Hmm, interesting. If it's true, then it may merely be because most people are religious (to some degree) and also that most people are quite stupid when compared with the very intelligent. We could note that heterosexuals are not necessarily two-legged, but most two-legged people are heterosexuals. That example brings out the lack of logical connection. The statement is true merely because most people have two legs and also most people are heterosexual.
3 hours ago — Cuthbert

The statement you analyzed is not based on logic, it is based on evidence. There may be theories explaining it.

Finding it illogical is illogical, when the evidence is clear. You are saying "The statement can't be true because logic does not support it." If you think of it, logic also does not support heterosexuals are not necessarily two-legged, but most two-legged people are heterosexuals. You drew a VERY GOOD analytical connection: you equated one illogical statement with another illogical statement. However, uttering illogical statements to disprove an empirical finding is itself illogical.

We are suffering from an increasingly dehumanizing bureaucratic structure over our lives. — Athena

Dehumanizing, here, is an equivocation. It is a figure of speech, but in effect it describes a process that does not make humans into non-humans.

We are a mechanical society just like our world war enemy because we have adopted its bureaucracy and education. — Athena

Nazi Germany was a unified follower of Hitler. Individuals had no voice.

Today, the Internet gives voice to anyone who wants to have one. Diversity under free speech is incredibly wide. Heck, we even have people who refuse to take the Kovid shot.

Education is the same as then? I wonder why you say that, Athena.

Today at least half of society's elements do not have a job. That means that half of the entire population is not directly forced into a belief, a behaviour pattern, or a plastic jar.

I go back to the original question.

A human is a being that I determine to be a human.

If the buck stops right there, then there is no more argument.

In fact, I feel sorry for the human who can't recognize another human.

Why should the “subtly nuanced” understanding of the theologians matter? — Art48

EXACTLY!

Snobs are everywhere. There is a god, of whom you or anyone else does not KNOW he or she exists, and nobody knows anything about him or her. Yet people argue about the god's will, ambition, judgment, metasubstance, etc.

Bunch of idiots. If you want to believe, fine, that's as valid a worldview as anything else. But don't be ridiculous by arguing that your faith is superior to someone else's faith. (You being the general you not you, Art48.) All faiths, and all Christian faiths, are subject to verification, of which none has been made. So don't someone show me his face and tell me I'm wrong in my FAITH. That's ultimately impossible to determine.

Zen koan? — Agent Smith

Very close. It's a old Hungarian joke.

I'm sure there's someone out there who qualifies as a saint or a bodhisattva, but so long as him/her robbing a bank doesn't violate the laws of nature, there's nothing impossible about that i.e. the probability of a heist isn't 0%. — Agent Smith

In other words, your knowledge has a likelihood of 100% that this will happen.

This is a rather complex proposition, so being 100% right by all chances is very high.

You just converted me from atheist to believer.

YOU ARE THE ALMIGHTY!

There is no paradox. 1 is synthetic. 2 is analytic. — Hanover

I can wear clothes made of synthetics, but not of analytics. Therefore..,, hence...., ... sythetic is material, or matter, and analytic is made of anal material, or sht.

Long before we have run ourselves into oblivion, we may have spoiled the earth to a degree that we will have all died off. — Bitter Crank

Aha! The rest of your agruments are solid. This (quoted one) we can avoid by smarts.

I don't understand the examples of the OP. Better put, I don't see relevance of his questions to his examples. It is like saying "If the boat is 231 feet long, weighs 3 tonnes, then how old is the captain?" No offence meant to the writer of the Original Post.

We can reconstruct any energy form from any energy form. We can build fossil fuel from burnt fossil fuel by using energy from nuclear reactions, or from magma or anything.

C+O2-> CO2 + energy
is fully reversible by
CO2 - energy = C+ O2.

Whining stopped. (Whinging in American.)

Recycling will be an archaic form of reusing by altering.

Nore whining stopped.

Eventually (in a few billions of trillion years) all this will be stopped due to heat entropy, but hey.

post deleted

Yes, it is a dogmatic conviction. You can show me to be wrong by providing an argument for what you have just asserted. — Bartricks

No, we can't provide that to you. Because you are doggoned insisting on US having to accept the unacceptable, and then you call us dogmatic.

We are not dogmatic. You are, instead, acting in a megalomanic way... you think you can change the meaning of words and you believe that we must accept that new meaning... and you call us dogmatic when we refuse to do that.

There is a meta-breakdown in your logic. You solely and unilaterally demand that things be understood in oppositional ways than what they are supposed to be and in fact are. Then when we say we cannot do that, because of what the words of the language mean, you say we are DOGMATIC because... get this... because we insist that the words mean what they mean, and we reject a new and incongruent meaning that you, alone and arbitrarily, have assigned to a particular word.

Causation does not imply change (I said above that I do not believe that causation entails change). — Bartricks

Yes, yes... and seeing does not imply looking... and horizontal does not imply direction... and wood does not imply carbon content... and yes means no, and maybe means always, and stupidity is the new intelligence.

You should have a great re-write, Bartricks. Really. If you are this blind to insight, you should redesign the language to your own liking, so no matter what incredibly incongruent thing you say, you are still right, always and ever.

Except with the currently adopted meaning of "causation", there is a complete by-in by all parties who live by the consensus of meaning of words and expressions, which implies that there is no causation without change. If you can't see that, then, well, you are already living a life of la loca vida, where no matter what language means, you are above it all.

Following a rule is not interpreting a rule; it is, rather, an act. Hence the "meaning" of the rule is found in the use to which it is put. — Banno

Sure, interpretation is part of understanding a rule. Wittgenstein's point is that interpretation is insufficient. — Banno

These two are by you. Which of the two is true? Both can't be at the same time and in the same respect.

and understanding the rule requires the interpretation of the rule.
— god must be atheist

Nuh. — Banno

Here you clearly deny that interpretation is required.

I rest my case. You can continue if you like, but I have made my point, and any more text by me will be superfluous and redundant.

↪god must be atheist Seems that on your logic, because there are additions which you have not interpreted, you do not understand addition. — Banno

It may seem to you that way, but it is not like that. Addition is a rule; the understanding of a rule is to combine the additives into a sum. That is the RULE. Specific implementations depend on understanding this rule. Not having performed a particular addition, is not an indication that you don't understand the rule. If you understand the rule, you can do additions, and not having performed them does not deny your ability and potential to properly perform them.

it is an instruction, which is the rule how to get to the entrance. Some rules are specific and some rules are symbolic. "You must find the centre of the maze by tracing a path with a pencil" is a symbolic rule. How do you make a fully cognescent adult follow this rule if he has no arms or any way to hold and direct the travel of a pencil?"

Or if you don't like the instruction, then try this:

"You can get to the entrance by walking up the ramp, or else by walking up the stairs. The rule in this game is that you must walk up the stairs, not on the ramp." This is easy enough to understand by a person, even one in a wheelchair, who can't implement it.

If you have a special rule to define what you understand as a rule, please tell me. Like I said, good rules are interpreted by all the same way. If you and I interpret rules differently, please give me your definition. I'll abide by it and show you the same self-contradiction in the claim.

Nuh. Understanding a rule requires that you are able to implement it. A child demonstrates that they understand "2+2 = 4" not by interpreting it as "Two plus two equals four" but by moving blocks around, colouring in squares, and arguing over shared cakes. — Banno

This is contentious. Maybe the child does NOT understand the rule but he can implement it. For instance, the rule here is not that 2 and 2 are four, but that the + sign means the two quantities are combined on the other side of the = sign. This is my interpretation. I can therefore say with certainty that 23523+4930 = 28453, but the child you mentioned does NOT interpret the rule, so he can't follow the rule.

2+2=4 is a special case, which helps demonstrate that a completely different rule is followed from how you and I interpret + and =. The child does not interpret these; he does not understand the meaning of them; therefore he can't do 393848+5958= sum. Implementation won't help him.

Nuh. Understanding a rule requires that you are able to implement it. — Banno

False. An adult can easily and obviously understand "You must walk up the stairs to the entrance" but he can't implement the rule if he is wheelchair bound.

To me, the complication is the use of the same word "woman" to mean "female + trans women" and "female but not trans women" in different places. — Paulm12

Yes, I would say this is an unwanted lingual effect.

Much like "WE" can be you and I, or I and others but not you, or I and you and others. Because of my autism, the use of pronouns without a clear connection to their antecedents makes a text incomprehensible.

Following a rule is not interpreting a rule; it is, rather, an act. Hence the "meaning" of the rule is found in the use to which it is put. — Banno

You can't follow a rule unless you understand it; and understanding the rule requires the interpretation of the rule.

Since most rules have wording that forces a universal interpretation, at least the good rules, therefore the the paradox is demystified.

This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule

If this were true, truly true, then the entire criminal justice system could be dismantled. Which it is not.

Wittgenstein fail. Again.

If anything, religion provides an accessible, "practical philosophy" for how people are to live their lives and treat other people. — Paulm12

That part of religion is a part of religion, but it is not the religious part. Psychologists, psychiatrists do the same thing for and to people. Teachers in school do the same. Parents do it to their children. Peers do it to their peers, be they children, teens or adults.

You can scour the Holy Books for everyday advice how to live. Such as this:

Deuteronomy 25: 11: If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

Or this:

Deuteronomy 20: 16: However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.

So if you inherit a house in New Jersey left to you by an aunt, then you must kill everyone and everything that breathes and preaches in that city.

Therefore I say unto you, Paul, that thou shan't read the Holy Bible for guidance for everyday moral or civil behaviour; instead, thou shalt read the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for thy purpose for behaving normally. Just don't do anything that's in the DSM.

A bit of a change in direction: what differentiates in their lyrics' message country music from the blues? The musical style is obviously different, that I wish to divorce from the comparison. Strictly the words. Are there significant differences between the lyrics of country music and the blues?

This is not only a topic of discussion, but also an honest question: I hardly know any country songs, and the few that I heard broke my heart. I mean, I am very impressionable and I soak up art like a sponge and become its proper subordinate.

I grew up on rock. It's much milder in the emotive department. The blues makes me blue, but it's a good kind of blue. Country music is too much, like I said, it fills me with infinite sorrow and desolution.

Not so. He was an officer on the front lines, decorated several times. — jgill

Thanks. I did not know that.

Where did I say there can be causation without change? I think there can be, but I never said any such thing. — Bartricks

In your example given by Kant. That was a causation without change.

Time to start to think and think back and have a memory and have some capacity to reason, my friend.

What you're doing is taking the dogma that causes precede their effects and applying it to this case and getting the conclusion that the ball is not causing the depression. — Bartricks

Yu did not read my post, you just regurgitate what you are capable of.

I said causation implies change. I did not say "before" and "after". Idi not say cause precedes effect. I said without change there is no causation. You are not addressing that, instead, you are saying like your grandmother's parrot the same thing over and over again. That won't work. Time to start reading and thinking, not only responding to what you believe others have said.

:wink: :halo:

But that is my point as well. — Hanover

I think you and I are in agreement with each other then, not in contention. I just did not read your post all the way to the end, I suppose. BTW, the post that made me think was not the last one, and not the second last one in this thread, either.

@Hanover Again, this topic ain't about you. — 180 Proof

This is the newest. I got this same from @Banno (

Yeah, that's really about Must, isn't it. — Banno

) and a number of us got this same from @StreetlightX(

Again, the capacity of white people to turn a discussion of centuries of racial opression into one about their feelings will never not surprise me. — StreetlightX

)

So the newest is: "This is about you, ain't it."

Shit.

So, you don’t like him? — Wayfarer

That's right. I hate Wittgenstein for 1. He had no original thought and 2. He copied thoughts of others, he claimed the thoughts are his own, and in the process he reinterpreted those thoughts wrongly.

He was a complete fuck-up.

@paulm, that said, I think you are not justified to do so, but you do have the philosophical right to believe in divine intervention. A belief is an opinion, and opinions are better based on some evidence, but they are also valid if they are based on nothing too. At least to the person who holds that particular opinion. The problem is when the opinion holder who has no justification to his beliefs, proselytizes his opinion. If it is mere fantasy, it's good as a private thing, but disseminating fantasy as reality -- other than for entertainment -- is a moral crime.

I couldn't disagree more. Most religions have some canonical figure or text(s) that forms the basis of their religion. Take Christianity-I'd say with very good confidence that there probably was someone named Jesus who lived, died, and taught stuff which was written down and was at least similar to what we see in the New Testament, etc. Even if you reject any of the miracle claims it certainly has something to do with observed reality. — Paulm12

Here we differ. Religious texts are no more reliable to provide evidence of divine intervention than, for instance, "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare provides evidence that Romeo and Juliet died PRECISELY the way they did.

You may want to argue that RnJ provides evidence to human love and tragedy; much like the Holy Books provide evidence to human foibles. True. But the Holy Books provide no evidence to Devine Intervention, much like RnJ provide no evidence to the historical event of RnJ.

Anyone can claim miracles that happened two thousand years ago. Heck, anyone can claim miracles that happened yesterday. But nobody can predict miracles that will happen later today and tomorrow, yet we can predict that people will fall in love and people will meet tragic endings later today and tomorrow.

THIS is the big difference why one ought not to believe that the Holy Books are Holy or even reliable for their claims of supernatural events. They are totally unverifiable. And so are each and every claim of any miracle even that has been claimed in modern times.

Thanks. I always appreciate positive support, as I am a VERY SENSITIVE PERSON.

A Wittgensteinian answer to this question would that there is no such thing as physical causation as is generally understood in modern science, but that physical causation is an a priori intuition, which is useful for hypotheses, but which tells us nothing about the world in-itself or its meaning.

Wittgenstein was a fucking idiot, and he had not one reasonable philosophical thought.

Here he merely regurgitated Hume's tenet, and he makes the categorical mistake of CATEGORICALLY denying that causation can exist. Hume said things could be mere coincidences, but consistent in their appearance, and that gives an impression of causation. But Hume also recommended that causation is possible, and that the coincidence theory is not superior to the causation theory. Fucking idiot stupid cunt-face Wittgenstein carried it too far, making fart out of his thought.

Further to my previous post here, @Haglund has also made the mistake for claiming that only religious considerations can make one feel their life has meaning, purpose. I contest that. I asked @Haglund what is the meaning of life he gets from being religious, and he blabbered on, but basically could not answer the question.

I say @Haglund has a feeling of comfort from believing he has found a meaning for his life via religion, but I contest that it is via religion that he found a meaning for life; in fact, he found no meaning for life; this still does not take away from the facts that 1. He feels comforted and 2. He feels comforted because he mistakenly believes he's found a meaning for his life via religion.

I considered very seriously what @Hanover proposed: we can't demand to know or direct what philosophical belief causes comfort for another person.

My only objection is that it's a two-way street. Much like we, atheists, can't tell @Haglund to not feel comfort based on religious considerations, @Haglund also makes a mistake by categorically stating that atheists can't feel comfort, because they lack religious considerations.

— Bartricks

If you insist that there can be causation without change, then you could say that an object existing without change keeps on causing itself form moment to moment. Which is absurd.

Kant used a famous example of a ball on a cushion. The depression in the cushion is being caused by the ball on the cushion even if both call and cushion have been in that arrangement for eternity. — Bartricks

There is a counter-argument against this. If and only if the arrangement has been that way for all previous eternity, then there was no caused depression. The depression has existed since all eternity, but it was not caused. If something is caused, there is a change; and in this arrangement there is no change. If there is no change, there is no causation. That is a basic part of the concept "to cause".

Kant fails.

In some cases, I've heard that theology is a specific branch/subset of philosophy of religion. In this case, theological posts would therefore belong on a site like this. But to me, how would we differentiate a theological post/claim from a philosophical one? — Paulm12

Philosophy treats topics that have a reasoned basis, and theories are built using logic from that basis. Religion in this sense is philosophy; historically, and to some degree in the present, people do see a basis to religions. However, when you think long and hard, you realize that what makes a belief system a religion, has no basis. So religion, at best, is a speculative philosophy, inasmuch as it has some basic premises, upon which it builds, but the premises are mere fantasy, nothing to do with observed reality.

All theology I've read starts with belief in God. Philosophy does not start with such assumption. — Jackson

I think philosophy can start with any assumption it pleases to.

That's the difference between science and philosophy. Scientific theories need some sort of basis, then justification. Philosophical thoughts need no justification. Philosophical thoughts can start with a reasoned basis (such as the Relativity theory and how it was developed) and can start with no basis whatsoever (such as religions.) If a philosophical thought gains justification, the topic becomes a topic of science.

@Jackson, please see my post three posts down. It unifies our seemingly oppositional opinions.

The only meaning it serves for me is that science can't provide the reason. It gives meaning to my being. A reason for me being there. — Haglund

The reason for being here, as you put it, is for someone else's entertainment. Being here for the pleasure of their watching. Well... a reason for existence is to entertain some higher beings. How and why should that provide you with comfort? It is more of a Cause than a Reason. You are here because someone created you for his or her own amusement. I can see that as a causational process, but not as a status of reason.

A reason for me being there. Which science can't provide — Haglund

Well, I could see your point that science can't provide a reason for you being here. It can provide a complete chain of causation from the big bang, but it can't tell you why you are here.

Why you are here is answered by "because some higher beings enjoy watching you." Is that something to be proud of, or something that settles your mind? It has been shown that a being created just to be watched is more of a causational process than a state of reasonable existence. So... then... causational process here, causational process there... be it science or faith in the supernatural.

If you can accept a causational process for your existence in the supernatural, I think it ought not take too much effort to accept your existence in the natural as the reason to be. Because being the show-puppet for some higher being is not the reason to be for the puppet, but a caused existence.