Furthermore, it sounds like sentimentalism would have to assume (2) to support the claim that moral claims are only subjective and relative. The sentimentalist would have to demonstrate why (2) is a reasonable assumption, and "because emotional reactions to experience" doesn't seem to me to be enough.

I definitely agree with Prinz and the other people who believe that certain moral positions are better than others based on empirical ("meta-empirical") values, but I fail to see how moral-sense theory, or more specifically sentimentalism, rules out realism, even if it does provide a plausible account of how we discover what is moral or immoral; just because we draw on emotion to form our beliefs about right and wrong does not necessarily mean that moral realism is impossible. Moral sense theory is, however, definitely right, imo, about the fact that "moral facts and how one comes to be justified in believing them are necessarily bound up with human emotions."

I mean, just because I hate rats because a rat bit me once doesn't mean that I cannot be empirically correct when I claim that rats are found to be, largely, annoying pests.

The argument is that moral claims are never true. But notice that truth is a value. — unenlightened

It seems to me the argument in the OP is ambiguous about this: he says that no moral axioms are true, not that no moral claims at all are true. You can assign a truth value to a claim if it is true or false according to a set of axioms, but it ends up being baseless because you cannot verify said moral axioms, or they are just untrue - according to the OP.

So yes, these utterances might have relative value, but ultimately, they have no objective value. Also, I don't see how the kind of value a lie has can be compared to a moral claim. The truth value of the utterance is based on an axiom that cannot be verified or is untrue, and the value of a lie is totally practical.

edit: he does say no moral claims are true, but it is a contradiction, as he recognizes later that some moral claims are true in relation to others that may not be untrue but rather (presumably) unverifiable

First off, I appreciate the clear, surgical OP. Why you had to relate your argument to torture I'm not sure; you could have easily demonstrated your beliefs without invoking such a thing.

Would you say that (1) it is impossible for any moral axioms to be true? Or do you think that (2) we cannot prove if any moral axioms are true? Or (3) do you think that all proposed moral axioms are not true?

(1) and (2) sound very much like axioms to me, and (3) appears to be largely unverifiable, or definitely unverifiable if you believe (2) to be true. We, humans, seem to throw paint on the canvas with little thought in the hopes of making sense, not considering what you outline in your post, but I think we have good reason to have the intuitions we have, which is that moral claims can be true and false, unless you can demonstrate (1), (2), (3), or some combination thereof, is true. If (2) is true, (3) becomes as unverifiable as the moral axioms you claim must support extrinsic moral claims.

If it comes between arguing that moral claims cannot be subjected to verification by their very nature, and the claim that they can indeed be verified, I would choose the latter, if only because both claims seem to be equally grounded in arbitrariness, and the latter is more pleasant.

Thought about it some more. So maybe we have God and then some incredibly powerful being capable of creating us and the universe/world. I remember back to the aseity thread you argued that some original thing must have existed with aseity. So if this powerful being that is less than god created us and this world he must have existed with aseity. What space could there be for God if something comes into existence with aseity and creates the only space there is? This thing would have to predate God or God created this being that then created our world. Both contingencies sound bizarre. And in the second one you could hold God accountable indirectly for our shitty world.

If God didn't even create us or this world, why should we think that he cares at all about anything we do or think? But then again even if he did create us, why would he care what we think? You seem to be displacing a stupid belief via an equally irrelevant proxy. Yes, maybe God didn't create this world yet exists, but what conclusions should we draw? The situation in which God has not created us or the world sounds mostly equivalent to the conclusion that we have no reason to believe in God at all and therefore should not believe in him in terms of consequences.

Not to mention that would leave us all alone in terms of moral injunctions and imperatives. But I suppose you would say a personal relationship with God is possible and that he can still give us inspiration. Or something.

Honestly it seems like you are trying to detach religion from religion, and I don't think it is working.

edit: not making an argument based off of my belief that Christianity is dumb, but I do think it is dumb

Most of the people on this forum are not so cantankerous as Bartricks, and in general if you post a decent opening post you will get a critical, but not rude, response. Tempers sometimes boil over, but excessive flaming is discouraged, and continual flaming is grounds for being banned. Unfortunately, Bartricks actually does post some good, if misguided arguments, and generally stays substantive, even if he is acrimonious at times.

edit: it helps to have a thick skin, however, because disagreements over certain things have a tendency to be inflammatory, such as discussions around politics. And the standard for academic criticism kind of goes out the window when you spew dogma, like nos4atu, who people have speculated to be mentally ill/stupid/etc. for his unwavering Trump support.

Thanks. I won't.

moved to propose that the ultimate purpose of the book is to encourage the average man to become something greater; to stand up to his own self and demand that "it" (that being his personal constitution) evolve. — Bret Bernhoft

And by what process does one evolve their nature/constitution according to Nietzsche? Pain? Suffering? Incremental progress? Discipline? By developing a perfect rear-naked choke? One cannot merely demand that they stop being average and expect to stop being average - coming from someone who is painfully average in most ways.

Or did he just not focus on that? Maybe I'm treating him too much like a motivational speaker.

But this confusion comes from assigning a characteristic to God that I don't think you fully understand the consequences. What are the consequences of a being who can make contradiction true? I don't think you even understand such a scenario, nor do I, nor do I think anyone does. I'm not sure you, or I, are fully capable of understanding a world in which a contradiction are true. — PhilosophyRunner

Yeah, I admit I don't understand it. If God made a contradiction true wouldn't the principle of explosion follow? Or would it just mean that logic still works apart from some localized contradiction?

I suppose we could always revert to some paraconsistent logic and give up disjunctive introductions and/or disjunctive syllogisms or whatever.

But God could mess that up too somehow, probably.

The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.

I have a being locked in a room. He has real magical superpowers and can make anything happen. I will argue he can't escape.

-The room has walls that are so thick it is impossible to escape
-The door is secure in a way that it can never be opened
-There are no windows
-There is no other escape route

Therefore the being cannot escape.

Have I proved my case? No of course not! For a normal human, sure if the above is true then he is not escaping. For a magical being with superpowers who can make anything happen? He can make anything happen, so of course he can still escape!

And he can escape not only any physical cage I put him in, but also any logical cage. For he can do anything - I have said so myself! — PhilosophyRunner

Yes, I see your point, but consider this:

If all you see is a world in which injustice is ubiquitous, and know that a being could arrange the world in such a way that people get what they deserve, then is that being not responsible for the human element of that inconsistency?

You would say, presumably, that God could either have a superior understanding of justice or could just magically make it true that people get what they deserve. After all, if God is all-powerful, why wouldn't the world bend to his will? And why wouldn't his omniscience allow him superior insight? Or maybe we must be getting what we deserve if God allows us to suffer injustice.

If God is magically making it the case that everyone gets what they deserve, then why is there no consistency among those who commit similar acts? Justice is blind, as they say, and murder, for instance, is murder, no matter who perpetrates it. What confounding factors could explain the inconsistency in what people receive for committing the same good or bad acts?

Furthermore, in a just world there could be no differences in justice across irrelevant characteristics - and we reliably find that there are. I don't feel like giving any examples.

So, when you consider merely the lack of consistency, and not the actual punishments or positive treatment people receive, you find that God must not have arranged the world in such a way as to be just - regardless of what people actually do or don't deserve according to whatever superior understanding of justice God has.

edit: or justice never existed, so God must be unjust according to my definition
edit2: but it would be trivial

edit3: I suppose God could be a racist and make it true that people of color should be treated worse than Jewish people or something, but that sounds ridiculous. I mean, it would be an out if he accidentally bungled justice and humanity, but what kind of God would fuck up that bad.

We have an extremely rude person here, ToothyMaw, who is either a psychiatrist himself, of the kind I mentioned, or a fanatic pro psychiatrist. A perfect example of what I was talking about.
Of course, I expected reactions from some people, but not such as that! Despicable.

Here's what I just read from this person, which I reproduce (copy-paste) below, before it is deleted or edited: — Alkis Piskas

Lmao, why on earth would I delete that? Go ahead and post it on a billboard with my real-life name.

However at the root of their belief - the sensation that "something alien/something unfamiliar" is coming or occurring in which our values (precious gold reserves) are being eroded (stolen) to do something sinister (theft - in this case cannabis) seems to be plausible. — Benj96

Yes, I can come up with those for days. I suppose you are right insofar as the logic and reasoning is somewhat valid, even if, taken literally, it is nonsense.

I think then, that schizophrenics articulate genuine humans concerns that we all frequently suspect, but are unable to use sensible means to describe them. Their imagination runs wild with descriptors. But what they are describing is still comprehensible. We just lack the compassion to trust they have some logic deeply engrained in their superficial absurdities. — Benj96

Right. You don't seem to be talking about psychiatry so much as the way we treat the mentally ill, or how they are misunderstood.

The question is then why has their brain failed to use useful language to describe their anguish? It appears as though their innate language model has departed from their limbic system (emotions/instinctual threat perception). — Benj96

This sounds like it might actually be true. Never put that much thought into it myself.

Have you studied psychology/neuroscience at all? Or is this conjecture?

Make it a completely legal process at every step. No detainment or forced treatment unless the person commits a serious criminal act, especially not at the speculation of potential harm. The view on reality should be that subjective experience is reality: the reality is the person is hearing voices and the reality is the psychiatric interpretation; the reality is the patient thinks he is God. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason from a philosophical standpoint, is it is not a good precedent to set that there is a standard of objectivity for the subjectivity of the underdog in a conflict while the favorite has different rules where his subjectivity is real (subjectivism). This is a philosophical challenge. There's more obviously, but I am interested particularly in why psychiatry takes such a powerful advantage against vulnerable and sick people. I think if it wasn't so keen on infringing people's liberties, people would be much more well behaved in dealing with them. I guess there are no lessons to learn from history about people's desire for liberty and their violent defense of it, and it is merely convenient that taking it away escalates and empowers them to force treatment. — introbert

You actually think we shouldn't try to get people who hear voices and think they are God to understand that their beliefs, and the voices they hear, aren't rooted in reality? We should just encourage people to listen to whatever instructions their voices give them, if they give instructions? Why wait until a serious criminal act has been committed to detain someone who might be obviously mentally ill and dangerous to themselves or others? Why not nip it in the bud before people or property might get hurt or damaged?

Does a comparatively small evil of taking away a measure of freedom really outweigh the good of helping someone get healthy? What if you were an unmedicated person with schizophrenia? Would you rather pull a butter knife on an officer and get shot or get talked down and taken to a hospital where you might be medicated for your own good, even if it is against your will?

The collective idiocy in this thread is astounding. The only person who put forth anything valid was Unenlightened, and even then, the theories in that post are far from mainstream.

edit: Benj made a good attempt at contributing too, sorry for the reductive comment

Didn't read past the second word.

Yes, we all agree, there are corrupt people in power, but you might want to structure your posts such that they can be read more easily. You could be presenting a correct proof for a Millenium Prize problem, and no one would bother to read it.

Now where I personally would like to draw a hard line is at the point where anyone whomsoever tries to make a comparison between this kind of experience, and being called a white privilege denier. And that is why this conversation becomes difficult. We are supposed to be having candid discussion about race, but even before it has begun, you have brought forth the terrible injustices that white folks have to put up with. So where do we go from there? — unenlightened

I don't think I equated the kinds of experiences you just recounted with being called a white privilege denier or racist. Being called a racist does absolutely nothing to me in particular, although it is mildly annoying.

Your daughter obviously suffered some serious pain there, and I'm sorry to hear that. It indicates that racism is pervasive still - if anyone doubted it.

My complaint now, since writing the OP, about being called a racist, would be mostly that it eliminates conversation, rather than that it causes emotional damage to the one being called a racist.

I've been thinking about something I heard Hitchens say about something Chomsky wrote that sounded about right, and that might give what I'm saying some necessary context.

There is no good reason for racism. No argument could ever be made that could justify treating one race differently from another. Even if it were revealed that there were differences in intelligence, for instance, between races, it wouldn't matter. The shared preferences, the basic elements that make humans human, none of that can be diminished - there is no threat to equity. I think we should keep that in mind when considering what some random ignorant white person has to say.

I mean, they have no chance of providing an argument that can justify racism, so instead of engaging them on their level we should just stay calm and dismantle what they are saying from the point of view that even if they can demonstrate some sort of backwards ass argument that might sound valid, it doesn't matter because it justifies nothing. It is absolutely inconsequential - academically, at least.

I hope that wasn't condescending, and I also hope that your daughter found some cool, open-minded people to surround herself with.

This is probably my favorite.

Bartricks basically leverages the problem of evil into a syllogism demonstrating that since God would not suffer innocents to live in a dangerous world, we must not be innocent.

The only avenues of attack were to claim that God is unjust - humans don't get what they deserve - or that innocence can indeed be ascertained via reason. I have argued for at least the first.

I'm pretty certain 180 simultaneously craps his pants and has an aneurysm every time Bartricks posts an OP.

I will. Just give me like 20 minutes.

If you guys would take the time to understand his arguments instead of getting triggered, you would realize that many of his arguments make a lot of sense. Even if they are pretty intense.

That's not me protecting Barricks btw, I think he is arrogant and on an unexplainable, bizarre crusade to trigger as many TPF posters as possible with *surprisingly well-thought-out arguments.

* as compared to the vast majority of people who post on philosophy of religion, or on this site at all

So, your conclusion is basically in support of anti-natalism.

the sensible world — Bartricks

Sensible meaning a world in which there is no suffering or injustice? Or just orderly?

I totally acknowledge that the justice system is severely flawed, but I have trouble believing that there are such confounding factors that people of color don't genuinely commit more crimes. Honestly, it doesn't matter, however, because my point is more so that many ignorant people believe that people of color commit significantly more crime, which appears to be true, because of their culture alone, and disregard other factors.

I mean, if you can provide a little bit of evidence that there are confounding factors that make it merely appear that people of color commit more crime, I'm totally open to amending my position. I know, for instance, that drug legislation in the 80's attempting to target the use of cocaine unfairly targeted crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine.

However, the statistics say that people of color commit more violent crimes too, and I can only explain that through culture and the lens of historical and institutional oppression. But we should always keep in mind that nobody must deal hard stuff or commit violent crimes really ever - there is always a choice, even if you are disadvantaged and disenfranchised. The choice is just harder.

I'm not sure how much empathy is required if you begin with accurate and relevant statistics. — Vera Mont

The empathy factors in in people understanding that people of color who live in low-income, high crime areas cannot merely pull themselves up by their bootstraps - and neither could they in the person of color's shoes. But yes, from an analytical standpoint, the information resoundingly indicates that people of color are disadvantaged.

But even understanding the statistics and information, some people are incapable of the sort of cognitive empathy you outline in your post - they see the statistics and claim that they are misleading, or they just block them out totally upon realizing they contradict their own position.

Interesting. I do think there is something not quite right about psychiatry. Consider this, we do not understand how consciousness works, how one experiences, behaves or believes what they believe. — Benj96

We understand quite a bit about the brain, actually, if not what gives rise to consciousness. We know that people, for instance, can undergo radical changes in their personality when they receive frontal lobe damage. We know that neuroplasticity allows one to form and reorganize synaptic connections in response to learning or injury. We also know what risk factors predispose one to developing schizophrenia, and that, for instance, trauma can actually have a strengthening effect (post-traumatic growth).

We know so much about the brain and psychology, enough to diagnose illnesses that can be identified by the symptoms that manifest certain behaviors and patterns of thought or other criteria. Furthermore, using medication and therapy in tandem actually produces positive effects greater than either in isolation. Adding medication to therapy is as they call it a "force multiplier" - with a fairly high coefficient, usually.

The only time I think drug therapies are appropriate is when someone is of immediate harm to either themselves or others. In the case of actively attempting suicide or murder. Only in these cases is using a drug to blunt a person's consciousness justified to simply buy some time to allow psychologists to help them. — Benj96

I cannot disagree more. Taking medications such as antipsychotics, although less than ideal, help establish some stability that lends itself to life-changing therapy. But that therapy can often only be accomplished across a relatively long timeline, and one may need the medication that whole time before they are in a good enough headspace not to take it.

It can take tremendous therapy to make a person with schizophrenia understand they are schizophrenic and can only be done with meds usually. If you want people to not have to deal with taking antipsychotics for their whole life, you should be in favor of them taking them until they are stable enough not to ruin their life/hurt themselves/hurt others/break laws, etc., which goes beyond just taking them until one is not of immediate danger to themselves or others.

Furthermore the use of the word "delusional" by a psychiatrist to justify medicating is somewhat a comical irony in that the psychiatrist doesn't know what "reality" truly is to justify judging another's as delusional. — Benj96

If I said that aliens are coming to earth to steal our gold reserves to create conductors for their spaceships as they go on an unstoppable galactic conquest to snatch all sentient species' cannabis, would you say: "I don't know if I can say that your reality is any less valid than mine?"

I think psychology is the more prudent approach. Without an arsenal of vaguely useful drugs not fully understood in their action, the psychologist must contend with an unwell mind through discourse, conversing and offering therapy through communication. This seems much less invasive and controlling. And has been proven to have good results. — Benj96

And medication has been proven to have good results. But I agree - if one can avoid taking medication one should. But many people really need to.

Some of us believed that mood would not only continue but expand... a few diehards are still fighting a valiant, doomed rearguard action against the gathering darkness. — Vera Mont

That makes political activism sound really cool, ngl.

It really is difficult to discuss American politics and societies (all of them, north to south pole) without some mention of race, racism, the theory and practice of discrimination based on one's continent of genetic origin. It has played such a significant - often decisive - part in the formation of our present nations, it's simply unavoidable. And when we don't talk about it, we still keep running up against it in the dark. Better, I think to discuss than not - but it's hard to do without acrimony. — Vera Mont

Yes, tensions over race are palpable in the US, or so I have found. I have had a variety of roommates, and honestly it seems to me that all of the best and worst qualities are equally dispersed across racial and ethnic lines, even if there are different cultural conventions more or less commonly observed by certain races or ethnicities.

Even though people of color commit more crimes in general, I think people with empathy realize that there are extenuating circumstances and screeching at them about their culture accomplishes nothing. Uplifting oneself can be like being expected to win a race one has not only not been prepared for, but also the details of which are unknown. The goals and aspirations of a person, and their ability to achieve good things, hinges upon the conditions they are born into, and what they are taught. But even the idea of the status of being uplifted itself is problematic - what is it to be uplifted? Is it to be more like white people? I don't think so.

You claimed passing wind is non-linguistic so I refuted this claim. Same goes for rocks. — Hallucinogen

You really have a bone to pick it seems. Unfortunately for you the Philosophy Forum doesn't give out participation awards. Or any awards. Must be the leftist idealism.

Yes, you seem to be competent at linguistics. I only know the basics - and not very well.



Maybe try to be a little more focused? My problem has always been what appears to be yours: profundity. You or I might be smart, but it is difficult to write profoundly all the time. I find that I get the best product if I stay down to earth and then expand on what I'm writing.

I'm trying to follow along here a little, but I don't understand any of this. What could logic have to do with spacetime, for instance? The OP speculates people are introduced to logic through language, and thus logic and language are irreducible. They then must have developed alongside each other from some proto-language, and for some reason this means that spacetime is the ultimate conjunction between ... ?

With so many mad people, it's amazing how we can get anything done at all! — Agent Smith

I see Smith is suspended. That was a pretty dickish post right there.

In the case of psychosis we are dealing with information in its true form. A physical brain and mental content. An example of how ridiculous the psychiatric profession is is the symptom of conspiracy theories. Clearly mental content but often used as a basis for forced drugging. And forced it is. If you observe these cases going through the courts there is no doubt people are being drugged against their wills with the backing of governments without knowing how bad the underlying science really is. — Mark Nyquist

So we should allow a catatonic schizophrenic incapable of consenting to taking medication to languish when we know that putting them on some good old Clozaril will benefit them cognitively?

What about someone so deluded they cannot even understand that they are mentally ill? Should we not intervene and help them readjust to society and recover some functionality via medication and therapy, even if it is initially forced?

An example of how ridiculous the psychiatric profession is is the symptom of conspiracy theories. — Mark Nyquist

What does that even mean? Are you saying that psychiatrists are conspiracy-theorists? Or that people center conspiracy theories around psychiatrists? You are not writing clearly.

Genetic processes are entirely physical both in expression and replication so why would the use of the term information even be needed? More of a false projection of our minds onto our environment than anything real. — Mark Nyquist

It is designated as information because it regulates the characteristics that are passed on to offspring. Yes, information might be ubiquitous, but some collections of information can be understood as being essential for understanding certain processes and, thus, such linguistic distinctions are useful and not so redundant.

A Turing machine can implement any computer algorithm that supplies a table of instructions for where symbols are to be printed on strips of paper. Would you say that calling the instructions for where the symbols are printed on the strips of paper information would be redundant? I certainly wouldn't, as the instructions are a collection of rules - which are a form of information - demarcated solely to execute said processes, and thus it is not redundant to designate it as a form of information, even though it reads physical instructions and executes its functions physically.

I mean I can read self-help books about quitting smoking and then quit smoking. Quitting, while it may be a physical process, is indeed a function of the physically stored information in the book, yet you wouldn't not call a book a book, would you?

I wasn't referring to protesters. I was referring to the institutions and constitutional rights that the right actually protects. They only seem to support thos institutions that carry guns. Not the public school system, not the right to protest, not fair and free elections, Air Force, yes; APHIS, no; BOP yes, BLA, no; CIA, yes; CDC no; DHS, yes, HHS; EC yes, EPA, no. ...
And I really don't want to get into the details of who initiates conflict between police and protesters in a non-ideal world. — Vera Mont

Good point. If the right cared about all institutions and the well-being of everyone in the country, regardless of skin color, they would give more support to those institutions. I agree. And yes, often times the police initiate against the protestors. I acknowledge that.

Sounds nice. I'm sure it sounds especially nostalgic to the many thousands of people disenfranchised by Republican state voting legislation and systematic voter intimidation. I wouldn't be astonished if some people were irate about being prevented from voting and then told: It's all your fault for not voting. — Vera Mont

If voting is not sufficient then what would you advocate for? Some sort of upheaval? It seems to me there would be a maximum rate of transformation that our institutions could handle without a rupture. Or so my intuition tells me.

That's correct! All entrenched power is quick to defend itself from reform. The more lopsided the disparity between haves and have-nots, the more violently the haves respond to any challenge to their entrenched power. — Vera Mont

Yes, agreed again. Good point.

By whom? The entire left as a political entity with the power to destroy your life, or by some anonymous poster on an internet forum? It's quite a long way down the scale of harms from being eaten. — Vera Mont

I'll have to comb the internet for some more extreme examples if I am to defend that. Yes, I have only been censured by anonymous posters, and that is indeed far from having one's life ruined.

But it annoyed me.

Interesting word choice! Would you like to reconsider it? — Agent Smith

You'll just have to tolerate my word choice, as I have no idea where you picked that out in my OP. Maybe try to contribute meaningfully to the discussion, Smith?

I don't use the terms "racist" or "racism." — T Clark

I think it is okay to use those terms as long as one understands the weight behind them.

I don't use the terms "racist" or "racism." I don't think they're useful. But... if you and I were having a discussion about race, and if the first thing you brought up was black on black crime; or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth; that would tell me something significant about whether I can trust your judgement on racial issues. — T Clark

For myself, I think the first discussion should be about some form of reparations, honestly, and from there we could find some solutions to the problems of police brutality, disenfranchisement, and black-on-black crime - the last of which I think, although less obviously than police brutality, is the result of racist institutions and generational poverty on a level many don't fully understand. So yes, making a big fuss about black-on-black crime when people are talking about police brutality and poverty is pretty often a diversion from legitimate challenges to entrenched power, despite what I may have argued in the past.

edit: okay, it is pretty much always a diversion from challenges to power, I totally admit that. Sorry for downplaying it.

Some of the institutions. The ones that serve their agenda. Like heavily militarized police forces to keep the mob from protesting economic and political disparity and the privatization of everything from drinking water to highways. — Vera Mont

Ideally protestors would not even come into conflict with said pseudo-military police departments. But I don't see anything wrong with the police doing their designated jobs and preventing innocent people from having their businesses and homes ripped apart by angry mobs, swathes of whom could feasibly be construed as verging on militant. Not BLM activists so much as the looters and opportunists that took advantage of the situation.

Killer Mike summed it up when he said that the people need to make a difference with their votes; it is paramount to first build up your house and make it strong to effect lasting change - even if you, understandably, want to see shit burn.

Yes, I would call the support of armed insurrection 'rule breaking to a degree'. But I was referring to your specific examples of abortion racial equality, on the right-wing rhetoric is so egregiously mismatched with the actual behaviour of its leadership. — Vera Mont

I wasn't referring to that specifically, but yes, not denouncing armed insurrections is pretty horrible, even if they don't all necessarily support it.

I would say the right largely follows through on the promises they make, or try to, it's just that so many right-wingers don't understand just what those promises mean; I think it is more that right-wing politicians act contra to what right-wingers actually want as it affects their lives, even if the politician's objectives are met.

For instance, many right-wingers want less taxes because no one likes being taxed. So apparently that is a reason to not have socialized healthcare. Right-wing politicians have no issues with following through on denying us universal healthcare, and they are successful in their opposition to it. Those right-wing voters have no conception of the fact that it would save them money, and if they do, they deny it because they have been indoctrinated into the taxes = bad mentality and just repeat debunked talking-points.

That is less an example of defending institutions than of deliberately misrepresenting the position of the other party. A tactic not unusual to the right. Was anarchism advocated or even mentioned by the left? Whence did that term enter the discussion of police funding? Why is anarchism never an issue when de-funding public services that don't carry guns? — Vera Mont

My point was that the right is quick to act on perceived threats to the current order - far more so than the left. Anarchy, although perhaps not anarchism, would be the direct result of the state no longer having a monopoly on violence, and the right, despite, and also in line with, their tendency to form militias, seems to understand this - that more is at stake than just equal treatment of minorities, although the equal treatment of minorities should always concern us.

In fact, the existence of well-regulated militias is an expression of the right's respect for authority, often times promising to uphold order if order is lost. I have no idea if those militias could actually be effective without heavily centralized command like an army, or if they would abuse their power, but they reflect, somewhat paradoxically, the right's respect for order, I think.

Some people have certainly expressed rigid views on forums. But I am unaware of any Democrat having been ostracized by the party, or left unsopported in mid-campaign for expressed a nuanced view on anything. — Vera Mont

I have been accused of being racist, or a useful idiot for racists, for mentioning black-on-black violence, even though I acknowledge that it is often invoked to draw attention away from the atrocities people of color have, and sometimes still do, suffer for being of color. I argued that it was valid to bring up because murder is murder, even if police brutality is more obviously indicative of an institutional issue than a black man killing another black man.

It does now. They drummed out dissenters large and small, starting back in the Nixon years, with further purges under Reagan and Bush II. — Vera Mont

Right. My history is not that great, and I don't read as much as I should, but I'll take your word for it.

As much as I appreciate you, Smith, you should probably stop posting irrelevant one-offs and non-sequiturs.

It's very difficult to treat your enemies absolutely fairly and to apply the golden rule towards them every time, regardless of how atrocious and nasty their actions have been. — universeness

Yeah, and the right doesn't seem to care what you do at all so long as you toe the line.

To forgive them totally for all the actions they performed which resulted in friends and fellows that had their lives severely damaged or totally destroyed. — universeness

If the citizens of the US, be they left or right, actually cared about our government not ruining lives, they would have voted out the neoliberals and fascists for the many atrocities committed against people in other countries. Selling weapons to Saudi-Arabia so they can blow up brown people halfway across the world? No noise.

I think it's incredible when people can be so forgiving towards the nefarious rich and to right wing extremists, but I also understand those who cannot be so forgiving — universeness

Honestly, I have little forgiveness for them myself, but I at least try to understand, some of the time, why they do what they do.

I appreciate your measured reply.

I do not believe that is an accurate representation of either side. The right says - proclaims, shouts, pounds, screams, buys expensive advertising and mobilizes ruthless propaganda campaigns to convince its supporters - that these are the issues at stake, while the leadership not only knows that to be false, but blatantly breaks every one of the rules and damages every one of the institutions they're campaigning to 'protect.' As for excommunicating those who disagree with the core leadership -- How do you think they became as locked in step as they have in the last 20 years? What happened to the moderate conservatives? And Liz Cheney? — Vera Mont

So many republicans had no desire to see Trump become president, yet the Republican party has supported him through all of his idiocies, falling into step with a clear megalomaniac as easily as you might join a friend for coffee. You might view this as rule breaking, and it is to a certain degree, but it also demonstrates that the right tends to come together despite small, or large, differences in views.

And I maintain that the right, at least in the US, has a greater desire to preserve the institutions we have in place. Take for example the fact that many on the right pushed back against what they thought was the literal defunding of police departments, because of their (correct) intuition that anarchism doesn't really work.

You could say that this actually hurts the police, or society at large, because we could divert funding to hire more social workers or something - I don't disagree.

Is not making alliances, or giving concessions of principle to the "rottenest knaves" really a weakness in a political party? — Vera Mont

No, but try to adopt a nuanced view on race, attempt to discuss it with candor, and see how quickly you get declared a bigot or a white privilege denier.

Or you could make a joke about dongles.

Overall, I think you are presenting a dichotomy I don't agree with; one can find common ground with people one does not totally agree with merely for the sake of progress - and the differences in views among leftists are largely magnified by a tendency to moralize inherent to the left that is both good and bad.

edit: by "moralize" I mean to reform to make more moral, and not to speak on moral matters with an unjustified sense of superiority.

Hello left-wing utopianism. Everyone gets a participation trophy, and anything less than that is all God's fault! I'm concluding here that you're just angry at reality for containing suffering and that you're just going to keep insisting that the responsibility lies in God's lap instead of in the laps of people who make those decisions — Hallucinogen

Seriously? I say that we should have a more meritocratic society, and you say that I want everyone to receive participation trophies. I just want people who do good things, or work hard, to receive good things.

Furthermore: who chooses to get cancer, or to be mentally ill? Maybe some people that get cancer or become mentally ill smoke cigarettes and marijuana, but can those that do everything right and still get cancer, schizophrenia, etc. be held responsible? Obviously not.

Look, you are not arguing in good faith, whether it is some attempt to troll me or induce a flame-war - I'm not sure. So, I'm going to stop responding to you.

I said it was our responsibility to create just outcomes in society; allowing our children to suffer injustices would be the opposite of that. — Hallucinogen

The analogy just went over your head. I understand letting children suffer would be an injustice - thus I pointed it out. If we allow those whose condition we have control over to suffer, then we are guilty for not preventing that suffering, no matter how, as I have had to point out many times in this thread, unfathomable God is.

People don't have the power to decide the fate and destination of other people's spirits, unlike God. — Hallucinogen

Then God is even more culpable than the parent who lets their child suffer, as he has absolute control over our outcomes and whether or not they are just.

From the rest of your comment, I'm getting a strong impression of left-wing idealism and bitterness about inequality, which tells me that your moral intuitions here are just expressions of your personality rather than moral statements I have to acknowledge as being objective or factual. — Hallucinogen

Yeah, that's a cop-out. I have no issue with inequality, I'm not really much of an idealist, and, unlike you, I generally don't ascribe negative qualities to people merely because I disagree with them.

No, this is just your moral intuition/outrage again. I don't have to accept the assertion that God should do anything. Intervening to cure every person of cancer would make creating a world with cancer in it pointless. — Hallucinogen

And what point is there in such suffering? You assert that gratuitous suffering actually should exist because it gives us the chance to, what? Die a slow and horrible death?

Cancer gives the sufferer (who is ultimately an alter-ego of God) the opportunity to experience and learn from mortality in a particular way, and it gives a unique experience to their loved ones and anyone trying to help them as well. — Hallucinogen

Yes, a unique experience indeed, a loved one getting cancer and dying painfully. Sure, some might be able to draw some positives from surviving cancer and getting a new perspective on mortality, but why would it have to be through something so horrible? Would anyone honestly say that getting cancer and dying is worth it for the uniqueness of the experience? I think not, and not just because they would be dead.

Ultimately it seems to me your subservience, tone deafness, and moral arrogance are likely facets of a personality marked by a severe lack of empathy and tolerance for free thought, and I can just dismiss anything you say because of that.

This is yet again you repeating the insistence there should be significantly less suffering, which I don't have to accept because it is an expression of your personality. — Hallucinogen

The main thrust of the OP is that God is unjust. Whatever I think about whether or not there should be less suffering is not the point.

I'm curious how you think we could demonstrate our compassion in a world with significantly less suffering, though. Wouldn't that mean significantly less compassion? — Hallucinogen

We could just try to arrange society in such a way that people get what they deserve? Do you honestly believe that someone could only be rewarded with a Nobel Prize if someone else falls off a cliff? What connection is there between some people's suffering, or the lack of just outcomes, and the just outcomes others receive, and why couldn't we all at least mostly get what we deserve?

Premise 1: God is capable of making contradictions true
Premise 2: X is unjust
Premise 3: God let X happen even though he could have prevented it

Conclusion: God is unjust — PhilosophyRunner

You conceded that even if logic were messed up, one could still use it to come to correct conclusions, such as in the donkey example or your mail example. It might not be correct, but it works.

I'm starting to doubt I understand what it would mean for logic to not work because of your arguments. If God made logic stop working, how could we use it to come to any correct conclusions?

But our system of logic cannot cope with contradictions. See my above post with an example. — PhilosophyRunner

I never claimed that human logic can cope with contradictions. It can't, despite what Benj is saying.
edit: you were talking about what Benj said, my bad