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@ResurgetExFavilla
Widespread belief in the claim that human races don't exist will one day be looked upon as a weird mass insanity comparable to the Alsatian dancing sickness or Salem witch trials.
If people wanted to they could say there are four races of human, A, B, AB and O. It is no more logical to discriminate on skin colour genes than on blood group genes - but we can't see blood groups. The mass insanity is our tendency to focus on trivial but conspicuous differences which blind us to the fact that there is more variation within a 'race' than there is between races.
One day we will look back and wonder why we thought race mattered.
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@ethang5
I am proposing that all those people have within their brains a neural circuit that makes cost/benefit estimates of alternative options. That same circuit is responsible for our judgement of the 'morality' of the options.
Because brains are not identical our moral judgements (aka cost/benefit estimates) are not identical.
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@Grugore
So, is "Lauren is prettier than ingrid" based on an absolute truth? Or is it intrinsically relative?Actually, I'm looking for an example of something that is not based on absolute truth. I bet no one can give me an example.
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@ethang5
Obtuse nitpicking is a good definition of philosophy!
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@ethang5
"depending on who is being referred to" does not appear in the OP. But 'absolute' does.
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@Mharman
I doubt you are the only one who missed it! Being misunderstood and ignored is my lot in life...
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@Mharman
I made that point back in post #3. Try to keep up!
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@PGA2.0
I've spent some time looking for a good resource on the Hebrew concept of Sheol - this seems pretty good.
I hope people read it because there can be no doubt that views on the nature of afterlife change radically between the old and new testaments.
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@PGA2.0
PS115;17
The dead cannot sing praises to the LORD, for they have gone into the silence of the grave.
PS 6.5
For there is no mention of You in death; who can praise You from Sheol?
PS 31:17
O LORD, let me not be ashamed, for I have called on You. Let the wicked be put to shame; let them lie silent in Sheol.
PS 88:10
Do You work wonders for the dead? Do departed spirits rise up to praise You? Selah
isaiah 38:17
For Sheol cannot thank You; death cannot praise You. Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.
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@Mopac
Obviously 'paganism' means different things to different people. In my post I used it loosely to refer to indigenous and folk religions which were displaced when they were Christianised.
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@Fallaneze
I certainly can't disprove that the universe was fine-tuned by a fine-tuner! It is a possibility. The problem is that a certain sort of theist will take that possibility as a certainty, and then use the slim possibility that the fine-tuner is the god of Bible to infer that gays shouldn't get married - all on the shaky basis that there is uncertainty about the initial conditions of the universe.
So the inference from fine-tuning to a fine-tuner is not too serious, but building on top of that conjecture a grand theological edifice is not rational at all.
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@Grugore
You wrote in #6
My point is that truth is not subjective. Something is either true or it is false. Truth is not subject to interpretation.
In #1
Actually, I'm looking for an example of something that is not based on absolute truth.
Well, I've given you an example of something that is not based on absolute truth and now you're complaining!
What you seem to be claiming now is that things are either true or false except when they aren't.
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@secularmerlin
As far as we know, the universe supports life in a thin layer around one small planet. The volume occupied by life is an infinitemal fraction of the total volume of the universe, most of which contains practically nothing - certainly not life as we know it! So perhaps the universe isn't all that well set up to support life after all!
But I think that the universe can support life at all - and moreover support consciousness that can contemplate itself - is not something that should be brushed aside. It is however not something that keeps me awake because there is no more than a cat in hell's chance of finding a satisfactory explanation in my lifetime!
I'd say fine-tuning is the nearest thing there is to evidence of a guiding intelligence. That doesn't translate to me thinking it is good evidence for it, and certainly not proof! It's more that it the best evidence 'by default' because everything else is even worse!
The best bet at the moment comes from 'eternal inflation' because -AFAIK- that allows the production of many - perhaps an infinite number - of universes all commencing with their own big-bangs with their own laws of phsyics. Or sometihng. I don't really understand post-doc level cosmology - I struggle with i=v/r.
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@Grugore
So it isn't the case that something is either true or false is it?
Is 'lauren is prettier than ingrid' true or false?
It's your claim things are one or the other, not mine. I'm asking you to back up your claim that things are either true or false by telling us if 'Lauren is prettier than ingrid' is true or false.
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@Polytheist-Witch
The Christian church 'repurposed' pagan festivals (Christmas, Easter etc), presumably because it was easier than trying to suppress them.
It was a sucessful policy and paganism soon became little more than a collection of folk tales and stories for children. Today there are hardly any real pagans - just people who like to dress up in funny clothes (or no clothes!)and dance in forests.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
If you aren't a racist you need to think about why come you come across as one.
When you write that certain races shouldn't be in certain professions on the basis of dubious average IQ data then you look like a racist, not just to me but to anyone who reads it.
Should I give you the benefit of the doubt and put it down to your writing style? I wish I could.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
As long as you don't think yourself to be immune, AS. You are human too.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
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@Fallaneze
At the end of 2018 no scientist can say why the universe appears fine tuned.
It could, therefore, possibly be because some powerful god arranged it like that but its hard to come up with an expriment to test that hypothesis! So what scientists are doing is building bigger and better telescopes and particle accelerators to get more information in the hope/exectation that will yield some clues to what is a very great puzzle.
Scientist have been doing that for a couple of hundred years, and each time the result has been that God has been left with less and less to do.
One is free to draw whatever conclusion they choose.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
A.Spec. wrote:For example, a race with an average low I.Q. doesn't belong in high I.Q. professions, such as law or university research. However, that same race may excel is visio-spatial awareness, and thus would do much better on a sporting field.
As you are not a racist, I am sure what you meant to say was
"For example, an individual with a low I.Q. doesn't belong in high I.Q. professions, such as law or university research. However, that same individual may excel is visio-spatial awareness, and thus would do much better on a sporting field - the 'average' of their so-called race is irrelevant."
You would probably go on to say that "The difference in racial averages is real and measurable, but is small compared to the differences within a race and appears to be largely the result of social conditions rather than genetics. Hence for people to achieve their potential it behoves society to treat people as individuals, not as clones of their outdated racial stereotypes."
I'm almost sure that is what you meant to say. NOT!
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@Mopac
I don't think its English but monotheism that causes the blurring between the 'god' and 'God'.
It happens in the bible too. From 'the great god, YHWH' to 'the great God' to just 'God'.
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@Plisken
To analogize, Mars is the god of war. Mars is a god and war is what he is god of, but Mars is not war.
The hindu gods are gods of brahman, but the gods are not brahman. many Hindu are atheists and accept the existence of brahman as a universal principle but consider the stories about the gods to be no more than instructive fables.
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@EtrnlVw
Yes Brahman would be their version of what you call the Ultimate Reality.
I think its actually 'No. Brahman would be their version of what you call the Ultimate Reality." Bhahman is not a god in hinduism.
AFAICT, mopacs god/ultimate reality resembles Spinoza's god which has long been seen as a Brahman-like concept. mopac should read some Spinoza if only to learn how how express himself instead repeating the same stuff over and over and boring everyone to death!
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@Deb-8-a-bull
Modern scholarship implies that prior to YHWHism becoming strictly monotheistic the Hebrew god had a female consort, Ashreah. Asherah was worshipped in the form of tree, or pole.
The 'pure YHWHists' fobade the worship of Aserah:
Jer 10:2 "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."
Those verses are sometimes used to argue against christmas trees!
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@secularmerlin
The Hindu have the nice idea that the gods are part of creation and not even they know where they came from.
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@Grugore
Precisely! but you're the one making the claim "Something is either true or it is false."
if the 'something' is "Lauren is prettier than Ingrid" then your claim does not hold.
You need to refine your claim that 'something is either true or false' because in some cases - such as the one in my example - it isn't so.
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@Grugore
My point is that truth is not subjective. Something is either true or it is false. Truth is not subject to interpretation.
That can be challenged by things like 'Lauren Bacall was prettier than Ingrid Bergman'. I'd say that's true but obviously not everyone would agree.
So why isn't that a counter-example?
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I believe Jesus was conceived and born in the usual way, to an ordinary married couple.
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@disgusted
The trouble is you get theists making threads like this: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/775/post_links/34333
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@Stephen
My remarks concern poster 'disgusted'.
i don't think a one-word label for what you believe has been invented yet. Feel free to make one up!
As it involves many gods who have gone, you could be a 'polygon'....
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@3RU7AL
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@Stephen
So what do you mean by " the wrong signals"?
I would say that anyone who 'hates God' is not an atheist in the usual sense of the word. I would prefer to call such people 'anti-theists' or 'theophobes' and restrict 'atheism' stricty to the rejection of God's/gods' existence. It is my guess that some atheists come across as theophobic because they adopt an aggresive tone ie they signal theophobia, not atheism.
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@drafterman
Neural energy sounds horribly dualistic and vitalistic to me. I say that if a brain has all its atoms in place and moving correctly then it will produce thoughts without having to add 'neural energy' to it. 'NE' seems like techo-babble for 'soul' and I am against souls because I am an atheist bigot (according to PW, anyway).
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@Mopac
Congratulations! You get +2 credit points with your god - 1 point for being offended and another point for forgiving.
I would have said nothing at all.
No, I do not want you forgiveness. I want you to think about what you want for the Islanders. You say you want them to livea- as every 'good' human being should. You do not want them to die as Christians as a 'good' Christian should, caring as they do for souls more then earthly life. Are you trely offended by being called a better human being than you are a Christian?
I am not mocking you. I think it is a feature of religions - especially Christianity - that it claims a monopoly on morality. Well, that is so much BS.
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@ethang5
i am always glad when when see eye to eye... it has rarity value!
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@disgusted
Fine.... but if theists are getting the impression that we atheists 'hate god' then we are sending the wrong signals.
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@disgusted
Thanks. I get the impression that many theists think atheists believe in god and hate him. It seems hard for someone who believes in god to imagine some people don't.
When posting I really try to avoid giving the impression that God is anything other than a character in a story. No doubt I slipup more than occasionally because - as Stephen points out - it can lead to messy prose.
But I hope this gets through to some theists - atheists don't hate god and they don't hate theists. Atheists believe there is no god and theists are mistaken in thinking He does, which leads to serious errors such as forbidding blood transfusion and flying planes into buildings. People also do acts of great charity in the name of religion, but I say good deeds are done by good people and if you are a good person you will still do good things even if you don't believe in god. Why give god or Jesus any credit for the goodness in your own heart you were born with? That way you won't do dumb things like risk wiping out an island to 'spread the word'
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As I read it the OP is just a colourful way of saying 'keep an open mind'.
Theists are always telling atheists to keep and open mind, but seldom show any mental flexibility themselves.
Atheists do have open minds. They opened their minds to all that is available and concluded there is no god. Unless something new comes along there is no reason to change one's mind.
Atheists have open minds to anything new theists have to say, but I doubt there has been anything new on that front for 500 years! I rarely see the same open-mindedness to new ideas shown by theists. Those that are open-minded often stop being theists.
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@secularmerlin
I think you'd agree that is because of the principle of physical continuity? That might seem unimportant but Bertrand Russel said
"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."
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I think it right to err on the side of caution.
I think the attitude that 'it probably won't kill all of them' is a tad cavalier. Nobody would really gain much from a closer contact and it would be the Sentinelese not us taking the big risk for our curiosity.
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@secularmerlin
I'm happy discussing broadly!
There's no practical reason to discuss this because there are no replicating teleporters today, but if there ever were we'd need laws to cover such eventualities. It's good to examine the almost hidden assumptions we might make such as privileging phyiscal continuity. That might be the best course, but it needs to be thought about first.
Uploading your consciousness into a micro-chip might be an alternative to cryogenic preservation sooner than we have replicators (although I think its fanciful - I'm just doing thought experiments here). Any ideas you'd like to float abut that, given what we've said so far?
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@ResurgetExFavilla
The disease problem is that the Sentenelise are a small population that has been isolated for a long time. That inevitably means their genetic diversity is low. Large populations survive epidemics because there is enough genetic diversity for some people to have natural immnunity. A disease that kills one Sentenise is very likely to kill all of them.
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@Stephen
Who is said to have sent his only son to Earth, Keith?
God
Who made promises to Abraham Keith?
God
Who told Moses to return to Egypt and free his people, Keith?
God
You may care to answer:
Who lived at 221b Baker Street?
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@Fallaneze
I may surprise some people by saying i agree - upto a point.
When people first gained the power to reason at all about their world, they took what they could see and what they knew(very little) and concluded the world must be ruled by gods.
That world-view persisted for thousands of years - perhaps 100,000 years. It lasted all the way upto the 16th or 17th centuries when finally humanity's curiosity had revealed that perhaps gods were not the only possible solution to the mysteries of the world and nature.
Now we have to ask if theism is more rational that atheism givenwhat we know today. And I think the balance has changed. While mysteries remain and there are plenty of things still unknown it seems inevitable that everything that was once considered to be the finger of God will turn out to be mechanical process.
While thre are things still unknown it is not completely rational to abandon theism because the only rational conclusion from any thing which has unknowns is uncertainty, but it is rational to choose what seems most likely to be the case and that is - in the view of many - that the gaps that god has left to inhabit will only continue to shrink - eventually to nothing.
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@ethang5
It certainly sounds like gussie is blaming God, which is something an atheist cannot do! Hence my request to clarify his position.Though unfair to women, these were the times. It was rough and tumble, and a very hard living. People who blame God for people's behavior, or who speak out of ignorance of these times, are mostly just looking for a way to blame God.
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@Castin
I think not wanting them to die is not specific to 'good Christians'! I think he actually shows his human side and suppresses the 'good Christian' notion that it is better to die in Christ than to die without.
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@disgusted
I am still unsure if you are pointing out the patriachy and misogyny of the ancient world or saying YHWH exists and is evil.
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