posted
Dag, I think that MightyCow's point may be that in a free and just society that "rightness" should be demonstrable to at least a significant number of people that don't share the "right" person's worldview. At least before that "rightness" is made compulsory.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:At least before that "rightness" is made compulsory.
Where do you get this part out of his posts? I don't see anything that suggests this factored into it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lisa has been quite forthright in the past about excluding the types of considerations she's been discussing here from use in determining legality of particular actions in this society. Coupled with the fact that she hasn't even broached the subject of morality in the exchange I commented on, it's pretty clear to me she hasn't advocated any such thing.
I'd still like to see the specific parts of MC's posts that made you think that he was referring to compulsion of "rightness."
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think that anyone in this thread has advocated such a thing. I do think that the antipathy many people feel for "God says so" rules is that as a society we have often given those rules the force of law.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Or, as a nod to peek-a-boo from the other side of the forum, we could have a "teredew". That would be Yerba Mate made by putting cold Mountain Dew into the yerba instead of cold water. Opps: I was responding to Maui Babe, forgetting that the world ran on.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I don't think that anyone in this thread has advocated such a thing. I do think that the antipathy many people feel for "God says so" rules is that as a society we have often given those rules the force of law.
And yet everyone here (including MC) knows that I'm very outspoken in my opposition to giving such things the force of law in the US.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: Or, as a nod to peek-a-boo from the other side of the forum, we could have a "teredew". That would be Yerba Mate made by putting cold Mountain Dew into the yerba instead of cold water. Opps: I was responding to Maui Babe, forgetting that the world ran on.
That just sounds incredibly nasty.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Again, I don't think that if it were you and only you "you" meaning people in this thread, it mightn't be so frightening.
The "in the United States" part may make us safe, but it doesn't make imposing arbitrary rules moral elsewhere.
Except for the part about people being bugged by things that make no sense.
kmboots, I'm confused by your point here. MC has made extensive and explicit objections to Lisa's point here, none of which seem to relate to enacting moral choices into law.
You brought this line of thinking up to respond to an objection I made to one of MC's posts - an objection that had nothing to do with such compulsion.
Now we've gone so far from that that I can't quite figure out what we're talking about any more.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: It'd be nice if you could step outside your worldview for the briefest moment and see that, if one is actually right and the other wrong, then the statements are not identical.
I've added emphasis to the crux of the situation there. Unfortunately, NOBODY can prove that their side is actually right to uninterested third parties, let alone to the opposition, which holds completely contradictory views.
So if neither side is demonstrably right, then it's impossible for us to ever find out which of the statements is non-identical. This means that from a logical and moral standpoint, they ARE perfectly and completely identical.
The only way in which they are non-identical is within the mind of the individual, and in that case, it breaks down into, "I can kill anyone I like, because in my mind it's OK for me to do so." I sincerely hope that you realize it is impossible to have a society in which we allow that.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: And yet everyone here (including MC) knows that I'm very outspoken in my opposition to giving such things the force of law in the US.
You're equally outspoken in your belief that some people deserve to die because your Invisible Space Father seems to have told you that they're in you spot. Even though their view is identical, if opposite.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Unfortunately, NOBODY can prove that their side is actually right to uninterested third parties, let alone to the opposition, which holds completely contradictory views.
So if neither side is demonstrably right, then it's impossible for us to ever find out which of the statements is non-identical. This means that from a logical and moral standpoint, they ARE perfectly and completely identical.
You seem to be saying that something can't be true if it can't be proven true. Is that what you're saying?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
KQ, regular terere is great. In Paraguay, they usually flavor the water like this I haven't heard of teredew in Paraguay. It is more of an LA thing. I personally prefer te lemon or lemon peal in the water. My daughter perfers mint.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dag, he's not* inferring what can't be true so much as what can't be known to be true. Of course, the validity of that point depends on your definition of knowledge.
*edited to include "not." Also deleted the separate post.
posted
Dagonee: I'm saying that if something cannot be proven to be true, then using its assumed truth is of no value.
Saying, "God says I am allowed to kill people" is meaningless, because I can just say, "No, God says you are NOT allowed to kill people", and since neither of us can show that one argument is better than the other, they're both meaningless.
Further, if we cannot show any evidence for God actually giving a message, then saying, "God says it's OK for me to kill people, but only I know this for sure" is equal to saying, "I have decided that it is OK for me to kill people."
Clearly the second statement is no justification for murder. If it's equal to the first statement in truth value though, we can see that claiming God's command without being able to actually show the proof of such a command is no different than just deciding that you want to do something.
In fact, religious folks frequently point to other religious folks who are doing bad things, and claim that they're not ACTUALLY following God's commandments, even though the people doing the bad stuff will swear that they are.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Unfortunately, NOBODY can prove that their side is actually right to uninterested third parties, let alone to the opposition, which holds completely contradictory views.
So if neither side is demonstrably right, then it's impossible for us to ever find out which of the statements is non-identical. This means that from a logical and moral standpoint, they ARE perfectly and completely identical.
You seem to be saying that something can't be true if it can't be proven true. Is that what you're saying?
I hope he isn't. I mean, I have no way to prove to any of you that I just got out of the shower, but it's a fact anyway.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Dagonee: I'm saying that if something cannot be proven to be true, then using its assumed truth is of no value.
Saying, "God says I am allowed to kill people" is meaningless, because I can just say, "No, God says you are NOT allowed to kill people", and since neither of us can show that one argument is better than the other, they're both meaningless.
This may be true, in a vacuum. But my claim doesn't exist in a vacuum. Yours does.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I like mint. I just don't like Mountain Dew to begin with. Eeeeew.
Here I thought you were an LA girl now!
I am. Mountain Dew has always been seen as kind of a hick drink where I grew up (my part of L.A.) That, or for med students who have to stay up for 50 hours at a time. Diet Coke is more chic (but I prefer Dr. Pepper.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Saying, "God says I am allowed to kill people" is meaningless, because I can just say, "No, God says you are NOT allowed to kill people", and since neither of us can show that one argument is better than the other, they're both meaningless.
No, they're both unprovable. That's a different thing than meaningless.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: This may be true, in a vacuum. But my claim doesn't exist in a vacuum. Yours does.
Yeah, in your case the claim comes from you, which, for what it's worth, lends credence to the notion that you really believe it. On the other hand, I think you're a religious extremist, and I think there are about 1,000 things more important to religious extremists than God, even if they say that God is number 1.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: This may be true, in a vacuum. But my claim doesn't exist in a vacuum. Yours does.
No, yours does
How long do we have to do that before you see how pointless it is?
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: No, they're both unprovable. That's a different thing than meaningless.
They're not meaningless from a linguistic standpoint, but they're meaningless from a truth standpoint, or a utility standpoint, because since they both have equal value, and they're completely contradictory, neither has any rhetorical, moral, or real weight.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:They're not meaningless from a linguistic standpoint, but they're meaningless from a truth standpoint, or a utility standpoint, because since they both have equal value, and they're completely contradictory, neither has any rhetorical, moral, or real weight.
To a third party, that's true. That's not what they're relevant to.
quote:How long do we have to do that before you see how pointless it is?
The pointlessness stems not from your simply parroting back slightly altered versions of what Lisa says. The pointlessness arises because you continue to try to assert your version of what the "point" is of someone saying God commands X.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
When two parties say "God wants me to do X" and that X is different, they're both just making up a justification to do what they want to.
If that's murder, ethnic cleansing, slavery, or any other thing which we would be morally opposed to without a "command from God", then we must be equally opposed to it with this "command from God", since the command cannot carry any weight except to the person who wants to do the immoral act.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:...since the command cannot carry any weight except to the person who wants to do the immoral act.
This is nonsense not only for the reasons Dagonee has pointed out, but because it assumes that people only follow commands they want to follow.
That's only somewhat true, and it's a pretty hazy situation. Being willing to do something and wanting to do it are two very different things.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I can see how fruitful this conversation is going to be too.
Now you're not even trying to understand.
You say it's pointless because neither one can prove their side of it. That's only true if the only point of saying it was to convince someone who doesn't believe it that it's true.
That's not the only point of saying something. This is trivially basic stuff. As long as you insist they're trying to make the same point you would be making if you asserted something, you're essentially arguing about something else.
Edit: And the reason your clever little trick of just flipping the statements around doesn't work in this case is that you are the one whose position relies on defining the point of others' speech. I'm not doing that, so your cute little flip is basically meaningless.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Except many people believe it is knowable and that they know. Lisa for instance, or many Mormons.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:You know, the only thing I can get out of this argument is that if it's true, it's true.
Could you explain that to MC, then? He seems to keep missing it.
quote:Big deal. If you can't know it's true then you've got no business saying you know it's true.
There are certain things I know to be true but can't prove to you. I'm not asking you to believe them. I will, however, treat them as true when making decisions about how I choose to act.
That's not pointless as MC asserts, and it actually is a big deal.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Glenn, try this for an analogy: suppose you went up to someone who'd been happily married for 40 years, commented on the design of his wedding ring, and then said "you know, I think even people who aren't married should wear wedding rings each year during the week of your anniversary. They create a little space between your fingers that helps you keep them clean and aired out so you're less likely to get a fungal infection.
I've been trying to get my mind wrapped around this analogy, and I can't make it work.
First of all, it would only work if there was something obvious about the fact that it makes sense. Trichinosis in pork is obvious. Clams with typhoid is obvious. This analogy maybe works for circumcision, where there is no proven benefit. But then I wouldn't have made that claim.
The other part is that the inclusion of "wearing the wedding ring during the week of your anniversary" is missing an important part, and I realize I didn't make this explicit, but remember that there were 8 Jews there that were actively engaged in eating trayf. My comment about keeping kosher during passover was with reference to them. My comment about following kosher law because it could prevent disease came slightly after. Again, I can't remember the events and timing precisely, because it happened about 15 years ago.
If my father had still been alive, then perhaps I could have talked to him about it. I could have talked to Uncle Shelly before he died too, but I'm pretty sure I can tell what his reaction would have been, and it wouldn't make anything more understandable. I still wonder whether it would be worth it to broach the subject with Aunt Ruth or Steve, but judging from some of the reactions I've gotten here, I'm even less likely to.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Except many people believe it is knowable and that they know
That's just it. They believe they know it, that's not the same as knowing it. I believe that God doesn't exist, but there's a step between believing something and believing you actually know it. Without a kind of proof that exists outside your own mind, it really isn't justifiable to claim you have actual knowledge.
quote:There are certain things I know to be true but can't prove to you. I'm not asking you to believe them. I will, however, treat them as true when making decisions about how I choose to act.
You're welcome to use them for your own decision making, but claiming they're true to others is a different matter. Lisa is not asking others to believe her version of truth, she is insisting that her version is true. She has no basis on which to support that, other than her own state of belief.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:That's just it. They believe they know it, that's not the same as knowing it. I believe that God doesn't exist, but there's a step between believing something and believing you actually know it.
But they don't have that step. In the LDS church every month they have a special meeting were people from the congregation are invited to come up to an open mike where they, without exception, share the fact that they know that their church is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc. Mothers even whisper these things into the ears of their kindergarten-aged children who repeat it verbatim to the congregation over the microphone.
At one meeting a brave young man declared that he didn't think it was necessarily possible to know these things but that he believed them very strongly and hoped that they were true. He was corrected by the next gentleman who said that yes, he really did know these things.
Many of these people know these things that you are I consider unknowable with the same conviction that you know the sun will rise tomorrow and that I know that I hate black licorice.
posted
Dagonee: I'm making a distinction between things which are true in the reality of the world at large, and things which individuals may believe is true, but which have no external truth value.
For example: You may think that for you, it's OK to kill brown people, because they aren't actually human, even though you can't prove that to me. To you, that may be entirely self-evident, but to everybody else, it's just murder. That's the point I'm trying to make.
One person saying, "This is true. No, it really is. No, you're wrong, it really is true, even though I can't show you, but I know it myself." Doesn't provide justification for anything, except to the person saying it.
So it's meaningless when Lisa says, "It was OK for the Jews to kill the Cannanites, because God told them to." Because to anyone else, it wasn't OK. What her words actually mean is, "I think this is OK, for no reason except that I have decided to believe that it is."
I'm just trying to establish intellectual honesty in the conversation.
Similarly, when you say, "There are certain things I know to be true but can't prove to you." What you actually mean is, "There are certain things which I believe." Not know, think.
If you can't show it, you don't know it. Maybe you're just making it up. If Nobody else can see the person you're talking to, maybe he's not really there.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:But they don't have that step. In the LDS church every month they have a special meeting were people from the congregation are invited to come up to an open mike where they, without exception, share the fact that they know that their church is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc. Mother even whisper these things into the ears of their kindergarten-aged children who repeat it verbatim to the congregation over the microphone.
I'm not sure which point you are trying to make here. This is absolute denial of the value of logic. Even the most absolute mathematical proof relies on axioms. This kind of social pressure to make an unprovable claim is frightening to me no matter how innocuous the claim is.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm not sure which point you are trying to make here.
The point is that there is a distinction between knowledge from an external perspective and an internal one. You and I agree that, for instance, Lisa doesn't know that there is a God behind her theology. But she experiences knowing that fact just the same.
When she says "I know x", she is correct. She has such a high confidence in the proposition x that she is willing to state that it is accurate without qualification. When we say she does not know x, we are also correct - she cannot demonstrate to the satisfaction of an critical observer that what she knows actually represents reality.
We might argue that she is wrong, but it's hard to argue about what she knows without some very careful defining of what know means. Not all definitions of know require that the subject of that knowledge represent a discernible truth.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
rollainm: If I meet you, I can know that you exist. You could bring up brain in a jar or some other philosophical nonsense, but if we accept that there exists a real world and that we are all not just figments of your imagination, then yes, I can know that you exist.
Within that same real world framework, multiple people can make mutually exclusive claims about God, and what God Wants, and none of them can prove that their version is right. Logically, we cannot accept any of them with any reliability.
Hence, we cannot accept that an immoral act becomes moral if "God says it's OK", because it is impossible to actually know if indeed God says it's OK.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree with you in principle. I think the major disconnect with others like Dagonee and Lisa, though, is in the universal conviction with which you assert your claims (yes, the same could be said of Lisa as well, possibly Dagonee). Supporting your rigorous logic are premises and assumptions that, at some point, eventually, are just as unverifiable as hers. Your insistence on only considering your perceived reality as real, I think, is a prime example of that. This is important to consider because your concept/defintion of knowledge is directly affected by how you define your reality. Lisa's God, by definition, doesn't adhere to your "real world framework," and so you're already arguing past each other at this point.
Anyway, my point is that if gaining common ground is at all your goal, you're going to have to come to some agreement on the concepts of knowledge and reality. The problem with that is that's a whole new can of worms.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I've never met a bubble tea that didn't have tea. Do they make that?
The Wikipedia gives a good general thrust.
quote: The original bubble tea consisted of a hot Taiwanese black tea, brown large pearl tapioca, condensed milk, and honey. As this drink became more popular, variations were created. Initially iced versions with a hint of peach or plum flavoring began to appear, then more fruit flavors were added until, in some variations, the tea was removed entirely in favor of real fruits. These fruit versions usually contain colored pearls (and/or "jelly cubes" as in the related drink taho), the color chosen to match whatever fruit juice is used. Popular flavors include strawberry, passion fruit, mango, chocolate, and coconut, and may be added in the form of powder, fruit juice, pulp, or syrup to hot black or green tea, which is shaken in a cocktail shaker or mixed in a blender with ice until chilled. Cooked tapioca pearls are addded at the end.
I think the tapioca pearls are the only real constant (and even then not quite, because there is a popular variant that uses lychee jelly).
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
rollainm: I'm sure you're right about that.
If we draw all the way back so that we're not even talking about the world and reality, we can approach it from a purely logical standpoint though.
Person one says, "X" Person two says, "Not X" There is no way of verifying either position.
If that is the case, then we must use some other method to determine any conclusions which rely on knowledge about X, because these two people's assertions are of no value to anyone apart from themselves.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Dagonee: I'm making a distinction between things which are true in the reality of the world at large, and things which individuals may believe is true, but which have no external truth value.
And I am protesting your insistence that the former doesn't change the essential character of the latter.
quote:You're welcome to use them for your own decision making, but claiming they're true to others is a different matter.
No, it's not a different matter. I claim that the Catholic faith is true.
quote:You may think that for you, it's OK to kill brown people, because they aren't actually human, even though you can't prove that to me. To you, that may be entirely self-evident, but to everybody else, it's just murder. That's the point I'm trying to make.
But you went far beyond that, claiming there's no difference between a true statement and a false statement if one can't prove either. That's ludicrous. Two statements are different if one is true and one is not.
quote:One person saying, "This is true. No, it really is. No, you're wrong, it really is true, even though I can't show you, but I know it myself." Doesn't provide justification for anything, except to the person saying it.
Which is far, far different than the things you were saying earlier. One person justifying their actions to themselves is not pointless. Every single person does that with unprovable premises every single day.
quote:I'm just trying to establish intellectual honesty in the conversation.
Which is my essential problem with you here: you're claiming that someone is being intellectually dishonest when they rely on truths that are not justifiable to others.
quote:Similarly, when you say, "There are certain things I know to be true but can't prove to you." What you actually mean is, "There are certain things which I believe." Not know, think.
Nope. If I see someone fly away, I can't prove to you that it happened. You would be well justified in disbelieving me. But that doesn't mean I don't know it happened.
quote:If you can't show it, you don't know it. Maybe you're just making it up. If Nobody else can see the person you're talking to, maybe he's not really there.
Again, this is wrong.
quote:Within that same real world framework, multiple people can make mutually exclusive claims about God, and what God Wants, and none of them can prove that their version is right. Logically, we cannot accept any of them with any reliability.
Which brings us right back to my principle problem with your line of reasoning - the premise that a statement that someone else cannot accept reliably is pointless.
quote:Hence, we cannot accept that an immoral act becomes moral if "God says it's OK", because it is impossible to actually know if indeed God says it's OK.
True. If someone kills someone because God says so, we should put them in prison if we can't confirm their story. But that's not the same as the moral statement being pointless. It had a huge point.
Let's say they've been given a justification by God that, if true, would convince you of the morality of their act. If the person is right - whether or not they can prove it to you - then their action was actually moral. Which, again, doesn't mean we don't punish them absent such proof.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Now I'm all intrigued and want to try bubble tea. Er, bubble non-tea. Whatever.
What is it like, the big tapioca pearls, after you've drunk it? Do you stab them with the straw and suck up their innards, or do you take off the drink lid and and drink them like the strawberry dregs of a strawberry lemonade? Is it like trying to suck up Jell-O through a straw?
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
