• Against Nihilism
    And while this (egotism and solipsism)is clearly still as tantamount to nihilism, in the sense I am against, as any of the more collectivist kinds of idealism or relativism, inasmuch as it (should be they: egotism and solipsism) denies the possibility of anybody in a disagreement being objectively correct

    Well, there is a huge problem here that you created that renders your logic null and void: group opinions can be disagreed with, but when only one person is present, it can't have disagreement by a different person. The parallel does not work; you have failed in showing that egotism and solipsism produce nihilism. You rendered egotism and solipsism to be nihilism, by using a parallel, but the parallel is ill-gotten logically.
  • Against Nihilism
    As you can see, PFHorrest, unfortunately I am not doing the homework assignment; I am not saying "I read this here, and it's the same, by this and this person", or "This was summarized thus: (...)".

    But instead of the prescribed homework, I find faults in your reasoning.

    I apologize for that. My excuse is that I have virtually no background in philosophy. The only reason I call myself a philosopher is that I can use logic, and I reason well. And outside this forum I have some original philosophical ideas that I am incapable to publish due to not having a Ph.D. in philosophy and academic or field-specific publishers don't publish works of dilettantes.
  • Against Nihilism
    It (Berekeley's subjective realism) denies that there is any objective reality, holding that there are only subjective perceptions, with agreement between those perceptions the closest thing to objectivity possible.

    It actually does not deny there is objective reality. It just does not deal with it. It avoids the quesion of objective reality altogether, but that does not mean it denies it.

    Your second part is even worse: you call the subjective approaching the objective. However, if the objective is non-existent, which the denial itself claims, then who or what can approach it? It's absurd to claim that any approaching is possible.

    So you first claimed something that Berkeley's subjective realism did not claim, then you contradicted yourself with this false claim in mind.
  • Against Nihilism
    Both of these second types of relativism that I am against, for their being tantamount to metaphysical and moral nihilism respectively, hold that the closest thing possible to an opinion being objectively correct is its being the consensus opinion of some group collectively.
    I am sorry, PFHorrest, but you are categorically and clearly wrong in your conclusion as the reason given to why you don't like the "second types of relativisms".

    Both types say it is (1) impossible to get an objective opinion which is right.

    You say this leads to (2) a group's consensus to accept what is right.

    One does not follow from the other. 1 says the task is impossible. 2 inherently can't be conceived without accepting that the task is possible. Therefore 1 and 2 are not compatible; your rejecting the "second types of realitivism" is not based on logic. (If you stick to rejecting the "second types of relativism", I don't know what you base your rejection of it on.)
  • Against Nihilism
    Ok, pfhorrest, I read partly through your essay. Out of respect for your intellect and for your what I'd call exemplary behaviour on the forums.

    I refer to this part:

    distinguish between a similar three different senses of metaphysical relativism, or relativism about what is real. One of those senses would hold only that (1) there do in fact exist differences of opinion about what is real; and with that I would agree, just as with descriptive moral relativism. Another sense would hold that (2) in such disagreements, nobody is any more right or wrong than anybody else; and with that I would disagree, just as with metaethical moral relativism. A third sense would hold that (3) because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to be tolerant of disagreements; and like with normative moral relativism, I would disagree with the premise of that, but largely agree with the conclusion: though it's possible that in disagreements about reality, someone is right and everyone else is wrong, we should generally be tolerant of such differences of opinion

    I agree with your assessment of (1).

    IN (2) I think you failed to distinguish between who is right and who is wrong in a sense of what we KNOW and what is true or real outside our knowledge. What we know, nobody is more wrong or more right than anyone else. What coincides with the truth, only one is right (potentially) and differing opinions are wrong, or else everyone is wrong. BECAUSE WE CAN'T trust our perceptions enough to detect reality, all bets are off.
    (3) THEREFORE your own bias to not argue who is right and who is wrong is very correct, but ought not to be based on (whatever) but on the fact that basically we are, individually and collectively not a judge (due to our inherent disability) to come to a conclusion of any degree of certainty of who is right and who is wrong.
  • Entropy can be reset to a previous or to an initial state
    Entropy is a concept that is useful on a microscopic scale, but has trouble applying itself to the macroscopic one. As such, there is no such thing as "the entropy of the world, or of the universe", or even heat death of the universe owing to entropy. Entropy is even problematic in the microcosm, as studies show. — Pussycat

    Dear Pussycat, entropy is not present in the quantum level of existence (if that's what you mean by microscopic scale), but it is very much present in the macrophysical scale. This is very elementary physics. If you like to check for validity, please check Wiki, or the nearest high school's physics textbooks.
  • Knowledge and the Wisdom of the Crowd
    What do you think is wrong with the idea of the wisdom of the crowd? If there is one. — TheMadFool

    "If there is one." You mean, there is no crowd? Then what the (*#&@(! have I been dealing with up to now?

    I want my money back.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    "How to live" in what way? to what end? -- Well, death, obviously.
    "Approach life" from within or without? (i.e. immanently or transcendently) You can't approach life without life. Unless you are a train or a meteorite.

    "Life as it is" what? You know, shining shoes, doing math homework, getting the older child back from the police station, paying mortgage, and washing the shit off of your 86-year-old mother-in-law's inner thighs.

    question your questions? And the question shalt answer.     — 180 Proof
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    Oh boy, you really are Charlton Heston. — Punshhh

    Oh, drat. My cover's off.
  • The burning fawn.
    I kind of ran through your response, and think there's some merit to the idea. But, it strikes me ass odd to believe that you can't figure out the characteristics of a being by the things s/he creates. — Wallows

    One of the characteristics is the ability to create. If you can not figure out any of the characteristics, because they are hidden from you, then creation is NOT guaranteed to be a character trait; therefore you can't be sure that creation is a sign or an effect from which you can reverse-engineer.

    I understand that the italicized part is a basic given for argument's sake, which the debaters must accept as an axiomatic truth for the duration and purposes of this argument topic only.
  • The burning fawn.
    I think perhaps ‘God’ does ‘suffer with’ the fawn - just not in the way we expect or intuitively understand. — Possibility

    Perhaps everything is everything else, and perhaps nothing is everything else. - how can you argue against such a statement? It asserts nothing, it is untouchable. Therefore it is not philosophy but dreamery, mere fantasizing about possibilities without giving it any sort of real merit.
  • Knowledge and the Wisdom of the Crowd
    Lots of things can be found out by using the wisdom of the crowd. Even if the crowd consists only of one person other than you.

    This happens provided that the crowd be expert on the topic. "where are my keys?" I would ask in dispair. My girlfreind would say, "Did you look in its usual place where you keep it? Did you check the toilet? Your larger intestines, your bank safety deposit box, your pockets, the cheeks of your mouth?"

    Sure enough the keys would be in one of these places most often than not.

    "What time is it?" Normally returns a very reliable answer from the crowd.

    "Which way to the nearest post office?" Gets it right for me.

    "Is the logical positivists' necrological form of governance imitation compatible with the Indian Communist Party's 1947 resolution on the choice between rice or buffalo?" usually directs me toward the post office, too.
  • music of atheism
    "Music is the language of a world that comprehends us, but we have no comprehension of it." - Ludwig van Beethoven. I am an atheist, and in a conceptual form, I subscribe to this.

    Music makes me cry with joy, cry with infinite sadness, cry with sentimentality. Without any connecting to prior or remembered or memorized experience, notion, or emotional connection.

    This can happen to me having words in the lyrics that guide the listener, or listening to pure instrumental music.
  • Against Nihilism
    - Is it clear what my views are, and my reasons for holding them? (Even if you don't agree with those views or my reasons for holding them.) Especially if you're a complete novice to philosophy.
    ---IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL FROM WHERE I SIT
    - Are any of these views new to you? Even if I attribute them to someone else, I'd like to know if you'd never heard of them before.
    ---NO IDEA; THEY MAY BE OR THEY MAY NOT BE
    - Are any of the views that I did not attribute to someone else actually views someone else has held before? Maybe I know of them and just forgot to mention them, or maybe I genuinely thought it was a new idea of my own, either way I'd like to know.
    ---I DON'T KNOW
    - If I did attribute a view to someone, or gave it a name, or otherwise made some factual claim about the history of philosophical thought, did I get any of that wrong?
    ---I AIN'T A JUDGE OF THAT
    - If a view I espouse has been held by someone previously, can you think of any great quotes by them that really encapsulate the idea? I'd love to include such quotes, but I'm terrible at remembering verbatim text, so I don't have many quotes that come straight to my own mind.
    ---NO I CAN'T     — Pfhorrest
    Your essay was incredibly boring. I found it impossible to read, after the first few words of the beginning. It was so boring. It may be my ineptitude, not yours, but you failed to entice my interest to keep on reading.

    It was boring and unreadable both by appearance and by content, as well as by literary style. There is no way I could help you edit it for mistakes or for improving the readability of it. Maybe there are others out there who can, but this is really not something I like to spend time with.
  • Secular morality
    A lot of misunderstandings are going on in this thread, to validate one's stance of rejecting another's stance.

    The one being rejected on grounds of misunderstanding now found himself in a position of going through endless excercises of having to defend his stance by explaining the misunderstandings by others.

    This is not philosophy. This is kindergartenism. Philosophy would be to carefully read someone else's opinion and make correct inferences, instead of bombarding him with accusations of being wrong, only on the grounds of misreading or not understanding what he had written.

    Carried to the extreme, the Misunderstood or Not-Read-Carefully-By-Others may one day throw his hands in the air and declare that he's had enough of kindergartenism, and simply leave the site.

    I wish to avoid this, in the case of PFHorrest, who is currently one of the best thinkers on board. Guys, and ladies, let's not antagonize him. Please read what he writes carefully, and don't make him drown in your saliva by nailing him to things he did not say.

    P.s. PFHorrest did not ask me to write this. I wrote this entirely out of my own volition. He may even enjoy educating the masses. I dunno. It sure bothers me, though, that this goes on all the time, all the time.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    ↪Punshhh

    Sophia Loren -- one of the icons of my youth, along with Brigitte Bardot, Gina Lollobrigida, Audrey Hepburn, and Claudia Cardinale.

    In my country in my youth there was no following of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley or Marlon Brando.

    But there was of Paolo Bernardo, Roger Moore, and that famous French actor who had an italian name which I can't remember. Oh, scratch Paul Bernardo, he's a more modern name from my past, a guy who enjoyed torturing young virgins to death with his wife, and then getting nailed for it. The actor's name was Jean-Paul Belmondo. Sorry for the mistake.

    I am too old to accept legends, I am too skeptical, jaded and woodened. El Cid may have been a heroic Christian warrior, but only by the viewpoint of Christians; the Muslims most likely viewed him as the Devil Incarnate.

    Much like the political tortures, murders and heroitizing the victims these days don't work for me. While I abhor torture, and would abolish it if I were the Lord of the World, I also recognize that if Party A is getting tortured by party B, then given the opportunity, Party B would be torturing with equal vehemence Party A.

    There is no justice, no heroism, no legends, and there is no evil, no despicable enemy, no nuttin', without first taking sides in a contentious international political issue. Therefore I don't condone epic movies of heroic Christians, of heroic Muslims, of heroic communists, of heroic Nazis, of heroic Americans, of heroic Germans, of heroic Jews, Tamil Tigers, Black Panthers, White Supremacists, French Undeground Resistance, Russian partizans, Yugoslavian and Greek partizans, Bolshevik Red Army, Menshevik White Army, and any movie heroitizing any of these or the likes of these.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    ↪Punshhh
    La Kid?

    I'll have to borrow El Cid from my local library and watch it.

    If it's a Western, I expect him to shoot first and ask questions later.

    If it's a Film Noire, he tortures himself to death to deal with his existential agony of not hearing enough good jokes.

    If it's a detective film, he solves the crime, but also solves second-degree one-unknown linear equations.

    If it's a comedy, mostly nobody gets the jokes.

    If it's a war movie, he plays the bullet.

    If it's a porno movie, he enters the Womb of Eternal Joy and Knowledge.

    If it's a computer programming teaching guide, he plays the if-then-else conditional function.

    If it's a film to popularize stamp collecting for young adult male iguanas, he plays the Blue Mauritius.
  • Secular morality
    Everybody has their own theory about ethics, so why shouldn't I. But I can't write a book about it because that would need a lot of filler; I can write a passable essay about it, but nobody would publish it because I don't have a doctorate in philosophy.

    so my theory (which I think is superior to all other current theories... but so are everyone else's in their creators' minds) will die with me.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    Colin Wilson (made famous and fashionable by his first book, The Outsider, in the 1950s, when he was 25 years old) — ZzzoneiroCosm

    I would have sworn that The Outsider had been written by Albert Camus, in French, with the original title "L'estranger". He was about 25 years old, too, in the 1950s. It was made into a really good film, too, starring that french guy, forgot his name, with the wide-set eyes and big head.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    Okay, I have a confession to make, too. I am not Charles Heston, or Moses, or God. Any similarities, real or perceived, are purely coincidental.

    I can't part the Red Sea, I can't parlay with god, and I can't find my glasses most of the time.

    Then again, much like Moses, I've never been to Israel, can't bake levened bread, and don't wear earrings.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    I think you may be building me up into an ideal and it may have something to do with
    I assume she's a woman
    — god must be atheist     — csalisbury

    You're right. Bad arguments start with bad assumptions.

    You are, now I realize, a cross-dressing, lesbian, post-op transvestite space alien necrophiliac hunchback robot.(*_*)

    I know I erred. But please believe me, for me this is not the first, and not the worst of instances of wrongly recognizing gender identitty.

    Furthermore, (*_*) it takes one to know one.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    A better way to say what I mean is: I'm searching for techniques to cultivate the 'underlying impetus'. That can look like removing blocks, or also ways of attending more attentively to our own awareness. The difficulty I've run into is: It's very easy to get separated from this underlying impetus, or to naturally decrease in awareness. Certain methods of trying to undo this can exacerbate the problem. My feeling, these days, is the more concrete you get, the closer you get to the spiritual.
    — csalisbury

    I’m not sure what you mean by that last sentence.     — Possibility

    I see this as a sign that @Csalisbury lives her life (I assume she's a woman, for simplicity's sake... her pic) in the negative imprint. By negative I don't mean "bad" or "undesirable" or "pessimistic"; I mean photonegative, so to speak. What spiritual is to you and me, @possibility, is tangible reality to CSalisbury; and what is miasma, conceptual flow to you and me, nothing concrete, is also the bread-and-butter of the real, concrete world for CS. However, in her life, what you and i consider concrete, solid, and established, is the spiritual, the figmentational, the imaginary, the conceptualizable but not touchable for CS.

    This is, if it is this way indeed, not a common phenomenon of perceiving the world. Perhaps that's why she digs to me incomprehensible poetry, because to her that's hard reality; and I imagine she considers music that is of this world, which speaks to her not in hidden but enticing emotional tones like to you and me, but music speaks to her in concrete elements of her world.

    I thought I was weird and unique inasmuch as I don't think in words, but in concepts. But @CSalisbury tops me. I've never seen anyobody else like her. Maybe others like her have just not revealed to me this part of their essence.

    Vive la differance.
  • Entropy can be reset to a previous or to an initial state
    They are an embarrassment, really. Any curious scientist who passes by the forums would quickly and quietly move on. — Banno

    As you are an embarrassment to logical thinking, @Banno. Your style and behaviour pattern has chased away at least one really smart and useful contributor, and I daresay he may not have been the only one.

    I admit you are not the only one to blame for the quitting of the ex-member, but you display the flagship behaviour that made the smart contributor quit consistently and over and over again.

    Your contributions, @Banno, are distasteful, meaningless and never backed up by reasoning. You seem to appeal to a select group of other users, and together you form a clique.

    Unfortunately for you and your forum friends, logic and reason is not established on consensus. They are established on their own terms. This is your downfall: your bs and your negative judgement do not go beyond approval by your so-called friends in this forum. And perhaps beyond those users, who by default value style over content.
  • Entropy can be reset to a previous or to an initial state
    The entire infinite space with infinite matter, the whole system is a closed system.
    — god must be atheist

    Well we don't really know that, do we?     — Echarmion

    Yes, there is a lot of assumptions thrown behind that claim of mine, among others, that there are no supernatural powers. Another assumption is that there are even more supernatural powers. And there are more assumptions, like there are even more supernatural powers than that.

    However, if the laws of physics are different beyond a certain region, it still is a closed system. It would only be an open system if it received or lost some energy to the outside of the system, but since it encompasses the entire space, there is no "outside" room to lose to or to gain from any energy.

    00000000000

    Of course my claim assumes that energy can't be created or destroyed in ANY part of the universe. This is an invalid assumption in a philosophical sense, but not invalid in a physics sense. Physics never claimed this tenet (the indestructibility of energy) to be a universal truth. But it assumes it is true until disproved. This assumption we can carry over to any region of space, including the entire expanse of space.

    "All bets are off" does not exclude assumptions. It excludes knowledge. Assumptions are not knowledge; they are presuppositions. In this sense, we can't know (and this is compatible with current knowledge of physics) whether energy is indestructible in our observed space. We assume it is.

    So we don't know if the second law of thermodynamics applies to our observed world.
    We don't know if the second law of thermodynamics applies to beyond our observed world.
    We assume that the second law of thermodynamics applies to our observed world.
    We assume that the second law of thermodynamics applies to beyond our observed world.

    The only difference between the two sets of assumptions is the word "beyond". Since everything else is the same, we can conclude that the world beyond our observed world can be assumed to behave like our world. (A different assumption is just as valid to the world beyond our observed one. But the assumption I advocate is not invalid. That's my point.)
  • Chinese Muslims: Why are they persecuted?
    I'm not an expert on China, I've heard they are less "Communist" today than during the days of Mao. — IvoryBlackBishop

    They are capitalist pigs now, camerade. The children of Chinese capitalist billionaires are buying condos and houses in Toronto, Vancouver and countless other cities.

    There is rampant favouritism, protectionism. In some areas officials have complete power over a region, and they exhaust it to their maximum personal gain. For instance, you want to build a railway through Jiung-Jang province, you have to pay the local authorities (personally, not officially) to approve the plan.

    If you want to pass a driver's test, you'd better be prepared to bribe the instructor otherwise you'll never get a licence.

    Admission to higher education is so frought with too many applicants, that of the top-scoring applicants, only those get into university who pay the admission office's secretary in a closed envelope.

    The communist spirit -- a fair treatment of the worker, the worker's unions strong, and rule by the workers' party -- is nothing but a remnant of its old heroic days. That is, the present day capitalist and feudal rulers in the country got their positions inherited from their or their parents' communist movement achievements. During communist rule, the only way to advance your life was to be a strong party-member; those people now rule the country by first doing a switcheroo from communist ideals and policy to capitalist, and then having done that, having amassed a stupendous wealth, due to their communist-era earned influence.

    It's a little bit like the USA in America. In America, the party line is the Bible, we are good Christians, but yet we forget to practice some of the most basic, yet for our capitalist system's horribly inconvenient biblical tenets and laws. In China, their rampant capitalism still runs under a communist umbrella, with the more inconvenient Communist laws being ignored or quietly and unofficially replaced by capitalist rules.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    Isn't the idea of new baboons coming into the tribe and trying to assert dominance then being shunned and shown by the rest "this is not how we do things around here"...a type of pedagogy — ZhouBoTong

    I can just see what the other baboons are teaching the newcomers in a direct pedagoguical way:

    "Fuck you. You are just a fucking baboon, kid, don't you forget that. Now repeat after me, and write a hundred times on the blackboard: "I solemnly swear to stop trying to be a goofy alpha-male wannabe, I shall remain docile, peace-loving and listen to John Lennon records for the rest of my days"."
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    Trump wants to dismantle the social safety net, and he might actually get his way sooner or later. He won’t go unless kicking and screaming. — Noah Te Stroete

    I don't see him doing anything as deliberate as that. His exterme egotism and narcissism does not allow him to see beyond his nose.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    Maybe, probably, this isn't exactly what you are looking for, but I think Nietzsche, if you can look past his elitism and self-mythologizing, is technically a very good philosopher. In fact he does exactly what you are getting at, shaving off the things that don't matter. That's what the (tuning)hammer was all about, to sound out idea's, so he could do away with the bad ones.

    You decide on a measure (life-affirmation in Nietzsches case), evaluate different ideas by that measure, and discard the ones that don't stand the test. Seems to me you allready get this.     — ChatteringMonkey

    This is what I am talking about, Salisbury. ChatteringMonkey hammered the ideas into a recongnizable shape. "good philosopher", "do away with the bad ones", "decide", "evaluate", "discard". These are actions and judgments and solid, concrete things, even if conceptual. Your writing, Salisbury, did not hammer anything into anything; your perception and your reperesentation what you got out of ideas, how you see ideals, ideas, is not touched by hammering souls.

    You see, I am already hammering your style or outlook into shape. That's what you don't do. This is at least one difference.

    Another difference I can hammer out, is that you don't seem to NEED to hammer things into shape. That's even stranger than not hammering them into shape.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    What about this post made it especially important to register that it didn't apply to you? — csalisbury

    The differentness. I see many posts here. Some stupid posts. There is a lot of "stupidity" about me. There are some smart posts. There are philosophical, emotional, funny, sombre, crying, debating, provocative, deep, shallow, cutsie, sexy, and dumbfounding posts. I have seen those, and can identify with all of them. I see, even if not precisely, where the poster is coming from, and where he or she is heading.

    With your post I see none of that. It is completely strange to me, I have no way of identifying with it, I never experienced anything similar to what, it seems, your whole life essence must be.

    It is not just the strangeness, but the different strangeness. I have seen religious posts, and I can't identify, but I see perfectly where they are coming from and where they are headed to.

    AHA! I got it. I can comment on ANY post. There is something in every post that touches me, even if tangentially, and lightly, but touches me.

    None of that in your post. I am not saying the writing is foreign or nonsensical. Nonsensical, I can deal with. But yours has sense, and yet I can't deal with it.

    This is weird, I know, but hey. You live to be 66, like I, and you think you've seen everything, until a post like yours comes along.
  • Against the "Artist's Statement"
    ↪Noble Dust
    Just dropping in. Read OP and nothing else.

    I once went to friend's solo exhibition and sale a long time ago, about 15 years back.

    There was just one theme on the walls, a semi-abstract painting, sort of pukey. On one of the four walls was a small typed card with the artist's statement.

    It elevated her puke into real art for me.

    The statement was about four words, but no more than six. I can't remember what they were, but they righted the paintings. It all fell into place, the focus was right away directed, and it shew the artist's brilliance.

    Without her statement her pictures were crap.

    With the statement, her pictures were enviably good. Your chin dropped. Your saliva dripped.

    She sold seven of the twenty exhibited, each of them near identical to all others, and they cost something like 600 to 700 dollars each.
  • The Texture of Day to Day
    It's so not me.

    Of course I offer it not as a downer or dissent, but just as an observation.

    I've heard people like you exist, but this is the first time I encounter one with your outlook. You and I are so different, that it's almost scary.

    Which is better? I don't think it's a question of better. It's a question of what we are, and that is not something that's likely to change any time soon.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    ↪Noah Te Stroete
    Oh, goody. I am a Canadian. I enjoy paying taxes.

    It is the extreme pleasure of every Canadian to do our patriotic duty for country and king, because we know that at least half our tax money goes toward the social safety net.

    And that is the one thing that provides the stability for the feeling of basic security that enables us to go on living happily, which is denied from the American public, which rather not pay taxes at the expense of risking personal wealth and liberty at the drop of a hat when they get ill.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    ↪Noah Te Stroete
    You're right, Noah. Our world is not a single tribe with a small number of tribal humans. It is, like you say, a big world, where the governement does not interfere with private and personal ownership that much. You're right, it is a big world, where the government, quite wrongfully and despicably, instead of listening to everyone's gripe and whining about how they have to work for a living, and how awful their bosses are, and then telling the boss how to do their jobs, do the cop-out and the gov simply decides on rules of conduct and makes decisions on how resources that everyone wants but is in limited amount, ought to be divided among the interested parties.

    This is all very bad of the government to not care about the little feller who is suffering in a meaningless existential angst because his boss ducked his pay for whatever reason.

    Would you rather that the government would send an inspector every day to every place where a job is happening to make justice? How much do you think your taxes would be then?
  • The burning fawn.
    If I can't get inside of your mind (or my own mind), how is it that we can get inside of God's... — 3017amen

    You don't need to get inside someone's mind to clearly see that he or she is clearly wrong.

    Your point is a non sequitur. As all the points you've brought up at any and all times in your life on this forum have been.

    You hunt for the word "god" on these forums, and when you find it, you latch onto that topic, and frazzle everyone by a constant series of completely ignoring what the other party says. You just say your part, over and over again, and your part is actually fluff, empty, vacuous.

    So go ahead, do your usual worst, 3017Amen.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    As it stands now, most of us are oppressed and traumatized serfs. Given the chance, many of us would kill the king. — Noah Te Stroete

    But the king is he demos. The electorate. You and me.

    I actually condone your premise. Let's all commit suicide. Last man standing needs no laws; laws and leaders are meaningless terms to a man living alone on a desert island.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    The community would ostracize individuals with really bad behavior. — Noah Te Stroete

    Would not be "bad behaviour" the behaviour that countervened the expected? So the expected behaviour would be the uncodified law.

    And the expulsion: would that not be the punishment for countervening the unwritten law?

    Sure nuff, there would be no leader, but the community would take over the role of the leader inasmuch as their consensus would make the unwritten law that prescribes behaviour. If there were no prescribed behavior, no punishment for any behaviour would be forthcoming.

    So the community is the leader, in a communal form of government. Much like in our present day societies the demos, the electorate, is the leader of what should happen in the world. The elected representatives are only spokespeople for their constituents. This of course is bastardized these days, and that is very sad, but it has good advantages, too, for instance that we have laws of non-convenience for the individuals, that promote trade, business and prosperity.

    That's why they say that democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the currently available other forms.
  • Entropy can be reset to a previous or to an initial state
    Dark energy is precisely such a new influx into the universe as a whole. — Pfhorrest

    Okay, I get it. Thanks.

    The problem with this is that the entire universe, in its infinite expanse, whether it contains finite or infinite amount of matter, is a closed system. You restrict your observation to the observable universe, the universe we call known or seen or observed universe. But space is infinitely large, and together it is a closed system.

    To take your analogy of Earth and Sun: sure nuff, Earth gets an influx of useful energy from the sun, but the sun has its own process of entropy, so the closed system of Earth, will deplete the open system too, which includes (in this example) only the sun as the 'outside' part of the closed system.

    The entire infinite space with infinite matter, the whole system is a closed system.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    I can handle it. — Noah Te Stroete

    Okay, since you can handle it, you must be able to get a grip on it.

    Go for it.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    Lol. I guess that’s why they think that I have to be medicated.

    What does that translate into?     — Noah Te Stroete

    Swahili.
  • How many would act morally if the law did not exist?
    Creationism is a story, the bible tells a story. It is fine to tell children stories, so long as they are not posed as factual or true. — A Seagull

    So you say the bible stories are all fiction. But to present fiction as true events, is a lie. And that is precisely what Sunday schools do.

    I don't for a moment believe that Christians teach bible stories merely as stories, not as something that is to be believed as true.
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god must be atheist

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