If we lose Jesus, the cost is considerably higher (for most believers). — Tom Storm

The object isn't to take Jesus. It's just to note that whether he actually walked the earth and did the things suggested shouldn't matter. So the claim goes, salvation from eternal damnation requires faith that Jesus died for your sins. I take that to mean that one should accept the tenants advanced by Jesus (e.g. peace and humility) should he wish to see the world a better place today and forever forward (i.e. eternally). It offers the building blocks for heaven, which is an ideal, which is why we create myths.

The literalism dumbs things down considerably, offering a single person some sort of eternal Disneyland if he says he agrees with the New Testament.

To my eye, and I suppose you will agree, the dive into darkness that followed the destruction of classical culture was tragic. — Banno

There are all sorts of historical tragedies. The Roman destruction of the second temple that I referenced was considered a dive into darkness by the Jewish people and it is still commemorated to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisha_B%27Av

Had it not been for the destruction of the temple, I would still be able to make burnt offerings to Yahweh, but, alas, I'm now stuck listening to sermons in synagogue.

Also, to throw this in there, the evolution to monotheism was a positive moment in the intellectual history of humanity. It moved us from a world of competing anthropomorphic physical gods to a single incorporeal conceptual god posited to offer meaning and generalized explanations for the our existence. I can buy into the idea that the political upheaval created by the emergence of Christian power wasn't an all positive event, but I can't see why one would harken back to the days of Mars and Neptune and think that represented advanced civilization.

There's nothing to keep someone from opening a church today that worships the Greek and Roman gods. Well, there's lack of demand, but other than that.

AH. So adhering to the OP. It's not meant to be factually correct, because we found out that it doesn't match the facts.

What would one think if we had an independent account of their destruction? Then it would be factual? — Banno

If we learned there were no actual Ebenezer Scrooge or Tiny Tim, would the moral that even the coldest souls are capable of redemption be impacted? That there was no talking fox means his sour grapes story is bullshit?

That our myths are fictional does not impact their truth. Those who smugly prove that Washington never chopped down a cherry tree really miss the point.

We use myths to advance ideals. Reality never lives up to the myth. It can't. The real world is complicated and nuanced.

No specific response for you just yet, but I know there is a similar discussion here

Yeah, and I was taught in Yeshivah that we don't know who Amelek is. (Some extremists have a hunch.) — Wheatley

I prefer the non-literal approach, where Amelek represents evil and the reminder that such actually exists. One shouldn't have sympathy for the devil I suppose it is to mean.

Haven't read much of these alternative accounts in relation to language. Can these alternative accounts reasonably explain why humans which were not exposed to language in their preadolescent years cannot learn to speak grammatically correct language? — javra

If you fail to develop your language skills at an early age, they don't develop correctly. What other explanation is there?

You could, however, make that information public. There is an object that is pointed to. The thing about a private language is that it cannot be made public. — Fooloso4

I get that I cannot point to an internal sensation, but what of non-nouns that I cannot point to, like run, put, beside, and without? What about nouns that I can't point to, like freedom, the United States, agency, Bigfoot, the current Queen of France, etc.?

There's also the genocide of Amelek — Wheatley

I'm not making the claim the ancient Hebrews were a kind hearted bunch, but I do deny that their reasons for the wars were to kill infidels who wouldn't accept monotheism.

I also deny the historical accuracy of the Old Testament. That is, that didn't actually happen.

But anyway, since you brought up this story, the best I recall (and memory isn't always correct), was that the Amelek slaughter was ordered by God after the Hebrews were finally released from 400 years of Egyptian bondage at the hands of the Pharaohs only to be subject to an unprovoked attack by the Amelek tribe. God ordered the death of all their people, including killing all their animals. I think Saul spared the death of their king (Agag), but Solomon killed him the next day. Supposedly that failure eventually cost Saul the kingship. Fast forward 600 years to the Book of Esther and you'll note that the antagonist Haman (who attempted to slaughter all the Jews in the world) is referred to as Haman Hagagi, indicating he was of direct lineage of the king of Amelek. This means that Agag impregnated someone in the single day he was spared (or so the story goes).

What do we learn from this story? Kindness to evil is a sin. Compare and contrast to "turn the other cheek." Different ethical principles I guess, which is why the word "Judeo-Christian" ethics makes no sense to me.

A private linguist, each time they make use of a sign to represent a sensation, would be engaging in an act of ostensive definition. Each use would be novel. Hence, there is no rule being followed. — Banno

First, thanks for the explanation. This Wittgenstein stuff baffles me, and I teeter between thinking I'm missing something terribly to the emperor wears no clothes.

If you'll hang in there with me, let me know if I have this right:

I see a dog and I name it "dog," yet I tell no one and that private word exists for me. I then see another dog and I recall it is called "dog," and I say to myself "there is a dog," but the fact that I cannot be corrected as to my use of the term "dog" means I'm not playing a language game with agreed upon rules and therefore the idea of correctness fails to have meaning in this private language context. Since there were no rules created by other players, the second time I called the dog a "dog" was not based upon any rule, but was a new, arbitrary word creation. That is, had I declared the existence of the dog aloud to where others agreed, then I'm forced to follow those rules and the word "dog" retains its meaning. That I kept it to myself allows me to call a dog a "cat" and it would be called "cat" because I'm not compelled to follow any rules. There being no rules, there is no correct and no incorrect, and I'm no longer using language.

Do I have this right?

If I do, and I realize I might not, I'm still at a loss as to why I have to accept this whole notion that I cannot be forced into a particular word usage game even when I am the only person who knows the word I'm using.

Language formation occurs as the result of a priori rules hard wired into our DNA. It's not like we're blank slates able to modify the most basic ways we form, retain, and use language. There are cultures of all different sorts, but none constantly put the names of objects into flux as part of their language scheme. The reason they don't isn't because they just don't like that sort of game, but it's because they can't. They're human beings and that's not what human beings do

This is to say I consistently keep calling a dog a "dog" in public not because of the correction that would occur if I publicly called it a "cat." I keep calling a dog a "dog" because my brain recognizes it as such and my internal language rule structure would auto-correct me even if I privately called it a "cat."

Edit:

At this point critics of Wittgenstein have either denied that truth demands corrigibility, or have sought to show that checking is possible in the private case too.](Kenny[ 1973] pp. 191–2)

I see this is tack I have taken. Do you find it persuasive?

The Roman's didn't lay waste to Judea and Jerusalem because the Jews were monotheists. — Ciceronianus

Nor did the Jews lay waste to various other nations because they weren't monotheists.

I'd also argue that the Christians laid waste to all sorts of nations (as did the Romans) for all sorts of reasons that went well beyond religious differences.

You saw an attractive woman and told her that, and it was meant by you as an invitation for additional conversation. She declined by offering you a shrug. There is nothing unusual, rude, or inappropriate of that interaction, and something similar plays out at bars, grocery stores, high school gymnasiums, and tinder.com thousands of times daily.

Where you go from there is up to you. The ick factor many here have identified is in your internal response, where you have chosen to go hostile, getting annoyed at her for being rude, stuck up, and uncaring for your feelings. This speaks to your caring what she thinks about you, and so your response is understandable. It's protective of a bruised ego, convincing yourself she wasn't worth your time anyway.

If you're going to emotionally invest in the outcome of every romantic attempt, you're going to be a bitter young man. Just move on. Who cares what she thinks? You should have already served up a dozen or so more compliments by now, but instead you're here, doing a post-mortem on something she has no idea was of any importance.

And do empathize some for her as well. She was just standing there, minding her own business, then received an unsolicited comment, and now she is being expected to respond in a certain way, and, if she doesn't, she will be thought less of. It's why girls don't want to go to bars alone, for fear of swarming guys and fragile egos offering attacks when they are shot down.

I think this would entail absurd conclusions — darthbarracuda

The absurd conclusions arise from a failure to posit meaning into existence. Nihlism is inherently absurd.

. A good life is worth living; conversely, a bad life is not worth living. — darthbarracuda

I would think those of religious faith and those who accept the tenants of secular humanism would be aligned here in holding that human achievement is of the highest order. Whether that view arises because you view humanity as a divine extension or you hold it just as a matter of fundamental principle, it must therefore follow that there is no such thing as life not worth living.

The sacred can never be worthless.

Their monotheism was what led them to refuse obeisance to Trajan's statue. It was monotheism that refused to accept other gods, destroying their temples. Belief in the one true god implies intolerance towards those with other beliefs. — Banno

I'd argue Christianity is polytheistic. I can arrive at no other conclusion unless I accept the mystery of the triunity is coherent, which it's not.

Polytheism doesn't suggest tolerance as it's just as logical for a polytheistic religion to be a form of monolatry or henotheistic, meaning the existence of lesser gods is accepted, but there is still a dominant God that is worshipped. Such existed among the Greeks and Romans with Zeus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism

As also noted, it is not logically necessary that monotheistic religion attempt to convert others or express hostility to others. Judaism, for example, posits a chosen status and a belief in a special covenant with God to obey his commandments, thereby eliminating a need to impose those rules on others. You therfore see intolerance and oppression toward Jews for lack of assimilation, not the other way around.

The irony is that as a survival mechanism, retreat inward appears more successful than outward attack, at least as evident by the Jewish experience and their continued survival.

There was a case where a motorist thought texting his girlfriend a kissing emoji was more important than watching traffic and he ran over a bicyclist. Another time a guy thought he could drink 3 beers and still navigate the interstate bit instead he slammed into a median.

There are a few more examples like this.

The difference between artificial stupidity and actual stupidity is that the former can be reduced over time as the science better develops. The latter we're stuck with, except to the extent the former will eventually save us.

Imagine a private language, i.e., just one that you're creating. Now try to imagine that you have to remember how to use all the words/concepts involved in your language. Are you remembering the correct use of your words? How would you know if you're making a mistake? — Sam26

Sure, and how would I be sure I conveyed my new langauge to someone else since I apparently can't rely upon my memory for anything?

Imagine i had private thoughts that I formed when hiking alone that consist of the recollections of that hike, the colors, the landscape, the calm, and whatever else goes into the complete internal memory of that experience.

How can i ever be sure I remember the memories correctly if I don't report them to others to verify for me that my recollections are accurate later?

It's not complicated. I remember without employing others because i know my memory works. It always has in the past and it does now.

If i create a new word for cat, how can I be sure that when I report my new word to you that I'm remembering the word I just created and haven't changed to a new word? If words have no meaning until spoken, then what were they before spoken and how did I know to start using it?

If I misuse words and you correct me, how do you know that you've corrected me if I deny you corrected me?

What am i missing here? All this reductio seems to follow if we deny the reliability of personal memory.

No one mentions Chalmers The Conscious Mind?

am referring to lefists, who are promoting the victim-hood culture for their own political gain. who are splitting the society into oppressors vs oppressed and setting them up against each other, be it lgbt against straight people, blacks against whites, women against men, etc. — stoicHoneyBadger

Do you really dispute who the original instigator was in each of these conflicts you've identified? It's not like blacks, gays, and women were all equal players in society and that they woke up one morning and spun a narrative that they were oppressed and wanted equal rights.

I'm not disputing that in any political fray either side might not be guilty of over-playing their hand well past its moral limits, but it seems fairly naive to hold one side blameless, especially when it's the side that threw the first hundred or so punches.

My contention that Christianity was largely responsible for the destruction of classical literature, and culture generally, is that presented by Gibbon, and one or two others since. You will need something more than just naysaying — Banno

That's a more focused claim than made before, which was correlating monotheism to intolerance.,suggesting it was the monotheistic aspect of Christianity that resulted in its destructive nature.

Titus did destroy Judea and the Temple in Jerusalem, so to the extent the argument is made that polytheists stand for tolereance over their aggressive monotheistic neighbors, I don't see that. The act of destroying the temple dramatically changed Judaism and that culture forever.

I more generally see a violent human nature evident throughout history, not specifically related to any religion, but to power and politics, with religion being one method used to control. Whether the Christians were helpful to Rome or Rome helpful to the Jews, of course not, but identifying religion as the malevolent force, particularly monotheism, seems overly simplified and refutable by counter-examples.

The part of your quote I bolded doesn't make sense to me because I don't know what it means to be without culture. What happened perhaps was the replacement of one set of cultural values for another and you apparently lament that those you preferred were displaced.

Hmm. Looks to be supporting my contention rather than refuting — Banno

Your position is historically inaccurate, so there's not much to argue. Amenhotep is not representative of Egyptian religion generally, but an interesting example of short lived pre-Judaic monotheism.

In any event, to what I was responding to, oppression and monotheism don't correlate. They've existed independently of another as much as at the same time.

Monotheism and prostlisizing don't go hand in hand. You can believe there's one god without demanding others follow. If your objection is simply to the forced conversion of others, I'm with you, but there's nothing specific to monotheism that demands that, nor is that aspect of religious persecution any worse than declaring someone an untouchable, as in Hindu.

Why slavery? What do you wish me to see? — Banno

Who persecuted who? — Banno

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt

was the first to achieve political power, in late Rome, and to unleash the logical consequence of monotheism - the repression of alternatives. — Banno

Your position is that prior to Christianity, there were no oppressive regimes, but that oppression began as the result of monotheism? That's just obviously historucally false. Egypt is one example among many.

Christianity got there first. It's a consequence of the intolerance inherent in monotheism. — Banno

Christianity wasn't the first monotheistic religion (see, e.g. Judaism and Atenism) and it's not universally accepted as monotheistic due to the trinity theology. Mormonism admits to polytheism, which holds itself to be a form of Christianity.

Hinduism is polytheistic but discriminates based upon a rigid caste system and isn't what I'd consider "tolerant."

The term "religious war" is a Western inventiion, creating a rigid distinction between secular ambitions (land, power, etc ) and religious ones. The two are always mixed.

My point being that regardless of the problematic history of Christian oppression, your quote above is factually incorrect on many levels.

Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.—In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. — Sam26

Note that you're changing grammatical forms and tenses, which changes the analysis and it could very well be identifying something idiosyncratic to English and not to language generally.

Telling someone that "I know I'm in pain" could have a meaningful use if we wish to be creative enough, but assuming the "I know" is necessarily superfluous in that sentence, that superfluousness would occur only in the present tense while the experience were actually occurring and streaming through one's consciousness.

It's a different result where you speak in the hypothetical (as you did above), where you say "only I can know whether I am really in pain." That does make sense because it clarifies the fact that no one else has access to my phenomenological state. The removal of the "I know" from that sentence changes its meaning. That the statement "I know I'm in pain" might contain a superfluous "I know" doesn't dictate that it will in all forms.

If you change the tense, you have a similar result, as in "I know I was in pain yesterday." The "I know" isn't superfluous and it's not necessarily being supplied just for emphasis, but it could actually be an assertion of a recollection that does require a justification. If you told me that I was not in pain yesterday, but I specifically recall that I was, but you keep telling me I wasn't because for some reason you choose to disbelieve me, my insistence I was in pain is based upon my justification that I remember my recollection (that was never reduced to language) of my pain. Perhaps something might jar my memory and I'll remember, "Oh yeah, I wasn't in pain yesterday; it was Monday I was in pain."

I'd also say that if you try to make "know" a term of art where it cannot ever be used except to mean that which requires a justification (which is the knowledge = justified true belief epistemological theory), then you violate Wittgenstein's own non-essentialist's claims as it relates to definitions. For something to fall into "knowledge" it only has to have the family resemblance of knowledge. It's not required that it contain X as one of its essential features. Here you're claiming that X is a justification.

As the child learns how to associate language with their pain, the child is taught new pain-behavior. This, Wittgenstein points out, doesn’t mean that the word pain really means crying, the word pain replaces crying. It doesn’t describe it. — Sam26

It doesn't follow why crying and saying "I am in pain" would ever be synonymous in terms of what they communicate and that one would replace the other. Saying "I am in pain" does not equate to crying in terms of what is conveyed to the observer.

Judaism was quite intolerant and exclusive long before Christianity began. — Ciceronianus

Then why did you say:

There was no problem of tolerance until Christianity began its relentless destruction of antiquity. — Ciceronianus

Judaism was intolerant of other religions per the First Commandment. It was monotheistic, which necessarily entailed no other gods be worshipped.

As to the ancient Greek and Roman religions, we have good evidence that the pagans worshipped several gods, and that worshipping one of them didn't require that no other gods be worshipped. — Ciceronianus

That's because it was polytheistic, but that doesn't entail that non-believers of those gods were tolerated. It simply means that under the polytheistic structure differing gods had differing powers and some did battle with one another. Do you have evidence that the Greeks openly tolerated ridicule of Zeus by Greek citizens or that if a foreigner denounced Greek religion he'd be accepted into Greek society?

One need only read the Old Testament to understand that the Jews were violent towards non-believers--they seemed to have been particularly enchanted by the thought of the infants of non-believers being wacked against stone walls--this fond wish is expressed more than once in the Old Testament. — Ciceronianus

The context of those passages I'm familiar with relate to the horrors that will be brought against the enemies of the Hebrews, not specifically against gentile non-believers for their failure to believe. Regardless of the quibble, it is clear that the Hebrews who violated the commandments of God could face deadly consequences assuming one were to accept a historicity of the Old Testament. I'm not sure though that there is an actual historical record of God actually striking folks down or of little girls getting tossed against the rocks.

That is to say, there was no flood, no parting of the sea, and likely no baby tossing in ancient Israel.. To the extent the bible says otherwise, it's not true.

If you're interested, the Talmudic rules of the death penalty are attached, which are so cumbersome, that it's not clear that anyone ever received it. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-death-penalty-in-jewish-tradition/#:~:text=The%20Talmud%20endorses%20a%20similar%20position%2C%20saying%20that,without%20clear%20testimony%20at%20times%20of%20rampant%20sinfulness.

The ancient pagan religions of the Greeks and Romans were certainly friendly, even the so-called mystery religions. It wasn't unusual for someone to be an initiate of the Mithras cult and an initiate of Isis or Magna Mater. One could worship Jupiter, Asclepius as well as other gods. There was no problem of tolerance until Christianity began its relentless destruction of antiquity. The Abrahamic religions are inherently intolerant. — Ciceronianus

This is a tough historical thesis to maintain, as it would require not just a comparison to the ancient Greek religions, but to all prior religions. Historically, nations had gods and those gods warred with one another within the nation and gods from other nations warred against them as well, often having a contest of whose god was supreme, or so the mythology goes. Once you arrive at a monotheistic religion, you abandon the idea that your god is stronger than all other gods, but you hold that your god is the only god at all, and then the wars between gods end, but, of course, not the wars between the nations.

Consider as well:

"Some scholars argue that what is termed "religious wars" is a largely "Western dichotomy" and a modern invention from the past few centuries, arguing that all wars that are classed as "religious" have secular (economic or political) ramifications." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war

This challenges the notion that religion and the secular are so nicely divided, and I would expect that very ancient cultures that engaged in war did so with some reference to their gods, as they didn't have an epistemology that divided the secular/scientific and the religious/theological.

There is also an inherent logical problem with this statement by you:

"There was no problem of tolerance until Christianity began its relentless destruction of antiquity. The Abrahamic religions are inherently intolerant."

If Abrahamic religions are inherently intolerant, it wouldn't make sense that the intolerance would lie dormant for over a thousand years until the advent of Christianity, considering the Abrahamic religion of Judaism pre-dated it by that many years. Your argument then seems to be that you find Christianity in particular intolerant, which it historically was, but, as noted above, I don't think it's a fair analysis to lay that intolerance at the feet of the religion, as I see those conflicts as tied as much to the secular (power, wealth, control) as anything else. That is to say, with or without religion, I expect that our European forefathers were going to be a brutal bunch. Religion happened to be a wonderful mode to express it, and an argument can certainly be made (especially by our enemies) that we've hardly become less violent and warlike since becoming a secular state.

I'm left with: my intuition is that there's an aspect of my experience that I can't communicate through language. Why should I doubt this intuition? Kierkegaard agrees with me — frank

Not to have you do my research for me, but do you have a quote from Kierkegaard for that?

We can conceive of machinery that would record your experience and make it available to others, so it's metaphysically possible. Whether that's physically possible in this world, we don't know yet. — frank

But I take the perception as all encompassing, not limited to just the apple I perceive, with its color, snell, etc.., but the itch on my foot, the anxiety of my overdue bill, the calm from the sound of the rain, etc. all within the state of the perception at that second We have no known symbolic feed of that from me to you like we do "apple" or even through photographic or audio representations.

If you mean by "metaphysically" possible, to mean "hypothetically" or "imaginable," perhaps, but i don't think it's physically possible and it does strain the imagination.

Describing something doesn't mean representing something "with 100% accuracy." Red Delicious apple. About 3 inches diameter. Red. I don't normally need to count how many seeds. — T Clark

Of course you don't provide the irrelevant for the purposes of the conversation. My point us that my experience of the apple can never be conveyed to you.

don't see how we can discuss the subject of the OP without talking about how we use language. — T Clark

The OP is ambiguous to the extent one wonders if it's asking (1) whether English in particular offers limitations in what it can describe as opposed to what might be only explainable in French, for example or (2) whether certain concepts are ineffable and not reducible to langauge.

As to (1), I think the consensus is no, that all langauges in principle can equally explain things, even if it requires more words or longer explanations. For example, in English, we can say "quantum mechanics" and know what that means, whereas in a tribal langauge of the rain forest, no such words or concepts exist, but it could be eventually translated sufficiently.

As to (2), I've argued they are, and that's what I addressed.

What you've addressed iare the sociological biases inherent in language, which I'd agree with. If our houses are built for our particular needs, I can imagine langauge would be similar. I don't think that what I've said regarding #1 impacts #2, but i can see debate there.

As to my objection as to what is being droned on about is this insistence to deny any reality being seperate from langauge. It attempts to. solve the problem of metaphysics and qualia by denying them.

I read the OP as asking whether there are things we can't describe in the English language and you guys are droning on about how we use language.

Can I convey my phenomenal state of the phone before me through representational symbols with 100% accuracy? I'd say no. No words could convey the boredom I'd experience while that transpired. The full experience isn't reducible or conveyable except in some hypothetical construct offering a very simplified example and an infinite amount of time.

You'll never know how I feel, regardless of the depth and breadth of our therapy sessions. Just ask any angst ridden teenager if you need further empirical proof.

I’m not one for the supernatural either. And nowhere does it state that we have to mandate people to take a vaccine and deny them access to society if they do not. It’s a simple moral decision. — NOS4A2

But this doesn't really answer @Michael's question. You're position is based upon a strict fidelity to the principle that the government lacks the legitimate power to dictate what individuals may do. That is anarchism. I'm sympathetic to the view that government power should be limited, but those limitations are going to necessarily be ad hoc and based upon societal needs and some exceptions will be difficult to justify on purely principled grounds.

So, what do we commonly hear? -- anti-vaxers, superstition, creationism, etc. While you are welcome to touch on these subjects, let's think of what we can ignore regarding the decay of science, as prep work. Then, we can move on to the real 'reality' of scientific survival: — Caldwell

I see a distinction between (1) superstition/creationists and (2) anti-vaxxers. Both are anti-scientific, but, as to #1, that deals with the enchantment issues described by Weber, where he described how science has replaced religion in modern society. If you are arguing that we're returning to religious based reasoning, your concern would be of a re-enchantment, where we are devolving back into a theocratically and mythologically based epistemology for understanding basic facts of day to day existence. I really don't see mass scale movement in that regard.

As to #2, I think the anti-vaxxers are playing upon the Kantian distinction between (a) the skeptical method and (b) skepticism. The skeptical method requires ongoing investigation in the face of uncertainty, but implicitly accepts there is a general method for arriving at knowledge. That is where I think most scientifically inclined people would fall. Skepticism, on the other hand, questions the entire enterprise of whether anything can be known, and I do think that is where many of the conspiratorial anti-vaxxers fall. They scoff at the idea that there is reliable knowledge available due to whatever bias they can imagine might be skewing the results. The anti-vaxxers parade themselves as (a), when in fact that are (b). They're not just hyper-analyzing the data on vaccines; they're questioning and rejecting the scientific method.

The problem with the general skeptics of (b) is that they have to have some ability to navigate the world, so they must abandon their generalized skepticism at some point and then just start arbitrarily accepting information as correct, without any real principled way to confirm it. It seems that as long as what they accept is not mainstream, it begins to have an air of credibility to them. We end up with people ingesting cattle deworming medications to treat a virus that has an otherwise scientifically proven preventative vaccine. That result is truly bizarre, but it has nothing to do with superstition or re-enchantment, but is the end result of an irrational, inconsistent generalized skepticism of science that doesn't have a replacement epistemology.

It's the reverse Nietzschean quandary where we killed God through our disbelief in him and now we have nothing left in its place and so we spin in circles rudderless. These people killed science, so now what are they going to do?

Assuming that people should be able to make their own health decisions, should be able to decide what they don’t want to inject into their body, the problem with vaccine mandates is that it forces or coerces people into putting biological agents into their body that they otherwise might not want to. — NOS4A2

This argument again. Sure, you have the right to bang your head against the wall until you pass out, and in a perfectly constructed libertarian world you could do that sunrise to sunset, but why do you want to do that?

Let us suppose the government one day grows tired of people banging their heads into walls and they illegalize it, other than the sacred right to being able to make really bad decisions being violated, how is society now worse off? I'm just trying to understand why a policy maker who doesn't buy into your view that the right to make stupid decisions is an inalienable right would have a problem stopping head banging if he could. Are we so committed to logical consistency in policy regardless of outcome that we will preserve that consistency damn the torpedoes, even when we are all in agreement that we're only protecting stupid behavior?

I think parents ought to decide how to protect their children when it comes to vaccination. I don’t think the government should. — NOS4A2

Why do you create this exception when it comes to vaccines? Must the parents put their children in car seats, allow them transfusions when needed, or let them play with firearms? Why is there a line drawn at vaccines, but you allow the oppressive hand of government to intervene in other instances?

As such it is completely unremarkable, on a personal level, that I might choose to remain unvaccinated and take that risk for entirely trivial reasons (preferring not to take prophylactic medicine, preferring not to support the pharmaceutical industry are just two examples). I don't need to justify those preferences any more than a skydiver needs to justify his enjoyment of free-fall. — Isaac

That you don't have to justify your decision is obvious. There are no mandates. Humor me though and provide your justification. Do you obtain the thrill of the skydiver by not taking the vaccine? Do you not take part in prophylactic medicine in all instances and do you avoid the pharmaceutical industry in all other contexts? I understand you're not required to be logically consistent, and you can do whatever you want whenever you want, but I'll assume you wish to be rational and consistent.

If your position is though that you have the right to be irrational and today is the day you wish to stand on that ground and be irrational and inconsistent, then have it, but, like I said, I think there are better things to fight for than the right to piss into the wind.

In the words of John Lennon: “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. — Present awareness

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Saunders