The only true dilemma is why shouldn't I act only in accordance with my whims? If truth and morality are man made, and not objective, but merely someone else's arbitrary impositions on me, for ultimately selfish, deceitful, and or antiquated values. If it's all motivated, power struggles, identity politics, and tribalistic allegiances, then why shouldn't I behave only in accordance with my own preferences and benefits? The only real objection to that could be that it wouldn't work, that no one is skilled enough in manipulation or deception to get away with it, but that can be reduced to the lack of certainty, and fear of
failure involved in any undertaking. It isn't obviously impossible. What could be holding them back other than fear, slavery, and attachment?

Why shouldn't I just take everything I want from everyone in every moment? — Wosret

You do not take just everything you want from everyone every moment, and you dont' do the other things you question why ought not be doing them, because:

1. Morality exists
2. It is not man-made, but innate to man and other animals
3. You can't break the moral code you have

There is no "reasoning" out morality. It is not something negotiable. It has been borne out of survival advantage, it is a mutation that governs behaviour, and it is highly successful over those societies with individuals with no morality.

Morality is part of practical reasonableness, although morality has not been created by reason, but by evolutionary forces.

↪SophistiCat Not necessarily. Proof of an indeterministic universe in which we may be able to exert some agent control is always useful... — Mike Adams

Bit of a self-contradictory wish. If the universe is indeterministic, then the cause-effect chain is ineffective. Control does need cause-effect chain to be working. But it's not. So control is impossible, in a non-deterministic universe.

I did not read the PDF. However, I believe I have valuable advice to share with you.

True things that dictate opposite action can co-exist either in time or in aspect, but not in both time and aspect.

Thus, "Go West, Young man" is one advice, "Go East, young man" is one advice. Let's call them AW, and AE, for short (Advice go West, Advice go East, respectively.)

AW and AE can both be given at the same time, but not at the same respect: on the West Coast, AE is given, on the East Coast, AW is given.

AW and AE can both be given in the same aspect, but at different times. In Memphis, Tennessee, AW was given in the mid-1800s to go find gold and wealth. In the late 20th century, in the same place, also to aid the finding of wealth, AE was given.

In Chicago, or anywhere else, a good advice was never given "AE AND AW".

--------------

Coming to your Trade Dispute, whether to protect domestic rod wire or to continue to let imports come in: It is a case I believe where the aspect is different. The time is obviously the same.

In case of the domestic protectionists, they bring up reasons to support their case which do not oppose the reasons of the cheap import supporters, and vice versa. The reasons both camps give are independent from the reasons of the other camp. Thus, the results of their findings can be different, and both can be true, because they do not address the same issues. Their ASPECTS are different.

My advice would be to convince the Committee or whoever that makes the final or interim decision on cheap imports, is to force the two camps to measure the same parameters and to present their cases on those bases. Then both the time will be the same, and the aspect as well.

I am not getting this out of my own head, or out of thin air. The ancients already established that "nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect." This is the law of the excluded middle.

--------------

An interesting note: some recent findings (in the last 50-100 years) in the area of Quantum Mechanics belied with empirical evidence that this intuitive, and seemingly unassailable truth of the law of the excluded middle holds. The famous (albeit metaphorically meant at the time) statement by Heidegger, or was it Himmler, or maybe Alzheimer or Heimlich-Goebbels, or Erwin Schwartzinger, (I'm bad with German last names) was "The cat is both alive AND dead". This was an explanation, but it has been shown by experiments that it is true.

can murder people after I die? How would that help? — anonymous66

I don't know what you can do after you die... some people talk about the dead visiting, but the best they can do is drive you insane with constant rattling of bones and rattling chains, so you lose sleep before big the golf game with your boss. That's about all I've heard as facts regarding the actions of the dead.

Please don't give in to the hype... the "night of the living dead" was made with dead extras, there were not any famous dead celeb actors involved in the casting... The celebs mostly failed the auditions when they insisted they want to play Hamlet of Lady MacBeth, and in the middle of their soliloquy their left eye started to run out of its socket, or the actors tried to bite off the casting director's head.

Well, you can assume the judge is unfair, and start a raping and murdering campaign, peppered with lying, sabotaging work, spreading untrue rumours and doing some insider trading.

But... here's the hitch... you are not given the fact that the promise of reward in the afterlife for living a right life is true or the reverse is true.

This is not fantasy... it's a real life situation. Much as you simply and contently stated you won't mind being judged by a fair judge, you are given assurance neither pro, nor con. You have to decide that, and you have a 50% chance at any rate to go to hell or to go to heaven, and now you can answer your own question, whether there is anything you can do about it.

Uh? — BlueBanana

I decided to close the argument at a point that we can both claim victory. If you don't like that, we can continue, but basically I find it pointless because now we are both saying the same thing, which is, the almighty could have done a better job, and I couldn't have, so what is the point of further arguing? To carry on an argumentative debate, the two parties have to disagree, which you and I don't.

So what do you want to talk about next? If it's a different topic, then please start one and I'll do my darndest to contribute. (Not a perfect guarantee.)

Historically, this just proves that the Bible and its interpretations have always been an evolving document. — schopenhauer1

Wow. Hold on. The words of the Bible do not change. Do you mean to say that previous interpretations were wrong, or that the interpretations were right for the time?

I mean, times are different now. Nobody gets to be burnt at the stakes any more for insisting that the Earth is round. I understand that by your saying that the bible is an evolving (?) document, you mean that human knowledge makes it necessary to re-evaluate parts of the bible for keeping it compatible for the new undeniable truths of the world, which the bible contradicts.

Fair enough, everyone knows that. But why use the word "evolution", or rather, a derivative of it, if neo-Darwinist evolution is still so vehemently denied by the religious? Are you not blaspheming by using this concept, which, by force of faith, is a wrongful, impossible thing to happen? If it is impossible, why can the document do it (without even changing itself) but not the biosphere?

So the document is evolving, without changing... that's not a Darwinist evolution then. What kind of evolution are we talking about?

Or are you using the word in a colloquial sense? In that case, how come the bible still insists that the Earth is flat? Or that a virgin can bring forth a child, or some people back 6000 years ago or so could live to be 600 years old or more, etc? Or that a man built a boat with the help of his family which was able to house all species of animals and plants for six weeks, with no food?

This is what you call evolution? I think new and more and more new interpretations are not a process of solving any mystery; it is, instead, merely rationalization in a very forced manner to stop the holy text from getting ridiculed by the faithful. Others are already astonished how reasonable people can believe it's a word of god, merely by looking at its description of events proven to be impossible which it boasts as historical truth.

There you go. 8-)

If I'm not judged, that would be okay, too. If I was to know in advance there was no afterlife, that would be okay, too. — anonymous66

Fair enough.

What about being judged by a ruler in the afterlife who has not communicated his or her objectives to you, in fact, mislead you, and what you consider a life well lived, and expect rewards for it, is exactly the opposite to for what he rewards the dead?

I mean, I sort of get it that if you are judged by a fair judge, you will be happy. But what about an unfair judge? Have you considered that possibility?

"First of all, please explain on what ground you expect a mortal to do the job of a God"
— szardosszemagad

As I have stated, I don't. — BlueBanana

You implied that you did. You asked me if I could do a better job. That's a loaded question, not merely a simple inquiry.

Ie. what justifies the unreasonable expectations set on deities by us mortals? — BlueBanana

I don't think the expectations are unreasonable. Why do you think it is unreasonable to expect a God to do for what I criticized Him for not doing?

Having read Plato, I think I'm okay with being judged by a good, objective judge, if it comes to that. — anonymous66

That covers one of the two possibilities. "If it comes to that". And what is your stance on the issue should it not come to that? :-)

Man, your reading comprehension skills really have a lot of room for improvement. What you quoted as something I allegedly have said, is something I never said. Please retract your statement or else please erase / delete that post of yours. (That post of yours being two posts above this one of mine here.)

First, that answers neither of my questions. Second, no. — BlueBanana

Both of your questions were so worded that they defied a reasonable answer. First you appealed to me to perform a job a deity can only do (to your credit, at that time you were not aware I am a mere mortal). Secondly, your question involved a concept which does not exist (title of God). Your attempt at, and then later your abandoning attempting to, meaningfully respond to my criticism of your questions' nature leaves no question by you to be answered.

First of all, please explain on what ground you expect a mortal to do the job of a God; in my opinion it's an expectation that is too high. On the other hand, expecting God to be better than what a mortal can do is only reasonable, and that's exactly where the God of the Christian Bible fails its call.

Second of all, you asked why I defer the quality of workmanship expected in thought to God's title, and I replied there is no title that God uses. After that you abandoned the title issue, and demand an answer from me anyway.

Your questions were so worded and the thoughts behind them were so wrong that no reasonable person could come up with a direct answer to them.

Please, if you want me to answer any of your questions, ask some that can be answered by applying reasonable thought.

Your reputation as an educated intelligent man or woman would have been better served by keeping your private opinion private. — Bitter Crank

I have to admit that my values are more precious to me than reputation.

And I do proselytize my way; the religious do it their own way. I do it by fighting the mental and intellectual sludge-lodge of miasma of religious teaching and dogma by pointing out exactly what they are.

God itself is the title I'm referring to. Did you purposefully dodge my point? — BlueBanana

God is His name. Not His title. I am not dodging anything. You may refer to God as His job title, or occupation name, which is not quite the same as "title". For instance, Mr. President: Mr. is his title, President is his job title.

You asked me if I were dodging your point. I ask you: Do you get most of your reading comprehension and language skills honed by reading the Gospel and/or the Old Testament?

Sorry to be so pointed. But your "yes" would explain a lot.

I think the mad fool made the "given" that lying is bad, or evil, and saying the truth is good.

That is a condition, to which we must stick if we are to follow through with the arguments.

I think that there are potentially more lies than true statements, but they are not all uttered. For instance, there are about seven quatrillion names for the POTUS, but only one is right. But nobody says that the POTUS is Hank Smithy or Jane Rubinstein, or Ivan Gorcsev. No, everyone says "Prez Trump".

So there are more utterances of the truth than utterances of lies, while admitting that there are potentially more lies that could be generated than true statements.

But these lies are hardly ever generated, so good prevails.

Exactly my point. You admit you couldn't do any better, so how is it fair to ask a god to do the same thing just because of their title? — BlueBanana

The god has no title. God God. Or the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is not unique to God.

So you are appealing to something I missed which does not even exist.

-----------------------

Sir God. Lady God. Mr. God. Rev. God. The Right Honourable God. President God. None of these ring right.

The only title I can think of that sticks is E-Gad, which stands, I guess, for Electric God.

"Budai, Hotei or Pu-Tai[1][2] (Chinese and Japanese: 布袋; pinyin: Bùdài; rōmaji: Hotei[3]; Vietnamese: Bố Đại) is a Chinese folkloric deity. " — Wosret

Budai is actually NOT the Buddha. It is Budai. It's like mixing up Himmler with Hitler.

Your fact is totally dead on true, but is unfortunately irrelevant in this case.

The Laughing Buddha is not the Laughing Budai, Romaji, Hotei, or Bo Dai. It is the Buddha. Check Wiki again if you don't believe me.

A god that leaves his followers in a daze about what he meant should be disqualified as a god for incompetence.
— Sir2u

Do you think you could do any better with no experience of the job? — BlueBanana

Well, if I were a god, I'd try. But I am not. So... why do you ask Sir2u to perform a task which only gods are required to do? This is like asking a sea mollusk to solve a second degree equation system with five unknowns. You simply can't ask a mortal to perform the job of a god. That is not fair.

I am with Sir2u on the issue. The bible is so badly written, with so many infactuals, so many logical impossibilities, that one's hair stands on end when one thinks it has been inspired by a god.

In my private opinion the bible was written by uneducated, stupid men and women, and there is nothing godly about it. It is a badly written book for guidance and knowledge, and that's about the size of it.

It is extremely hard to predict the future and you ask whether it can be done.

In my opinion it can't. If you plan long enough into the future, scientifically or otherwise, there are so many unknowns that will creep in into your world view on which you base your predictions, that your model will eventually fail.

The question whether science can "iron out" successfully all snags and not create new ones, is ultimately an empirically decided question. We can't predict the future, whether it will be successful or un- for our purposes of investigation.

Like you said, entropy will ultimately prevail, and everything will slowly come to a grinding halt... never to halt, but to approach a halted state in time infinite.

"Probation" eh? You sound like a bad influence... What did you do? — Wosret

I replied to you saying that Budai and its variations are not the Buddha. I meant this application of logic seriously, but nevertheless mine was a funny post, or an attempt at humour. I insisted that the Laughing Buddha does depict the Buddha, and not the Budai et al.

I said something to the effect that mixing up the Buddha with the Budai et al is a mistake like mixing up Groucho Marx with Karl Marx. Then I said maybe there was the Buddha, and there was another Buddha, much like there was Jesus, and there was a lesser known God also called Jesus, with a different life story and stuff.



I don't know why that post still hasn't appeared.

I don't understand your post, but I like it nevertheless. It sounds zen. — andrewk

Ahem. A circular reasoning is one in which the assumption or premise plays a vital role in the system.

All systems depend on premises and logic.

The system can't prove anything that is outside of the system.

Therefore the system can only prove itself, and in doing so, it can only prove its own premises.

"God exists therefore God exists" is a singularly circular reasoning. "Beeelyuns and Beeelyuns of years ago" by Karl Sagan has much more many premises, but they all collapse into the proof of the material world, which is nothing but its own premises.

In the material world, premises are getting discovered and invented all the time, but it does not subtract from the fact that it is a system of circular reasoning.

Therefore I reject the argument "you are using circular reasoning". It is only valid insofar as to say something to the effect, or similar to, "your circular reasoning has fewer features than mine has, and which are essential parts of reality".

I replied to you, Wosret, but my reply is apparently under "probation".

I close this discussion. I don't tolerate senseless and unnecessary censorship well.

If this continues, I may quit the site altogether.

Every mention of philosophical merit is ultimately circular.

The only variation is the size of the radius.

Only God could play dice, and win every throw. That is actually true. Jesus was notorious for winning at the races, and at Dirndle and at Russian Roulette. He had a 1 for one batting average at games of chance.

He eventually gave up gambling, because the random element that makes winning at games of chance addictive, was completely amiss in His history of gambling experience.

That's a Chinese God, and not Buddha. There are times to be serious, and things to be serious about. — Wosret

I happen to be Chinese today. The Laughing Buddha is not a Chinese God. Maybe it's not the Buddha, but I think it is, because it is called The Laughing Buddha. Maybe it is not the same Buddha that you worship, but a different person by the same name. Much like there was Groucho Marx and Karl Marx, or Kate Bush and George W. Bush. Or Jesus and Jesus (many don't worship this lesser known Jesus, but He is also mighty and a powerful God.)

Sure there are times to be serious. And there are times to be frivolous. "There is a time for everything." But the quote I quoted from you quoted from Buddha denies the right to exist for any frivol.

"Seriousness is the province of immortality; frivolity, the province of death. They that are serious do not die; they that are frivolous are always dead. Therefore would the wise be serious. The wise attain the supreme blessing, nirvana. He sees his glory increase who is energetic and can remember, who thinks honestly and acts deliberately, who is continent, who lives within the law, and who is serious. It is frivolity the fools and the weak-minded pursue; the wise treasure seriousness as a miser his gold. The monk who would be serious, who sees the danger of frivolity, shakes the evil law like the wind does the leaves; he tears asunder the bonds that bind him to the world; he is close to nirvana. Standing on the terrace of wisdom, released from all suffering, the serious man who has conquered frivolity looks out over the unhappy multitude, as, from the summit of a mountain, one might gaze upon the crowd in the plains below." - Buddha. — Wosret

This sounds so much like "spare the moronic boredom and spoil the kid." I like to laugh; and what about Nirvana? Is that not equal to "nothingness"? and if it IS equal to nothingness, then don't the serious get to experience mortality?

This whole Buddhist thinking makes no sense, forces man to live an unnatural life, and it's for the birds, as far as I can tell.

Don't you see some sculptures of the "Laughing Buddha"? Well, what's up with that? Or is there humour that is serious, and is there sombre thought that is frivolous?

When I originally created my post, to which you referred two or three posts up, I said "technology is at most 2000 years old". Then I thought of the pyramids, and corrected it to 5,000 years old. Then I thought of the wheel, the fire, and the bow and arrow, the stone-age tools, circumcision, and decided that technology is as old as man himself.

So I cut through the mustard, and called it "70 years" for "Hi-tech", and that almost seemed to have stuck... until you came along with your post. :-)

This thread reminds me of how fondly people place the nobility and serenity of nature above man's achievements, and how incongruously quote irrelevant facts.

Man can change building huts from straw to building huts from mud. Man can migrate to better climate. Man can get things he really wants, just like squirrels, or even better.

It is one thing to be enamoured by the beauty and attraction of nature; it is another thing to extrapolate from that beauty to declaring that man's achievements are inferior to those of nature. (For one thing, man is part of nature; what ever man does is an act of nature, by extension. Man is not supernatural or outside of nature. Man is a natural being, and the artificial things he creates are a sign of his ingenuity.)

I don't know whether to compare the posts in this thread to poetry, or to "rooting for the underdog".

Is the name of Buddha less recognizable than that of Einstein? Are the names of Marx, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, less recognizable than those of Newton, Mendeleyev, Anyos Jedlik or Janos von Neumann?

What about Reubens, Rembrandt, Michelangeo; Dante, Shakespeare, Bronte; Austen, Chaucer (*), Rodin, Henry Moore, Raquel Welsh, Brigitte Bardot, Sir Thomas Moore, Henry the eighth, Ivan the Terrible, pharao Cheops Gilgamesh?

Name recognition, the magnitude of it, does not depend on a given person's area of expertise; it depends on how high above the rest he or she is standing out in a particular field of endeavour.

(*) This one only as an age-old and renewable torture device for young students.

I see philosophy, when I talk of giants and lions, as pure, unforgiving, cruel logic applied. People are scared to think that there is a real world of ideals out there. They are scared to thing that there is no real world out there at all. They are scared to think that there is or there is not a categorical imperative of morality. They are scared to think that there is a real possiblity that there is a god out there or that there isn't. People are scared of their ordinary thoughts that they have taken for granted for years or for decades proven to be fallacies and/or self-contradictory statements. People are scared to ponder whether they are merely atuomatons, or that they actually don't have a free will at all. They are scared to realize that the world does not operate on a {good deed -- reward} basis at all times.

Those who are not scared of, and furthermore propagate and discover how logic applied to life can turn our entire weltaschauung upside-down, are the giants and the lions.

Nature had billions of years to perfect itself. If you listen to materialist atheists. But man has toyed with hi-tech for only about 70 years.

It's time to give man and his technology a chance. Please, be a bit more patient.

your posts raises the question what the difference between a Buddhist atheist and a material atheist is. The Buddhist believes in reincarnation, and that is a supernatural process; much like god is a supernatural element. Supernatural is a no-no for a material atheist.

So is there salvation for a material atheist, do you think, Jancanc? One would tend to agree with John Gould that suffering and pleasure are both eliminated by an eternal death. Throwing the baby out with the bath water. So would you still say that for all atheists (incl. material atheists) suffering leads to salvation?

There certainly are Buddhists who identify as atheists and find salvation in the aforementioned. — jancanc

Whether they find it or not is yet to be seen; they believe that's what they will find. No feedback has ever been received about it. Whether they found it or not.

That's the only problem with belief systems which regard the afterlife. No feedback. None. Nada. So nothing is believable, and everything is believable. Any claim about life in the afterlife is equal to every other claim in dependability and precision; both being zero.

Well... from an implicit atheist stance, strictly speaking, there is no salvation.

Buddhism is a transition between theism and atheism... that's why Buddhist call some of their activities "transcendental"... it transitions from atheism to theism, without embracing either.

Jancanc: this is how christianity avoides the paradox (I am quoting Sam, no imput by me):

P1: One's suffering is necessary for one's salvation.
P2: Altruism creates suffering in the emitter and removes suffering in the receiver.
C1: Altruism helps the salvation of the emitter but harms the salvation of the receiver. It is therefore selfish because it benefits only the altruist in the end.
But altruism is by definition an act of selflessness. This contradicts C1.

The argument is valid, but I dispute P1. A heartless man is not likely to receive salvation, even if he happens to suffer a great deal. Much like ↪John Days said, what is necessary for salvation is a good will, and suffering is only an effect of this, not a necessity. — Samuel Lacrampe

In Christianity, to attain salvation, all you have to do is accept Christ as your saviour. There is no road to salvation via altruism in Christianity. So I dispute P1 for different reasons than Sam.

I continue my quest of watching this long, boring, drawn-out, but well acted movie. I am up to the point where he returns the tux and cloak to the rental shop, without the mask. Then I fell asleep hopelessly again.

I shall attempt to watch another segment of the movie soon.

I think Jancanc is trying to come from a Buddhist source, but he did not say that (I don't know why.) There is a Buddhist route to nirvana/salvation, and a Christian way. Both involve (in Buddhism it's a necessity, in Xty it is not) altruism on the path to salvation. In Buddhism this leads to a paradox and in Xty it does not.

You mean, I should run for president when Trump gets ambisecrotancted.

Thanks, :-)