John Oliver did a pretty good job last Sunday - as one comment noted: "It would be hilarious if it wasn't tragic."

Nicely put.

This has to be one of the best ripostes ever.

Texas has the death penalty for murder. If a person truly believes that the human zygote and/or embryo is legally a person, then the logical conclusion is that such a person must want the death penalty for any woman convicted of voluntarily terminating a pregnancy by any means.

Thanks - interesting read.

My understanding (misunderstanding?) of Tolstoy is that he would say that the ultimate causes of these events are beyond mankind's comprehension - and that they are inevitable. But what do I know.

As I read this ongoing thread I am reminded of the Epilogues of War and Peace where Tolstoy talks about the origins of the War of 1812. Tolstoy takes task with the historians of his day who tried to explain the war by analyzing personalities and specific events. Giving a clear summary of Tolstoy's analysis is beyond my powers of description - but to give one example he tries to explain that mobilizing 750,000 men from multiple armies to invade Russia was beyond the will of any one person - there are large scale historical forces at work that are beyond our comprehension. I'm sure someone else can explain Tolstoy better.

Would it have been possible to avoid the ongoing horror in Ukraine? If Ukraine had yielded some territory and agreed not to join NATO - would that have led to a long term peace? Or would that have only been a temporary stopgap measure and eventually Russia would have invaded anyway? I don't know - and no one else in this forum can answer that question with any certainty. It's possible that even Putin himself could not answer that question. It's all too depressing.

That's a matter of debate among reductionist holists. Some would argue that you cannot make a hole smaller just by dividing it up,anymore than one can make a pizza larger by cutting it into more slices (although there were some pizzist expansionists in 1920s Austria - and Thickmanstein was briefly one - but it's now been discredited thanks to the work of Stupidda). — Bartricks

Hi Bartricks - I'm pleasantly surprised - you seem to have a sense of humor.

If I had to make a guess, I'd say that you visited NY TImes sometime in the past (could be years ago) and just forgot about it.

I could be wrong, but the way these things usually work is that the website stores the # times you visited - but this is stored on your browser cache. Try clearing your browser cache and see if that works.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Shoes, shoes - is that all you folks can talk about? What about pipes - don't they deserve a seat at the table of this conversation? :razz:

As a more general principle, my position has always been absolutely clear, i.e., every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners. — Apollodorus

At the risk of hi-jacking the thread, this is great in theory, but in practice very difficult - the key word here is "rightful".

Who owns the Land?

To the topic under discussion. Even granting for the moment that Ukraine was historically part of Russia - does that mean that it is part of Russia forever? I could be wrong, but my hunch is that overwhelming majority of Ukraine people fighting the Russians would disagree.

I admire your efforts to try to get these good folks to think clearly, but you must realize just how extraordinarily hard it is for someone to change these deeply held beliefs.

It's not merely a case of correcting some non-essential belief (e..g. "Gee, I was certain that it was going to rain today - I guess I was wrong").

For deeply religious people, their beliefs form a core part of their identity - to admit some deeply held belief is wrong is not something that comes easy.

But don't let me discourage you. :wink: You may be planting some seeds that will bear fruit some time in the future.

BTW I don't believe Hillary et al are trolls, nor are they stupid.

Possible answers to questions like "does God exist?"

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don't know
3a. Unknown because of limitations in methodology and information
3b. Unknowable i.e. neither is there a method nor will omniscience help in determining the truth. Interesting, oui? — Agent Smith

You omitted another option
4) The question is incoherent. See here earlier in the discussion

Only truth/falsity are relevant to decisions. — Agent Smith
I agree.
And neither Theism nor Atheism are well formed propositions, thus can't have truth values. — ArmChairPhilosopher

Your original P1: "Clapton is god" is a definition and as such is not a well formed proposition and doers not take a truth value.

The word "god" gets defined by P1. "Clapton is god" is short for "I define god as Clapton." — ArmChairPhilosopher

OK. So we can re-phrase your syllogism to this:

P1: ArmChairPhilosopher defines/uses the word "god" to be equivalent to the word "Clapton".
P2: ArmChairPhilosopher (along with most folks) uses the word "Clapton" to refer to a existing person - in this case a well known English musician.
P3: When ArmChairPhilosopher uses the word "god" it is understood that (s)he is referring to the well known existing English musician.

This is a well formed syllogism. Both P1 & P2 are true propositions and P3 logically follows from P1 & P2. But this is obviously very different from your original syllogism.

On top of this you are using lower case "god" - not upper case "God" - and this whole conversation is about the upper case version. So even if you could reformulate your original P1 & P2 into expressing your original conclusion (P3), this particular line of reasoning has no relevance to the actual topic under discussion.

P1: Clapton is god.
P2: Clapton exists. (And is real and there is evidence for that.)
C: God exists.
Pretty undeniable, don't you think? — ArmChairPhilosopher

Words have meanings. The word "god" in P1 is not defined - and thus we cannot draw any conclusions from that statement. Consider these alternates:

P1: Clapton is a four sided triangle.
P2: Clapton exists. (And is real and there is evidence for that.)
C: Four sided triangles exist.

P1: Clapton is a fTyrtydfr.
P2: Clapton exists. (And is real and there is evidence for that.)
C: fTyrtydfr exists.

BTW - Big fan of Clapton's playing in Cream - Disraeli Gears, etc

The sneer of the peon. — Bartricks

Thank you for the nice compliment.

I've been following this conversation along with many others that cover similar territory and I have several questions to all parties -

If "self creation" is possible - OR - if it is not possible - either way does that change how I should live my life? Should I give my worldly possessions to charity and live a life of penance? Should I leave my spouse and spend all my money on booze & hookers? Does this affect how I should feel about the Ukraine situation? Etc?

Also (and related) - why is this topic so important that you spend hours debating it? If this is merely for fun and/or intellectual stimulation I get it - there's no harm done and there are many worse ways of spending your time. But given the level of intensity and vitriol in these conversations, it appears that this topic is really important to people. Why? What difference does it make?

killing thousands of people all over the world for the sake of national security — FreeEmotion

There is no denying this. But regardless of US bad actions around the world, I'm not seeing how getting my representatives to read Chomsky will help unravel the current ongoing horror show in Ukraine.

What I'm not seeing in this thread are any possible path for ending this war.

Ukraine surrendering? Not gonna happen.
Russia declaring "victory" and going home? Not gonna happen.
Regime change in Russia? Not gonna happen.
Other?

I would gladly be wrong, but it looks like any "solution" is going to be determined on the battlefield.

I've been lurking in this thread for a while now - and following with dismay the events in Ukraine. I may not agree with everything you have been saying, but I think I get the gist of it.

Please do not take this as a personal critique of your positions, but what I have not seen from you is a "what should we do" plan of action (and apologies if you have specified this and I missed it).

I live in a liberal district in US. What should I encourage my senators/representatives to do? Should I tell them to vote against giving further aid to Ukraine? Should I write a letter to Biden saying that he should encourage Ukraine to surrender to avoid further death & destruction?

What we can't really show the floaters to others. Only accounts of people who've experienced them. — L'éléphant

The reason this caught my attention is that I was at my optometrist this week and the aide checking my eyes said (in effect) "Hey, I see you've got a floater there".

Of course no one walks around with the kind of equipment needed to spot floaters :wink: - and - this does not affect your larger point.

Just a minor point of correction here. Floaters are real.

Notice that there is no media coverage on how the Russians could be justified in their action? Nothing at all. — Book273

I'm not disagreeing with you that we need to be cautious about drawing conclusions based on sketchy & unverified news reports - BUT - Putin's claims/justifications have been extensively covered - at least here in USA. Just for example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukraine-speech.html

You can legitimately say that this coverage is placed in a pro-west context, nonetheless any person can read what Putin is saying and draw their own conclusions.

the systems wouldn't be messed up; we would just not be able to rely on logical deductions anymore, I think. — ToothyMaw

You are not the first person to point this out . . .

I did a quick search. If I follow him, B is saying that LNC is true but not necessarily true - i.e. that God has the ability to break/ignore LNC but that She hasn't.

So it seems to me that God cannot be omnipotent over the sum process described above if they divest themselves of their omnipotence. — ToothyMaw

So my point here is that the ability to break/ignore LNC defeats the OP - i.e. God can simultaneously be be omnipotent over the sum process and divest Herself of Her omnipotence.

But maybe I have misunderstood the OP.

no one is claiming he is still omnipotent. — ToothyMaw

Again I could be misrepresenting B, but as I understand him/her (don't know preferred pronoun) God can simultaneously divest herself of her omnipotence yet still be omnipotent. How is that possible? Because God is not bound to LNC.

I could be mistaken, but as I see it the core concept behind @Bartricks' definition of omnipotence is that God is not bound by the Law of Noncontradiction (LNC).

So God can create a 4 sided triangle.

Chapel was pretty cool but my favorite was the Gallery of Maps

Oh, and Paul McCartney does have a PhD in music. You lose. — Bartricks

Paul has received honorary degrees from several universities, but he never attended college. — EricH

If only there was some kind of instrument that one could use quickly to find out about these matters - a kind of 'searching engine'.
Do your own research grandpa. Paul McCartney has a PhD in music. It's an honorary PhD. Go look at the argument I was addressing and see if the premises were qualified so as to rule out honorary PhDs. — Bartricks

When someone says they have a certain degree in some subject, the default assumption is that they actually attended school and earned the degree. By leaving out "PhD" in your original comment you committed a lie of omission.

But if we are including honorary, then the correct statement should have been that Paul has multiple PhDs in music. And I know that you want to be accurate (as we all do).

Paul McCartney has a PhD, but can't read music. — Bartricks

Paul has received honorary degrees from several universities, but he never attended college. But maybe I'm wrong - please provide some documentation for this claim.

@Banno
Whatever else you might think about B's musings, I don't believe he's a troll (I'm guessing he identifies as male). I just checked - he has nearly 4500 posts in the 2 years he's been out here, and AFAICT his positions seem consistent. My take is that he genuinely believes what he's saying

I don't get what all the fuss is over Ukraine. Russia wants a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO - NATO will not agree to that. There's an easy solution - compromise.

Russia
Give back Crimea
Agree to a demilitarized zone on Ukraine border - to be monitored by UN

NATO
Ukraine will not be invited to join NATO for some period of time - say until 2050.

There - wasn't that easy? I'm gonna take off the rest of the day. Tomorrow I'll solve the Middle East crisis . . .

By means of galactic candles — AgentTangarine
What are those? — The Opposite

Well, like duh. They go on the galactic birthday cake. All, umm, 13 billion of them. Not sure who gets to blow out the candles tho. . . . .

better investment in healthcare, proper equipping of ICUs, removing barriers to healthcare in minority and poor communities, transparent and believable information about hygiene practices . . . — Isaac

If we were to do a Venn Diagram of our positions, there would be a fair amount of overlap. I would enthusiastically support all of these things even if the pandemic had never happened.

efficient and fast lockdowns, social distancing, masking, and vaccines. — Isaac

I would put vaccines second in that list but otherwise we are largely in agreement.

There's one thing which will determine if you are liable to spread the virus to others, and that's having the virus. Whether or not you are likely to have the virus can be determined by a test. — Isaac

I guess daily testing of the entire population and enforced isolation of people who test positive might also work. I can't speak for other countries, but that would never fly in the good old USA.

There's one thing which determines if you're immune and that's having the appropriate antibodies — Isaac

I could be mistaken but to the best of my knowledge that is not correct. You can have antibodies and still get Covid - albeit most likely a mild case.

Why do governments push the one solution that earns the largest government lobby group the world has ever seen billions of dollars... — Isaac

Agree that the profit motive should be removed from health care in the USA. But I do not buy the narrative that the influence of the evil pharmaceuticals extends to all the countries in the world that have socialized medical systems.

{vaccines] are a very effective aid to reducing disease severity in those at risk — Isaac

Whether vaccine mandates prevent transmission is an open question - there are both pro & con studies. But I still go back to the fact that the daily death rate in the US is over 1K and that 99% of the deaths are unvax'd. In New York City, after vaccines were mandated for municipal workers? The rate of vaccinated workers shot up dramatically. I don't have the exact figures, but it went from something like 60% to over 90%. If vaccine mandates will get folks to take the jab when they otherwise would not, then I approve.

People who are trying to harm you and people who happen to harm you because they are wrong are two very different categories of people.

This seems to be another common theme here, judging other people's intents using your beliefs. Other people act on the basis of their beliefs, not yours.

If they think the vaccine is overall more harmful then you'd judge them to be mistaken, not selfish.

I can get behind the idea that selfish people deserve any negative consequence they reap, I find it a lot harder to get behind the idea that mistaken people do. — Isaac

This is going back to my schadenfreude. I get the distinction between being deliberately harmed and mistakenly harmed, but this only goes so far. Regarding beliefs, one of the most common topics of conversation on TPF is the distinction between knowledge & beliefs. I am not going too deeply down that particular rabbit hole, but if a person's beliefs do not correspond to reality then bad things can happen. I understand why people are suspicious of government (especially African -American), but at some point you have to either accept the facts or take your chances.

We are all responsible for the reasonably predictable consequences of our actions. If a person does not get a vaccine and they also put themselves in situations where they can get exposed, they are gambling not only with their health & lives but also the health & lives of the people they are close to.

Now if a person were to say "It's my choice, and if I get Covid I will stay at home and accept the consequences of my actions - if necessary I will die of Covid so that I will not put an unnecessary burden on the health system. Plus I will pay for the medical costs of anyone I infect"

I guess I could sort of respect that. But that's not happening. Instead large numbers of people are ignoring sound medical advice that in most cases would keep them healthy, but when they get sick they go back to the same medical system whose advice they ignored.

When I hear about one of these anti-vax media commentators dying of Covid, I cannot help but feeling some moment of schadenfreude.

- - - - - - - - -
I thank you again for your thoughtful and reasoned responses. My real world activities are calling and I have to bow out of this conversation.

Fair enough. I'll correct myself.

Most victims are people who refused to get a simple vaccine that would dramatically reduce the odds that they will be infected.

I'm baffled by your position. Not sure what country you're from, but here in the US we are still experiencing over 1k daily deaths from Covid and the vast majority of those deaths are unvax'd. Our health care systems are being overwhelming. These are verifiable facts.

Are you OK with this state of affairs? If not, what is your solution?

Sigh. The vaccine does not prevent a person from getting Covid. The vaccine significantly reduces the odds that you will catch it - and if you do catch it the vaccine significantly reduces the odds that you will have a serious case.

Anyone who ever said that the vaccine totally prevents Covid is wrong. Indeed, even the liberal press has criticized such mistaken statements

If you never feel even the slightest twinge of schadenfreude when bad things happen to people who are trying to harm you, than you are a better person than me (and most people).

Seriously.

How about "most victims are overweight, or suffer from similarly lifestyle inflicted comorbidities, so brought it on themselves"? — Isaac

Most victims are people who refused to get a simple vaccine that would keep them safe.

harmless schadenfreude — Isaac

Can you give me an example of harmful schadenfreude? If you want to make the case that I'm somehow hurting myself by feeling this way, I do feel guilty/conflicted so point taken. But otherwise, I can't see how I'm hurting anyone.

I mourn my dead cousin.

I feel sorry for these poor deluded folks, but I'm also angry at them for causing so much needless suffering.

Thank you for the frank and unambiguous response. In of itself, I don't believe that experiencing schadenfreude is a sign of mental illness - provided you acknowledge it.

Schadenfreude

"I'll only respond to people who already agree with me" — Isaac

Perhaps I was not clear. I am asking a very narrow question. I'll try to re-phrase. If Trump republicans (for whatever reasons) are committing voluntary suicide in large numbers, should I (as a left winger) cynically approve of this behavior for possible political benefit?

I am asking an ethical question - given the particular set of facts that I presented - how should a person feel / behave?