What? You think people are "different"?

I'd have no problem with someone saying that I have "faith in a non-existent God." I don't consider it faith, — Terrapin Station

I have no problem with you saying this because I consider it meaningless drivel. No, actually it being meaningless is a big problem. If I say 'I have faith' and you say 'that is not faith' then you have a problem with what I say. At least in any sense of 'having a problem' that I am interested in. Or we could just go our separate ways...

Two atheists need not have a single thing in common aside from the fact that they both lack a belief in gods. — Terrapin Station

Yes. It's a bit of a pointless topic really, and the op has bailed as he usually does. But one does the best one can. I rather like to make the challenge of a faith in a non-existent God, but alas it is incomprehensible to most atheists, and they cannot even make a questioning response. Never mind, some other time.

I don't know why you were reading my comments that way. — Terrapin Station

It's the way you keep commenting on my use of the word love, and not at all considering what I have said about Plato or about the Christian tradition or indeed anything. You are rather exemplifying the deficiencies of atheism in your inability to engage with anything beyond a linguistic analysis and attempted reduction of all concepts to the material.

It rather depends what It can do and what I cannot do. I don't care to make a universal decision either way.

Different sense of the term. — Terrapin Station

Yes, the term has many different senses, but they are related. But if I love the natural environment and want the best for it even if I cannot have the pleasure of it, then that is quite close to the way i might love my children and want the best for them when I am dead. I wonder why you want to go on arguing about this word, and pretending that I am using it wrongly?

I'd say that part of what that particular emotion entails is that you perform certain sorts of actions towards the object of the emotion, otherwise you don't really have that emotion. — Terrapin Station

So if I love to walk and I break my leg or become tired, I must not love walking any more? I cannot love to be out in the hills when confined to bed?

But you can act and I do act all the acts that point to an uninformed observer that I love my neighbour, while I do not love my neighbour. — god must be atheist

Indeed! Fake it 'til you make it is a thing too, and there is a famous C15th book, "The Imitation of Christ" that gives this some pedigree.

There are loving feelings and there are loving acts and neither entails the other inevitably; this much is inescapable without doing violence to the language. Not much follows from this except that the criticisms based on a rigid definition fail. But I can invite you to consider with a slightly more open mind what I might have meant by this:

One of the deficiencies of atheism is the notion that the existence of God is of great importance.

There is no love. God is love.

Perhaps it is not too controversial to say that perfection is usually unobtainable. Engineers have the notion of tolerance, which they measure. Parts of a machine are made to an imperfect fit and even the measure of imperfection is imperfect. And you will be familiar at least with the formal, or ideal realm of Plato. In his dualism, the ideal and the material are opposed, and the ideal is real and the material illusory. And I hope you have enough sense not to just dismiss Plato as not worth considering.

So I say, to the materialist in his engineer's world, that love is an ideal, and does not exist in his world except as an unrealised unrealisable idea. And just as the engineer strives for an exactitude he knows is unobtainable, so one can strive for a love that is unobtainable and that is the 'heart' of the Christian tradition. And very very crap they are in most cases at reaching anywhere near it.

How would you know how to act in that situation if the actions are not motivated by particular emotions? — Terrapin Station

I dare say that every act must be motivated by an emotion, - that is tenable. What is not tenable is that the commandment is to have an emotion and not to perform an action. So it must surely be the case that the word refers both to an emotion and to the actions that flow from it, and that this is not something I have made up on a whim, but a long tradition.

I think the method of criticism that uses rigid definitions that clearly cannot be meaningfully applied to the usages that are being criticised is rather weak. It is much more interesting and revealing to look for an interpretation that makes sense than to defeat another understanding without understanding it.

"Why did the British (in our case) select Africans as the slave of choice? Could they have selected some other group: Aboriginals, South Asians, Arabs...?

I am guessing there are two, maybe three reasons: — Bitter Crank

Why did the Africans sell their own kind into slavery? Well, for one -- they didn't see much of what happened to slaves — Bitter Crank

I can add a couple of titbits to this. The trade on the African coast was slaves for iron, and to a lesser extent guns. The African iron industry was late developed and iron was scarce and of religious significance. So the coastal traders became rich in iron weapons and the prestige of the favour of the gods, and by trade and conquest mixed, the trade moved inland and sucked slaves from the interior.

There was also a religious justification for enslaving Africans ( and not Arabs or Chinese or Indians) in their largely, but not entirely mythical nakedness and lack of sexual shame, which put them amongst the beasts rather than the descendants of Adam and Eve. Thus elsewhere the exploitation of our inferiors took another form - indentures, forced migration, etc.

It might be useful to turn the philosophical eye inwards for a moment and ask what is philosophy. And in doing so, one must look at philosophy as it occurs rather than as one would like it to occur according to some principle.

And when I say 'must' I am of course declaring a principle of my own philosophy, that one aim to be unbiased. And the discerning inquirer will have noticed that there is a radical circularity here, and I will admit that it is unsettling, but also declare it as a widespread feature of philosophy.

So looking around, there is a tradition, or several traditions, with a canon of works, and a practice of study contemplation and dialogue. There are buildings that house schools and libraries, there are teachers and students. And there are factions, 'isms, and sects, great and small, that have disputes and conflicts and more or less contempt for each other.

Do we members of this forum all agree what is this 'philosophy' that we discuss together? It seems to me that we do not, and that philosophy is almost as varied and conflicted as religion, and indeed that it cannot be entirely distinguished from that religion that it opposes (in this thread at least). As a matter of fact, philosophy is a tradition, with a practice that develops from principles, and principles developed from practice. It is an institution, a way of life, a discipline ... much like any religion; and some factions of philosophy have a somewhat religious devotion to denying any resemblance to a religion. As if this could ever be anything other than an article of faith and dogma.

And obviously, it (love) is not an emotion.
— unenlightened

Then you don't speak English. Or have misconnected ideals of concepts. — god must be atheist

In context, I suggest to you that the commandment "Love thy neighbour" is not a command to have an emotion, but a command to act.

First, I do not see — Bartricks

Yup.

Thanks for a positive comment on S. — Bitter Crank

Well thanks for noticing my eloquent eulogy up the top of the page. not. :cry:

If you want to define god as love so that you can continue using that random word for whaatever reason, go ahead. But that means god is just an emotion and not a conscious entity, creator of the universe, or an independent existence in any way. — Artemis

I will go ahead, thanks. But it is not random and I have not invented it. It is a mainstream tradition. And obviously, it is not an emotion. And I have already said I am not even interested in "existence" in this context. But apart from that , excellent response.

If you define a god as a magic man in the sky that exists and for whom there can be evidence, I will join you in your scepticism. But that is not what sensible people mean.

Love doesn't entail god. — Artemis

God is love.

Seems like a false dichotomy to me. Either god or nothing is worth dying for?

The people you love are worth living and dying for to most people, I would think. — Artemis

Erm, can I just highlight the 'love' there? Did you think I was talking about some ectoplasmic emanation?

I wouldn't die for your god, either. It's not worth it. — god must be atheist

Fine, die for nothing, then.

Sorry, that sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it. but I don't know how to put it kindly.

One of the deficiencies of atheism is the notion that the existence of God is of great importance.

There is no love. God is love.

Therefore I have faith. Therefore I practice.

This is called 'practical reason'. Lawyers and judges believe in law and order despite, and because of, knowing that the world is chaotic and anarchic. Doctors seek to preserve life, despite and because of knowing that all men are mortal.

Atheism is inadequate because it is not worth dying for.

His passion was not what ultimately got him banned. It was the "fuck you... ban me" bit.
— Baden

It's pretty childish to ban someone over that, though, especially given the comments he'd made after that. — Terrapin Station

I think I would not ban over the abuse. Pm 'fuck you's are par for the moderation course. But the 'ban me' challenge is a fairly explicit refusal of moderation and declaration of intent to continue. It leaves no other option. You don't have to agree, but you have to submit. On the old forum we had a submit button rather than a post comment button that made this a little clearer.

Alas, we have lost a Humean.
Alas, not all Humeans are humane.
Alas, philosophers are not always virtuous.

The point is that the right understands that politics is about power - taking control of institutions, putting 'their man' or men in positions to exert that power, legislating, using the courts, etc. — StreetlightX

It is one thing to recognise the Machiavellian nature of politics. It is quite another to run on a platform of Machiavellianism. One cannot serve one's principles without power, but if power is the only principle then one is a slave to a black hole indeed. Politics is made of power, but it is not about power. Only princes are addressed, not democrats.

I would notice whether your wife spoke the language of her country. — iolo

I'm sorry, I wanted to leave you be, but this is a bit too extreme. Suppose, like most of the Welsh, she did not?

Half a million people in Wales can speak Welsh; that's around 19% of the population.

Why should you be bothered about 81% of the population of the country you claim as your own? No reason at all, let them eat cake. Now I really am done.

You speak a language or you don't: — iolo

I don't quite see how geographical concepts can be innocent or guilty of anything, — iolo

Have fun joining up those dots. I'll leave there, sir. I have had this conversation too many times. But I do urge you to consider the historical connections between nationalism and fascism and racism, and consider that being black is at least as real as being Welsh. I would bet that even a expert like you would see my wife's blackness before you noticed her Welshness.

I rather gather that you were too superior to learn the language of the country you were settling in: you certainly seem to be getting extremely worked up about imagined things, so I take that to be the reason! :) No need to be so sensitive: our struggle to survive had hardly got going back then! — iolo

You know so much about me that I have not said; your condescension is so very English. Personally it is the Englishness of Welsh culture that I find objectionable, the overweening pride, the xenophobia, the self-satisfied innocence, the exclusivity. Fortunately, it exists mainly in a middle-class minority, and the real Welsh culture and tradition is much more open-hearted.

And by the way, one can speak a language somewhat. It is by no means the case that one speaks it or does not. For example aside from English, I speak reasonable French (for a foreigner) a very little German, and some Catalan. And maybe a smattering of some other tongues. But I am no linguist.

If you like to think in that peculiar way. — iolo

Races are imagined, but countries and cultures are real?

My wife is a very real mixed race culture person, Welsh and Caribbean. Her father's name, his slave name was 'Williams'. What is peculiar is to imagine that the dreadful abusive history of Britain stopped at the border and left Wales innocent. How very complacently racist you are again to think that nation has a reality that race does not. Imagine a Jew in the Death camps or a slave on the plantation saying 'races are imagined'! Now that would be peculiar. But coming from you as represented in what you have already said, it is just more racism.

If one is to suppose that the entire universe of space and time Is held in the hand and eye of God, then it makes no sense to me at least, to speak of God "wanting", because to want something is always to be insufficient in some way. Such a contradiction is forbidden because it makes no sense, and things that make no sense set no limit on God's potency or on anything else. They simply expose our human folly. God does not lack coffee.

So I have to conceive of God's creation as flowing not from any desire at all, but on the contrary, from a superabundance of quality - of love in that sense of love that is opposed to desire.

Just as the Great Nintendo does not lack stars or require the assistance of Mario to defeat Bowser.

We are dropping the ball if we think dissatisfaction with bodies is merely a question of whether if someone with certain properties can belong to sex or gender. A paradise inclusive of sex and gender (in the sense of recognising both are identities in themselves, not given by any particular property or another) does not amount to overcoming dissatisfaction with bodies and social expectations surrounding it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes, I agree. But I think we are even more losing the ball down the gutter if we think that gender dysphoria is unconnected with the almost universal body dysmorphia, eating disorders, etc, and vast, vast, beauty industry telling everyone that their intimate places (for instance) are smelly hairy and disgusting, but can be made appealing with the application of much product and frequent surgery - without it, you are not a proper member of the human race and deserve to be shunned by all.

One of the many privileges of being white is being able to say "I don't believe in races" and have anyone at all give it a moment's credence.

You'll be telling me next you expect progressives to progress, and conservatives to conserve.

So your comparison is welcome after all. — bongo fury

But it's a joke, do you not see, to expect a socialist in a capitalist society to refuse to bow to the rituals of money and property ? One gets a job and pays one's taxes, and campaigns.

since sexual essentialism is a mythical cultural construct. Folks should be combating the cultural construct, not bowing to it while claiming to be trying to buck it. — Terrapin Station

Since money/ownership is a mythical cultural construct. Folks should be combating the cultural construct, not bowing to it while claiming to be trying to buck it.

Somehow, I suspect my version will not garner such enthusiastic support.

our being replaced by rich foreigners. — iolo

Seriously, forget the self parody, this is a racist trope.

there were still plenty of people until their houses were all bought up. — iolo

Well where I used to live was half empty back in the sixties and abandoned cottages sold for £50. So my experience rather contradicts this

I don't think most of those who move in contribute anything whatever, frankly — iolo

That is frankly racist.

One third of the population are English now - mainly geriatrics, — iolo

I am a geriatric English remainer in Wales. But I think the blame for the school and pub closures has to be laid more at the doors of the Welsh emigrants than the English immigrants. Is there not a certain logic there?

they voted Brexit because they are treated like shit and thought it meant they mattered, — iolo

This is sadly true of most of the brexit majority regions, and how the rich have convinced them that it is the bloody foreigner shitting on them and not the bloody elite, is truly wonderful to behold. But the incomer and foreigner almost invariably improve the economy. Not the second homers, but the long term residents support the local economy; even idlers like myself bring our pensions and savings into the area.

Dysphoria about one's body doesn't itself entail a sex or gender identification. We have to understand or learn our bodies relate in these specific ways of identity.

Without this social aspect, one would just have an sensation and sense about their body. Dysphoria would manifest not as an idenfication as male or female, but just need for different body parts. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well it does, unfortunately. This is an almost universal psychological disease in the West. There is hardly a male or a female that does not spend inordinate time working out, not to be healthy, but to develop a six-pack, or otherwise "body-sculpt", or then there are the chemical bodybuilders, the cosmetic surgery industry, make up, the flattering clothes designed to make one look - thinner, curvier, taller, broad-shoulderier. The pressure to conform to some fantasy (gendered) body-ideal is about irresistible and if you want to appear in media, or work in a public space it is completely irresistible.

And the misery all this futile effort entails... and the lives of those who cannot or will not conform, are poor, nasty, brutish and short. And above all ugly - the unforgivable sin.

Can you even conceive it, that people bathe in bleach and shampoo with caustic soda in their effort to conform?

Biology is biology, — Swan

No it isn't. :groan:

Biology is mere biology. Society picks certain biological features and gives them significance, and completely ignores others. Fashion declares that heroin chic is the epitome of femininity - then next year, something else. The rules are bureaucratic and unstable, and nothing to do with biology.

I am just saying what you are saying. It is impossible to transition to the opposite sex if you lack necessary attributes. — Swan

Alas you are not saying at all what I am saying. You are, from my POV, the bureaucrat, laying down the law about what does and does not count as a green bin, or a woman, or whatever. I am saying that a bucket with "green bin" written on it will function just fine as long as the bureaucrats butt out, and a well disposed dog or a teddy bear can take on at least some responsibilities of a man.

The problem is "blue bin" and "green bin" both have the same necessary attributes to be the "same bins, in different clothing". — Swan

Alas you are quite wrong. A blue bin lacks entirely the necessary attribute of greenness. Greenness is declared necessary, and declared to be a matter of substance that underlies clothing. If the substance of the bin is blue, it remains blue no matter that you clothe it or paint it or label it in green. You are guilty here of the very thing you complain of in others WRT sex.

I am observing a cat. Am I the cat I am observing? no. — Bartricks

I'm very glad to hear it. But it would be a bit silly to suppose that anyone suggested that everything one ever observed was oneself, except in a trivial 'all is one universe' sense which I think we are grown up enough to pass by as uninteresting.

I am my self just as you are your self. — Bartricks

That's a great comfort, but what is your evidence? I think you should answer your own questions too.

tell me more about this self that you say you can observe. Does it have a colour? — Bartricks

I already told you, it has the colour and texture of the void. But answer your own questions before you ask me any more. In the meantime I am taking your advice and going to bed, alas without the yak's piss, so you will have plenty of time to consider the matter and come back with both your own answers and a new penetrating question.

Or even some kind of a thesis or argument.

"I observer my self" not "The observer is the observed". — Bartricks

I can well imagine that you are not your self, and I commiserate, but as it happens, I am myself, so when I see myself the observer is indeed the observed.

Got it in one! Congratulations! The observer is the observed.