So, if the analogy is between pain and belief in God, then saying there is no such things as pain is analogous to saying that there is no such thing as belief in God, no? — John

No, because I'm setting up the "there is no pain" to parallel the strong atheist claim that "there is no God," not the weak atheist claim. To say there is no belief in God is oddly worded and clearly not true.

Is this a good definition of "neoliberalism"? Are you a neoliberal? (Oh, surely not you!). Which, if any, leading politicians are not, to some extent, neoliberal? — Bitter Crank

I know that the term neo-liberalism has come to refer to the ill-conceived economic policies of Thatcher, Reagan, and their ilk, but I think it's a bit unfortunate and in fact a misnomer. The reason why is that, firstly, I think it has very little to do with classical liberalism. It is a complete distortion and abandonment of the classical liberal economic principles of, say, Adam Smith. Corporate monopolizing and profit mongering appear rather illiberal to me, and would to Smith, if he were alive today. What we have today is nothing like a free market.

Secondly, it's not "new" either, being merely the recrudescence of the sort of Gilded Age capitalism on display at the turn of the last century.

No, I don't see why it would.

Someone who says that the aesthetic doesn't matter isn't making an aesthetic claim, they're claiming that aesthetics lacks importance in a schema involving various other things which presumably are more important. — mcdoodle

I don't understand this objection in the slightest. Do you have a subject connected to a predicate? Well, congratulations, you've just made a truth claim. "The truth (subject) doesn't (copula) matter (predicate)." One has just asserted as true that the truth does not matter. Ergo, the person making such a claim does value the truth, inasmuch as it is necessary to make such a statement at all.

it seems like a residue that will never evaporate :) — mcdoodle

No, it won't, so long as you continue to make truth claims such as this. All language would have to cease for truth not to matter.

I hope someone in this thread will explain the importance of truth. As a latecomer to philosophy, I still haven't grasped why it matters so centrally. But I feel like the village idiot sometimes in looking for ways of saying this, ('In what way is language about truth-conditions?') because it seems so obvious to so many people that it's central. — mcdoodle

To suggest that the truth doesn't matter is itself a truth claim. Hence, it clearly does matter, otherwise, the person making such a claim would never make it in the first place.

I might also point out here that the weak forms of atheism and agnosticism reflect the psychological state of the individual. The strong versions are making claims about the nature of reality. This is important to note. You can't refute someone who says they lack belief in God, for they are just expressing a fact about themselves to you, not presenting an arguable point. It would be akin to someone telling you they don't feel any pain. That's different from saying "there is no such thing as pain."

That's believing you know the Sasquatch exists without having the empirical evidence which shows it to be the case. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, it's not, and I have no idea why you would say such a thing. The following statement is either perfectly intelligible or it's not, and if it's not, then you need to show me why it's not, which you haven't yet done: "I believe in Sasquatch but do not know if it exists."

and that's what the version of agnosticism you talked about denies. It says there is no knowledge about whether God exists of not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

What version? There is strong and weak agnosticism just as there are both for atheism. The weak agnostic simply lacks knowledge of God. The strong agnostic knows that there is no God.

In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in God — Michael

To "neither believe nor disbelieve" still amounts to a lack of belief. It's a re-statement of weak atheism.

How can one believe it is true (understand) that God does or doesn't exist if there is no knowledge about God to be had? — TheWillowOfDarkness

The same way one could believe in Sasquatch without knowing whether it exists or not, e.g. "I don't know if Sasquatch exists or not, but I believe he does based on the evidence." Or you could have believed that Saddam had a nuclear weapon before the invasion of Iraq, despite not knowing that he did. I see no contradiction here.

Belief (either way) supposes God is knowable. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, it presupposes that he is possibly knowable.

And how is that different to the weak atheist? He also claims that he has no knowledge that God exists. — Michael

The difference lies in what one is talking about. Weak atheism is a position with respect to belief, which is perfectly compatible with agnosticism, which is a position with respect to knowledge.

And you can also be without knowledge of God and not believe either that he exists or that he doesn't exist. — Michael

No, I don't think this is possible. It would mean the person simply lacks belief. They would be an agnostic atheist.

The agnostic claims that there is no evidence to suggest either that God exists or that God doesn't exist, — Michael

Nope, the agnostic claims that they have no knowledge that God exists. The Greek word gnosis means knowledge, while the prefix a is a negation. So the agnostic is "without knowledge," in this case, of God.

and so doesn't believe either. — Michael

Again, no. You can be an agnostic theist OR an agnostic atheist; in other words, you can be without knowledge of God and yet still believe that one exists or be without knowledge of God and choose not to believe.

Except that it's not. A/theism deals with belief. A/gnosticism deals with knowledge. Belief and knowledge are not the same thing. Recognize this and your confusion will cease.

Agnostic deism seems to be where I fit the best, at least currently. — darthbarracuda

It doesn't much matter to me, so long as you use the labels right. I loathe all labels, especially political and religious labels, but they if they're going to be used, and it would be foolish to expect them not to be, then they must be used as accurately as possible.

An atheist isn't just someone who doesn't believe that God exists; he's someone who believes that God doesn't exist. — Michael

You've just described two different types of atheist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

It's a different thing. — Michael

No, it's a different type of the same thing.

So how would you describe someone who neither believes that God exists nor believes that God does not exist? I'd call them an agnostic. — Michael

By definition that person is an atheist, specifically a weak atheist.

This distinction between real and notional assent underlies my research on spiritual exercises — WhiskeyWhiskers

I quite like this distinction too, but the problem is that religions still require, and in my experience stress, notional assent over and against real assent. In many ways, I am already religious, much more so than my fellow human beings, but only if we judge by the latter. I do not and cannot notionally accept any of the Christian creeds, say. This paradoxically makes me a non-believer who is estranged from what would have otherwise been the religious community best suited to me.

In ages past, this wouldn't have been a problem, since non-belief would likely never have occurred to me or anyone as a possible stance to take. Religion and culture were indistinguishable. Now, however, all the critical disciplines have shattered that union and rendered it very hard for a great many thinking and contemplative people like myself to swallow the old dogmas. As long as religions cling to such empty verbiage, then their erosion by secularization and our expanding knowledge will continue unabated.

I consider myself an agnostic that is leaning towards atheism — darthbarracuda

Once again, atheism and agnosticism are answers to different questions. Do you have knowledge that God exists? No? Then you are an agnostic. Do you believe that God exists, irrespective of whether you have knowledge that he does? No? Then you are also an atheist.

So how could they miss something that I find to be obviously absurd? Isn't it more likely that me, the novice, has missed something? — darthbarracuda

Intelligence is not the same as wisdom. Philosophy is the pursuit of the latter, not the former, which is not required to do it. Though there are many intelligent people who have done and are doing philosophy, many of them are not wise, which can be especially seen if one takes a peek at their biographies. Simple greed, envy, anger, or in a word, egoism, sully and even destroy the greatest of minds. I for one don't give two figs about my fellow apes' computing power. I care far more about whether they are compassionate, courteous, sincere, etc.

it seems absurd that the theistic philosophers are just idiots. — darthbarracuda

It's because they're not.

Is the only rational position to take, agnosticism? — darthbarracuda

I think you are confusing agnosticism with skepticism, which are very similar but not the same. Agnosticism simply declares your lack of knowledge about something (usually God in deism and/or common theism), but it does not on this account imply that you doubt the veracity of the claim in question. One could be an agnostic theist, for example. Skepticism is the attitude that all claims must be doubted until demonstrated. If you don't find that the arguments theists (masquerading as deists most of the time) make concerning the existence of God have been thoroughly demonstrated enough to warrant your belief in him, then rationally speaking, you ought not to believe.

Every single argument here is for deism and has been swatted down long ago. And the sheer number of them signifies desperation, not the strength of the claim.

On this view, philosophy is not an abstract discipline, but a kind of itching that responds to a pain, a yearning for understanding that one vaguely feels oneself to lack. — The Great Whatever

This has always been my experience with philosophy. It also reminds me of things Ortega y Gasset said somewhere. Are you familiar with him?

Sounds like a road towards equivocation.

Into what?

I don't think a hedonist would count disinterested pleasure as "good". — darthbarracuda

Hmm, I think they would have too.

Perhaps this is answerable by simply weighing the values and realizing that if you want to feel pleasure, there has to be some work involved, and if the pay-off is not redeemable then it's not worth pursuing this pleasure. — darthbarracuda

I don't think this gets the hedonist out of the quandery. If the pursuit of pleasure is unpleasurable, one ought not to pursue it, since pleasure is the only thing intrinsically worth pursuing. And if one does abandon this pursuit, one has effectively abandoned the central tenet of hedonism.

Only if the hedonist has such a desire for the good in the first place. — Agustino

I take hedonism to be a normative ethical system that purports to show one how to lead the good life. If it were merely descriptive, then whether one had the desire to be good or not would, I agree, be meaningless.

That some can desire something while finding it painful, would, in their minds, only signify that they have found a way to transform pain into pleasure, ie masochism. — Agustino

This obliterates the premise of the article, which is apparently empirically verifiable, that one can desire something without feeling pleasure. If one is desiring something while feeling pain, they are not experiencing pleasure, they are feeling pain. Desire =//= pleasure.

I have no doubt that those who make those claims look at the world, and for reasons that don't have to be listed here, their claims seem to be the most tenable, and make the most sense. — Reformed Nihilist

I don't think so. I find most people do not critically examine the beliefs they purportedly hold, religious or otherwise. Much less are they even capable of stating clearly what said beliefs are. In other words, there is no weighing of evidence, whereby religious conviction appears as the caboose to a train of reasoning. People's beliefs rather hover about in their mental space like a fog, which makes it impossible to separate them out for logical scrutiny. The apologists who try to make arguments and debate with people are a very tiny minority of religious people and to the average believer serve merely as a tool to avoid critical thinking and to maintain the illusion of credibility.

To the extent that everyone worships something, everyone is religious, and there are two kinds of religious person in the world: the ietsist and the mystic. The masses, no matter their professed religion or lack thereof, belong to the former.

That doesn't seem very fair at all, does it? — Reformed Nihilist

Believers will retort with a common appeal to ignorance: "God's ways are not our ways." So what seems unfair to you may in fact not be in reality and in the grand scheme of God's plans. This, of course, immediately strikes one as a cop out and leaves a fairly bitter taste in one's mouth.

Seeing as 1) science has now repudiated biological notions of race, which has thus made inequality, whether in terms of wealth or intelligence, a function of contingent rather than essential factors, and 2) nations, their boundaries, and even many of their rights and laws are all abstract concepts, constructed out of the real relations of human beings with each other and their environment, as well as their natural rights, 3) it follows that cosmopolitanism must be true.

It also occurred to me that if you think geniuses are cultivated more in aristocratic societies, then how do you account for the Middle Ages? There are some centuries, like say the 7th, where I doubt you could compose a list of 10 geniuses of the caliber you seem to want, anywhere in the world, where such societies were clearly the norm.

With these lists, especially if they include writers of fictional prose and philosophers whose views one disagrees with, you can't judge based on your own aesthetic preferences. I think Heidegger is mostly a hack, Picasso an unappealing painter, and Steinbeck a bit dry at times, but that doesn't negate their status as geniuses, it seems to me. I am not the sole arbiter of that distinction.

Einstein, Schrödinger, Plank, Bohr, Picasso, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Orwell, Steinbeck, Eliot, off the top of my head.

There were more geniuses produced by aristocratic societies than by democratic ones if you look through history. So practically, it seems to have better results at least. — Agustino

How exactly do you conclude such a thing? Do you keep a running list?

although I will still reply that me accepting it even in practice does not mean that I necessarily think it should be accepted in practice by everyone else. — Agustino

Certainly, though that's a shame.

practice shows us that the temptations of democracies are so great that the genius will become stuck in the easy life, instead of take up his yoke and follow the hard and difficult ascent up the mountain - hence he will be stuck with a puerile and undeveloped intelligence, as he will lack the seriousness needed, and would much prefer bread and circus. — Agustino

Yes, but how is this any different from the same person being tempted by aristocratic privileges in a non-democratic society of the kind you envision and then squandering their abilities?

I think none of the political systems available today are adequate though. We need a different way of organisation, probably closer to a monarchy/meritocracy than a liberal democracy is. It is in fact that that we should be looking for instead of admiring liberal democracy. That is coming up with a different system. — Agustino

See, I think we've exhausted all the possibilities and are now faced with choosing the least possible evil. The forms of government that Aristotle wrote about in the Politics are the very same ones we have with us today, and I know of no real exceptions to his taxonomy. This is why I argue for liberal democracy, for it is the best means of preserving and protecting human rights. It seems you might be chasing after a utopia more than I am.

I don't think any political system can ever be completely implemented, including democracies. They exist in various degrees of correspondence to the ideal, and Eastern European countries perhaps less so than those in the West. I don't know what democracy would be used as a mask for to be honest.

That question is irrelevant. I'm speaking about what public perceptions were about whether it would or would not collapse soon and whether it could be predicted when it would do so. I'm saying that if you pulled aside the average Russian in the mid 1980s and told them that in just a couple years the Soviet Union will have been utterly liquidated, chances are decent to good that he or she would respond with shock and surprise. Obviously, someone closer to the internal workings of power might not be surprised, but I'm again talking about the masses here, who as you said in another thread, are hopelessly naive and aloof all the time.

No I don't. I simply take advantage of an opportunity I happen to have. I may not agree with having such an opportunity in the first place. — Agustino

We may just disagree on this point. I'm trying to say that there is such a thing as practical assent and that you exercise it in this case by speaking freely. It's also called implied assent under social contract theory and is the basis of the state's power and authority over you in a democracy. And from what I can tell, you clearly do accept the state's authority over you, do you not? On what else might it rest in a democratic polity, assuming you do accept its authority?

The masses will never be sufficiently enlightened, hence why they need rulers in the first place. I wonder - have you encountered real human stupidity? — Agustino

Agustino, my friend, there is no need to give me your pessimistic bona fides with respect to someone like me. ;)

Yes, the human race is monstrously, painfully, and willfully ignorant, superstitious, and cruel, but where are these Platonic Kings going to come from and how are they to be maintained? Plato's Republic is very beautiful but it strikes me as even more utopian than the project of educating the masses and giving them political power.

Rousseau famously wrote that man is born free but is everywhere in chains. In the context of today's free societies, it seems to me that this phrase needs to be amended to say that everyone is born free but then exercises their liberty to put themselves in chains. People throw away the opportunity to be educated and express their opinions and don't realize just how precious these and other freedoms are until they're gone. But if they do disappear and society returns to autocracy, then how many potential geniuses are lost due to being born into the wrong social status, never getting a chance to kindle their abilities? In a democratic society, the genius is ignored but is able to realize his potential by being given the opportunity to do so. This is tragic, to be sure, but to be preferred in my opinion to an aristocratic or autocratic society in which only those of economic and political privilege can realize their potential. The philosopher kings among us are never and will never be in a position to exercise real power. Those that have done so have been the flukes of history, such as Marcus Aurelius.

I once made a thread in the old forum proposing a theory of constitutional autocracy, since like you, I thought a strong, powerful central monarch in charge best suited the human race, since the latter in democracies always chooses to elect blatantly inept charlatans out of ignorance, but I also wanted to ensure the protection of basic human rights. But this will never happen, and I have effectively abandoned it. Do you think Plato's Republic will be implemented any time soon? If so, then you are more optimistic than I, despite your seeming pessimism above. If not, then why not support liberal democracy? (Or maybe you do but I haven't seen it yet.)

You're going to have to specify in what sense it was, for I think the consensus is that it was on the whole unexpected. There is always a certain segment of the population who believes the current power structures are about to face imminent collapse. I'm sure many Russian people thought so throughout the Soviet Union's history. However, I'm speaking about the vast majority of the population, who lived under the watchful eye of the KGB and other seemingly ever present and ineradicable institutions of the state.

Not necessarily. France went from being an absolute theocratic monarchy to a secular democratic state, almost over night. No one really expected in 1788 that this would happen just a year later, just as very few people in 1988 living in the Soviet Bloc expected or predicted the utter collapse of Soviet rule over the next few years.

Again - I fail to see on what your assumption that all regions of the world can be governed reliably through democratic means rests on, except on the fact that the West is governed so. — Agustino

Humans are not so different from each other in the essentials. I feel the burden of proof rests with you to show that there are some people for whom democracy cannot ever be accepted. Science has thoroughly repudiated biological notions of race, so there is no natural, and therefore no necessary, reason why some humans might be incapable of democratic governance. What prevents some of them from doing so at this moment in time are the artificial and contingent factors of culture and religion.

Massive humanitarian aid to neighbouring countries, a welcome to refugees and the services of skilful diplomats to bring warring factions to the table - thats what this mysterious 'we' could do. — mcdoodle

Syria's neighbors really ought to be doing these things, but they leave it to the West and then blame the West when things don't turn out right. How many refugees and how much humanitarian aid have the Emirates, Saudis, and Turks accepted and given respectively compared to Europe? A pittance, that's what. It's amazing how little these theocratic and otherwise Muslim majority states seem to regard their fellow Muslims in the region who are being butchered and forced to flee.

Your judgments are far too premature. None of these states have been in existence for longer than a few decades at most. Western democracies are well over 200 years old, and were never perfect then as now, though they have made vast improvements, such as abolishing the slave trade.

An ethical action would demand a "good outcome". — Bitter Crank

I disagree. Actions are determined to be moral based on the motives of the agent, which also happens to be the de facto operating principle of most criminal justice systems in the world today. This does not, however, absolve the agent, whether an individual or a country, from responsibility for the consequences of their actions, even if their motives were pure. It simply means they cannot be held morally responsible; but legally, prudentially, economically, etc, they certainly can and should be.

An ethical outcome wasn't defined. — Bitter Crank

I think implementing democracy is an ethical outcome. As for whether that was clearly defined, I don't know. Perhaps not.

We know no such thing, as we so vividly demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan. We smashed Humpty Dumpty and we couldn't put it back together again. — Bitter Crank

I completely disagree here. In the case of Afghanistan, the Taliban, and in the case of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, had already thoroughly smashed their countries and every semblance of civil society to bits. What the US and the international community tried to do, and are still trying and ought to still try to do, is put these countries back together again so as to prevent their future collapse into barbarism. This entails building a democracy and rebuilding civil society, a rule of law, etc.

being the only form of government that works in those regions and can assure stability. — Agustino

BS. Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and now Iraq beg to differ, and the Arab Spring shows that there is a popular groundswell of anti-authoritarian sentiment throughout the Middle East. Iran also recently elected a pretty reformist president. More than 5% of Saudi Arabians are alleged to be atheists, too, for example, a number that is probably even higher in reality. And this is despite living in one of the most brutally repressive theocratic regimes on the planet, in which atheism was recently declared to be a crime.

The Assad regime is destroyed - and replaced with what?? — Agustino

A liberal democracy.

All of your options are already happening, BC. The international community has for quite some time, a part from air and drone strikes, let the Syrians fight it out. We have backed the alleged moderate opposition. We know and claim that the Assad regime needs to be destroyed. Finally, because he is fighting IS, we have also indirectly supported him.

The time for humanitarian and military intervention, which I would have supported, has probably passed by now. My recent worry is that, in light of the mass exodus of ordinary Syrians from their country, there are not really any moderates left in the country, which has become a killing ground waged by various terrorist factions.

I clicked on the "post your own solution" option. My solution has several parts: 1) help the Kurds and Iraqis militarily, i.e. give them more coordinated airstrikes, intelligence, as well as armaments and supplies, and 2) force Turkey, through sanctions of various kinds, to stop funneling IS fighters into Syria and to engage IS militarily along its border, and 3) force the Gulf Arab states, again through various sanctions to a) more seriously engage IS militarily than they have done and b) to accept the refugees from Syria which Europe cannot and should not accept right now.