Huh? I've spent considerable energy in this thread arguing against the concept of physically "proving" metaphysical entities, like gods. So, no, I don't need to define anything, since I'm not proving anything.

You?

You mean the typing "proof"? Well, it works great for unicorns (and anything else imaginable), so I'm not impressed, TBH.

As to whether gods are metaphysical, they are by my understanding, do you disagree?

Agreed, that's why my first post in this thread noted that it is a fool's errand to search for physical evidence to provide proof of a metaphysical entity.

I believe by "existence" you mean objective existence, which in the case of gods (or any other entity that only exists inter-subjectively) is, of course true (as I said). My point is that many things we deal with routinely and without controversy also don't possess objective existence.

Not quite. I'm pointing out the reality that in the past those with ideological differences tended or tried to follow their ideology where ever it led, even if they result wasn't to their liking. Currently groups advertise their ideology merely as a convenient label, but have no trouble not following said ideology if it happens to logically lead to a non self-serving (predetermined) conclusion.

God doesn't have any of those properties. God only exists in word.

Yes, the dollar's value can be "readily identifiable" after the fact, just as believers of gods can agree upon dogmatic properties of their gods. That's neither my point nor THE point.

Rather, the dollar only has value because the vast majority of humans consciously agree that it has value, that is, it has no intrinsic or objective value. Similarly, gods definitely exist as entities through agreed human belief that is, as intersubjective entities (like nations, corporations and economies), though not objective entities, as you noted.

The tragedy is the concept of unwanted pregnancies, which have the potential to result in unwanted children. Unwanted children are over represented in the criminal element as adults. Effective Birth Control has lowered this number considerably, but every BC method has a failure rate.

A not unreasonable opinion, but as anyone can tell, I was addressing Ourora Aureis' idea, I didn't originate the concept.

If you'd have read and understood what I've posted, you'd know that my use of the descriptor "Post Truth era" doesn't reference "ideological combatants".

One should only trust what should be trusted.

I don't disagree, but what distinguishes the Post Truth era is which entities qualify as "what should be trusted".

Is Germany an entity? How about Apple corporation? How about the US dollar's value? Intersubjective entities are entities.

I do agree that the numerous definitions of gods will "require" different proofs. Having said that, more importantly metaphysical entities (which the vast majority of god definitions are) defy purely physical proof.

Exactly. Before the rise of Fundamentalism in the wake of the Born Again movement of the 1970s, many if not most Christians were comfortable with viewing the scriptures as a moral guidebook instead of a history textbook.

I don't disagree with your analysis of the relative roles of distrust as pertains to enemies in the Truth vs Post Truth eras. My point is that among those who share the same conclusions, say party members and party leaders, shared ideology trumps adherence to the Truth (meaning the generally accepted Truth, not ideological Truth). Thus the rise of QAnon believers etc among party leadership.

How much Truth (in the Truth era)? The exact same amount. What distinguishes the Post Truth era isn't the absence or lack of Truth, it's the marginalization of Truth and a degradation of it's public influence. Previously, there was a general public consensus of the way various entities work, say elections. Of course many disagreed with this understanding, but there was a price to pay for verbalizing (usually self serving) alternatives publicly, since acting in a blatantly self serving manner in a public forum went against the public interest, which meant something in the Truth era Thus speech about ideas such as gerrymandering, or electing election officials who would only certify one party's majority could only take place privately among others with the same viewpoint. In the Post Truth era, a leader pays no price for verbalizing self serving proposals since his constituents are only interested in his conclusion or goal, but don't care how he accomplishes it nor the "logic" he uses to justify it. So liberated from any downside from not adhering to the Truth, he's free to say (or do) essentially anything, and for the purposes of this thread, that includes lying.

Nice thead. We are definitely in the Post Truth era. But having said that, I'm referring specifically to the way obvious lies are treated publicly, not individually. In the past (as now) everyone had their personal appreciation of what they understand to be the truth. What has changed is the way what is commonly understood to be the truth (by a majority of society), no longer serves as a guardrail to moderate publicly spoken opinions.

For example, everyone has a preference of how a society should work. Many in the past, collected observations of society, pondered what "worked" and didn't work, then came to a conclusion based on their interpretation of the "evidence". Now many more folks come to (an expedient) conclusion first, then cherry-pick observations to support that conclusion. In the first scenario, new evidence can change the conclusion, in the latter new conflicting evidence is discarded (just as conflicting evidence was discarded initially) so the (usually self serving) conclusion is never changed.

Similarly, in the past public figures feared appearing to have conflicts of interest, or appearing to behave inappropriately and thus often tempered their behavior and their rhetoric to give the (often false) appearance of fairmindedness. Now public figures know that their constituents likely support their policies regardless, that is they and their constituents share the same conclusion of how society should work, so are willing to overlook impropriety, scandals and (for the purposes of this thread) lying.

Majority acceptance does not signify that a moral stance is right. That's what matters.

No one said the majority moral opinion automatically makes an opinion "right", so I don't know who you're addressing. I said when viewed in it's own era a majority opinion is reasonable. That is a logical train of thought can lead to that opinion. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the reality that when dealing with complex issues reasonable, thoughtful individuals can come to different conclusions.

And if the majority decided we need to have a human sacrifice to help the crops that would settle it for you?

What this overly simplistic, knee-jerk response fails to acknowledge is that if we lived In an era where the majority of people concluded as you propose, we'd be in a level of human cultural development where you and I could reasonably conclude as you suggested. The attitude of the majority can honestly best be evaluated in the moral framework of the era. Thus why a moral stance that enjoys majority acceptance, when evaluated in it's own era, the majority acceptance signifies that the moral stance is reasonable (though perhaps not optimal) within the framework of it's era.

This is similar to an argument made for supporting slavery in America. It's not about humanity, it's about whose autonomy ought to prevail. Bad precedent to set

Nope, people (regardless of "precedent") can and have successfully navigated competing interests and have overwhelmingly concluded that slave owner and slave interests are equal (as adult humans). Similarly, the majority of folks have concluded that an adult human mother's interests outweigh those of a human fetus'. Simple, really.

Since the topic of the thread is the origin of the concept of gods, it bears mentioning that the issues of godly omnipotence and omniscience are relatively modern ones. The original gods were definitely superhuman, but often not dramatically so. Thus in my opinion their origin story is more likely to explain unexplainable natural phenomena
such as sickness and say, lightning.

Does it imply that our perceptions are not direct? Could there be other factors involved in perception apart from the the object of perception, sensory organs, memories and experiences?

Exactly. More evidence that the brain (not the eyes) is where objects, real or imaginary, are "seen".

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" --Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, folks focus (overly focus, in my opinion) on the life vs death of the fetus when addressing the topic of abortion, whereas the crux of the issue lies elsewhere, namely whose autonomy should supercede the other's.

It just appears that way because of the schism between the people and the legislature.

If this was an exercise in all of the possible definitions of "house", then yes. But in exploring the agreements between the homeowner and the contrators, no.

The most common reason for advocating for abortion bans is not acknowledging that this topic is one of competing interests (fetus va adult woman). Thus any argument that addresses only one side of the topic (such as "abortion is murder") is at minimum incomplete, but usually is intellectually dishonest.

Think it this way. A house requires an architect who designs it. A builder who constructs it using the materials from the supplier.

A pile of building materials is not a house.

The OP implies that there is one entity called "love". However most agree there are different types of love. Some are described as a burning fire, others as glowing embers.

When someone really has your back, that's being loved. It's easy to be romantic when things are going well.

But the bigger issue is what it says about someone's life experience (and make up) who needs to ask the question. Nothing dramatic, I hope in your family's case. Good luck.

Uuuumm, no. There is a societal concensus where "responsibility" lies. No personal injury lawyer will try to hold a citizen standing next to the lever (or someone who knows how to swim walking along the shoreline of the pond, to use your example) legally "responsible" for the trolley or pond tragedies, not because they (like you) can't concoct a legal (or "logical") argument to do so, rather because no group of 12 citizens would agree with the argument. No, the trolley maintainance people and the individual who pushed the kid are responsible. It is a common error to confuse a missed opportunity for excellence with incompetence or malfeasance.

The reason why I focus on responsibility specifically is that despite your protestations to the contrary, when most answer the trolley problem they use wording such as "I could never pull the level since I wouldn't want to be responsible for the death of an innocent bystander".

As to logical criticism of action or inaction, you're missing why the trolley problem was invented in the first place. It is an example of a situation where a logical argument can be created for both choices, thus why some casually refer to it as a paradox. If it was a choice between one person on one track and five mannequins on the other track, there would be a single logical answer (whereby those who don't choose it could be logically criticized), but no one would care about or repeat such a trivial "problem".

The way the trolley problem is classically set up missed two important points. First, the trolley maintainance people are responsible for the outcome, not the bystander who happens to be near the lever. Second, at the time the lever is pulled (or not pulled) the exact consequences of action or inaction is not known with certainty by the bystander. Thus the answer is "it doesn't matter", do whatever strikes you in the moment, you're not open to logical criticism either way.

Oh, I wasn't referring to the different subjective opinions on the "goodness" or "badness" of an action by various individuals, rather the reality that a single action which is (stipulated) objectively good for both the person performing the action and the person upon whom the action is performed can also be objectively bad for a third person whose bad effect may be downstream.

this OP is meant to explore, intellectually, the underlying justification for self-defense. Of course, the intellectual pursuit of a coherent ethical theory is going to be much different from the reasoning one may find through experience.

I am essentially endeavoring on determining a fully coherent and plausible account of what is right and wrong; and so, although it may seem in practicality obvious that self-defense is permissible, I must be able to back that up intellectually in a way that coheres with my ethical theory.

In your OP, the second stipulated premise is completely dependent upon the perspective of the observer (specifically the labels of "bad" and "good"). Thus any "good" action I may choose to perform can produce a "bad" effect upon someone somewhere, perhaps in a tengential and/or marginally important or even measurable way or amount. In that case (practically all cases if one searches hard enough), then the action may be good from my perspective and perhaps to the direct recipient of my action, yet be bad to a third party, perhaps remote from the primary and secondary actors. Is the action therefore "good" if the third party suffered a "bad" outcome from it?

To my mind there are two practical options to address this situation. First, one could also stipulate that only the primary actor's perspective is used. In that case self defence would be "good" since from his perspective he is saving a life. The other option would be to acknowledge that all actions have good and bad qualities so the entire scheme needs to be adjusted to mean: "majority good" and "majority bad" (instead of good and bad). In that case self defense would be permissible because while partially "bad", it is majority "good".

Do you mean animals besides humans?

I agree with you that past racial discrimination has current generational effects. I also agree with the idea of current policies to compensate for this. I agree in addition that a lum sum check from the government is not a very good way to accomplish this. Firstly, because the government is currently underfunded to complete it's current mandate, let alone taking on this financial burden. Thus the fund drain would likely weaken the social safety net that these same individuals use disproportionately. Thirdly, this generational disadvantage will persist for several more generations regardless and I don't trust this generation's recipients to use the funds in such a way to benefit those future generations. Lastly, those future generations would likely suffer worse effects from the society declaring "hey we paid our debt, it's over, problem solved, let's do whatever we want to whomever we want".

Science is what you study to get a high salary job. The Humanities (and the Arts) is what you spend your high salary on.

Better quality medical care. Medical "tourists" aren't folks with lots of money available to spend on top notch care.

Yes, poor people in the US go to SE Asia for the better price, BUT rich people from SE Asia go to the US for better quality.

The fact is while your reality is worse than your estimation of "optimal", it's better than your estimation of what divorce has to offer, otherwise you guys would be moving towards divorce, but you're not.

In other words, the worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the protracted conditions under which it suffers; and those people can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page of the First World’s daily news. It’s an immoral consideration of ‘quality of life’.

First, it is an error to use First World newspaper coverage as the measure of importance or human caring. Are Third World media carrying these stories in significantly higher volume?

A lot of the current elderly took a 5hit ton of drugs in their day.

Just don't get seriously ill.