Age isn't a literal position, but rather a statement regarding the amount of information one has available. — Cheshire

And age is also a statement regarding one's legal status, and everything that comes with that.

For some things, some peple truly are too young, such as drinking alcohol or driving a car.

As to these two comments, I agree that the competition can be distracting, leaving open the question of why we'd do that to ourselves. — Hanover

I'm not distracted by the competition. It's hard to fight when it's not clear what the weapons to be used are and what counts for victory.
And we'd need an emperor to decide, of course.

- - -

You want to do philosophy for philosophy's sake??


And Schopenhauer was a spoiled trust fund kid.

Our true spirit bird is probably the broiler chicken. — Nils Loc

We used to have them at home, on a farm, they were free to roam around. They were such smart and amiable beings. I would cuddle and play with them.

So many people see a broiler chicken and think it's stupid and good only for one thing: to be killed and eaten. But they are so much more than that. How different animals can be, depending on how one treats them.

The simple fact of the matter is this: Just because someone doesn't use a preferred pronoun, even after they've been told repeatedly, does not mean they are fucking with you, or they don't like you, or they think you can't be that way. It could be that they just don't care enough about you to make a mental note. If the perpetrator of "genocide" wants to engage the person then the burden is on him to work some courtesy into his/her/it's communication. But if the "victim" is the one making contact, they should go some where else if they don't like what they are getting. When they go, they should not fall into the trap they eschew by speculating about motivation. If they want to know, ask. — James Riley

The thing is that what the OP is talking about is just one way, one-sided.

The LGBT+ person walks in, tells everyone how they want to be addressed, but they don't afford the same courtesy to others. Or the LGBT+ person doesn't even say anything, but expects others to get the pronouns right.

No, the LGBT+ person wants to be treated as speshal, so fucking speshal.

For something about which no fucks are given, this topic attracts a lot of posts. — Banno

And so many fucking likes!!

Back when I was growing up, into my teens, one considered oneself lucky to be considered a person at all. Also, when adults would speak about a child they perceived as "problematic", even in the child's presence, they would refer to the child as "it", so that the child could hear it.
"It has no feelings."
"It doesn't understand."

- - -

Oh I definitely give a fuck about the loss of focus. The shift in the 'big issues' of the day from third-world poverty to first-world individualism is literally killing people. I just don't give a fuck about being misgendered. — Isaac

I suppose people need to use their time and energy somehow. And since they don't spend their days toiling under the sun (literally), they focus on other things. And living packed together like sardines like they do, they focus on things like correct gender pronouns ...

As someone who identifies as non-binary, and understands that Gender is separate to Sex, it is astounding to me how people who claim to be in support of the LGBTQIA+ community continue to misgender and use incorrect pronouns. What is most concerning about this, is that it seems to be a systematic denial and refusal to accept Gender non-conforming people into society. — Bradaction

So this is specifically about those "people who claim to be in support of the LGBTQIA+", but who don't get the pronouns right?

But I've always been attracted to being different from the pack,

and doing things the hard way; and loving these worthless bastards has got to be the hardest thing in the world! — James Riley

Oh, come on, you have got to be more creative than that!

Looking at the Republican Party philosophically, my question is this: what do they stand for, at bottom? I’m talking about the leaders. For years it’s been tax cuts and claims of wanting smaller government.

What about today? — Xtrix

Social Darwinism, as always.

Republicans like Trump because he hates the same people they hate. It's all about the hate. I was quite the hater until I saw them do it, and then, not wanting to be like them, I decided to try to love my enemy. Jeesh! What a long hard slog that is! It's so much easier to hate. And, I have to admit, I kind of like hating. But I do want to put as much distance between me and them as I can, which means I have to try and love them. Yikes! — James Riley

Don't "love your enemies", because what comes of it is not love, it's passive aggressiveness.

Let it run for another week or so, then take a look at the post history of the folk with the most likes. If they're the kind of posts/posters you want to encourage, the system works: if they're not, the system doesn't work. — Isaac

How do you propose to guard aganist subversion and sabotage?

Birds eat like there’s no tomorrow. — praxis

I heard birds have no satiation instinct and can actually burst from overeating. (Young kittens and puppies also don't have a satiation instinct, but if properly domesticated, they learn it.)
Who'd have thought that satiation is something to be learned.

Always when reading your posts, I try to figure out why you have a Taxi Driver reference in your avatar. I just don't get it.

Yes. The forum's stakeholders need to decide on the direction in which they want the forum to go.

Standards for Forum Debates

I have a question:
What is the purpose of a debate? What is attempted to be accomplished by a debate?

but what about someone else? — 180 Proof

I so want to do it, either side, and my posts on this are scattered all over the forum. But I just don't have the time, I can't even log in to the forum every day, sometimes even for several days in a row.
I have an enormous amount of work in the garden, and while I pull weeds and dig over the soil, I think of witty retors to the forum posts I read, although by the time I'm able to long in, the moment's long gone ...
Like ...

What will the future of capitalism look like when everyone is utilizing autiomation? — Christoffer

First of all, some (or many?) people will not be able to afford the automation and will have to make do the old fashioned way.
Secondly, some people will probably rebel against automation.

There is a vast number of futuristic films that explore the possible scenarios of how the above two premises work out.

What should we do with the reputation system? — jamalrob

I think that you'd first need to decide what you want this forum to be like, what direction it should develop in.
For some purposes, the reputation system is good, for others it's not, as already mentioned in the above posts. It all depends on what you want with the forum, what purpose it should serve, what goal it should ty to attain.

I don't know what the stakeholders' vision for this forum is, so I can't vote.

Along these lines, I'd point out that the most important truths we learn are through fiction. What then of this fiction that speaks the truth? — Hanover

If fiction is the path to truth, you've lost at least one basis to abandon religion. You don't have to believe the sea parted, just that there is a truth being told there.
— Hanover

But what is that truth? The moment you say what it is, you are wrong. — Banno

Not to be glib, but you're supposed to feel that truth in your heart.

Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales is probably one of the most well-known (even if not original) studies of the importance of fairy tales.
For the more serious reader, there's Heuscher's A Psychiatric Study of Myths and Fairy Tales; Their Origin, Meaning, and Usefulness.


Why do we watch Star Wars or the Hobbit films and such? To feel good, to feel like we can handle life's problems, to feel like life has meaning. A feeling that can otherwise be extremely hard to come by; it's so elusive, yet so important for one's wellbeing and proactiveness.

If God is a necessary being, his existence is entailed by the rules of logic. Such is the meaning of "necessary." The statement "God is a necessary being" therefore defines God as subservient to logic and caused by logic. Such entails logic preexisting God. — Hanover

It's not clear that this is what all actual monotheists mean by God being necessary (apart from those in particular who argue like the above). Rather, the necessity of God's existence in monotheism is to be understood in contradistinction with the optionality or relativity of human existence, as in: God is necessary, but man is not; man is only optional.

Such would at least be the Christian reasoning, but not, say, Hindu. In some forms of Hinduism, man isn't merely optional; man is necessary and contingent on God, while God is not contingent on anyone or anything.

If we want to talk about the necessity of God's existence, we need to be clear which particular monotheism we're (indirectly) referring to, and justify our choice.
Why the Christian notion of necessity of God's existence, why not the Hindu one?

Here's the rub; the assumed link between god and what is we ought do. This is what must be broken. — Banno

Why must it be broken? Justify.

SO if someone is certain about god, it is not as a consequence of deliberation. — Banno

As I've been saying all along.

...and as a consequence it is irrational; it stands outside of rational considerations. It is perhaps there are a part of what Wittgenstein called "hinge propositions".

Yes. A hinge commitment.

The issue then becomes the extent to which such beliefs should be taken into consideration when deciding what to do.

Taken into consideration by whom?
Deciding by whom?

Why would anyone trust ancient religious texts when they are just human writings and contradict each other?

Indeed. And yet these are used in deciding issues such as abortion, euthanasia, women's rights and so on.

What exactly is being used: those texts, or some people's certainty about them?

When arguing against someone, one isn't arguing against their arguments, but against the other person's certainty of those arguments, ie. one is arguing against the strength of the other person's hinge commitments. (That's why logic and evidence so often have so little bearing on persuading people, because logic and evidence don't address what the argument is actually about.)

So this is the real issue then? Namely, that we got taken in by our own greed, and since China has been feeding it so cheaply and so abundantly, we've come to conclude, besotted by our greed, that China means well to us -- and then we had a rude awakening upon seeing that China is not so benign, so now we feel betrayed by China and in an effort to protect our own greedy egos, we blame China instead of ourselves? Yes, this makes sense.

Why would anyone trust ancient religious texts when they are just human writings and contradict each other? — Gregory

Whom exactly are you asking this and for what purpose?

I'm reminded of this scene on learning how to swim from the film the Glass Castle where a father is teaching his daugher how to swim:

There are, as far as swimming itself goes, easier and more effective ways to teach and learn swimming, and the above seems like subjecting someone to unnecessary suffering.

But I suppose that if the actual lesson is to be about learning that it is necessary to learn to swim, then something like this is the way.

IOW, the salient distinction is between a skill and the necessity for said skill. Learning the former can usually be done with minimum stress; with the latter, stress seems inevitable.

Sure, but are they not fighting against unwarranted truth claims from both sides, a practice I have already acknowledged and agreed with? — Janus

But are those truth claims really unwarranted? How can we possibly know?

If we wish to substantively address ignorance, actions and attitudes, we need to challenge belief in literalist readings of holy books or the notion that God's will is known. — Tom Storm

But this way, we're attacking the theists' constitutionally given freedom of religion.
How do you propose to get around that?

But that still doesn't make China a benign entity. — Apollodorus

Why should any entity be benign??

You might consider it tedious to explain, but that the same expression in different languages can somehow mean (or "how it means") differently - as opposed to the traditional way of meaning - is supposed to be the topic of the discussion. If "how it means" cannot be explicated, then what are we discussing? And what are further examples meant to show? It doesn't help that the example cited in the OP is puzzling to all. — Luke

It should be possible to exemplify this within the same language, to better pinpoint what we're talking about. For example, by comparing Shakespeare's original text and the modernized version(s) of it.

Hamlet says of himself that he is a rogue and peasant slave and that he is pigeon-liver'd and lacks gall. Now what is it that is lost or added in translation when we say that he thought of himself as timid, cowardly? What is it that is Shakespearely?

You might consider it tedious to explain, but that the same expression in different languages can somehow mean (or "how it means") differently - as opposed to the traditional way of meaning - is supposed to be the topic of the discussion. If "how it means" cannot be explicated, then what are we discussing? And what are further examples meant to show? It doesn't help that the example cited in the OP is puzzling to all. — Luke

We can see that many words have a cross-language translation relationship like this (L: language, M: meaning, ):

Word in L1
M1
M2
M3

Word in L2
M1
M2
M4

(L2 has a different word to express M3)


How do we make sense of words that overlap in some aspects of their meaning, but not in whole?
If the main/some meanings of the words are the same, how come all of them aren't?

It's actually much simpler than this. Words in different languages can be translated only because they point to the same thing. If they don't point to the same thing, then they are not translatable. The fact is that most, of not all, words in any language are translatable in another. It just may be that one word in one language translates to many words in a another language, but this is no different than defining the single word in the first language, as the act of defining is translating one word into many in the same language, or at least pointing at the object or event you are defining. — Harry Hindu

Of course. I had actually compiled a reply to an earlier post of yours here, but lost it in editing. I used the English word mother and how in English it has meanings that the word mati in my Slavic native language doesn't have, even though they generally count as equivalents.

Think of how you would translate/define "Christmas Tree" to an alien from another planet that doesn't have trees or Christmas, but has religions, holidays and bushes, and words in their own language that point to these things. What if you just pointed at a Christmas Tree?

It's not clear that they could make sense of the object per se. Perhaps if I pointed to a Christmas Tree and said something like "This is how we on Earth symbolize a specific and important religious holiday."

(Something similar is already happening when we can make sense of a Christimas cactus tree and other alternatives for trees.)

It could stand in for the social pressure that in real life motivates you to behave well and present your best. — jamalrob

*tsk tsk*
That would work in a fair, democratic system where all the members would clearly, openly agree to jointly work toward a common goal (and one that would be for the greater good, at that).

A discussion forum like this isn't like that.

For one, there is no clear goal to work toward. There's just stuff going on all over the place, quite a bit doesn't even have anything to do with philosophy, but more with looking cool and being admired for it.

For two, a discussion forum like this is more like a country club, run by a bunch of old boys who exert their pressure mostly indirectly. This pressure inspires posters to behave themselves only inasmuch as they fear when the other shoe will drop, and not out of concern for quality. IOW, here, the pressure to "behave well and present one's best" is too dispersed, too random, too intangible to be conducive to behaving well and presenting one's best.

How do you explain that some apparently very bad people have it so good in life????
— baker

Justice is made, by us; not a gift from god. — Banno

This doesn't address my concern. The fact is that some apparently very bad people have it very good in life. You say justice is made by us. Well then, how is it justice that some apparently very bad people aren't prosecuted by people? Why is there so little actual will and success to do so?

I don't see how these differ. — Banno

In that in E, there is no element of choice. It's the state of mind when one has throughly considered the issue, but ends up, even literally, with an open mouth and nothing comes out; it's bewilderment.

People will start conflating the numbers with authority and validity. — khaled

It would be interesting to see what effect random changing numbers under a poster's name would have. Ie. so that the same poster one day has, say, 5 as the number under their name, then the next day 106, then 88, and so on.

Until the diverse preachers indoctrinators proselytizers chill out, they should expect others asking them to justify their claims. In case they impose their faiths on others, politics, have their faiths interfere in other peoples' lives, whatever social matters, etc, then they should expect all the more. — jorndoe

I think this requires a different approach. First of all, don't let them dictate the terms. As long as we attempt to discuss "the existence of God" or request them to justify their claims, we're letting the theists dictate the terms, and we're playing by those terms -- and we have set ourselves up for certain failure. We must not let them drag us to their turf where they can play, and win, on their terms.

Rather, if the notion of god leads to inconsistencies, then either, the notion of god cannot be instantiated (atheism)or the notion of god needs to be reconsidered. — Banno

Exactly. Instead of treating it as a philosophical artifact, treat it the way religious theists have been treating it for millennia: a matter of divine revelation. (Which you personally just don't happen to have.)

You seem to be operating under the notion that people who beieve in God have arrived at belief in God or at claims about God via an abstract logical reasoning (or even by empirical investigation), in a bottom-up manner, so to speak.
— baker

Oh, not at all. — Banno

Your questions and posts on the topic of "God" indicate otherwise. They indicate that you're trying to arrive at certainty about God via an abstract logical reasoning, in a bottom-up manner.

Instead of relying on divine revelation in order to come to certainty about God, you're relying on your own reason (+some outsourcing to the forum folks).

Riddle me this:
How to arrive at certainty about God?

What's your answer?

I had absolutely zero religious training and I'm not even slightly inclined to atheism. My sense of incredulity at the magnificent complexity of the universe only reduces that further. — Pantagruel

But you're not a theist in any actual, established religious sense of the word. You couldn't go to a particular church, join the religious community there, and function well as a member, could you?

I think the Atheist has specific reasons for disbelieving in god. Probably some deep psychological trauma where they feel they were let down and abandoned. — Pantagruel

Oh? And this means that they should first seek psychiatric help, and once they are cured of their trauma, only then proceed with their religious explorations?

The counter is that for practical purposes agnosticism and atheism have the same outcome.
— Banno

Not true; an agnostic is not going to waste time arguing against theists. — Janus

Not from what I've seen. At least on internet forums, I've seen plenty of aggressive agnostics trying to fight it out both with theists as well as atheists.