security is a much broader concept. liberty is security from political interference, liberty is not security from other things, such as hunger
And what are your arguments?
If you must lock down or hide everything you own, you are not free.
And how does that mean that liberty is the same thing as security?
That’s part of your answer. Liberty requires going beyond the infantalizing notion of a perpetual parent. We can certainly be free and have liberty in our own minds. But the effort required for actual liberty, i.e. to actually eliminate the state, is too great for many. The state creates a lot of roadblocks.
A starving man isn’t free.
That’s not a reply to my point.
JAlanKatz,
Thanks for the response but, I believe you are in error on both points and here’s why:
- In the first case you are confusing the difference between REDUCTIONISM (Which IS valid in formal logic and what I employed in my original example) and REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM (Which is invalid and what you employed in your counter-example). What is incumbent upon me (Or anyone else) is to be certain that my logic does not necessarily lead to a self-contradictory consequence, which I would maintain, my example does not. The question is whether I can infer that what God has said is trustworthy enough to make the inference. I have good, sound reasons to believe it is trustworthy and that I can make the reasonable inference; No self-contradiction occurs and the explanatory scope and power is preserved.
However, your counter-example employing a reductio ad absurdum IS flawed; We know how movies are made and they’re not ‘dropped from the sky’ by ‘The Twilight Monster’. This is very different from what I stated.
In sum, yes, the law of cause and effect DOES allow me to reason the way that I did in the first case.
- You are also confused in the second example and no fair analysis of history will show otherwise. The Bible, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Isaac Newton, Socrates, Hayek and Bastiat (to name but a few) all recognized in various works that there ARE two “powerhouses” of meaning in every society.
I think you are incorrectly assuming that because Religion (Or, perhaps more accurately, some who say they are representing “Religion” but really aren’t) sometimes aligns itself with the State, “true”, morally good Religion ceases to exist and be influential within and on the broader culture.
These are important points that I don’t think you can easily dismiss.
To be honest, I am somewhat surprised that you chose these two arguments to present your case as opposed to my assertion that my argument (granting that it is true) possesses more explanatory power and scope than rivals because I think that in order to honestly answer the original question posted, there MUST be more to the answer than some of those I see posted here.
At any rate, thanks again.
(As a footnote, I had to change my username from “Unchained” to “Omega” due to my inability to re-access this forum after I closed out of it yesterday. This is part of the reason that it took so long to respond. My apologies).
Oh, don’t you like your idiocy being responded to with another bit of idiocy which uses the identical reasoning to yours?
You are a petty man.
It’s quite valid. How do you think we prove that the set of primes is infinite? If you say it’s not reductio, then you need to go back to school.
No, I’m just a stickler for correct reasoning. If that’s petty, then so be it.
I didn’t know KoB was in fact Tom Petty. Awesome.
I’m certainly not a heartbreaker, at any rate.
Would you argue that they are the same thing extensionally, or in sense?
It would seem to suggest, unless you clarify further, that your argument could also show that liberty and food are the same thing.
chloe732,
No, my response does not shift the topic and I can think of at least 5 reasons why:
First, the argument that it does seems to beg the question in favor of ANY OTHER explanation EXCEPT the one I offered. Why should this be so? Have I introduced a logical impossibility or a contradiction?
Second, other generations have recognized “God” as a legitimate source of explanation and appealed to him even as a theoretical entity. Aristotle did this, Isaac Newton did this and even today this is done. Why be required to accept arbitrary definitions?
Third, it is far from clear that I am using “God” in any way that is inappropriate to the discussion at hand. What is wrong with saying that He is a first cause who resembles a rational agent. Is this “un-liberty-minded” or “un-Austrian”?
Fourth, people have long understood the difference between establishing the existence of a phenomena and explaining it by a natural law. For example, psychology explains things in terms of desires and intentions of persons (which I can’t help but point out with some irony is what you did ask about originally). I can think of no good, sound reason to banish this practice, can you?
Finally, assuming for the sake of argument that what I have said is true, even if the original question did not foresee possible spiritual implications of the fall of man, does this make us any less intellectually obligated and responsible to consider the possibilities? If so, why?
Actually, your “explanation” is neither an explanation (magic isn’t an explanation), nor logically proper, since it begs the question of the existence of this supposed magic thing.
It’s all well and good to believe something, but when you lay it out on the table for everyone to see–expect people to tell you what’s wrong with your clearly-faulty reasoning.
By the way, once a discipline, no matter what that discipline may be, begins to question the nature of things, it opens itself to criticism because it is at that very point that it ceases to be that discipline and becomes philosophy and any claim to the contrary becomes a self-refuting PHILOSOPHICAL truth-claim.
Just thought I would throw that in there.
Food doesn’t involve human relations.