Found guilty on all 7 accounts. Hahahahaa! :grin:

I wonder how Roger's book will sell now:

When I say “a black guy” or “a white guy” or a “chinese guy”, everyone has a pretty good idea of what I mean. That it. Everything else is just posturing, either to justify racism/bigotry or to witchhunt for it. — DingoJones

And you can say also "tall guy", "blond guy", "fat" or "skinny", and people have a pretty good idea too. The issue is what just importance you give it, what you emphasize. Is it a definition that you use to describe a guy in a crowd, who someone is looking for and doesn't know. Or is it a term you use of a work mate that everybody knows. It's just like one doesn't refer to your peers or workmates by gender. As if gender would be the most important thing. People that bring up often the nationality and race of others quite often are the bigots.

Would it be racist to have your race listed in your medical records? Medical records are mostly private - only accessible by your physician. — Harry Hindu

The color of your skin doesn't matter in matters of health. (Perhaps white people get sun burn more often, I don't know.) Yet the division in medical records by sex is totally understandable as the physiology and some diseases are different between men and women. Similarly we treat children and adults differently in medicine too as they obviously are different.

It is a strange obsession, and I would go so far as to say this is the remnants and continuation of institutional and systematic racism. In universities they are teaching courses on “whiteness”, “white privilege”—what is this but the continuation of white supremacy in particular and racism in general, as a curriculum? — NOS4A2

Let's think about this for a while as there are many issues here.

Remember that it is events that we mutually experience that create our collective identity. And those events that truly mold our collective identity are usually huge tragedies, severe hardships where people have suffered together: wars, famines, disasters, where that common bond was seen and social cohesion formed. It is totally logical that Britons uphold WW2 and especially the Battle of Britain when they were facing the Third Reich alone and Finns have the Winter War when a country of 3,6 million people faced alone an attack from their neighboring country of 170 million people. It is also totally understandable that for Jewish identity the tragic history discrimination and persecution, which culminated in the Holocaust, is part and parcel of their identity. And same is true for especially African Americans, that have roots in slavery and have had discriminating laws well into the 20th century, so forget just your typical xenophobic jerks that exist in every population.

Hence it's understandable that if you say to a group then "You should forget this old stuff because it hasn't happened for a long time now" is like you are trying to depreciate something crucial to the identity. It simply doesn't go like that. That is something one should understand, yet one should be also draw the line where things go a bit too far.

A strictly academic use of “race”, the way a biologist would use it for their work, is not what is meant. — DingoJones

There's too many meanings, too many interpretations, too many 'translations' and 'dog whistles' or 'subverted or masked intensions' to make any sense of this. When somebody 'interprets' you meaning something else, it's a rabbit whole. And hence the race issue is so difficult.

What there is, is this fanatic obsession with race, which does contribute of especially Americans and British to structural racism. It starts with when you participate in a course in the university or open a bank account and in the questionnaire you fill in beside your name and adress has a question of race and ethnicity. Why? I really ask why. Because that is then used to categorize you. If you think that is totally normal, how about religion? Do you have to fill in a questionnaire that what is your religion or state that you are an atheist when opening a bank account? How about participating in a history course in the university? That would be the case if the society would be divided by religion. Then we would all be talking about multiconfessionality.

And anybody that would dare to say that "Well, we are all people and the religion of one doesn't matter so much" would get attacked just as NOS4A2 perhaps. Especially if the history of the 'multiconfessional' state would have violent persecution of one religious group or sect of another.

As and note this is quite universal. I would add that Japan, South Korea and Singapore etc.

For example, the map showing universal health care (free & universal, free partly, no universal):

Free and universal health care is the typical way.

Elites can indeed share an agenda an objectives with the common people. Something like patriotism can be shared by the rich an poor, who usually don't share much in common.

The worst situation is where the elite fears the most it's own people. Then it doesn't invest in the country, but transfers it's wealth to secret bank accounts and invests abroad and gets a foreign passport ready to flee the country if the security system cannot keep things under control. It's a sad state in many countries.

Most people are still tied to the view of 'their' nation state repelling foreign invaders when necessary. — Tim3003

What's wrong with that?

I think the poverty line in the US is defined at the bottom quintile. — Pfhorrest

Which btw shows how absolutely useless it is as a mark of povetry: no matter what happens there is a bottom quintile. It says nothing about actual povetry or how prosperous we are than earlier.

I think a lot of present day philosophy readers would be disappointed at the generations ago lived philosophers being a) religious and conservative and b) not accepting the present as better especially on the field of Philosophy.

I guess the state of Medicine compared to earlier times they wouldn't have problem.

Yet not always and in every country has the ruling elite been corrupt and looking only at it's self interest.

Just look at the cabal of freemasons who rose up against their King and founded United States. Many times when nation states have been formed, the economic, political and cultural elite has been very active in the whole project, which has been very crucial in getting the masses of people to join in and for the whole endeavor to be successful.

For example something like the Nordic style welfare state has emerged in Nordic countries thanks to the active support of the elites. It's not only because of the socialists and especially not because of the communists dreaming of a revolution and waiting for capitalism to collapse, it's because the project had universal support.

Was it predictable that a life form would get the ability to use complex language? — Chris Hughes

When we have just one example, a fairly difficult question. Just as difficult as the question how probable is life to emerge when a planet has the ingredients needed for life (as we know it) and is in the "goldilocks-zone".

Any kind of trace of life (past or present) in our solar system would obviously radically change our ideas about this.

With the current accessibility of information, along with higher education levels, it seems that ANY modern democracy will be at the whims of populists. — ZhouBoTong

Populism and the divide to "the elite" and "the common people" needs basically an agenda that the so-called mainstream parties either aren't or seem not to be doing anything about. There has to be something that creates in reality or in the minds of people this divide. Otherwise it's really a fringe group of conspiracy buffs that are quite hilarious.

Populism isn't tied at all to the current situation. For example, before the 1990's here (in Finland) there was basically no immigration to the country by foreigners and the percentage of foreign born people something around 1%. Obviously immigration wasn't then the hot potato, hence the populists were campaigning in the 1980's against corruption (in one of the least corrupt countries in the World).

If a simple view of "populism" would be the political version of "give the people what they want", then of course it will dominate in an open democracy. None of us know the best way to govern, but we all know what we want. — ZhouBoTong

Openly populist parties emphasize this and their idea of populism leaves out (at least officially) the crucial ingredient: that populism has the important division to "us" and "them" and that "they", the elite, the establishment, the powers at be, are against their ideas.

There's a distinct difference in saying normal democratic movement "We want this and the leaders should listen to us" and a populist movement "We want this and the leaders are against what we want".

Was the evolution of humans, able to think about this, predictable? — Chris Hughes

Once an animal species gets the ability to use complex language and furthermore use written language, then it's quite predictable that we will have these discussions in some way.

Actually if you listen to the summit, I think I remember them mentioning ISIS and/or it's affiliate. But I like these kinds of discussions as they aren't made to sell a story (apart of US foreign policy, that is :grin: ) and don't talk about the issues as just with "warlords" against "innocent people".

And you are not badgering me.

The Ruling Class composed of the very wealthy and their ranks of political and economic servants down the line pretty much run things for their own benefit and convenience. — Bitter Crank

One basic problem that this wealthy elite doesn't think it has any role, any responsibilities to the people. As if they are just rich because of their own awesomeness.

Well, that's a bit of large thing to answer. Just like "What's happening in America? Meaning what's happening in North, South and Central America? Where's the continent going?" 54 countries are a quite a list to go through. I'm not sure I even would remember everyone of them. There's a lot of narratives how we approach Africa.

Well, I assume you are referring to Islamic radicalization in the continent. One area is of course the Sahel and especially Mali. If you have sometime the time to listen (for example when working, walking or jogging), here's a discussion of the situation at the present given last September. The situation is discussed by members of the US Foreign Policy establishment (and some others) and even listening to the start of the summit (by Judd Devermont, speaks 5 min) will give some picture of what is going on there and a really quick review what has happened in Mali:

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS): the Sahel Summit (very long, 3h 20min)


Then there's Nigeria, Libya, Somalia...

my metaphysical question is: if the effect was DNA, and it was not randomly generated, was its cause cosmic meaning? - That's another way of saying "design". Design doesn't need a designer. Look at evolution. It only needs a process. In this hypothesis, one not yet understood. — Chris Hughes

Yet once you have life it isn't at all simply random. Mutations can be random, but what life forms adapt and prosper and what become extinct isn't at all random. The Darwinian aspect of evolution isn't at all random. You might say that an asteroid hitting the Earth 66 million years ago was a random event, but that small animals survived the extinction event and large animals couldn't cope with the dramatic changes isn't something random.

I would say life itself creates predictability and meaning. And as you pointed out, it doesn't necessarily need a designer.

How is it different from anarchism? — frank

The libertarian is more rich and the anarchist more violent. :joke:

The cabal I was referring to was in the shadows, they were always confined to an enclave by the moderate, "one nation" Tory's who ran the governments. — Punshhh

Yes, I've always thought that there has had to be behind this all a power play in the conservative party. Once the fateful error of a vote on the EU was made by the leadership of the conservative party, then this cabal went public. Or so I assume.

Of interest to me is that it will contribute to a political row over the government refusing to publish the select committee report on possible Russian interference. A big headache for Johnson, it has already been leaked that Kremlin sponsored oligarchs had been smoozing with Tory politicians, including Johnson himself and making large contributions to Tory coffers. There are also rumours going round that Dominic Cummings was complicit, as he had spent a year working in Moscow a few years back. — Punshhh

Now here's what I find absolutely fascinating.

You would think that such active measures intent on sowing discord in the West would be seen through, understood and make the West to get angry as possible and make it retaliate. Conventional wisdom would say that so bold moves wouldn't be a smart thing to do especially with the US and UK that have together various ways of retaliating. But here we come to the genius of Vladimir Putin.

The secret is that spreading discord simply works, as there was (and is) genuine discord even without Russian involvement. It's just pouring gasoline into an already burning fire. Russia didn't make people in the UK being unhappy about the EU. Russia didn't make Scotland to vote for independence. Russia didn't make Republicans hate Hillary. But all these things Russia supported by active measures. If you think that the SNP and Scottish Independence is totally out of whack in the category, it is so! But for Russia it's the same thing: there isn't any genuine ideology behind Russia's actions. Hence the accusation "Russia has meddled in our politics" becomes in the ears of those angry about the issues as a condemnation "you are Russian trolls!".

In the US any talk of the actual Russian involvement has become just a ploy of the Democrats! Partisanship rules and destros any kind of true response to the isssue. We can see the absolutely crazy way how the FBI has been accused first of being Pro-Trump Anti-Clinton and the out of nowhere being Anti-Trump Pro-Clinton. And Putin is happy.

Why are they demonstrating in Hong Kong when defeat is certain? The Chinese government will soon step in and crush the uprising, and then nothing will be left of it. Beijing’s grip will be tighter than ever before, and not only will the demonstrators have gained nothing, they will be left with less than they had. That is the most likely scenario. — Congau

Because the totalitarianism of the Chinese Communist Party makes it is inherently weak.

And someone who has had the taste of freedom won't forget it.

China will exist, but Communist China can go the way of the Soviet Union.

The only libertarians Ive met were mentally... unstable, so I've never been inspired to look closer. — frank

So you think Noam Chomsky is mentally unstable?

He says he is a left-libertarian. So do notice that libertarianism isn't only what Murray Rothbard and Ron & Rand Paul promote.

Hum, maybe I'm overthinking the question? — AnarchoRedneck

Maybe.

Sometimes in a society rules can be beneficial to everybody. Just think of driving around in a big city without absolutely no rules, no traffick lights, no common agreements on who should let whom pass at a crossroads or on which side of the road one would use.

I think we make a huge issue of being ruled by 'someone else' and being ruled by commonly agreed rules. In the end, the outcome is the same: we have to obey the rules.

I'm not sure we can talk about populism as a movement sweeping the world. — Tim3003

I think one can talk about it as a movement sweeping the Western world.

One reason is the new social media that has made this possible with the algorithm driven media assists and encourages rather rude and aggressive views. The internet companies were far too naive in thinking what the free internet would start to look when masses of people start to use it. One supporting factor is the status of English as a lingua Universalis: media frenzies become global very easily.

And populism creates instinctively something that could be called "counter-populism", which typically goes with a similar attitudes against the populists and divide people the to 'the common people' vs. 'the populists and their supporters'. Hence you get this not so cordial environment.

Populism is more a politics of the dichotomy between the elite and the people, no matter their political leanings. — NOS4A2

This is so true. I've pointed out in many threads pointed out that this isn't something inherently right-wing. The confrontational demagoguery and divisive rhetoric of the elite vs the people can and has been used also by the left.

Of course with Trump it is about right-wing populism. Perhaps the reason is with the death of the Soviet Union and Marxism-Leninism free market capitalism, globalism, doesn't have to be defended in a such way by the right as it was done before. The combination of nativism a left-wing dominated media environment and globalism advocated by a centrist elite creates a fertile ground for right-wing populism.

Why would they give up that kind of power and ability? Would you do that? I admire them for what they have achieved. — alcontali

The real problem of Afghanistan is that the country has a myriad of different people so that it resembles a Central Asian version of Yugoslavia. Afghanistan is of course much older and the present country can be traced back to the Durrani Empire if not earlier. If successful in denying the Soviets a victory, the Mujahideen were incapable of forming afterwards a functioning coalition and guiding the country back to peace. This has been difficult in many countries where similarly the insurgency hasn't been lead by one single actor, but a whole multitude of various groups with totality different agendas and objectives and that have been united only against the common enemy. So just to blame Afghans as people for not "getting their act together" after the Soviet retreat and the fall of the Communists is quite ignorant and rather condescending.

Let's not forget that the country has been in war now for 40 years and is one of the poorest countries in the World. The unstable situation gave the ISI the chance to create and use a proxy (the Taleban) to take control of the country and even then the Taleban couldn't secure control everywhere. Then the US swooped in after 9/11 determined NOT TO engage in nation building (as let's say in Bosnia), but to be there just to hunt "the terrorists". And hence Afghanistan has given the US it's longest war ever.

I majored in economics too. — Wallows

Great. Economics is important.

And, yes, so it seems to me really paradoxical how US interests are misaligned with competing interests in the Middle East. Is this just a feature of US democracy as to create chaos and then declare the need for policing? — Wallows

No. I don't think so.

It's not Divide et Impera.

I think the basic problem is that as the sole Superpower, the US simply can do whatever it wants.

There's no Soviet Union who's countermoves it has to anticipate. The Soviet Union made Cold War US foreign policy to be far more cautious than now. Things like the 2003 invasion of Iraq would have been out of the question. Now the US doesn't have those limits. And there's no real budgetary or military constraints when interfering in the politics of Third World countries. What can they do if you shoot some cruise missiles there or have Predator-drones circling above? The US foreign policy establishment can be as illogical as it wants as it can be. It simply doesn't have to take into consideration other players: it can genuinely decide on policies that are totally based on domestic politics.

Let's take the policy of being in Afghanistan. Why does the US keep forces in Afghanistan? The reason is actually absurd, when you think of it: US forces are in Afghanistan in order for Afghanistan not to become a terrorist safe haven, from where the US could be attacked. This is the real reason. Nothing to do with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran or other countries in the region. No thought is given to Afghanistan's own history or how Afghans view outside occupiers. No thought is given to what agenda the other players in Central Asia could have. No thought is given to the fact just why if left itself alone would Afghanistan constitute such danger to the US? Somalia has been in anarchy for decades and it doesn't present a terrorist threat to the US, the only threat it creates is to international shipping with piracy around the waters of Somalia. Besides, if Osama bin Laden would have stayed in Sudan, I guess the US would then have invaded Sudan. Perhaps then in an alternative universe Sudan would be the place where the US could not forgo, as otherwise it could turn into a safe haven for terrorists. After all, none of the 9/11 hijackers were from Afghanistan. (Or Sudanese)

But what is important is that the policy sounds good for the American voter. The American voter after 9/11 wouldn't have felt good if the US hadn't invaded Afghanistan, but started an arduous police investigation which would have ended years later in the FBI making a raid in Pakistan and Osama bin Laden been sent to jail in the US. Just like the US did with the first Twin Tower terrorists of the first terrorist attack. Nope, that would have been too lame when thousands died.

Hence these kind of policies are possible when a) there is the will to such aggressive politics and b) there is the capability to implement such policies. Let's look at how limited other countries are in comparison.

France can behave as dominant power only in it's former African colonies. There it can intervene with it's Foreign legion etc. and topple unfriendly leaders. Yet the country cannot operate in impunity anywhere else.

Russia can behave as a bully in it's near abroad and in Syria, but that's where it's limits can be found. With it's information operations and hybrid warfare the country punches well over it's actual weight, but this is more about Vladimir Putin's abilities as a brilliant intelligence director.

China has a lot of potential to be a classic imperialist, but it has one important factor limiting this: the United States. If China would start intervening militarily in some country, the operation would create an absolute shit storm for the country as a hysterical United States would react to any such action as it did to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Hence all they can do is to go on with their belt and road initiative.

I’m tired of the “owning the libs” mentality, which is rife in Trump world. — NOS4A2

I'm tired of the whole "owning" mentality.

Not so sure if it's deep and edifying knowledge, but thank you. In the university I started with economics, but then changed the subject to economic history, from which I got a masters degree. You could say that my work is more with the government, even if I'm not a government employee.

International politics has always interested me. One might think that international politics is so far from ordinary life and events happening on the other side of the World don't effect you, but actually it isn't so. Actually World events do have an effect, but many simply don't notice it.

It has been reported that the Labour Party campaign team has suffered a cyber attack. Just as Hillary Clinton has criticised the government for sitting on the Russia report. This story is growing fast. — Punshhh

Well, one really can't tell who it was yet. And if it would be Russia, remember that their goal is just to make Britain more weak, more hateful against each other and more distrustful of your own government, so that they are a bigger player in Europe. :wink:

The cabal at the centre of the hard right faction of the Conservative party during the 1970's and 80's were developing into populists. — Punshhh

Thatcherism still wasn't really populism and surely John Major wasn't a populist just as Tony Blair wasn't either. But of course political discourse has always been quite rude in the UK.

But do note that populism isn't only a right-wing thing. Hugo Chavez was the perfect example of left wing populism that has truly poisoned the political discourse of a country. The populism can be seen in the insistence that everything gone wrong is because of the evil imperialist gringos, that the rich have conspired against the 'common people'. Talking to the opposition would be betraying the cause.

Meant more about the situation of a whole thread being deleted.

The whole idea (in the first place) and truly going through with removing the area to not-so-serious stuff (as the lounge indicates) wouldn't be only a crazy thing, but would be an extremely sad event.

And very telling of what is happening to open discussion about Philosophy.

Sounds like something the Roman Catholic Church would pronounce some centuries ago. Anyone who doesn't believe in the vague descriptions we've given of our Big Brother in the sky is a heretic! — Harry Hindu

Well, speech wasn't free in the old days. People had to form secret societies in order to speak freely.

I think Terrapin Station was OK. Shame that a long time active member was banned.

This had been brought up before and we get the rationale, but the current software doesn't facilitate doing it automatically, and doing it manually isn't really practical. — Baden

Well, one option of course is to simply stop the posting on the thread. Simply state that this thread is not open for replies and give the reason, low quality etc.

Pakistan's long time friend has been China. Pakistan and China found each other thanks to the Sino-Indian border war of 1962 and hence Pakistan has bought cheap Chinese weapons.

Iran was the first country to recognize the independence of Pakistan and both countries were members of SEATO, the Asian version of NATO. When an insurgency started in Pakistan's Balochistan province in 1973 (that neighbors Iran), Iran gave military and monetary assistance to Pakistan. Yet when the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the relations went sour. The Shia/Sunni divide, which hadn't been a problem earlier, started to be a thorny issue in the relations.

(Picture: Young Shah Reza Pahlavi with Pakistani President Iskander Mirza. I don't know who or what they are planning to shoot in the picture)


The Islamic Republic of Iran didn't like at all that Pakistan created the Sunni Taleban and used this proxy to gain hold of Afghanistan. And Pakistan has been very close to Saudi-Arabia, which itself is the nemesis of Iran. Pakistan even had an armoured brigade in Saudi Arabia to defend the Kingdom and routinely the two countries have military excersizes.

Iran on the other hand has then sought closer ties to Pakistan's enemy, India. So basically the two countries are good friends with the others worst enemy. Yet the two countries try to improve relations especially with trade and they have an oil pipeline project also. Perhaps if the US puts Pakistan firmly on the "Axis-of-evil" camp (or whatever it is called today), then perhaps Iran and Pakistan will find each other because of necessity.

After all, the US foreign policy is such a trainwreck in the Middle East and Central Asia that past strong allies of the US will in the end up as it's most hated enemies.

(close ties, which Iran doesn't like)


As for Russia, the country has closer ties to Iran than Pakistan. For example, when in 2015 Russia attacked insurgents in Syria with cruise missiles shot from the Caspian Sea, Iran didn't mind the missile flying over it's territory, even if one of those missiles hit an Iranian mountain by accident. (See here)

I'd ask ssu to chime in again, out of my curiosity, just what is Pakistan's role in all this. — Wallows

Huge.

Even before looking at the video you posted (have to watch it later), it's a historical fact that the Pakistani ISI created the Taliban and, just like a classic intelligence service would do, burned the candle from both ends.

Yet first one has to understand Pakistan and it's military. The military in Pakistan is truly a nation in a nation and the political leadership has had trouble of controlling the military... apart when the military itself has been in power through a military junta. In the case of Pakistan you can indeed talk about a 'deep state'. Pakistan feels threatened from India and hence it's primary objective now is to keep India and Afghanistan apart. Some Pakistanis (like former dictator Zia ul-Haq) have also dreamed about a confederation of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Next issue is the the Durand line, the border between drawn by the British that divided the Pashtuns into two and a border area that Pakistan has had difficulties in controlling. The strategic reason why the US hasn't been able to tackle the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is that Pakistan has offered a safe haven for the Taliban. Now the US and Pakistan have been for long allies, yet the friendship has turned sour and neither country actually believes anymore in trying to have friendly relations or even keeping up an appearance of being allies.

Its not populism, although populism played a part. — Punshhh

As an outside observer, I think populism played a key part to this whole debacle.

You see, populism is about making a divide, dividing people to be either part of the "common ordinary people" or then "the elites". The 'elites' were in favour of globalization, EU integration and "giving up independence". The 'elites' have totally forgotten the 'common people'. The 'elite' is evil. That is populism.

And when populists are in power, the elite has to be naturally abroad. It's Brussels. It's the EU. It out there trying to take away your independence. That is Euro-populism.

And a populist never, ever tries to reach a consensus. Giving something in exchange for pushing one's own agenda is something that a populist cannot stand. That is simply selling oneself to the enemy. Your supporters won't tolerate that. Because the other side is the enemy. Not perhaps an enemy you would shoot, but someone that you cannot come into terms and find a solution that both agree on. Nope, you either win or fall trying to win.

Perhaps NOS4A2's question in the OP could be put this way:

Do we unintentionally give racism a chance to continue by upholding and using the race/ethnicity categorization, even if this categorization is intended to fight racism?

It's like the political system of Lebanon that was founded with the 1943 National Pact that made Lebanon to be a "multiconfessional" state, where political power was allocated on an essentially confessional system based on the 1932 census. This meant the President was a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shia Muslim and so on.

Now did this "multiconfessionality" stabilize Lebanon? Hell no. It has had one of the worst Civil Wars in the Middle East and the country still has a lot of political problems even today. In fact some argue that this was a ploy of divide and rule by the French. Hence one could say it's about just how we divide ourselves into subgroups and how much these subgroups define our identity.

Typically ethnic or religious divides don't matter when people think of belonging to a group in another way. Basically this means that the most important identity to them and how they see their fellow citizens doesn't go either by religion or language / ethnicity. This is possible. My country is a perfect example as there was a true potential for an ethnic conflict between the Finnish speaking and the Swedish speaking segments of the society. Yet it never happened. Even if there was heated public debate about the status of the languages, it never became a violent political crisis. You see, the Swedish speaking here never saw themselves as Swedes and there was no desire for them to be Swedish. They viewed themselves as Finns. And so has actually the Finnish speaking part of Finland seen them too: as Finns. Hence nobody speaks about ethnicity or an ethnic divide (like we talk about in other places) at all when talking about the Finnish speaking and Swedish speaking Finns. The divide between Protestants and Orthodox Finns has been even more tranquil and peaceful.

(In the case of my country the political crisis was fought along political lines of right and left, which basically was about the Russian Revolution spilling into the country when the local Social Democratic party got carried away with the example of the October Revolution.)

There's not many that worship Greek gods anymore, so I don't understand your point. Here we typically refer to God of our religion (Christianity, that is), but I do assume you can find agnostics in India, Japan or Turkey etc.

I never said I wasn’t a physicalist. — Pfhorrest

That tells a lot then.

In any case abstract objects don’t have any concrete effects on the world we’re a part of — Pfhorrest

Really?

You don't think our actions that are can be based on abstract ideas don't have any concrete effects?

Theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism purport to be views about the same thing though: God. If they’re talking about different conceptions of God, then someone could simultaneously be a theist and an atheist, a gnostic and an agnostic, all of them at the same time in different senses. — Pfhorrest

But they aren't talking about that. It's about the existence of God, not what God is. And as I've done now for a long time, I've tried to explain that existence isn't such a straightforward thing as it is to a physicalist / materialist.

You asked for questions and comments.

Not every response has to oppose what you said (even if it is starting to be more like that on the forum). :wink:

I do agree when you state "We are completely predictable at this point but we also had free will." Free will and determinism actually don't counter each other: they can actually coexist. Just tried to point out why it would be so.

i see the universe as a really big pool table or billiards table. — christian2017

Especially then you sould understand how determinism has limits once everything is a billiard ball on the table and they (the billiard balls) interact with each other. An outside observer can use the determinism and the laws of the universe and knowledge about the balls to extrapolate what is going to happen, but an actor inside (or on this case, a billiard ball on the table) cannot extrapolate the correct outcome in every situation.

It is simply logic.

If you disagree with the above, then just try to do the following: write an answer that you will never write.

It is exactly this problem that creates a lot of confusion.

To say that God exists only abstractly and not concretely is only to say that you have some definition of a thing you've named "God" — Pfhorrest

So everything that is abstract are only words? That sounds like classic straightforward physicalism to me.

None of these things seem to be what your ordinary run-of-the-mill theists are talking about, — Pfhorrest

Exactly. But I was talking about reasons for agnosticism, not about the overtly dogmatic reasoning of theists / atheists.