Just a thought experiment, to each their own if you do not enjoy them.
The purpose of the question was to get a sense of peoples opinion on what extreme action they think one side or the other would take if they could.

I made no assertion of it being helpful.
So you would say that if either or got the magic button they would genocide the other side? They would both kill every man, woman and child on the other side?

Ok, looks like its done for. Short and worthless to all us spectators.

So lets take a poll, maybe a mod could make one in the OP of this thread.

Who won the debate? Sound off everyone.

My take is Amen didn’t show up to the debate. Everything he said was posturing, my guess is he was hoping to barf out enough words that he could have plenty of weeds to hide in when he inevitably evaded addressing the actual topic of debate. That's what it looked like to me.
As I predicted, condescending and disingenuous was met with short patience and dismissal. Same old shit.
I was so hoping that we could get an honest discussion from Amen but we did not. He did declare himself the winner though which was pretty funny. Im sure we will be hearing about how it wasnt fair and 180 was the one who didnt show up and how atheist should try and calm down and think rationally and blah blah blah.

Lets say I have a magic button. Its a kill button. When the button is pushed whoever I want dead, dies. Its the perfect weapon, there is no defence against it, its just push button, death. Lets say there is no consequences, no way of proving the magic button was used so the consequences of the murder are minimal.
Now lets imagine this button in the hands of the leadership of Israel, then imagine the button in the hands the leadership of Palestine.
How do you think the button would be used by either side?

Sadly I suspect Canada is already lost. States too. We are only now seeing some more drastic changes but China has seeded the world economy for thier eventual ascension for many decades. I think we’ve already lost to whatever endgame agenda they have and just din’t know it yet.
Governments are controlled by corporations, corporations are controlled by the markets, china has a massive chunk of the market they complexly control (their people) and therefor a massive control over corporations which give them massive control over governments.
China has been playing at an advantage for many years, their hands not tied by pesky distractions like their peoples freedom or humanitarian rights or the rights of corporations to autonomy and/or intellectual property the way most of their competitors do and so have been able to expand their influence without people much noticing at all. They are far enough ahead and so successful that I think its safe to say the war is over and we’ve lost. Now we are just going through the motions of whatever new structures they decide to put in place.

End of the debate due to the same old shit you n 5…4…3…2…

Lol, I never take gambling advise from anyone so all good.

No its not (dogma), you are taking what Im saying and reframing it to these “typical” atheist responses and tilting at windmills and strawmen. Lol, I mean come on your mode of engagement is to ignore what I’m saying because you know it all already. Thats a neat way of not having to defend anything you say or points made against you.
Anyway, I din’t take it personally Im just not a fan of wasting my time. Since you already know everything on the matter I would imagine a waste of yours as well.
Glad we nipped that in the bud.

Ah, I gotchya now. Slow on the uptake sometimes.

Ya see you aren’t acting in good faith here. I made a number of points that you havn’t addressed, you have not been engaging with what Im saying. I pointed this out fairly plainly and your response was to ignore that as well.
Im done, but to show clearly which of us is not being intellectually honest here I will rebut your question:

Do you believe in Zeus? I hope not.
Well Zeus is a god and I’m happy to abandon reason for whatever method you used to determine that Zeus doesnt exist and apply it to all of them.

Good day sir.

This is the common atheist error, the assumption that because reason is proven good for many things (agreed) it is therefore automatically qualified for everything. And because they hold this typically unexamined assumption, they see no need to inspect or challenge those qualifications. — Foghorn

I explicitly did not make that assumption. I said repeatable patterns of reliability. Thats true, reason has that and that reliability can be tested in real time, pretty easily. It is neither unexamined nor an assumption im afraid. This is not the same as saying it is “automatically” qualified for everything, you inserted the automatic part all on your own.
Also not true that it is a trait of atheism to not inspect or challenge the qualifications of reason, this is a human thing not an atheist thing.

And so, ok, let us reason together. Let us apply the very same degree of challenge we reasonably aim at theist authorities to atheist authorities. This process is often called intellectual honesty. — Foghorn

Im not sure what you mean but I’m game. Im not sure how much we actually disagree here, but I did notice you are somewhat cherry picking my posts for responses.
Ive been patient because you seem a decent fellow but since you mentioned intellectual honesty I would be remiss if I didn’t bring it up now. Please address my arguments instead of just making more of your own.

I predict no derailment. It would be a miracle (ha!) if the train ever leaves the station. — Kenosha Kid

Id be willing to place bets that it derails lol
We have a historical pattern of it, why would this be any different?

What does that mean? You don’t think there is a problem?

Ok, a tool if you prefer, and the atheist belief is that this tool can generate meaningful statements on the subject of gods.

In the same way, the theist believes that holy books, or perhaps their personal experience, are tools which can generate meaningful statements on the subject of god.

Competing claims. None of which can be proven. — Foghorn

If a person is using books and personal experiences to draw conclusions they are still using reason to do that. You made a false equivalence here, to draw an actual equivalence would be for the theist to use faith as their tool. As I started this side bar off with: faith is a garbage tool.
In any case, I’m not making a claim about atheism or theism generating meaningful statements.

The primary problem atheists typically have is that their faith in reason (for this particular task) is so deep, and so unexamined, that they don't realize it is faith. They take reason's qualifications for considering the very largest of questions, those most far removed from human scale, to be an obvious given. And so it doesn't occur to them to questions those qualifications. — Foghorn

Nobody has faith in reason. People have very repeatable patterns of reliability that prove its efficacy. It is the foundation of all of science and knowledge. It is as “proven” a thing as here is. Zero faith needed.
This is another false equivalency, where you have used “faith” in two different ways so that it appears faith is common to both theism and atheism. “Faith” is used in everyday speech to talk about reasonable confidence in something. People say they have faith in spouses, faith public transit system etc. “Faith” is also used as a basis for believing in something as when the theist is asked why they believe in god and they answer “faith”. It is given as a reason, which I’ve argued it is not.
This is an important distinction and let me make it clear that it is the latter usage that I am using and it is the latter usage that negates the point you make in the quoted portion.

So from my perspective my initial point stands, but please point out where ive failed to address a rebuttal you made if thats the case.

Reason is not an authority, it is a tool one uses when one wants to make sense.
Regardless, how one comes to be an atheist isnt definitive of atheism. Atheists can be atheists through bad reasoning, its not a position on reasoning it is a position in belief in god.

Atheism references no authority, you are making that up. Atheism IS a lack of belief, and thats all it is. Whatever else an atheist might believe about religion or authority is irrelevant, what makes them an atheist is simply a lack of belief in god or gods.

1) the atheist has no such burden, they are not asserting anything. They simply lack a belief, lacking a belief is not an assertion.

2) the theist certainly cannot, but again the atheist has no such requirement. The atheist isnt asserting anything.

3) it collapses only because you redefined atheism specifically so it would collapse.

Yes. You are very rational in saying faith holds the place of good reason. In my opinion, the word love holds the place for an unintelligible condition that is inexplicable, most analogously to how faith holds the place for any condition that is beyond understanding. We can analyze the meaning of the words, but we can never access the actuality of living under such a condition, except subjectively. Perhaps all subjectivity is delusional, yet love and faith are not important to the subject because of how they can be understood, but for their actuality. I guarantee that people will kill for love much faster than they will kill for faith if given the opportunity. — Merkwurdichliebe

I didnt say it holds the place of good reason. I said its a placeholder word for the good reason the person just doesn’t have. Meaning, they do not have a good reason and so they say “faith” instead of a good reason.
You actually didnt address my points at all with that.

"No quality control." Now that is the greatest description of faith ive ever heard. Faith is also not quantitative, and for that reason, it is immune from all metrics that might validate any reason for any position. In fact, faith is solely concerned with the qualitative because the actuality of faith qualitatively changes the individual who believes by removing the concern for quality control which makes for "no quality control". Faith is extremely fatalistic and paradoxical despite the moral obligation to observe the demands of ones faith, and the demands of one's faith can often be radical and illogical, which can be of great offense to those of us trying to make sense of things. — Merkwurdichliebe

Again you miss the point. Not having quality control is a criticism of “faith” for the reasons described but you seem to have ignored that and instead once again resort to describing faith.
Please address my points.

Love isnt that analogous, love can be investigated and explained. Emotions are intangible sure but that doesnt mean they are as mysterious as you would have me believe.
I know it does little to dull the harshness of what I say to say I mean no offense but your description sounds more analogous to delusion.
You’ve at best described the placeholder word I referenced. “Faith” is indescribable and mysterious and subjective and beyond reason and understanding…well such a diluted word has no real meaning but to hold a place for the good reason (faith is not a good reason to believe in anything at all) that the persons just doesnt have.
And of course none of that matters since regardless of how you describe faith my point still stands: its a garbage reason to believe anything, as was cleverly put by someone else as faith having “no quality control”. You can use it to defend any belief, even awful ones. Thats how feeble faith is as a metric fir believing in anything.

I can’t tell which one your disdain is for lol
Probably a good thing.

This is why a moderator is necessary. To keep those two things from derailing the discussion like every other time. Without one we are into the same old shit as before.

A troll of the axe grinding variety I suspect.

I believe his main point is that the atheists lacks the necessary sense/understanding to see the truth of gods existence like a theist does.
Also some kind of equivalence between theistic and atheistic reasoning.
Very verbose though. Difficult to read

He got banned?

Its a depressing trait of the human condition.

Not everything is as it seems, but thank you.

Again, the same could be said of any discovery anyone makes. They are finding something no one else did, thats the nature of a discovery not philosophy.
What happened to you? Did a rabid band of philosophers kill your parents or something? Did you just come to this forum to slam the great philosophers? Thats fine if you did, thats what everyone else does here just without forsaking philosophy altogether.
I don’t think the points you’ve made so far have done much to show your claims about philosophy are true, but by making those claims and asking questions you are playing the part of Socrates perfectly.
Thats philosophy and Im sorry to be the one to break this to you but you are doing philosophy, you are in fact a philosopher.

Im not sure what criteria you are using in that assessment but cannot agree. That simply hasnt been my experience.

Arrogant fools are abundant whatever kind of person you are talking about.

Its both me AND the philosophy. :wink:
If my comment seemed fair to you then maybe your problem is less with philosophy and more with the philosophers themselves when they make appeals to philosophical authority? Beginners in philosophy are often snarky and arrogant about the new tools and ideas they are given through philosophy for example.
That happens, and it is indeed obnoxious but I wouldnt say representative of all philosophy.

But which philosopher has attained truth then? Especially when many are diametrically opposed. — Mystic

Well I wouldn’t say there is one philosopher who gets it all right, but from Decartes to Harris I’ve learned not just things which I think are true but useful methods for thinking as well.
If two philosophers have diametrically opposed views, one or both are wrong. Just like with anything else.

Tell me practically,give me some ethical and philosophical truths you heve gleaned during your critical journey? — Mystic

Like I said Decartes “I think therefore I am”. Thats true. Utilitarianism is a decent ethical system and learning about where it is weak helped form my own ethical framework. Being exposed to ethical philosophy in general has helped form my own ethical framework. Ethical dilemmas like the Trolley Problem challenge peoples pre-conceived notions of ethics and morality and test them.
Ive come to conclusions about ethics, meaning, religion, spirituality, society and people through philosophy. Most of it is of practical value in my life.

The truth of something requires no agreement. Whether or not someone agrees something is true has no bearing on whether or not its actually true.
If you want to learn about ethics philosophy is one source for that. For really deep ethical questions I would say its the best source.
Likewise with critical thinking, yes it is something that everyone possesses or makes use of on some level but if you want to learn about critical thinking you should read some philosophy, or do some philosophy.

If the truth is reliable and valid then one should accept it. I don’t know anyone who uses doubt as a foundation. Doubt is more of a tool in philosophy, part of a method.
I agree there is some wishy washy pointless philosophy that appeals to a certain kind of intellectual sado-masochistic philosopher type bit painting with that broad brush means you miss out in the good things about philosophy, like ethics and critical thinking.

Even if I were to concede that those particular philosophers lacked humility that wouldnt mean all of philosophy lacks humility. There are scientists who lack humility do you think science lack humility because if them?

Certainly philosophy has aspects of what you are talking about, when the discussions go in circles or the topics are endlessly rehashed. Thats a fair criticism in my view, but Im not sure what that has to do with self esteem.
What I would defend is the process of asking questions and what sing doubt as a method to figuring out the answers to those questions. Its healthy to question ones positions and views, especially the ones we hold on the frontiers of knowledge or that we hold most dear.

:100:

I like the way you put that, no quality control. The worst ideas are equally valid.
“Faith” is also used as an expression to say one has reasonable confidence in something and that gets mixed together in theist counter argument.

The other problem with faith is that the single suspension of reason weakens the persons defences against other bad ideas. Once you convince someone fantasy is real its easier to convince them other fantasies are real as well. I had a friend who grew up religious and believed strongly in god and when the internet conspiracy theories started getting stronger I had to watch him succumb to each one until he thought the earth was flat and no longer believed in space. His father was a pastor, he had been trained his whole life to swallow those conspiracy theories. Thats why rather than the simple illogic of faith that might make it a sort of quaint banality like astrology I think faith is an evil for exactly that attack it makes on the faithfuls faculties of reason.
And while Im ranting you wanna know what else drives me nuts? The way the faithful try and disassociate with the other faithful, like the suicide bomber or the zealot who beats each of his kids and himself for original sin are not using the exact same reason. When you choose to indulge yourself with “faith” you are choosing to grant equal footing to all faith based acts. If the defence of your belief is the same as the defence of the belief women should be slaves or someone should drag their kid up a mountain to sacrifice to god then your defence of your belief is garbage. The bar for believing in things has to be higher than that.

End rant.

What is faith though? Faith when given as a reason for believing in something is an empty placeholder for an actual reason. If the person actually had a reason they would just state that reason but they don’t so they say “faith”.
Also, to say something is not a matter of logic or imperial investigation is to admit it is firmly in the realm of fantasy. If someone said they believed in square circles on ”faith” that clear breach of logic puts the notion into fantasy. Things have to make sense, otherwise no one knows what they are talking about and neither do they. It is by definition nonsense.

Well it depends on how you define philosopher but the humility of which I speak is a person accepting they do not know and then trying to figure it out (humility) as opposed to a person who thinks they already know and then trying to figure out how to support that conclusion. (Opposite of humility).

I think you are confusing low self esteem with humility. Doubting oneself and ones perspective is good philosophy, a necessary part of looking at things from different points of view which is essential to philosophy.

An intuition with which I might sometimes agree; I'm not convinced that "...is good" works a predicate, at least not in the way "...is round" does. But there is much work to be done here, too. — Banno

The “all” is important too, “all good” implies only one pathway to good and a single conclusion at the end of that pathway. I think there are many good ways to get to the good and more than one good to be gotten to in each instance. (Good in the moral sense).

SO you would say the argument is valid, but relies on a false premise - that there is a god - and so is not cogent. — Banno

False premise (god), a problematic phrasing (“all good”)and it gets circular if “ought” is a reference to what is good. There is morevI think but those are the main cogency lacking factors imo.

Id call it internally consistent, but not a very good argument based on its premises. I don’t think being “all good” is coherent for example, I have never heard a satisfying explanation of what that would even mean.
Also it starts with the acceptance that a god exists, which I do not accept.
So not cogent I’d say, in that any argument that relies on such baseless premises is not very close convincing.

I think the idea is that omniscience grants certain knowledge, thus a certainty of what is good and this is what merges good and god in the way Janus mentioned. I don’t really buy into any “omni” based arguments myself. Theoretical concepts at best, hardly the basis from which to draw conclusions about anything.