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@Mopac
I even know one guy who claims that nihilism saved his life! His face and body is covered in cheap tattoos, he drinks and does drugs all day. He sleeps outside and fornicates with anything that has legs.
That's a hedonist, NOT a nihilist.
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@Mopac
If God was such a tyrant, he would not have given you the ability to reject him.
(IFF) GOD($) WAS OMNISCIENT (THEN) THEY WOULD HAVE KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN
GOD($): HEY, I WANT HUMANS TO BELIEVE IN ME!
ANGEL($): OH, GREAT, ARE YOU GOING TO TALK TO EACH ONE OF THEM?
GOD($): NO, I WAS THINKING I SHOULD WRITE A BOOK!
ANGEL($): WHAT IF THEY DON'T BELIEVE THE BOOK? I MEAN, YOU'RE A LITTLE LATE TO THE GAME, I HEAR GILGAMESH IS EPIC!
GOD($): IF THEY DON'T BELIEVE MY BOOK THEN FUCK THEM!
ANGEL($): THAT SEEMS A BIT HARSH. IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT MOST OF THEM WON'T BELIEVE AN OLD BOOK, SHOULDN'T YOU ALSO TALK TO THEM EACH AS INDIVIDUALS? I MEAN, IF YOU WROTE THE BOOK TO CONVICE HUMANS TO BELIEVE IN YOU AND YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT MOST OF THEM WON'T BELIEVE YOU, MAYBE WRITE A BETTER BOOK?
GOD($): WELL, OF COURSE I COULD DO THAT, BUT THAT WOULD MAKE IT TOO EASY FOR THEM. IMAGINE WHAT THIS PLACE WOULD LOOK LIKE IF EVERY HUMAN EVER BORN WAS GRANTED ACCESS!!
ANGEL($): YOU MAKE A GOOD POINT. THIS GIANT GOLD CUBE (12,000 furlongs per side) ISN'T EXACTLY "INFINITE"!!
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@Mopac
...you refuse to accept anything but your own will.
It is impossible for me to know anyone's will except my own.
If some GOD($) want me to know something specific (like their "will"), I'm sure they're perfectly capable of explaining it to me themselves.
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@Mopac
In practice, nihilism usually ends up as idolatry of the self.
There is no nihilism "in practice".
The only way to "practice" nihilism is to stop breathing.
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@PGA2.0
Galatians 3:24 (KJV)Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Are you suggesting that each person who "knows Christ" is suddenly qualified to abandon the letter of the law and because they found Christ, they just "know" what is morally "right" in their heart?
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@PGA2.0
And there were reasons for some of the 613 Mosaic laws that do not apply today to our cultures, but the principles or lessons are still valid.
If the law of "YHWH" has changed, or "does not apply today", then how can you insist it is "universal" and "unchanging" and or "objective"?
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@PGA2.0
I have denied from the start that biblical slavery is the same as chattel slavery.
The rules for FOREIGN SLAVES specify perpetual ownership and ownership of the children of your slaves and ownership of the grandchildren of your slaves.
The rules for ISRAELITE SERVANTS is only slightly more palatable (and would still not be acceptable practice in modern times).
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@PGA2.0
3. When the woman's life is threatened (extreme danger that she will lose it) an abortion is permissible if the unborn is too young and not at the point of viability to save it also.
Which law of "YHWH" (specifically) allows for this (seemingly arbitrary) exception?
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@PGA2.0
2. The percentage of pregnancies that are life-threatening is minimal (probably around 99% non life-threatening). So, while there are risks those risks are not usually life-threatening.
Every day, roughly 10,000 babies are born in the United States, and about a third of them are born via Cesarean section.
So, maybe 66% non life-threatening?
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@PGA2.0
The Bible tells the believer that there is great reward for someone who willingly gives their life's on behalf of others.
If people follow you out of fear, they are SLAVES.
If people follow you for reward, they are MERCENARIES.
If people follow you out of love and mutual respect, they are PARTNERS.
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@PGA2.0
And if there is sone all powerful all knowing being that cares about justice why doesn't he just make everything just?Because you are on the earth for a purpose, to know your God or reject Him.
Oh good, so now that you "know GOD" you're done? You've accomplished your purpose?
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@Mopac
Nihilism demolishes morality.
Nihilism is impossible.
Any human stripped of all motive would necessarily be non-functional.
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@PGA2.0
People are routinely deported with zero regard for their life or general well-being.I don't follow your meaning.
Does it bother you when people die after being deported?
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@PGA2.0
Or if your new born crawls onto my property, should I be allowed to kill it, because it did not know what it was doing and because I had signs posted, "Tresspassers will be shot on sight."
Do you believe "trespassers can be shot on sight" generally?
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@PGA2.0
If you live in an area that I control (the woman controls the unborn in the womb) do you think I should be able to choose whether you live or die?
Do you believe deportation is a crime?
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@PGA2.0
- and see how you feel as they take your life in the same manner they would the unborn, sucking and tearing apart your body, or injecting poison into it, or the chemical burn to kill you. Do you want to feel that? Do you think others should be permitted to do that to you as a human being?
Are you a vegetarian?
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@PGA2.0
If not, then why are you doing this to the most vulnerable among us?
The most vulnerable are the poor, the homeless and the desperate and forgotten prisoners.
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@PGA2.0
Would you consider that just, if only the elites decide for the rest of us who lives and who dies?
You are describing historical reality.
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@PGA2.0
Now to the moral aspect. Do you believe that all humans should be treated equally under the law? If not, would you mind is you were discriminated against and dehumanized, considered worthless, a piece of trash, by those who make the law?
Are you personally outraged by the treatment of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers?
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@Mopac
It is very easy to become desensitized through repeating a sin, whereas at one point one might feel conviction, through repetition one becomes numb. That is what is meant when the scriptures refer to some "having their conscience seared with a hot iron"
Thanks for the dime-store psychoanalysis.
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@PGA2.0
If she no longer wants her one month old newborn and it is using her milk and her breasts, on your thinking she should be allowed to kill it too.
Deport, abandon, relinquish care of.
Also, a fetus is NOT a legal entity (not a legal person, no birth-certificate) and cannot therefore be considered a victim (so there's a slight difference between your two examples).
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@PGA2.0
...she should be allowed to kill another human being because she no longer wants to take responsibility?
It's a lot like people who are deported back into hostile territory after fleeing for their lives.
Is deportation "murder" when it directly leads to someone's death?
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@PGA2.0
So, even though she is partly responsible for creating this human being, it is made up or carries half her DNA
Perhaps she should only be allowed to deport the half that matches her DNA.
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@PGA2.0
Let me get this straight, in 99% of cases sex is consensual.
I'm going to guess you're counting COERCION as "consensual".
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@PGA2.0
Very revealing. It does not matter to you that innocent human beings are killed.
I'm pretty sure "it doesn't matter" how OLD the innocent human being is.
Is it a "greater" crime to kill a one year old than an infant?
Is it a "greater" crime to kill a citizen than a non-citizen?
And if you think "it matters", please explain your reasoning.
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@PGA2.0
Or to you think everything you do is determined and you have no will at all but are just a robot programmed by your genetic makup and chance happenstance.
i hesitate to make broad statements here, but some seem to be suggesting that nobody is arguing that a human decision is free from all previous influences. i think this is a fair statement. the best attempts at explaining free-will seem to suggest that there is some kind of influence-gap. that is to say, it has been suggested that a human decision is influenced up to some unknown point less than 100% and then there is some i-gap of unspecified quantity and free-will lives there spreading magic fairy dust, however small or improbable that i-gap might be. i have never heard anyone propose a way to measure this i-gap in order to perhaps somehow gauge how much free-will someone might have, or to figure out if children have it, and if not, when do they get it? the i-gap sounds to me more like an ignorance-of-influence gap (this would also seem like the compatibilist's opinion). if this is the case we should be able to dial up free-will by dialing up ignorance.
the main problems i see with this proposal are as follows:
1) there is no way to measure the influence-gap. it is in all likelihood merely a knowledge-of-influence-gap or lack-of-precision-gap.
2) even if the influence-gap is considered to be a real thing, wouldn't that gap simply increase the value of the other influences? how could the influence gap possibly be considered an influence? it's a gap that is by definition non-influential.
3) let's consider based on at least a small shred of logic, what could be in that pesky i-gap that might actually be an influence. well, whatever is in that i-gap can't be influenced since it is inside something defined as an influence-gap. so maybe there's an uninfluenced-influence in that i-gap; we could call it something mysterious like, an uncaused-cause, or maybe a first-cause, or better yet ex-nihilo. could that uncaused-cause be influenced or originated by anything at all? no, of course not because it's in the i-gap and it is defined as being uncaused. so could a human take credit for a decision or action that emerged from the i-gap? how could they possibly take credit or be responsible for something they had no conceivable control over? anything emerging from the i-gap would be indistinguishable from a random event. and randomness is incompatible with choice.
4) but what if it's the essence of "me" that is in the i-gap. are you kidding me?! i don't care if it's your grandmother, your dead child, or your ever lovin' god. if you put them in the i-gap they are at-best indistinguishable from random noise and at worst non-existent.
5) what if the gap is not an influence-gap but instead a black box? if the gap is not an influence-gap, there is no place for mr. free-will to spread his magic fairy dust because the gap instantly fills with influence and is then no longer properly described as a gap. additionally if the output of the i-gap is non-random, that is to say it emits some identifiable pattern, then whatever is happening in the i-gap must have some way of knowing what the hell is going on outside of the i-gap and this knowledge is definitely influencing its output thereby introducing influence into the i-gap which would then promptly disappear in a cute little puff of logic.
i think it's important to fully comprehend this influence-gap. imagine, if you will, that i am constructing a human being. when the recipe calls for me to add "a dash of free-will" i can't just add any old thing, willy nilly; i have to first construct a proper influence-gap to protect my human from the evil determinism. this would be some container that is impervious to all conceivable influence. i probably have a sound-proof, shock-proof, opaque, air-tight, empathy-proof, magic-proof, momentum-proof, time-proof capsule of some sort just laying around my house, i'll just set that to the side for now. ok, adding an empty box to the mix isn't going to do anything of course so we have to put something in it. since whatever is in this i-gap is supposed to advise me on important moral decisions my selection is of critical importance. well, the most intelligent and moral person i know of is my friend george, so since i don't seem to have a better option, i throw george in the i-capsule and seal him in tight. now days, weeks, and months have gone by and i've pretty much forgotten about george until one afternoon i am confronted with an intractable dilemma. i am faced with a decision with staggeringly profound moral implications and i must make a decision immediately. what do i do? well this sounds like a case for the magnificent george! so i locate my everything-proof capsule on which i have scrawled the descriptive term "i-gap" with my handy wax pencil, and i ask my question. i exhaustively explain all of the known factors leading up to and logical implications of this monumental decision to george, my moral, spiritual and financial advisor, and then i wait for an answer, any answer at all. nothing happens. things are getting desperate, so i beg george to give me an answer, to point me in the right direction. nothing happens. i light some candles and wave a magic wand over the i-gap, but still i can't divine any response from george. i realize there is a problem with the i-gap's design. so i quickly scour my garage for spare parts and retrofit a one way intercom system onto the i-gap so i can hear what george has to say. mind you he still can't hear anything or in any way perceive anything that i have to say, thus preserving the integrity of the influence-gap, but now he can speak directly to me, thus becoming an uncaused-cause. of course george has causes, he was born and raised and had both happy and sad experiences, but i'll just ignore all that for now. george is pretty much an uncaused-cause now that he is housed in the exclusive and luxurious, new and improved i-gap. so i ask george again to answer my plea for guidance. nothing happens. every once in a while george does actually say something but it's usually along the lines of "let me out of this f#cking box you god#amned muth#rf#cking muth#rf#cker!" heh, that george is such a kidder!
obviously george is constrained by the parameters of his confinement and is therefore incapable of offering any advice that would be requested from him.
the same would be true if you put jesus, or krishna, or a unicorn, or any conceivable entity or event in the modified i-gap.
ipso-facto, no free-will.
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@Dr.Franklin
tons of reasons
Citation please.
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HUNTER BIDEN, ALL SMOKE AND NO FIRE?
I keep hearing that "the REAL story is being censored".
Please share any information you might have on the subject.
President Trump on Sunday said the damning information contained on Hunter Biden’s laptop about his business dealings in Ukraine – as The Post revealed last week – is the “REAL DEAL” and cannot be denied.
“Hunter Biden’s laptop is a disaster for the entire Biden family, but especially for his father, Joe. It is now a proven fact, and cannot be denied, that all of that info is the REAL DEAL,” the president wrote on Twitter. [LINK]
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@secularmerlin
If a county or a state wants to allow certain behavior within their jurisdiction, no matter how "morally repugnant" that behavior is to "outsiders" they must be free to exercise their sovereignty WITHIN their territorial borders.When that behavior crosses county lines, it becomes a STATE concern.When that behavior crosses state lines, it becomes a FEDERAL concern.
Perhaps The Wicker Man (1973) might be a reasonable illustration of this idea.
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@secularmerlin
Perhaps but I wouldn't want to live there.
We should vote with our feet (and our wallets).
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@fauxlaw
History says, even after 50 years of OSHA regulation, that the leading cause of worker death is motor vehicle accidents, and the majority of those is driver error. Next is falls, and the leading cause of that is worker error. That's history. Industry has been fighting against worker irresponsibility since the industrial revolution. Highest issue: training retention. You can lead a horse to water...
Are you suggesting that OSHA has led to a net INCREASE in workplacerelatedinjuries??
It seems obvious to me that there were MORE injuries when "industry" was left to its own devices.
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@Mopac
If reality doesn't conform to your fantasies about what reality should be, and you refuse to accept anything other than your own will, it naturally follows that you will be in torment.
And by your logic, since I am not currently "tortured", "tormented" or "despondent" then NTURTTGgTS must be bestowing it's implicit blessing on me?
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@secularmerlin
What if the will of the people is heinous as it was in the southern states before the civil war? Is a government regulation that informs and enforces the will of the people to be prejudiced a 'good' regulation?
Actually yes.
If a county or a state wants to allow certain behavior within their jurisdiction, no matter how "morally repugnant" that behavior is to "outsiders" they must be free to exercise their sovereignty WITHIN their territorial borders.
When that behavior crosses county lines, it becomes a STATE concern.
When that behavior crosses state lines, it becomes a FEDERAL concern.
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@Lemming
If the government is corrupt, or the government a yoke upon the people.Then this too, represents the people of that nation, and their nature.
Well stated.
"the people" are like sleeping children.
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@Lemming
I don't see a problem with the Government helping people out if it's able.
MORAL HAZARD.
After a storm "the government" pays the wealthy hotel owners to "rebuild" (over and over and over and over again).
They also maintain the beautiful beaches (with your tax dollars).
Ask yourself WHY your taxes are paying for private security for airports?
Ask yourself WHY your taxes are paying for private air-traffic-controllers?
How much do you think a plane ticket would cost if they had to pay for their own security and their own logistics??
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@Lemming
Seems to me government is the expression of the people, for good or ill.Government is a tool, an expression, an avatar.
I WISH.
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@Lemming
I do not believe that communities should be 'discriminated against.I believe that it is in the interest of communities to help one another, for net gain.The solution, sometimes, feels obvious.
(IFF) you have not the skill or the resources to GROW AND GATHER YOUR OWN FOOD (THEN) it doesn't matter how much "good will" your "community" has, you will be required to beg, bully, and or steal to survive.
This is what was done to the Lakota.
All they wanted from "the government" was to be left alone.
They didn't want cash-religion-of-money-token$.
They didn't want "free" (dogfood) hand-outs.
They didn't want "disaster relief".
They didn't want "education" (brainwashing and cultural annihilation).
All they wanted from "the government" was to be left alone.
All they wanted from "the government" was to be left alone.
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@Lemming
I 'am Pro Self Reliance, though I don't disagree with Federal Aid/Funding/Emergency Relief.
WTF.
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@Dr.Franklin
No "reasons" I'm guessing?
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@Lemming
I think communities should solve their own problems, and not blame others, or beg help so much.
So would you say you're pro-self-reliance and anti-FEMA?
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@fauxlaw
I am talking about charitable giving, and you throw me an industrial fire, with complaint about wages. I don't see the connection, and will not ask for one. I doubt one exists. Try stayng on point.
This is only one tiny example of exactly how "charitable" a corporation is when they are "free from regulation".
There is no reason to try and resort to "hypotheticals".
Just glance over a few pages of history.
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@Lemming
That sounds like government regulation to me.
In this proposal, there would be ZERO regulation of BUSINESS (specifically).
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@Lemming
Ok, perhaps "perfection" is too restrictive.
Can you please provide a "rough sketch" of your general political framework?
Or perhaps just a few key "improvements" you'd like to see implemented?
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@Dr.Franklin
birth control is bad generally
Even for married couples?
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@SkepticalOne
Given that humanistic interests came before Christianity, it can only be that your god-based morality is fortified with humanism - not the other way around.
Well stated.
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@PGA2.0
During the transitioning between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant some questioned whether it was okay to eat particular meats.Another instance would be worshiping God on the Sabbath. The NT states that if one person holds one day as more holy than another then it is permissible by God.
So, if the law changed, then it can't be described as universal and unchanging (objective) can it?
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@PGA2.0
They relate to both Testamants. We find nine of ten in the NT. The Sabbath is debatable but the principle of rest is there, IMO.
Are you suggesting that the whole of the Levitical Law was modified between the OT and the NT?
Were some of the laws of "YHWH" nullified in some official manner?
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@PGA2.0
What I will repeat again is that there is a correct way of interpreting what someone says, get their meaning, not your own.
Are you familiar with Halacha? [LINK]
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@PGA2.0
If God is perfect and you have wronged God how will you meet such a God's requirements by what you have done.
Wouldn't the god($) be able to forgive such a frail worm?
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@PGA2.0
Some of these are restated in the Ten Commandments. Others I disagree with. Finally, who is the authority who revealed them? Is such an authority almighty? If so, let's discuss that being.
Yama is the Hindu god of death, king of ancestors, and final judge on the destination of souls. He is also known as the ‘Restrainer’, Pretaraja or ‘King of Ghosts’, Dharmaraja or ‘King of Justice’, and as Daksinasapati is considered the regent of the South Quarter. Yama may also be referred to simply as ‘Death’ – Antaka, Kala or Mrtyu. Due to his responsibility for good decision-making based on records of a person’s deeds, the god is particularly associated with the rule of law. Yama is also present in Iranian mythology, traditional Chinese and Japanese mythology, and elements of Buddhism. [LINK]
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