If it is logically possible, then it follows that it is possible in some possible world.
It does not. Modal logic'll assume that it does, but modal logic has a very large flaw in that it assumes that anything that's not illogical must be possible and therefore exists somewhere. Modal logic is not infallible, mind you, and has not existed before the dawn of man, it is not timeless, and it is not entirely sound, and I think it's assumption that possibility means existence in some possible world or another is its biggest flaw. Logical possibility does not equal absolute possibility.(For we do not possess absolutely infallible logic.) Again. Infinite possibilities does not mean that all things are possible, and this includes all other possible realities where the laws of the universe are different.
Anyways, let me just sum up with brunt of my argument here: Humans are stupid. We don't know enough about anything to make any logical conclusions that are entirely sound. Modal logic isn't sound. We don't know enough about how other possibilities work and what keeps everything together to possibly have the logical confidence to make such grand assumptions.
Its because He is real and you don't want to accept that there is no contradiction.
And someone is getting tired of debating it seems like.
I think I'm going to stop. This was really fun for awhile, but I think we're at a brick wall here. Either way, I think I learned a little, so that's good. Thanks for talking with me, and I apologize if I insulted you in some fashion. Sometimes I do that in the heat of the moment.
Actually, yes it does. If God is not equivalent to a married-bachlor, then He is possible in some possible world.
Logically possible. Not scientifically possible. There's a difference.
God is either logically possible or logically impossible. There is no in between.
Logical possibility or impossibility. There is an in between. We don't have hard proof that he's scientifically possible or impossible. Without hard proof, everything comes down to logic, and logic can't prove god. It's a very convincing argument and it's interesting, but when it comes down to it, without accurately measuring the possibility of a maximal being, we're back down to logic. And modal logic is something of a peculiarity because it assumes that things that aren't logically incomprehensible must be possible. Logically possible. Key word being logic.
Anyways, assuming that something is possible because you can't prove that it's impossible is a good assumption to make, but a lot of people forget about the whole assuming that something isn't possible.
But.
God impossible or necessary?
He is, right now a logical possibility. But. Buuuut.
It's also not logically incomprehensible right now that god's impossible in all possible universes.
Furthermore, we don't have enough information to correctly make an entirely sound affirmative or negative. We don't have enough information to correctly know if he's logically incomprehensible or not.
Again, it's a cheap parlor trick because it makes the assumption that we know enough about our universe to know whether or not god is possible. We don't.
Yeah. The first premise assumes that god is possible. And we don't know that. Which means it's is a leap in logic.
He could be possible. He's not logically incomprehensible, but, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's possible. It's also possible that people find out that god is impossible.(With hard evidence, mind you.) You can't discredit that possibility. Despite his logical possibility, his logical impossibility can't be discredited. See. This argument uses a lot of really silly leaps in logic. By saying that god is in the gaps, and that we don't have to prove anything because nobody knows, it makes the argument moot. It's a lovely argument to pitch to people who don't have much of a brain.
Personally, I'm fairly on the fence here, and I'm not too afraid of death because I want to know where everything is going, but using cheap parlor tricks and twisting words and logic to make an argument that -seems- to stand on its own without any hard proof doesn't work on me.
I might not be able to entirely articulate what point I'm getting at, and if that's the case, I apologize, but the first premise of this argument is the reason it fails. It makes an assumption and tries to prove that assumption with its further premises. It's a ridiculous little anecdote, but ultimately, the argument is moot, because it doesn't prove anything. What I think I can compare it to the easiest is Pascal's Wager. Not that I'm saying the logic is the same, nor the point, but Pascal's Wager is one of those cheap arguments that tries to sway people, though it does it in a more direct and brutish manner.
Logic can't prove or disprove god. We're human, our thoughts are inherently flawed. Again, infinite possibilities does not necessarily mean that all things are possible. I'm a skeptical believer.
The argument, as philosophers, both theistic and atheistic, have agreed upon, can only be defeated at premise 1, which is whether God is possible or not. Hence, the only way to defeat it is to say that God is logically incomprehensible. If He is not logically incomprehensible, then He is real, by definition. Plantinga even admitted that this is up the the person to decide; however, in what way would He be illogical?
Nonsense! The first premise takes a leap in logic by assuming that such a maximal being is possible in any possible universe.
It's the burden of the person who makes the argument to prove that they are indeed possible. And then we get back into the classic argument of 'you can't prove that god isn't real' and 'well you can't prove that he is.'
It's not a very brilliant formula because it doesn't work, ya dork.
Possible because we don't currently possess the knowledge to prove or disprove his possibility.
Really this is a weird failure of language because it's possible for someone to develop cancer or catch a cold, etc, and we know why these things are possible because we can observe and measure these things.
We really don't have any tools for measuring the validity of a god. The idea here insists that god is possible? But what if it's possible that he's not possible? In any possible universe? You can't really discredit the possibility that god is simply an impossibility in all possible realities. Infinite possibilities doesn't necessarily translate to all things being possible, you see.
Or to put it another way, a maximal being doesn't necessarily have to be possible in one universe or any universe, and the current possibility of such a maximal being hinges solely on our inability to observe and accurately measure the possibility of such a being. Y'know, it's like there's multiple kinds possible.
It's really a silly train of logic, I think.
That's like. Communism. Almost. I mean it's kind of communism. It's at least y'know, economic communism or communismish. But I mean whatever you've gotta do -some- taxes at least and I'd rather be in a society where everyone is forced to work together than the lack of a society where people just shoot eachother and take what they want.
GROW A PAIR OF TESTICLES.
Or something similar. I dunno. If you really want to quit somethin', you'll quit it. And I imagine people are going to flail and weh about that but I have been chemically addicted to things before. And withdrawals are not fun but they are totes manageable.
So really the best way to fight an addiction is to not be a bitch about it.
Without employees, a company can't very well run. They're not going to get fifteen an hour because in this economy, people'd suck dick to get a job at Mickey Dee's, but the average worker deserves more pay. They're the foundation of the company that hired them. They do all of the pain in the ass menial day-to-day tasks that nobody else up the proverbial foodchain wants to do. I'm not saying they should be treated like royalty or have outrageous salaries, but fifteen bucks an hour isn't outrageous by any means.
Not that I'm saying people shouldn't try to better themselves, nor should they keep their criticisms to themselves, but ladies n' gents, especially around here, people tend to forget their own glaring flaws, in favor of pointing everyone else's. In the context of Christianity, there's definitely a lot of hypocritical statements and braggings of knowing what's right and what's wrong.
Or really, I guess my point is, really, pointing out what's wrong with what everyone else is doing in such an aggressive manner is just... kinda dickish.
Allow me to make a small amendment:
I said, "The main difference between homosexuality and all of these terrible things that people really shouldn't do..."
This statement also works:
"The main difference between heterosexuality and all of these terrible things that people really shouldn't do..."
Just sayin'.
It is. It's pretty terrible that I have to explain why, too. The main difference between homosexuality and all of these terrible things that people really shouldn't do, is that consensual sex between two consenting, adult males or females doesn't have any real negative consequences.(Actually, there's no risk of pregnancy! So even -less- consequences!) And I'm going to stop you right there, because one of you is going to bring up the idea of STDs. There's a difference between being a homosexual and being a slut. I need you to read the previous sentence and really grasp its meaning. Anyone can pass along STDs if they have them, and I understand that homosexuals are supposed to be more sexually active and promiscuous than straight individuals, but there's a whole subculture of straight punks who fuck like animals, too. And not every homosexual is looking to screw everything in sight.
Right. Let me continue here. Children can't be trusted to offer consent because children are generally innocent and don't know what the fuck they're doing. Sex can be mentally scarring and can fuck a kid up for life. They don't know any better.
Let's talk about Incest. Pregnancy from incest produces a more shallow genepool and can cause children to have serious birth defects and intensify disorders that are already present.(Although I will submit you don't really have a risk of pregnancy from gay incest, but I still really hope that's not a line people decide to cross. Eugh.)
Alright. So how about zoophilia. Or. However the fuck you spell it. Sex with animals. Animals don't really have the intelligence to offer consent, and they'll fuck anything offered if they're horny enough. I'm just going to say it's wrong because someone's taking advantage of something that can't offer consent, but it's also dangerous as hell. People have died trying to screw the wrong animal.(Or getting screwed by the wrong animal.)
Okay. So how about necrophilia? Desecration of a corpse? Yeah that's going to piss off some loved ones who'll want some retribution. Kind of a no-brainer. Although there's always the risk of catching a disease from a rotting corpse.
You can compare them if you want, I guess. But. There's no other reason to do it than to be a straight up dick or a bigot. I'm not going to answer any disputes on this wall of text, because you should really be ashamed of yourselves if you're really going to try to make a logical, reasonable person's dispute, and religious disputes just make me giggle.
Do I care what people on this site think of me? No, not really. I mean. This place is as bad as it gets. But in my life? With my friends and family, and with other communities I'm in? I'm positively terrified by leaving a bad impression or being excluded or knowing someone hates me or thinking someone hates me. It gets to the point where my anxiety is so overwhelming that I start to develop psychosomatic responses in the form of my heart literally hurting(A lot), loss of vision, shakier breathing, uncontrollable trembling. That kind of stuff. I've had to leave in the middle of college classes before. Which is. Frightfully embarrassing and only makes it worse later.
And I realize how stupid it is, but there's a disconnect between my emotions and my thoughts and I really haven't been able to mend it. It uh. It sucks. A lot.
Hey I did question the bible when I was a youngin'. Now I'm not Christian! Of course I'm... not athiest either but let me tell you that was a fun phase. It's a good thing my folks are heathen now because during that period of time? Whew. Talk about being disowned.
It's all a misunderstanding of language here. Possible means a lot of things. Admittedly, it's a lot easier to believe there's a super-powered being that exists out there that isn't maximal than one there is.
But my point is that the ontological argument is inherently flawed in that it presents possibility as reality,(As long as as that possibility is maximal) and there is more than one state of possibility. However, 'god' is only a possibility because we don't have the data to prove that he's impossible as opposed to other things that are possible that we have the data to confirm. Imagine there being an affirmative possibility and a negative possibility, and in the negative case, something only retains possibility because there isn't enough evidence to entirely disprove it, and things in the positive possibility are -absolutely- possible, because we have the data to confirm that they are possibilities.
It's not a matter of god being not-impossible, because there is a very strong chance that he -is- impossible. We just don't know. And because we don't know, the ontological argument is moot. Mostly because it assumes we -know-, that is, have the data to prove, god is a positive possibility.
Or some shit. I dunno. It's four in the morning and logic is stupid.
Or you could just say like, god's only possible right now because we don't have enough information to know if he's impossible or not. It's not the same kind of possibility as say, flipping a coin and getting heads. We have enough information to know that a coin can land on heads or tails, or in very rare and peculiar cases, on its side. Very different from possibility hinging on a lack of information.
I'm going to reword what I just said because I dunno if I'm making myself clear enough. The notion is usually that god exists because he's possible, right? But that's not true! Because we don't -know- if he's legitimately possible. The results of flipping a coin are all legitimate possibilities. However, we just know that he -might- be possible. We only put him under the possible category because we don't have enough information to prove or disprove him.
Drugs are too often merely a way of hiding the problem so that we can pretend it doesn't exist for a little longer.
S'what the CBT is for.
I'm far too tired to get into an argument over much anything else, but I'll say something along the lines of 'buyer beware.' And that the field of psychology is full of poor practices because the mind is a terribly hard thing to figure out.
The drugs do help people. It's a crutch. Not something people are meant to take forever, but something that helps them maintain their life while they seek real help.
Because advancing medical science in ways that could help save lives in the future is totally way fucked up. The stem-cell controversy was one of those things that was kind of a hilariously blatant smokescreen. It worked, too. Fuck I don't remember what was going on then in politics besides everyone being shocked that we could possibly use aborted embryos to try to save lives. No. We should y'know. Waste 'em instead. Much smarter. Way more beneficial.
In a perfect world, more people'd have the understanding and techniques to deal with mental problems without resorting to drugs. That being said, most parents these days are terrible and they should be held accountable for the things they sign their kids up to take. As for the big companies, they're not exactly doing anything wrong. They're providing quick fixes for people who want quick fixes.
From my personal experience, I have been on anti-depression and anxiety medication. But it disgusted me. I was happy when I was on them, yeah, but I couldn't think straight. And whenever I came down, it felt so bad. So. About four months after being on them, I just quit cold turkey. Which is, by the way, quite a ride. Moving my eyes caused jolts down my spine. Every little noise caused me to grow irritable, and I wanted to strangle anyone who said anything remotely stupid. And that went on for two weeks. Still. There are people out there who aren't as strong or as clever to deal with these problems. It's taken me years to come to terms with my depression. I'm never going to be an ecstatic and bubbly person. And I'm going to stay awake at night depressed and worried. But. That's my burden and I can handle it. Other, weaker people might blow their own brains out or shoot up a school.
Drug 'em up and inflict some cognitive behavioral therapy smackdowns on them.
Besides the added benefit of some lovely population control, I really don't think the government should be all too invasive when it comes to the needs and desires of the individual.
That being said, a lot of these drugs are outlawed because of what people who take them do to others. Although, strangely, alcohol is still legal. Not that I hate that. Boozin' is fun.
That's a touch tangential, because if I had implied that I want the army that's supposed to protect us to police the world, I certainly didn't mean to. I do believe that we need a standing army, yes. That's as far as my argument goes. I'm not going to get into american politics because it's a mess.
I hear thunder but, there's... no rain.
Well me personally? I'd say being stabbed repeatedly is fairly annoying. And that aside, murder is annoying for everyone who has to clean it up. I mean, normally people won't say it like that, but that's because they're far too respectful of death for their own good.
Fuck books. Unless they're nudiemags or comic-books. But you could be reading some more intelligent prose, you are aware. The Hunger Games series was written for young adults. Mostly younger teenagers. Personally though, I'm not much of a novel guy.
Hey. Hitler wanted a pure Aryan race, his despise of the jews isn't mimicked by Atheists, though. That's a dorky falsehood you're presenting there, and absolutely classic, too. My point is that your religion doesn't determine how moral you are. And obviously, if it was staring you right in the face, you'd shrug it off, too.
Atheists may not be compelled to do as much moral acts as the religious since they have no God to impress
Ohhhh man. Oh man this is the wrong thing to get into right here.
Let's see. How much genocide has taken place in the name of atheism? How many murderous marches have taken place against people because they have religions. Mmm... None. Let's talk about impressing god. How about the Crusades. Let's talk all of the violence in the middle east and the constant disrespect towards women. The Salem Witch Trials. The Spanish Inquisition.
How about all of the religious hate towards people because they're gay. Or y'know. Different.
You wanna talk morality, maybe religion isn't a good place to start.
Morality doesn't come from god. It comes from being raised to be a good person and having understanding and compassion for your fellow man. Personally, I live by the mantra of, "We're all in this together." Which is a little ironic considering my complacency towards people dying off. But hey. I'm a hypocrite.
Atheists usually have to deal with all of that religious hate, and a lot of the louder ones put way too much emphasis on fighting religion. There are a lot of factors in determining why they have shorter life-spans. If they truly do. But. It's great if you don't think it should be encouraged, and it's great if you want to spread that message. That's fine. But everybody should be permitted to spread whatever message they want unless it's outlandishly violent or dark.
There are a lot of words in my vocabulary.
Like. Seriously. You can't stop people from speaking their minds just because what they have to say might negatively impact someone else or themselves. You can't stop the spread of ideas and beliefs just because you don't agree with them or you think they're harmful. You can't control people. And when people try to control people, it creates public outcry and underground movements.
is doing something that shortens life-spans not a backwards action against humanity and the human experience?
Apparently you've never heard of drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll, not to mention sky-diving, extreme sports, or... living.
Either way, my point is, if more people start dying at younger ages, I'm not going to personally be all that upset by it because there's too many people on this globe anyways. It was kind of a joke.
Either way, you can't stop people from spreading their beliefs because the truth they've accepted is bleak. Just like they can't stop a christian from spreading their beliefs because their beliefs are crazy.
There's not much to look into as far as Rorschach is concerned besides the bloody mess he made in the antarctic after Manhattan explod'd him. To be sure, Rorschach does have some neat appeal, but Batman's is a little more long lasting, and there's tons more development for that playboy than Rorschach, since he was a character developed for a single story.
Conveniently, I've done research on both of these characters for class,(Don't. Don't ask.) and while Rorschach is a neat character, he doesn't really stand much on his own, because of the elements of the plot in that story he plays into. A lot of the themes are lost if you compare just him to another comic-book character. I'm not much for cheesy superhero comics, but there's some pretty swag batman story-arcs out there, and he's a surprisingly endurant and multifaceted character. Definitely more lasting appeal.
Tangible things exist. Thoughts and ideas are out of the realm of the real. If you want to get into some crazy mind-stuff, we can, but I should clarify what I mean since you seem to be pretty adamant on this:
Rights aren't going to stop a bullet from passing through someone's skull.
They're not going to stop someone from harvesting another's organs.
Hell, they might not even stop someone from taking another's property.
People who believe in these rights might try to stop someone from doing these things to other people, but at the end of the day, it's people, not ideas.
'Rights' is really a bad word for it, because 'Rights' really makes it seem like we deserve these. That the laws of nature, as it were, will bend to the 'rights' that we've fabricated, is kind of a silly notion. They're more like... privileges we agree to give one another. The world is savage(And y'know, beautiful) once you peel back the social membrane.
You don't torture someone because it's morally just. Nobody's ever gone, "GEE. I THINK THE RIGHT THING TO DO BY THIS GUY WE CAPTURED IS PULL HIS FINGERNAILS OFF," and meant it. Unless they're sociopathic or drunk. Or both.
No, torture is something you do to someone because you don't have the time or the patience to dredge up the information any other way.
But you gotta understand: Sometimes there are time limits and you just can't run around chasing ghosts when you have a perfectly good pot of information sitting in someone's head.
So is it morally just? Nah. Can it be circumstantially be justified? Yeah, I think so.
Edit:
I should note that a given torturer should feel like a rotten bag of shit after they're done doing something like that. Like. It should haunt them. And if it doesn't, there is probably something wrong with them.
Pff. Someone has to come up with those fonts. Calligraphy is a pretty lucrative business, by the by. Just because cursive is being marginalized doesn't mean it's dead. But yes, you're right, kids don't need to learn cursive. Still. Not going to die any time soon.
Man when I read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the image I got in my head was this place filled with backstabbing fiends who'd fuck for a nickel and murder for about the same price. Like. I don't think it was that the people of Sodom were having freaky sex, I think it's that they were a vile hive of degenerates who had absolutely no morality. Or little, anyways.
BUT HEY. Interpret it however you want. The message I got was bad people deserve bad things. Karma or something.
There's a flaw in all of this: Agnostics don't 'believe' in anything. Atheists, however, believe that there is no god, and theists believe there is. So yeah, I do think you can take a position of not taking a position, if that makes any sense.
Agnosticism isn't really bullshit, it's just not taking a side on something that nobody has definitive answer to.
There is definitely no objective difference. Things that are possible are possible. But things that exist exist. He tried to throw in some nonsense about modality, but it's completely irrelevant to the discussion.
I don't know. It doesn't seem like someone who claims to use logic can really say something like, "He's the biggest and baddest so he exists if he can exist. Other things aren't as big or as bad so they don't exist just because they can. It's different, dude." So I'm simplifying it, but that seems more like a child's argument than a logical man's.
Nope. You can't give him exclusivity to a rule you made up just because you want to or 'believe' it to be true. That's an absolute flaw in logic, and therefore, I can't debate with you on this subject further because you've proven yourself to be absolutely illogical.
If you go by that train of logic, you open up a veritable pandora's box of possibilities. Everything that's possible exists with that logic, you see. And there are a lot of things that are possible.
And unicorns are possible. Therefore, they must exist. But I've yet to see a unicorn. Which is actually kind of sad. I've always wanted to.
Unfortunately, you're making a leap in logic by assuming all that is possible exists. Things that are possible also don't exist all the time. Possible choices. Possible thoughts. Possible evolutionary chains. Possible movies. Possible books. Possible videogames. Possible, but they don't exist. They could, but they don't.
Now, you're probably going to try to tell me that because god's possible, that god makes himself exist by that logic. Except that's also a leap in logic. Because all other gods are possible, but all omnipotent, all-knowing gods cannot exist at once. Especially the kind that aren't polytheistic. And 'my god is stronger than your god so he exists harder' doesn't exactly make a compelling argument.
I do respect your beliefs, so I won't say much against them. Instead, I'm going to level with you: I do believe in a number of things, but I can't prove any of them, so instead of insisting that I'm right, I silently hope that despite all of the evidence weighed against it, that I might just be right anyways. It's a different, much less arrogant kind of faith. Probably a bit more dreary, too, but it's a little more logical.
You should try a dose of doubt with your belief. Really helps you separate truth from faith.
Not really. I'd say more uneducated than anything. Music is a complicated beast. There was a time when I was pretty sure country was the worst genre ever and every single piece of country music ever wrote was an atrocity. Most of it is. But. Not all of it. Same goes for pretty much every genre, too. Fuck, I've found some enjoyable dubstep. And let me tell you, that should shock you.
There's so many genres and sub-genres of metal, though, that I really wouldn't know where to begin. And while I'm not going to insist you listen to heavy metal until you find something you like, I would suggest keeping an open mind. You might miss out on something you could really enjoy.
The 'communist' governments under Mao and Stalin were hardly communist at all. Definitely dictatorships. There's a lot of hate against communism because of what those two murderers did, but they're by no means an accurate representation of communist philosophy.
This is a hard debate to take a side on, though. Capitalism in its purest form offers a whole lot that communism can't. See, if the government controls all of the resources and how they should be distributed, and the people are made to share everything, and their jobs are determined by what they're best at, and not necessarily their passion, people don't really have much of a reason to work hard. Just hard enough to not be a problem.
Similarly in capitalism, the cogs just work hard enough to get a paycheck most of the time. But. Corporations have to work a lot harder and be smarter to get money so they can accumulate wealth. The state in a communist economy doesn't have to work very hard at all because there's no competition.
And I don't know about you guys, but I like my materialistic wealth, and I can't see a society in which we have all of the cool games and stuff we do if it's purely communistic.
That being said...
I still maintain the way society is going, jobs are going to grow more and more scarce. At least real jobs, anyways. Working part time is going to be come more and more a thing. And we're going to have a lot more spare time to work with. That or these large corporations are going to suck every dime from us and leave us with nothing at all. One of the two. Socialism, for me, is striking the line between capitalism and communism, and I very heartily promote it. Giving people their basic needs, but offering them the option of having money to spend on whatever shiny things they want by selling products, working hard at research, and performing feats of artistic beauty seems like a pretty goddamn idea society to me. Of course. Everything looks good on paper.
So in the end, I'm going to stick with capitalism for now.
For me? It'd sure as hell make me feel a little better about myself. The anarchy in the streets'd be fun to watch, too.
I mean, it means there's only more questions about the origin of the universe, of course, but hey, if we're not creatures pitched in a battle of good or evil, we can totally just set that aside. I seriously doubt religion would fade, though. They'd just come up with new things to believe in and preach. If they even got rid of the old ones, that is.
As dorky as it is, my ancestry, which I'm not going to publicly display, has actually made me a little prouder to be who I am. I mean, my blood's pretty muddied by now, but I'm related to some pretty swag individuals. While it doesn't really have any tangible effect on my life, it certainly has given a bit of a boost to the quality of it.
