Over 75% a philosophical domains posit God as a customary or standard axiom or criteria. You know, it's all part of philosophy and philosophical discourse, a human condition thing. — 3017amen

Are you trying to say that over 75% of philosophical domains (whatever that means) is wrong? Or it is right. You did not make a point, you just quoted a statistic (which I highly doubt has to do with any counting or measuring of the area of domains of philosophy).

When you change the batter, the unit is temporarily out of service.

If the unit itself sets out to change its own battery, then it will never happen; it may be able to take out the old battery, but the unit can't put a battery in while it's inoperational due to not having battery power.

1. If the apostles were willing to be martyred for the sake of Christ, then they must have had intense belief.
2. Intense belief must be backed by equally sufficient evidence.
3. The apostles were willing to be martyred for the sake of Christ.
4. Therefore, the apostles must have had sufficient evidence for their intense belief. (MP 1,3 — Josh Vasquez

Faith does not need evidence. That's why faith is a belief.

If you have sufficient evidence then you are a scientist, and you don't need faith.

But because the Apostles had faith, obviously they lacked sufficient evidence.

God sharing his power to manifest things into existence seems to me to speak highly of who God is, while our manifestation of evil in the world seems to speak poorly of who we are when we don’t choose to manifest in accordance to God’s will. — Joaquin

God created us, according to Christian mythology, with ALL the attributes we have. Evil in the world is done by humans, but the original cause of Evil is the Original Cause of everything... wouldn't you say? I mean, if there was nothing but god, and after a while there were trees, doggies, caves, fluffy clouds and Evil, then all these must have been created by someone, which is god. So why do you not blame your god for the Evil in existence?

I don't condone Evil, but I do object to the notion that god is not at all responsible for it. Sure it is. Fully. (Accroding to the teachign of Chrisitanity, and Christians would see this if they could think straight.)

And, even if God was dishonored by his creation, wouldn’t Jesus’s sacrifice have made up for that? Would it not have balanced out the scales the same way it did for our sins? — Emma

No, because in the case an actual Jesus who was an actual god sacrificed himself, then all sins would have been stopped... but they did not, evil, wickedness, in the Christian sense, continues in the world.

I find it hard to believe that a world full of evils and horrors “dishonors” God. Satan is what is responsible for the evils and horrors, so at most it would be Satan that dishonors God, not the world. Furthermore, God made imperfect beings that he knew were “beneath” him. So, if God knew he was making imperfect humans, then how could he be dishonored by their actions or the world? — Emma

God would be dishonoured by having created inept creatures. The Hebrew bible, the Old Testament, says "God created ...... and he saw that it was good." If that's what God calls good: Satan, pedophiles, and other evil-doers, then god needs no dishonouring... he is dishonouring himself himself.

You would see this if you were not deluded by your faith.

@Jjnan1: in my opinion anyone who tries to make sense out of Christian philosophy, and succeeds in that endeavour, is either in self-denial, or has a very strong faith or else rejects the validity of all the basic rules of Socratean and Aristotelian logic.

I am basically asking if we gain any real virtues with age that aren't the direct result of our own decline? — TiredThinker

In our youth, we wanted to hurry up in case we were late for it. (Reference: Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A.Milne, in which Tigger and Roo climb up a tall tree and forget how to come down.)

In our old age we have enough experience to bury that impatience by knowing that nothing hardly ever moves, or changes, and the more things change, the more they remain the same. (Reference: Led Zeppelin, "The Song Remains The Same".)

And thirdly, by my age people realize that a virtue is a term of misconception in and by itself; it means exteme moral behaviour, which we know is a farce (a real one, but still a farce) that society forces down the throat of each of its members. Morallity is real, but it's not virtuous... it's just a social coercion to do what the majority or what the most powerful want us to do.

The problem is, if you rely on rational reasoning to justify rationality, this is offering a circular argument; using the conclusion as a premise to justify Itself. — YusufPonders

True. Very true.

So to justify rationality, we will use irrationality. "We use rationality because clocks excrete shruppa warriors' toupees." Pronto, we have a much better supporting argument for rationality than rationality. I mean, how ever possibly can you argue against the claim?

Now I'm unexpectedly old, and humanity is if anything more fuck-witted than back in the 60's. Sorry kids, I tried to live green, I didn't go flying, or buy cars, I stopped eating meat. I preached and practiced as best I could. Nobody was listening and not many are still. — unenlightened

I stopped the procreational process in my lineage. That's the best I could do for the world. I hope many others will take my lead.

I don't know USA law, as it also fluctuates from state to state, but in Canada most of those provisions have also been included.

I attended a rape case in court where the man was convicted because he did not pull out of his wife when she complained of pain. No means no in Canada.

Also, minors are statutory rape in the USA, in Canada it's a convoluted issue; if both are under 18, then the man is not allowed to be three years or more older than the woman, under 14 it's an absolute no-no, if the man is 18 or over, the woman can't be a minor, if the consent is given under influence of drugs or alcohol or threat or beating or threat of getting excommunicated by a priest, clergyman or ~woman, a spiritual guide, a dervish, an imam, a rabbi, the Dalai Lama, and/or a shaman midwife, tombstone ripper, or seance leader, (a medium), then it's invalid. Furthermore, aside from intercourse, for the purposes of rape, there are more positions (non-intercoursual) defined than in the Kama Sutra. A person who has sex with a person who is in a dependent position, such as a patient, a student, a subordinate at work, a son, a daughter, a grandson, a granddaughter, a charge, a foster kid, is not always rape, but draw severe penalties, such as losing a licence or getting expelled from a professional position. (Hookers (i.e. in a professional position) are generally very exempt of this.)

Then they did away with rape, and called it sexual assault.

Interstingly, the only reverse sexual assault cases that come up are when a female teacher loses her head and takes on a male student of hers as lover. Only 0.00000000001% of those ever get to court, as 99.9999999999991% of these instances are never reported. (I, myself, passed third year calculus only via excessively fantasizing about my calculus teacher. To her credit (an mine, obviously) she never knew about the issue.)

Does this example help you understand? — praxis

Understand what? I thought it had been ME who had been trying make you understand something.

LIttle wonder neither of us has any understanding of the other's point. We've both been speaking without listening. (I speak for myself and for myself only... you got into the two immediately previous sentences as collateral damage.)

I have a book which argues that the Bible originated in India and another book that says it originated in China. — Gregory

For Europeans, it does not matter, really, that essentially. Both are far away places. Both are out of reach of experiencing directly. Both are almost entirely unknown for their culture. Both are huge and famous.

Reminds me of an old joke. Two people are drinking at a bar: a Jew and a Chinese man. They get a bit slushed. The Jew stands up, and slaps the Chinese man on the face. "What was that for?" Asks the Chinese man in surprise. "For Pearl Harbour," Says the Jew. "Well, that was done by the Japanese, not by the Chinese." The Jew, inebriated, says, "Chinese, Japanese, same difference." They drink a bit on, and the Chinese man stand up and slaps the Jew in the face. "What was that for?" Asks the Jew in surprise. "For sinking the Titanic," replies the Chinese man. "But that was done by an ice-berg," says the Jew. "Goldberg, Iceberg, same difference," says the Chinese man.

When an apophenist is bereft of creative fantasy, he or she will always revert the prediction or past-telling to something s/he is familiar with, and that is always blatant and obvious and commonplace. Nobody was named Joseph S. Rachmeier Jr in a previous life, an ordinary coopersmith's gofor boy who was the secret lover of his wife, and liked to gamble. NO, everyone was either Napoleon, or Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette. No Bible ever originated in Kapuskasing, Northern Ontario, or in Nimh Hu Teng, a suburb of To Peng Hai, in North Laos; they originated in India, China, or by the ancient Inkas. (Wherever those lived. Most people can't name the country. I can't either.)

I agree.

No, that is not true, if I Ching can HELP a party to a victory. The Japanese said they could have won the war if they used I Ching. That indicates positive action, not merely prediction.

I contest that the two are compatible. It either predicts, or it directs. Which one? You have to choose one or the other, as the two are different. You yourself denied that it has executive powers; you are in contention with the Japanese. Once you choose one of DIRECTIVE or else PREDICTIVE, then please don't ever, EVER switch over to the other one.

4. Zoom. Good idea but people do not want to out. Needs some afterthought — Ansiktsburk

I Zoomed with a fellow philosopher on this forum. The two of us were dead set against each others' opinions on a number of points. We had serous ego sensitivies. We hated each other and let it loose in some of our debates.

When we Zoomed, to both of our surprizes she turned out to be my own grandmother.

If both factions at war against each other consult I Ching, which one wins? :grin:

thought they lost the war because they didn't consult I Ching. — Gregory

Luckily the allied forces and Josip Stalin did consult I Ching. Phew, close call. :smile:

I invite you to address a problem free of ego, and instead join me in a discussion. — Philosophim

Apparently you take all counter-arguments that are based purely on logic and language, as malicious, direct, and uncalled-for attacks on your ego.

So please don't tell me

you try to make yourself feel good by putting another person down. — Philosophim

when you practice the same thing. Ignoring my arguments ONLY because of my provocative style is not what I expected you to do. You answer the same arguments that I had presented when presented to you by Coben. He put it differently, but he said the same thing as I did.

I see you can't ignore style. So why the lecture to me about ego? When your biggest obstacle of seeing arguments and meritfully responding to them is your very own ego.

Like if a doctor needs to cut off a man's arm because otherwise he'd die due to frostbite we might reflexively call this a "necessary evil" but there's really nothing evil about it - it's entirely necessary. If on the other hand the doctor just randomly cut off the man's arm for no apparent reason, yes, we'd call that evil. The evil lies in the complete lack of sense or necessity. Just something to think about. — BitconnectCarlos

Evil causes suffering. (So does God, but let's not get sidetracked.) Hence, any suffering is caused by evil. (Other than the ones caused by God.) Getting frostbitten or frozen to the point of needing to amputate an arm, is evil. Evil = bad.

One might say bad is only evil if there is intent behind it, or done with malice aforethought. Bad is only evil, when one has a freedom of choice to not cause suffering, yet one does. Well, frostbites are done with malice aforethought. If creation did not include frostbites caused by cold weather, then there would be no frosbites. Therefore the thought that preceded the frostbite and caused it was the part of creation, which I assume is a conscious act by God.

With a little mental muscle-work, all bad things can be proven to be evil. And yes, if you believe that there is evil, then you subscribe to religious views, as evil is a term of religious ideation.

"Your money or your life" is still a choice, but "your life" is not a reasonable choice, which is what makes that "choice" actually coercion. — Pfhorrest

I like this.

If you’re struggling to say that there are degrees of freedom I doubt anyone will dispute this profound insight. There are people more free than me, for instance, and I can only hope that they’re more responsible than I am. — praxis

Typical site user, praxis. I am not struggling with what you claim I struggle with. You, like almost all other users on this site, like to paraphrase my statements into making the argument entirely Strawman.

I am struggling with the question "why and how is freedom a necessary part of being responsible?" This is my question to you, as you claim that the lack of freedom removes the burden of responsibility. I can't answer this question; you can, since you outright insinuated the necessity of freedom in resposible behaviour.

Praxis, it is always easy to attribute to your argumenting opposition something he or she did not say, and then defeat that Strawman or make fun of it.

I suggest you stop doing that. Of course you don't have to stop doing that only because I say so. You have the freedom to say whatever occurs to you.

Why do homosexuals exist? The answer is easy.

God created them so He would have a whole section of humanity to hate. Sometimes God must get sick of his own lovey-dovey, all-loving God attitude. Much like you also can't survive on eating candy alone. You need to wash the candy down with some bitters, eh.

I was 15 when the Americans landed on the moon. And my expectations were almost the same as yours... well, very, very close. Fortunately I became very sick in my early twenties, so I was busy recuperating during those times when people are happiest, strongest and most energetic in their lives. That took care of my dreams.

Position: Ciberhumanoid-apologist skeptic, with historical over-expectation of the positive therefore dismally disappointed in the result. -ism.

You could actually establish a religion on those premises. Lots of people would follow.

The article also mentioned that in a given period, half a million calls were made by police to domestic disputes, while nly 1% (five thousand) of these responses were to immigrant places. This is a skewed statistics for the liberal left, just like the black-on-white rape is a skewed statistic for the racists. The reason so few calls are made by immigrants is explained by their not trusting the system, not knowing the language, not being able to detach themselves from their peers (so they fear much harsher retribution after the police leaves following their visit due to a call), and perhaps even not even knowing how to handle a telephone.

I started with Finnland, and the article came from BBC, then went over to Sweden, and the search term brought me this wonderfully infomative response:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden

It's really good, informative, I believe what it says.

What it basically says is as follows:
- all immigrants, recent immigrants, commit crimes more per capita than the indigenous. The ratio is about 2:1, but the more hineous the crime, the higher the ratio. (number of crimes committed by immigrant criminals divided by total number of immigrants) divided by (number fo crimes committed by the indigenous divided by the total number of the indigenous.) In shoplifting, libel, plagiarism, jaywalking and littering, the immigrants lead by a narrow margin. Come to murder and rape, they do it about four times more often as a body than the indigenous. The ratio averages to two times only, because there are much more many shoplifters in both groups than murderers. Car thefts, leaving a restaurant without paying for the meal, and resisting arrest are about 2:1.

The only thing I can bring against your accusation of immigrants is that immigrants commit crimes against themselves much more often than against the indigenous. Of course when a Black man, god forbid, rapes a blonde 12-year-old triplet, the blood in the eyes of the Arians is going to form. But it happens, and I am sorry to say this so coolly and clinically, because my heart goes out to all rape victims, only a fraction of the times compared how often it happens by immigrants to immigrants, and by Arians to Arians. Black on white is just really newsworthy, because it sells newspapers, to inflate the crimes of the immigrants against the Arians. Most newspapers are in the business of selling newspapers, and the reporting is skewed for this reason, althogh they won't outright lie, but they do select and give more exposure to those stories that tickle people's fancy.

The statistics are all there in this article I quoted.

On the other hand, the sad truth is that most perpetrators of immigrant-committing crimes are uneducated, don't speak the langauge, are unfamiliar with the expectations of normal behaviour by the locals, and they are distrustful of it, and are not willing to meld in. However, when their children, or their children's children go to university in Sweden, and come out with a medical degree, they still insist on the old ways, but the grandchild wont' give a damn.

I believe that the immigrants will acclimatize to adjust to Swedish society not within a generation, but two generations hence. They may even drop their religion or change it. This is the way for every large immigrant group in a new country.

I am here in Canada from Hungary. I have seen this happen in the Hungarian community: the community was strong and stuck together due to language barrier and other societal barriers; but the first generation that grew up here, hardly spoke the old country's language, and the next, not at all. I don't have statistics on crime frequency of Hungarian immigrants, but that could be looked up, too. I know from hear-say that Hungarian kids who immigrated as children, had the reputation among their peers that they stole easily, without any apparent conscience or feeling of guilt. That I can see how it happened: In Hungary during its Socialist regime, everyone stole from work, whatever they could lift, because there was no sense of "private property" since the workplace was said to be owned by the state. The state in most people's opinion then was not a person, so you did not offend it by stealing from it -- hence the country of thieves.

To wit, there were 125 cases of rape in Sweden in a given period after 2015, and 85 of them were committed by immigrants. Not all the immigrants' victims were indigenous. And as in every other country, only a fractoin of the rapes was reported, and of that fraction, only a fraction ended in conviction.

Are they free to not do what they're told? — praxis

Are the slaves free to not do what they are told?

What does freedom have to do anything with responsibility? Please explain why freedom is a prerequisite for acting responsibly.

That's A. B. is that slaves have a choice too, whether to carry out a task they are told to do. They can opt to carry out the task, or else opt for punishment. That's not a good freedom, but a degree of freedom of choice nevertheless.


And C. is that not every slave, historically, has been subjected to constant supervision. A slave may have been charged to take a flock of sheep to meadow and return them back home for the night. He was unsupervised during the grazing. So he WAS responsible for his work to be done properly.

I'm from both an academic and a dirt poor background. My father was the fourth of five children of a widow. The family of six lived in a one-room house with dirt floor (there was no flooring or basement), and they lived in abject poverty. He hired himself out practically as a slave to fellow students, in order to be able to finish high school because in his time you had to pay your way through high school in our country (Hungary). His only choice of further studies was via seminary. He finished only three of the five years when he realized he was not going to be able to hold to the vow of celibacy, and opted out. He went to war, came home, married my mother, worked, and embarked on a night course and finished university by obtaining a law degree. He was hired by the communist government to serve in the diplomatic service, because he learned and spoke seven languages.

My mom started her life as the daughter of an extemely wealthy land user. Her father started drinking, debauching and gambling, and by the time she was ten years of age, he had seen the bottom of his money, and my mom's mother had to leave her husband in disgrace. The entire family was sent to Auschwitz, and only my mom and her two cousins came back. She had been courted by my father before the war. He was only tolerated in her upper-echelon family because the family figured that he, being an RC, could save her life. In the ghetto where they were sent, before deportation, my dirt-poor parental Christian grandmother stole in food for them, otherwise they would have starved to death.

This is my background. Do what you can with it.

Now I will check your stories of immigrants beating up local kids, raping them and urinating on them; how often that happens; and what happens to the perpetrators of such crimes. I will also check your stories on drug use and related crimes in your Scandinavian country. I assume it's either Norway, Sweden or Finland. Estonia, Latvia and LIthuania are considered Baltic countries; I don't know if Denmark is counted as Baltic, Scandinavian or simply just Northern European.

Further, you seem to be ignoring the context of the discussion, which is the paper. — Philosophim

I put forth respectfully that I am not ignoring the context of the discussion. I am pointing out instead,that your conceptualization of processes is muddled. You insisted again that muddled thinking.

You can't say you know something when you don't know it; and you can't say you beleive in something when you don't beleive it. You only brought up these two limping and lame examples because you were asked to present a situation. By bending the possible, you presented a situation, but I respectfully insist that your presented situation is invalid.

I recently came across this quote by Martin Luther King Jr. : “To ignore evil is to be an accomplice to it”

Is this a fair judgement? — Legato

If you are Black and everyone around you ignores the fact that some White supremacists are kicking the living daylight out of you, then ignoring evil is evil.

I think this is where the buck stopped for MLK JR.

It is not a true statement for all possible circumstances.

Yes you can. I can buy a lottery ticket believing that I will win, but with the knowledge that I probably will not. — Philosophim

You know a probability. You do not know before the draw date that it's a losing ticket.

You buy the lottery ticket not because you believe you will win, but because you hope you will win.

Two mistakes for two tries. Not a very strong argument.

↪god must be atheist

Eleanor Roosevelt was never an American president.

What responsibilities does a slave have? — praxis

Boy, was I ever stupid. I don't know the first name of Prez Roosevelt. Dwight? Milhouse? And who was this Eleanor person? the private educator of Helen Keller?

I am ignorant, but I may not be stupid.

Slaves have responsibilities. They need to do their jobs. They need to follow orders. They need to do what they are told.I think slaves have the most stringent and binding responsibilities of all.

Evidently you think that sense is a right that one has over his own utterances.

Well, no.

Sense is not a right. It is a cognitive quality that can be established with unambiguous judgement tools.

Yours I showed why it was nonsensical. You failed to show an error in my reasoning. If you still insist that yoru sentence was sensible, then your judgment is impaired.

So sorry. This is nothing personal. But for you to say "A white person is privileged because he is not white" is nonsensical. (I appreciate this was not an exact quote, but the semantic and syntactic details are of strict equivalence.) Furthermore, your insistence that your sentence made sense, despite the obvious analysis showing that it did not, points at deeper cognitive troubles you may encounter on a philosophy forum: not only are you incapable of seeing the difference between what's sensible and what's nonsense, but you insist that the nonsense is sensible even after a clear proof has been presented to the contrary.

Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that with freedom comes responsibility. — praxis

This is VERY true. It is also true that with slavery comes responsibility, and any position on the slavery-liberty spectrum comes with responsibility.

In fact, one could argue that since responisbibilty is an outcome of a coventant, and freedom is the loss of restrictions, that with freedom one loses his responsibilities.

I think Eleanor Roosevelt was dead on wrong with this statement, from a philosophical point of view.

In fact, I think Americans will believe anything their Presidents have ever said (until DT came along) without any or much analytical thought or criticism.

Oh really, well thanks for letting me know. I never knew spina bifida or cystic fibrosis came from society. Never knew the amount of fast twitch muscles I had actually came from society. I never knew tongue tie came from society. — BitconnectCarlos

So you claim that some people among us, with Spina Bifida and/or cystic fibrosis have come from other origins than society. Are they aliens, or self-developed abiogenetic people? Or some are abiogenetic, and others are aliens from outer space? That is the decision you have to make, and then convince us of that theory's truth, if you want us to accept that some properties and qualities of humans today have NOT come from society.

The benefit of being white in America is the immunity and/or exemption from being injured because one is not.
— creativesoul


Mea culpa. Add "white" on the end. Interesting that you arrived at all these possible translations without ever hitting on that one! If you've been reading the thread, well... — creativesoul

Tua Cupa... :-)

Still won't work, because it becomes a nonsensical sentence, an absurd statement. If you add "white" on the end, your statement becomes:

The benefit of (being White) in America is the immunity form being injured because one is not White.

So the benefit of being White (by way of avoiding injury) comes from him being not White.

That is, a White person's advantage is that he is not White.

This is patently absurd.

(Incidentally, I have already covered this case in my first critical analysis of this statement of yours.)

So it's not about empathy, at the root of it. Honestly speaking, it's about commitment to an idea or a principle. It's about solving an idea. Solving a problem. Lets leave empathy out of it. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't think we can leave empathy out of it. Because the idea of caring for the unfortunate ones can only be born out of empathy. There is no other emotional motivation to care for the downtrodden but empathy. Or maybe I am wrong. What other emotional motivation do you think could make one want to bring people out of poverty, in a strict sense, or out of suffering, in a broader sense? Please list them, because I can't think of any, but am willing to hear and learn.

A very large number of those immigrants commit crimes. Rob and beat people. There are a lot of shootings between criminal gangs. Etnically scandinavian kids do get beaten in school. And still, wealthy, left-leaning ladys call for ”solidarity”. Is that what a upperclass person with left-leaning views are looking for? — Ansiktsburk

I would hate to be in a position to look into the minds of many people and see what they are looking for. But I would venture to say, they are not looking for people beaten up, or raped, or robbed, or killed. They are looking for equality, solidarity, and all kinds of ~ity. But they know the road is long to achieve that, and many things must be laid down for the paving of that road: education, not just formal, but about the human nature. Eradicating illicit drug trade. Eradicating extreme exploitation (slavery). etc.

What I suggest for you to learn how a privileged lady in the upper echelons of society can be motivated to preach tolerance, is to read the book "Les Miserables" in your language, I am sure it's been translated into that from French. In it, a man gets out of prison; wonders down the road, and gets overnight stay in a wealthy man's home. He gets up at night, steals a silver candle-holder, and takes off. The cops get him, take him to the rich old man's house. The rich old man immediately sizes up the situation, and says, "My good man, you forgot to take the other silver candle-holder to go with the one I gifted you with!" And to the bufflement of the cops, they need to release him, and he wonders away now with two silver candle-holders.

Another suggestion for you, seeing your attitude has been established, and i can't change it any way I try, is for you to join the Hitlerjugend that has probably sprung up in your country and you find solace and understanding with your personal views shared by many there.

Aha.