Spot on! I agree whole-heartedly but that opens Pandora's box. Now, we can't be sure of anything at all. We were smug about deductive justification - conclusions were certain given true premises - but now, all bets are off.
— TheMadFool

Only when one's temperament is driven toward infallibility, much as Descartes' was. This doesn't apply for the fallibilist. But trying for a simple approach to a complex issue: — javra

Rationality, for better or worse, is the self-proclaimed infallible authority. I'm merely testing it on itself. Fail!

Neither — javra

One cannot obtain justification for justification — javra

:chin:

If you personally disagree and find justification to not be trustworthy, why continue in justifying anything at all, ever? — javra

This isn't me justifying anything. This is rationality vs rationality. Can rationality justify itself? No! It can't! There's more to this than meets the eye but, sadly, I can't put my finger on it at the moment.

Give me a minute to edit my OP. — Wheatley

You have a Minute To Win It! :lol:

That part is bullshit. It's an acknowledgement of the ideas of the time. — frank

Look again!

Because by virtue of a time warp you're in 1994? — frank

When are you from? :chin: — Sarah Connor

C'mon, you know better than this. — tim wood

I wish that were true but, luckily/unluckily, it ain't.

By the way, I'm fairly certain, out of character for a skeptic, that if symmetry is a property of the universe, and scientists seem to be zeroing in on that position, whatever I said would be true, no?

It may be valid, but the truth of it a different matter. — tim wood

I can live with that.

If "matter-antimatter" was a symmetry, then the universe would not exist — 180 Proof

Broken symmetry! However, this could be just a phase in the cosmic tango - antimatter may show up and do its thing whatever that is. Yin-Yang specifically mentions that the balance between opposites is fluid, changing from one extreme to another and back.

Suffering is made contagious by pity — frank

That's his take on empathy. This is going to get depressing!

Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. — frank

He was contextualizing human psychology within Darwinism. Nothing wrong with that but...he seems to be forgetting that the mind has its own agenda, the mind is a universe unto itslelf and in my humble opinion doesn't kowtow to evolution. If you ask me, it seems happy where it is and thus the technological frenzy to adapt the world to us instead of the other way round.

Pity is problematic if it's part of a rejection of life on it's terms. — frank

Let me play by Nietzsche's rules. Microsoft Windows comes to mind. I'm not an Apple fan, sorry if that's offensive. Anyway, there's an icon on the desktop, a picture of a dustbin. Into it goes all files you delete. Why is it there?

If, then, doesn't have to be. Doesn't even have to be the if.

And, symmetry in the universe is not to be casually asserted or assumed - it's just not a simple topic. — tim wood

I checked the references and my statement that science has unearthed symmetry in the universe holds up. A simple example would be matter-antimatter.

bert1 is close, close enough for government work.

Take a fair, six-sided die [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Randomness, in my book, simply means all six possibilities are equiprobable [1/6]. The probability of 1/6 is what we call theoretical probability. If one rolls this die a very large number of times, what we can do is look at the relative frequency of each outcome aka experimental probability. If the experimental probability = the theoretical probability = 1/6 for each possibility, that's as random as random can get, for a die that is.

Thanks for asking this question because, right/wrong, I've managed develop a system of argumentation/justification vis-à-vis ontology. The basic idea is to assume as an axiom that the universe is symmetrical - cold/hot, hard/soft, good/bad, you get the idea. We know that determinism exists in the universe and since the universe is symmetrical, (true) randomness must also exist.

We are motivated to use normative reasons not because it is an infallible means of evidencing truths but because it is the best means we have at our disposal of so doing. — javra

Spot on! I agree whole-heartedly but that opens Pandora's box. Now, we can't be sure of anything at all. We were smug about deductive justification - conclusions were certain given true premises - but now, all bets are off.

is evidently not true, as is evidenced by all the justifications going on. Dare I say, you will need to justify this bare affirmation if you want to establish it as just (correct). But in so doing you'll evidence it false — javra

Haven't had time to mull over this as much as I'd have liked. I'll offer an argument which will, fingers crossed, drive the point home.

Justification = logic (arguments that demonstrate truth of claims)

Is justification justified (J) or is justification unjustfied (~J)?

Suppose someone comes up with a justification M that justfies J. The catch: Justification M presupposes J. In other words, M commits the fallacy of begging the question. Every justification for J commits the same fallacy. Ergo there are no justifications for J. Ergo, ~J!

~J!

Mu! :confused:

The term "ad hominem" applies to arguments. An insult is not an argument and is not an ad hominem attack. — T Clark

Well, that's not what I said. Insults constitute ad hominems i.e. dishing out insults when an argument is underway is ad hominem. That's what I think anyway.

The form of an ad hominem looks like this:

A makes an argument T to B.
B launches an attack A's character and (erroneously) concludes argument T is no good.

Attack on A's character can be done and is done with insults.

Was he a revolutionary? — frank

I don't recall calling him that.

Or a lunatic? — frank

I vaguely remember calling him that. I'm not sure why?

Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not. — 180 Proof

Ouch! :cry:

What if I were to tell you that what you said is right on the money but there's more to love than just that. True, in love we "...see things most decidedly as they are not" but love isn't about what someone is but about what someone can become. Love isn't about the actual but about the potential. Necessarily then, "love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not."

What sayest thou, o wise one? Sense/Nonsense?

But Clark, all those statements are true! I WANT to be a smart East Coast urban sophisticate, but what with oat chaff in my hair, and bullshit between my ears — Bitter Crank

:lol:

it's too difficult to pull it off — Bitter Crank

:lol: × 2

St. Thomas Aquinas was celebrating mass on the feast of St. Nicholas in 1273 and had a revelation. He said, " All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me". He stopped writing, leaving the Summa Theoogicae unfinished.

:clap: My neural network has been rearranged!

Te Shan burnt all this commentaries and books on Zen within hours of his awakening to the truth. Why? Zen master Munan gave Shoju his sacred book on Zen that had been passed down through seven generations of masters. Shoju threw it into burning coals.

Why?
— Angelfire.com

WHY? WHY? WHY?....ad :vomit:

A lot of them don’t make sense to me. — T Clark

The Taoist in you speaks. I'm all ears.

Fortunately or not, you haven't said anything we don't know already. What looked promising turned out to be a major disappointment.

The ad hominem fallacy is premised on a simple truth: bad people can make good arguments and before I forget, good people can make good arguments. Conversely, bad people will sometimes argue badly but the thing is even good people are susceptible to the same malady.

Put simply, no correlation exists between the character of a person (good/bad/both/neither) and the quality of the argument fae makes. Thus, to attack someone (I think you used the word "insult") in an argument is to completely miss the point - you're fallaciously insinuating that character bears on the how good an argument is but that's false.

A true Taoist who really isn't a Taoist would recognize that there should be exceptions to this rule of thumb and there are. You see it in movies with a legal plot. The lawyer attempts to discredit a testimony by casting doubt on the character (liar, druggie, mobster, felon, basically biased, etc.) of the witness. A lawyer isn't guilty of an ad hominem in this case because character is germane, so they say, to the truth of a testimony.

That's all for now, folks!

Asking this is akin to asking an individual about their personal problems — Xtrix

This is the key premise! How does an individual deal with faer own problems? Not very intelligently as far as I can tell. Can we blame the world then, if it is an individual as you say it is?

Is there something about being an individual that keeps one from making good decisions about one's own life? Certainly yes, what it is is a mystery to me, but more to the point, the same something maybe holding back the world too, preventing it from making the right choices.

Yet, individualism is as old as the hills and the world's problems are fairly recent developments. Is it a question of creating the right environment - the modern world - for individualism to do its damage or is individualism the fall guy?

Are we on the same page here?

Sorry bro — Kenosha Kid

Don't be sorry! Being human has its charms if chain smoking is one!

Seems like you’re nearing the threshold of (global/radical) fallibilism. — javra

I went all the way.

Yes to the quote, but, all the same, eppur si muove - as evidenced by the justification you’ve provided in your post. — javra

I think I get it now, more or less.

Justification L:

Question: Is [justification justified (J)]?

1. Yes. There has to be a justification for J. However, if there's a justification for J, I'm presupposing J. J, that's why there's a justification for J. Circularity, unaccpetable according to the principles of justification itself.

Ergo, not J. In other words (Disjunctive syllogism),

2. No. Justification is unjustified (~J). Initially, I began to work with ~J to figure out what it entails what entails it, looking for inconsistencies, etc. but ~J is a conversation stopper! It's beyond justification. :zip: :brow: :chin:

The Good news: We have proven ~J (justification is unjustified).

The Bad news: We can't use justifications with ~J.

What's the situation here?

We've managed to prove ~J. That's all she wrote. The Mitsubishi A6M Zero had a maximum range of 1,870 km.

I was raised by wolves — Kenosha Kid

Lucky you! I was raised by humans. :smile:

To me it sounds a bit authoritarian, I have to justify whatever I believe (or else...). — Wheatley

Justification is basically proving/demonstrating the truth of a claim. It's the hallmark of rationality but there's a catch. If rationality is so tough on claims, what about the statement, J = Justification is mandatory. If J, as per rationality, applies to all claims, it must apply to itself in the spirit of fairness.

My first encounter with this conundrum was around 8 years ago and back then it was just a question, "is there a justification for why justification is mandatory?" Someone, can't recall who exactly, edified me on the problem. To justify J, we assume J. Why else would we try and justify J? To justify J then is to commit the fallacy of begging the question.

Irony of ironies: Rationality decrees that justification is mandatory always and this must apply to itself but to justify that justification is mandatory is impossible (always begs the question). Thus, justificationism has no leg to stand on.

I'm an atheist (and a physicalist) — Kenosha Kid

What happened to you? Who did this to you? :joke:

Strawman-ish. For the oppressed, their 'terrorism' (i.e. asymmetric resistance) is not a matter of "the ends justifies the means" but instead, as Marx (or Engles?) points out, they have nothing to lose except their chains. — 180 Proof

The point though is not just that such people, organizations, countries even are guilty of a cardinal sin against logic (contradiction) but actually the extremely difficult circumstances that contrive to make something so unreasonable appear so reasonable. — TheMadFool

We suspend our judgment on the means as long as the end is a greater good compared to the means. — Wittgenstein

I humbly beg to differ. The entire notion of ends justifying means is premised on the means being ethically suspect (verging on the bad or evidently bad). Isn't that why its validation (acceptable) lies elsewhere, in the ends. There's nothing good in the means; ergo, use the ends, good, to justify them. That seems to be the meat and potatoes insofar as I can tell. Signing off now.

Interesting observation, l think its difficult to terrorize unless you take up arms. Cyber attacks is an option though. Terrorism is usually defined as "using terror and violence against civilians for political motives ".

However non violent organizations have been designated as terrorist in some countries. Take hizb ut tahrir, they want to establish a global caliphate through peaceful means. They were banned for a weird reason, their followers tended to becoming more radicalized later on after being pacifist for a while, hizb ut tahrir was functioning as a coverup for other terrorist organizations. This group is banned in Muslim countries and yet it operates freely in non Muslim countries — Wittgenstein

I'm in two minds about this but the matter, luckily or not, boils down to whether or not the ends justify the means.

Suppose, for argument's sake, ends do justify the means. This is tantamount to saying everything is permissible so long as an objective is achieved. This issue is alive only in an ethical context and is usually understood as the bad is allowed to the extent a good can be attained. This principle (the ends justify the means) if we could call it that has been used so often by so many people that it's almost become a standard response to many of our problems (the just war).

However, there's a contradiction that's not so hard to sniff out. The ends justify the means implies that the bad is permissible for the good but then good means bad is impermissible. Thus, to endorse the position that the ends justify the means is self-contradictory: bad is impermissible ( :down: ) and the bad is permissible ( :up: ).

Ergo, terrorism or any other ideology that subscribes to the maxim the ends justify the means is self-refuting. The point though is not just that such people, organizations, countries even are guilty of a cardinal sin against logic (contradiction) but actually the extremely difficult circumstances that contrive to make something so unreasonable appear so reasonable.

Terrorism, to my reckoning, is simply a struggle carried out with arms. The struggle maybe fully justified but resorting to arms is an entirely different story. Those who say terrorism is a big no-no are focused on the method (arms) and those who condone it are giving their full attention to the motive (struggle whatever that is).

One very wise person once told me, look at life one way (the bright side) and life is too short and look at life another way (the dark side) and life is too long. Life, it appears, is just another name for time. How can something (life = time) be both too short and too long?! This is about what people call subjective time and its length/duration seems to depend on whether one's having fun or one's feeling the blues among other things probably. In essence, if a man lives for 90 years, if he were happy, he'd feel it to be less than 90 and if he were, unfortunately, sad the same 90 years would feel more than 90. The only real way subjective time makes sense (less than 90 years or more than 90 years) is if objective time were itself real (90 years) as a reference point or comparison. Which comes first though? Subjective or objective time? Whether time is real would depend on the answer to that question, no? After all objective time implies time isn't an illusion, it's real.

I can't wrap my head around one thing. God, according to theists, imbues our lives with meaning.
— TheMadFool

It's more that: if what materialism says is true - if we are a kind of 'rogue chemical reaction', the outcome of a 'collocation of atoms', as Bertrand Russell put it- then any idea of meaning is basically an illusion. — Wayfarer

Indeed, true or not, I feel that Synergy is applicable to some systems and that,

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. — Aristotle

Though biology sees us as "sacks of chemistry" as Neil deGrasse Tyson says, it still must contend with the plain and simple truth that we're not just "sacks of chemistry". There's so much more to us than that.

The analogy I like to use is that of a building. Yes, the floor on top supervenes on the floor below but each floor has its own thing going on, its own unique characteristics, its own perspective as it were to reality. Likewise, though the mind depends on biology and biology depends on chemistry, so and so forth, each of these levels must be treated as fully legit areas of concern/study.

If ...free will is important ...it's more reasonable to assume that God would grant us full self-determination which means we're at liberty to pick n choose our own purpose, our very own meaning, suited to our tastes and temperament.
— TheMadFool

That is actually what mainstream Christianity believes.

let God dictate your life's choices
— TheMadFool

And that isn't. — Wayfarer

:ok:

Many thanks for such a masterly reply to my question which guided me towards remembering what I first read back in the early 1970s when I started to read philosophy at the new British Open University and found that wonderful arrogant piece from Ayer’s Language Truth and Logic that, “metaphysical statements such as “God exists” are unverifiable and meaningless.”
God is not the important factor for me but his dismissal of metaphysical most certainly was. — Brian Leahy

Given the way God's defined, incorporeal and such, God is unverifiable and if one defines meaning(fulness) as only that which is verifiable, God is meaningless, no?

Ayer probably used God as an index case, the quintessential metaphysical claim, and if you disagree with him, you should be worried.

Verifiability is, as far as it matters to me, a critical concept in philosophy but my reasons may differ from those who originally proposed it. In the age of the internet we're in, we're bombarded with email scams - money, cars, degrees, jobs are all being used as bait for the unwary individual. How does one sort out the genuine good offer from the bad ones? You cross-check, you ask around, you do some Googling, etc. What exactly is it that you're doing here? Verifying of course. Verification is one of many proven methods that help us tell the truth from a...wait for it...lie. In other words, that which fails verification is usually a falsehood/lie.

Given all of the above, what's your take now on the unverifiable? Is the unverifiable more like a lie (failed verification) or more like the truth (passed verification)? Should we give the unverifiable the benefit of the doubt (there maybe something to metaphysics after all) or should we err on the side of caution (metaphysics is nonsense)?

Imagine the following:

Scenario 1 [Verifiable claims]
Someone tells you to sell everything you have - laptop, car, house, everything - and give the proceeds to a charity but he'll give you 4 billion dollars in a box. You have the option of verifying if the box really does contain that sum of money.

Scenario 2 [Unverifiable claims/metaphysics]
Someone tells you to sell everything you have - laptop, car, house, everything - and give the proceeds to a charity but he'll give you 8 billion dollars in a box. You don't have the option of verifying if the box really does contain that sum of money.

What should you do?

My answers:

Scenario 1: You should obviously sell all you possess and take the 4 billion dollars. This is a no-brainer!

Scenario 2: Is the person making you the offer telling the truth or is it a lie. Do you see what's happened? Unverifiable literally means a lie makes an appearance as a possibility. I guess I answered my own question. If unverifiable were a number, it would be rounded off to a lie. Err on the side of caution is what this is called.

That said, giving the benefit of the doubt is also considered a reasonable course of action. Should we believe this person actually wants to part with 8 billion dollars? Not likely but, at the same time, not impossible!

It looks like we have two possibilities we have to tackle.

1. The possibility that the box is empty (a lie)
2. The possibility that the box is not empty (a truth)

The solution seems profoundly simple. Metaphysics is at its heart an exploration of possibility and so the metaphysician isn't actually bothered by the fact that fae could be wrong. All the metaphysician wants to do is to closely examine the possibility space as it were. Thus, to the metaphysician, selling everything fae has for the mere possibility that fae could gain 8 billion dollars is as good as it gets - a lucrative deal by all accounts.

I can't wrap my head around one thing. God, according to theists, imbues our lives with meaning. Without God, they claim, life/lives is/are meaningless. However, if God decides to what purpose each one of us should be put to, this purpose not of our own choosing, shouldn't we be worried rather than happy about this arrangement? There can be no free will under such circumstances - we're all supposed to perform a specific task given to us by God and that's that, no change requests, no complaining, no nothing.

If, on the other hand, free will is as important as people make it out to be, it's more reasonable to assume that God would grant us full self-determination which means we're at liberty to pick n choose our own purpose, our very own meaning, suited to our tastes and temperament.

This, as you might've already guessed, is precisely what an atheist would recommend - life is meaningless in the sense there's no real, forget about grand, reason why we're here. We're just here, that's all. Given this, each person now has power over faer destiny, fae can decide on his own terms, what to do with faer life. The bottom line is we exercise our free will to spend our lives the way we want to and that is our meaning/purpose.

The choices are clear, either one, be like the theist and let God dictate your life's choices (no free will) or two, be a theist still and realize that God's will is for you is to be master of your fate (free will) or three,be an atheist and decide in complete freedom to what purpose you want to consecrate your life to.

A theist should opt for the 2nd choice but the difference between it and the atheist's choice (3rd choice) is trivial.

That is why I am trying to draw its importance as a central aspect for thinking within philosophy. — Jack Cummins

This is a very profound statement. Wisdom has always been the philosopher's holy grail and that, to my reckoning, includes, not as an auxilliary but as a central component, knowledge of right and wrong. Morality is all-pervading, its scope is universal. It's dominion is coextensive with that of reason itself, the two work together, complementing each other, and one making up for the flaw in the other.

Almost all philosophers seem to have lost sight of this fact - morality is what moral philosophers think about not metaphysicians, epistemologists, logicians, etc. do. Philosophers are, the bottom line, people and when they exit there ivory towers and go out into the real world, they're constantly using their moral compass to guide their thought, actions, and speech. Yet, the moment a metaphysician meditates on metaphysics or an epistemologist mulls over knowledge, the moral compass I talked about does a disappearing act. This, to me, is to overlook one-half of wisdom viz. morality which would've acted as a guide to the other one-half, reason, and the world would've probably been a better place than it is now.

Firstly, such an attitude and practice fly against the very essence of philosophy as an earnest quest for wisdom (reasonable & good) and secondly, it indicates a congitive dissonance that if not corrected could have major ramifications for the world at large.

this life is extremely important — Jack Cummins

Agree 100%. I've personified life and just as it makes sense to ask, "how are your classmates treating you?" I feel it makes the same amount of sense if not more to ask yourself every so often, "how's life treating you?" The answer may be profoundly life-changing. Is the deal between you and life good (live longer) , bad (contemplate suicide), neither (meh) , both (confused)?

ethical insights — Jack Cummins

Frankly, I feel Kantian ethics and utilitarianism are both part of Bibilical ethics. The decalogue is basically duty ethics and heaven and hell have a hedonic character.

To be fair the ad Infinitum version of the argument requires an infinite succession of creators, so that does not work either.

And then a God-Creator would require a God-Creator Creator.

Is a first cause the same thing? We are looking for a cause for the existence of the universe, are we not? By 'we' I mean cosmologists like Lawrence Kraus. — FreeEmotion

I was, as they say, working backwards from Darwin's own statement, which I quoted, and what appears to be a general consensus among the intelligentsia that the universe proceeds thus: simple -> complex. That evolutionary biologists like Dawkins have no bone to pick with such a conception, i.e. they feel no need to explain the simple, speaks volumes. I suppose all these volumes can be distilled into one "simple" yet profound statement: the simple needs no explanation (so you can forget about the simplest needing one).

God, in Dawkins' and Darwin's universe, has to be the simplest and not (more) complex (than the universe) and for that reason needs no explanation, another way of saying God doesn't need a creator. Thus, Dawkins' argument in his book, The God Delusion, fails.

I'm going to focus on only one argument that Richard Dawkins makes in his book The God Delusion.

Theist's argument
1. Complex things require a creator [premise]
2. The universe is complex [premise]
Ergo,
3. The universe requires a creator = God [from 1, 2]

Richard Dawkins' Argument
4. A complex thing requires a creator more complex [premise]
5. God is more complex [from 3, 4]
6. If a complex thing requires a creator, a more complex thing also require a creator [premise]
Ergo,
7. God requires a creator [from 5, 6]

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed
into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. — Charles Darwin

In other words, evolution started off simple, not complex i.e. the evolution and by extension, the universe itself progresses like so: simple -> complex and not like Dawkins supposes: more complex -> complex. Dawkins is contradicting himself - on the one hand, he claims the universe behaves simple -> complex and on the other hand, he claims God has to be more complex than the universe. No fair!

Ergo, my argument would be,

1. If the universe exhibits the progression simple -> complex then God is not only simple but the simplest
2. If God is the simplest then God doesn't need a creator
Ergo,
3. God doesn't need a creator

Insofar as Dawkins' views are concerned, it doesn't hold water.

many people do worry that they are evil. — Jack Cummins

I reckon that's a good thing.

eternal hell — Jack Cummins

Prima facie, eternal hell seems to gum up the works. Death isn't as bad as eternal hell. Why did our ancestors think death was the ultimate punishment and not eternal hell? What about suicide which is premised on there are fates worse than death? If people take their own lives, it implies death can be a relief rather than a burden.

My logic is simple. Death is, all said and done, the gateway to hell (if one has sinned). In other words, death is the worst possible penalty for the simple reason that a life in hell becomes likely given we're all sinners.

This gibes with the notion of original sin. Adam & Eve's actions condemned all of humanity - we inherited the proclivity to sin and we became mortal, double jeopardy! Now, not only are we more likely to sin, we also die thereby fulfilling all necessary conditions (sin + death) to be sent off to the fiery pits of hell!

It's like inheriting the "likes a drink" trait from one's parents (Adam & Eve) and you're bar hopping, downing glass after glass of Adam's ale and God, by making us mortal, is simply making arrangements such that your wild night/day ends with a cop and a breathalyser. What follows is hell of course.

Agrippa's trilemma argument:

1. All arguments are one of the following:
a) Infinite regress: each premise requires an argument and the premises of the argument requires another ad infinitum.
b) Circular: The conclusion appears in the premises.
c) Axiomatic: We accept sans justification the truth of the premises.
2. None of a), b), or c) are acceptable
Ergo,
3. Sound arguments don't exist
— TheMadFool

Hey Mad!

Interesting post that the above was included within. I've a question though regarding what's quoted above. What reasons are there for believing 2., and how can we do that much without rendering the entire line of thinking as untenable, and/or self-defeating? In addition, how does 3 follow from 1 and 2? — creativesoul

To put it succinctly, if you decide to reject Agrippa's trilemma argument, Agrippa's trilemma argument is sound (infinite regress, circularity, axiomatization don't matter). If Agrippa's trilemma is sound then there are no good arguments for the reasons that every argument is an infinote regress or circular or axiomatic. That puts you in a tight spot, no? Rejecting Agrippa's trilemma means accepting it and the rather disturbing conclusion that's entailed.

However, accepting Agrippa's trilemma argument itself is problematic because that means Agrippa's trilemma argument isn't sound and its conclusion that no sound arguments exist is unjustified.

All this boils down to,

1. If there are good arguments then there are no good arguments [the first paragraph]
2. If there are no good arguments then there are good arguments [second paragraph]
3. If there are good arguments then there are good arguments [1, 2 HS]
4. Either there are no good arguments or there are good arguments [3 Imp]
5. Either there are good arguments or there are no good arguments [4 Comm]

Statement 5, generalizable as p v ~p (tautology), is a skeptic's calling card. p v ~p is another way of expressing one's doubt regarding any proposition p, is it p OR is it ~p. The skeptic has undermined the dogmatist while at the same time solidified faer epistemic stance viz. We don't know.

Note that, assuming I'm a skeptic, this whole post itself being an argument refutes itself - Agrippa would frown on it because his trilemma argument specifically forbids argumentation. Is there a way out for the skeptic? There is - remember I'm working within the dogmatist system i.e. I'm assuming dogmatism is true every time I argue. Agrippa's trilemma argument and this post, itself an argument, demonstrates that dogmatism has an Achilles' heel, it's self-contradictory, it self-destructs as it were.

It's a chain reaction with each element in it flip-flopping between its affirmation and negation.

A = accept Agrippa's trilemma argument
G = there are good arguments

Dogmatist:
1. ~A -> G -> A -> ~G -> ~A -> G ->...ad nauseum
2. A -> ~G -> ~A -> G -> A -> ~G -> ad nauseum

Skeptic:
1. A v ~A. No further comment!

As you can see, accepting/rejecting Agrippa's trilemma is what a dogmatist would do. Everything hinges on this plain and simple truth!

A further comment:

1. (A v ~A) -> (A & ~A) [premise]
2. A v ~A [assume for reductio ad absurdum]
3. A & ~A [1, 2 MP]
4. ~(A v ~A) [2, 3 reductio ad absurdum]

In classical logic, statement 4 eventually simplifies to the contradiction A & ~A but surely the skeptic doesn't want to claim such a thing.

What's happened here?

1. A leads to a contradiction. Not!
2. ~A leads to a contradiction. Not!
3. A & A is a contradiction. Not!
4. ~(A v ~A) leads to a contradiction. Not!

This is Nagarjuna's tetralemma, the catuskoti (the four corners)! This is skepticism's Buddhist connection!

Since A is G phrased differently and G is knowledge written differently and knowledge is nothing more than a justified, true proposition, P, Agrippa's trilemma becomes,

1. P. Not!
2. Not P. Not!
3. P and Not P. Not!
4. Neither P nor Not P. Not!

All of the above either lead to or is a contradiction. Ergo, all must be negated!

This is the general form of Nagarjuna's tetralemma!

The Greek trilemma has given birth to a Buddhist tetralemma!

One of the main premises of the Bible was the entire message of people being sinners — Jack Cummins

Original sin is the Christian doctrine that humans inherit a tainted nature and a proclivity to sin through the fact of birth. — Wikipedia

Food for thought: we're not described as evil rather we're all sinners.

The notion of original sin is intertwined with mortality/death.

Despite describing death as having come to all men through Adam (original sin) [...] — Wikipedia

Point to note, what's the penalty for heinous crimes aka sins? Capital Punishment also reserved for high treason (Adam & Eve betrayed God).

You might also find this book an interesting read: The Trial (Franz Kafka). One thing is certain (or not?) we're all being executed. Why?

It appears that there's nothing about original sin that doesn't square with how we've structured our lives in re morality and justice.

It all boils down to a plain and simple truth - we're worried to bits about thanatos and have reasoned rationalized it as a punishment for something and sin seems to fit like a glove.

Mind you, this is more psychology than theology but that maybe precisely the point!

fall of the Lucifer — Jack Cummins

Lucifer is just a more powerful version of Adam accesorized with horns, a pitchfork, and a pointy tail. Nothing more need be said.

sacred prostitute — Jack Cummins

Sadly, for some reason, while there's a sacred prostitute, prostitution isn't sacred! Jesus must've been completely bewildered by Mary Magdalene. There you go, a paradox!

Explain why what I said is a lie!

Therefore, I wonder how, from a philosophy point of view we may approach and understand this book, or collection of books. — Jack Cummins

The Bible is, inter alia, an anthology of the lives of prophets (messengers) - their genealogy, their historical roles, and above all else, their message passed on to them from God via revelation, and before I forget, faith is a cornerstone of the Bible like it is in all religions.

Philosophy immediately crosses swords with the Bible on two counts - revelation and faith - for philosophy is, all said and done, about reasoning, proof, and evidence. The Bible and philosophy are simply too different from each other in terms of their attitude (skepticism/faith) and methodology (reason/revelation) in re reality for them to be reconciled in any sense of that word.

However, despite the mutual animosity at the level of first principles, the centuries of cohabitation in the minds of philosophers and priests alike, resulted in a synthesis of sorts - the contents of the good book became philosophical points of contention i.e. logical argumentation entered the arena. The Bible continued to be regarded as essentially revelation but the idea was to present its claims as capable of standing up to logical scrutiny. This is the philosophical turn the Bible went through but was it a curse/blessing?

In my humble opinion, it was a bit of both. Theists put up a number of very convincing arguments a Google search will take you to and atheists refuted them as best as they could. Some of these arguments are still alive and well though they've been adapted to a modern, scientifically-literate, audience. The downside was theists were on the backfoot. They were on the philosopher's home turf - rationality - and playing by their opponent's rules (logic) and trying to reason about what was at heart unreasoned (revelation). The theist's slogan was unreasoned, yes, irrational, no.

That the converse - the biblification of philosophy - didn't occur is something to ponder about.

got stuck on the passage about 'the unforgivable sin' — Jack Cummins

The Bible can be thought of as a treatise on (im)morality vis-à-vis God (sin). Philosophy deals extensively with morality but only studies sin in a theological context.

I'm uncertain as to what the OP is getting at but smacks of reductionism (the whole understood in terms of its parts). That's what going down the rabbit hole means I suppose - layers of explanatory frameworks each level being simpler than the one above which it must explain. A classic example of the reductionist approach would be biology reduced to chemistry and chemistry reduced to physics with physics being the current last level any rabbit hole must ultimately reach. Here's where it gets interesting I suppose because physics seem to have mathematical foundations and mathematics is a mental construct and mind emerges from biology. As you can see, the reductionist method has looped back onto itself. Mind -> Biology -> Chemistry -> Physics -> Math -> Mind. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

So... yes or no? Or maybe? — Banno

You ask as if I have a choice! Mu!

SO help me here - are you agreeing with your version of idealism, or not? — Banno

I followed the trail as best as I could.

You think of God as a gaoler? Fair call.

SO you need god in order that the cup still exist when you put it back in the cupboard. That's a bit of overkill. — Banno

Ignoratio elenchi!

I don't need God. Idealism does!

That's not right. There are things that have not been perceived. — Banno

As per idealism, God is reportedly the all-seeing eye! Nothing escapes God's notice. Panopticon. See also CCTV and Police, to name a few possible means of keeping an eye out on the universe.