So the student of physics, who asks why there’s a cosmic speed limit, is merely guilty of contemplating pure ‘metaphysical garbage?’ What about the moral philosopher who believes in natural rights, or the law student who believes in natural law? You just keep shooting it down without providing any kind of explanation whatsoever. These are real questions, I’m sorry that they’re difficult to answer.
Legal positivists and moral subjectivists will obliterate you.
If everything you know could be wrong, then yes, you are taking everything on faith. It’s that simple. Stop retreating and tackle it, if you can.
I’m not going to bother replying to your entire rant, but the quote above is just amazingly oblivious:
The Jews sacrificed animals, and gave libations of wine because of the fact that those two reasons were the most valuable possessions that they had, and they sacrificed them in thanksgiving to God. It was not because God needed them to survive (I don’t know how you even got this erroneous opinion), but because the Jews were expected by Mosaic law to make sacrifice to their God.
Yes, I’ve read the rabbinic commentaries. I’ve also read the plain, unvarnished text, and the various translations. Most translators think that “meal-libation” is reasonable.
But, tell me more about this thanksgiving. Presumably, either God wants thanks, or the people want to give thanks. How is it displaying thankfulness to the creator of the earth to take valuable things to a tax-money funded temple and burn them? I’d think this would show the opposite of thankfulness.
Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to say “well, that might be your logic, but the Bible is the word of God which says the truth, and it says we should give sacrifices.” That’s perfectly reasonable - but actually, most people tend to follow either the rabbinic interpretations or the Christian interpretations, or at least that’s my guess from driving around religious neighborhoods and not seeing altars - but in any case, yes, that’s reasonable. I have absolutely no objection to all this as long as the argument goes in that direction. Given the truth of the Bible as God’s word, the argument works fine. But that’s not the argument presented here. Here, we have two different things going on. One is explicit in the text - the claim that believing in the Bible gives us libertarian conclusions. I say it does not - it is not a libertarian conclusion that we are reqired to burn things. The other is implicit in the fact that it’s written - presumably, the author hopes to persuade people to believe in the Bible, but he offers no claim that it is true - rather, that certain logical conclusions come once one accepts the Bible. If you want the logic to run in that direction, from the conclusion to the truth of the Bible, then you can’t rest on the premise that the description in the Bible is actually what God wants, or what is really true, or whatever. You then need to give a logical reason why burning animals is a reasonable way to give thanks.
Well, in that case the possibility of truth is not posit. It is something that cannot be doubted by anyone who acts. This is not an assumption. You either know what the word “act” means, or you don’t, in which case you might not be human. Fine by me either way.
So objective truth is like a tree falling in the forest? It does not require belief or potential belief? If that is what objective truth is, why ever would anyone be interested in both true and unbelievable (no potential of belief) things? In math there are numerous statements which are both true but unprovable and false but not disprovable. If the world is like math, then it will contain likewise useless facts – truths unperformable because there is no proof to perform. Tree falls, but no one can possibly hear it. Someone cares?
Go that way if you want, but as a human, I’m stuck with truths that are performative. Is this some kind of non-universal subjectivity? Well provable truths are inter-subjective at least (they are provable).
I guess we are at some impasse here, since I’m not sure our interests are aligned. But thanks.
I don’t know what you mean by lying. I have no motive here. Me and you virtually agree on everything, but one thing.
You like saying this a lot don’t you?
Okay, so let me play devil’s advocate, though, I’m not a law student, nor do I know the rational for legal positivism, at least to any degree of specificity. But they would probably say something like:
“The belief in natural law and the natural rights of man were said to derive their origin from God. Indeed, the classical liberals, and the Jesuits before them, proclaimed that no king, nor senate, nor council, or whatever, had the right to take from man something which was given to them by GOD. And yet, those kings frequently took from them their so-called ‘natural rights,’ and those very same classical liberals frequently broke god’s so-called ‘laws.’ Likewise, god didn’t strike down parts of FDR’s new deal, it was the supreme court, who employed the laws WRITTEN DOWN by men. FDR, though, faced no retribution, indeed he is hailed as our greatest president. So if we both agree that GOD doesn’t exist, what then justifies your affirmative position regarding so-called natural laws and rights?”
The subjective moralist would say:
“In the middle east it is not only justifiable, but completely moral to beat your wife if she looks at another man. In Rome, it was completely justified to own a slave, or watch men kill themselves in an arena, and today, it’s completely right for the government to take 45% of your income. I don’t see any objective moral law here, nor do I see any kind of moral constancy. So how do you defend moral universalism?”
Now, I’ve moved away from Descartes’ method of doubt because you are incapable of providing any kind of legit response, but no one has, at least without GOD (with the exception of Kant), so don’t feel too bad.
That the questions are difficult to answer. They really aren’t–and you know it. That you want some Great Mystery so you can Solve It By Positing Something Which Has No Explanatory Power isn’t my problem.
Anyone who believes that rights are granted hasn’t got a clue as to what rights are in the first place.
You’re using “subjective” as a synonym for “relative”. Don’t do that.
A lot of the pro God arguments here seem to be that we are all “better off” believing in God.
But we are all better off believing the truth, no matter what horrible consequences follow from knowing the truth.
Also I don’t understand the insistence on the God of the Bible. All the same benefits accrue if we believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster [see wikipedia about Him].
We may contemplate rational thought to be caused to exist either by natural science or through natural science - evolved or gifted.
We may also consider that rational thought is not a genetic trait, not scientific. “Truth” must lie within one of these three choices.
What scientific proof exists that rational thought is a genetic or physical trait? Is the trait genetically transferable from humans to cattle?
There was an example used by someone, I believe it was Walter Block, concerning the inalienability of the will. The particular example used was a frontal lobotomy - an example that supposedly demonstrated that a frontal lobobtomy removes the “will” of an individual, The subject demonstrates an inability to willfully act, perhaps even to express or feel emotion. The problem with this example is that it presumes that the will is a physical, natural, genetic trait which can be removed. What is wrong with this assumption? Just this - that the subject of a frontal lobotomy may be OBSERVED to have his will removed, but, in fact, we can only observe his actions, not his intent. What assurance do we have that in the instance of a frontal lobotomy the individual retains all will and emotion but is simply unable to express it. Are action and measurable brainwaves proof that the will no longer exists? What is the “truth” of the will of the lobotomized individual?
The flying spaghetti monster is indeed a rational consideration for some. This is what separates anthropomorpic attributes of God from the attributes of the God of the Bible:
GRACE is not a rational concept.
Man is incapable of conceiving GRACE being as if the debt had never existed.
GRACE cannot come from within one’s self. GRACE only exists because of what Christ has done FOR us and revealed TO us through His Word.
No further action required.
There is no such thing as GRACE in man’s religions. Even many Christians cannot accept the import of what GRACE imparts.
Faith in GRACE alone and the addition of GRACE to cognition imparts a unique perspective on what liberty is in both death and life.
Put another way:
Man conceives mercy – to forego punishment.
God’s method of mercy is not conceived by man. God’s mercy is Grace. Not the foregone punishment but the elimination of the causality FOR punishment.
God does not punish. Hell is merely the separation of man from God with no hope of reunion - a rational choice which God permits.
I understand what point you are trying to advance. But it, again, begs the question. If a reality exists, does that reality need to be an “external world”? No. I know that I think thoughts. But that does not imply that I exist in any other way besides the structure of my thoughts? Although the structure of my thoughts implies that an external world exists, it may incorrect.
If I were to (a) doubt whether anything exists and I were to also (b) distinguish between reality and imagination, I would contradict myself in the way which you explained. But I did not doubt whether anything exists. I merely doubted whether a particular thing exists, the external world as we understand it.
I did not say that it does and I do not believe that I implied that it does. But, If you believe that I inadvertently implied that it, that “the mind does […] impose categories upon reality”, does, show me.
Yes, and there’s a reason why skepticism takes you nowhere; it’s incorrect. The question, then, is why is it incorrect? No one has answered this. They want me to prove a negative, and they equivocate (my definition of truth, for example). If you can’t say, for sure, that you know something, then you merely think it to be true.
Skepticism. I am not a skeptic because I believe in God. But why do they deny skepticism? How are they absent of all faith? This is what I want to know.
without the need to get into faith or God (as I’ve already showed my position on this), my denying of skepticism is it’s absolute interpretation. it’s one thing to be skeptical about anything and then learn, gain understanding, and give knowledge in due time. it’s quite another to be absolutely skeptical and deny knowledge altogether - that’s impossible as it leads into circular reasoning in which a person would thereby be aware and argue their position of absolute skepticism. How does an absolute skeptic reason all at the same time?
Well to re-ierate what I said before, Esuric, I do not deny skepticism or affirm it according to the way you use logic or faith. I’m not out to identify those nuggets of the universe which have no bearing on my understanding or my action. I don’t think logic is about nailing down others (the universe, or people) but about coordinating ourselves with others or even ourselves with ourselves. Cartesian skeptics (or radical relativists) deny the possibility of coordination, so they should do the rest of us a favor and get out of our way peacefully, since it makes no difference to them. I choose to exist in the world, and they do not.
Just for a moment, suppose you had an airtight argument that Cartesian skepticism was wrong. Do you think Cartesian skeptics would just vanish in a puff of irrefutable logic? No. Would they convert after hearing your argument? No, they’d make their usual paranoid excuses. It’s frustrating when someone doesn’t to listen and obey. It would be nice of logic was a natural force which would wipe its foes off the map. If you could put together the right chain of phrases, people would stop and lay down their arms and join your cause. But it doesn’t work that way. Reasoning can only compel the reasonable (the fact that is can do that, is still quite wonderful) and it is always a dialogue.
That’s why I think the purpose of logic is coordinative instead of definitive (not that definitiveness isn’t useful: obviously a mutual definition is extremely coordinative).
A skeptic/ Nihilist still has a homeostasis in his world that he can go by; the exsitence of the spiritual/magical would completly negate this and turn the world of the nihilist upsidedown. I know I would become inconsolably confused and changed in the most profound sense , if I were to witness actual factual magic. Space aliens, cats with wings, and a talking dinosaur are more concievable than a wizard or spook.