But I still think it’s well-established that the risks from COVID are far higher than the risks from any of the vaccines. — Wayfarer

So what?

Statistical probabilities calculated for a particular observed group do not translate into the same probabilities for a particular person. They would do so only if the probabilities would depend solely on chance.

Instead, the actual probability for an event to occur to a particular person has to be calculated for that particular person, based on empirical data for that person. If that data is not available, the probability can only be calculated theoretically. Meaning, there's actually a 50% chance you'll die from a vaccine.

All this talk about "low risks associated with vaccines" is just a way to falsely inspire hope and optimism. And compliance.

The choice then, if choice is so important to us, is between a certain health catastrophe if one refuses the COVID vaccine and a probable political catastrophe if one accepts the COVID vaccine. — TheMadFool

No, but a probable personal catastrophe if one accepts the COVID vaccine.

They can take the Pfizer or Moderna. — frank

No, they can't. It's not possible to choose which vaccine one is going to be vaccinated with. At least in some parts of the world.

What are the arguments for and against the responsibility that individuals might be thought to bear to accept a Covid 19 vaccine? — Janus

Follow the money: Health insurance doesn't cover the costs of the treatment of the side effects of experimental vaccines (which is what all the covid vaccines are). That ought to tell you something.
If you get blood clots and then a stroke after the vaccination, and end up paralyzed for the rest of your life, along with becoming homeless because the bank took your house because you couldn't pay the medical bills -- well, this is just a fair and reasonable burden that a citizen should take upon themselves, right? The vaccine is, after all, "safe and effective".
(Oh, and you also can't get life insurance if you've been vaccinated.)

I wish I had the freedom not to be expected to go along with the hysteria of the provaxxers and I wish I had the freedom not to be expected to go along with the hysteria of the antivaxxers. But we don't live in a free world.

Can you imagine a military general, out on the battle field, who is a Stoic?
— baker
Well, let's see ... other than the old adage (I can't source it at the moment) 'Epicurean during peace, Stoic during war', what do you make of these reputed 'Stoic warriors' ... — 180 Proof

Thanks for illustrating my point! The modern day stoic is a passive-aggressive wimp, while there is nothing in the original Stoicism that would stand in the way of being proactive.

You believe that pantheism somehow preventsStoicism from being quietism? — praxis

Of course, because pantheism gives one a definitive sense that one is part of divinity, and that as such, one's life is worth living, that life is a big and worthy project worth striving for, all taking place in a big and worthy universe.

Major personal monotheisms operate from the notion of separation between man and god, and of the fallen nature of man. This gives rise to despondence, guilt, demoralization, hopelessly trying to (re)establish the bond between man and the divine. Pantheism doesn't throw a person into such an abyss, so the person has more energy and can utilize it proactively.

Cognitive dissonance, humans can hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. It doesn’t mean they don’t believe in one or the other, it means they are holding an irrational contradiction. Most of the time it’s because the person doesn’t see the contradiction.
That makes more sense to me than saying they don’t really believe it considering the kinds of things they do in the name of their beliefs. — DingoJones

No. They threaten with eternal damnation anyone who doesn't believe like they do. Because of this, they do not deserve the kind of lenience that you describe above and which would apply in other situations, for other beliefs (inlcuding flatearthing and antivaxxing).

I don’t see “belief” as binary like you do, — DingoJones

It's the religious who primarily see belief in such binary terms!

What counts as unacceptable stereotyping? (Or when does stereotyping become prejudice?)

On a forum like this? There are discussion forums where already the software is set to disable the spelling of words like "fuck" etc. But here, given the forum settings and the generally combative, testosteron-laden atmosphere with a high tolerance for sarcasm and satire, it's really hard to tell what is unacceptable stereotyping and what isn't.

Rather little of what is normal here would pass for acceptable watercooler conversation.

It interferes with the understanding. Much of what was best in ancient philosophy was absorbed into Christian theology, and then became rejected along with it. So there are philosophical ways of thinking and ideas that are rejected purely because of their association with religious dogma, even though that isn't an accurate depiction. — Wayfarer

It goes the other way around too: For example, the way Catholic monotheism and the motivation to proselytize were conveniently omitted from Descartes' philosophy (probably in an effort to make Descartes look palatable to secularists?) which was then raised to a secular standard for philosophizing. What a Trojan horse!

So there are philosophical ways of thinking and ideas that are rejected purely because of their association with religious dogma, even though that isn't an accurate depiction.

But for whom is this really a problem? Perhaps for the professional philosophers. Other people who also have some interest in philosophy can and do skirt this bias.

But then why tailor one's quest after a religious proselytizer like Descartes?

I do. In fact, many a southern bigot specifically defends their own stance as one of heritage. I get it from the following language: "Confederate flags . . . endemic voter suppression . . . Dixie . . ." — James Riley

On a philosophy forum, it should go without saying that people would do their due dilligence and check with the potentially offensive poster as to what they really mean, before accusing them of racism.

Unless it is clear from the poster's posting history that they are a particular kind of racist supremacist.

Actually, I think that was the posters point - he was describing what he considers to be the heritage of white southerners. — T Clark

This is a stereotype about white southerners, indeed. For example, when I think of people of the American South, my first impulse is to think of white people, not of blacks.

Such obligation would follow only if your motivation for producing your argument would be to convince or defeat others, like Descartes' was.

For the record, I've been partially vaccinated, and I fully accept that the vaccine is safe and effective. — Wayfarer

Based on a case study of one? With possibly no tests for further covid infection? That's bad science.

And when you look a the numbers, it turns out that vaccines afe safe. — Banno

Not for those who had serious side effects or who died from it.

That if you really believe something you obligate yourself to act in accordance with it? — DingoJones

What else??

If people could be self-governing the need for government would be minimal, but they are not. — Fooloso4

Large projects -- whether it's the power or transportation infrastructure or going to war -- cannot be worked on if people are merely self-governing. It's in the nature of such large projects that they require a certain type of hierarchical organization in order to be carried out. Modern life is based around such large projects. There's a limit to how much technological and logistic complexity self-governing people can carry out. A generous estimate seems to be a Stone Age lifestyle.

My point is that it would take a true belief in god in order to sacrifice your life for god. — DingoJones

And I doubt such is necessarily always the case.

Sure, those are all reasons people might have for blowing themselves up. They don’t seem any more plausible than an actual belief they have that not only justifies but demands that behaviour.
Why are you so sure religiosity isn’t the reason even though that is the reason given AND we can see from the religious texts/religious leaders that they are instructed to do so?

Because I've seen religion and religiosity from the inside. Like I said, I know many religious people, but I yet have to meet one who would actually believe what they say.
I've seen Catholics go to church, there chant "I'm so sorry I offended thee, God", then go home and get drunk and curse God, Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Roman Church, and continue in that vein until next Sunday, when it is again "I'm so sorry I offended thee, God", and so on.

I've seen similar patterns in other religions where people make a point of vowing to do something, and then don't do it, and it just goes on and on. At some point, one has to wonder whether this is really just simply failure, a human flaw, or whether it is deliberate duplicity. I see no reason to think that religious people are as naive as some atheists and anti-religionists like to portray them. Too much killing, raping, and pillaging has taken place in the name of religion to still allow us to think that it was all some massive mistake, a genuine failure or flaw, or the acts of the deranged few.

Would you be equally dismissive of the reasons that I gave for any given action? If I told you I post on this forum because I want to practice debating would you suspect I actually was doing it for some other possible reason you can come up with?

Probably not, and it's not relevant for the most part anyway.

Let us see, then, if there is a hyperbolic doubt which the purported truth of the Cogito Sum cannot overcome. — charles ferraro

"Am I something more or other than just (my) mind?"

Descartes' certainty rests on taking for granted that a person's mind (their thoughts) are all there is to a person, or at least the only thing that is relevant for personhood. If this bit isn't taken for granted, it all collapses.

I think that education about "feelings" have always been primarily part of the hidden curriculum.
— baker

In what manner, or can you provide an example? — Shawn

Have you been told, or have you heard others being told things like:
"You can't let this get to you!"
"Buck up!"
"Don't be such a cry baby!"
"Boys don't cry!"
"Get yourself together!"
"Stop whining!"
"Look on the bright side!"
"Relax!"
"Calm down!"

This is how people tell eachother what the right way to feel at any given time is.

Western psychology prides itself in being morally neutral. This limits its scope.
— baker
How so?

Are you asking about the first or the second part?

All nonsense and projection. Not a Liberal or privileged - and this mild name calling doesn't address the point. — Tom Storm

What you display is what I call liberalism and privilege.
And a psychologist, insisting on you-messages? Really? No need to exemplify all the myths and stereotypes about psychologists.

If an omniscient person existed would we hate them or cherish them?

This would only be relevant if everyone else except oneself would be omniscient. Because then such a lone individual would be at an absolute loss. Otherwise, as long as the omniscient were a minority, or an absolute minority of one, it wouldn't matter. Except perhaps for those with an inferiority complex.

Remember, such am omniscient person wouldn't only know your bank card number, they'd also know things like the details of your today's nr. 2 or the athlete's foot in your groin. And so for everyone, going on 8 billion people. Brrr. Perhaps including the inner lives of animals and stars and galaxies? That can't be fun!

How could being omniscient possibly pay off for a human? It might help one commit some perfect crimes, but that's about it. It certainly wouldn't help one in relationships with others, so long as one conceives of relationships as a matter of sharing, intimacy, give and take.

One thing that can be noted is the way the politics often trumps the science, especially in respect of the COVID epidemic. The arguments about vaccination, the origins of the virus, and about the means of amelioration, are often heavily impacted by political considerations even if the science is supposed to be leading. — Wayfarer

Yes. It's such simplistic dogma, people are being infantilized. Science deals in numbers. But politicians and some scientists who speak in favor of vaccination, and then one's actual doctor use a higly idealized, dogmatic, simplistic narrative. As in, "Repeat after me: The vaccine is safe and effective! The vaccine is safe and effective! Anyone who doesn't fall in line with our hysteria is a science denier and antivaxxer and should be punished in every imaginable way!"

There's no room for detail, no room for nuance, it's supposed to be just black and white, hysterically so: if you're not hysterically with us, you're hysterically against us!

One general observation I would make is that we lack the ability to distinguish religion from philosophical spirituality. Because of the dogmatic attitude of Christianity, everything 'religious' gets tarred with the same brush. — Wayfarer

And you'd probably say that this is to our loss?

Also, look at the lives of "saints" (they have whole lists and biographies of them in Catholicism, for example). In many cases, these people were ordinary people, some even by popular account, bad people, who in some extreme situation did something religiously notable. In some cases, the duration of their saintliness can be measured in days, or less.

Given this, it behooves that one take notions of sainthood and martyrdom with the proviso that they are characteristically temporally limited.

You’ve never heard of religious martyrs? Suicide bombers? You think these people don’t really believe in god and rewards of gods afterlife? — DingoJones

Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

Note that the word "religious martyr" tends to be applied to anyone who died "for religion", regardless of how they lived prior to that; regardless of the specific of their death (whether it's a bus full of schoolchildren dying in a bomb attack, or whether it's someone who prior to their public execution said some notable religious words); and regardless of who declared their death to be "for religion" (Romans might have killed a lot of Christians, but should we therefore surmise that they were all martyrs for Christianity?).

Why do you think they do it then? What is the reason why they are sacrificing their lives and claiming they do it because god wants them to?

Some of them are egomaniacs. It's taboo to name names in this category, but surely you can think of some people who are publicly regarded as "saints", but it is also known they had a "dark side", replete with sex and drug scandals, financial shenaningans, and so on.

Some just have nothing left to live for, nothing to lose, so in a last desperate attempt to make sense of their lives, they do something extreme and pin a religious label to it.

Some are pathological altruists.

Some are blackmailed into extreme actions ("We'll kill your family if you don't blow yourself up with this bomb in the middle of a busy public square").

Some are just mentally ill.


These options seem more likely to be the explanations for the cause of religious martyrdom than religiosity. Of course, we can't empirically test this, and the available anecdotal data is limited.

You and Baker have agreed that not many religious followers actually believe in God. — T Clark

I said that I don't know anyone who does. I suppose there could be religious people who really, genuinely believe what they say. I just haven't met any.

Where one can look into Buddhism and see that it takes a surreal amount of awareness about one's emotions, desires, and the source of dukkha to overcome suffering by negating or professing a detachment from emotions. — Shawn

Only a Buddhist dilettante would try to negate or profess detachment from emotions.

The actual Buddhist practices are about understanding how thoughts and emotions arise, what is the nature of perception, practicing a measure of austerity in terms of food, clothes, entertainment, etc.

Here are three sample suttas for how to deal with hatred:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.161.than.html
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.162.than.html
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.080.than.html

There is no denial there and no professing of detachment.

Oh! If stoicism recommends acceptance of one's cricumstances, how would we explain such an attitude? It could be, other reasons being possible, that there's nothing we can do to change our condition. What are these "...other reasons possible..."? — TheMadFool

Can you imagine a military general, out on the battle field, who is a Stoic?

Maybe where you are. If emotional intelligence is said to mean a person's awareness of other people's emotional reactions and needs and their own emotions, then the people I see are more often overly polite and mindful of not offending anyone or being seen as rude. More mindful of others than they were in the 1970's 1980's. — Tom Storm

Are you sure you're distinguishing between
1. the respect that people generally have for high(er) socio-economic status,
and
2. the respect that a particular person has for another person, regardless of the other person's socio-economic status?

No, stay and fight! Make your point, stand your ground!

Your lack of considering the role of socio-economic status in interpersonal relationships, formal and informal, is typical for "liberals" ...

off on your obsession with status — Tom Storm

No. It just means that you are among the privileged who don't have to concern themselves with the implications of socio-economic status (and who can, instead, enjoy the fruits thereof).
Yay, lucky you!

From Wiki:

The Stoic ethic espouses a deterministic perspective; in regard to those who lack Stoic virtue, Cleanthes once opined that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes".[11] A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy",[12] thus positing a "completely autonomous" individual will, and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic single whole".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#:~:text=Stoicism%20is%20a%20school%20of,views%20on%20the%20natural%20world.

And then all that about being part of the world and so on. The Stoics were by no means advocating passivity in terms of action, as some modern usages of the term indicate.

Like most professions there are good and bad. There may even be more shit ones than good ones. But that doesn't warrant slamming all of them. — Tom Storm

Wrong. They should be judged by the power they legally have. And they all have the same power, whether they are good or bad.

I have this sort of idea that Western psychology educates individuals about emotions — Shawn

Are you familiar with the work of Matthew Ratcliffe, for example?

https://pure.york.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/matthew-james-ratcliffe(b72a80cf-1953-464c-823e-c7559d8f55ae)/publications.html

https://york.academia.edu/MatthewRatcliffe


Some of his titles:

Experiences of Depression: A Study in Phenomenology (Chapter 1. The World of Depression)

Philosophical Empathy (in the Style of Merleau-Ponty)

Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality

Emotional Intentionality

Existential Feelings

Evaluating Existential Despair

Empathy without Simulation

There can be no Cognitive Science of Dasein

The Phenomenology of Existential Feeling

That can happen but that would be bad psychology and a generalisation. — Tom Storm

Look at the DSM. What can you infer: What mentality produced such definitions of mental ailments and the proposed treatments for them?

Some psychologists are religious (Jesuits; rabbis; Anglicans; Buddhists). I would be more inclined to say that psychologists work to assist people to identify their own strengths and interests and develop an achievable plan for a happier or better functioning life (based on how the client identifies this).

It looks like you're talking about some kind of voluntary and private practice system of psychotherapy, where the patient (!) still has some say. And not about the public mental health care system.

I have this sort of idea that Western psychology educates individuals about emotions — Shawn

I think Western psychology tries to educate people about how to be a secular atheist (upper) middle class person.

I seem to have come across the phenomenon that society gives indicators on how one ought to behave, yet nobody in the West would dare educate anyone about what or how to feel.

I think that education about "feelings" have always been primarily part of the hidden curriculum.

so why does or won't psychology educate about emotions?

Western psychology prides itself in being morally neutral. This limits its scope.

I'm just wondering if those behaviors include affective reactions to situations or even ailments, as per the OP. — Shawn

Of course. Just see what happens when someone doesn't laugh or cry "at the appropriate" time.

Are emotions really irrational? — Shawn

For someone who believes that humans are, basically, machines, or meat, emotions surely are irrational.

This is from another thread but belongs here:

It's pretty clear that there is no account of reincarnation in which what is typically called the self comes, after death, to be found in a different body, because the things that go together to make the self do not survive death. Even were we to take on board the evidence cited by Wayfarer, the conclusion could only be that reincarnation was a very, very rare event. — Banno

Okay, let's try this again, here with a Hindu style version of reincarnation that you should be familiar with (you ate their curry, but forgot the theology that came with it?):

What is reincarnated is the soul. You true self, the who you really are is a soul, and as such you're an eternal servant of the Lord. But because you rebelled against this servitude and wanted to be independent, you fell into maya (illusion), and now you have the wrong understanding of who you are. This wrong understanding of self is called false ego. People who think they are their bodies, or their thoughts, their emotions, their experiences, or their possessions, are said to identify with the false ego; ie. they have the wrong understanding of who they really are.

Indeed, the things that go together to make the false self do not survive death. This is why someone who doesn't understand who they really are doesn't see the process of reincarnation.

- - -

It's been a while since I last discussed ISKCON theology, so I'm a bit rusty, but I think I mostly remembered it correctly. The core point in Dharmic religions for Westerners to understand, I think, is that "that which is typically called the self" is not considered the self at all in those religions. Any attempt to understand reincarnation (or rebirth) needs to take this into account.

Even were we to take on board the evidence cited by Wayfarer, the conclusion could only be that reincarnation was a very, very rare event.

I think those accounts are at best merely weak evidence of karma.

Stoicism strikes me as resignation to one's circumstances as encapsulated in its spirit of acceptance - to not grieve over one's misfortunes and not rejoice over one's fortunes. The idea behind stoicism seems to be to keep things the way they are and simply adapt yourself to them. — TheMadFool

I think this is a modern rendition of stoicism. The original one had methapyhsical underpinnings which are unpalatable to many modern people, but which made all the difference and prevented stoicism from being merely a quetism.

I haven't denied that the assertions, or at least some of them, in any ism might be true, but truth is contextual — Janus

That's an absolute assertion. And a nothing-but-ism.

That has been my main point: I haven't been arguing that there are no truths relative to domains of thought, domains which might be thought of as isms.

And you hold that this should be "considered absolute or fundamental to reality, or of first priority across all domains"?

One objection to that statement is that since most people believe in God, there can be no harm following a system that believes in God, like Christianity. — Apollodorus

There can be such harm, for those who don't already believe in God and Christianity. Said harm comes from trying to make oneself believe something that one simply has no inclination to believe. For such a person, harm also comes from trying to follow the Christian code; for such a person will seek to follow the code by the letter (they know no other way), instead of being selective the way Christians are. Meaning such a person will be naive and easy to exploit and get themselves into a lot of trouble due to trying to be honest and truthful at all times, turning the other cheek, loving their neighbor etc.

The notion of incommensurate conceptual schema did survive Davidson's criticism. Non-overlapping magisteria overlap. Otherwise we could not understand them. — Banno

Really? You think you understand reincarnation or dependent co-arising? On whose terms of understanding? Yours or the Hindus'/Buddhists'?

If religious views have consequences for what one does in the world, then those views are subject to criticism on that basis.

But in that case, you'd actually have to prove the causal link between religious view X and action A.
This is impossible because we can't see into people's minds. You also need to account for the possibility of people being cunning; ie. allow for the possibility that they aren't speaking truthfully to a questioner who is not a member of their religion (some religions have a specific clause that it's not wrong to lie to outsiders).

"The Holy Spirit told me to set my neighbor's house on fire (he is a Muslim)". Really? That's the sort of thing you want to investigate??