If there was an ultimate objective good and evil and you could measure it enough to know if she me one would qualify as the most good or bad then you would also be able to measure it at any point along the scale as well.
I’m sorry to say I don’t think your formalization of the dilemma is coherent. You start off with objective morality as part of your premise and then include the subjective morality of the “center” as part of your problem but if there is objective morality then we could just go by that, no subjective quagmire.

It’s my own fault for reading his painful exchanges. A momentary lapse I feel better now.

I think he just means he doesn’t want to talk to you anymore because you’re an obnoxious douchebag. I could be wrong but it follows from how much of an obnoxious douchebag you are. :roll:

“ Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

-Hitchens.

One of my favourite quotes of his.

No, the religious conman is real. I’m not disagreeing that there are religious conmen, no question. I just don’t agree that the average religious person is a conman. Who are they conning, themselves?
The average religious person has a cognitive dissonance though, I might even go so far as to say that belief in a religion is impossible without one. After all if you follow any one edict in the bible and not follow some other edict then you aren’t really making sense and since the contradictions of the bible make it impossible to follow them all you can’t really religious without making one or more breaches of logic and rationality.

You and your damned reasonableness. Would you please stop it!!!

I've been in quite a few exchanges like this one, both as a participant and a bystander. In those situations, censorship by bullying is a common tactic. Moderators sometimes are part of that, although others certainly participate too. When a moderator does it it can be a lot more intimidating. — T Clark

I can’t help it lol
To me that’s just part of the battle of ideas. Don’t let people bully you into silence.

The general argument concerning free speech of course has nothing to do with the argument concerning moderation on any particular forum any more than an argument for free food choices obliges an Italian restaurant to serve hamburgers. And yet posters consistently conflate these debates. There’s no inconsistency whatsoever between supporting free speech and running a moderated forum. — Baden

To me it just depends on the rules of the forum. Free speech isn’t always conducive to good philosophical discussion and good discussion is the highest priority here. That’s why we’re here.

It isn't necessary for valid speech to be actively censored in order for it to be attacked. Threats, intimidation, insults, dismissal, and bullying can be effectively used to get you to just shut up. Cases in point: — T Clark

Ya, that’s the “consequences” of free speech that isn’t protected. A nice little sidestep the woke brigade uses to maintain the illusion of moral high ground.

It is noteworthy that these quotes are all from moderators. — T Clark

I still think your anger is clouding things for you. Baden made excellent points in that exchange you had.

You misunderstand. If someone thinks “wokeness” is the “right” view as implied by other views being the views of “dicks” then that person is dangerously self righteous.
Like this:
People who disagree with woke ideology are terrible humans, dicks. Not only should we look down on them but we shouldn’t listen to them either, and we shouldn’t let other people listen to them so let’s make sure they suffer as a consequence of their free speech, hopefully job loss but for sure canceling an event other people wanted to have. You know what? Let’s just call him a racist, or a Nazi, then we scarcely have to justify anything we do any more. We are fighting evil racist nazis after all. Then let’s scour the texting history of everyone we don’t like to see if we can find something we can cancel them over. While we are it, let’s make sure we frame everything in the most severe way possible so that anyone who isn’t woke is a monster...let’s make insults a form of violence...hmmm, not enough let’s make it so it’s violence if you just don’t like what you hear. Perfect. Just remember, only a racist or bigot or nazi doesn’t share our view and rejects our social engineering and language control.

Thats what woke is about. That’s textbook behaviour of the biggest dicks in history. The self righteousness is in the act of viewing “woke” as a moral high ground over other views. That’s the direct implication of saying opposing views to wokeness are the views of dicks.

You can not be woke and still not be a dick and there are plenty of woke dicks out there so no woke isn’t just not being a dick. It’s as often the opposite of not being a dick as any other person with any other view is a dick...pretty often.

What does “wokeness” even mean? Is it just “not being a dick”? — Michael

No, it’s more about the kind of people who are so self righteous they can only view people with different views to be “dicks”.

It's not clear that in the case of the religious not living up to what they profess this is really due to cognitive dissonance. You'd need to rule out deliberate duplicity. Religion's bloody history warrants such scrutiny. — baker

I wouldn’t rule out either as an explanation. There are many reasons. Also Cognitive dissonance is observable, primarily through the contrast between a persons thought expression and their behaviour.
That’s a lot clearer than the basis of your view which is based on your own rigid definition of belief. You entitled to that rigid definition but I see no compelling reason to adopt it myself.

To which I replied affirmatively. But see my above post: Some beliefs are inactionable, at least for some people. So one has to wonder why would anyone profess those beliefs? Because of their metavalue? (Ie. because professing such beliefs spares one from being prosecuted by other people?)

Compare: You and I believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years; I assume neither of us works in the nuclear industry, so we can't act on this belief. We also don't make a point of telling anyone that we believe that radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years. So what gives? — baker

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Sometimes your beliefs are not relevant, your example of immaculate conception doesn’t show that they can’t be acted upon it’s an example of when a person wouldn’t act upon it because they have no reason, it’s irrelevant.
We would make a point to tell people about radium if we were talking about radium.
These things that you are talking about are not mutually exclusive with my own explanations. Both are reasons for the divide between thought and action.

Exactly, it’s not the theistic concepts per say because some of those are A) not original to that theism and B) are not in opposition to non-theists. (The golden rule for example)

No. They threaten with eternal damnation anyone who doesn't believe like they do. Because of this, they do not deserve the kind of lenience that you describe above and which would apply in other situations, for other beliefs (inlcuding flatearthing and antivaxxing). — baker

It’s not lenience, it is just understanding what’s going on re cognitive dissonance. You asked for an alternative...though it appears your “what else?” was rhetorical in light of that response.

It's the religious who primarily see belief in such binary terms! — baker

Sure, I will concede binary terms is a common malady of the religious but the comment directed at you was very specific to your view of “belief”. I have no idea if you think in binary terms on anything else or in general the way a religious person might.
Maybe binary isn’t the right term...I meant to describe how on your view your belief is either backed up by action or it isn’t really a belief. That seems like a binary metric to me.
Anyway, not meant as derogatory, it’s not like I think anything binary is bad. You just define belief differently that I do on which lead to my misunderstanding but I got it now.

Well I'll press you a little there. Imagine the same social worker applies the same fallacious reasoning in choosing a life partner. It seems to me that this is something one might remonstrate about if one cared for the social worker as a friend, but not something socially unacceptable in the way that it would be applied to professional life, and that because the social worker has power qua social worker as distinct from the privilege of personal foibles in private life. Liberty requires us to accept the one and find the other unacceptable. — unenlightened

The application of fallacious reasoning is the problem. If that problem goes away, any problems in whatever scenario you construct go away too. (Well, the ones pertaining to reasoning anyway)

I like the 'when' in the title. A stereotype is unacceptable when the (pre)judgement is acted on, and is directly proportional to the power and authority of the actor. — unenlightened

I disagree. It depends on what the act is that is based upon on that pre-judgement. And I don’t think it has anything to do with the power and authority of the actor, let alone directly proportional. If the stereotyping is unacceptable, it is unacceptable regardless of the power and authority of the state be making it.

I don't know if it is accurate on average. It might be misleading anyway, because stereotypically, unhealthy people have less energy and tend to do less and so run to fat because of illness rather than laziness. The stereotype becomes toxic though when it is applied by - say - social workers to separate the deserving from the undeserving poor, because even if it were usually true, if it is not universally true it must result in injustice. — unenlightened

A fair point and I agree with the bolder portion in particular. A good example of a stereotype being unacceptable because it is used in fallacious reasoning.

To the new title:

Unacceptable stereotyping is when the stereotyping is either based on something other than merely noticing a pattern (like prejudice or bias) or when the stereotype is being used to justify treatment of the stereotyped type.
Basically there are fair and unfair stereotypes. Unfair stereotypes are the unacceptable ones because they are about the target and not the behaviour/trait we are calling a stereotype.

I think that prejudice and stereotypes do relate to one because when people think in stereotypes, which are like caricatures, it often leads to judgements about people in a negative way. For example, a few people who are struggle with weight issues have told me that they do feel that people make assumptions about them being lazy and a few other things. — Jack Cummins

I wouldn’t call them caricatures, they are generalizations based on common occurrence. Fat people do tend to be lazier. They are unhealthy and have less energy. That’s is a negative judgement sure, but an accurate generalization.

There is plenty lack of conviction in humanity to go around. People have grown used to compromising themselves and they support each other’s lack conviction by a mutual, unspoken agreement to maintain an illusion of accountability when in fact there is almost none, at any level.

I’m not sure the question makes sense. Stereotyping becomes prejudice when it’s prejudice right? They are not progressional stages of the same thing.

Baden is right T Clark, the portion you quoted isn’t racist. As Baden pointed out the mention of “white” was about people who believe jesus was white not white people.
It would be analogous to calling a BLM activist a black crusader or something. I don’t think that would be racist and I don’t think it would get deleted or a person banned for saying so but I could be wrong.
Baden, would I be moderated for calling Malcolm X a black crusader?

T Clark, I agree that there is racism against white people that is hypocritical and socially acceptable. Academically there is open and accepted racism against white people as well, as when racism is defined as “prejudice plus power”.
I think you see this too, but in this case I think your sensitivity to it is clouding your view. Perhaps your anger has the best of you here because Baden is right, your position here hasn’t held up to scrutiny.

Cognitive dissonance, humans can hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. It doesn’t mean they don’t believe in one or the other, it means they are holding an irrational contradiction. Most of the time it’s because the person doesn’t see the contradiction.
That makes more sense to me than saying they don’t really believe it considering the kinds of things they do in the name of their beliefs.

I don’t see “belief” as binary like you do, I think as long as there are differences in how strongly people can believe things you have to accept that conviction and belief are distinct from each other.

And I doubt such is necessarily always the case. — baker

I agree with that. :up:

Because I've seen religion and religiosity from the inside. Like I said, I know many religious people, but I yet have to meet one who would actually believe what they say.
I've seen Catholics go to church, there chant "I'm so sorry I offended thee, God", then go home and get drunk and curse God, Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Roman Church, and continue in that vein until next Sunday, when it is again "I'm so sorry I offended thee, God", and so on. — baker

Ah, I see what you are saying now. They contradict what they purport to believe with their actions. To me that’s a lack of conviction rather than lack of belief. I suspect our disagreement is how we are defining belief. Am I right in guessing you would say there is no belief without conviction? That if you really believe something you obligate yourself to act in accordance with it?

Probably not, and it's not relevant for the most part anyway. — baker

Well I thought it was relevant because I misunderstood your reasoning. My mistake.

Not all theistic concepts per say, but an opposition to belief in gods/gods as defined by the monotheist religions.
It’s what people like Amen3017 are talking about when they think they are talking about atheism.

I thought Banno was moderating? I assumed there was some PMing going on...
You guys assuredly need a moderator, complete waste of time otherwise, you guys might as well just keep snipping at each other in this thread if you opt for no moderator.

Lol, something tells me Amen would object.

Ok, so a thread just for you two. How to find a moderator now? Do you both agree to a moderator?

Not sure it needs to be a debate, the moderator is merely there to keep everybody honest since each of you accuses the other of trolling/dishonesty.

The problem with deleting uncalled for insults is that each party would have the power to derail the discussion by claiming offence. There is bound to be instances where a perceived insult from one party is not at all perceived as an insult by the other. There will also almost certainly be instances of offence taken where none was intended, which is also not good for discourse.

I think a gentleman’s agreement for each party to try there best to keep it polite is the best you can hope for.
The moderator should for sure spend some time establishing some of the more obviously aggressive or passive aggressive moves each party has made in the past.

Someone said insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. A thread that’s just a replication of this discussion will obviously lead to the same outcome: none, spinning wheels and throwing shade.
Might I suggest a change that might lead to a different outcome, a real discussion perhaps?
Start the thread, but get someone to moderate the debate. Someone whose objectivity you can both be satisfied with. Then try this discussion again.
If you both intend on using rational argumentation there should be nothing for either to fear from having a moderator hold each of you accountable to the other. That should address the problems each of you have expressed about the others discourse.
How about it fellas?

Ok, thanks. :up:

I'll respond without trying to fool you even once. As I said, this is an assumption. It underlies all of science. It hasn't been proven and can't really be. You skepticism is an instance of Hume's problem of induction. How do we know that induction is valid? We know it inductively by observing it's effectiveness. Ditto with the Principle of Relativity. We know it because that's how it's worked so far. — T Clark

Ok, I understand that foundational value of assuming the reliability of of certain laws of physics. Like axioms but so far infallibly reliable.
Does science actually operate under the assumption that the laws of physics will always be the same everywhere and always though?
I thought that science would be open to them changing or operating differently somewhere in the universe, wherever the method takes them. Are you saying that it is necessary for science to assume that anything contradicting those foundational assumptions is erroneous and they should try and find data that supports those foundational assumptions? (That question isn’t meant to be rhetorical or baiting, This isn’t my area so I’m sincerely asking...maybe these foundational assumptions are that important.)
I mentioned quantum mechanics because our understanding of physics breaks down the quantum level, and perhaps naively I thought of the quantum level as somewhere in the universe as well. That would contradict the portions I quoted of yours wouldn’t it?

I wish I could properly respond but I’ve gotten the distinct impression you address me only to fuck with me. You’ll eject, and ignore me as it suits you. Your prerogative, but fool me once shame on you, fool me 8 times shame on me again...lucky number 9 though so I’m afraid not this time sir. :wink:

It is a fundamental assumption of all science that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in our universe, have been the same since the universe began, and will be the same forever. — T Clark

I’m not sure that’s the case...”everywhere in the universe”? ”will be the same forever”?
Aren’t both of those disproven by quantum mechanics? How does science account for variables of what is surely a vast amount of knowledge we do NOT posses about the way the laws of physics work?

Your example is about the nature of the subject, that’s not what cogito ergo some says anything about. It concludes only that there is a subject. A dreamer, a dreamer within a dream, a brain in a vat, a mind in the Matrix...none of those refute cogito ergo sum in any way because cogito ergo sum refers only to the undoubtable subject of ones own experience.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

Note that the word "religious martyr" tends to be applied to anyone who died "for religion", regardless of how they lived prior to that; regardless of the specific of their death (whether it's a bus full of schoolchildren dying in a bomb attack, or whether it's someone who prior to their public execution said some notable religious words); and regardless of who declared their death to be "for religion" (Romans might have killed a lot of Christians, but should we therefore surmise that they were all martyrs for Christianity?). — baker

My point is that it would take a true belief in god in order to sacrifice your life for god. Let’s not get lost in the weeds it should be clear the exact kind of martyr I was talking about.

Some of them are egomaniacs. It's taboo to name names in this category, but surely you can think of some people who are publicly regarded as "saints", but it is also known they had a "dark side", replete with sex and drug scandals, financial shenaningans, and so on.

Some just have nothing left to live for, nothing to lose, so in a last desperate attempt to make sense of their lives, they do something extreme and pin a religious label to it.

Some are pathological altruists.

Some are blackmailed into extreme actions ("We'll kill your family if you don't blow yourself up with this bomb in the middle of a busy public square").

Some are just mentally ill.


These options seem more likely to be the explanations for the cause of religious martyrdom than religiosity. Of course, we can't empirically test this, and the available anecdotal data is limited. — baker

Sure, those are all reasons people might have for blowing themselves up. They don’t seem any more plausible than an actual belief they have that not only justifies but demands that behaviour.
Why are you so sure religiosity isn’t the reason even though that is the reason given AND we can see from the religious texts/religious leaders that they are instructed to do so?
Would you be equally dismissive of the reasons that I gave for any given action? If I told you I post on this forum because I want to practice debating would you suspect I actually was doing it for some other possible reason you can come up with?

Well I can respect that your on a spiritual journey of some kind, but I’ve never found any such beliefs to be convincing of their truth. Ups seem to be searching for meaning, most of us have been there.

Not sure you really answered my question there, but I understand what you are getting at.
What about modern religions? Scientology is newer than Christianity, let’s compare those then. Do you take Scientology more or less seriously than Christianity?

I said that I don't know anyone who does. I suppose there could be religious people who really, genuinely believe what they say. I just haven't met any. — baker

You’ve never heard of religious martyrs? Suicide bombers? You think these people don’t really believe in god and rewards of gods afterlife?
Why do you think they do it then? What is the reason why they are sacrificing their lives and claiming they do it because god wants them to?

If you meet someone who believes Apollo pulls the sun across the sky you don’t think of that belief as foolish?
Have you ever heard the expression to keep an open mind but not so open your brain falls out?
Do you really think of belief in Zeus as on the same footing as Christianity? You take them both to be more or less equally justified/legitimate?
I understand the desire to be open to everyone’s way of looking at things but there must be limits or you will end up talking nonsense. Some beliefs are just ignorant and erroneous.

Why do we think of believing in Zeus to be somewhat silly but not so for Christianity if they are both legitimate beliefs from the same source?