You think that's implausible??? — RogueAI

I thought the example was about WWII. Quite a lot is known about WWII.
Other implausible thought experiments, and I'm sure there are many, notwithstanding.

Boston Legal, for the fourth time, I think. Still relevant. Bonus: the DVD's come in those old-fashioned bifold cases that let the disc go and accept it back in again, without falling apart in your hand.

I would suppose that methods of doing this had already been tried, obviously without success. — Sir2u

Suppose on what evidence?

Maybe you could enlighten us on what you think might be the causes of some of the terroristsy things that have happened recently and give us some advice about prevent them from happening in the future. — Sir2u

I could. But it would take too long and you would never be convinced anyway, so it seems like a futile effort. You, as well as the world leaders in control, can read the effects of past foreign policy decisions for yourself.

As it says in the article, the Palestinians are the ones that have the responsibility to stop the terrorist that are supposedly acting on their behalf. — Sir2u

And for that, they should die? I respectfully disagree.

Many of the countries that host terrorist groups have corrupt governments that are unwilling to stop them because of the financial gains involved. — Sir2u

Kill 'em all!
But for the sake of all that's unholy, do not, ever address the situations that give rise to terrorism.

Well, if all the Palestinians have to die in order to stop one terrorist organization out of the sixty or so designated by the CIA, why should we question that moral choice? There are more terrorist enclaves in Turkey, Russia, India, Malaysia, South America, Africa.... I wonder who'll be left to benefit from all that lasting peace.
However, he collateral damage I referred to was British civilians and livestock and fish - "the people" who were being defended and their food sources. One assumption that the Germans, if they had the chance, would kill everybody anyway - something that didn't happen in the countries they occupied. That's a more difficult moral choice than sacrificing potential foreign enemies. But Churchill proved himself capable of making that choice, so there is no doubt of his resolve.

The moment-by-moment tactics are one ethical consideration. The long-term strategy is another. A third, which is a moot point in the heat of a military campaign, but nevertheless relevant for future consideration, is how the state of affairs came about that produced this particular crisis. We could ask that regarding Israel's unending hostilities, and the Middle East in general. We could even ask why there are so many terrorists and what conditions, besides killing lots and lots of people, could be altered to produce fewer instead of more.

Who are they going to be loyal to if not the people that make up the nation? — Sir2u

The people are loyal to the monarch and aristocracy, the pope and high clergy, the populist demagogue, the warlord, the caliph, the ayatollah, the governor, the chieftain, the general, the company, the regiment... The rulers are loyal to their own power structure. They do the plotting and declaring; the people do the fighting and dying.

The world is the source of all value, and because of this, the world presents the very possibility of ethics; therefore, the world IS an ethical "agency". It IS the transcendental source of ethics. — Constance

Now I understand you a little better.

Political idea. Right.

It is not that you disagree, rather it is that you can't access the issue. — Constance

I would appreciate if you refrained from telling me what I mean. I disagree that "the issue" of religion is ethical. In the wrong context, I have no wish to access it.
BTW Psychology was not invented by Freud, any more than philosophy was invented by Kant. Humans have been exploring and debating their own nature and their place in the universe. Philosophy, psychology, sociology and law, have been with us from the beginning of language sophisticated enough to communicate ideas. Science, technology and wonder, even longer.

EErr, and just who are the nation and the empire? Surely they are the people? — Sir2u

No. The people, collectively, exist to serve the nation. As for the empire, the people who live there are of far less significance. Individually and in very large numbers, they can be sacrificed for the crown, the state and the empire. These are quite distinct entities in the world-view of a monarchist head of state.

It started as an implausible situation and has continued throughout as one. What if questions usually have that characteristic. — Sir2u

Okay. But some are more fantastical than others. The answer to this particular one: Yes, he'd probably use whatever means he considered effective; he would not be hampered by moral considerations. His biographers would justify it, regardless of collateral damage or harm to British citizens, and continue to hold him up as a hero. It was the nation and the empire he served; the common people were not 'his family'.

Otherwise, as you would have it, religion is reducible a social dynamic. — Constance

No. It's about awe and wonder.

What kind of a "place" is the world that calls for religion to be in the explanatory response to it? — Constance

Too big for us, and we don't like to let go.
That's all. Ancient prelates built on that to control the masses.

Religion IS metaethics, and this requires a look at what ethics is, and so how is it you know you have before you an ethical case at all? — Constance

If you already believe you have a firm grasp on what you consider the essence of religion, why did you ask? I happen to disagree, but I do not have an ethical case, only an anthropological and psychological theory.

This is not a psychological question or an anthropological question. It is much, much simpler: what are the necessary conditions for a problem to be an ethical problem? — Constance

But that was not the OP question, was it? And, no, it's much simpler; it's more contrived.

Answer this, and you have opened the door to an inquiry into the nature of religion. — Constance

I don't think so. I think morality came into - was wedged into - religion much later, and ethics became a philosophical subject later still. The rules of social behaviour - codified and explicated as ethics - exist outside of religion and don't require any supernatural component or coercion.

Incredible! The thought-experiment gets less plausible by the minute.

My dad told me that nearly all of the people in England had gas masks, so I doubt there there would be too much collateral damage. — Sir2u

Then how would it stop the enemy, who would presumably be more prepared for gas attack than the local peasants?

One of the fundamental questions of existence: Why? For no reason whatsoever? Just a result of a vast near limitless universe where every possible combination of planetary factors, collisions, and lack thereof just so happened to result in a place where eventually every genetic variation possible occurred that just so happened to produce the only advanced, intelligent, thinking species that engages in complex thought and communication and have managed to master every frontier available to us as a result of random, nuanced evolution while, somehow, the closest match, supposedly one notch down is a wild, mute occasional-biped running around throwing fecal matter at one another? — Outlander

It didn't start with all that knowledge of the universe or planets genetics or evolution. It started with "Where did I come from?",a question every five-year-old asks. They're not looking for purpose or meaning or specialness, just a simple answer. "We found you under a cabbage." "You grew from a seed in Momma's belly." "The angels brought you from heaven." Any of those will do for a five-year-old - at least for the moment. For an intelligent, imaginative adult troglodyte, there has to be a bigger, better story. There are dozens of origin stories. And from there, a whole realm of the supernatural opens up to speculation, projection, poetry and manipulation.

That just adds up perfectly fine to you, case closed, no further questions? Not to some. Which begs an explanation. Organized religion offers this explanation. — Outlander

Religion offers lots of things, including structure, self-worth, rules of social behaviour, rituals, opportunities for catharsis, community, solace and superiority. Not all of those are constructive.

What were people responding to that gave religious thought its basic meaning? N — Constance

Short and simple: The bigness of the world, the sky full of stars, the power of elements.
They could not control or escape storms, floods, wildfires and droughts. But all these things acted in a way that appears purposeful. So they were given names and personalities that fit the behaviour. From there, it's easy for that big imagination to project a whole pantheon of supernatural beings, with their own feelings and agendas.
And then there is the death of one's parents. Who has not felt the presence of a dead mother or father hovering over their bed some nights? Who has not asked a gravestone for forgiveness or guidance or a blessing? We miss our caregivers and mentors; we don't want them to be gone. So we make shrines and bring fruit and flowers and celebrate them on a designated day.
What's to prevent one of those dead chieftains from being promoted to a place in the stars or among the natural elements?

Not unlike asking what technology is really about apart from the long talk about machines and electronics. — Constance

That's a very different conversation, but has its roots in the same time period.

I hold that religion actually has a foundation discoverable in the essential conditions of our existence. Something PRIOR to all the metaphysical fuss and facile refutation. — Constance

There was a great deal of mysticism and spirituality and superstition long before the organized religions, with sacred texts and a hierarchy of clergy that give rise to most of this 'fuss'.

Whether those early versions of religion have an essence would be difficult to prove. My only concrete source of information about them is archeological, much of which is conjecture. Nore to the point are the surviving oral mythologies of peoples around whose roots are not in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic group of faiths, nor in the far eastern established religions.

What they appear to have in common are certain themes: the origin of their particular tribe or nation, their place in respect of other species and the land, a personification of natural phenomena, some rules of behaviour or warnings issued by a supernatural entity to guide on the path to harmonious living. Another very common theme is humankind's disregard of this sage advice, resulting in a permanent misfortune. Then, there are always morality tales and anecdotes about significant events, as well as exaggerated stories of remarkable characters.

I used to think the essence of religion was the illusion of control over nature. But now I believe that's a later addition. I think at the root of these myths and legend is an explanation of a particular society's idea of human nature and its relation to the world. Pagan practices reflect much of this idea - but then they become ritualized, non-spontaneous, inauthentic. Modern religions are largely rote and ceremony, right down to the precise words uttered in prayer.
I think it started as pure philosophy, then wandered into superstition and lost its way in organized religion.

Not true for me. I made the mistake of buying licencing some maths/science books for Kindle. — GrahamJ

Yes, I see that!
Somebody found yet another way to extract money from defenceless people. Another problem with downloads is that sometimes the vendor goes out of business, or changes format, or has a newer version, and stops supporting programs already in use.
Buy a book, it's yours to do with as you like: highlight, dogear, scribble in the margins... I'll call you terrible names if I buy it at a fund-raising book sale, but it's absolutely your right to abuse that book.
Anything you download from amazon is still amazon's.

The upside of that, of course, that you can use it like a lending-library. And the downside of that is the loss to actual libraries. Any loss to public libraries, whether it's non-attendance or theft or vandalism, is a loss to the community and the culture. So there's another benefit of hard copy: support of the shared culture.

Presumably it would only be on the landing force which has stormed an isolated beachhead? — BitconnectCarlos

That's the existential danger to Britain - massed units on a single unpopulated beach? Such an invasion could be repelled or contained by land/naval forces without risk to residents from a change in wind direction and residual poison left on the beach. I realize the question can be put in binary form, but reality never is that simple. This kind of example is always biased by artificial constraint that ignore factors relevant to an actual decision.

My first responsibility is to my people and my country is in imminent danger. Not my first choice of weapon, but if my hand is forced I'll use it. — BitconnectCarlos

How do you use poison gas on an enemy incursion by sea and air, without affecting a large portion of your own civilian population? You can't. Just have to write off the casualties as collateral damage - which puts

responsibility is to my people and my country

in reverse order. What's left of the country being thus defended will not be known until afterward. Like the Coventry decision on a much larger scale.

Though, I don't believe in modern war as a form of "collective self-defense". The nature of war is simply too diffuse for that. — Tzeentch

Whoever engineers the war sells it to the people who have to fight in it as self-defence (Israel's right to exist) or liberation (the American states' from British taxation) or regaining what is rightfully ours (Ukraine) The actual chain of causation and desired outcome are always concealed, as is the incompetence and short-sightedness through with which a government blundered into its military entanglements. Moral decisions rarely enter in.

Faith goes where fact dare not, bridging many a void. — DifferentiatingEgg

How many of those bridges can be crossed safely? Why take that sick child to a hospital if you know that God can make him whole? And if He doesn't, well, God knows best why He chose to gather that child into heaven.

But the best form of self-defense is running away, or simply not getting into situations that might require one to defend oneself. — Tzeentch

That would - or should - also apply to war? If you behave in such a way as to make enemies, or force other people into untenable positions, sooner or later you will have to defend yourself by killing your erstwhile victims.
Churchill and 'moral' don't really belong in one sentence. He was a pragmatic nationalist and not especially gentle in his methods, at home, in the empire or abroad.

Among many other things, cockroaches are disgusting. — Lionino

And humans aren't?

The other antelopes do.
The lions do.
The vultures do.
The bacteria do.
The grass does. — Fire Ologist

No, they don't. The other antelope are lucky to escape, for the moment; they don't 'work with' the loss of a herd-mate. Vultures, bacteria and grass benefit from the death and decomposition of animals. Another's pain is of no use to them.
(BTW, muscle growth doesn't hurt, either. Damage does.)

But if we want to live at all, we’re going to have to work with it. I didn’t say like it, I said work with it. — Fire Ologist

Yes. Thank your God for creating it, since you consider pain good. Job questioned it and Jehovah told him : Because I'm bigger than you. He accepted that and if it's fine for you, be happy. I disagree that there is anything intelligent or benevolent in a system that requires antelope to die in agony, torn apart by lions. They don't get the option of "working with it".

I can smell your farts from here, — AmadeusD

Argued like a scholar and a gentleman.

And, ecologically, these, prima facie, have great functional value. (I should be clear - I have no religious position and do not intend to defend one. I just find your line of reasoning chaotically dismissive). — AmadeusD

It's coherently and consistently dismissive of the idea of intelligent design by a benevolent deity.

As you say, part of the enjoyment of reading is putting the faces and scenes in place while reading, but I still do it even when listening to stories.
Maybe it is because I learned to do it while reading from a book that I continue to do it now, but I am sure that it can still be done even if you have only ever listened to stories. — Sir2u

We humans invented story-telling long before we invented writing. A good story-teller or reader is far more evocative than anything on a printed page. For audio books, they usually hire actors who can really produce individual voices for each character - which may influence your image of them.
My sister-in-law used to record books for my brother when he was driving long distances.
The only potential drawback is that you can do something else while you're listening and have to divide your attention.

Excesses aren't exactly attributable to design. — AmadeusD

Predation, parasitism and disease are.

That said, not sure why you're reducing hte discussion to allow for restrictive points? — AmadeusD

I was responding to specific posts. The discussion is not under my control.

Point to me a situation in which my point is violated? — AmadeusD

That pain causes growth or that all growth is accompanied by pain? I'm not sure I actually get a point about either, but I know that the first is untrue and the second is it is not always true.

Unfortunately, Vera, we live in THIS world in which my statement is completely true.

Whether fortunately or otherwise, Amadeus, THIS world came about through natural forces and evolution. Which accounts for why the design isn't all that intelligent.

And you may simply be unable to comprehend reasoning beyond Human reasoning. — AmadeusD

Oh, no - I've heard ans understand all the excuses and apologetics. I just don't respect them.

Not sure why you'd think you could - or, at any rate, apply human reasoning to the (claimed) omnipotent designer. — AmadeusD

Supposedly made in the bastard's image; able to comprehend his commandments; required to believe his idea of love has some relation my concept of love.
Just not getting that love, y'know?

So you're the omniscient one. — AmadeusD

No, I'm just an ordinary mortal who can smell it when somebody tries to sell her two fish well past their sell-by-date.

See, such are the effects of reading stuff from screens. People easily miss out on what is right in front of them. — baker

Having read it twice more, I still conclude that it differs from my experience of the last hundred years. I agree up to :the same basic education, and Shakespeare played his part in high school Eng. Lit. but intricate math and detailed history has not been forced on every student under 16. I suppose it varies more greatly by country than I realized, and I have heard the European education is more demanding than North American - which is why I spoke from personal observation.

I am sorry, but I simply cannot find a single thing in this monologue which is relevant. — chiknsld

I'm sorry if you didn't understand it. I'll try to be more clear next time.

Of course not. Dictatorships own or control all news outlets and entertainment media. In 'democracies', the press is free op to some point - it varies from country to country, depending on the owners' political affiliation.

The Nazis did have their rationale and we can examine that, but when it comes down to it the Nazis (and some other groups) would murder me on the spot purely for my identity so you can be sure I'll be advocating for that gas attack as well as virtually any method necessary to destroy them. — BitconnectCarlos

Just as well you didn't live in India or Africa during the heyday of the British Empire.

First of all, you're confusing law with morality. I never said the law was exhaustive. But yes, I think firebombings are immoral as well. In fact, I think most reasons countries give to start military operations are generally immoral and most from there what follows is therefore also immoral. In other words most bombs and bullets are immoral as well. — Benkei

Yessss!!!
Nuclear missiles, too. And all of them are always justified, because somebody was always in danger from somebody for some reason that we don't go into.

Agreed

Much pain is beneficial. End of. — AmadeusD

In nature, yes. In intelligent design, not so end of.

The pain is required for the growth to accrue. — AmadeusD

No, it isn't. It is a side-effect that does not invariably occur.

Given we are pain-perceiving creatures, anyhow. — AmadeusD

If that is a 'given', it was given by that same loving god.

So, either hte position is God imbued us with Pain, and sometimes that's a good thing — AmadeusD

God had an idea that something very unpleasant and sometimes fatal was a good idea. I suspect that a kinder omnipotence would have found a better way to achieve those good ends.

or it is that Pain is a moral wrong, in and of itself. — AmadeusD

It's nothing to do with morals, if it happens through natural evolution. If it's deliberately inflicted, it's at least morally questionable. Or would be, if done by a mortal.

Why would you not assent to the view that pains can be arbitrary or not? — AmadeusD

Of course it's not arbitrary. It's a process of biology and has explicable causes.... unless invented and inflicted by an omnipotent creator, in which case that creator is not deserving or praise.

transfers over five hundred billion dollars of debt to the taxpayers. — fishfry

No, you said that debt was transferred to working-class taxpayers, which is not the case.

You lost me on the fetish bit. — fishfry

I can live with that.

I don't understand how "I exist, but I should not exist" is a contradiction. — petrichor

Not I; everything.
The alternative to your personal existence is your never having been born, which was an option for the universe. You can contemplate what that might have been like in the context of all the non-you things that exist.
Should the universe exist? has no alternative state for the universe to contemplate.

Well, yes, but it's about money, money, money. Local constituencies don't want to lose their federal subsidy for producing something destructive, so no candidate can afford to run on a clean energy ticket, and they sure can't afford to piss off the vested interests that lobby against alternatives. It's the same with other kinds of environmental improvement, like food production and transportation.

Governments that try to steer society toward sustainable sources for our necessities inevitably run into lavishly funded opposition from the vested interests, as well as the working people terrified of their bosses losing money and cutting back on employment. Candidates dare not even mention the possibility of well-off citizens giving up any of their privilege; indeed, they have to be seen at the launching of yet another cruise ship or luxury condo for which they've change the zoning that protected a green belt.

The governments themselves, even if not corrupt, are made up of members who depend on financing by those same vested interests, and there is the constant threat of losing the next election. So they propose a bill that would get us somewhere within spitting distance of the their pathetically inadequate pledge at the last (expensive junket) summit meeting, and then whittle and bargain and chicken-shit even that down to a feeble gesture... which is bood by the opposition as too radical and it will destroy business and cause mass unemployment and widespread famine and maybe summon a demon or two from the pit of hell....

It does not bide well.

What the survivors will do with what's left will have to be on a very basic level, since they'll need to survive in hostile environment - not the vast choice of fertile, food-rich places our distant ancestors had at their disposal. There's been a lot of literary speculation on how they will proceed and whether they eventually become successful and screw it up all over again. They have time to repeat the cycle many more times before the sun burns out.