I don't understand this comment. Are you suggesting that ritual sacrifice by wililng participants is ok? — Hanover

No, I am merely distinguishing between murder and the institution of sacrifice. God lets us know very early on that murder (including the murder of animals) is wrong. Yet animal sacrifices were offered throughout the Second Temple era and were offered by many of the forefathers. Giving an animal as a sacrifice is not the same as murdering it, even though the animal is slaughtered in both.

there's also good argument Isaac was in his 30s at the time, meaning he wasn't even a child. — Hanover

This strengthens the idea that Isaac was a willing participant.

But generally I read the comment your responded to more innocuously, as in it was indicating that child murder is condemnable under any scenario, which I'd agree to. — Hanover

I read Banno as referencing the Akedah story as he has often done, and equating the institution of sacrifice with murder.

A non sequitur. I will happily judge that a faith sufficient to murder a child is not a good faith. — Banno

It's not murder, it's ritual sacrifice. Nothing in the text suggests Isaac resisted or didn't cooperate. Many interpretations portray him as a willing participant.

If you're ever genuinely interested in grappling with the concept of God, the Bible is how you do it. Not internet debates.

I'm not trying to convert an atheist. I'm interested in how you all think, and the differences could lead to an interesting dialogue. For example, if we were to start with, e.g., Ezra-Nehemiah and work backwards, when would the atheists start taking issue? Now that would be interesting. It could expose some interesting points of difference.

That's fair and all, but on the other hand, why the need for Jesus if "simul iustus et peccator" is all one anticipates; snow-covered dung? — Leontiskos

Apparently, "simul iustus et peccator" is originally an Augustinian concept. Anyway, I'm not the one to be asking about the need for Jesus. I enjoy Luther's insights on humanity and the Bible, but when it comes to Jesus, he loses me completely. I understand justification by God's grace; that's about as far as I get.

All we have is the information that a 13th king is listed. It's unconfirmed. — frank

I totally get that it's unconfirmed, but perhaps we could say that the sourcebook has some degree of credibility to it?

If it's you claiming the kings list is correct, yes, it's a baseless assertion. — frank

I'm not claiming this. Let's say we have 12 kings confirmed in chronological order. The question is whether King 13 exists. Do we have reason to believe so? Does the claim in the book count for anything?

Let me rephrase:

We can confirm the list dating back, e.g., 500 years, but the evidence becomes scarce after that. How ought we view claims of kingship in the book after the evidence stops? Would it be fair to view them as baseless assertions?

We can be more certain of the existence of some historical figures than others.

Wouldn't you agree that there are stronger and weaker forms of evidence? The existence of some biblical figures is established, while for others, the evidence outside the Bible is limited.

A few questions for the atheists:

- Let's say you have a book that contains information on an ancient people. It contains a list of rulers dating back 1000 years. We can confirm the list dating back 500 years, but the evidence starts to become less reliable after that. Does the record in the book count for anything, or would we consider the claims in the books to be baseless beyond 500 years?

-Let's say you were up with Moses on Mount Sinai. What would need to transpire for you to become a believer?

How are you finding The Lonely Man of Faith? Would you recommend it?

How are you finding the commentary? Who are the major commentators? I've never read Artscrolls or JPS. My primary source on the Tanakh is Robert Alter's translation, which primarily draws on academic biblical scholarship.

Martin Luther considered removing the book of James from the New Testament, based in large part on passages such as this which went against the grain of his "sola fide": — Leontiskos

I have a certain degree of sympathy for Luther's ideas. If one's Christianity consists primarily in going around and doing good deeds to elevate one's spiritual status, why not just be a Jew (or a Muslim?) Why the need for Jesus? You have your deeds.

Not a good man, but a man who delineated firmly between religious traditions to attempt to reform and preserve his own. A sharp mind.

The Lonely Man of Faith by Joseph Soloveithik. A dicussion of spiritual man versus obedient man. Interesting dichotomy.

Deuteronomy - The JPS Torah Commentary - by Yahweh Almighty. A retellling of a tale of a people. Questionable fact wise. — Hanover

Sounds interesting. I'd be interested to hear more about these, especially the JPS commentary. I take it that it draws from thinkers like Rashi and Nachmanides, as well as the Talmudic rabbis and others?

but to talk that takes some particular holy book as authoritative. — Banno

Would you consider other ancient literature as non-authoritative? What makes literature authoritative for you?

the assumption is that the bible, or some assumedly authoritative interpretation of it, should be accepted as evidence, and yet no one seems to be able to say why. — Janus

The Bible frequently records actual historical events. Much of the Old Testament is true ancient history and is supported by other ancient sources outside the Bible. Obviously, the further back we go, the less is established. As for the New Testament, Jesus surely had a ministry, so the broad outlines of it describe something factual.

I have read Buber on this in part. I tend to think he makes too much of the difference, but it would be worth discussing. Is the text publicly available? — Leontiskos

Not sure. I only have a superficial understanding of his work on this topic.

I don't think Buber would say that pistis is strictly Christian and emunah is purely Jewish. The Christian can have emunah. The question for me is the role of pistis in Judaism, which would relate to the historical Jesus.

Martin Buber writes of two types of faith:

The Hebrew Emunah, which involves an I-Thou/personal relation between human and the divine. E.g. Abraham has emunah in God.

The Greek pistis, which involves an I-It/impersonal relation. For example, Christians have pistis in Jesus' resurrection.

It would be beneficial to the discussion to clarify these points.

Surely, the US has had blood on its hands since its very inception. All countries have blood on their hands. Perhaps all countries are just tainted to their essence like some version of original sin.

Just finished:

Cassius Dio - Books 60-70 (Claudius through Hadrian).

Currently Reading:

Josephus - Against Apion (my final Josephus work in Whiston's translation.)

On deck:

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Leviticus as Literature - Mary Douglas (a key work on Leviticus.)

Similarly, the fixing of the Jewish and Christian Canons involved a lot of appeals to evidence and discursive justification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's interesting to me how canons shape religions. The early rabbis excluded texts like I and II Maccabees, but the Church found them acceptable. I can think of several plausible reasons for rabbinic exclusion. One would be the legacy of the Hasmoneans, who persecuted (but also cooperated with) the Pharisees. Another might be that the militarism and martyrdom of these texts didn't fit well with the destruction wrought by the two Jewish-Roman wars and Bar Kokhba spurred by Jewish messianism. It's fine to glorify violence and military struggle against a floundering Seleucid empire, not so much with the Romans. The Hasmoneans have an ambiguous legacy today among Jews.

Or the reason for exclusion could have just been that the books were written late, but so was much of Daniel.

Esther was hotly debated for canon among the Jews. Jewish Esther is a considerably different text from Septuagint Esther; in ours, there is no mention of the divine, and she is a less pious figure than Greek Esther. They're considerably different compositions.

Why does appearance matter? If the concern is the safety and well being of cisgender women, and if you say that trans women who pass as biological women ought use women's bathrooms, then there's the implicit claim that trans women who pass as biological women are less likely to sexually assault cisgender women in women's bathrooms than trans women who don't pass as biological women. Is there any basis behind such a claim? — Michael

Appearance matters. It reflects how one spends one's time and one's values. If the appearance doesn't match the claim, the claimant is not credible. I don't make the rules.

Trans women who don't pass might not even be on HRT. If a trans woman isn't on HRT, there is no way "she" should be using the women's bathroom. Even if a trans woman is early in her transition, she's likely essentially indistinguishable from a regular guy and should therefore not be using the women's restroom. It's those people who are mid-transition where things get dicey.

Also, trans women who have been on HRT for a while likely have very low T and a low sex drive. They are also weaker. So they should be less of a danger. It's also terrible PR for the trans movement.

On balance, I would place greater trust and safety in a woman who has been transitioning for years versus one who has just begun their transition for many reasons.

If a man decides to start using women's spaces, is anyone even allowed to confront him in your view? What is the proper response if he claims to be trans but just hasn't started transitioning?

Who gets to decide whether or not someone is passing? — Michael

It can be difficult. Ambiguity is inherent to gender transition; it is a process, not an immediate switch from A to B.

Yet just because dusk and twilight exist doesn't mean there's no such thing as day and night.

And yes, unisex toilets are one way out of this difficulty.

No. Trans people should generally strive to act in ways that facilitate social cohesion and integration. A very passable trans woman (e.g., Blaire White) belongs in a women's restroom even with male genitalia.

But if the law requires that one's biological sex determines which bathroom one can use then plenty of women will be outraged by Leo Macallan in a women's bathroom. — Michael

Sure, and I wouldn't support such a law. However, I don't believe that male genitalia belongs in women's locker rooms under any circumstances.

I have heard of incidents where FtMs enter women's locker rooms, and it leads to chaos.

Trans men get erased from conversations like these because men tend not to care if trans men use their spaces. Nobody will be outraged by Leo Macallan in a men's room.

Blaire White belongs in the women's room, but not all trans women do.

One concept that needs to be addressed is that "trans woman" can mean virtually anything physically from Mike Tyson to Blaire White. As long as the Tyson-esque male espouses that he is indeed a trans woman, then to doubt him would be considered improper/out of bounds in today's discourse. Perhaps he is. Who are we to say?

We can sort trans people into those who undergo medical transition and those who don't. Still, one can be transgender and not undergo medical transition. Then there is the further distinction between trans women who have undergone bottom surgery and those who have not.

In the past, I've heard that trans women would typically wait until they "passed" (a subjective measure) or were on HRT for an extended time before using a women's bathroom, but these days, anything goes - and so the legal pushback was needed. What we're seeing now is trans backlash, brought about by the trans movement's impulse to erase the deep-rooted categorical distinctions of male and female. The movement was on its strongest ground when it aimed for integration.

Murder is a specific type of killing, one that is uniquely wrong. It involves making the innocent one's target. — BitconnectCarlos

What about Trolley Car? The innocent is the target (or, you're slapping a big target on the innocent when you throw the switch which seems like a distinction without a difference) — RogueAI

Sure, and the trolley problem is a fringe but interesting case. We can play around with the number saved. It leads us to other questions like: Is murder OK if there's a greater net benefit to the community? It's a thorny issue; no easy answers.

Popper says:

I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies

So, on Popper's view, we do let the intolerant fester for a bit, as long as they can be kept in check by the public (and rationality claims Popper, but in my view, mainly just the public).

The way out is to find a value, something which distinguishes proper intolerance from improper intolerance. Popper provides that value in the second quote you give, and it is something like free speech and inquiry. That is why things like cancel culture would be abhorrent to Popper: because they are opposed to his "Rationalism." — Leontiskos

It's proper to allow free speech and inquiry, but Popper makes an interesting point when he says

I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.

It's really a matter of keeping them in check by public opinion, but if the number of intolerant/fanatical people/opinions starts creeping up, at what point do we take action? Presumably, the more prevalent the intolerant, the more swift and severe the response must be.

I have little faith in rational argument as a counterforce to those who are truly intolerant.

The trouble with divine commands is that they are local to a subset of people. A divine command can be used to dismiss someone who accepts the divine command, but it has no force over someone who does not accept the divine command. It does no good to tell a would-be murderer about God’s command against murder if he doesn’t believe in God. — Leontiskos

Sure, we can use other reasons to try to convince the non-believer. We could even appeal to his moral system, assuming he has one. Even in that best-case scenario (where the nonbeliever has a secular system that he follows), he might not care or have some other overriding concern that trumps the system. The question of moral motivation is a different matter from moral philosophy.

I heard a statistic yesterday that around 1 in 5 young people condone stealing from large corporations, depending on the circumstances. We can use non-religious reasons to try to deter them. For instance, we can tell them that stealing from grocery stores leads to higher prices for everyone. There will always be those who just aren't motivated, though, and for those, we unfortunately need to lay down the law and ensure this type of behavior is disincentivized.

Okay, so it sounds like you now think there is something other than divine commands which support this prohibition. — Leontiskos

I've already said that I see some merit or legitimacy in other reasons to not, e.g., commit murder, but the only one that truly gives murder the quality of moral wrong or evil is DCT - at least in my view.

That something is morally wrong does not mean no one would ever do it. — Leontiskos

Sure, but what I was getting at is that there are fringe cases (of murder, for instance) where the murder may occur outside of society, or the murderer's psyche truly wouldn't be affected by it.

...Continuing, we might say, "It functions fine as a general rule, but it's unserious when said to, e.g., Hitler preparing to exterminate the Jews." Hitler killed innocents, but it does not follow from this that it is not wrong to kill innocents. Whether or not the navy captain is right is not determined by what he does, as if the killing is made right by his doing it. — Leontiskos

The difference here is that the navy captain and bomber pilot are necessary; Hitler murdering all the Jews is not. What is necessary cannot be evil.

Anscombe does not hold that everything which is necessary for war is permissible. That is in fact her broader point regarding the nuclear bomb. — Leontiskos

I don't think she viewed the nuclear bomb as necessary for the war.

I'm fairly confident you're misreading Anscombe, as a side-effect is not intended. But Bob Ross and I beat this to death a year ago, and the topic will take us too far afield. — Leontiskos

Yes, the side effect (deaths of the innocents) is unintended; therefore, the innocents are not murdered by the bomber, but rather killed.

Okay, so then you don't think, "Do not kill the innocent," is a rational statement? There is no reason not to kill someone just because he is innocent? — Leontiskos

It functions fine as a general rule, but it's unserious when said to, e.g., a navy captain preparing to attack a port or a bomber pilot preparing for war.

Morality must be practical/doable; otherwise, it is useless, if not worse than useless.

Okay, so maybe you think the statement is rational because it harms the murderer. — Leontiskos

Sure, we could say that - it would be true as a general rule. Perhaps there are some hardened killers out there to whom one more death would mean nothing.

Nothing that one does by accident is wrong per se, and this of course includes accidentally dropping bombs on the wrong people. — Leontiskos

Even if the bomb is dropped intentionally on a legitimate target with the knowledge that innocents are inside and that death will likely result, it is permissible under double effect. It is not the same as murder.

But coming back to the point, do you think that intentionally killing the innocent can only be seen to be wrong via divine commands? Or do you think that one can understand that intentionally killing the innocent is wrong even without the help of divine commands? — Leontiskos

For me, the overriding force behind the prohibition is DCT. I agree with you that the murderer does not belong in society (so I do see merit in other reasons). Perhaps the murder occurs where there is no society, though.

All I'm saying is that if I had to pick the main reason, it would be DCT although I do see merit in others. I'm sympathetic to the idea that murder really damages the psyche or soul of the murderer. And as mentioned, I agree that the murderer is unfit for society.

I am not a divine command theorist. I think murder is wrong because it involves killing the (legally) innocent. On this view the prohibition against murder is just a particular variety of the prohibition on killing the innocent.

So with reference to the OP, we might exclude someone who kills the innocent. You yourself claimed that this is beyond the pale. We might ask the OP's question, "Why?" I gave a general answer <here>. A more fine-grained answer would delve into the notions of guilt, innocence, and desert. To kill an innocent person is to give what is not due; what is not deserved. The irrationality arises from this disproportion of desert. — Leontiskos

I think one could kill the innocent and not be wrong. Anscombe's paper on the doctrine of double effect really hammered home this point for me. She'll use an example, e.g., a bomber flying a mission against a weapons factory who incidentally ends up killing innocents.

Bombing ports or weapons factories is necessary for war, and Anscombe holds that what is necessary cannot be evil.

Murder is a specific type of killing, one that is uniquely wrong. It involves making the innocent one's target.

.

But in any case, what is at stake here is the question of whether there is a non-instrumental rationality that could ground moral claims, making them more than merely instrumental or hypothetical. — Leontiskos

If I were to ask you to give your fundamental reason why murder is wrong, what would you say? For me, it's probably because God/the Bible/the universal lawgiver says so. I'm inclined toward divine command theory, and my outlook is fundamentally biblical.

When you think about it, the murderer could have possibly done the victim a favor. Perhaps the victim gets a better afterlife because they were murdered. Or perhaps being dead is better than the pain that awaited the victim had they stayed alive. There are just so many unknowns, yet we all fervently believe that murder is wrong. We don't know the 30,000-foot view but still cling to the rule.

I rejected Kantian attempts to account for morality years ago. I suppose murder could be irrational in the sense that committing murder is often terrible for the mental health and life (soul?) of the murderer. That's fair to say.

Okay, that's fair enough as far as it goes.

At the risk of derailing my own thread, are you comfortable with the inference that anger or moral indignation is never rationally justified if there is nothing beyond instrumental rationality? — Leontiskos

In that case, at most, the moral indignation would be only instrumentally rationally justified. Of course, there's rationality beyond instrumental rationality; Logical reasoning exists.

Are you comfortable with the inference that no course of action is more or less rational than any other course of action? — Leontiskos

We need to distinguish between different types of rationality. Regarding instrumental rationality, certain decisions are definitely favored over others. Once we agree that Western civilization or our religion is worth preserving, we can talk about rationality towards that end. Rationality absent an end is a different matter...