Why not both? — Michael

Often marriage ceremonies don't occur on the birthing table.

That she is 64 years old, it is very rare that marriages last that long. — Sir2u

I say it means she's been a wife for 64 years.

Gather round all you lads and lasses and I shall tell you the tale of our humble abode.

Our nation had just emerged from the Great War. We were beaten and battered, yet we had that afterglow one has when either one has just freshly killed or has just been pleasured by a pouty lipped princess.

On this high, a forum was created in the then prehistoric interwebs, by a strapping young man with thighs the size of oak trees and a manhood to match. His thunderous steps shook the ground as he walked, his testicles sweeping the crumbs from the floor as the field mice scurried behind for a bite.

His name was Paul.

He built an empire replete with the deepest thinkers since Socrates, Aristotle, and Hanover. It flourished so. Nary a day transpired where an unsuspecting lass was not impregnated, having gotten lost in the wild passion of the day.

But just as all good parties end with a vomiting head held just above the toilet, this too came to an end. Financial straits forced a sale to an unsavory buyer, whose piss smelled of putrid corpse but tasted of subtle lavender. It was sold and its fate sealed.

His name was Porat.

No sooner was it sold than was it was it ass fucked into the ground. The town's people went scurrying like a mouse behind a sweeping scrotum. Fires burned the highest buildings and it is said that no orgasms heaved or hoed for 40 days or 39 nights. Night 40 was, by contrast, a cumfest.

A new day emerged and this place replaced what once was. Street parties, dancing until comatose, flailing about with serpents, and blood curdling screams marked the arrival of our humble abode.

His name was Jamalrob.

So now you know our origins. True story. I don't believe I could be clearer.

I assume you refer to England, the land where the English people live, and where they speak their own language: — Pattern-chaser

The English speak different languages from pub to pub. The variants of English are so specific, I speak August 19th Hanoverian. Today at least.

If the knob falls off a door, we have a knobless door, not a wall.

Maybe this is a thread about essentialism. I'm not sure. If it is, I'll just jump to the conclusion (spolier alert!) and point out there is no definition of walls or doors that captures every case because such things have no essence.

However, the bigger picture is the encroachment of a fascist state on a disappearing democracy. — Baden

And the even bigger picture is how long must those in mainland China continue to suffer under fascism. There is something painful in watching freedoms being removed, but it's as painful to think about those who have never tasted it.

What is the leverage of those in Hong Kong? Does China care about world opinion?

To my point, Ecclesiastes describes life in a city-state as far as I know and not life in a tribe or clan like the plains Native Americans. — Noah Te Stroete

You're making an impossible distinction here. Obviously different tribes behaved differently across continents, but trying to distinguish them into terms of how primitive they were is hopeless and I seriously doubt you have any knowledge of ancient Native American religions that enables you to comment upon their existential views.

If you are actually aware of a consistent absence of angst in the ancient world across diverse tribes (an absurd notion), point to your evidence.

The best I can say regarding your OP is that it hints at Marxist notions of alienation, and now you're trying to argue that pre-civilized man was free of such pain.

The Jews certainly don't want it. — alcontali

Assimilation is not a homogenation process. Germans can celebrate Oktoberfest and still be fully American.

I would acknowledge that some groups do fight assimilation entirely and remain largely insular, like perhaps some ultra-orthodox Jews and the Amish.

It's a translation of Ecclesiastics 1, usually given as 'Vanity! Vanity! All is vanity!' Which I think is quite comparable with the Buddhist teaching of 'the emptiness of all things'. But it doesn't mean that everything is meaningless, rather that the things we attach importance to, and labour for, are ultimately transient. — Wayfarer

Not to get too far afield from the OP, but the actual word used is the Hebrew הֲבֵל (pronounced hevel) meaning vapor or breath. This term is obviously metaphor, so it leaves it open for considerable interpretation. Reasonable interpretations include yours or things like impermanence.

But to the OP, I do believe it does shows ancient societies were just as worried about meaning and purpose as today, possibly more given their non-scientific teleological bias. Existential doubt (which we can probably agree is generally thematic to Ecclesiastes) is part of the eternal human condition, not a new problem brought about by modern decay.

This having to look outside of one’s occupation for meaning is unique to civilization and not something you would find in an indigenous tribe. That is my thesis. — Noah Te Stroete

This assumes meaning is found in one's occupation and that an occupation is not simply a means to an end. I suspect you find meaning in life with your interactions with Crystal. Your job, whatever it may be, and however you might enjoy it, is a means to building a life with her.

Your primitive man account is obviously purely speculative. That question is empirical though, answered by interviewing primitive society members.

Here's an account of an ancient society from 3000 years ago:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again...

Ecclesiastes

I'll leave you guys to your moral high ground. — unenlightened

Isn't this just a declaration of moral high ground itself?

That's a debate I don't feel like having. It reopens the whole discussion of whether Bush sold the war as responsive to 9-11 as opposed to it being the result of Iraqi refusal to submit to inspections and whether the whole war was based upon false claims of Iraqi WMD. It's not analagous to what you were referencing regarding citizen hysteria. Bush and Chaney were not responding to hysteria. They methodically plotted.

As to the actual security changes following 9-11, there were many, all of which have resulted in much greater safety than we'd have without.

The typical public response to this type of event is not "having concern." It is, as I have said, hysterical, misrepresents the actual risks of this type of event, and may lead to actions that will not make people safer. — T Clark

I guess I'm looking for the examples of bad responses to the shootings. The usual response I've seen is sadness, crying, anger, maybe a prayer vigil, some speeches from frustrated citizens, some promises by politicians, and then beefed up law enforcement at public places and events and even some greater vigilance in locating the next attacker. They seem to follow a fairly logical pattern, moving from emotion to ideas to thwart future attacks. Emotion moves people to action. That's why its called what it's called.
It's not like people run into the streets screaming and yelling torching cars and breaking windows.

Well I have heard folks say they are proud to be American, or Irish or whatever, and perhaps they might have chosen a better way to say it, or perhaps that is the way identification works, that one can be proud to support the Aussies at cricket, and likewise ashamed when they are caught cheating. It seems to me that folks can feel proud or ashamed of their ancestry as a matter of fact, whether you think it justified or not. One is not praiseworthy or blameworthy in such matters, according to some (our) moralities, but one feels as one feels. Let's not shame her for her shame. — unenlightened

To say that one is proud to be Irish compliments the Irish. To say one is ashamed to be Irish insults them. It therefore makes sense to be insulted by the latter and not the former if one were Irish. I understand they are logically similar statements in that both relate to how one feels about being a part of a group, but if one doesn't wish to insult people for matters entirely out their control, they should probably not stereotype them and condemn them. You don't get a pass to offer an insult just because the insult applies to your group as well. I don't get to recite all the failings of southern, straight, Jewish, white, middle class, males just because I am one any more than my polar opposite (whatever that might look like) could.

I imagine she would prefer that there was not an over-privileged and an underprivileged group, but that all were born equal in privilege and benefit. — unenlightened

Perhaps, but that's not what she said. She said she was ashamed to have been born white and privileged. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Creating or perpetuating discrimination is a shameful act, but I can't offer any blame to the young white child being born today to wealthy parents. If all she meant to say is the innocuous comment you've presented, she might have chosen a better way to say it because an alternate and more more literal reading is that being white is something to be ashamed of.

The world is full of random negative consequences where one ought to be safe. That's part of what's known as the human condition. Is it cause for alarm? I think only if you want to live your life hiding out. Solution? Suck it up. Take your chances. Try to be fearless. Most important, try to teach your children to be fearless. Fearlessness is more important than safety. — T Clark

I've not advocated fearfulness as the solution, and it's doubtful that on a day to day basis those who've adopted your viewpoint live any differently than those who are being hysterical, whatever that means. What I've suggested is that the problem be addressed in a meaningful way, and simply declaring that people are going to be shot in the head from time to time doesn't address anything. It just ignores the problem under the guise of bravado. I'm just saying "Houston, we have a problem," which you seem to halfway acknowledge but then go on to say it's not really a problem we have to deal with.

I can't think of any time when hysteria is a sign of health. We're not talking about burying our children. Your children in Atlanta are at no (read infinitesimal) risk from the events in Dayton and El Paso. — T Clark

I'm not sure you're really in a position to tell others how to grieve or to tell them how far removed the murder must be from their immediate circle to care. I realize that El Paso is quite a haul from where I live, but I don't need the murders to occur on the square of my little suburban city to have concern.

Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of children are afraid to go to school, not because of the risk, but because of the public reaction. As I've said, the current reaction represents a vast misunderstanding of the true risks we, and our children, face in life. — T Clark

You accuse me of misunderstanding the true statistical risks of death when I complain about the recent rise in mass shootings, yet you then present a specious argument that there is some real injury occurring day to day due to the stress and worry kids now have from excessive media reporting of shooting deaths. I mean really, who cares if kids are worried about another mass shooting? It's not like it's affecting their relationships or grades. I'd suspect most kids are doing just as they always did day to day and aren't affected by this media coverage.

If you're going to argue that the media coverage is harmful, you're going to have to show who's really being harmed and how that harm exceeds the harm attempted to be prevented. All I'm hearing is that you're annoyed by it. Suck it up. Deal with the way society reacts to issues. Nobody cares about your feelings. Bravado goes both ways.

This hysteria has led to meaningful changes by the way, some of which likely do curb the violence. Most school districts near me have full time police officers who are assigned to the schools, courthouses have all beefed up security with more metal detectors and greater scrutiny, public gatherings have more officers and more safety checks. It's a whole new world out there reacting to real threats, and I'm thankful we haven't ignored this issue and just allowed the chips to fall where they may.

Anyway, you get the idea. Some people, like Hanover, are going to vote for Republicans even though they know that party stands against both gun control (including enforcement of restrictions already on the books) and govt funding for mental health care. — frank

All Republicans are in favor of gun control. They just arbitrarily draw the line at automatic weapons and say those are just too dangerous to allow for general public use. They also admit that rocket launchers and nuclear warheads are also not Constitutionally protected.

All Democrats allow gun use, allowing BB guns and pellet gun use rampantly.

Since the Constitution doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms as long as they aren't automatic weapons or worse, we have to admit that this is all a matter of policy and just deciding where to draw the line. I'm not sure why if I say no more magazines greater than 7 that I'm anti-2nd Amendment, but if you say no more grenade launchers, you're somehow pro-2nd Amendment.

It's all an unprincipled debate centering around how many guns we can push the government to allow. Either I get to protect myself from the oppressive government or I don't, and I don't see how my semi-automatic (AK or otherwise) is going to stand a chance against an armored tank.

I have a fascinating story about what my dad said about the meaning of life and how drunk he was at the time but I don't want to derail the thread. — frank

I'm sorry to hear about your father's alcoholism.

I don't care either way. I'm 99% determinist. You do what you want, but you can't choose what you want. — frank

Yeah, well you're just saying that because you have too, not because you believe it. That 1% free will is interesting though. Maybe it gives your life some meaning, but I don't really care because I'm 99% apathetic.

But you're going to vote Democrat, aren't you? I can tell. — frank

If it'll piss you off maybe.

Democrats are socialists now and Republicans are fiscally irresponsible without many ideas. I choose the latter 99%. The 1% remaining is, like I said, to piss you off.

Woe. Hanover has become a Democrat. — frank

Law and order is generally not a Democrat notion. The police power is considered a legitimate function of the state even to far right Libertarians.

I think this kind of hysterical reaction to this type of event hurts the country. — T Clark

Random murders occurring where one ought be safe is cause for alarm. We should feel. confident when we drop our kids off at school or go to the mall everyone should come home with the same number of bullets in their head than when they left.

Sure more die in such mundane events as car accidents, but we realize that danger, so we pack our cars with airbags and we buckle ourselves in and perhaps we don't drive on some roads late at night. Is it not cause for concern when we now must have the same thoughts and take all sorts of safety measures just to go to a public event? I would think that if you grew up during a time when the roads were not treacherous and taking a carefree leisurely drive was possible, you'd be outraged if nowadays cars were falling off the sides of cliffs due to new societal attitudes and government ineptitude.

Our hysteria is a sign of health. How do you propose we behave when we bury our children?

Make the people who carry out the actions in question solely responsible. — Terrapin Station

Why does making them solely responsible make them less likely to do it? I'm up for giving both the organizer and the trigger man the maximum sentence. It's not like if I hold the trigger man and brains behind the murder equally responsible, I have to divide their 20 year sentence in half

Fraud is a crime not because of speech, but because you're promising something that at some point you have no intention on delivering--it's a contractual issue, not a speech issue. — Terrapin Station

A contract isn't a speech act? Sounds like an ad hoc exception to the absolutist free speech rule you advocated. If I ask you to murder someone for $100 and you do it, am I guilty of contract for murder for which I can be punished? If instead of money being the consideration, I tell you I'll let you into my gang if you murder, am I now guilty of contract for murder? Is this just going to be a game of trying to characterize speech as not speech so that we can punish people the way we always did? I'd assume Hitler's henchmen got something in return for their misdeeds (fame, honor, joy, national pride). If these things were offered in the exchange for their evil deeds, can we now pull Hitler from his petunias and lock him away?

We could go about creating exceptions to your rule, or we could just scrap your rule as being maybe not completely thought through.

Again, in my view, "The world we need is one in where people don't believe anything just because someone said it, don't automatically follow anyone's orders just because someone gave them, etc. " — Terrapin Station

We don't have a world like that. We hold both the organizer and the person who followed the order responsible for the act. The "I was just following orders" rationale is not an accepted excuse.

if we have people who'll follow orders to kill someone just because the orders were given, that's the problem. Having laws against speech isn't going to change that. — Terrapin Station

Again, you're not absolved of responsibility because you were following orders. You're held just as fully responsible as if you came up with idea, but there's no value in absolving the person who organized the massacre just so he can go and organize another massacre.

to my knowledge, Hitler never killed anyone. — Terrapin Station

And yet over 10 million people died who otherwise wouldn't have, yet in your world he would be free to go about his day, watering his daisies and whatnot. Societal objectives are achieved not by slavish adherence to ideology, but by actually looking at what our policies do. Whether you wish it to be the case or not, it is the case that organizers actually organize things, often through meetings, discussions, and motivation, all of which are speech acts. That's why they get credit for great successes and blame for great losses.

If you're not motivated to change your position based upon the absurd conclusions it leads to, then you're just left with reasserting your position, damn the torpedoes. I guess the question would be what sacred ground is being protected by maintaining your view that causes you to allow people to die and suffer? Should we hold Hitler responsible and stop the deaths, what will be the painful consequence of our transgression from what you deem holy?

A couple of mass shootings in the US today, Dayton, and before that El Paso. The nothing-newness of this is obvious and much as philosophers would like there to be, 'there are no reasons.' Facebook would think it racist of me to mention that we are usually talking about white males.

And already folks are blaming Trump, and blaming gun laws But there are no reasons, what reason do you need to be sure? The El Paso shooter put out a 'manifesto' of racial hate and fear, but I believe him even less than the reports that it is Trump — unenlightened

The serial killer tends to be the white male and the common murderer tends not to be a Trump supporter. That's just the truth, racist or not.

One should think the reason, regardless of demographics, behind the murder is frustration. I'd think that when the decision to murder is reached, no other options seem viable. Powerlessness. Asserting control.

Why that happens in the US more than other places, we can speculate.

A perfect book written by a "perfect" creator should not have something as trivial as interpretation stand in his way of conveying the most important life lessons to mankind. I guess he isn't that perfect after all? — chatterbears

No one holds that the NT was written by God and only some fundamentalist sects hold that the 5 books of Moses were written by God. No one holds that a sign of imperfection of God is that humans have imperfect understanding. It's an argument, I guess, which would argue that if God has perfect understanding, all plants, animals, and inanimate objects ought to too as that would be a more perfect world than one that did not. Original sin is obviously inconsistent with what you're arguing because that posits imperfection in humans and is a fundamental belief among Christians (offering the very basis for the death and Resurrection).

If Religious people believe God is perfect, and that his word is perfect (which they all do), then yes. They should follow it literally and as precise as possible. If they actually did that, maybe they would realize how imperfect that book actually is. — chatterbears

All religious people don't believe as you say (in the perfection of the world). But, assuming they do, it does not follow that they also believe in the perfection of the Bible. You're arguing that the fundamentalist view is the only view. Significant numbers of religious people (both Jewish and Christian) do not believe in the literal accuracy of the bible, from creation, the Noah story, the exodus, and all sorts of other events. Their views range from it being divinely inspired to it being an entirely manmade creation filled with wisdom through the ages.

You're also presenting a dubious theory, held by only certain fundamentalists, that literalism is the proper method of biblical interpretation assuming divine authorship of the bible. It does not follow that God can speak only literally when the rest of the world is able to speak metaphorically. As with Aesop, no one suggests there actually was a lazy hare that lost a race to a diligent tortoise, and so it does not follow that ideas are conveyed only literally, or even that they're conveyed best literally. That means it's entirely possible that the literal interpretation imposed on the bible is leading to absurd results in part because it isn't meant to be taken that way.

Fred pees directly on his leg. He ate the internet cable, the a/c wire (low voltage), and got halfway through the Freon line before it burst and froze his face off.

Name me one human who can do all that before their first birthday. Genuis.

Wonder what s/he was selling, got the same thing... — Wallows

I'll find out soon. I sent her my bank information and she said my surprise package would show up in a couple of weeks. Can't wait!

Trump attacks Sharpton. Is it just a coincidence that he has attacked yet another minority? — Fooloso4

Either that or it's that Sharpton is as bad as Trump says. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/opinion/al-sharpton-trump.html

To be a Democrat are you required to support every person of every minority group regardless of how vile?

Also, the topic was spiritual knowledge, not religious fundamentalism. Were you deliberately trying to confuse me with this category error, or was it an honest mistake on your part? — Noah Te Stroete

It's not a category error. It's a definitional issue, where you wish to limit the definition of spiritual knowledge as that which is received in a mystical manner as opposed to through sacred documents.

As you've defined spiritual knowledge (vague notions of awe and wonder), I'm wondering how you define that as "knowledge" at all. It sounds like you're describing an emotion. It's like seeing a robin hopping around on the ground and feeling happy.

If, though, it's sort of like receiving prophecies and you insist those prophecies are revelations of truth, that would satisfy the JTB criteria. And isn't that what biblical knowledge allegedly is, with prophets receiving truth from atop a mountain?

But I don’t think Evangelical Fundamentalism works very well if one wants to be an astrophysicist. — Noah Te Stroete

This begs the question of what constitutes a valid justification. The fundamentalist would claim that astrophysics is a failed enterprise because it holds to the preposterous belief that the universe began from some sort of Big Bang hundreds of millions of years ago when it is well established the world is only a few thousand years old and that it began with a six day creation event. In order to satisfy the fundamentalist that the scientist's conclusions are valid, he would need to find an astrophysicist that arrived at conclusions consistent with the Bible's.

If you’re asking me if I have faith in my senses, then you may have a point. That’s why I check in with my wife. She’s my eyes and ears on a lot of things. I suppose that is faith, so if that’s your point, then point granted. — Noah Te Stroete

To reset the discussion: The OP asks what the epistemic standard is for spiritual knowledge, and I've asserted it doesn't vary from spiritual knowledge to physical knowledge. It all rests upon what we consider proper justifications. I understand that you rely upon your senses and the reported senses of others as your justification for holding a belief, but the faithful resort to checking the claims of the Bible. While very different worldviews, both rely upon the same epistemic standard.

What do you mean? — Noah Te Stroete

An Evangelical Fundamentalist, for example, would declare himself a foundationalist, asserting truth is founded in the Bible and that it can't be challenged, just as you say sense data is foundational in terms of it yielding truth.

I’m a foundationalist — Noah Te Stroete

How isn't this synonymous with declaring yourself a person of faith?

Another example may serve. We can test whether someone is a competent pianist by observation (in the broadest sense including watching and listening) and may even be able to grade their level of proficiency using criteria that may be observed, but we cannot precisely determine their degree of musicianship, even though connoisseurs may largely agree. The Zen case of agreeing and certifying that someone is enlightened may be similar to this latter example involving connoisseurship.. — Janus

This is doubtful. Unless the connoisseur leaves his criteria vague, it is likely an AI program can distinguish such things as musicianship and Zen mastership. As long as we can agree on our standards of beauty, it can be objectively measured. What beauty is, I'll concede is in the eye of the beholder, but whether something meets the arbitrary standard we've agreed upon is not.

Well, one would have to have familiarity with miracles that others could corroborate empirically — Noah Te Stroete

I don't see how this follows. Upon what basis do you assert the scientific method is the only valid justification ? The OP asks for an epistemologic standard, not for a declaration of what you find a proper justification. Whether you accept the faith based justification is another matter, but in any event, your knowledge is JTB based.

The epistemic standard for science is whether a belief about the physical world is justified by other beliefs about the physical world and by sense data and whether the beliefs correspond to actual states of affairs in the physical world. — Noah Te Stroete

Why couldn't a spiritual belief be based upon a justified true belief just as a physical one? The earth was created in 6 days if I have a justification for it, I believe it, and it's true. The variation is in what we take to be a proper justification, but that standard is always subjective as far as I can tell.

The Red Sea parted if I have a justification for it (the Bible says so), I believe it, and it's true.

If you look at the story as it is told in Exodus it should be clear that there are two different versions combined. — Fooloso4

As an example of this, in Exodus, God instructs the Hebrews to celebrate Passover in the future by eating matzoh for 7 days each year. This instruction appears before the Hebrews flee Egypt in such haste that they don't give their dough time to rise. You have God telling them to eat matzoh to commemorate their freedom before they ever knew the significance of the matzoh. Then after we learn about the Hebrews fleeing in such haste that they couldn't allow their bread to rise, God reiterates the directive about eating matzoh 7 days each year. The best explanation for this is that these are 2 accounts pieced together with mixed up chronology.

As an aside, the whole Passover story is bizarre really and I'm not sure it really says what most who practice think it says. The pharaoh refused to relent despite the plagues not because he didn't believe in the power of God, but because God forced him to be stubborn ("hardened his heart"). What's the moral of that lesson? I'm going to brainwash you to be evil and then punish you for being evil?

Before the time frame of the Exodus, the "Promised Land" was dominated by the Egyptians and Hittites. The Hittites had a version of the Gigamesh epic, so it may have come from them. — frank

I thought the archeological record showed little evidence of Egyptian presence in Israel after the Exodus, which is why many doubt 1,000,000 Israeli/Egyptian refugees were freed from Egypt.

For that reason, there wasn't any time for an evolution in conceptions of divinity between Genesis and Exodus. The God of Abraham and the God of Moses are identical. — frank

This is contrary to a lot of scholarship in the field, but regardless, I don't follow your argument that there was insufficient time.

It's true that the OT shows signs of the evolution of the concept of an unreal divinity out of a struggle to avoid assimilation. That is pretty cool, but I don't think it has anything to do with Moses — frank

Read The Exodus by Richard Friedman for an exhaustive counter to your statement here.