Inexplicable Contradictions

_{Barry Arrington

December 31, 2020

Intelligent Design}

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Here’s a scenario for your consideration:

Suppose there were a group of people who insisted there is absolutely no objective standard for morality and that all moral norms are based on subjective preferences that are foisted on us by material evolutionary forces.

And suppose there were a group of people who are so serenely confident of their own moral rectitude and the indisputable goodness of their policy prescriptions (which policy prescriptions are driven by their moral viewpoint) that they are determined to force the entire nation to conform to those prescriptions.

Now suppose that these groups are one and the same. It would be mind blowing if such a group actually existed would it not?

Here’s another scenario to consider:

Suppose there were a group of people who insisted that all political structures are, without exception, based on power dynamics in which the strong impose their preferences on the weak, and all supposed logical justifications for any particular political structure are merely smokescreens employed to further one’s agenda in the power game.

And suppose there were a group of people who advanced logical justifications for a political structure based on arguments grounded in words like “justice” and “equality.”

Now suppose, once again, that these groups are one and the same. Again, it would be mind blowing if such a group actually existed would it not?

One need not suppose at all. Neither scenario is hypothetical. The group in question in both scenarios exists and it has a name: materialist progressives.

The logical contradictions progressives are able to juxtapose in their minds never cease to amaze. Their entire worldview is irrational. Is it any wonder that they attack rationality itself (“It’s an arbitrary ethnocentric, patriarchal social construct!!”) as part of their program?

Comments

News
They don’t. It’s the secret of their success that they don’t. Like a wolf pack bearing down on prey, they don’t need logic when they have force. I fear Americans are in for a bad time if they don’t know that. It appears that they don’t know what will happen.
True and profound reflection. We can learn from Canada which has suffered from this a lot longer than we have in America - as you well know. For some decades I've wondered "how could they put up with that"? But again, it's not a logical process that they're following. "A wolf pack" - that's it. Animal brutality, blindness of the passions. The wolves are not thinking about what is right or wrong, what makes logical sense or not. And, most significantly, they're in a "pack". Some may not even be that hungry, but everyone else is running madly in that direction, with the promise of satisfactions of various kinds, whatever they may be ... so they'll join the pack. I see that with Darwinism. It's not logical - far from it. But there's the pack-mentality. The mindless asherence to unprovable concepts. It's the same with the atheist-left. They fall back on the "everybody knows" defense. "Everybody" is corrupt and follows the lowest path, so we will lead them. I think of some of the appalling images seen recently, as abortion is legalized in supposedly Catholic countries (like Argentina just recently) and photos of women ecstatic with celebration. Ok, you have the right to kill your own children now. You can live in barrenness and guilt. It's just a mindless surge. Not even fair to call it animalistic. Even wolves have some reverence for their own children.Silver Asiatic_{January 2, 2021
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BA, excellent. In direct opposition towards desperately needed reformation,
We can readily identify at least seven inescapable first duties of reason. "Inescapable," as they are so antecedent to reasoning that even the objector implicitly appeals to them; i.e. they are self-evident. Namely, duties, to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour; so also, to fairness and justice etc. Such built-in . . . thus, universal . . . law is not invented by parliaments, kings or courts, nor can these principles and duties be abolished by such; they are recognised, often implicitly as an indelible part of our evident nature. Hence, "natural law," coeval with our humanity, famously phrased in terms of "self-evident . . . rights . . . endowed by our Creator" in the US Declaration of Independence, 1776. (Cf. Cicero in De Legibus, c. 50 BC.) Indeed, it is on this framework that we can set out to soundly understand and duly balance rights, freedoms and duties; which is justice, the pivot of law. The legitimate main task of government, then, is to uphold and defend the civil peace of justice through sound community order reflecting the built in, intelligible law of our nature. Where, as my right implies your duty a true right is a binding moral claim to be respected in life, liberty, honestly aquired property, innocent reputation etc. To so justly claim a right, one must therefore demonstrably be in the right. Likewise, Aristotle long since anticipated Pilate's cynical "what is truth?": truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not. [Metaphysics, 1011b, C4 BC.] Simple in concept, but hard to establish on the ground; hence -- in key part -- the duties to right reason, prudence, fairness etc. Thus, too, we may compose sound civil law informed by that built-in law of our responsibly, rationally free morally governed nature; from such, we may identify what is unsound or false thus to be reformed or replaced even though enacted under the colour and solemn ceremonies of law. The first duties, also, are a framework for understanding and articulating the corpus of built-in law of our morally governed nature, antecedent to civil laws and manifest our roots in the Supreme Law-giver, the inherently good, utterly wise and just creator-God, the necessary (so, eternal), maximally great being at the root of reality.
Epictetus expands no 2 on right reason and its roots, on inescapability of logic
DISCOURSES CHAPTER XXV How is logic necessary? When someone in [Epictetus'] audience said, Convince me that logic is necessary, he answered: Do you wish me to demonstrate this to you?—Yes.—Well, then, must I use a demonstrative argument?—And when the questioner had agreed to that, Epictetus asked him. How, then, will you know if I impose upon you?—As the man had no answer to give, Epictetus said: Do you see how you yourself admit that all this instruction is necessary, if, without it, you cannot so much as know whether it is necessary or not? [Notice, inescapable, thus self evidently true and antecedent to the inferential reasoning that provides deductive proofs and frameworks, including axiomatic systems and propositional calculus etc. Cf J. C. Wright]
We need to go back to the beginnings of sound thinking and policy analysis. Desperately needed, going forward. KFkairosfocus_{January 1, 2021
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SA, fellow travellers. I don't want to use Lenin's far blunter language about useful i ______s. KFkairosfocus_{January 1, 2021
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Oh dear. I remember a conversation with a science teacher friend where I had to implore her: Stop thinking of progressives as if they had a logical basis for their beliefs. They don't. It's the secret of their success that they don't. Like a wolf pack bearing down on prey, they don't need logic when they have force. I fear Americans are in for a bad time if they don't know that. It appears that they don't know what will happen.News_{December 31, 2020
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If you try to tell them that they have no moral standards, they will get upset and deny this. "We firmly believe what all the cool people and celebrities tell us to believe, of course!" And the celebrities are doing the same thing - looking around to make sure they're saying what "everyone" wants them to say. There are some leaders who come up with the new moral norms - which are revolutionary concepts intended to break down Christian culture. They have their own reasons - but also, no real standards.Silver Asiatic_{December 31, 2020
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polistra: The enforcers are demonic psychopaths How did they get that way?mike1962_{December 31, 2020
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BA
The group in question in both scenarios exists and it has a name: materialist progressives.
The group does exist but I think even non-materialists are a part of it. For example, a group that was called, in previous times, "Indifferentists" or "Latitudinarians" - among other more specific names that will only offend people if I say them, believe that "all religions are basically the same". Belief in God is good (or not, it doesn't matter), but doesn't carry any moral mandate. So, they will join the materialists and impose moral norms on society, at the same time insisting that all or no moral norms are required or have any ultimate value. A guy on another thread here this week proclaimed "There is only heaven". Everybody goes to heaven when they die - even people who don't want anything to do with God? I guess so. So, there's a kind of theistic-deistic irrationality also - moral and philosophical confusion. I'm just pointing to the name, perhaps, the concept remains. "Progressives" does seem valid in all cases because their belief is in the "progress of the world", that our goal is to transform society into the ideals of a group of people.Silver Asiatic_{December 31, 2020
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No. The enforcers are not confident of rectitude or rationality. The enforcers are demonic psychopaths who are driven by a BURNING URGE TO BE THE SOLE OCCUPANT OF THE UNIVERSE. They are willing to run all sorts of tricks involving "morality" and "science" if those tricks result in MAXIMUM HARM AND DAMAGE AND PAIN to the rest of the universe. You are severely underestimating the INFINITE EVIL of psychopaths.polistra_{December 31, 2020
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