Christianity

[seeds]

This is a case where a choice must be made whether to takes a group of words in a language that are an IDIOM of that language in their literal sense or their idiomatic sense. Perhaps easier for you to see IC, if we took an example NOT from the Bible.

I'm very familiar with the concept of idiom. And in this case, It would make no difference. The inability to note the actual words in the text would always be a mental fault, not an "idiom."

It seems ChatGPT just collected the combined prejudices of people who have made that old mistake (it's astonishingly common, if you check), and reproduced their error. And seeds apparently had not the knowledge to recognize the fault.

Mike, it's not that I had no knowledge of the mythical tree's proper title, it's just that it was so obvious to me what Copilot was referring to that it never occurred to me that the forum's, again, "anal-retentive philosopher" would make such a big (nit-picking) stink about it.

And here's the kicker, Mike, I went back and reviewed the post that IC is complaining about me lacking the knowledge that would have allowed me to "...recognize the fault..." in Copilot using the phrase "Tree of Knowledge"...

...and, lo and behold, look at what Copilot wrote just a few paragraphs after its first reference to the mythic Tree (emphasis mine)...

The Paradox of Pre-Moral Responsibility

According to Genesis, Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet, if they lacked the very knowledge that would allow them to discern right from wrong, how could they understand the moral weight of disobedience?

viewtopic.php?p=791534#p791534

It seems pretty obvious that the moment the "a-r philosopher" came across Copilot's very first reference to what it called the "Tree of Knowledge," IC didn't bother reading the rest of mine and Copilot's extensive conversation.

Make no mistake about it, Mike,...

...anyone who is used to experiencing the A-R P's debate tactics will immediately recognize this as being his classic and patented way of refocusing (deflecting / sidetracking) the conversation away from the initial criticisms of something he said, and onto a totally irrelevant, strawman-ish issue in order to avoid addressing the real issues.

Credit where credit is due --> IC is a master at avoidance and deflection, for by the time his victims have exhausted all of their energy arguing with him about some trivial, side-tracking issue he raises, they have completely forgotten about the initial argument from which the side-tracking branched-off of.
_______

[Belinda]

Well, "I like the result" is not necessarily the wisest way to locate truth, as a moment's reflection will make you aware. Sometimes the truth makes demands of us, even when we don't want to acknowledge them.

One demand truth makes is that we be able to explain to ourselves why bad things happen. We need to explain it to ourselves, because we all live with the reality of it, and can't deny it. Some some sort of explanation, be it conscious or only implicit, will govern our choice of methods for coping with that fact.

So what would your explanation be for the existence of evil, once you've suppositionally eliminated human beings as the possible source?

My explanation for the existence of evil is the capacity for suffering that pertains to mammals, birds, fish, and insects .

All that says is that things suffer. It doesn't say that's "evil" in any sense. In fact, it says it's neither good nor evil, but just a harsh fact.

...better to live with questions one cannot answer than to live with answers that nobody questions.

That sounds like a line you've heard before, I have to say. A partial truth, at the very most. The problem with it, of course, is knowing the difference. How does one know one cannot answer, and when is one guilty of giving up on a difficult question one could answer, and ought to be able to answer? If it's the latter, than that saying is just a counsel of refusal to think.

But in the matter of evil, we have no choice but to seek an answer. Because we have to live with evil, and we have no choice but to act, we will always, either consciously or unconsciously, be acting on a theory of evil. You may not know yet what yours is; but perhaps this is the moment to move it from tacitly-assumed to intelligibly-grasped.

So what intelligible theory of evil can you suggest to yourself?

Evil pertains to subjects of experience. Evil does not float around the metaphysical Cosmos like a homeless ghost. Evil is the subjective absence of good, and is experienced as subjective suffering, and as moral evaluation. 'Evil' is a word that modifies ideas, and is not a word that names events or things in themselves.

Which religious sect do you belong to, Immanuel? I understand that some sects and religions think of Evil as a thing, and they sometimes call this thing "the Devil".

[Alexis Jacobi]

So what intelligible theory of evil can you suggest to yourself?

At least on one level an answer is really quite easy: nature is intolerable to human idealism. It is (when realistically examined) an utterly cruel and unthinking — blind — elemental and biological machine where “creatures must devour creatures” in order to survive.

Man recognizes that the platform of life is just that but also completely unstable and mutable. That logically produces anguish. How can a thinking and feeling man accept that that is the world into which he incarnates? An animal cannot reflect on this, but man indeed reflects: and he conceives of ‘reasons’ as to how he ended up here and then about alternatives — ways out of the trap.

You invest in just this with your ‘belief in’ the A&E story: man fell into the conditional world by way of a bad decision by forebears. All the negatives of biological mortality are pictured in the story. Cain’s murder of Able depicts decisive ‘evil’. But men always fight other men just as animals must fight for dominance. Evil is the game of “survival of the fittest”. Nature demands that man demean himself in the fight.

As to pathological evil — torture, the pleasure got through harming others, revenge-motives, and many sexual crimes: all of this is built into the system. In a sense, living in such a cruel world, pathological reaction is to be expected.

In fact Immanuel it is you who do not have a realistic and ‘intelligible’ description of why acts we define as evil occur, and thus no viable theory.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And if you're not lying, then I think you are a troublemaker whose actions (voting for Kamala) do not match his white nationalist leanings and rhetoric.

Me? A troublemaker?! This is an outrage!!

I definitely voted against the Democrat regime my dear Sr Semillas. I already explained my reasons.

Is it that you wish to discuss what I think about how things are shaping up?

Can you outline any questions in simple interrogatives?

The question of “white nationalism” can also be discussed but I myself do not have a specific ‘rhetoric’ about it, and it is more that I am aware of those who do. I pay attention.

You are an over-excited, injudicious and prejudiced reader of what I write. I can wish that you’d not behave like this till the proverbial cow jumps over the moon, but I doubt this will change how you read or behave.

[Immanuel Can]

My explanation for the existence of evil is the capacity for suffering that pertains to mammals, birds, fish, and insects .

All that says is that things suffer. It doesn't say that's "evil" in any sense. In fact, it says it's neither good nor evil, but just a harsh fact.

...better to live with questions one cannot answer than to live with answers that nobody questions.

That sounds like a line you've heard before, I have to say. A partial truth, at the very most. The problem with it, of course, is knowing the difference. How does one know one cannot answer, and when is one guilty of giving up on a difficult question one could answer, and ought to be able to answer? If it's the latter, than that saying is just a counsel of refusal to think.

But in the matter of evil, we have no choice but to seek an answer. Because we have to live with evil, and we have no choice but to act, we will always, either consciously or unconsciously, be acting on a theory of evil. You may not know yet what yours is; but perhaps this is the moment to move it from tacitly-assumed to intelligibly-grasped.

So what intelligible theory of evil can you suggest to yourself?

Evil pertains to subjects of experience. Evil does not float around the metaphysical Cosmos like a homeless ghost. Evil is the subjective absence of good, and is experienced as subjective suffering, and as moral evaluation. 'Evil' is a word that modifies ideas, and is not a word that names events or things in themselves.

So the full meaning of "evil," to you, would have to be, "Belinda doesn't like..." The things that happen to her are just "found unpleasant," so to speak.

But if that were the case, then racism, rape and genocide would only be wrong because Belinda (and perhaps some of those who agree with her, though why that should follow is unclear) doesn't like racism, rape and genocide. But if somebody else does like to do those things, then they aren't, in any durable or objective sense, "evil." In fact, for him, they might be as close to "good" as anything can ever be...because in Belinda's described world, there is actually no such things as "good and evil," because they're merely subjective feelings.

Have I got that right? Or do you think there's some objectivity behind your attribution of things like racism, rape or genocide as actually "evil"? And if so, what would that objectivity be derived from, since feelings cannot provide that?

Which religious sect do you belong to, Immanuel?

I'm neither religious nor sectarian, actually. I'm a Christian. But you knew that already, so I'm amazed you asked.

[Immanuel Can]

So what intelligible theory of evil can you suggest to yourself?

At least on one level an answer is really quite easy: nature is intolerable to human idealism.

So evil means, "not ideal"? But whose "ideal" gets to count, in that? And why should something yet-unrealized, as all ideals are, be a grounds for any objective categorization of something as "evil"? How many purely imaginary things get to determine our value judgments, and why should any?

It is (when realistically examined) an utterly cruel and unthinking — blind — elemental and biological machine where “creatures must devour creatures” in order to survive.

That can't be right. A lion pulls down a gazelle...and we call it "evil"? Why? He just calls it, "what lions do," or "dinner." Why should a moral attribution from another species, the human, be added to that?

Man recognizes that the platform of life is just that but also completely unstable and mutable. That logically produces anguish. How can a thinking and feeling man accept that that is the world into which he incarnates? An animal cannot reflect on this, but man indeed reflects: and he conceives of ‘reasons’ as to how he ended up here and then about alternatives — ways out of the trap.

Then, like Belinda, all you're suggesting is that "evil" means, "AJ doesn't like..." But what one likes or dislikes is both variable and merely subjective. So there's no grounds in such an account for attributing any quality of objective "evil" to the event or situation. It's 100% about liking and disliking, then.

Evil is the game of “survival of the fittest”. Nature demands that man demean himself in the fight.

Why is that order which you call "natural" deserving of also being characterized as "evil," then? Is not the most we can say, "whatever is, simply is: it's neither good nor bad, but just what is." We have appeared in an indifferent universe, caught in a cycle of "survival of the fittest"; we might not like that, or we might -- Social Darwinists, and eugenecists, for example, think it's fine -- but what makes this "evil"?

In fact Immanuel it is you who do not have a realistic and ‘intelligible’ description of why acts we define as evil occur,

That's a mere "et tu quoque" fallacy, of course -- were it true that I have no such theory, it would not mean you did. It would just mean that NEITHER of us had any justification for the word "evil," not that you would suddenly acquire one.

So it's not relevant to the question at all. As it happens, I think I do have such a theory. Even if I were wrong about that, it would not help you and Belinda explain YOUR use of the term "evil." It would only signal that NOBODY had a right to.

But let's see if you or Belinda can pull off a plausible secular identification of "evil," and then I'll repeat what I have already said in that regard, in other contexts...and you can, again, ignore it at your leisure.

[Belinda]

You said it, Immanuel:-

Then, like Belinda, all you're suggesting is that "evil" means, "AJ doesn't like..." But what one likes or dislikes is both variable and merely subjective. So there's no grounds in such an account for attributing any quality of objective "evil" to the event or situation. It's 100% about liking and disliking, then.

The most objective you can get is ( mutually inclusively) the law of the land, religious moral codes, and folk traditions.

[Gary Childress]

In fact Immanuel it is you who do not have a realistic and ‘intelligible’ description of why acts we define as evil occur,

That's a mere "et tu quoque" fallacy, of course -- were it true that I have no such theory, it would not mean you did. It would just mean that NEITHER of us had any justification for the word "evil," not that you would suddenly acquire one.

So it's not relevant to the question at all. As it happens, I think I do have such a theory. Even if I were wrong about that, it would not help you and Belinda explain YOUR use of the term "evil." It would only signal that NOBODY had a right to.

But let's see if you or Belinda can pull off a plausible secular identification of "evil," and then I'll repeat what I have already said in that regard, in other contexts...and you can, again, ignore it at your leisure.

So your "theory" is that "evil" is only that which God calls "evil", is that correct? Or, if not, what is your theory of what "evil" means or refers to?

[Immanuel Can]

You said it, Immanuel:-

Then, like Belinda, all you're suggesting is that "evil" means, "AJ doesn't like..." But what one likes or dislikes is both variable and merely subjective. So there's no grounds in such an account for attributing any quality of objective "evil" to the event or situation. It's 100% about liking and disliking, then.

The most objective you can get is ( mutually inclusively) the law of the land, religious moral codes, and folk traditions.

But they're not at all mutually inclusive, as it happens. American human rights are not the caste system. British citizenship is not Sharia. Modern jurisprudence in Western climes is not The Code of Hammurabi or tribal vendettas. They don't line up -- at all. Which would mean that "evil," again, means "most (current) Brits or Americans don't like...," a conclusion no more durable than the next wave of immigration or the next change of fashion. Islamists do love violence. That's crystal clear. How can it be "evil" for them to slit throats on a beach, since evil does not have any stable meaning in the vocabulary you're providing?

And again, clearly, BLM or Free Palestine say that burning businesses, blocking streets, beating Jewish, Korean and even black shopkeepers, or throwing bricks at police stations is "good." By what standard do we judge whether their "mostly peaceful protesting" is good or evil?

In short, your definition of "evil," so far, lacks any stable content at all. It can't give even you enough reason for a belief in objective "evil" of any kind.

And if it can't, then how can a secularist even suppose that there is a "problem of evil" in this world to be solved? His own ideology denies that there can be any such thing.

[Immanuel Can]

In fact Immanuel it is you who do not have a realistic and ‘intelligible’ description of why acts we define as evil occur,

That's a mere "et tu quoque" fallacy, of course -- were it true that I have no such theory, it would not mean you did. It would just mean that NEITHER of us had any justification for the word "evil," not that you would suddenly acquire one.

So it's not relevant to the question at all. As it happens, I think I do have such a theory. Even if I were wrong about that, it would not help you and Belinda explain YOUR use of the term "evil." It would only signal that NOBODY had a right to.

But let's see if you or Belinda can pull off a plausible secular identification of "evil," and then I'll repeat what I have already said in that regard, in other contexts...and you can, again, ignore it at your leisure.

So your "theory" is that "evil" is only that which God calls "evil", is that correct? Or, if not, what is your theory of what "evil" means or refers to?

I'm pointing out that until you solve the secular problem of evil, there IS no "problem of evil." There's nobody capable of even alleging such a thing, so long as he remains committed to the idea that "evil" cannot be objective.

[Gary Childress]

That's a mere "et tu quoque" fallacy, of course -- were it true that I have no such theory, it would not mean you did. It would just mean that NEITHER of us had any justification for the word "evil," not that you would suddenly acquire one.

So it's not relevant to the question at all. As it happens, I think I do have such a theory. Even if I were wrong about that, it would not help you and Belinda explain YOUR use of the term "evil." It would only signal that NOBODY had a right to.

But let's see if you or Belinda can pull off a plausible secular identification of "evil," and then I'll repeat what I have already said in that regard, in other contexts...and you can, again, ignore it at your leisure.

So your "theory" is that "evil" is only that which God calls "evil", is that correct? Or, if not, what is your theory of what "evil" means or refers to?

I'm pointing out that until you solve the secular problem of evil, there IS no "problem of evil." There's nobody capable of even alleging such a thing, so long as he remains committed to the idea that "evil" cannot be objective.

I see, so if God does things that God himself would call "evil" if we did them, it is just a fallacy of et tu quoque for us to conclude that they therefore must not be evil because God himself does them? Is that correct?

[Immanuel Can]

So your "theory" is that "evil" is only that which God calls "evil", is that correct? Or, if not, what is your theory of what "evil" means or refers to?

I'm pointing out that until you solve the secular problem of evil, there IS no "problem of evil." There's nobody capable of even alleging such a thing, so long as he remains committed to the idea that "evil" cannot be objective.

I see, so if God does things that God himself would call "evil" if we did them, it is just a fallacy of et tu quoque for us to conclude that they therefore must not be evil because God himself does them? Is that correct?

No, it's an et tu quoque fallacy to argue, "if you can't, I can." It does not follow. The inability of one does not signal the ability of the other. To prove one can, one has to actually be able to show how one can DO the thing implicated.

And I believe I can. But whether or not I can will not make the slightest change to the secular problem.

[Gary Childress]

I'm pointing out that until you solve the secular problem of evil, there IS no "problem of evil." There's nobody capable of even alleging such a thing, so long as he remains committed to the idea that "evil" cannot be objective.

I see, so if God does things that God himself would call "evil" if we did them, it is just a fallacy of et tu quoque for us to conclude that they therefore must not be evil because God himself does them? Is that correct?

No, it's an et tu quoque fallacy to argue, "if you can't, I can." It does not follow.

Not sure if that is an tu quoque fallacy or not but I do know that it is a tu quoque fallacy to conclude that if someone destroys a dam which then flood a village and kills all the villagers and then tells us not to do that ourselves, then it is a tu quoque fallacy to say it is not evil because "you did it too".

I'll look up the definitions a little closer. BRB

[Gary Childress]

So I looked in my old logic book and it did not have et tu quoque specifically mentioned in the chapter on fallacies of relevance. But Googling brought me the following definition:

he tu quoque fallacy, Latin for "you too," is a logical fallacy and a form of ad hominem argument where someone attempts to discredit an argument by pointing out the hypocrisy or inconsistency of the person making the argument, rather than addressing the argument's actual merits. For example, if someone says smoking is bad for your health, and the other person replies, "Well, you smoke too," they are committing the tu quoque fallacy because the person's hypocrisy doesn't change the truth that smoking is bad for your health.

How it works

Person 1 makes an argument (X) .

Person 2 responds by pointing out that Person 1 is acting inconsistently with their own claim or has previously done something contradictory to X .

Person 2 then concludes that argument X must be false, even though Person 1's past actions or hypocrisy are irrelevant to the factual truth of X.

Examples

Health advice:

A parent tells their child, "You shouldn't eat so much junk food; it's bad for you," and the child responds, "But you eat junk food all the time!".

Political debate:

Politician A criticizes Politician B's proposed policy. Politician B responds by pointing out a previous inconsistent stance or action of Politician A, trying to discredit the criticism itself rather than the policy.

Why it's a fallacy
Irrelevance:

An individual's past actions or inconsistencies do not change the validity or truthfulness of an argument they are making.
Ad hominem nature: The tu quoque fallacy attacks the character or actions of the person presenting the argument instead of the logic or evidence supporting it.

Distraction: It functions as a way to deflect criticism by shifting the focus from the core issue to the accuser's flaws or perceived hypocrisy.

First off, do you agree with the above definition of an et tu quoque fallacy? And if not, what do you understand to be the definition of et tu quoque?

[Gary Childress]

Actually, I just found the section in my old college logic book that deals with tu quoque I was looking at it starting with an "e". It's roughly the same definition as the one I Googled.