Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:58 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 8:52 pm Since the Democrat Party would not exist for 50 years after the founding of the U.S., this is clearly a lie.

Let's revise: they were the same people who were to become the Democrats, to own slaves, to fight against the North that was trying to free them, to impose Segregation, and to fight against Civil Rights, and to establish the KKK...and now to sack black neighbourhoods in order to advance their Socialist aspirations...in other words, the Democrats.

Happy now?

Uh IC, You are correct in that when I was young, the "Dixiecrats"were in the Democrat Party. However, starting in the early 60's, began switching over. They are now all in the Republican Party. (again when I was young, the Republican Party, while always conservative on fiscal matters, was more liberal on social issues. Will repeat, now REPUBLICANS.

The Democrat Party was not "socialist" (or involved with workers/poor people) before 1911 (will explain). There was an active Socialist Party back then with Debbs regularly getting about 10% of the vote and numerous cities had socialist mayors, etc.

In 1911 was the famous Triangle Fire in NYC. The famously corrupt Tammany Hall machine decided the resulting public anger could be a source of votes, so assigned a couple of their less tainted "braves" to head investigation committees (one was Al Smith, who rose to becoming the Democrat candidate for President 1928). This Tammany Hall ploy worked, they got votes from it, and this began a shift of the Democrat Party, mainly at the expense of the Socialists. But ALSO keep in mind the Progressives who were being forced out of the Republican Party.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 2:38 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:58 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 8:52 pm Since the Democrat Party would not exist for 50 years after the founding of the U.S., this is clearly a lie.

Let's revise: they were the same people who were to become the Democrats, to own slaves, to fight against the North that was trying to free them, to impose Segregation, and to fight against Civil Rights, and to establish the KKK...and now to sack black neighbourhoods in order to advance their Socialist aspirations...in other words, the Democrats.

Happy now?

Uh IC, You are correct in that when I was young, the "Dixiecrats"were in the Democrat Party. However, starting in the early 60's, began switching over. They are now all in the Republican Party.

Ah, yes...the Myth of "The Great Southern Strategy," allegedly of the Nixon years....yes, we've all been told the story. Unfortunately, history...once again, that inconvenient thing, proves the theory wrong. Only one Dixiecrat crossed the floor: Strom Thurmond (1964). The rest stayed happily nested in the Democrat party. And there was no general shift in attitude among Republicans, though the Dems finally gave up on defending "Southern culture" and Segregation, and made a move to present themselves as on the winning side, as they'd already lost the Civil Rights battle in public opinion.

And the black vote switched to the Dems, alright, but not then...in the 1930s, as a result of the "New Deal," and with much lament, as Southern blacks realized they were leaving the party of anti-slavery for the party of the KKK and Segregation (still, at that time), but with the hope of much bigger government handouts -- the promise of which proved ultimately dusty. So they sold out for a promise.

Nowadays, the Dems are the party of predatory Socialism: Socialism for everybody else, that is, but 413 million dollars for Nancy Pelosi types. And I marvel at it: how can the American people believe these people have the public interest in mind, when they keep employing their offices purely for personal enrichment? But that's what Socialism has always been, if we know the history of Socialism. And that is also why they claim to "see what is possible, unburdened by what has been." "What has been" is the entire history of Socialism, and the entire history of the Dems. No wonder they want to be "unburdened" by it. But they are simply being dishonest when they claim that "burden" can be shifted.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:08 am I am going to argue
"If a moral system applied to a situation and choice of action always gives the same evaluation as a known valid moral system applied to that same situation and choice of action, then it is also a valid system".

Not logical. You can't make an irrational system rational merely if some precept it has happens to or seems to agree with something else. That is to say, IF (and there's no such thing, according to Secularism) there were some "known valid" moral system you could use as the metric, having some accidental and non-rationalized overlap with an arbitrary or non-valid code would not make that non-valid code into a valid one.

Do you agree with that or not.

(rearranged)
No, for the reasons above. It's illogical.
[/quote]

Besides, Secularism has no valid moral system one could use in order to achieve such a magical transformation, even if it were rational to suppose one could...which it clearly isn't.
[/quote]

Remember IC, I am trying to argue starting from what I think YOU consider valid. You are claiming "the divinely given moral system is valid" That means YOU claim a valid moral system exists". I then suggest that could serve as "the metric". You now SEEM to be saying, it doesn't matter if some secular moral system happened to match 1:1, the secular moral system would STILL be invalid.

WHY?
You SEEM to be saying the secular moral system would still be invalid EVEN IF it always gave the same results as your valid divine moral system. It means were you observing the behavior of a person in various situations, choosing actions, being judged right or wrong YOU COULD NOT TELL whether this person was using the divine moral system or a secular moral system (that always gave the same evaluation).

I guess that's why you are saying that the general case is not different than the specific case (no secular system could match vs this specific secular system doesn't match). Because you are now saying MATCHING RESULTS not meaningful. I take that to mean that perhaps you do not agree with the PURPOSE of moral systems (to guide our actions, so that we know whether we are acting rightly or wrongly). You MUST have something extra in there and I'm trying to get you to say what it is (from the very fact that you seem concerned with WHERE the rules of the secular system come from I believe I could make a shrewd guess)

The problem then is that the secularist thinks the PURPOSE of a valid moral system is as I described, no additions, no "and also".

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:23 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:08 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:08 amNot logical. You can't make an irrational system rational merely if some precept it has happens to or seems to agree with something else. That is to say, IF (and there's no such thing, according to Secularism) there were some "known valid" moral system you could use as the metric, having some accidental and non-rationalized overlap with an arbitrary or non-valid code would not make that non-valid code into a valid one.

(rearranged)
No, for the reasons above. It's illogical.

Besides, Secularism has no valid moral system one could use in order to achieve such a magical transformation, even if it were rational to suppose one could...which it clearly isn't.

Remember IC, I am trying to argue starting from what I think YOU consider valid.

Then stop. The language you’re using is misleading. Don’t use the word “valid,” unless you mean what it means in philosophy specifically, not what it means in street language. In philosophy, nobody can “consider something valid”: it either is “valid,” (meaning, formally correct) or it is not. There’s no possibility of being otherwise. “Valid” refers only to the form of the argument, not its content. To talk about the part of the equation a person can “consider” or “not consider,” and have it make a difference, we use the word “truth."

What you are trying to say, I think, is “I’m trying to argue starting from what you think is true.” But that doesn’t matter here, because the claim is about Secularism, not about anything I do or don’t think is true. The argument against Secularism is a secular argument. It has, and needs, no religious component. It’s purely based on what is deducible from Secularism itself.

You are claiming "the divinely given moral system is valid"

Show where I’ve said that, and made it any premise of my argument against Secularism. Or save yourself the trouble; because you’ll find I never have.

You SEEM to be saying the secular moral system would still be invalid EVEN IF it always gave the same results as your valid divine moral system.

I’m saying Secularism would STILL have no rationale for that “result.” So it would maybe have arrived at a correct conclusion, but only by illogical and accidental methods.

In other words, it would not happen as a result of Secularism, but as a result of a mere coincidence about which the logical Secularist could form no explanation. Secularism would still be illogical. It would just be fortunate enough to get one thing right.

As they say, “Even a broken clock is right twice in 24 hours.” That doesn’t mean the broken clock is actually functioning to achieve that result.

...you are now saying MATCHING RESULTS not meaningful.

No, I’m saying it’s accidental. It’s pure good fortune if a Secular moralist ever does come to believe anything that might coincide with truth, and that the coincidence owes nothing whatsoever to Secularism, which still cannot explain even one moral precept. Nor can Secularism itself provide any reason for a Secularist to think moral truth even exists.

So Secularism is utterly useless in the moral realm. It cannot offer anything to the rightness or wrongness of any moral “result."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:38 pm

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:23 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:08 am
Besides, Secularism has no valid moral system one could use in order to achieve such a magical transformation, even if it were rational to suppose one could...which it clearly isn't.

Remember IC, I am trying to argue starting from what I think YOU consider valid.

Then stop. The language you’re using is misleading. Don’t use the word “valid,” unless you mean what it means in philosophy specifically, not what it means in street language. In philosophy, nobody can “consider something valid”: it either is “valid,” (meaning, formally correct) or it is not. There’s no possibility of being otherwise. “Valid” refers only to the form of the argument, not its content. To talk about the part of the equation a person can “consider” or “not consider,” and have it make a difference, we use the word “truth."

What you are trying to say, I think, is “I’m trying to argue starting from what you think is true.” But that doesn’t matter here, because the claim is about Secularism, not about anything I do or don’t think is true. The argument against Secularism is a secular argument. It has, and needs, no religious component. It’s purely based on what is deducible from Secularism itself.

You are claiming "the divinely given moral system is valid"

Show where I’ve said that, and made it any premise of my argument against Secularism. Or save yourself the trouble; because you’ll find I never have.

You SEEM to be saying the secular moral system would still be invalid EVEN IF it always gave the same results as your valid divine moral system.

I’m saying Secularism would STILL have no rationale for that “result.” So it would maybe have arrived at a correct conclusion, but only by illogical and accidental methods.

In other words, it would not happen as a result of Secularism, but as a result of a mere coincidence about which the logical Secularist could form no explanation. Secularism would still be illogical. It would just be fortunate enough to get one thing right.

As they say, “Even a broken clock is right twice in 24 hours.” That doesn’t mean the broken clock is actually functioning to achieve that result.

...you are now saying MATCHING RESULTS not meaningful.

No, I’m saying it’s accidental. It’s pure good fortune if a Secular moralist ever does come to believe anything that might coincide with truth, and that the coincidence owes nothing whatsoever to Secularism, which still cannot explain even one moral precept. Nor can Secularism itself provide any reason for a Secularist to think moral truth even exists.

So Secularism is utterly useless in the moral realm. It cannot offer anything to the rightness or wrongness of any moral “result."

But secular beliefs evolved from Roman Christianity via Protestantism and the printing press, political revolutions, and the age of reason. Secular people mostly retain the same moral code as any liberally religionist people but dispense with the supernatural myth of Christ.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:56 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:38 pm

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:23 pm
Remember IC, I am trying to argue starting from what I think YOU consider valid.

Then stop. The language you’re using is misleading. Don’t use the word “valid,” unless you mean what it means in philosophy specifically, not what it means in street language. In philosophy, nobody can “consider something valid”: it either is “valid,” (meaning, formally correct) or it is not. There’s no possibility of being otherwise. “Valid” refers only to the form of the argument, not its content. To talk about the part of the equation a person can “consider” or “not consider,” and have it make a difference, we use the word “truth."

What you are trying to say, I think, is “I’m trying to argue starting from what you think is true.” But that doesn’t matter here, because the claim is about Secularism, not about anything I do or don’t think is true. The argument against Secularism is a secular argument. It has, and needs, no religious component. It’s purely based on what is deducible from Secularism itself.

You are claiming "the divinely given moral system is valid"

Show where I’ve said that, and made it any premise of my argument against Secularism. Or save yourself the trouble; because you’ll find I never have.

You SEEM to be saying the secular moral system would still be invalid EVEN IF it always gave the same results as your valid divine moral system.

I’m saying Secularism would STILL have no rationale for that “result.” So it would maybe have arrived at a correct conclusion, but only by illogical and accidental methods.

In other words, it would not happen as a result of Secularism, but as a result of a mere coincidence about which the logical Secularist could form no explanation. Secularism would still be illogical. It would just be fortunate enough to get one thing right.

As they say, “Even a broken clock is right twice in 24 hours.” That doesn’t mean the broken clock is actually functioning to achieve that result.

...you are now saying MATCHING RESULTS not meaningful.

No, I’m saying it’s accidental. It’s pure good fortune if a Secular moralist ever does come to believe anything that might coincide with truth, and that the coincidence owes nothing whatsoever to Secularism, which still cannot explain even one moral precept. Nor can Secularism itself provide any reason for a Secularist to think moral truth even exists.

So Secularism is utterly useless in the moral realm. It cannot offer anything to the rightness or wrongness of any moral “result."

But secular beliefs evolved from Roman Christianity via Protestantism and the printing press, political revolutions, and the age of reason.

The term “the Age of Reason” has turned out to be a bit of a historical joke, actually. It turned out that knowledge neither magically appeared in the 18th Century, nor persisted afterward. Two world wars pretty much cured us of our illusions about that story.

But there’s a sense in which you’re right: namely, that the term “secular” is ironically a “religious” term. It designates that area of things that are not “sacred.” As such, it began as a neutral term, and one of utility within religious discourses. It distinguished what was considered “sacred” from what was considered merely “profane” or “common.”

However, “Secularism” is a little more than that. (Note the “-ism” suffix, designating it as a belief system, not merely as an adjective). Secularism is, according to Britannica: "a worldview or political principle that separates religion from other realms of human existence, often putting greater emphasis on nonreligious aspects of human life or, more specifically, separating religion from the political realm.” That’s not a perfect definition, and Britannica goes on to criticize the holes in it’s own attempt, and point out how difficult it is to nail down that concept precisely; but it will serve you and me for the present discussion. The key thing is that it’s “a worldview or political principle,” i.e. a belief, not just an adjective designating “not sacred.”

Secular people mostly retain the same moral code as any liberally religionist people but dispense with the supernatural myth of Christ.

What Secular people do is actually irrational and inconsistent with the basic principle of Secularism, then. They’re just behaving like illogical and unthinking followers, at best, or outright hypocrites, at worst. For they have no principle or worldview basis for any belief in such things, and must be borrowing them from some system alien to what they profess to believe, perhaps in an ignorant and unthinking way. What they cannot be doing is grounding such a “code” in Secularism itself, because Secularism has no such basis to offer them.

That’s the point. A “secular” person can be very nice; many of my secular friends are. But it will never be a product of their Secularism, but of something else, because Secularism cannot help them with that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:14 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:56 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:38 pm
Then stop. The language you’re using is misleading. Don’t use the word “valid,” unless you mean what it means in philosophy specifically, not what it means in street language. In philosophy, nobody can “consider something valid”: it either is “valid,” (meaning, formally correct) or it is not. There’s no possibility of being otherwise. “Valid” refers only to the form of the argument, not its content. To talk about the part of the equation a person can “consider” or “not consider,” and have it make a difference, we use the word “truth."

What you are trying to say, I think, is “I’m trying to argue starting from what you think is true.” But that doesn’t matter here, because the claim is about Secularism, not about anything I do or don’t think is true. The argument against Secularism is a secular argument. It has, and needs, no religious component. It’s purely based on what is deducible from Secularism itself.


Show where I’ve said that, and made it any premise of my argument against Secularism. Or save yourself the trouble; because you’ll find I never have.

I’m saying Secularism would STILL have no rationale for that “result.” So it would maybe have arrived at a correct conclusion, but only by illogical and accidental methods.

In other words, it would not happen as a result of Secularism, but as a result of a mere coincidence about which the logical Secularist could form no explanation. Secularism would still be illogical. It would just be fortunate enough to get one thing right.

As they say, “Even a broken clock is right twice in 24 hours.” That doesn’t mean the broken clock is actually functioning to achieve that result.


No, I’m saying it’s accidental. It’s pure good fortune if a Secular moralist ever does come to believe anything that might coincide with truth, and that the coincidence owes nothing whatsoever to Secularism, which still cannot explain even one moral precept. Nor can Secularism itself provide any reason for a Secularist to think moral truth even exists.

So Secularism is utterly useless in the moral realm. It cannot offer anything to the rightness or wrongness of any moral “result."

But secular beliefs evolved from Roman Christianity via Protestantism and the printing press, political revolutions, and the age of reason.

The term “the Age of Reason” has turned out to be a bit of a historical joke, actually. It turned out that knowledge neither magically appeared in the 18th Century, nor persisted afterward. Two world wars pretty much cured us of our illusions about that story.

But there’s a sense in which you’re right: namely, that the term “secular” is ironically a “religious” term. It designates that area of things that are not “sacred.” As such, it began as a neutral term, and one of utility within religious discourses. It distinguished what was considered “sacred” from what was considered merely “profane” or “common.”

However, “Secularism” is a little more than that. (Note the “-ism” suffix, designating it as a belief system, not merely as an adjective). Secularism is, according to Britannica: "a worldview or political principle that separates religion from other realms of human existence, often putting greater emphasis on nonreligious aspects of human life or, more specifically, separating religion from the political realm.” That’s not a perfect definition, and Britannica goes on to criticize the holes in it’s own attempt, and point out how difficult it is to nail down that concept precisely; but it will serve you and me for the present discussion. The key thing is that it’s “a worldview or political principle,” i.e. a belief, not just an adjective designating “not sacred.”

Secular people mostly retain the same moral code as any liberally religionist people but dispense with the supernatural myth of Christ.

What Secular people do is actually irrational and inconsistent with the basic principle of Secularism, then. They’re just behaving like illogical and unthinking followers, at best, or outright hypocrites, at worst. For they have no principle or worldview basis for any belief in such things, and must be borrowing them from some system alien to what they profess to believe, perhaps in an ignorant and unthinking way. What they cannot be doing is grounding such a “code” in Secularism itself, because Secularism has no such basis to offer them.

That’s the point. A “secular” person can be very nice; many of my secular friends are. But it will never be a product of their Secularism, but of something else, because Secularism cannot help them with that.

The iconic Jesus of Nazareth is more powerful and more flexible than you seem to think.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:17 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:14 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:56 pm
But secular beliefs evolved from Roman Christianity via Protestantism and the printing press, political revolutions, and the age of reason.

The term “the Age of Reason” has turned out to be a bit of a historical joke, actually. It turned out that knowledge neither magically appeared in the 18th Century, nor persisted afterward. Two world wars pretty much cured us of our illusions about that story.

But there’s a sense in which you’re right: namely, that the term “secular” is ironically a “religious” term. It designates that area of things that are not “sacred.” As such, it began as a neutral term, and one of utility within religious discourses. It distinguished what was considered “sacred” from what was considered merely “profane” or “common.”

However, “Secularism” is a little more than that. (Note the “-ism” suffix, designating it as a belief system, not merely as an adjective). Secularism is, according to Britannica: "a worldview or political principle that separates religion from other realms of human existence, often putting greater emphasis on nonreligious aspects of human life or, more specifically, separating religion from the political realm.” That’s not a perfect definition, and Britannica goes on to criticize the holes in it’s own attempt, and point out how difficult it is to nail down that concept precisely; but it will serve you and me for the present discussion. The key thing is that it’s “a worldview or political principle,” i.e. a belief, not just an adjective designating “not sacred.”

Secular people mostly retain the same moral code as any liberally religionist people but dispense with the supernatural myth of Christ.

What Secular people do is actually irrational and inconsistent with the basic principle of Secularism, then. They’re just behaving like illogical and unthinking followers, at best, or outright hypocrites, at worst. For they have no principle or worldview basis for any belief in such things, and must be borrowing them from some system alien to what they profess to believe, perhaps in an ignorant and unthinking way. What they cannot be doing is grounding such a “code” in Secularism itself, because Secularism has no such basis to offer them.

That’s the point. A “secular” person can be very nice; many of my secular friends are. But it will never be a product of their Secularism, but of something else, because Secularism cannot help them with that.

The iconic Jesus of Nazareth is more powerful and more flexible than you seem to think.

Your response has nothing to do with anything I said.

What the term "valid" means depends on what is describing. You are quite correct, in "valid argument" it means derivable via the rules of logic.

But here we are not using it to describe an argument (I certainly am not). I'm using it to describe a set of rules used as variables of a function J, a function which takes variables situation, choice of action, and moral rule set and results in a judgement, right or wrong. I am saying a rule set is valid if/f those judgements for all situations and all choices of action are true/correct/etc. If you like, propose a different word for that, I don't care, but I disbelieve you if you claim you did not know I was using it in a sense like that instead of formally derivable.

ARE you trying to argue that your divinely given rule set is derivable? From what?

In any case, the actual secularist has proposed a basis, and from that derived a rule set. You can argue that a specific rule set cannot be derived from a particular basis, but unclear to me how you could argue NO RULE SET could be validly derived from ANY BASIS. Yes, we have not yet addressed whether that rule set valid for resulting in true/correct judgements. Don't yet know if ANY exist. Not gotten that far.

You say "I have a divinely given rule set". You say EVEN IF some other rule set (not divinely given) always gave the same evaluations there would be something wrong with it, that it would be lacking in some quality THAT WE ASK OF A MORAL SYSTEM << lacking in some OTHER way another matter >>

The PURPOSE of a moral system (according to some secularist) might be "in all situations, let me know which choices of action are right or wrong". The secularist, because of going by this purpose, would consider two moral systems that always gave the same evaluation equivalent. You say not so, and that whether always giving the same evaluation is irrelevant. I say tat then you must have a different purpose, an "and"

Please IC, I'm not going to say that THIS EXAMPLE is your "and". Just saying I could picture a person who was arguing "only the moral system given by god is usable/correct/etc. because "the PURPOSE of a moral system is to in all situation let me know whether choices of action are right or wrong AND at the same time give me assurance that my choices of action are in accordance with god's will". Well now I do understand that person claiming "my divinely given moral system is correct and no secular system could be" (even if the judgements matched 1:1)

But that's a meaningless disagreement. The secularist would certainly agree "well if THAT is what you ask of a proper moral system, yeah, mine doesn't do that. But we are disagreeing about what a proper moral system IS. I don''t ask my moral system to give me assurance the choices of action are in accordance with the non-existent will of a non-existent being" That would be ridiculous.

Like I said, IC, I don't know what YOUR "and" actually is. Just pretty sure you must have one in order to say "1:1 matching would not matter"

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 6:00 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:17 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:14 pm
The term “the Age of Reason” has turned out to be a bit of a historical joke, actually. It turned out that knowledge neither magically appeared in the 18th Century, nor persisted afterward. Two world wars pretty much cured us of our illusions about that story.

But there’s a sense in which you’re right: namely, that the term “secular” is ironically a “religious” term. It designates that area of things that are not “sacred.” As such, it began as a neutral term, and one of utility within religious discourses. It distinguished what was considered “sacred” from what was considered merely “profane” or “common.”

However, “Secularism” is a little more than that. (Note the “-ism” suffix, designating it as a belief system, not merely as an adjective). Secularism is, according to Britannica: "a worldview or political principle that separates religion from other realms of human existence, often putting greater emphasis on nonreligious aspects of human life or, more specifically, separating religion from the political realm.” That’s not a perfect definition, and Britannica goes on to criticize the holes in it’s own attempt, and point out how difficult it is to nail down that concept precisely; but it will serve you and me for the present discussion. The key thing is that it’s “a worldview or political principle,” i.e. a belief, not just an adjective designating “not sacred.”


What Secular people do is actually irrational and inconsistent with the basic principle of Secularism, then. They’re just behaving like illogical and unthinking followers, at best, or outright hypocrites, at worst. For they have no principle or worldview basis for any belief in such things, and must be borrowing them from some system alien to what they profess to believe, perhaps in an ignorant and unthinking way. What they cannot be doing is grounding such a “code” in Secularism itself, because Secularism has no such basis to offer them.

That’s the point. A “secular” person can be very nice; many of my secular friends are. But it will never be a product of their Secularism, but of something else, because Secularism cannot help them with that.

The iconic Jesus of Nazareth is more powerful and more flexible than you seem to think.

Your response has nothing to do with anything I said.

Jesus of Nazareth is not peculiar to, or the property of , believers in a supernatural way of being ; Jesus of Nazareth is an icon for secular people too.

BTW (serious aside)

In the age of modern AI (based on neural nets) I am not going to consider derivation via random process necessarily invalid. If you understand how a neural net is trained, especially ones trained "from zero", you will understand.

That is why we cannot ask a neural net trained by random process to "give the right answer" (say the best next move in weiqi) is unable to provide an answer "why is that the best move". It just works because a very large number of training trials resulted in a set of cell values that just work to produce that result. No reason to suppose another set of cell values might not work just as well or even better.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:02 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 6:00 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:17 pm
The iconic Jesus of Nazareth is more powerful and more flexible than you seem to think.

Your response has nothing to do with anything I said.

Jesus of Nazareth is not peculiar to, or the property of , believers in a supernatural way of being ; Jesus of Nazareth is an icon for secular people too.

Secular people do not, by definition, believe Jesus Christ was anything special, or that what He did was in any way morally meritorious. Nor have they, by definition, any criteria by which they could ground such a judgment, even were they to want to make it. For Secularism offers nothing that would allow you to evaluate any one person as "morally better" than any other.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 6:48 pm What the term "valid" means depends on what is describing. You are quite correct, in "valid argument" it means derivable via the rules of logic.

Not quite. It means "correct in form." It carries no evaluation at all about the content.

ARE you trying to argue that your divinely given rule set is derivable?

I have not even said any such thing. All I have pointed out is that Secularism leads to no moral axioms and no moral conclusions. I've said nothing about any "divinely given rule set."

I see the question you’re trying to ask. It’s something like, “IF there were another objective moral standard, and some Secular version of ethics happened to line up with it, would the Secular version then be credible or coherent?” And the answer is “No,” for two very clear reasons: one, Secularism denies the grounds for any objective morality, so denies itself the “objective moral standard” you’re supposing it might need in order to become legitimate; and two, no pattern of reasoning becomes actually rational merely by way of a mere coincidence of conclusion between itself and a rational one.

To explain the second point, if the two of us are trying to cure a patient of cancer, and you do it by chemotherapy and radiotherapy and surgery, and I do it by killing a chicken by moonlight over a silver basin, and somehow, both of our patients survive, that doesn’t make my chicken-killing into a rational medical procedure. Yours will still be objectively right, and mine foolish, even if we got the same result. Because in your case, the procedures are producing the cure, and in my case, my killing a chicken has absolutely no causal link with the fact that my patient somehow shed the cancer.

Just so, if there were such an objective moral standard (which Secularism itself implies is untrue), and a Secular moral theory managed to spit out the same answer somehow, it would still not “baptize” Secularism and turn it into a source of moral knowledge. There’d still be no rational link between the result and Secularism. Secularism would just have gotten lucky in one case.

In any case, the actual secularist has proposed a basis...

Provide that basis, and the axiom it grounds, then.

The PURPOSE of a moral system (according to some secularist) might be "in all situations, let me know which choices of action are right or wrong".

There is no objective reality to the terms "right" and "wrong" according to Secular assumptions. At most, they describe only feelings or preferences of an individual...but in reality, not even that, since no Secularist has an obligation to stick by his own feelings and preferences either.

The secularist would certainly agree "well if THAT is what you ask of a proper moral system, yeah, mine doesn't do that. But we are disagreeing about what a proper moral system IS.

No, we're not, actually.

I'm pointing out that Secularism doesn't HAVE any "moral system." It demands absolutely nothing of anybody. That's neither a "system" nor is it "moral." It's just complete silence on the matter.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 9:20 pm To explain the second point, if the two of us are trying to cure a patient of cancer, and you do it by chemotherapy and radiotherapy and surgery, and I do it by killing a chicken by moonlight over a silver basin, and somehow, both of our patients survive, that doesn’t make my chicken-killing into a rational medical procedure. Yours will still be objectively right, and mine foolish, even if we got the same result. Because in your case, the procedures are producing the cure, and in my case, my killing a chicken has absolutely no causal link with the fact that my patient somehow shed the cancer.

An EXCELLENT example. Medicine.

HERE we are discussing the case where waving the chicken ALWAYS is working. But we can give no rational explanation. But because we don't KNOW of a causal link, and see no rational explanation, you say we should deny causality EVEN IF IT ALWAYS WORKS.

Do you know the place of Ignaz Semmelweis in the history of medicine? Shortly BEFORE "germ theory" he observed a lower infection rate in maternity patients seen by midwives rather than doctors. He looked for some difference to account for this. He ordered his staff "wash your hands between patients and autopsies and patients. He could not give a RATIONAL reason (though he might have had a guess "a LIVING invisible something" since he ordered not just a wash with water but lime chlorate solution). Understand? At the time medical science had no explanation. Semmelweis was accused of believing in some magical substance being transmitted as the cause of disease. All he had was empirical results, a lower death rate.

They eventually locked him up as insane (going around telling people, "make sure your doctor washes before touching you"). Luckily, before that he had given "guest lectures" in Paris, etc. It was some of those young doctors at his lectures about results from washing between patients who went on provd it was "germs"

If something always works, or simply works better than chance, we should assume causality. It is precisely by this we disprove causality (same result as chance). This means our belief in causality is never better than as a probability.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 9:12 pm
Secular people do not, by definition, believe Jesus Christ was anything special,
or that what He did was in any way morally meritorious.

Nor have they, by definition, any criteria by which they could ground such a judgment, even were they to want to make it. For Secularism offers nothing that would allow you to evaluate any one person as "morally better" than any other.

The first is untrue. A secular person won't believe Jesus divine but need not believe he did not live. After all, James appears to have been historical. In reverse, A RELIGIOUS PERSON need not believe in Jesus being divine or particularly morally meritorious. Remember IC, a religious person need not be a Christian. Does not even have to be a monotheist or any sort of theist.

The second is just your position that secularists cannot have a moral system. More strongly, you argue that they could not have one EVEN IF they could demonstrate one "that always worked correctly" (because they could not show you from where derived to your satisfaction). Sorry, NOT "by definition". There is no definition secular <=> unable to make moral judgements. That COULD be a premise you are proposing, and then we could ask you to justify the premise. Or something validly derived from a premise. For example, take the premise "god is the only source of morality" (right is what god wants it to be and wrong is what god wants it to be). With THAT premise all your arguments make sense, but the secularist would say "you've just (re)defined "morality" ". Call it d-morality (for divine morality). The secularist would agree now, "my system is unable to make d-morality judgements. That's fine by me, I only want it to make morality judgements".