I’m a foundationalist. I didn’t make that clear. Justified beliefs have as their foundation sense data. Critical thinking skills, such as “don’t believe everything you read,” is necessary, too, and just because you read something in a book, that doesn’t count as the sense data I’m talking about. The sense data I’m talking about is witnessing the parting of the Red Sea or something similar that would make it believable.

I am not much of a fan of removing the legions sitting on top of the outer boundaries of the perimeter or shutting down the patrols within the perimeter, because otherwise I would need to quickly resort to looting all the good stuff before anybody else does. — alcontali

What @Virgo Avalytikh doesn’t seem to get, and this is probably because she has no concept of the riff raff, living the privileged life of an Oxford grad (forgive me if I didn’t peg you right, but I’m pretty good at this), is that most of the poor would go looting without a State-sanctioned police force to stop them. I have lived in the ghetto, both in Madison and in Chicago (although it wasn’t the worst part where it wouldn’t be safe for a young white boy to go), and I know my people.

I was trying to be funny. Guess that wasn’t clear.

I live in a small town of 16,000. I know any community is diverse in its views. It’s less heterogeneous than NYC, though, and there are ignorant, hot-headed people in my community who wave confederate flags. There are also a lot of people who have “Hate Has No Home Here” signs in their yards. I’m not concerned about the latter. I’m concerned that if there was ever a gun buy-back (essentially a confiscation), then the former would get violent. I had no intention to paint rural America with a broad brush. My hometown has a population of 5,000; mostly good people. There is a lunatic fringe element, though, and the people who would get most upset by a gun confiscation tend to reside in smaller towns. But, I’m sure they’re in the Twin Cities, too, just not as many.

Well, one would have to have familiarity with miracles that others could corroborate empirically? Quoting the Bible to an atheist would be like quoting a Spider-Man comic book. No one who takes it literally is taken seriously these days. I suppose that could just be a sign of Satan’s rule and the End of Times, though.

Hannah Gadsby

Something tells me that you may find something in her. — creativesoul

I will Google her. Thank you

I don’t believe I’m wrong, but the metaphysics of BCE India was different than now. I’m trying to help Wallows. Anyway, the Buddha would have reached Nirvana, so the Dalai Lama’s incarnation doesn’t need to be believed. In fact, the cycle of death and rebirth can be seen as metaphorical, and there is no way of knowing what the Buddha meant by this cycle. He was rebelling against Hinduism, so it’s not impossible that when he was talking about an escape from that cycle he was just speaking about renouncing Hinduism. That’s my belief. It's an original idea as far as I know. It’s certainly not falsifiable.

Anyway, @Wallows, any religion should only be a guide to a better life. When we start taking things literally or buying it whole cloth, then we become fundamentalists and it loses its utility.

Maybe I'm confusing the whole philosophy of Buddhism here and treating it like a religion, is that accurate? — Wallows

Yes. Try reading the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) himself. Nothing in his teachings merits taking reincarnation literally. Also, SG was born a prince, a kind of a playboy. He became disillusioned when he finally left his palace as a young man and saw people suffering in the streets for the first time. After some soul-searching, he decided to renounce that life and became an ascetic. He became disillusioned again this time about asceticism. He finally settled on “the middle way” or what we would call moderation.

So no need for asceticism or belief in literal reincarnation!

Hope this helps.

I’m not taking a side here, but I think she meant to say “persons or property.”

I don’t understand Terrapin, either.

Check out the paisley gate. — Wayfarer

“After the ecstasy, the laundry.”

Yes, well, life must go on. Personally, I find the act of empathizing and walking in others’ shoes to be spiritual, not just thinking how I would feel if I were in that situation, but really trying to understand the other and take enjoyment in what they enjoy, or sad how they would be sad, etc. That’s how I now break down the subject-object barrier. I try to “be” them for a little while. One cannot do this all the time, but one can always “conjure” it.

Or one could just take acid as a shortcut to get a glimpse of the subject-object dissolution. The effects are temporary, though. It would be much cooler to go there by willing it at any given time.

Coherent beliefs must be consistent, but consistent beliefs need not be coherent.

In other words coherency has to do with justification. Consistency does not.

I’ll give you an example. I believe the radio is playing. It is justified by my sense data (I hear it), and by my observation that others are singing along to it. It coheres with my belief that radios are such things that can cause audible music. These two beliefs are also consistent (they’re not contradictory). Suppose that is the set of all empirical knowledge. I have one more belief, namely that there is a God that created the universe. It is not justified by sense data, and it doesn’t cohere with the radio beliefs, but it is also doesn’t contradict those beliefs. It is consistent with the radio beliefs.

Beliefs can be justified by other beliefs and by sense data (coherency). A set of coherent beliefs are also consistent (they don’t contradict one another). That doesn’t mean that one couldn’t have another set of consistent beliefs that aren’t justified by sense data but are also consistent with the coherent beliefs (they don’t contradict the coherent beliefs). Make sense?

How religion can in theory be compatible (consistent) with science. Consistency has to do with whether beliefs contradict one another. Coherency has to do with justification, and consistency has nothing to do with coherency.

That was my point with S about how consistency has nothing to do with coherency. He just ignored that point.

Yes, they are correlated, but you didn’t hear my agreement. Mum’s the word.

Thank you for the analysis.

I misunderstood what you meant by “superset.”

I’m afraid rational arguments are not going to work here in rural Wisconsin (actually this is a satellite community of Madison with a mix of different kinds of people, but it’s far enough away from Madison that it is also kinda rural). If popular support tips overwhelmingly in your favor, then the government will take the guns away; but that would result in civil upheaval in many places in this country, I’m afraid. Still, I sympathize with your view.

I think “coercive” is the term billionaires use when they don’t want to pay taxes. That’s why they funded your economics, poli sci, and philosophy departments at Oxford.

Two behaviourists are laying in bed after fucking. One says: "That was good for you, was it good for me?" — fdrake

I remember that one. Love it!

It seems to me that this system doesn’t solve what a State can’t. I personally don’t see the US government as necessarily coercive.

There is no point in discussing values until the whole is portrayed graphically. End-values or elemental forms of society then show themselves. In the ultimate analysis we simply have a choice between them, or do as we must do. Keep your replies in plain English.
— RW Standing — S

This actually makes sense to me.

The little tailed sperm soldiers just drift around looking to impregnate and destroy the young maiden's future, leaving her to her trailer, crack, and Mountain Dew. — Hanover

You’ve met my ex-wife? Oh, wait. That’s my fault.

What is philosophy for you? An intellectual challenge? A vocation? A schema? A mystery?

For me, philosophy is an effort to discover those truths that will enable me to transform myself into a someone who is more in touch with personal, physical, and social realities. For me, very much a project of personal betterment in aid of universal betterment. — Pantagruel

Nice. I just wanted to figure out if I were actually a brain in a vat. Then “The Matrix” came out, and now I’m always afraid.

Courtship Exam

How do you spend your days?
Doing whatever it is I can still do without you.
What interests do you have?
Long walks on the beach into the sea.
And your sense of humour?
Good, that is why we are still talking.

Do you want to come over tonight?
Do you mean watch a screen until we get bored and fuck?
No, nothing like that, too much reality repulses me.
What do you want then?
To remain when the questions cease.
Do they ever stop?
No, but we might live them.

Do you remember that time we
almost killed each other
over a teacup? — fdrake

I thought I almost killed you because I thought you were a p-zombie. :wink:

I won't go, but I'll slow down. — god must be atheist

:grin:

I think equating spirituality with awe and wonder makes perfect sense. — Pantagruel

I don’t have a problem with it.

Very cool thread. Thank you @TogetherTurtle.

Understanding is open to criticism and modification (peer review and altering or scrapping theories to accommodate new data). Understanding is always changing.

[*] The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
[*] The pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.
[*] Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. — T Clark

These are all marks of psychology, sociology, and psychiatry. All three meet these necessary conditions. Yet astrophysicists, for example, might take umbrage calling them science.

My two cents.

“Spirituality” is just a place holder some people use for feelings of awe, wonder, etc., and for heightened or altered states of consciousness. They can call it whatever they want, I suppose.

I can only conclude that they are private. I cannot conclude anything as to their cause, unless of course I’m thinking about my thoughts which can have an impact on feelings.

That said, don’t buy every consumer product on TV that says “science shows.” They are capitalists trying to make money.

Just so novices don’t get confused, global warming is real. It’s a measure of temperatures taken across the globe and averaged out over time. Pretty simple and almost impossible to get wrong. Carbon emissions have steadily increased since the industrial revolution, inarguably man-made. Carbon and methane found in ice core samples of glaciers (is this right? Check me on this if I’m wrong) show what the levels in the atmosphere were in earlier eras. The deeper you go, the farther back in the past it was. Comparing the ice-core samples to geological evidence of where sea levels were at the time, is further evidence of the correlation of carbon in the atmosphere to sea levels link. I’m not a geologist, so I can’t speak to that science, but I think it has to do with erosion and other phenomena including what types of rocks one finds in the layers of rock. Once again, the deeper you go, the farther back in the past. Can someone check me on this?

So I believe that global warming is real and it is caused by humans.

Matters of fact are put to juries all the time, and they usually cannot be proved. The jury gives a unanimous verdict usually, but none of them know what is really true in many many cases.

Do most people who value reason hold beliefs about matters of fact that cannot rise to the level of knowledge?
— Noah Te Stroete

Facts are true knowledge by definition. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

But matters of fact are not all knowable, for example, whether or not there is a God and what Her nature would be. Do people generally and those who value reason hold a belief about certain or any matters of fact that cannot be proved? I suspect the majority do, and only a minority withhold judgment.