Christianity

[Dubious]

I am less interested in proving that man has *rights* -- that seems to be Henry's department mostly

Which I've done (more modestly: I've offered evidences) and -- nope -- natural rights do not extend to, do not inhere in, biological roombas and crab grass. We can (but have no moral obligation to) offer humaneness to bio-machinery, not equal status.

Kind of coincidental in a way in that's how Whites considered Blacks, not equal in status at any level, finding nothing wrong with tearing families apart with impunity treating them as if no moral obligation were necessary.

Employing the same logic, why should god have anything to do with humans who are certainly not equal in status, being nothing more than "bio-machinery" ourselves, which, strangely enough is exactly how it seems to be.

Whatever empathy we do apply to those not equal in status is not something we ourselves have ever received from the guy in the sky who's supposed to love us all.

Ironically instead of disagreeing with you, which was my intent, I just proved your point.

[iambiguous]

… and that is your description of where you stand in relation to the Questions: strung uncomfortably between relativities, unable to make decisions, fractured & fragmented, torn & damaged but loud & forceful.

But what blocks you, or the point where you get hung up, is not necessarily everyone’s confusion point.

Uh, no shit?

After all, what can you really know about the life I've lived and how my own personal experiences predisposed me existentially to embody particular moral and political prejudices. About the same as what I can know about your life, your personal experiences, your moral and political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein.

Which, again, is why religions and philosophies are invented: to convince ourselves that, either God or No God, there is a font "out there" that allows us to anchor "I" in an overarching sense of meaning and purpose.

Again, go ahead and pick one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

And here you are with IC, henry and others basically mocking them for not thinking exactly as you do about all of this.

You all actually do believe that of all the One True Paths to Enlightenment that there were, are and will be, your own really is the optimal frame of mind!!!

And that above all else you need to agree that there is in fact the One True Path.

It's just that those like Satyr will mock anyone too weak to go about all of this without a God, the God and my God to comfort and console them.

Although with you [as with phyllo] I'm still unclear regarding just how religion plays a part in allowing you to embrace your own rendition of objective morality. That and the part where in regard to your interactions with blacks and women and homosexuals and Jews, you make a distinction between yourself and the Nazis.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It's not perspectival, unless you think that rationality is just a "perspective." And if you were to think that...

The issue I have with you is that you pretend to locate your arguments, and your fundamental beliefs, in reason, and yet what you believe in is actually totally irrational. I’ve been amazed by this but also shocked by what it implies — about Man and about all of us.

What i think, then — I mean really think — is that you are mad. But what am I saying?! What is the implication here? If I realize that you are mad (that you believe incredible, fantastic things: the signs of madness) then I must extend it to all men, and not exclude myself. (Note that I have never excluded myself from any implied fault — we all share a general condition.)

Rationality, then, when I agree to attempt to see you as you see yourself — a self-stated reasoning and rational man — is mocked through and through. You are not rational. You are not intellectually trustworthy. You lie to yourself, you lie here in your image-portrayal, and you lie directly to my face!

What am I to make of that?

You see that is the problem Immanuel. To interact with you is to interact with that problem.

Now you say my presentation is not “rational”. It doesn’t satisfy you. But you are a walking, talking farce!

What I have said these last days, “rational” or not, is yet what I conclude by and through grappling internally and externally with the questions we confront here.

If you are not satisfied — you aren’t and only one thing satisfies you — then by all means remain unsatisfied.

Man — a man — realizes certain things inside himself. After struggle, after living through his own folly and error. What man does is all man can do — any man.

Your shtick is to propose “God” and to devalue Man. I say this is bullshit. Its a game you are playing. You can always be right because your reference point always remains speculated and proposed, but never proved, never manifested. Keep it up if it works for you. It doesn’t work for me.

So yes, I have faith in man. That foes not mean I do not conceive of God however. But let me say that if you are a “faithful man” or an example of godliness — we are all FUCKED.

But to realize this is also fitting: we are in a time when the god-concept collapsed.

In that sense we are left to ourselves. We recoil back into ourselves. I can live with that and very certainly prefer it to your disingenuousness — which reeks.

A more honest conversation and exploration goes on despite you and without you.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It's just that those like Satyr

I was talking with Satyr by phone today. He revealed a great deal that I did not know about you. Now I understand why you are obsessed with him.

[Immanuel Can]

It's not perspectival, unless you think that rationality is just a "perspective." And if you were to think that...

The issue I have with you is that you pretend to locate your arguments, and your fundamental beliefs, in reason, and yet what you believe in is actually totally irrational.

I'm not fooled by the attempt to change the topic. And I'm unimpressed and undeflected by the ad homs. You don't want to have to face your responsibility to provide evidence that man has "rights." But without that, your argument is dead.

There's smoke, the grinding of gears here...but nothing at all of substance, and nothing to the point.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I'm not fooled by the attempt to change the topic. And I'm unimpressed and undeflected by the ad homs. You don't want to have to face your responsibility to provide evidence that man has "rights." But without that, your argument is dead.

There's smoke, the grinding of gears here...but nothing at all of substance, and nothing to the point.

I determine what my points are. In relation to them you are my bitch.

So let’s get that clear.

And I insist on the following. And I also presume to speak for the entire thread. You are required to respond to this.

The issue I have with you is that you pretend to locate your arguments, and your fundamental beliefs, in reason, and yet what you believe in is actually totally irrational.

I am disinclined to pay heed to the classic picture of God assigning rights to man (the Hebrew/Christian story). That picture is demiurgic.

My view is that man arrives at or achieves high levels of consciousness and discerns truths that are part and parcel of the Creation (Ive said this a dozen times). If there is God man is part of ‘that’ in however limited a way by realization on inner levels. In one way or another this is how it always happens.

So it is best to say that man assigns rights, not that he has been given special rights. Or, as his awareness and capacity to accept responsibility increase, he chooses to respect the right of others (and other beings). These things function together.

It is that way for a mature, effective individual and therefore for humankind.

[Harry Baird]

I led with the term "natural rights", which is, unless I'm misunderstanding, one of your preferred terms.

Ah, my mistake then: when you said you challenged me on my terms I assumed you meant on my terms, not my terms.

You weren't mistaken: I meant the former. It involves challenges to the scope of your terms though, so let's just say it involves a little of the latter too.

You believe - as do I - in objective moral truths, which you frame as "natural rights". These, of course, imply "natural duties", because a duty (obligation) is simply the corollary of a right: if one has a right, then others have a duty/obligation not to violate it.

However, you appear to believe that you have no moral obligation (at all, it turns out) to cows - or to most (any?) non-human sentient beings.

I don't see any morally-relevant different between human and non-human sentient beings with regard to the natural rights you enumerate (the right to one's life, liberty, and property). I am thus challenging you to justify the existence of morally-relevant differences.

Same page check: what do you think I mean when I talk about natural rights?

See the above.

My working answer (open to revision), then, to the question as to what those attributes are is:

Sentience, especially the capacity to feel, and most especially the capacity to suffer. This confers on that being the right not to be harmed where that harm can be avoided or minimized.

So, someone afflicted with congenital insensitivity to pain has no such right?

Insofar as harm is caused by pain: no. Perhaps a better way of framing it though is that (s)he (along with all entities) has the right all along, but it will simply never become applicable, just like the right to one's own property will never become applicable if one never acquires any property in the first place.

There are other harms-of-suffering than the infliction of physical pain though, including the infliction of emotional suffering, the suffering of deprivation, and the suffering caused by thwarting harmless preferences, wants, and desires when this is not to prevent a greater harm. The last item in the list suggests that the second attribute I listed can in part be considered to be a sub-category of the first:

The holding of preferences, wants, and desires. This confers on that being the right to have its preferences, wants, and desires respected where they don't interfere with those of other beings.

This (preferences, wants, and desires) seems to call for sumthin' more than just sentience (being able to perceive or feel).

I'm not sure what you mean here, especially what is "called for" and why. I could guess, but I'd prefer not to put words into your mouth.

My working answer: a person is a being naturally and normally capable of and subject to moral judgement. Sorry, I can't just lay out a laundry list of attributes, not without some examination of each. For example, I say only free wills are capable of and subject to moral judgement. What, then, is a free will? From there we go into agent causality vs event causality, the coherence and persistence of identity, the nature of morality, and on and on. But you wanna work backwards...*shrug*...okay, we'll work backwards.

In the context of killing animals so that you can eat them, their capacity for or subjection to moral "judgement" is not relevant. All that's relevant is the moral consideration they're due; the moral obligation we have towards them. In this context, the proper starting place is to ask what attributes of a being entitle that being to moral consideration, and why. I've described what I think are the two most important ones above, albeit that, as I've noted, the second is in part a sub-category of the first. It's strange to me that you describe this as working "backwards", especially given the context in which I challenged you.

As for free will, two points are worth making:

Firstly, I see no relevant differences that would lead me to conclude that non-human sentient beings lack free will whereas humans - including myself - possess it.

Secondly, even if I did, it does not seem to me to be a relevant attribute: a being can suffer or be harmed regardless of whether or not it can freely choose how it responds, and the capacity to suffer or be harmed is - in my view - the primary morally-relevant attribute.

Let's say that some evil scientific genius implanted in you, henry quirk, an evil device which took control of your thoughts whilst leaving you with the illusion that you retained control, and without your knowing. You feel just the same (except that maybe you have some vague intuition that something's a little odd and not quite right), but you actually no longer have free will. Would it then be morally permissible to steal from you, force you to work without compensation, torture you mercilessly for days, and, finally, pour petrol over you, ignite it, and burn you to death? If not, why not?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Which I've done (more modestly: I've offered evidences) and -- nope -- natural rights do not extend to, do not inhere in, biological roombas and crab grass. We can (but have no moral obligation to) offer humaneness to bio-machinery, not equal status.

To my ear, the ethics expressed here mirror the traditional Bible view: man the crown of creation, and the creation man’s servant or “footstool”.

A footstool in the Bible is a symbol of lowliness, humility, and unimportance. It signifies that the one using the footstool is far superior to the footstool itself. It’s amazing that, while God calls the earth His footstool, He still humbled Himself and took on human flesh to become One who lived on that footstool. And He requires that kind of meekness and humility in each of His followers (Philippians 2:5–11).

In this sense God’s godliness is extended to man or man shares in it. Imperiously, according to this view, man if he feels inclined can treat other creatures and ecological systems with “humaneness” but has no moral obligation.

Whereas if I am arguing from any theological conception, I define a different relationship between divinity and man and man and divinity. Man “wakes up” as it were to an awareness of the responsibility (on all conceivable levels) of the position he has because he has moral and intellectual power. His relationship to the created (existent) world is thus a metaphysical one: as if outside looking in. As if the only agent with the capability of seeing in moral terms.

And here “stewardship” definitely enters the picture not as an elective but as a moral obligation.

The creatures of the ecological systems, the natural systems, do not require humaneness because they are not human. They require an acute and focused awareness of their existence within delicate ecological systems of relationship.

My view does place nature and natural systems on a higher rung of required moral concern (to protect and preserve) than say that due to a chicken in a cultivated chicken farm.

[iambiguous]

It's just that those like Satyr

I was talking with Satyr by phone today. He revealed a great deal that I did not know about you. Now I understand why you are obsessed with him.

Actually, you were talking to me. I invented Satyr years ago when Julian, Rebecca and I were doing our clever imitation of "The Magus" at, among other forums, the Ponderer's Guild. And then going all the way back to Existlist at Yahoo. I revealed only what I presumed a "serious philosopher"/"pedant" of your ilk would actually be foolish enough to believe. The part about Ecmandu for example.

Although, admittedly, this might not be entirely true at all. Even I sometimes forget where the line is drawn.

Now, let's get back to this...

… and that is your description of where you stand in relation to the Questions: strung uncomfortably between relativities, unable to make decisions, fractured & fragmented, torn & damaged but loud & forceful.

But what blocks you, or the point where you get hung up, is not necessarily everyone’s confusion point.

Uh, no shit?

After all, what can you really know about the life I've lived and how my own personal experiences predisposed me existentially to embody particular moral and political prejudices. About the same as what I can know about your life, your personal experiences, your moral and political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein.

Which, again, is why religions and philosophies are invented: to convince ourselves that, either God or No God, there is a font "out there" that allows us to anchor "I" in an overarching sense of meaning and purpose.

Again, go ahead and pick one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

And here you are with IC, henry and others basically mocking them for not thinking exactly as you do about all of this.

You all actually do believe that of all the One True Paths to Enlightenment that there were, are and will be, your own really is the optimal frame of mind!!!

And that above all else you need to agree that there is in fact the One True Path.

It's just that those like Satyr will mock anyone too weak to go about all of this without a God, the God and my God to comfort and console them.

Although with you [as with phyllo] I'm still unclear regarding just how religion plays a part in allowing you to embrace your own rendition of objective morality. That and the part where in regard to your interactions with blacks and women and homosexuals and Jews, you make a distinction between yourself and the Nazis.

[Immanuel Can]

I am disinclined to pay heed to the classic picture of God assigning rights to man (the Hebrew/Christian story). That picture is demiurgic.

You're being nonsensical. It doesn't matter. Were I a Gnostic or Wiccan or a Rastafarian, your problem is the same: you haven't justified your claim that human beings have rights.

Nobody's forgetting the point: we're just noticing that you can't answer it with something a reasonable person should believe.

My view is that man arrives at or achieves high levels of consciousness...

I heard you, and was unimpressed by the empty gesture it represents. It's typical Gnostic bluffery.

Absent a criterion or criteria, you are not well-positioned even to know what's "higher" or "lower," for those are always terms relative to a norm. But since you haven't specified the norm or the criteria of "higherness," there's no substance in this claim...unless you can add your criteria now. Let's see them.

So it is best to say that man assigns rights,

Even if man were "higher," and you had criteria for knowing it (which we have not yet seen from you) there's no logic to saying man can simply "throw" his rights to other beings. You would have to prove that rights were that sort of fairy dust; that one who had some could sprinkle it on other objects and animals. That's implausible, absent any reason to believe it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I revealed only what I presumed a "serious philosopher"/"pedant" of your ilk would actually be foolish enough to believe.

What are the things that a “serious philosopher/pedant of my ilk” believe (foolishly)?

If you provide me an outline — a list — I will then be able to comment on each point.

Although with you [as with phyllo] I'm still unclear regarding just how religion plays a part in allowing you to embrace your own. rendition of objective morality That and the part where in regard to your interactions with blacks and women and homosexuals and Jews, you make a distinction between yourself and the Nazis.

If you are unsure don’t you think you need to become certain?

Does Phyllo hold tangible beliefs that you can list, and that he can verify by agreeing or disagreeing with your assessment, or do you blend various people together into a pastiche against which you then argue in your inimitable style?

What then is my “rendition of objective morality”? You refer to it, but can you define it without immense projection of your own content?

In what ways — I refer to things I’ve written on this forum — have you concluded by interactions with Blacks, women, homosexuals and Jews? Are you referring to the “pastiche person” of Satyr, Ecmandu, Alexis (and others?) or are you actually referring to me? This clarification is important.

What do you wish to discuss — again as specifically as possible — about how my metaphysical conceptions bear upon how I may view race and race-difference; the status of women; attitude about homosexuality; and about Jews and/or Judaism?

You should I think lay out what your views are since you seem to establish a polarity.

Are you a sexist? Are you a racist? Do you oppose, encourage or simply “accept” homosexuality? And what are your views in historical Judaism and the Jew in European history? Do you have any position at all?

These appear to be issues of concern for you. Why? Why do you continually refer to Nazis? Is your view that anyone, in any culture, who has what I infer are unacceptable ideas about women, homosexuality, race-difference or about Judaism (or Judeo-Christianity) more or less sympathetic to Nazism?

Can you realistically and fairly create that association?

If you make an effort to honestly clarify your relation to these questions, I will make an effort to honestly clarify my own thought in relation to them.

[Alexis Jacobi]

…

I explained to you that if you wish to engage with me on any level it must be participatory. I grant you rights to interrogate but you must also respond when interrogated.

This issue must be addressed:

The issue I have with you is that you pretend to locate your arguments, and your fundamental beliefs, in reason, and yet what you believe in is actually totally irrational.

You cannot assume the Inquisitor’s rôle as “the rational man” with the rational method or rationally determined stance, while revealing yourself as bound to irrationality.

The very foundation of your own beliefs is located in irrationality. You must make statements about this. Is it true? That is, do you believe irrational things through a pretense that they are reasonably determined?

The beliefs or stances I share have been determined in myself through processes not locked into mathematical logics. Because what is “intuition” or what is, say, the best hunch any of us do indeed come to?

You play an elaborate game — a farce really. You are insincere and you are duplicitous. You have to face these views of you that everyone here on this thread and forum share about you.

I repeat: You have to face these views of you that everyone here on this thread and forum share about you.

When you do that you will open a path to conversation with me. If you don’t no exchange will be forthcoming.

Clear?

[promethean75]

you know I can't figure out what's so difficult for people about understanding what iambiguous's generic points are.

it's really really simple man. when u - say IC or AJ - put up a theory to explain a particular phenomena or propose the existence of a thing that can't be experienced directly (like god), there is somebody else somewhere explaining the same phenomena differently, sometimes even at complete odds with your explanation, and somebody claiming a thing exists that can't be directly experienced that's different from yours (like god).

the fractured and fragmented thing of his is like a third party observer watching two people assert conflicting theories, claiming they are right and the other is wrong. for example, atheist says there's no god and I'm certain of this! theist says yes there is and i know! there are compelling arguments on both sides, so which side does the third party observer take?

this formula applies only to generally ethical problems of value and metaphysical problems like the existence of god. not to epistemological problems. his shtick is more existential.

what's he basically saying is that u are abnormal to claim to be certain about what u believe concerning these things u talk about.

bro i should be Biggs's agent huh? like i know what he's tryna say better than he does.

[Alexis Jacobi]

the fractured and fragmented thing of his is like a third party observer watching two people assert conflicting theories, claiming they are right and the other is wrong. for example, atheist says there's no god and I'm certain of this! theist says yes there is and i know! there are compelling arguments on both sides, so which side does the third party observer take?

It sure isn’t that his position or personal problem is unintelligible — anyone can get its essence immediately — it is more, for me, the degree to which he is trapped in his problem. He became his own neurotic machinery. Thus he reveals a problem, but can’t see that he is his own problem: irresolution, an incapacity to decide issues, and that he undermines any legitimate process by which a people determine values.

Now, if you are “comfortable” in that conundrum — I assume you share the same position and stance because we are all in the same position, more or motherfucking less — then take your stand there.

Define a position in which, and through which, nothing can be decided. What you will do (this is where my assertions kick in) is to create an existential and epistemological platform that dissolves itself. You will undermine your own self as an agent of decision.

The implications are extensive. The ramifications are consequential.

What is the solution? Do you bother with one? In your case (if I am correct in my perception) your solution (reaction/strategy) is postmodern irony and “playfulness”.

Decisiveness becomes an absurd (but I assume fun and entertaining) game not to be taken seriously. Everything becomes non-serious and that postmodern man (perspective really) becomes an existential strategy of applied non-seriousness.

And we see this postmodern man mount his motorcycle, stoned on combinations of mood- and perception-modifying drugs, and careen on a joy-ride through life. And that is a solution?

(Pardonnez ma métaphore).

Therefore: the 18th Chapter of the Email Course descends like an Avatar among us. Not do much written but congealed out of the metaphysical mist.

[promethean75]

the worst thing about iambiguous is not his personality or his philosophy but the fact that he has only one greatest hits album and that's all we get to hear. but really most of u do as well. at some point you're gonna feel like u gotta repeat some point you've already made a dozen or more times as if we haven't already seen u say that or are so dumb we still don't agree with u so it bears repeating.

for example i can't count how many times I've seen B post that deadly disaster wiki link list in a post. i think it's more for effect tho; the sheer number of links alone is enough. one is already terrified without having to click them. if that's his intent, then that's decent and i retract my grievance henceforth. 

but everybody does it if they've been at a forum for a while. that's why i encourage creative character, outrageousness and shinanigans at a philosophy forums, not FSKs.

That's why I always talk about myself. Well that and the fact that in the end the only thing one experiences is oneself, one's personal testimony, which is all one's philosophy is. But anyway I once did a poll at a highly, highly prestigious philosophy forum and it turned out that eighty three percent of the active members preferred to talk about me rather than Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica.