We're moral beings, even if morality is ultimately groundless. We'll continue to be moral regardless. — darthbarracuda

This is contradictory. What makes us moral if not that which grounds morality?

No, we're not and if you've read other stuff I've said about him, you'd know I know that. But you took the word tyranny that I used "hyper-literally" to use your own phrase, which is fine the first time - I knew when I wrote it it was somewhat of an exaggeration - but I did specify later that I meant it in the narrow sense of what he's doing with the media. He's not going to get away with much more. — Baden

Good.

The issue is not whether Trump ever lies, everyone lies sometimes, it's whether or not he can be characterized as a liar. You seemed to be suggesting that was in dispute. If you're not, fine. — Baden

I think what I was suggesting is plain for all to see.

you have to find excuses for him like he's just too dumb to know what he's saying is false or he shouldn't be taken literally — Baden

This hardly sounds like I'm "covering for him." And you haven't refuted what I said. Granted, it would be difficult to refute, since it's just my impression of him, but I am not a great fan of Trump. Let me say that again: I am not a great fan of Trump. Your efforts to pin me down as some mindless devotee are comical to say the least. You and Wayfarer seem way too emotional when it comes to Trump, which clouds your judgment of him and those on the right. Look at what he's done and then make a judgment. Vituperating over every little thing he says, as if it's obvious what he means or what policies might result from it, is really tiresome. We're not living in some apocalyptic, gas chamber filled Orwellian hellscape and nothing he's done even remotely suggests we're headed in that direction, despite the best efforts of the media and those on the left to say that we are.

I have no problem admitting that both of them are liars because it's demonstrable. You can take their speeches and find the falsehoods. They're right there. Why is it so hard for you? — Baden

What the hell is your problem? I never implied, nor wish to imply, that Trump never lies. I merely wanted to point out that a lie is different from telling an untruth and that I thought Trump was guilty more of the latter than the former.

No, that America has elected a narcissist and congenital liar as President. No, he's not 'like Hitler'. If that is your standard for bloody awful, then I guess what you've picked is OK. — Wayfarer

Name me a president who wasn't a narcissist and a liar. And it's your side that keeps painting him as a horrible, awful dictator.

If he's consistent — Baden

You didn't answer my question. Why did you choose to interpret his remarks hyper literally?

it doesn't qualify as "fake news". — Baden

It's my understanding that Trump uses this phrase to talk about the excessive vitriol and bias directed against him in the mainstream media. You seem to be taking it literally, once again. Any news story is likely going to contain some nugget of truth. The problem is the way it's presented. That being said, some stories are completely false through and through, like the one about Trump removing the bust of MLK.

What other adjective X comes closer to covering the spirit of what Trump was trying to do? — Baden

Travel. :-|

Can't you see how serious that is? — Wayfarer

No, because Trump isn't revoking the freedom of the press to report such things.

you no doubt recall the crowds shrieking 'Lock her up' at the Republican National Convention last year. Do you remember what the alleged crime was, for which she was to be 'locked up'? — Wayfarer

Likely criminal behavior leads to jail time, yes, so it seems a reasonable request to me. Clinton probably should be in jail, and not just for the email scandal.

He collects rent from foreign governments, against the Constitution. — Wayfarer

Highly debatable, and no where near as bad as what Hillary does.

I think it's the case that you don't understand what's happening. — Wayfarer

Which is what? The inauguration of Hitler? I can almost see the froth on your mouth from here.

I read Mary Eberstadt, David Brooks, Ross Douthat — Wayfarer

Meh. That's a start I guess.

building trade barriers — Wayfarer

And I disagree with him on this.

increasing racial discrimination — Wayfarer

False.

tearing up the Dodd Frank act — Wayfarer

It was a terrible bill.

abolishing environmental protections — Wayfarer

Too vague an insinuation.

destroying the health insurance industry — Wayfarer

Lol. No. Although, that's an industry most on the left hate, too, so I imagine they would welcome its destruction.

What's to like? — Wayfarer

He can balance out the supreme court with an originalist, he's a kick in the teeth to PC leftists, his tax plan looks good, and he is at least aware that radical Islamic terrorism is a real thing and a problem.

But why limit travel from countries where terrorists have not been coming to America from? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because they may come to America from said countries? Duh.

The thing is, no terrorists have been coming to America from these countries. Most terrorists in America come from America, what a surprise. If you want to stop terrorism in America, then focus on American terrorists. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not an either/or, though. We can and should focus on both.

I don't get why you're going in to bat for him. — Wayfarer

What does this mean? Why do you think I'm doing so? My original comment was about how I thought the claim that Trump is a liar is overblown. He doesn't generally lie. He speaks untruth he genuinely believes in. Moreover, because he is so inarticulate, much of what he says can be construed as a lie, when in reality it's just the media reading way too much into what he said and in the worst possible light.

You made fun of me for reading National Review. I don't read it that much, although I do like Hanson's columns. But as I told Baden, I read the mainstream liberal press everyday. Do you actually read any right leaning sources?

I marched against Vietnam in 1972. Trump's election is a far greater threat to the world order than that was. — Wayfarer

See, this is sheer hysteria. What the hell has he done that's so bad? The man's an arrogant, liberal New York businessman. I just don't see what's so sinister about him. "Oh, no, it's actually Bannon, the Goebbels behind the scenes who we need to look out for!" Well, what has he said or done that's so bad? I don't like him as a person, and I don't like his website, Breitbart, which is mostly clickbait garbage, but I fail to see what policy he's advocated or made Trump implement that's going to lead to the Holocaust 2.0 or whatever it is those on the left are so damned paranoid about. As I've told you before, get a grip, man.

QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN WHEN THE OIL RUNS OUT? — Bitter Crank

Like we're already doing, we'll switch to alternative fuel sources, like natural gas and renewables.

Which could be done, quite effectively, using the current immigration system, visa vetting, and other controls that are already in place. — Wayfarer

I'm highly skeptical of this and certainly not going to take your word for it.

show the world what a 'Muslim Ban' really looks like - which is what actually happened. — Wayfarer

No it wasn't. It wasn't a Muslim ban.

So if you're going to correct someone, at least get your facts right, especially in this context. — Wayfarer

You said Trump said that a terrorist attack happened in Sweden. I challenged you to find me the quote where he said this. You haven't come up with one. So I do have my facts right, sweetcheeks.

The notion that Trump is actuallya suitable person and professionally competent to be President. — Wayfarer

Well, he was suitable, because he was elected. However, I personally think Trump is unsuitable to be president, so hey, wow, you're dead wrong again about me.

Yes, Thorongil avoided my challenge. — Baden

No I didn't.

Let's presume you really believe that most of what news outlets such as CNN report has "nothing to do with reality" and is creating a "fantasy world". — Baden

Why would you choose to take what he said that literally and then proceed to offer several articles covering certain events that happened today? Do you honestly think he's going to dispute that they are reporting on real events? But that's never been the issue. It's the manner in which such news is presented. The mainstream media is mostly concerned with bashing Trump. Of course they still do their "bread and butter" news reporting, but if that's all they did, or the manner in which they did it was as neutral and dispassionate as possible, then there would be no complaints.

Just to pop the caricature balloon peddled by Thorongil — Wayfarer

Which was?

The travel ban was drafted in very slapdash fashion — Wayfarer

Yeah, I think it was poorly implemented and ill-thought out as well. But Hanson is right. It makes sense to place some sort of a moratorium on immigration from countries whose populations we have little to no information about and which house large numbers of terrorists. These same countries were being watched by the Obama administration as particularly dangerous.

and no actual terrorist attacks on American soil had originated from a citizen of the countries named in the ban, since 2000. — Wayfarer

So? That doesn't mean we shouldn't be cautious about accepting people from those countries.

That is why, when challenged in the courts, it was immediately suspended — Wayfarer

Our democratic system of checks and balances is working as intended?! How interesting, given that Trump is supposed to be a tyrant and the second coming of Hitler.... You'd think he'd have sent that judge to the gas chamber by now.

like non-existent terrorist attacks in Sweden. — Wayfarer

Talk about fake news! When did Trump say this? He vaguely mentioned the fact that Sweden's asylum seekers and immigrants commit more crimes than native Swedes.

Name them — Baden

From a recent article I read:

Fake news proliferates. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Representative Elijah Cummings recently attacked departing national-security adviser Michael Flynn by reading a supposed Flynn tweet that was a pure invention. Nor did Trump, as reported, have a serious plan to mobilize 100,000 National Guard troops to enforce deportations. Other false stories claimed that Trump had pondered invading Mexico, that his lawyer had gone to Prague to meet with the Russians, and that he had removed from the Oval Office a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. — sure proof of Trump's racism. Journalists — including even fact-checker Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post — reposted fake news reports that Trump's father had run a campaign for the New York mayorship during which he'd aired racist TV ads.

I would add the hysteria surrounding the travel ban as well, which the media claimed was a "Muslim ban."

I'm not talking about a full-blown tyranny as he won't get that far (though not for want of trying) but an attempt to destroy all media that is critical of the government is tyrannical, and he's got most conservatives right behind him. — Baden

I see no evidence of this. There hasn't been a more widespread and viscous campaign on the part of the media to slander and destroy a candidate than this past election cycle. Trump has no control over the truly massive deluge of hate and vitriol aimed at him for almost two years straight, which shows no sign of letting up.

real news outlets — Baden

What, like CNN? NYT? They are news outlets, I'll give you that, and until recently I read the latter everyday for my primary source of basic news, but they are quite clearly biased and on the left (I switched to the BBC, which is less revolting in its articles and headlines than the NYT has become in the last year or so). And no, just to pop the caricature balloon that Wayfarer likes peddling about the other side, I don't watch Fox News. I haven't watched more than an hour of that channel in my entire life, and most of that time has come from seeing it in dining halls and doctors offices.

The tendency to promote a fantasy view of life - that Trump can 'bring the jobs back' and 'make people safe' — Wayfarer

Well let's see. You could have egg on your face if the economy does significantly better under Trump than under Obama, which I see as likely, depending on what he follows through with.

I read NY Times and Washington Post online. — Wayfarer

What a shocker....

do you think he really believes that all these press stories criticizing him and his team are "fake news"? — Baden

I think he believes a lot of the stories about him are fake news, about which he is right.

So, it's highly ironic that the same Republicans who regularly accused Obama of acting like a dictator because of a few executive orders are now lining up lemming-like to follow Trump off the cliff into tyranny. — Baden

I grant you that the executive branch has too much power and certain Republicans are hypocrites, just as the Democrats are. I'm not a fan of the executive order and would rather laws be passed as they were intended to, by congress. However, I think it absurd to suggest that we're heading toward tyranny.

had've — Sapientia

:-|

It's rather a shame you don't take your own advice and stop reading my posts — unenlightened

I said that one needn't read someone's posts if they don't want to. I wanted to read your posts in this thread, so I've responded.

That's the thing with trolls, they won't stay under their own bridges, but have to invade everyone else's with their contradictory and hypocritical comments. You have no insight, nothing to say on the topic, but here you are again making your usual dismissive and vacuous remarks. You do understand that what I am doing here is troll baiting, don't you? — unenlightened

How typical. Just label someone a troll if you disagree with or don't like them.

Sorry, but you're not going to get my sympathy. You're a mod on a tiny Internet forum complaining about having to read stuff that mods read. So? Don't be a mod, then. You're here on a voluntary basis.

I don't like this attitude, and I don't find it interesting, but if I ignore it, I legitimise it — unenlightened

No, you just ignore it. And why should I care if you don't like my attitude or find it uninteresting? You're just emoting here. But I think I know why. You'd like to be able to wield the power to delete and ban whatever and whomever doesn't meet your own subjective criteria for being "likable" and "interesting," and you're butthurt about not being able to do so. Once again, tough nuts. If I were a mod, I wouldn't delete anything short of non-joking threats of violence and spam. That would be "maximum freedom," to borrow your phrase. A thread gets off topic? Create a new thread for it. I've seen that happen here before actually. Creating essay length threads complaining about how you can't be as authoritarian as you'd like to in one small corner of the Internet is to be really petty.

Don't read or post about what you don't like or aren't interested in. It's very simple.

Much ado about nothing it seems to me....

then to provide that in order to hang onto a fundamentalist constituency is also an act of adaptation. — John

Right, you're merely proving my point. Anything a church does to gain members is to "adapt," so you can't ever be wrong. I don't dispute what you say.

'new age' exists is because of the shortcomings of the Christian mainstream - it's authoritarianism, inflexibility, dogmatism, and the rest — Wayfarer

These are precisely its strengths that have allowed it to endure for 2000 years. You no longer have a universal church when you take such things away.

It does sound like they have adapted to some extent in the past, but have now failed to adapt to a growing penchant for fundamentalism among the faithful. Fundamentalist churches have obviously adapted to meet people's desires and needs or they would not be so popular (relatively speaking) today. — John

You're using the word "adapt" so that you always come out in the right. What you're effectively saying in the quote above is that those churches that stress more traditional values and beliefs are doing better. Okay, but that's not exactly "adapting to modern life," which was the phrase you used. When I think of "adapting to modern life" I think of precisely what the mainline churches have done, which is to get in bed with progressive politics. This has caused such churches to decline.

One can use Buddhism in Japan as another example. When it abandoned the traditional monastic code during the Meiji restoration, ever since then it has largely become a funeral business that is irrelevant to most people's lives.

So what's "good new age?"

I said "How do you know it is "new age"?", referring to the Center — John

I thought you meant what he says, not the center.

Have you got any argument to support your claim that religious organizations escape the common condition constraining all things such that they must adapt to survive? — John

I just gave you an example.

Rubbish. It's adapt or become extinct. — John

Nah.

His videos are not the Center..doh! — John

And I never claimed they were....

Religious organizations in general are having to adapt to the needs of their prospective constituents if they want to survive, to be considered relevant to modern life and continue to exert any influence. — John

No, that's how they wither and die. See mainline Protestant Christianity.

How do you know it is "new age"? Have you been there to confirm that? — John

Been where? Watch his damn videos. The man has the Om symbol equaling mc2 behind him in the one above, for goodness' sake.

To be honest, your attitude seems to be lacking in subtly, unsophisticated and snobbish. — John

Well, there are plenty more rivers to go cry in.

Seems to me you are being quite unnecessarily judgemental. — John

Cry me a river.

Even if he is wealthy; and he has earned it, then so what? Would you turn away wealth if it came your way? — John

A Franciscan would. I don't give two figs if someone's wealthy.

He's "written" dozens of books, has a new age center, and goes around giving talks like the above one. No, I don't have any direct evidence, that's why I said I'd place a bet that he's a very wealthy man. St. Francis is rolling in his grave to see this hack running around in any case.

I saw a video by him a few months ago and was slightly intrigued but then watched a few more and slowly began to see his MO. He's just another new age, self-help guru who peddles pseudo-science and shallow universalism, but with the unique angle that he pretends to be a Catholic, even though almost all of his views conflict with Church teaching. How much do you want to bet he's a millionaire, or at the very least, a very wealthy man? "Franciscan" my ass.

How do you know it's historically accurate?

This may be vaguely relevant.

I claim that there is nothing wrong with maximizing sentient welfare, but neither is there anything (technically) wrong with not doing so.

Take, for example, the drowning child thought experiment. Although at first glance it seems as though the man standing by the water has a moral obligation to get his shoes and pants wet and save the child, there are unknown contingencies at play. Perhaps there is a crocodile in the lake, and if the man enters the lake, he’ll get eaten alive by the beast. Now it seems ambiguous whether or not the man has any special obligation. Not saving the child because the man might ruin his shoes is a poor reason, but not saving the child because the man might himself die in agony does seem like a pretty fair and good reason. Thus, simply being in the right place at the right time doesn’t seem to be enough to entail special obligations. Since perfect, omniscient knowledge of all possible moves is impossible, a rational agent cannot be expected to obey apparently-inherent special deontic responsibilities. — darthbarracuda

This sounds like a development in your thought from the last major conversation we had, one I cannot fail to notice is in the direction of what I argued. :P

Philosophy has never been done in an environment sterilized from all trace of religion. You assume that religion cannot inform our picture of reality. Fine, but that's merely an assumption on your part. Someone like Aquinas might disagree, although he is explicit about the ability of human beings to possess knowledge independently of divine grace, as many Platonists taught.

So your point is a banal and trivial one. We should be skeptical of the philosophical positions of every philosopher, no matter their religious and cultural background. But that doesn't mean the latter's influence is undue or false, merely on account of it being an influence.

because it comes across as advocating the "final word" and not an ongoing exercise in inquiry. It seems dogmatic. — darthbarracuda

Once again, I think you're assuming Scholasticism is a monolith when it is not. The word refers to the method of disputation, or dialectical reasoning, employed by the "schoolmen" who taught at various cathedral schools during the high Middle Ages, which we also credit as the first universities. In other words, it designates how they taught, not necessarily what they taught. And what they taught wasn't a single thing. About the only thing that united them was the use of Aristotelian terminology and logic (although some of a more Platonist bent objected even to these) and the presupposition that the Christian religion was true. Now, you can take the Russellian line about how this makes them fakes, but I don't buy it. They were doing metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and so on, which can be assessed on their own merits or else extracted from theological assumptions. We still read the ancient Greeks, for example, even though we don't accept their religious assumptions, so it's silly to dismiss the Scholastics merely because of their religious beliefs.

No problem. :)

This book has been on my list for some time and it's a fairly early skeptical critique of Scholastic/Aristotelian philosophy, so you might be interested in it. Even earlier than him is Nicholas of Autrecourt, sometimes, though perhaps not quite accurately, labeled the "medieval Hume." He too had some criticisms of Aristotelianism.

One thing to keep in mind is that there isn't any one "Scholastic" philosophy. People like Henry of Ghent, Aquinas, Scotus, etc all used the same basic philosophical vocabulary to build mutually exclusive systems and had profound disagreements with one another.

They're well written games with good atmospheres (though 2 is a little boring). I think you'll like them.

Have you played Bioshock before?

Those boring schmucks don't deserve you anyway.

Trump is not a liar, or at least he does not give off that impression. To lie is to intentionally deceive, whereas I think Trump genuinely believes the things he says, some of which may not in fact be true. Being wrong does not make him a liar, though.

Since these odds are so unbelievable, can we question whether or not animal minds even exist? — jdh

This is a non-sequitur. And you fail to define the word "mind." Many animals clearly possess cognition, as we do. But they do not possess reason, as we do.

Okay, if we are talking about 1k expense as a student, then we agree. — Emptyheady

That was always ever the context in which I made my original point....