I am suppose to use "correct terms" when speaking — SherlockH

Supposed*

The central thesis is that religion in its "corporate", either/or exclusivist form didn't "fully" manifest in the Western mind until after the Enlightenment. This is especially true for Oriental religions. These have been attempted to be classified by Westerns as "Hinduism" or "Confucianism", etc, when in reality this simplifies things and leaves out the reality of the situation; that nowhere in India was there a unified religious sect that can be seen as "Hinduism" - there are Hindus, but there is no Hinduism. — darthbarracuda

Yes, he's right about this.

Can you give an example of a belief system that introduces the soul as something without an unquestionable value given to every person? — Jacykow

I don't understand the grammar of the question. Are you asking for a worldview that accepts the existence of the soul but does not think the soul has any value? None exist, so far as I am aware. Otherwise, I don't know what you're asking.

There are many of the 'religious left', including many Catholic social democrats and intellectuals. Jacques Maritain, neo-Thomist philosopher, and Raimundo Panikkar, distinguished scholar of comparative religon, are both of the religious left. Dorothy Day - Catholic unionist and agitator for women's rights. Many contributors to the Commonweal Magazine. The Dalai Lama has said (somewhat puzzlingly) that he's communist. There are doubtless thousands of other examples. — Wayfarer

However, these figures are all still socially conservative, as far as I know, which to me is a primary line of demarcation between a leftist and a non-leftist.

Christianity was like that from the start — Πετροκότσυφας

I agree with you that it was. In fact, the opposite of what he suggested is true, I would argue. The Enlightenment was the birth of liberal Christianity and liberalizing tendencies in traditional Christianity. Doctrinal laxity is a new phenomenon while doctrinal rigidity is more traditional.

The concept of the soul is one of the most fundamental parts of most religious beliefs and it states that every human being has unquestionable value that cannot be measured. Therefore you cannot compare people using it and, as it is the only meaningful value, makes every person equal. — Jacykow

The concept of the soul is not found in all religions. And it's likely that what you're thinking of by "the concept of the soul" is not what religions that accept a concept of the soul mean by it.

The words "every" and "equal" sound pretty left leaning to me and the whole concept unites humanity in one group. — Jacykow

Just as the vegetative soul unites all plants. The equality here is metaphysical, not political. Besides, the right does acknowledge equality as a value, but it values a different type of it than the left does. The right values equality of opportunity while the left values equality of outcome, which are by no means the same thing. So your intuition is both vague and wrong.

Based on what I have read in the field of "religious studies", the term "religion" by no means has a universal definition. — darthbarracuda

Yes, there are almost as many definitions as there are scholars of religion. It's certainly the largest, most protracted dispute in the field. Finding the sweet spot, between the Scylla of a definition that is so broad that it includes too much, including that which is not normally considered religion, and the Charybdis of a definition that is so narrow that it leaves out much that seems intrinsically religious, is difficult indeed. Some scholars advocate abandoning the term "religion" altogether, but this just kicks the can down the road a bit further, as the proposed replacement terms are often even more vague than the word they are meant to replace.

I think it can be recognized to have meaning with respect to pre-modern and non-Western societies, but not in the sense of a Hegelian reification of the term, which would be ahistorical.

Dude, it's FAFSA.

Think about what you're saying here: you're asking me if there are any non-selfish benefits to devoting time and energy to the raising and nurturing of another life. — gurugeorge

No, the point isn't about raising and nurturing, but creating a life.

I find that when pressed on the alleged "nothing" out of which these particle originate, it is not nothing after all.

Interesting, how so? — MetaphysicsNow

One reason would be that the principle is a priori.

Naively, the way to refute the PSR would be to establish that there are somethings that occur for no reason at all — MetaphysicsNow

If you can establish that something has occurred for no reason at all, then be my guest. I don't think such a thing is possible, for ex nihilo nihil fit.

Is the point that we would then need to answer the question "Why should the mere fact that something occurs for no reason at all refute the PSR" by relying on the PSR? — MetaphysicsNow

Sort of. The idea is that to give an explanation of anything just is to supply a reason why something is or is not the case. Thus, in explaining how the PSR is false, you presuppose it, because you are supplying a reason for why there are no reasons for anything.

How do we know it's true if no proof is required? If it is an axiom, then seemingly the issue resolves itself. However, even assuming that introduces metaphysical baggage, I think. — Posty McPostface

The reason no proof is required is that you employ the principle in trying to refute it. It is thus axiomatic.

Another way of saying that might be that it pertains to action not being. IOW the act of making babies is neither good nor bad intrinsically, it's objectively good or bad (from whatever point of view - e.g. human beings or dromedary jumping-slugs) depending on circumstances. — gurugeorge

Okay. Seems you're a utilitarian, then.

the "Nature" one might wish to protect by not having us filthy humans polluting the planet is also intrinsically neither good or bad, so "it's evil to make babies because muh Nature" isn't an argument. — gurugeorge

That wasn't my argument. I'm not an antinatalist, remember. But this logic cuts both ways, so the procreator isn't on any firmer footing.

And in relation to any given desideratum, procreation has objective costs and objective benefits that can be weighed up. — gurugeorge

Okay, and now please consider the question of my thread. Are there any non-selfish benefits to procreation? I do not dispute that there are benefits. Clearly there are. What I'm disputing is that there are any non-selfish reasons for the act. I do not see that there could be any such benefits, given the nature of what a benefit is.

No más.

No one reads.

In Kant, it's found in the CPR at the very end of the Remark on the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection.

Schopenhauer discusses it in WWR Vol. 1, pg. 409 (Payne translation). The distinction is between nihil privativum and nihil negativum.

I think they use Latin terms, which may obscure the concepts. I can try looking it up.

I have never heard of relative nothing apart from in this discussion. — darthbarracuda

This surprises me. It's a distinction found in Kant and Schopenhauer. It's crucial for Schopenhauer's soteriology in particular.

the lack of belief that gods exist — Jerry

That's not atheism. That's simple non-theism.

But the more I think about atheism and the atheists I've seen, the less I understand this definition. — Jerry

It's meant to obviate the need to argue for atheism. Your typical nu atheist who spouts this nonsense is intellectually lazy.

I think atheism as "the belief that no god exists" is more accurate — Jerry

That is what it is, yes.

If by "pulling the rug out from under" you mean something like "negate", the negation of the claim "Only non-scientific claims are unfalsifiable" would be "there exists at least one scientific claim that is unfalsifiable". — jkg20

No, the negation is to the obverse of the original claim, which is that scientific claims are falsifiable. So I am negating that claim by saying that perhaps scientific claims are unfalsifiable just like everything else.

I'm not a logical positivist by any means, but it seems a little unfair to condemn a whole philosophical movement on the basis of a strawman. — jkg20

You haven't shown that I have committed any straw man. I explicitly said I was speaking about "something similar" to what the logical positivists said, so, with great irony, you have created a straw man of my position.

Who knows? But, for whatever reason, the unfalsifiable proposition known as Materialism is very popular here. — Michael Ossipoff

Is it? I seem to recall a poll on that, but I've forgotten the results. It wouldn't surprise me, as materialism is the default metaphysical position of modernity.

Most prominently in his magum opus Being and Time. — darthbarracuda

I found this work to be obscurantist drivel the first time I tried reading it. Maybe I will understand it better if I have something to look for in it, like the claim that being isn't a copula.

yet it is still "something" — darthbarracuda

This describes relative nothing, which is similar to, as you say, the hyper-thingness of God in Aquinas. God is not a thing, and so "nothing," but not non-existent either and so not absolutely nothing.

Yet here you speak of it. Clearly we can speak of something about absolute nothing, if we are to say it cannot be spoken of. For this to be true would require that there be something about absolute nothing that makes it impossible to think or speak about. If we cannot speak about nothing, then we cannot speak about how we cannot speak about nothing, because the fact that we cannot speak about nothing is, itself, about nothing, so we have fallen into a performative contradiction, — darthbarracuda

Yes, this eloquently describes the trap I spoke of. When we speak of absolute nothing, we're not talking about "something" to which these words refer, because an absolute nothing cannot be referred to by definition. Absolute nothing is not a funny kind of something. It is the complete absence of anything and everything. I wouldn't call this a contradiction so much as a paradox or a quirk or language.

As it stands, Heidegger was acutely aware of the charge that Being, the is, is merely a linguistic copula. He obviously denied and in my opinion thoroughly refuted that view. — darthbarracuda

Where does he refute it? This interests me because Schopenhauer is adamant that being is merely a linguistic copula (although I'm not sure he's consistent about this).

What do you mean by nothing? — darthbarracuda

Nothing.

I want to know what you mean when you say something is nothing — darthbarracuda

Language is playing tricks on you. Absolute nothing cannot strictly be thought or even spoken of.

Do you accept the principle of sufficient reason? I'm curious, as one way of formulating it is to say that from nothing, nothing comes.

The point I'm trying to make is that "nothing" is still "something", just not the something we are used to in the everyday world of existing things. — darthbarracuda

That's a relative nothing, which I agree is conceptualizable.

How do you know what a square circle is, then? — darthbarracuda

I don't, that's the point. And not only don't I know it, I can't know it.

Fine, let me ask you this: do you recognize the ontological distinction between a being and its Being? — darthbarracuda

I don't know. Maybe. I'd have to know more about what you mean by these terms. I acknowledge, by the way, that things can come to be having once been not. You can call this becoming or actualizing a potential or manifesting an essence or whatever. All that means is that it was possible for that thing to be. But that's different from absolute nothingness, which it is not even possible to be.

but I wanna know what nothing is — darthbarracuda

To know what is not is a contradiction in terms.

Then what exactly is it? You said it yourself: "It is not a possibility." Then what is it? — darthbarracuda

Nothing. To speak of a square circle is to speak of nothing at all. It is synonymous with nothingness.

Possibility. — darthbarracuda

Which is not nothing....

That which does not exist and never has is possibility. — darthbarracuda

Nonsense. A square circle never has, nor does, nor ever will exist. It is not a possibility.

The hard problem is utterly insoluble because it is based on the presupposition that matter is mechanical. The hard problem can only be dis-solved by considering matter to be fundamentally semiotic. — Janus

That semiotic view would also reconfigure our understanding of matter. — apokrisis

This further highlights the problem with materialism. To believe that "only matter exists" begs the question. A materialist in the 17th century and a materialist in the 19th century both believed this, but the matter they believed in was not the same.

I don't see anything wrong with talking about non-existence. — darthbarracuda

Ask yourself what it is you're "talking about."

The fact is that some things exist and some things do not, but we can still talk about either. — darthbarracuda

We can speak about things that have existed but no longer do, but we can't speak of that which never was, nor is, nor ever will be.

The il y a refutes idealism. — darthbarracuda

Even granting this (which I do not; I would have to know more about what is meant by and how Levinas argues for this notion), it would only refute a certain type of idealism. For example, it seems to me that theism is by definition a form of idealism. Even if one posits a world existing independently of the mind (realism), still this world does not exist, on theism, independently of all minds. It still very much depends on one mind, namely God's, for its existence.

i.e. the return-back-to-nothing. We all were nothing before, and we will all return to being nothing shortly - existence is but a sojourn from non-existence. — darthbarracuda

I don't think we can make either claim here. If the nothingness spoken of is absolute, then we run into the argument of Parmenides on the impossibility of such a sojourn (which is another defeater of materialism, by the way). If it is relative, then the goal should be to determine if there are modes of contact between this mysterious reality beyond the world and the world rather than throw up one's hands at the suffering and absurdity on this side of the dichotomy.

I studied Hume under David Stove — Wayfarer

Wow, that's neat.

And you totally misunderstand the goal if you think that it's to eradicate crime entirely. — Sapientia

Why is banning guns an ideal, then? Imagine that we do eradicate all crime. You would still apparently object to people owning guns. Why? You ought to know how bizarre that is.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/09/heres-supreme-court-already-repealed-second-amendment/

I wanted to leave this here, just to give some perspective about where, say, I fall in the debate. This guy is to the right of me by a considerable margin.

what can we do to determine the fact of the matter? — Michael

We can try to do so by using reason.

Is there some empirical or rational method available to us to show that something either is or isn't immoral? — Michael

Making valid and sound arguments?

So it doesn't bother you that you can't support your claim that X is wrong, or that moral realism is correct? — Michael

I never said I couldn't support the claims I hold to. We're getting rather far afield from the OP in this discussion. Perhaps I will make another thread.

it isn't even clear how one would go about verifying or falsifying a moral claim — Michael

That's true of all non-scientific claims, so this doesn't bother me. I can always retort by asking how one goes about verifying or falsifying the claim that it isn't clear how to go about verifying or falsifying a moral claim.

what can we do to resolve the disagreement? — Michael

Well, hold on. Let's not confuse resolving disagreement between ourselves with the truth of the matter in question. We could do the former without thereby having determined the latter. I'm not interested in resolving disagreements. If X is true and you disagree, then so be it and so much the worse for you. If you respond by asking how we know that X is true, then presumably you are requesting the reasons why X is true. If you disagreed with those reasons, your mere disagreement alone still wouldn't make X not true.

Nice quote! It cogently summarizes the primary reason I rejected antinatalism, which is basically that it tries to compare apples to oranges.

Is any natural event or creature intrinsically right or wrong? — gurugeorge

Yes.

Procreating is just something people do, something they're semi-compelled to do — gurugeorge

The same can be said of serial rapists, murderers, pedophiles, thieves, etc. Your moral relativism is a non-starter for me.

In that sense we ourselves are a possible measure of "good" and "bad" — gurugeorge

No we're not.

Not intrinsically, no, or so I would submit. For most of human history, animals were necessary to human survival. In many parts of the world today, this is still true, but in developed nations, it can arguably be said that meat eating is superfluous to survival, which means that the main reasons most people continue to eat meat are habit, social pressure, and, of course, rank hedonism ("it tastes good"). I suppose one could make the case for raising livestock for various ecological and agricultural reasons (it helps maintain fertile soil and is necessary for other types of food production, for example).

If this is coupled with a commitment to raise animals responsibly and humanely (which they are not at present, unfortunately) and to make use of the food and other resources they provide (instead of the currently wasteful practices), then I might not have objections to eating meat even in the developed world. I am vegetarian for not merely ethical reasons but aesthetic ones (I do not generally like the taste and texture of real meat) and ascetic ones (I view it as a form of self-denial and even penance).