Total posts: 3,052
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
On that basis there is no reason to suppose psychpaths have less freewill than anybody else - they only exercise it differenty. We agree?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
I would characterise a psychopath as an individual who's brain circuits prioiritise 'harm/benefit to self' over 'harm/benefit to others' significantly more than the population norm.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
Flat earthers often think they can prove the earth is flat.
I am atheist but I don't claim I can prove there is no god. I can list the reasons that convince me, but they fall short of being a mathematical theorem.
In maths a 'proof' must be absolute and allow of no other possibility whatsoever. In a law court proof only has to be 'beyond reasonable doubt'. In science proof is the latter type.
Theists and atheists are forever demanding 'maths type' rigorous proofs from their opponents while offering at best only 'law type' proofs themselves. it's not game I enjoy much.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
axiom: free-will requires intelligence.
axiom: moral culpability requires free-will.(note change of order)(without free-will there is no moral culpability)
hence: moral culpability requires intelligence.
axiom: animals and infants have less, adult humans have more intelligence.
lemma: culpabiity is 'proportional' to intelligence (currently assumed pending formal proof!)
hence: adults are more morally culpable than infants or animals.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
If there was a totally solid argument for atheism there'd be nothing to argue about.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
Is any infinite quantity physically realistic? I suspect that infinity is a mathematical covenience, a useful approximation for a value that is extremely large.
Created:
-->
@Stephen
Your best attempt to defend this barbaric ideology called Islam is always to attempt to contextualise the violence that is still, today in the 21st century, happening in the Islamic world to that of the ancient Hebrews of thousands of years ago. It is no defence Keith.
I don't see what I am doing as defence of Islam. I don't think you can explain young men self-radicalising off the internet or Pakistani grooming gangs by trawling the koran and hadith. Re Asia Bibi, the 'establishment' are clearly resisting demands of the mob, few of whom would be true scholars. Obviously there are Islamist scholars calling for her head - given that, why didn't the government simply give her over?
The Islamic world is tearing itself apart - I think its because the traditionalists saw their end in sight and they are good at mobilising the mob. They are succeeding in turning back tide of progress. But Islam per se is neutral. Religion is a tool, not an agency.
Created:
But I'm aware that fallen angels are primarily a Christian notion, so supposing the nephilim to be fallen angels may indeed be looking at them through a Christian lens.Wait, scratch that -- I'm wrong.
The idea that Satan and his cronies are ex-angels who rebelled against God is seperable from the idea that the nephilim are the offspiring of other naughty angels who merely felt horny! We could have two legends or oral traditions merging here.
If angels were supposedly created by god they would all be 'Sons of God', at least figuratively. That may be why John spoke of Jesus as Gods only begotten son. Unfortunately john is not available for comment.
i found this wiki page particularly interesting.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
and most animals for halal meat are stunned before being cut nd bled.Not to my knowledge.
I'm going off what it says in wikipedia and the article linked by pliksen.
As I said, I've been inside slaughterhouses and I've also seen unstunned animals disptched with a knife. In the hands of of expert religious slaughter is remarkably efficient. But what should be animal rights issue becomes embroiled in identity politics and ongoing social tensions. People end up taking harder positions than they would otherwise.
Created:
-->
@Stephen
Are Israeli soldiers dashing the heads of their enemies children today in the 21st century?
The point I wanted to make is that you don't necessarily learn much from verses in a scripture. One can identify the passages used to justify beheading apostes but not the reason why slavish adherence to the letter (or one interpretion of the letter) has become increasingly dominant, especially since the 70's. For that you have look at more than just the texts.
Why is Christian fundamentlism having a rennaissance in the US? The bible and koran don't change but clearly something does.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@TwoMan
A little over 100 years ago if you said things can be in two places at once (QM) or going faster makes time slowdown(SR) you'd have been considered a madman.
My guess is that something we we take for granted is false, or something that seems to us as illogical or impossible is in fact true. But it will take another Einstein to 'think outside the box' and be right!
The 'thinking out of the box' part is easy... it's the 'and be right' part that's the killer!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
Summary:
'stunning' methods can be lethal or or non-lethal.
Halal permits non-lethal stunning prior to slaughter, kosher does not.
British law mandates stunning except for religious slaughter, presumably originally intended to accomodate kosher butchery.
Many Halal slaughterhouses do not pre-stun - presumably to save costs or conservatism.
The solution would apear to be to mandate non lethal stunning for Halal slaughter.
It is near certain in the current atmosphere a noisy minority of muslims will complain about any pre-stunning and the issue will be blown up by extremists on both sides.
Created:
-->
@Vader
It states in their Quran that they "draw their swords' if they dont convert to their faith
Which scripture says to its enemies:
Happy is the one who seizes your infantsand dashes them against the rocks.
It's not koran!
You can't just read - or be told about - selected passages in a scripture and think you know all about a religion. That's not defending Islam - it's stating the obvious that socio-poltical issues are complicated, more so when reigion is in the mix. The fact that not being a rabid islamophobe - just by trying to be objective - is enough to get one branded race traitor shows how dangerous the situation has become.
I'd say the reasons why young men self-radicalise using internet, why many pedophile gangsters are East Asian and why Halal slaughter is an isssue go deeper than saying 'Islam baaad' and finding a verse in the koran or hadith to 'prove' it.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@TwoMan
What behavior can be rationally endorsed as a universal principle to everyone?....Be compassionate, honest, courageous, diligent, etc.
If everyone is being compassionate and honest, it becomes rational to exploit it by being cruel and dishonest.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
The UK is a bit behind some countries in allowing unstunned slaughter for religious purposes.
Muslims are generally ok with pre-stunning (jews are not)and most animals for halal meat are stunned before being cut nd bled.
I suspect that in the current climate any change to the law will be politicised so i dont expect it.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
my GOVERNMENT IS PANDERING to ISLAM EVEN AT THE COST OF ALLOWING AN IDEA TO BREAK THE LAWS OF THE LAND whilst they are about to ban and CRIMINALISE a traditional custom of a WHOLE race of people.
Halal and Kosher slaughter is totally legal and subject to government regulation.
There is no 'nice' way to slaughter an animal. Halal and Kosher slaughter was arguably more humane than other methods. The key word is was. A big problem with religion is that it tends to sets in stone what might have been a good idea a hundred or thousand years ago.
I have been in slaughterhouses as part my work - the company made the machinery. Modern mechanised killing is possibly quicker and more painless than halal, but not by much.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
"Non-local" means invoking faster-than-light information transfer... i.e. instant action-at-a-distance.
Is that preferable to randomness? Dunno. Not my field!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Plisken
If I had my way there woudn't even be countries!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Analgesic.Spectre
You are clearly even more human than i thought!
Created:
-->
@Stephen
'Good job' is relative! I think they were breaking new ground in constructing a single definitive repository of their culture. They did it to preserve it aginst dilution and change. It certainly worked to ensure there was a jewish people at the end of the exile, unlike the10 lost tribes fro the Assyran one.
But it is YHWHist document and its questionable whether the culture truly reflects the Hebrew's past.
i'm generally a minimalist - I think very little of the historical stuff is reliable. Its too clouded by theology and nationalism to be accurate.
Created:
-->
@Stephen
I don't get very excited because I start from taking the bible as a cobbled together collection of folk tales and legends. I think its quite odd that right from the beginning we find two slightly differentaccounts othe same thing. Clearly the editors tried to smooth over the joins and harmonise everything - and did a pretty good job of it - but sometimes it loolks like a committee at work.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Castin
I don't know if I think that is obviously true or a failure of human imagination. When we imagine space being the size of an orange or whatever, i can't help imagining it surrounded by black and looking at it from outside. But there would be no 'black' or 'outside'. It's the same with time starting. I we say time starts at X, we can't help contradicting ourselves by wondering what was happening before then!Cause and effect only have meaning if time exists.
It ight be that if ever we do find out about such things we won't be able to believe it. We're use to believing what we don't know, but not believing what we know is weird.
Created:
-->
@Stephen
I think in the Noah movie the rock giants were more an excuse for doing the CGI effects. I'm not a religious movie fan. I like old movies in general so I'm more familar with the Charton Heston and Victor Mature versions - and of course the greatest of the all: 'Life of Brian', although that's a bit recent being only 39 years old!
I really must sit down with Enoch and the other non-canonical stuff soon.
Created:
A higher lord once sent A satan - one of many, - to torment Job#giants
Is 'satan' akin to 'angel' or is 'Satan' akin to 'Gabriel' or 'the holy ghost'?
A natural reading of the text implies 'Satan' refers to a specific personage, not a class. IMO. Anyway the stuff about 'giants' is much more interesting.
I take it people have seen Noah with Russel Crow with the giants as rock creatures?
3 minute version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brVR2622AKU
Created:
-->
@Stephen
When Empires spread they carry their reigions with them. The British and other European empires Christianised entire contients. Did an expnding Arab empire push the spread Islam or vice versa?
But we aren't talking about empires nowadays! Islam isn't a thing with a mind or goals and it can't be said that islam having failed in the C8th is trying to takeover Europe again. The current situation is new and history is not repeating itself.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
Cultural zoning is a TERRIBLE idea. You're talking ghettos and internal borders, restricting where people can live and work and building 'us and them' mentality into into the system. It's called apartheid.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
but 7 is a prime number here and on alpha centauri.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Vaarka
The fewer relationships that work out the quicker the human population will fall to more sustainable levels.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Vader
If the earth is flat and I lived in the midwest, could I technically look through my telecope to the east and see the Appalachians, and could I look through my telecope to the west and see the Rocky Mountains, no matter where I am between the two mountain ranges?
Not that I care.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stronn
Precisely. We know people have always invented gods. i suppose the question is 'does what we observe suggest god is real or imaginary?'. 'belief in god' certainly exists and has plenty of obserable effects, but ascribing anything observable (such as 'life') to a actual god is problematic.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@BrutalTruth
Then whether you tell me is irrelevant.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@BrutalTruth
Strictly, i don't believe you!
I think that to function we have to haveso much knowledge that most of it is never examined. Of course most of the 'facts' we 'know' are are trivial (such as what 'trivial' means) but there are loads of them!
But in terms of 'important' things i agree with you. i think is very important to identify andquestion one's own hidden assumptions. Easier said than done!
Created:
correction; not 771; the battle of tours was 732 CE.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@BrutalTruth
But a lot of what we know is what we have been told by trustworthy sources. Human children simply have too much to learn to use trial-and-error.
i'd say that if parents tell their kids that god exists or the world is flat those kids will l believe it and 'think they know it'. Its not foolishness - its necessary to believe what you are told without proof.
What people have to learn as they grow up is that not everyone is as trustworthy as their mum!
Created:
-->
@Goldtop
Christians win sometimes!
islam spread throughout spain right up to france but were defeated by the Franks in 771 CE - otherwise we might be Muslims today!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
So you are saying people should believe what there is a prepoderance of evidence for? Well, I think that is pretty uncontroversial!
But there is still the problem of what counts as a preponderance. It seems like a subjective thing to me.
Created:
-->
@Castin
I was going to parody G by replacing 'Islam' with Jews... but that could backfire! Try it mentally.
The way that anti-islamic/anti-muslim comments have become normalised is very worrying to me. Here In the 70's there was a lot of anti-black stuff, but it was never 'mainstream' the way islamophobia has become. We are all islamophobes now.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
'More rational' implies there are things that are 'a bit rational', 'fairly rational', 'very rational', etc.... how do you define how rational something is?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
What do you mean by 'more rational'? I'm finding it hard to imagine something that is 'a little bit rational'!I'm concerned with whether it's more rational to believe God exists rather than not,
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stronn
I'll go with a third option, that we don't yet fully understand causality, or time, or how the universe came into being.
+1!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@disgusted
Ignorance.Ignorence.
:)
Created:
-->
@Mopac
You can get killed for that sort of thing in Iran!
The idea is to make sure you don't get killed for being a Muslim here! Or it should be.
Creating and exacerbating division and strife is easy - even Grugore and Stephen can do that! I want to see something constructive for a change.
Created:
I don't think you will find anything in the koran that jusififies grooming gangs.
Created:
A higher lord once sent A satan - one of many, - to torment Job with the strict instructions not to harm Job himself and all just to prove a point
i haven't seen 'A' in any translation. IMO Satan is a definite individual in Job.
Created: