, well, what can anyone suggest...?
There are a few historically and politically savvy people around here.
Afghanistan seems to be converging on a rough theocracy, basic human rights out the window, oppression of females, ..., while we watch, before switching over to the food'n'shopping channel.

RIP Jason Hargrove of Detroit. :(

• 'Take This Serious': Bus Driver Dies Of COVID-19 After Calling Out Coughing Rider (NPR, Apr 2020)
• 11 Days After Fuming About a Coughing Passenger, a Bus Driver Died From the Coronavirus (NYT, Apr 2020)
• Detroit bus driver who complained about a coughing passenger dies of coronavirus days later (WP, Apr 2020)

Understandable if his family/friends are p!ssed at contrarians/anti-vaxxers. :angry:

• The vaccinated are angry. That's understandable but unproductive, health experts say (USA TODAY, Aug 2021)

(FYI, I have a short page elsewhere with some lessons learned from the pandemic; doesn't inspire much general trust in fellow humans.)

There's a related notion called motivated reasoning.

A terrifying new theory: Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy (Paul Rosenberg, Salon, Aug 2021)

This isn't so much about formation of belief as about social dynamics.

Why not just let God explain?

(if there is one)

[...] Honestly, I couldn't care less if the clearly insane conspiracy theorists are given a slot on Farcebook or not. Any restriction on actual scientific research is a hundred times more worrying than the media circus platforms of a few tinfoil hats. — Isaac

Right. Such ulterior motives for (not) publishing ain't cool.

There's a separate problem involved, let's call it tunnel vision.
Say, if 90 studies show the veracity of a vaccine, and 10 show downsides, then weighing all available evidence is equally warranted. That's not always what happens, though, since skeptics/deniers/clowns might just see risks, where subject matter experts acquire a better, more relevant overview.
Sure, "doing your own research" is fine, as long as you know what that means. No tunnel vision, context, bigger picture, overview, histories of similar events, don't just dismiss subject matter experts and turn to deniers. Especially in quarrels/preaching.

Some journalists have found some names, money, events, ...

The Big Money Behind the Big Lie (Jane Mayer, The New Yorker)

I don’t think we can say with certainty who won. I believe there were more illegal votes cast than the margin of victory. The only remedy is a new election. — Cleta Mitchell

The Georgia runoffs later confirmed the election results, though.

Big-Money Republican Donors Are Now Backing the GOP’s War on Fair Elections (Joan Walsh, The Nation)

In the US, given a good chunk of dollars, can you purchase fraud that wasn't there? If you keep going long enough?

Wouldn't morals be a scientific matter if they were objective?

(trying to catch up here...)

Did anything come of this...? Seems to have gone off-track.

, still wondering ...

Talk about the state of anything when it is not being observed is empty words. — Wayfarer

you really want to elevate yourself to a condition of existence? Universalize self-dependence? :brow: Let's talk about Mars.

We can easily and meaningfully talk about Mars onlookers or not.

Talk about the state of anything when it is not being observed is empty words. — Wayfarer

Why? Do you really want to elevate yourself to a condition of existence? Universalize self-dependence? :brow: Let's talk about Mars.

Does substantial mean real in that context? If someone didn't believe the world was real he would be a solipsist — Gregory

Not sure (yet), was hoping someone else had ventured down this rabbit hole.

So to wrap this thread up, can we say we don't need to know the full adaptive biology of successive species to know that they evolve from each other? — Gregory

Seems unlikely that we could dig up a complete continuum of past life.
We're also burning some of the remains in our cars.
In a sense, every species was/is subject to mutation/change over time, i.e. transitional, only once extinct did that end.


^{• The Fossil Fallacy
• Transitional Tetrapod Fossil
• Evolution: What missing link?
• Transitional Forms: The Evidence for Evolution by Natural Selection
• Transitional forms
• List of transitional fossils}

The nerd in me compels me to quote

You say you are true evil? Shall I tell you what true evil is? It is to submit to you. It is when we surrender our freedom, our dignity, instead of defying you. — Picard (TNG S1E23)

People suck? — Benkei

That we are more appropriately considered vermin than are rats. — Ciceronianus the White

What new might we learn? :)

Bit of July reading

6th — Anthropogenic influence on extreme precipitation over global land areas seen in multiple observational datasets
8th — NASA's AIRS Tracks Record-Breaking Heat Wave in Pacific Northwest
9th — We need a carbon-removal industry – should polluting companies pay for it?
13th — ESA and NASA join forces to understand climate change
16th — Dr James Hansen on climate: June 2021 global temperature update
18th — Germany knew the floods were coming, but the warnings didn’t work

thinking of empathy as a sort of proto-morality is putting the cart before the horse — T Clark

A taunting torturer can use empathy for bad. Empathy itself does not entail doing the right thing, but can just help understanding others.
(At least the rat experiment didn't show any taunting, as far as I can tell.) :)

Ages ago I read that some have less empathy and tend to make moral decisions based on perceived consequences, but this has been shown wrong.

Anyway, maybe the main thing that can be learned from these experiments, is that whatever morals (can) have emerged via biological evolution, even though we cannot derive such morals from biological evolution itself.

You're letting yourself be dragged onto their turf, exactly what I warned against. — baker

How do you figure?

[...] information [...] information [...] information [...] information [...] — Pop

Hypostatization extraordinaire?

Why must it be broken? Justify. — baker

Because people shouldn't replace morals with Leviticus 20:13 (for example)?


Incidentally, inquiring into possible readings of Leviticus 20:13 was run elsewhere (facebook) not long ago.
Some responded that the edict only applied to those tribes back then, others raised translation problems, others still suggested that it's not for humans to take action but leave it to post-mortem judgment, yet others held the US Declaration of Independence over the Bible, ... So, some of those responses were seemingly due to employing morals not defined by the Bible.
As anticipated, enough people in the groups were hesitant or silent or outright refused to give straight answers, one might hope due to moral quandaries, rather than fear of being boo'd out of town or something.
Anyway, it became clear enough that the passage can be read in detrimental ways by someone, and leaning in such a direction is just one step away, ... And that's sufficient to deny the Bible as a moral authority.
In Islam, there's a common sentiment that one must submit wholly to the Quranic Allah, and apply the Quran (and Hadith) to all aspects of life, which exposes a similar problem.
_{(nope, I'm not homosexual myself, not that it matters, I'm just a regular heterosexual, in case you're thinking of motives/self-preservation)}

Perhaps not, but this fact itself is part of the answer to the question. No? Or do we just stop enquiring? — Pop

Stop? Heck no. :) We don't need omniscience to know something. And curiosity is also a thing.

Suppose we did find ... some explanation. Then what of explaining that explanation?
Can there be an explanation that does not admit further inquiry, even in principle?
If not, then we may just find ourselves on some indefinite path of exploration.
Hence the diallelus: The Problem of the Criterion (IEP), Regress argument (Wikipedia).
Either way, artificial stop-gaps aren't it. Back to work it is, I guess.
There are questions to which the only honest response is (presently): "Don't know." And that makes for a fair amount of dishonesty out there.

Quit the rambling, .

Someone (a few) declared that God is a necessary being. And that's what the thread is about. If you come up with some different definition then that's not what the thread is about. *shrug*

Inability to come up with a self-consistent (possible) world without any given being (or mind or whatever) is an argument from incredulity. You see Yahweh or life or Bartricks in R³ or Q³?

Anyway, ramblery and wasting time go hand-in-hand, over and out.

, they have to justify their claims proportionally and relevantly.

"scientismists" :D A new word added to my vocabulary

Science is descriptive, morals are prescriptive.

Let the believers believe and the nonbelievers not. — Hanover

I beg to differ on one peripheral account, though of course anyone is free to believe whatever.

Until the diverse preachers indoctrinators proselytizers chill out, they should expect others asking them to justify their claims. In case they impose their faiths on others, politics, have their faiths interfere in other peoples' lives, whatever social matters, etc, then they should expect all the more. (Incidentally, Leviticus 20:13 came up recently elsewhere; responses varied.)

If they just want to exchange stories, or they keep their religious faiths to themselves, then sure, no problemo.

A "necessary fact" is only true in (all) impossible worlds. — 180 Proof

Unless you include the abstracs that were presupposed by the logic itself in the first place (like consistency), I guess.
But who the heck ever worshiped, assigned mind to, personified, chatted with, wrote religious scriptures about "the law of consistency"?

There are various entities which, if they exist, would be candidates for necessary beings: God, propositions, relations, properties, states of affairs, possible worlds, and numbers, among others. Note that the first entity in this list is a concrete entity, while the rest are abstract entities. — God and Other Necessary Beings (SEP)

FYI, there are all kinds of (lengthy) docs about modal logic out there.

Modal Logic (SEP)
Modal logic (Wikipedia)
Modal Logic: A Contemporary View (IEP)
Modal logic (Britannica)
The impact of modal logic (Routledge)

We typically uphold self-identity and consistency in general (or meaning is forfeit). Modal logic introduces possible and necessary. Possible worlds are self-consistent. For something to be possible it holds in a possible world (∃ quantifier), and for something to be necessary it holds in all possible worlds (∀ quantifier).

Can anyone come up with a shorter description? :)

(As an aside, possible things might lend themselves to verification, and necessary things lend themselves moreso to falsification.)

We may also speak of p being necessary or sufficient for q, but that's a different matter.

, Anselm's God was a self-identical intervening/interacting intelligence. Most are.

Tillich and Eagleton, on the other hand, have abstracted all life out of God.

God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue God exists is to deny Him. It is as atheistic to affirm God as it is to deny Him. God is being-itself, not a being. — Tillich

God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. — Eagleton (link updated)

I'm not quite sure this qualifies as theism. Here God is an abstract idea, relegated out of it all, something else that's a prerequisite for existence (except the word "something" is invalid). We might call this referent-free idea anything, doesn't have to be related to theism in particular. What can coherently be said thereof, that's of relevance to religious adherents (or to anyone for that matter)? Some parts of this stuff read more like plays on words, or an expression giving an exercise that might be interesting to ponder for a bit.

(As an aside, compare with the Olympians. Once they weren't found on Mount Olympus, they were reassigned to "otherworldly realms". Compare with Sagan's garage dragon.)

Anyway, the original idea isn't that hard to follow. Someone declares G a necessary being, which is in fact a definition by way of the modal terminology. This allows us to reason about G, and that shows G doesn't exist as declared. If we toss logic, then we toss the modal logic. Is that really needed in order to maintain gods/God?

All explanation consists in trying to find something simple and ultimate on which everything else depends. And I think that by rational inference what we can get to that’s simple and ultimate is God. But it’s not logically necessary that there should be a God. The supposition ‘there is no God’ contains no contradiction. — British (Christian) theologian Richard Swinburne (2009)

Well, these aren't proof, just some musings of English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822):

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?
If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them?
If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him?
If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable?
If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees?
If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?
If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced?
If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest? — The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

, I'd suggest digging around out there for various commentaries on the things you list.

, is it worthwhile mentioning that people do jump ship? Be it between faiths or to/from nontheism?
What you mention exemplifies doxastic involuntarism because, well, someone else (parents) chose for them. (I'll just call it directed indoctrination, though it shares something with enculturation.)
Anyway, formation (and revision) of beliefs aren't trivial matters I guess, but surely incorrigibility isn't a virtue.

, yeah, the apologist gap.

Two categories of deities:

• Stories: Here gods/God are various narrated characters, found in all kinds of (diverse, mutually inconsistent, lush, sumptuous) religious texts and such. Elaborate. Divine intervention. Adherents go by rituals, commands/rules, impositions, fate designations, they have public aspects (and advertising), etc.
• Definitions: Here gods/God are defined by apologists (or theologians), and definitions may vary. Idealized abstractions, or otherwise vague and nebulous. Some are results of apologetic arguments. They usually don't differentiate, say, theism and deism, and some are more panpsychist or Spinozist (or whatever) than others.

The former cannot be derived from the latter - the apologist gap.

The former is by far the most common in terms of professed faiths - people worship in temples, churches, mosques, synagogues, by altars, etc - preachers indoctrinate and proselytize. This category is also politically active, and so warrants some attention due to that alone.

The latter may be more philosophical if you will.

While looking around, I've come across a few people that lean towards straight atheism on the former category, the story characters, and lean towards agnosticism (or indifference) regarding unassuming deism and such. Unassuming deism is sort of in a category with simulation hypotheses, The Matrix, brain in a vat thought experiments, or whatever. Anyway, this then introduces an ambiguity: persons with two different attitudes, depending on what we're talking about. If this isn't pointed out where applicable, then confuzzlement follows, perhaps mobile goalposts.

People who believe in God typically don't do so on the grunds grounds of some philosophical arguments. Instead, they were born and raised to believe in God, and everything else follows from there. — baker

Right. So indoctrination works. (y) And, taken as a methodology, indoctrination doesn't differentiate the target faiths, any will do, and it works just the same. Whether Jesus is divine, or whether Sathya Sai Baba was a Shiva avatar, doesn't matter as far as indoctrination is concerned, it'll work just fine either way. Directed indoctrination, therefore, isn't a reliable means to discover the truth of the matter. (n) But I think this should be fairly clear.

problems with the notion of a necessary being — Banno

(necessary and possible are terms in modal logic, like the possible worlds formulation thereof)

The bare necessities:

Is R³ (or Q³, doesn't matter) self-consistent? Sure. It's a mathematical thing, so, in a sense, it shares a category with (modal) logic.

Anyway, so, R³ is a possible world, a boring, barren, inert, lifeless world. No minds here, nothing worthy of worship, nothing resembling any deities or what-have-you. For G to be necessary, G would have to hold up or be present in R³, all possible worlds actually. It follows, then, that any such G can't be a mind, isn't worthy of worship, is rather inert and lifeless, which does not seem like any gods/God preached by the theists out there.

Assuming that the theists would like their gods/God to show up, defining/asserting gods/God as necessary is a bad move. (Not that wishing makes it so anyway.)

Well this is what’s interesting about it our predecessor, God, who existed before we did. We sure as hell did not pop into existence by accident some God had a hand in all of this can assure you of that. — Deus

I thought that us suddenly popping into existence :sparkle: was your sort of thing?
Well, who says we did anyway?

1. we already know that more complex can come about from simpler
(implicit here is some notion of ours of simple and complex)
2. complex coming about from more complex leads to an infinite regress, apparently a vicious rather than benign one
3. say, life from non-life, for example, is rational enough

People might have different attitudes towards, say, Sunnism and unassuming deism:

There's a worthwhile distinction to make here.

Stories: Here gods/God are various narrated characters, found in religious texts and such. These are more elaborate (and often include divine intervention), and adherents go by rituals, commands/rules, impositions, fate designations, they have public aspects (and advertising), etc.

Definitions: Here gods/God are defined by apologists, and definitions may vary. Some are results of apologetic arguments. Some do not differentiate, say, theism and deism, and some are more panpsychist or Spinozist (or whatever) than others.

The distinction matters because people have different attitudes towards the two.
Additionally, the former category is typically where we see social impacts, be it in politics or interfering in people's lives or some such, so these warrant more attention.
Also, you cannot derive the former from the latter.

I'd suggest setting out what's meant so as to anchor goalposts and minimize ambiguities. — https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/554551

Yeah, the real world sucks because people don't know what real freedom is.
I've lost my faith in government, especially after COVID. The government passes laws, in other words, restrictions. Restrictions take away freedom. People need freedom to be happy and flourish. Really basic concept. — Kasperanza

So take SARS-CoV-2 to court.

Who goes to shit where their kids eat?
Or their kids' kids?
Climate impact, pollution, increasing extinctions, ...
Perhaps now is a good time to consider the longer term.
At least try to avoid some future suffering?
There's an ethical thing going on here.
But of course anyone is free to have no such considerations, to not care.

not a Christian source — Apollodorus

The Westminster thing is better, though.
Seems like political correctness is ethics, or moral philosophy, oughts, pre/proscriptive.

Religion should inform ethics? No. Divine command theory, theological voluntarism, ...? No. Accountability to an imaginary friend rather than your fellow humans? No.

(..., 2013, 2016, 2019, 2020, ...)

About ethics, what is right and what is wrong. — Apollodorus

Religion should inform ethics? No. Divine command theory, theological voluntarism, ...? No. Accountability to an imaginary friend rather than your fellow humans? No.

(..., 2013, 2016, 2019, 2020, ...)

[religion and morality] are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides. — The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics

Well, to be quite honest, I think to make Bible interpretation subject to political correctness would amount to knowingly sabotaging your own effort. Religion and philosophy should inform politics, not the other way round. — Apollodorus

I thought political correctness was over in ethics.
After all, that's what it's about, regardless of what the wording may suggest.

Religion should inform politics? About what?
(..., 2013, 2016, 2019, 2020, ...)

, so G is a simpleton, simpler than a raindrop. :)
Well, minds are at least complex enough to express things like ...

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. — George E Pugh (1977), accredited to Emerson M Pugh (1938)

I have a feeling that various worshipers aren't on board with their ehh friend being so simple.
Then again, it seems these G-ideas are free for the taking, contradictions included, and regardless that G never shows and isn't shown.

, you're free to believe whatever (ir/rational alike).
If you want others to believe the same, or take you seriously, then they may ask you for justification.
They'd be equally free to not take your word for it.

_{Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy » The Analysis of Knowledge » 1. Knowledge as Justified True Belief}