Philosophy Now Forum

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:20 pm How is lying a flaw or defect?

It's certainly not a virtue.

mickthinks wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:32 pm All I would say here is that there are people whose path to contentment lies through some kind of gender reassignment in accord with their sense of themselves,

Apparently not. The suicide rate before and after "transition" is statistically identical, and is higher than any demographic on record. We are not helping these mentally ill people by indulging them, apparently.

...a whole package of false equivalences...

Prove that they're "false" equivalences. They certainly all involve delusory individuals "transitioning." But you can't name even one argument that works for one that doesn't work for all, apparently.

So that suggests you're campainging to keep the mentally ill mentally ill, possiblly so you can virtue signal. And how brutal is that?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:47 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:20 pm How is lying a flaw or defect?

It's certainly not a virtue.

Your Bible doesn't agree.

Johsua 2:4-6 ... She [Rahab] said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.)

Which was a flat out lie.

James 2:25 In the same manner, was not Rahab the prostitute also declared righteous by works after she received the messengers hospitably and sent them out by another way?

And for that act was called righteous. Perhaps you don't consider that a virtue.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:20 pm Your Bible doesn't agree.
Johsua 2:4-6

Keep reading. "By faith, Rahab..." Not "by lying, Rahab..." Heb. 11:31. Lying is not a virtue. Faith is.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:25 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:20 pm Your Bible doesn't agree.
Johsua 2:4-6

Keep reading. "By faith, Rahab..." Not "by lying, Rahab..." Heb. 11:31. Lying is not a virtue. Faith is.

Sorry. James specifically said it was by, "works."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:51 pm The suicide rate before and after "transition" is statistically identical

I think you'll find that that is a lie made up by the anti-trans camp. The evidence that transitioning helps trans people to be happy is very clear.

Prove that they're "false" equivalences.
Given that it is self-evident that gender is different from race, species, etc. the burden lies with you to prove your "Rachel Dolezal" and "rhodedendron" herrings aren't really as red as they appear.

mickthinks wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:35 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:51 pm The suicide rate before and after "transition" is statistically identical

I think you'll find that that is a lie made up by the anti-trans camp.

Prove that they're "false" equivalences.
Given that it is self-evident that gender is different from race, species, etc. the burden lies with you to prove your "Rachel Dolezal" and "rhodedendron" herrings aren't really as red as they appear.

It's none of your business 'CISMALE'

mickthinks wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:35 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:51 pm The suicide rate before and after "transition" is statistically identical

I think you'll find that that is a lie made up by the anti-trans camp. The evidence that transitioning helps trans people to be happy is very clear.

Do either of you have any sources or evidence to back these respective claims. I'm genuinely interested in knowing the truth of the matter.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 1:07 am

mickthinks wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:35 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:51 pm The suicide rate before and after "transition" is statistically identical

I think you'll find that that is a lie made up by the anti-trans camp. The evidence that transitioning helps trans people to be happy is very clear.

Do either of you have any sources or evidence to back these respective claims. I'm genuinely interested in knowing the truth of the matter.

It's only logical that it would be the same. Why would it change? And how would they even gather these 'statistics'? After all, gender is only a 'feeling' isn't it? How would they know whether or not someone who had committed suicide had 'felt' like a woman??

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 1:49 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 1:07 am

mickthinks wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:35 pm
I think you'll find that that is a lie made up by the anti-trans camp. The evidence that transitioning helps trans people to be happy is very clear.

Do either of you have any sources or evidence to back these respective claims. I'm genuinely interested in knowing the truth of the matter.

It's only logical that it would be the same. Why would it change? And how would they even gather these 'statistics'? After all, gender is only a 'feeling' isn't it? How would they know whether or not someone who had committed suicide had 'felt' like a woman??

Well, if the suicide rate is indeed identical, then I would say that's probably a lot more tangible evidence than to say there is "evidence" that they are happier after transitioning. I think people tend to vote truer with their deeds more so than what they say on questionnaires or whatever is used to determine "happiness."

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:00 pm Sorry. James specifically said it was by, "works."

We could discuss theology...but it would futile, because you'd never accept it as arbitrating any question.

The point is simple: the universality of human fallibility is hard to explain for your theory.

mickthinks wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:35 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:51 pm The suicide rate before and after "transition" is statistically identical

I think you'll find that that is a lie made up by the anti-trans camp.

I think you'll find the rate of suicidal ideation among "trans" types is about 43% before transtion, and actually marginally higher after transition.

Prove that they're "false" equivalences.
Given that it is self-evident ...

Heh. That's what people say when they have no argument.

"Self-evident," it's decidedly not. "Self-evident" is that a man is not, and cannot be a woman; and that a woman cannot be a man. All the way down to the genetic level, that's very evident.

You can't seem to name one argument made for sexual transitions that does not also count for other transitions. So it's clear that all the arguments offered also rationalize absurd extremes, and so are not sufficient defenses of the idea of indulging body dysmorphic mental illnesses of any kind. That is, unless you want to buy into the whole package.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:00 amThe point is simple: the universality of human fallibility is hard to explain for your theory.

Whereas Eve being tempted by a talking snake explains everything.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:00 am

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:00 pm Sorry. James specifically said it was by, "works."

We could discuss theology...but it would futile, because you'd never accept it as arbitrating any question.

The point is simple: the universality of human fallibility is hard to explain for your theory.

For someone who is so adamant about lying being a fault you sure don't mind obfuscating the truth.

This entire discussion began with surreptitious's statement:

"We all have psychological flaws - every single one of us."

If something is a flaw it means it's not what it's supposed to be, a kind of defect. You are trying to imply that anything short of infallibility is a defect or a flaw. Exactly how do you come to the conclusion that human beings are supposed to be infallible?

Since when are omniscience and infallibility required attributes of being a human being? Not knowing everything is not a psychological flaw. It is exactly what human psychology must be if human beings are to learn anything. Infallibility is not a defect, it is a necessary attribute of beings who must make conscious choice--there is no choice if there is no possibility of making a wrong one.

This Christian desire to turn everything in reality into some kind of corruption is pure hatred of reality as it is. It is a terror that human beings might discover that reality is not their enemy, that life is not doomed to failure and suffering, that a happy successful life is not only possible in this world, but that it is the only world in which it is possible. Christians are terrified that anyone anywhere is actually enjoying their life, because they know they cannot convince the successful happy individual to throw away their life in this world for some future, "paradise."

Human beings are not born with any intrinsic flaws or defects. They are not supposed to be something other than what they are. All the pain, suffering, and failure in this world is the consequence of the wrong choices of individual human beings. Nothing makes them make wrong choices--not a sinful nature, not genetics, not their environment, not evolution, not chemicals in the brain, or anything other than their own chosen thinking and beliefs.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:18 pm If something is a flaw it means it's not what it's supposed to be, a kind of defect. You are trying to imply that anything short of infallibility is a defect or a flaw. Exactly how do you come to the conclusion that human beings are supposed to be infallible?

Who is doing the "supposing" in your question? Do you mean that humans "suppose" each other to be X or Y? Or do you mean there's a standard higher than the merely contingent facts about what humans happen to do, a standard to which we can refer that shows them to be flawed?

That standard, of course, would be the ideal. And we certainly do know that humans fall short of the ideal. That's what "fallible" or "flawed" implies.

Not knowing everything is not a psychological flaw.

No, that's true. Asking a creature to perform an action for which it is not designed is not a flaw. It's not a flaw in fish that they can't fly, or a flaw in a bird if it can't burrow like a hare. Being "perfect" is relative to the design purpose of the creature in question. And asking a human being to know everything is no more sensible than asking a teaspoon to hold the Atlantic, and faulting it if it doesn't.

But lying, theft, greed, selfishness, cruelty, wastefulness....and so on, certainly are flaws. We are quite capable of choosing not to do them on any particular occasion: though it seems we cannot keep ourselves from falling into some of them sometimes, for sure.

Those are flaws. And human beings have plenty of those things, and should not have them. They would be better, "more perfect" human beings if they did not. So we're not asking any fish to fly here. We're only asking that a human being should live up to the best of his/her designed potential, human beings' own ideal state, not that of something else.

Human beings are not born with any intrinsic flaws or defects.

Hmmm. Were that true, there would be no explanation for any "flaws" or "defects" in humans ever happening. For even if we imagine these flaws only appear later than birth, it's clear that the potential and propensity to produce flaws is itself a flaw, and is obviously intrinsic, since it's also universal.

All the pain, suffering, and failure in this world is the consequence of the wrong choices of individual human beings.

Interesting view. How do you make the connection between "individual human beings' choices" and floods, fires, tsunamis, landslides, cancers, birth defects, accidents....and so on?

And what do you make of the fact that the bad decisions of one individual very often harm others? How is that to be dealt with by your theory that we, as individuals, have ourselves to blame for our own state?