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@3RU7AL
Re: the Jefferson bible
One wonders if that white Male slave holder left the bits about slaves and wives being obedient even to cruel masters and rapist husbands. Those are not passages that concern the supernatural after all.
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@Polytheist-Witch
You mean humans? Yes yes we do. Most often and effectively to ourselves. We are all the heroes of our own story. Except maybe none of us are.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Well no one can accuse you of not speaking your mind.
I have no broad sweeping statements about theists to fire off in return.
I find that, as is the case with atheists, the entirety of the group is so diverse that no such sweeping statement applies to all of you.
I have no broad sweeping statements about theists to fire off in return.
I find that, as is the case with atheists, the entirety of the group is so diverse that no such sweeping statement applies to all of you.
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@zedvictor4
It does not demean me to treat poly with respect regardless of her treatment of myself. After all she can't hurt me. Not on this medium.
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@coal
Today in stupid things I read . . . .
Discrediting your opponent with ad hominems is no substitute for an actual argument.
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@ILikePie5
Oil companies control supply artificially in much the same way as the diamond industry.
"Gouged" is presented Biden's word not mine. I am only reporting on the content of his request. I am in favor of comprehensive public transportation in place of personal vehicles to reduce the price the general public pays for fuel.
Oil prices are not set by the president of the United states.
If we assume that they are set by unfettered supply and demand as you suggest then the prices are exactly where they should be and having a different president would not lead to different fuel pricing.
If we assume that I am correct and the woul companies artificially control the supply then prices are exactly where the oil companies want them and a different president would not lead to different pricing.
Unless you are arguing that the president can force the oil companies to lower their prices despite the market and/or against their will (in which case Biden was foolish to only suggest) then the prices would not be appreciably different.
"Gouged" is presented Biden's word not mine. I am only reporting on the content of his request. I am in favor of comprehensive public transportation in place of personal vehicles to reduce the price the general public pays for fuel.
Oil prices are not set by the president of the United states.
If we assume that they are set by unfettered supply and demand as you suggest then the prices are exactly where they should be and having a different president would not lead to different fuel pricing.
If we assume that I am correct and the woul companies artificially control the supply then prices are exactly where the oil companies want them and a different president would not lead to different pricing.
Unless you are arguing that the president can force the oil companies to lower their prices despite the market and/or against their will (in which case Biden was foolish to only suggest) then the prices would not be appreciably different.
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@Polytheist-Witch
I don't need you or your parents approval or acknowledgment about my rights.
The only rights we have are those we choose to afford each other. I am nevertheless uncertain how I could change your beliefs even if I wanted to. Only you can change your beliefs and you never do it on purpose.
Condescending is being way too generous with what you are.
I understand that you would rather see atheists as insincere. You are not alone in that. I hope one day we can have a dialogue in which you do not feel the need to demonize me for your own psychological comfort. It makes you very hostile and I'm here to argue not fight. I hoped the same with Ethang though I'm uncertain bow if I will ever communicate with them again and the chances that they wouldn't feel the need to point out how morally bankrupt and dishonest they think I am and to be sure I know they take my attempts at being polite and expressing enjoyment in the enterprise of dialogue as insincere to the point of being snide.
I'm not sure what I could say to convince Ethang and I'm not sure what to say to convince you. Nevertheless I respect you as a person and a woman and would like to afford you all reasonable human rights if it were up to me.
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@Polytheist-Witch
I was raised by omni theists who believed that one all powerful being was the basis of all religion and that all religion was therefore equally valid. I still agree with them on the last point even to this day.
They would inform you, if they were writing this rather than me, that you have absolutely every right to your faith. It would probably come off as pretty condescending. At least I find that other theists tend to take it this way. My mother is never wrong if you know what I mean. I may or may not have picked up some of her bad habits.
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@Greyparrot
Now. You have nevertheless declined to indulge my curiosity.
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@Greyparrot
If you say so. If you become willing to paraphrase let me know otherwise we are likely at the end of this particular interaction.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Why would you try to sexualize me and the platonic love I feel for you? That's unfair poly.
Also why would I assume a religion wasn't true just because someone meant it as mockery any more than I would assume one was real just because someone takes it very seriously? Neither is actually a measure of the probability of the beliefs truth value.
Also why would I assume a religion wasn't true just because someone meant it as mockery any more than I would assume one was real just because someone takes it very seriously? Neither is actually a measure of the probability of the beliefs truth value.
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@Greyparrot
If you wish to discontinue our dialogue you are welcome to but I'm not going to try to get your point of view from someone other than you. That would be absurd.
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@Greyparrot
I'm not sure what the above post means. Would you care to clarify or reword your answer?
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@Greyparrot
Stay bought? Why would they want to buy the government? It isn't because they need the implicit threat of police violence in order to exist and so are willing to pay handsomely for it... is it?
A world with no government whatsoever is an interesting idea. Imagine a world where landlords could not enforce eviction and corperate interests couldn't prevent the hungry and the desperate from feeding themselves.
A world with no government whatsoever is an interesting idea. Imagine a world where landlords could not enforce eviction and corperate interests couldn't prevent the hungry and the desperate from feeding themselves.
No really let's all imagine that for a moment.
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Any serious attempt to reverse climate change should include providing comprehensive public transportation and phasing out as many personal vehicles as possible. The answer is not more electric cars it is more trains and buses and fewer cars of all kinds.
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Poly is an atheist in regards to the flying spaghetti monster. I'm not angry with her either. I find this entities existence to be highly unlikely as well.
Love you poly. Solidarity!
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@Greyparrot
"Use ethical buisness practices only when forced" implies price controls only if you believe that the current price is unethical.
In making this accusation you are coming dangerously close to accusing our corporate overlords of wrongdoing
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@3RU7AL
Atheism is a belief in the way that not eating oatmeal is a breakfast.
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@Greyparrot
History shows that corporations only adopt ethical buisness practices when they are forced too.Fine, impose Carter era price controls on fuel and watch the circus. That would be hilarious to watch that history repeat.
I have not actually proposed such a thing. You are trying to defeat an argument no one has made.
My observations of the unethical buisness practices of corporations are just that. Observations not suggestions.
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@Double_R
1. Oil companies set oil prices not the president of the United States. To think otherwise is to misunderstand who is actually in charge of this country.
2. Biden made a request for the oil companies not to gouge the American people and the oil companies ignored this polite suggestion. History shows that corporations only adopt ethical buisness practices when they are forced too. Biden would have had to do more than request if he was serious about lowering fuel prices and I would not take you seriously if you suggested that he did not realize this.
3. Nothing. Trump is if anything an even bigger supporter of big oil. Process under the trump administration would be equally high (you might argue even higher but again the president of the United states does not set gas prices.)
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@Tejretics
Capitalism is a false meritocracy. It measures everyone's merit by their wealth only. No other factors are taken into account. This means the hardest working people are often also the poorest.
The problem with any meritocracy is that merit is subjective. One answer to this glaring issue would be to simply consider all people as meritous of basic necessities, education and human dignity.
Inflation is a tool of the state used to correct any time the market begins to favor the workforce. When people are paid high wages and cannot afford to improve their living standards you know that inflation is working.
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@Danielle
You should have to show ID to vote.
Then anyone who is unable to acquire ID (for whatever reason) is being subjected to taxation without representation which is unconstitutional.
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@zedvictor4
If you could be on the 700 list, you would be.
I wouldn't. Not, and you will forgive the irony, for all the money in the world. I do not in fact wish to be doing any better than I am now necessarily (though if it were not such a struggle to remain in place that would be nice).
The wealthy and powerful can think of nothing but protecting and adding to their wealth and power while the working poor dream only of no one having power over them.
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@3RU7AL
my understanding is that "welfare" and "public services" are "cheaper" than "incarceration"the "rich" subsidize the "poor" in order to keep them from throwing "La Révolution"net "taxes" are actually negative for nearly everyone making less than $100,000 a year
When the curtain is pulled back the wizard is exposed and so loses his power.
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@3RU7AL
while i do not necessarily disagree with your listed concerns, i am curious to know if you've managed to find an actual logic based counter point
It is difficult to justify the existence of humanity, and by extension individual humans, in other than emotional terms. There is no logically sound reason why humans must be protected or even be kept alive. We have only our collective will to live.
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@3RU7AL
(1) PROTECT YOURSELF(2) PROTECT YOUR FAMILY(3) PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY
Inarguably the biologically ingrained hierarchy. Still one could argue that it would be monstrous to use this as an excuse to or a defense of exploiting the weak/defenseless or to initiate a policy of eugenics.
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@Polytheist-Witch
You are welcome to call me whatever you like and it will joy change my actual stance on any given issue.
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@3RU7AL
it doesn't appear to follow that ALL humans are worth preserving
I am not prepared emotionally or intellectually to decide which humans do not deserve to live. You are welcome to take a wack at it but I presume you will get a lot of pushback from whichever humans you deem unworthy.
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@3RU7AL
No ones existence is guaranteed or justified.please elaborate
There exists no intrinsic meaning and we gave no rights but those we afford to each other.
Either we all merit basic necessities and human dignity or none of us do.perhaps you could format this as some sort of propositional statement or syllogism
IF humans are worth preserving as a species THEN it is worth affording humans basic necessities and human dignity.
IF humans are not worth preserving THEN no amount of wealth makes them worth preserving
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@Nyxified
It does seem odd that society as a whole took the hoarding of bottled water and toilet paper during the pandemic by the lower classes as a selfish act but considers the hoarding of shelter as a mark of sstatus. Arguably if you have a house you are not using you have a house you do not need and arguably if you have a house you do not need while other members of your own society remain homeless you are a monster. Inarguably you are a measurable determinant to the public good.
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@Tradesecret
Would it make you feel better that I no longer feel attached to the label "atheist"? Since it comes with baggage on both sides and since someone else's understanding of the term (you in thiscase) cannot change my actual position I have come to refer to myself as simply someone who does not believe in any god(s)
In any case I am more than happy to discuss MY views and beliefs so long as you understand that they are not necessarily representative of the larger community of those who do not believe in any god(s).
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@FLRW
This is incorrect. Capitalism wants poor people to live... in abject poverty toiling their entire lives away generating profits for the already insanely wealthy.
In it's own way that seems much worse.
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@oromagi
Capitalism is pro government but pro a certain kind of government. The kind, not to put to fine a point on it, which does not force them to adopt ethical buisness practices or to take responsibility for the health amd safety of its workers but which does shelter corperations and the financial officers of corperations from financial loss and legal consequences.
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@Intelligence_06
Exploitation is exploitation and that one's own experience with exploitation may be milder than some theoretical past society would have provided you is cold comfort to the exploited and a less than stellar defense of the exploiter.
Clearly being punched is preferable to being shot and just as clearly not being shot doesn't really make up for being punched.
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@Reece101
All conciousness would seem to be generated by chemical reactions but by no means do all chemical reactions exhibit signs of conciousness.
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@Athias
If you change your mind and if I am still posting when you do
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@oromagi
CAPITALISM can only exist in those states where the decisions about trade and industry are mostly protected from government
Capitalism becomes impossible without government to enforcement the law. Without the implied threat of police violence do you think people would simply move put of their houses and become homeless? Do you think they would starve rather than take the food (an alarming amount of which is being thrown away anyway) from stores?
Capitalism requires big government to function. In general capitalists are only opposed to government regulation that limits their ability to exploit their workers or misinform their customers. They are fine and dandy with legislation that offers large buisness tax incentives or subsidies or that sheild corporations from the legal consequences of their questionable buisness practices.
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Capitalism is exploitative by design.your profit is equal to the difference between wealth generated by your workers and the wages you pay them. You must exploit your workforce in order to generate profits. This is capitalism at its most basic. No economist would argue against this basic principal.
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@Conservallectual
The entirety of my experience and experiential knowledge as limited by human epistemology. I presume and operate under the assumption that this experience represents an actual physical universe which is to the best of my understanding a sparce collection of physical bodies puncuating the vast silent vacuum of turbulent energy fluctuations that is expanding at relativistic speeds. Expanding into what (or if that is even more than a nonsense notion) is unknown not only to me but also to the brightest and best informed minds on the frontiers of cosmological research.
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@Athias
No ones existence is guaranteed or justified.What does this mean?
It means that generating wealth is not a intrinsically more worthwhile pursuit than taking care of a sick family member or teaching middle school science or getting really good at ultimate frisbee. You cannot justify validate your existence with cash.
I do not conflate "merit basic necessities" with "human dignity."
You need not conflate them to realize that the former is necessary in achieving the latter.
No one "merits" basic necessities.
In that case no amount of wealth can change this fact. Whether it is true or not billionaires are not more entitled to basic necessities than anyone else. They are not more entitled to food than farmers. They are not more entitled to shelter than a construction worker. They are not more entitled to reliable and affordable transportation than a worker on an auto manufacturing line. That is ridiculous on its face.
What?! Since when were we gauging how "worthwhile" a human is?
Since you insinuated that some humans (specifically poor ones) deserve to be deprived of basic necessities and therefore life. You have essentially insinuated that some humans are not worth keeping alive. This is a pretty direct way of communicating how you would gauge human worth.
You clearly equate someone's worth directly with their financial worth. If I am somehow mistaken about then perhaps you should examine your language because you have as much as said that this is the case.
What the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks? When did this discussion become an inspection of how importantly I treat women?
Since you insinuated that some humans (many of them women) deserve to be deprived of basic necessities and therefore life. You have essentially insinuated that some humans are not worth keeping alive. This is a pretty terrible way to treat women.
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@Athias
I specifically omitted the words, "work harder." I said, "generate more commerce" which isn't necessarily contingent on how hard one works.
Money is a means to an end it is not an end in and of itself. Simply generating revenue (especially personal revenue) is a poor metric for most worthwhile human so far as I can tell.
than the women who have already raised a generation?Which of these women generate six or more figures of income?
There would be no people to make any income without them they are responsible for literally all income now being generated. By your metric women are more important than billionairs. Perhaps you should treat them accordingly.
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@Athias
By whatever measure you prescribe too I am generally of the opinion that everyone merits the basic necessities.I am not.
No ones existence is guaranteed or justified. Either we all merit basic necessities and human dignity or none of us do.
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@Athias
What measures do apply when attributing "merit"?
By whatever measure you prescribe too I am generally of the opinion that everyone merits the basic necessities.
The 700+ American billionaires hold more wealth than the bottom half of households.Because their labor typically generates more commerce than the bottom half of households.
Is it your contention that billionaires worked harder and contribute more wealth generating potential to society than the women who have already raised a generation? The teachers who taught them? The firemen, doctors and paramedics that keep them safe? The factory and farm laborers who produce the products they are bought and sold? No man is an island. Billionaires would be unable to survive without us.
It is worth asking yourself who needs whom, who does the actual work that makes the machinery of society function and who is actually making bigger sacrifices in their day to day life.
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@Tejretics
Money is not an end in itself it is the means to an end
Inflation is not a bug of capitalism it is a feature.
As a feature of capitalism inflation can be used by the ultra rich in the same way they use money and towards the same end. To concentrate wealth in as few hands as possible.
Money is not wealth. Food and shelter and tools and reproductive opportunities are wealth. You cannot eat money. You cannot use it to keep warm in winter. You cannot use it to build a wooden deck. You cannot f@ck it and create more humans.
Money is only an exchange rate on all of these factors.
Honestly any "liberal" who supports capitalism is actually supporting meritocracy and exploitation. You cannot have capitalism without those.
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Is capitalism trying to take away all our possessions? That would be ironic after the basis of refusing socialism being the endless warnings by die hard capitalists that communism was trying to do just that.
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Saw this post on the anti work reddit and had to share.
you're looking at eventually a renters economy. renting and loans is how the economy would run
you will not own a house you will rent an apartment. you will not own your car you will be paying it off or leasing it from a company
you will not own your cell phone because they are so expensive you have to have a payment plan
you will not even have a job
it will be an entire gig economy wherever employee at every job is listed as a private contractor even though the responsibilities would be the same.
doctors. lawyers. drivers. chefs. it will all run on an Uber business model where all of the costs of running the business are offloaded onto the worker (instead of a cab company that buys the cars pays the insurance and maintains the cars and pays for gas all of those things are on you)
meanwhile nobody will have set hours they will all be competing with each other and there will be no benefits or overtime or anything. just a complete gig economy for every profession
you already don't own movies or music anymore. u pay per month to have access
it's really not wrong. they want you to own nothing and be happy
and if you complain about any of it I'll call you lazy and entitled for not worshiping at the boots of the rich.
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@3RU7AL
do you generally condemn others for making decisions that are in their perceived self-interest ?
I do have a negative knee jerk reaction to percieved "selfishness" but this is not a rational response it is an emotional reaction.
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@Tradesecret
I would describe the circumstances leading to a virgin birth as follows.
"She sat in it."
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@TheUnderdog
Math describes what is. I am therefore completely unsurprised by how well it does just that.
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@Athias
Saying "it is up to the boy scouts" is tantamount to saying that you see no reason a female person should not be allowed to join.
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