What do you think is a good question? I really liked what you said. When you're reading or engaging with someone else, what do you find to be a good question? — Jafar

The most important, widely-applicable question is "why do you think that?" Also, "what do you mean?" lol. Some people get really upset by those questions but, imo, true philosophers love being asked those questions about their ideas and beliefs.

I think you should learn to feel comfortable not having anything to say, and maybe learning more about active listening. You don't need to know a lot of things or have a lot of opinions to engage well in a conversation - getting good at asking questions is more than half the battle. Maybe that's why one of the most important things in Philosophy is the Socratic Method.

So yeah, focus more on how to ask good questions instead of having things to say, would be my advice.

well this thread is about misinformation, not bomb threats. idk what OP thinks about bomb threats, but I disagree with OP about quite a lot of political things so he might think bomb threats should also be legal.

For me, misinformation is more about people lying about politically relevant facts - like making up stories about immigrants eating pets, for example.

sure, that's already illegal and I beleive it should stay illegal.

On the one hand, it's obvious that people making decisions based on lies and falsehoods is undesirable. I mean, if your eyes are telling you there's safe ground ahead, but that's not the truth and you're about to step off a roof, then ... you know, false information is obviously not great for making good decisions. So talking about it like misinformation isn't a problem *at all* seems silly to me. There's some very obvious problems with an information economy that's flooded with lies.

On the other hand, having a central government authority deciding which things are the orthodox truth is similarly dangerous. A lot of naive online leftists seem to believe that truth-determining organizations are a clearly good thing, but they only think that as long as the truth-determining organizations believe the things they believe - they don't think about what happens when *the other side* get control of the official truth. They're short sighted about that, many of them.

So I think misinformation should absolutely be fought, and is a real problem - but I have no idea how to fight it, and giving governments the power to choose truth seems kinda insane to me.

Do you lean more toward free will or determinism? — Cadet John Kervensley

Like most professional philosophers, I'm a compatibilist.

I'm not sure I understanding all of this. I don't know if my response is relevant. — Patterner

I think it's very relevant. I think it's apparent why, but I can explain in more detail if you like.

Yes, by definition, the first choice was a free choice. If it's not free, it's not a choice — Patterner

So you don't have to have chosen your motivations or your will, in order for a choice that your will chooses to be your choice. In other words, the whole "self-authorship" requirement some people have for free will, is not in fact a requirement you have for free will - someone can make a free choice with no self authorship at all.

Your first choice can be a choice, despite being the product of countless things you didn't choose, and 0 things you did choose - like you had no choice but to make that choice, right?

And please recall, the quote that opened this conversation between you and I was T Clark saying "if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will."

If your first choice is free, despite being based on a will you had no choice in creating or designing, then you're disagreeing with that quote from Mr Clark. You're saying we can make free choices even if we haven't determined one single iota of our will.

right, and that first choice was based on circumstances we didn't choose, a mind we didn't choose, a will we didn't choose - so was the choice that we chose, which was based on all those things we didn't choose and based on nothing at all that we did choose, a free choice or not?

so an infinite series of choices or finite?

This is an interesting way of looking at it, but I think many would say if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will. — T Clark

This gets into an infinite regress problem though. If you make a choice to control your will in a particular way, then... did you also choose the part of your will that made the choice to control that will? And if you did make that choice, did you choose the will that led to that choice?

At some point, you had to have made a choice based on factors you didn't choose, based on your will being what it was, which was in a state you didn't choose.

determined things can be reflective, I'm not sure you're getting that

I distinctly remember struggling with this for at least weeks, maybe longer, as a 4-5 year old. Knowing there was a difference, looking at my hands, thinking they looked the same. How do I know which one's my left one? I can't tell. They look the same.

Those were weird times man, what a trip.

thoughts and behaviour are determined by nature and nurture. This poses the problem that humans have lack of capability to change, at the level of thoughts and neurochemistry. My own view is that human beings have reflective consciousness, which is the foundation of potential change. — Jack Cummins

these don't seem at odds with each other to me. It can be simultaneously true that thoughts and behaviour are emergent from deterministic stuff, AND true that consciousness is reflective and changing.

except Steve. Fuck that guy

The difficulty for followers though is that he did it for others, whereas followers tend to do it for their own salvation — unenlightened

Don't know why I never thought about it this way. Well put

That some christians think what other christians think is blasphemy seems... normal, for religion. Sunnis think Shias are blasphemous too, big whoop.

it is a category error that destroys one of the most basic and most fundamental presuppositions of Christianity. — Leontiskos

I guess that's where we disagree. Almost all simple definitions of Christianity that weren't explicitly designed to exclude Mormons, don't exclude Mormons. The most basic and fundamental presuppositions of Christianity are in tact in Mormonism. Those are mainly belief in Christ and in his resurrection, and seeking salvation through that belief. I don't think fundamental Christianity requires any super specific philosophy about what God exactly is. Hell, I don't think most Christians in history even gave that question much thought - and that's equally true of most Mormons, among whom this "god as man" doctrine is obscure and niche and not at all universally accepted.

You didn't answer what you quoted though.

As to the rejection of the Nicean Creed, — Hanover

Using this as a criteria for considering someone a Christian has one really bizarre effect: it means many, probably most, perhaps all early Christians don't count as "Christian" either. Early Christians meaning the first couple centuries of Christianity.

If we have to ignore 99% of what Christian leaders and scholars throughout history have said on what constitutes the essence of Christianity, — Leontiskos

No that's exactly what I'm saying Mormonism fits. Why don't you tell me what you think they said constitutes the essence of Christianity?

Almost all of these churches have very simple definitions for what counts as a Christian, and by the vast majority of those simple definitions, Mormons meet the standard. These organisations start clarifying extra hoops to jump through only when you mention Mormons.

It's not at all like science, because this is about what words mean, not about empirical observations. No empirical observations can tell you what the word "Christian" means. It's definitional.

Ask the majority of Christians, "how can I know if something is a Christian?" They'll tell you one, two, or three criteria, if someone fits those criteria they're a Christian. Almost without fail, Mormons pass any intuitive criteria for being a Christian.

Did you know many protestants say Catholics aren't Christian?

These fuckers really love gate keeping the word.

your original claim wasn't even about what a religious group believes. You used the word "nobody".

We don't need to talk about your original claim anymore though.

ah church leaders specifically. So you did mean something quite a bit different from the thing you said, thanks for clarifying.

Yes as far as I can tell, officially the majority of Christian churches, maybe all non Mormon Christian churches, consider Mormons non Christian or at the very least reject Mormon baptism. You are correct about that. Not the thing you said originally, but this new thing you're now saying, yes.

It's interesting that Mormons also don't accept the baptism of other Christian churches.

Anyway, I don't think this is the best metric for determining who we ought to consider Christians. I mean, 90% of Muslims are sunni, and a huge portion of them would say Sunni is the only real Islam, the other 10% aren't real Muslims. I wouldn't take that seriously from a sunni, and I don't personally take the comparable thing going on here from other Christians all that seriously. I mean, maybe if you're a Christian it makes sense for you to take that seriously, but I'm not beholden to any particular churches dogma and thus I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide Mormons, who are Christian by any obvious metric other than popularity among other Christians, are somehow not Christian.

so what do you mean?

if that's NOT the litmus test, then you don't mean the words you said. You must mean something else, something you didn't say.

It is true that only Mormons think Mormons are Christian — Leontiskos

That is decidedly untrue. All I have to do is find one non-mormon who thinks mormonism is a christian religion, and it's untrue. That's a pretty easy bar to pass.

I apologize for the "idiot" remark. The fact that people abuse these forums in that way is deeply obnoxious to me, but I of course ought not to say that anyway, probably not very productive. Thanks m

Well I personally am sick of people treating philosophy forums like facebook, or like SEO dumping grounds.

I think if someone wants to talk about the philosophy of white supremacy, even support it, then sure, but talk about it like a fucking philosopher, not like a dementia-laden geriatric who just discovered the internet.

These idiots, I think, are making a concerted effort to flood the internet with their bullshit, to muddy the information landscape. They post memes and links and are incredibly light on ideas and deep arguments.

Recently, I was warned about posting a piece of news from a mainstream journal — Lionino

RMX.news is a mainstream journal? I... don't think so.

I also don't think just posting a picture and a link to an article is good enough for a discussion forum. If I were you, I'd have done osmething more like this:

A. NOT post a picture of some other article
B. Start with an introductory paragraph like "I read this article recently about an issue some Irish people are concerned with"
C. THEN link the article
D. THEN write a paragraph or two on my thoughts on the issue.

You obviously skipped steps A, B and D

Just posting a picture and a link isn't suitable for an online philosophy discussion forum, it's more suitable for facebook. I'm sure you can post content of that caliber to your hearts content on facebook, I don't blame the mods for having a higher expectation of you here.

The debate largely hinges on theological differences and the definition of what it means to be "Christian." — ChatGPT

True. What I've noticed though is that, if you seek a definition of Christianity from most of these Churches, they'll give a very basic broad intuitive understanding of it, like "someone who believes in Christ and seeks salvation through asking for forgiveness and grace through Christ", maybe throwing in a bit about Baptism. And by the standards of almost all of these basic definitions, Mormons most definitely fit the bill as "Christian".

But then when you ask them "are Mormons christian?" despite the obvious answer being Yes because they fit the criteria laid out, they'll add in some arbirary (or at least I consider it arbitrary) criteria that seems almost specifically chosen just to exclude Mormons, which is funny.

Alternatively, we could go with Nietzsche's observation to further appease everyone: "There was only one Christian and he died on the cross." — Nils Loc

Solid quote.

You stated Mormons aren't Christian. You haven't given any argument at all towards that end but a bunch of silliness. If I wanted you to give a coherent argument about why Muslims weren't Christians, I bet you could. Somehow, you can't for Mormons.

You're incorrect.

Anyway, Mormons aren't Christian, the only ones who think so are Mormons — Lionino

I hope you don't expect people on a philosophy forum to just accept your word for it without coherent arguments. There's a higher criteria for acceptance than that here (hopefully).

What are you talking about?

You haven't made an argument that they're not christian. Your failure to make an argument proves you wrong, not what i know.

If you had a coherent argument to make, you'd have made it by now. Instead you blather on with silliness. You're not correct.

you said it doesn't seem like i know a lot about mormonism. I'm not just saying it randomly, YOU brought up the topic of how much I know about mormonism. You're incorrect about how much I know about mormonism.

You are being silly. You aren't giving any coherent arguments about why mormonism isn't christian. You're just saying a bunch of other random silly stuff.

Everybody knows an awful lot about any given topic they are talking about... — Lionino

do you have any intention to stop being silly?

I don't see how that relates to what you are replying — Lionino

I know an awful lot about mormonism, you're being silly.

Matter of fact, my usage of punctuation is refined and aims for clarity. — Lionino

If you don't expect people to think that you mean Mormons aren't Christian for the reason you stated, you are failing at the goal you're aiming for. By a large margin.

But besides that, if the two were connected, I would put an em dash between the two, not a period — Lionino

That's not how most people use punctuation - they can string together related thoughts within a paragraph, separated by periods; that's normal.

It doesn't seem like you have looked a lot into Mormonism. — Lionino

I know more about Mormonism than most Mormons do.

It's really, really weird that you'd list two reasons to disqualify a religion from being christian, and then say mormons aren't christian, and NOT mean "they aren't christian for this reason". I'm still mind-boggled by that. It's like you're trying to be misunderstood.

Everything you said in this most recent post seems very wishy washy. "They aren't christian because I don't feel like it". That's how it comes across.