avoid? That you would do anything, at all costs, to avoid? Then how is it ok to impose this situation on any child, let alone your own? — hypericin

No, dealing with climate change or any other adversity along with the rest of life is not something I wish to avoid “at all costs”.
Ergo, I would never use that reason to not have kids and would have no problem bringing a kid into the world.