One of these premeses has to be false, either life is not worth living (and therefore there is no reason not to end it) or death is inherently bad (and therefore should be feared). — JacobPhilosophy
As an agnostic, I can truthfully say: "I do not 'believe' that God exists." But that does not mean that "I believe that God does not exist. In fact, I do not. — Frank Apisa
So, even if such moral oughts are only desires/wishes, they aren't simply approving hurrahs and disapproving boos in the sense of being reflexive emotions sans thinking. — TheMadFool
I would not say "I believe there is no God" is a claim about the nonexistence of a concept. — Cabbage Farmer
Well, God is certainly only a concept, but I think that “I believe there is no God” refers more towards the non/existence of the concept, rather than the concept itself. If I say “I believe the shirt is not red,” I’m making a statement about a property (the color) of the object (the shirt), not about the object itself. — Pinprick
I might agree that this statement is also about something like "the color red", or "the property of being red" or "the predicate 'is red'"... and about the relation of some such thing to the thing called a shirt. Accordingly I might characterize the speaker's belief as a belief that there is a thing called "this shirt" and that the concept or predicate "being red" does not apply, or is not correctly applied, to that thing. — Cabbage Farmer
But all this is a long way from 'insanity'. — Coben
Further I think some of the big questions can be resolved for individual thinkers. — Coben
IOW they can find a position that makes their life work better for them in the context of their values. Beyond that once they choose certain axioms, philosophy can help them draw conclusions and develop positions that work for them. — Coben
I can't convince everyone else what they should believe, but perhaps that is not possible or necessary. — Coben
We cannot resolve conflicts around big issues so doing philosophy is insane. — Coben
To me it seems like some humbler goals and a sense of a spectrum of possible use is a healthier attitude about philosophy. — Coben
I think atheists are typically denying a vague but typical image of God. — jjAmEs
I am able to apply the rules of logic with 100% efficiency...about 5% of the time. — Frank Apisa
Logic without intuition, for example, can do very little. Just shuffle symbols, perhaps play checkers. — Coben
You would be fooled less, in the context of a philosophical discussion. Being fooled less - by your own poor arguments, by the poor arguments of others, by noticing fallacies, by noticing where semantic assumptions are taking place (as a few examples) - you would be less likely to be convinced of things that are false. That is closer to the truth or less far from the truth, at the very least. — Coben
And i would guess, though now we are into guessing, that philosophers today would have much more correct ideas about what is the case, than philosophers from long ago. — Coben
Of course repeating the same actions in order to, over time, get different results could be a definition of 'to practice'. And practicing leads to all sorts of skills. — Coben
I'm inclined to agree with you but I haven't quite figured out where exactly the problem lies - is it with the subject (philosophical questions) or the method (logic) or perhaps both are culpable for the quagmire philosophy is in? — TheMadFool
Logic seems to have proved its utility and efficacy in a multitude of arenas; math is worth mentioning since it's become a must if you want to make anything a science; by this I mean that logic has proven its value as a good enough method for truth-finding purposes. — TheMadFool
Could it be that much of philosophy today is about tackling vague notions of days past with the precision tool of logic with predictable results - confusion. I don't know if Wittgenstein is relevant here. — TheMadFool
Empirical scientists never "get it all right". Neither do mathematicians. Neither do painters or musicians, lawyers or politicians, ballplayers or mail carriers. Neither does anyone. — Cabbage Farmer
I wonder, is it all beliefs that require an object, on your account? Might it be closer to the truth to say that true beliefs must be analyzable as having some "object", whereas some false beliefs turn out to be figments of confusion? — Cabbage Farmer
Would you agree it seems we've homed in on the region of our disagreement? — Cabbage Farmer
Is it not appropriate to look towards the consensus of scholars/experts as a starting point to find the truth? What definition of knowledge should I have assumed if not the one the experts generally agree on?
— Pinprick
I'm considering this one closely. My first inclinations where to be snarky, but I don't want to do that. May take some time. — SonOfAGun
The pain is worth the gain. In other words masochism passes the hedonism test.I believe there are limits to the pain even a masochist will/can endure. However, it does appear that the difference between pain and pleasure gets blurred in masochism. Nevertheless, there is pleasure involved; it's just in a roundabout way. — TheMadFool
Yeah...the people who are saying "I believe (in) god" are saying "I blindly guess there is a god"...but they are disguising the fact that they are saying that. — Frank Apisa
You're begging the question by assuming that the aliens are being inconsistent and we've discovered the inconsistency. I'm only asking you to consider the other possibility - there is no inconsistency at all and what we see as one is the result of our limited minds grappling with god's genius par excellence. — TheMadFool
Yes, I am insisting that you don't reject the following:
1. God's onmibenevolence
2. The veracity of the holy books — TheMadFool
If you choose not to accept the two assumptions above my argument is garbage. — TheMadFool
Imagine if we come into contact with super-intelligent aliens who've mastered intergalactic space travel. If in a conversation with them, you notice what appears to be an "inconsistency" would you doubt them or yourself? — TheMadFool
bear in mind that god is both all-good and of infinite intellect and, ergo, you should be leaning towards an answer that factors in the intelligence-gap between us, humans and god viz. that the fault lies in us and that we've misunderstood god's words as it appears in the holy books. — TheMadFool
Here's a short argument:
1. God is all good (goodness which we're familiar with)
2. The holy books are god's words
3. if the holy books are god's words then the holy books don't have mistakes
4. The holy books don't have mistakes (2, 3 modus tollens)
5. If god commands killing then, either the holy books have mistakes or god is not all good
6. The holy books don't have mistakes and god is all good (1, 4 conjunction)
7. god doesn't command killing (5, 6 modus tollens)
8. Either god commands killing or we've misunderstood the holy books (we've misread some lines as orders to kill)
9. We've misunderstood the holy books (7, 8 disjunctive syllogism) — TheMadFool
But as others have pointed out, the corruption of religious institutions is a fact of history; I think as soon as something becomes an institution, then it implements a power-structure, and wherever there's power, there's the possibility of corruption. — Wayfarer
There is no detached, objective or scientific way to determine it. — Wayfarer
from the viewpoint of secular culture, it's impossible to make value judgements about the overall veracity of different religions - say, scientology, Santeria, and Catholicism. — Wayfarer
You asked what i mean by this, some say Joshua shouldn't have killed the children (assuming he did and i assume he did) of the cities he conquered (book of joshua old testament), had he not killed them the parents would have a strange conversation with their adopted children when they became teenagers. Also child sacrifice was common among amorites in canaan as well as in ancient iraq. Hammurabi was actually an amorite just in case you didn't know. — christian2017
If you would like me to go on and on about the culture of canaan i can. Territories in history have certainly been conquered over much lesser crimes. — christian2017
If you disagree with these things in that you don't find them to be corruption, either my concept of reality is severely flawed or yours is and there is no point in us trying to convince each otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if at this point we get into a discussion about post-modernism. — christian2017
In some ways for you to accept my explanation of corrupt religion you would first have to believe there is a possibility that there is a religion that is not corrupt. — christian2017
However for the fun of it i'll play this game anyway. A corrupt religion might have temple prostitution like ancient iraq, founders of the religion who were severe sex offenders (i'm sure you'll ask me to define sex offender), child sacrifice, unwarranted decimation of cities (Joshua didn't commit genocide because he didn't target the amorites in ancient iraq), rejection of just laws, rejection of their own key holy books and i could go on but i'll stop for now. — christian2017
In addition to this i would like to add that if you murder someones parents and the adopt them you shouldn't tell them "i murdered your parents but when you are a teenager you'll understand all of these adult things".
Were there adoption agencies in 1300 BC? — christian2017
Chistianity and Islam is drastically different. — christian2017
There is a concept in Christianity called the Pale of orthodoxy, which to make an overly simple statement "There are about 10 or so accepted denominations or relative theology sets that even though they have significant differences, the interpretations aren't deemed heretical". — christian2017
Absolutely no agreement? Lets embrace the spectrum idea, ofcourse there is atleast some agreement. — christian2017
Actually Jihadism is in the Koran. Are you saying otherwise? Mohomad the founder of Islam was a "great" general/warlord. — christian2017
Right - very difficult situation, I agree. But I think the principle would imply that it is ok for the Governor to offer a personal exhortation to prayer - it's when he starts to use the authority and instruments of office that the line is becoming blurred. It's not ideal in any case, but a matter of practical necessity in a pluralistic culture.
On the other hand, the US was very much founded on Christian principles and I myself am not a secular zealot, like, I don't agree with moves to abolish all symbols of religious belief in public life, like has been done in Montreal for example. I would rather adopt a live and let live attitude. — Wayfarer
Each house of the Congress starts each session with prayers to "Almighty God" — Frank Apisa