Didn't realize you were a Marcionite, but it makes sense now.

However, I don't think we need to be able to give an account of what the perfectly good way to treat things is in order to know that certain treatment cannot be the perfectly good way to treat them. — Bob Ross

We don't know the soul's journey. Perhaps death is simply a soul being called back to its source. Perhaps suffering can be purposeful. When you shift the focus to the soul, instead of the material body, God becomes more sensible.

IMO, the Flood is the first real moral juncture point in the Bible. It's the first time God truly wreaks mass destruction on humanity. The explanation is that mankind is evil, but this seems questionable. After all, as you mention, there are children and animals.

So it's easy to question God. We can even imagine ourselves as God answering, "How would I have solved world evil?" Remember, we can't infringe on free will. What should we do as God? Offer classes on moral virtue to those who are wicked? But who should teach it? Maybe the angels? But what if the evil don't want to attend? My point is that once we start trying to play God to rectify the issue, things quickly become absurd.

We must accept that God has the right to give and take life as he sees fit. To question this - to assume that we know better - is to take on the role of God ourselves. The question of ultimate justice for the individual is beyond the horizons of our cognition. The author of Ecclesiastes notes that whether one dies at 1 or 100, everything goes to the same place.

As for Samuel, it is worth noting that God in this book is entirely conveyed through the prophet Samuel. It is not God directly communicating to Saul.

Nature isn't equitable. The problem with these DEI initiatives is that they focus on limited intersectionalities in a world with countless intersectionalities. It creates resentment and prompts the excluded to ask, "Why aren't my intersectional identities being addressed?" And then there's the matter of weighing them up and comparing them - an impossible task.

Come to think of it, even if we were all the same race and all from the same class, I don't believe we'd have made any progress towards genuine equity.

The Middle East has always been "fucked up." To pin it on the Europeans might be politically correct, but it's not accurate. Those living in the area possess agency and are perfectly capable of "fucking it up" themselves.

Europeans do get into trouble when they project their notions onto the Middle East and insist that the region submit to their impositions.

Consider the phrase, "I am politically nonbinary.". Do you discern the speaker's intent differently if they are liberal or conservative? — David Hubbs

Honestly, this cracked me up. I would have to stop myself from chuckling if I were to hear this one.

If it's a conservative, I would suspect that it's a joke or sarcastic. If said by someone on the left, I probably shake my head in confusion or chuckle.

.

To continue with the rest of your so-called argument... — Benkei

My post wasn't an argument. I was setting forth a condition for discussion, namely, the understanding that the Iranian regime was wicked.

To which you finally get around to addressing:

Let’s be clear: the world is full of evil. — Benkei

I get it: We are all sinners. The world is full of sin. Whether we throw in with the 7th century savages who behead homosexuals and rape women before their executions or those fighting them is no significant matter. We're all sinners anyway. We can all agree that those fighting the 7th-century savages are no angels. And the problems of the West will, of course, be condemned to their fullest extent, while we can rationalize away the faults of the 7th-century savages if not blame them on the West itself. It's all so tiring.

I suspect it ties back to the Marxist oppressor-oppressed dynamic, where the oppressor deserves zero leniency.

But the presence of evil doesn’t mean we drop bombs until it feels better.

If their wickedness starts seeping over borders, that's when military action may be required. And military action has been the solution to many, many forms of evil throughout history. Sometimes you can't compromise with evil. Nor can you rationalize with it. History tells us that sometimes, evil must be destroyed with force.

I gotta say, you bring up interesting points that point to our differences.

Step 4: “I don’t care about facts. We need a paradigm shift.”
And there it is: the moment when the mask fully drops. You admit facts don’t matter to you. You just want to feel right. — Benkei

Please tell me more about these theory-independent prescriptive facts. We all have our lens; I acknowledge mine. You, OTOH, apparently have direct access to prescriptive objective reality independent of theory/conceptual framework.

Were the bombings of, say, Berlin or Hamburg murder or killing? What do we say about those deaths? I know civilians died, but I'd like to learn how to make sense of it, prescriptively/in the realm of judgment, without the theory. Is this just one of those cases where "the facts speak for themselves," or maybe, just maybe, we require a lens through which to process these events.

The more I read this the more I enjoy parts of it. You note real points of difference, but from the other side.

Sub 3. It reveals an inability to hold multiple truths at once.
Yes, the Iranian regime is brutal.

But your mind can’t accommodate that tension. You flatten everything into one big moral binary where once you label something “evil,” no further thinking is required. It’s cognitive offloading and it’s dumb because it rejects complexity in a domain that requires it most. — Benkei

As opposed to you, where it's all just a billion shades of grey? Trump brutal. Hitler brutal. Roosevelt brutal. Khomeini brutal. Side with whoever, because the world doesn't have absolutes; we're all just different, slightly darker or lighter shades of grey. Who cares about Khomeini torturing women and beating them to death when the US has bombed Iraq. :roll:

The lemon farming anecdote amused me, but I don't think this is historical, as the Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank, not to the West Bank, in 1967. They largely went to Jordan.

Frank, I don't remember this conversation where you claimed I laughed. Could you give me a link?

No, I don't. I think you're misreading me. If you read anger into my posts, that's the reader's error.

I will keep my responses brief because you've clarified that you probably aren't responding. If you want to continue, I can go into more detail, but I'm not writing pages if you aren't continuing.

Of course there isn’t. Because your position is a closed loop. You demand agreement with your metaphysical assumptions before we can even begin to discuss facts or outcomes. You’re not interested in a debate. You’re interested in moral submission. — Benkei

It's hard to reason with those who don't share common values. I can reason with Christians and Muslims because I'm familiar with the contours of their belief systems. You, OTOH, seemingly take a "view from nowhere." Like you're a disembodied mind. Perhaps we can find some common ground, but it's harder because you don't situate yourself.

If we're talking diplomacy or negotiating within a society, that reasoning—that negotiation—takes place among situated individuals, not disembodied minds. Common values & frameworks must be found for constructive dialogue to occur. In the absence of that, there is force.

Any reasoning must proceed from a shared basis. You value the universal, I get it. There is a place for universalism within my tradition, but I certainly don't envision a mass homogenization where my tradition dissolves into others because we are all "enlightened by reason." My tradition values the universal and the particular, whereas you seemingly value only the universal. This is among our main differences and likely the root of our discord.

You call me tribal because I cling to my particular tradition. I suppose you consider yourself beyond such things. Well, good for you.

The Pre-WW1 jingoism and imperialism died especially after the Second World War. — ssu

It's interesting to me how different countries treat it. WWII is shifting from memory to history. In Russia, it's become a source of great patriotic pride; in Germany, it's a source of shame. In the US, in the past few decades, it was often treated as a fairly milquetoast yet media-worthy and exciting good versus evil conflict. Many great series have been made about it, and it's a safe conflict to portray.

But political landscapes shift, memories fade, and modern issues, like mass immigration, challenge old taboos and force us to rethink our past.

Unsurprisingly, you bring no knowledge to the table. We are once again back at the "they bad, us good" myopic view of the world that brings us nothing but idiocy.

You actually went out of your way to defend attacking Iran because "you hate the regime" not the Persians living there. Well, maybe we should introduce that kind of foreign policy more broadly. Trump, for instance, is hated throughout the world. He has access to nukes and has shown himself to be irrational. Let's attack US nuclear facilities! Because, well we don't hate Americans (or Mexicans or Canadians) but hey "fuck them" that's "double effect" when invariably at some point there's going to be a nuclear fallout because it's totally legit and fine to attack countries just because you don't like them. Idiot. — Benkei

The Iranian regime is wicked. This should be acknowledged, whether one chooses to strike or not. If one can't accept this fact, then it is not worth conversing with this person. Our worldviews would just not be remotely conciliable.

As for Trump, if the US were taken over by an Islamic theocracy that engages in mass repression and murder and threatens other groups with annihilation, then targeting our nuclear capabilities would be more reasonable. It's not simply hating them that justifies the strike.

As for why I'm not really interested in sharing knowledge/facts with you... what is needed is a paradigm shift, not more facts. If you don't believe in good and bad or righteousness/wickedness then we're just talking past each other.

Ah, but when the Jews do it...well, we can't have that. — RogueAI

This is the matter. No one cares about Muslim on Muslim violence. It's only if the Jews dare raise their hand against one of the regional players that all hell breaks loose. 500k killed in Syria by Assad and no one could care less. Iran arrests and beats women to death in their prisons, and you'll see no protests.

Once again: prove they are suicidal or irrational and you have a case. — Benkei

You're talking about a regime that rapes female prisoners before execution so that when they die they don't go to heaven.

Also, not surprising that one of TPF's most obsessive Israel haters views the Iranian regime as seemingly reasonable and moderate.

The Iranian regime is profoundly cruel and deserving of death and destruction. That is certain. The question is whether the West should actively bring about such a result. I can only hope that one day Iran is liberated and the bodies of the mullahs litter the streets. Persia will rise again.

We don't hate the Iranians, we hate the Iranian regime which unfortunately has suppressed that beautiful Persian civilization. There are streets in Israel named after great Persian rulers.

I can't blame everything on Likud. One event that sticks in my mind was the Olympic massacre of 1972. That wasn't under Likud. The violence has been there regardless of whether Israel has been liberal or conservative.

When ~1300 are murdered in a day, yes, the Holocaust will be mentioned. By and large, I don't think the Holocaust fuels violence. Any civilization would be devastated if that many of its own were murdered in a day. I think what fuels Israeli violence and paranoia is memories of Arab violence.

Regarding the Holocaust, yes, it bolstered Zionism, but Zionism doesn't delineate how large Israel ought to be. What the Holocaust did teach us is that no matter how advanced or civilized a nation is, anti-Semitism is here to stay. It shattered the Jews' belief that technological progress or social "advancement" is going to vanquish anti-Semitism somehow. Or that assimilation was the solution.

The reason there hasn't been peace in the region is very simple. It's Zionism. — frank

That's right, Frank. How dare the Jews want to have their own land in their ancestral homeland. I agree -- that's much of what it comes down to. Why can't they just happily subject themselves to Arab rule? The Arabs play nicely. They are merciful rulers with a record of fair treatment towards their minority populations.

How dare those Jews assert themselves? If only they knew they are less, there would be no problems. Their place is under the Muslims. Under the Arabs. And how dare those Nazi Zionists challenge this fact.

I agree with you. This is Likud party's main line: there doesn't have to be any peace with the Palestinians, there can be a perpetual war as far it is low intensity and doesn't cost too much. And that has worked for decades now, whereas trying to do a peace with the Palestinians has been represented as utterly impossible, because it failed. — ssu

Likud rose to power because of the intifadas and the failure of peace agreements. The nice, left-wing Israelis failed, thus you get Likud. Sort of like how on 10/7, the most left-leaning progressive Israelis were killed. Hypothetically, I believe if the Arabs living in Gaza or the West Bank truly wanted peace, we would see it, but this would not work the other way around. The Nakba always looms in the collective memory. I think the "Nakba" is how the "Palestinian" people came to be—both lies.

Here we go again...

I suspect Israel's response is proportionate because Hamas has militarized its entire society as well as built an extensive underground tunnel system. When you militarize civilian structures, they cease being civilian and become military structures. If we look at casualty numbers, it's around 1:1 or 2:1 - historically speaking, humane. As you know, the Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures - a fundamental concept in war.

It's strange how people note the extensive destruction in Gaza and then demand that Gazans stay put. Their concerns aren't humanitarian, but political.

I sympathize with any ethnic group seeking to recover their ancestral homeland, as Judea and Samaria are to the Jews. Israel has much history in Gaza as well. I don't support forcible expulsion, but the Gazans should be given opportunities elsewhere since Gaza is a war zone.

As for genocide, let me know when Israel strips their Arab citizens of citizenship or expels them. There's no essential difference between Israeli Arabs and those living in Gaza. Israel is at war; there is no genocide. Israel has said it will not forcibly expel Gazans. I do not want to see forced expulsions, but even if forced expulsions occur it's an abuse of language to call that genocide and it's nothing near what Jews went through under Nazi Germany.

:lol:

As a regime, Iran is more depraved than Russia, and I'm no fan of Russia. It would be like, take the repression of Russia, and combine it with the fact that the government will throw girls in jail for removing their hijabs and often rape them before executing them (to ensure they don't get into heaven.)

Iran would hit more hospitals if it could; it's just a matter of the Iron Dome stopping them. This now raises the question of whether one's ineffectiveness makes one good/morally better: Is an assassin who is thwarted ethically superior to one who's not?

Yes, the nice thing about Iran is that they don't launch their missiles from apartment complexes and hospitals, so we can expect casualty counts not to be too high. :sweat:

Boring troll. :yawn:

When will the UN condemn the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians? The intentional targeting of civilians has always been wrong.

My position regarding the morality of strikes on civilians can be summarized in the doctrine of double effect. This has been my long-standing position.

It must be nice to have nothing to stand for; no nation or power you stand by.

It's a simple formula, I see:

1) Have no allegiance to any nation or power. To do so, one becomes tainted with their sins.
2) Be hypercritical of the West. This demonstrates your superior virtue. In judging them you place yourself above them.
3) Be silent on the most degenerate elements.

Easy.

You seem to be under the impression that the people of Iran are insane fundamentalist muslims. I don't think that's right. I think they're only being ruled by insane fundamentalist muslims.

Because his regime murders women for not wearing hijabs.

Yes, but Israel is the land where Jesus walked. And John the Baptist.

I'm pretty sure the people of Iran hate Khameini and would celebrate if he died.

It is the history of their own religion.

I don't know if we'll see a regime change, but I would love to see Iran liberated.

It's nice to have other people who value the history of ancient Israel.

Israel doesn't outlive its usefulness to the US because Israel/the Jews bring about the messianic age according to the evangelicals, who make up a significant share of the republican party. Christians will always be fascinated with that land where Jesus walked. Changes in the political situation in Israel directly affect Christians' abilities to access specific sites, so the interest in Israel will remain. Expansions of Israeli territory often allow new archaeological digs, which add to our knowledge of ancient Judaism, the religion of Jesus.

No. As I said, if you shoot a man that didn't shoot you, you simply need a lot explaining to do to the judge, because you will be the one that shot. And at some times, it will, even under law, be legitimate. But naturally there are quite a high bar for this.

When Israel has a nuclear deterrent, those countries who see Israel as a threat to themselves will try to get a nuclear deterrent. But you simply assume that they aren't seeking a balance, their own deterrence, but their motive is simply to destroy Israel, even if this put their own people and country to the peril of the many nukes that Israel has. — ssu

In my example, I was thinking of a scenario in which you are unarmed and face an enemy in the process of arming himself. Nobody is talking about Israel destroying Iran entirely.

It's impossible to know the Khameini regime's true motive. I note their policies and rhetoric. The world, ideally, would have stopped Iran from going nuclear years ago. It shouldn't be left up to Israel, ideally, but here we are.

Khameini's words: "It doesn't matter if we die. Iran is not important, Islam is important."

We never can know how many Americans (and Japanese) would have died if Operation Downfall would have been initiated. And naturally we forget the huge importance of the Soviet attack in Manchuria for the Japanese to admit to surrender. — ssu

Operation Downfall would have likely been extremely devastating. The typical American (Western?) position is to justify the atomic bombings as a necessary evil to avoid a land invasion. This was my position for most of my life. GEM Anscombe's essay "Mr. Truman's Degree" and her essay "War and Murder" caused me to rethink my perspective on this. You can find the first one online; it's not too long.

How about the Arabs? It would be interesting how Israel would react if the Saudi's would get a nuclear deterrent. What if the Egypt would also get a nuclear deterrent? Israel does have a peace agreement with Egypt (which it doesn't have with the Saudis). — ssu

The world should judge these countries on a case-by-case basis. Nuclear proliferation is a complex issue; I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs.

Yeah — and it would be they ignore the abuse of women. At least in your world. — Mikie

To which the MRA would likely say, e.g., "It's not that we ignore the abuse of women, it's that we focus on the abuse of men."

They hold the abuse of a certain group to be salient.

the Hebrew Bible which is sought to be brought to life by many Israeli extremists (in the 21st century) does encourage genocide and mass destruction. — Eros1982

It often describes events ~3000 years ago in the kill-or-be-killed world of the ancient Near East. No one is perfect in the Hebrew Bible, and commandments such as "kill the Amalekites" don't have relevance today. But yes, King David in ~1000 BC engaged in some very questionable but historically normal deeds. The Hebrew Bible is still a brilliant work of literature and deserves to be "brought to life."

What concerns me about modern Islam is its desire to spread to the entire world and its apparent hatred of non-believers. Its treatment of women is also concerning. Chieftains under Muhammad slaughtered the civilians of defeated villages, including Jews.

Above all, Islam seems to be an all-encompassing political system. I don't know whether this is compatible with the West.

It's not hard. If one were to focus on, let's say, abuse towards men, one would likely become a men's rights activist. OTOH, if one were to focus on abuse towards women, one likely ends up a feminist.

It's all about the lens we choose.

Nope. — Mikie

How else am I supposed to interpret I focus on the violence that my country has a direct hand in.

No matter how much you say about the logic and soundness of a pre-emptive attack, it still is an attack and there's no question about who is the attacker. Besides, some say an attack is the best defense. Just take it as a fact, admit it to yourself and don't be such a hypocrite. — ssu

Ok, just as the man who attacks a man reaching for his gun is also the attacker. Technically right.

If a man comes at you with a gun, is the only justified time to respond after the bullet has been fired? Even while the bullet is in the air, there's technically no damage done. Guess we need to wait until after it strikes.

A policeman with a knife is an entirely different matter from Jack the Ripper with a knife.

So you accuse president Truman to be a fanatic leader with zero humanitarian concern? That's a new one from you, BitconnectCarlos. — ssu

We can talk about Truman, but I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant to the current discussion about whether Iran should be nuclear. I'll say for the record, though: What Truman did was very questionable, and if there is a God, he will likely need to answer for what transpired.

Regardless of Truman's actions 80 years ago, I still don't want a nuclear Iran. I don't think anyone wants a nuclear Iran. The question is how far we're willing to go to stop it. Maybe if it were 5 years ago, we could have approached things in a more measured manner, but intel showed that Iran was very close to going nuclear.

The only downside of this is that it leads to quite similar thinking that the German high command had prior to World War 1 about the Russian Empire: better have the war now before Russia becomes too strong. This thinking means that you simply won't have peace. — ssu

The problem isn't that another nation is stronger than Israel. The problem is that the nation expresses genocidal intentions towards Israel and was on the verge of going nuclear. Israel is okay with other countries being stronger than it.

Your writing about the Cuban missile crisis is engaging, but it's a different scenario than what Israel ought to do now. The actors are different, the tech is different, and the time is different. But yes, history proved Kennedy right in his decision to "quarantine"/blockade Cuba and negotiate with the USSR. IIRC the US surrounded that island with ships. Not an easy task with Iran.

I focus on the violence that my country has a direct hand in. — Mikie

I'm not interested in an approach/worldview that hyperfixates on the violence of one group and ignores that of another.

:yawn: