Question for materialists

_{Tom Peeler

October 22, 2022

Intelligent Design}

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It’s been a while since I’ve been “out here” and I am wondering if materialism is still considered by some to be a rational position to hold. I understand “materialism” to be the idea that every existing thing is comprised of the periodic table of elements (rearranged in a vast number of ways described by the standard model and general relativity) and no more. Is this a fair definition? Thanks.

Comments

Tgpeeler @106, Good points. The problem is that NONE of the properties you listed have been discovered in the quarks and leptons of the Standard Model. As to creating themselves, some physicists and cosmologists, realizing that the probabilistic appearance of quantum fluctuations require space-time to exist first, so they speculate . . . Here's the truly brilliant theoretical physicist explaining in about 6 minutes what we definitely know about how everything came into existence. Enjoy. How did the universe begin? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHhUCav_Jrk -QQuerius_{October 28, 2022
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KF - thanks. It is exhausting having the same conversations over and over. I applaud your staying power. I'll last as long as I can. :-)tgpeeler_{October 28, 2022
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Wow. Nice. So I think there is some basic agreement here about what "materialism" is so now I'd like for anyone who claims to believe that to engage on the following with particular emphasis on the first item. I've looked and looked and looked for characteristics and properties of matter but never have I seen the following as characteristics of matter: - that it can create itself (yet here we are???) - that it can decide or choose - that it can recognize right and wrong - that it can recognize itself I could go on but I would be happy to have a "materialist" or as Owen Flanagan says in "The Problem of the Soul" "Humans don’t possess some animal parts or instincts. We are animals. Many think the conflict ... lies in our resistance to materialism, physicalism, naturalism, call it what you will… We are, I repeat, animals." So calling it whatever we will, any empirical, rational explanations for how matter, lacking these properties, can explain our existence, and the rest will be most welcome. Thank you. p.s. I get asked all the time when I deconstruct materialism "well what do they say to that?" So I'm compiling a list of specific responses to these questions. Maybe I'm missing something...tgpeeler_{October 28, 2022
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@104: for sure, we agree that any account of objects needs to account for "structure" as well as "stuff". On my view, we should regard the structure of the world is "multilevel", and that what's "structure" at one level is "stuff" for the level above it (and conversely -- what is "stuff" at one level is "structure" for the level below it) -- hence we can think of molecules as both structures of atoms and the stuff of macroscopic materials. (I also think that a multilevel structure/stuff hierarchy is the right way of reading Aristotle's metaphysics, but that's a side-issue.)PyrrhoManiac1_{October 25, 2022
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PM1, good considerations. of course, I am of the view that the wholistic, it's a house is at least as valid as, houses are made of concrete, bricks, steel rebars, fixtures and fittings. The house-ness does use such hardware but house-ness was actually conceived and designed before there were ever foundations dug, walls erected, roof put on etc. Fermions, bosons, quantum effects have their place but so do other aspects and scales. Where, too, any species of grand delusion-ism is self discrediting and self defeating. KFkairosfocus_{October 24, 2022
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The link at https://simplyphilosophy.org/study/scientific-materialism/ contains several mistakes, most of them relatively trivial. But there's one mistake which is not trivial and which could lead to serious misunderstanding of what is being claimed.
n the field of “folk-psychology” explanations are based on premises that do not have intersubjective significance: they express information from the first person – “I feel pain”, which another person can have a qualitatively different basis. Since the terms “folk-psychology” do not have exact correlates in the scientific language, its conception awaits the same fate of elimination that befell the physical concepts of “phlogiston”, “moving celestial spheres”, etc. The main difficulty of the thesis of eliminating the category “consciousness” is in its the contradiction of man’s subjective confidence in the reality of his consciousness and direct access to his self. The possibility, without resorting to a mental language, to express a rich range of human feelings (Dzh.Serl, T. Nagel), is questionable. Without denying the competition of the language of folk psychology and the scientific language, many critics see in it the process of mutual correction, rather than repression.
The central thesis of Rorty and Churchland is not the elimination of consciousness as a concept-- not at all! The contention rather is this: begin with the thought that ordinary sense-perception does not tell us the truth about the physical world, because physics tells us that the ultimate constituents of physical objects are fermions and bosons with properties that we don't detect with our senses (spin, charge) and not having properties that we do detect with our senses (colors, tastes). Then add that introspection is not reliable in just the same way: our ordinary ways of expressing our thoughts, beliefs, and desires, and referring to the thoughts, beliefs, and desires of others, does not capture the reality of what's causing those mental objects. So the argument against "eliminative materialism" would need to show that introspection is, if not infallible, at least far more reliable than sense-perception. But that's consistent with holding that "folk psychology" or "mentalistic discourse" is perfectly useful for most purposes, just as the vocabulary of referring to physical objects as having properties classified by the proper and common sensibles is perfectly useful for most purposes. (If you ask a physicist where the red car went, it would be odd if she were to reply, "I can't say because cars are composed of fermions and bosons, and fermions and bosons do not have color.") In any event, it's not entirely clear to me that avoiding self-referential absurdity requires that introspection be more reliable than sense-perception --- though Cartesian dualism certainly does require that assumption, and it is Cartesian dualism that is being targeted by the Feyerabend-Rorty-Churchland thesis. I'm perfectly happy to let people here attack materialism, and I have no interested in defending it, but I do want to make sure that people here understand the views that they are attacking. No straw people, please!PyrrhoManiac1_{October 24, 2022
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JVL, try u/d 4 here https://uncommondescent.com/logic-and-first-principles-of-right-reason/l-fp-49-the-reichstag-fire-panic-lesson-on-agit-prop-and-lawfare/ KFkairosfocus_{October 24, 2022
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On sale today at. the Great Courses for $14.95 (video download)
The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-great-questions-of-philosophy-and-physics 1 Does Physics Make Philosophy Superfluous? 2 Why Mathematics Works So Well with Physics 3 Can Physics Explain Reality? 4 The Reality of Einstein’s Space 5 The Nature of Einstein’s Time 6 The Beginning of Time 7 Are Atoms Real? 8 Quantum States: Neither True nor False? 9 Waves, Particles, and Quantum Entanglement 10 Wanted Dead and Alive: Schrödinger’s Cat 11 The Dream of Grand Unification 12 The Physics of God
Maybe it will make the discussion on UD more coherent? Can any of our resident commenters teach this course?jerry_{October 24, 2022
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Sev @ 79 - and others. With all the name calling thrown about, and hatred from the left, we now have a new blanket name for this hatred - MAGA Republican. But I have been cataloging and itemizing what and who are actual threats to our republic (we are not a democracy). Read my book on such matters at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096XXVDF3?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_1&storeType=ebooksayearningforpublius_{October 24, 2022
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Kairosfocus: playing with pandering to increasingly bizarre proclivities. And what would those proclivities be? Oh, I forget, you don't even like to say the words. Makes it hard to be sure what you're talking about doesn't it? with that out of your system, can we return to materialism? Or, should we infer from distractors and toxic projections that there is no case on the merits that can make materialism remotely defensible? Not a conversation I have anything to add to. do you want me to document again, on the US State Dept assessment of UKRAINE the danger of widespread correspondence voting? Do you mean what is normally referred to as postal voting? I'll pass on that thanks.JVL_{October 24, 2022
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F/N: Returning to focus, here is an online comment worth considering, in effect picking up on points in Monod: https://simplyphilosophy.org/study/scientific-materialism/
Scientific materialism is the direction of Western analytical philosophy of the second half of the 20th century in solving a psychophysical problem in intersubjective language. The external factor of its appearance was the development of new areas of knowledge – neuroscience, cognitive sciences, psycholinguistics, the theory of artificial intelligence, etc. His philosophical sources are the non-behaviourism of B. Skinner, the logical behaviorism of J. Reil, the physicalism of R. Carnap, the concept of L. Wittgenstein’s private language. The leading representatives – G. Feigl, J. Smart, D. Armstrong, R. Rorty, P. Feyerabend, W. Sellars, J. Fodor, K. Wilkes, P. Churchland, M. Bunge, J. Kim, D. Dennet . Discussions in scientific materialism, in general, are conducted within the framework of the physicalist paradigm, which includes physicalistic monism and determinism (“everything is physical and everything is subject to physical laws”) , , , , Eliminativism proposes a more radical strategy: to completely remove the category of “consciousness” from the philosophical language. P. Feyerabend (1963), one of the first to express this idea, argued that with the creation of a perfect materialistic language, mental terms will change their meaning and be replaced by scientific ones. [--> Notice, the huge implications of scientism] R. Rorty (1965) supported this idea: the replacement of the mentalistic language by the scientific will occur in the same way as in medicine, in the explanation of diseases, the elimination of the medieval “language of witches” occurred. Any being in order to be recognized as an object of intersubjective discussion must be fixed in the language; the concept of consciousness does not have a referent, it is linguistically inexpressible, it is based on a false premise about the introspective access of the one who is conscious to his consciousness, therefore it can not be considered a special reality. [--> the unrecognised, self referentially incoherent grand delusion thesis] The “nature of consciousness” is exhausted by sociolinguistic communication and people’s behavior (1979). P.Churchland (1984) considers strategies to translate languages ??(R.Carnap) or identity (G.Feigl, J.J. Smart, D.Armstrong) to be false because of the possibility of intertheoretical reduction of “folk-psychology” statements in them to the statements of scientific psychology, which uses the neurophysiological language. In the field of “folk-psychology” explanations are based on premises that do not have intersubjective significance: they express information from the first person – “I feel pain”, which another person can have a qualitatively different basis. Since the terms “folk-psychology” do not have exact correlates in the scientific language, its conception awaits the same fate of elimination that befell the physical concepts of “phlogiston”, “moving celestial spheres”, etc. The main difficulty of the thesis of eliminating the category “consciousness” is in its the contradiction of man’s subjective confidence in the reality of his consciousness and direct access to his self.
In setting such aside, I simply point to the self defeat of self referential incoherence. That holds, whether or not it is ignored, dismissed or hotly objected to. Any system that ends in this is absurd. Materialism ends in this and it is absurd, false, self defeated. KFkairosfocus_{October 24, 2022
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Sir Giles, "BA77, your turnabout projection is showing." Again, a Darwinian atheist complaining about censorship of his atheistic worldview in America is a shining example of the speck and the beam parable.
Matthew 7:3 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?
Censorship of opposing ideas, by supposedly 'tolerant' Darwinian atheists, is a pervasive reality in science and academia today in America. Moreover, censorship is necessary for Darwinists to retain their grip on power since a truly fair, balanced, and reasoned discourse would soon expose, for all to see, that the Darwinian king has no clothes on.
Censorship Is Atheism’s Immune System - Michael Egnor - March 29, 2014 Excerpt: The irony of intolerant atheists is remarkable. They proudly declare their open-mindedness, and in the same breath they work feverishly to extinguish by force any mention of God, any support to theism, in civic life. Are you puzzled by this? Don’t be. Censorship is in atheism’s marrow. When we lack recourse to a creator, rights become mere assertions of power. Those who have power do what they want to do, and call it a "right." Without transcendence there are no rights, because without transcendence there can be no objective moral truths — therefore no rights — at all. Moreover, atheism cannot withstand reasoned examination. The assertion that everything came from nothing, without reason and without moral law, isn’t defensible in rational discourse, so silent assent is necessary to hold sway over culture.,,, Atheism as a philosophical proposition is utterly untenable, and belief in atheism amounts to self-delusion or culpable ignorance. There are, accordingly, to be no questions that might lead to a source for existence or to objective moral truth. All of atheism’s power depends on making it immune to questions. Censorship is thus a core manifestation of atheism. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/03/censorship_is_a/ Censoring the Darwin Skeptics: How Belief in Evolution Is Enforced by Eliminating Dissidents – May 17, 2018 This is the third volume of a trilogy that has been more than a decade in the making. The trilogy documents over 100 cases of discrimination handed out to individuals (60 of whom were PhDs) who dared to challenge Darwinian concepts within many venues of science and academia. For those who think this type of discrimination is minor or inconsequential, you should examine this work. This type of discrimination is not rare by any means in America, but has been constantly on the rise for decades. It represents nothing less than the brutal violation of freedom of speech, thought, and religious freedom for those who are qualified to practice in their field. Over and over again the clear pattern emerges from the pages of this trilogy - you are at high risk of career termination if you dare question much less oppose evolutionary concepts. Other books in this trilogy include Slaughter of the Dissidents (Volume I) and Silencing the Darwin Skeptics (Volume II) https://www.amazon.com/Censoring-Darwin-Skeptics-Eliminating-Dissidents/dp/0981873421 Discrimination (by Darwinists) is a pervasive reality in the scientific (and education) world. It’s also a hidden reality. Scott Minnich Richard Sternberg Günter Bechly Eric Hedin Don McDonald David Coppedge Caroline Crocker Bryan Leonard Martin Gaskell Dean Kenyon Roger DeHart Granville Sewell https://freescience.today/stories/ Here are many more examples of discrimination against people who dare question Darwinism https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/review-of-darwins-doubt-slams-id-theorists-for-not-publishing-in-darwinist-run-journals/
Quote and Verse:
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas." - Joseph Stalin Acts 4: 17-19 But to keep this message from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them not to speak to anyone in this name.” Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than God.…
bornagain77_{October 24, 2022
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PPS, do you want me to document again, on the US State Dept assessment of UKRAINE the danger of widespread correspondence voting?kairosfocus_{October 24, 2022
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JVL, in my day job, for all my sins I am sentenced to do strategic analysis, including geostrategic analysis, where time, place and circumstances intersect with strategic challenges. For the record, since 2016 I have very publicly stated that Putin's Russia is a wild card; in effect he is likely seeking to rebuild a good slice of Russia's domination of the Mackinder pivot area in E and possibly C Europe on grounds of the inherent indefensibility of the great European plain, also Germany's historic challenge. He disregards the post 1918 principle, allow the people to decide, self determination. But then, not entirely without cause he perceives corrupt Western influences. He is also very sensitive to how Ukraine was a dagger in the underbelly of Russia 1941 - 3. He is also pretty ruthless, a KGB light colonel with a telltale gunfighter's walk. He is rational, though ruthless and he has perceived a threat in Ukraine's longstanding corruption and attitude to ethnic Russians [cf Russia, 1914 and being big bro to fellow Slavs in Serbia]. Yes, a threat. He gravely miscalculated that a quick push could do better than Stalin's Winter War with Finland 1939, and is facing similarly unexpectedly stout, plucky resistance. He has also undone the geostrategic de facto neutrality pacts on his Scandinavian flanks. He is threatening nukes and resorting to bombardment of key civilian infrastructure, maybe he implicitly blames Ukraine and its backers for Nord Stream. That, may be maskirovka. This feeds into wider conflicts and policy blunders with energy driven by environmentalist ideology and stagflation crouches at the door. At the same time the Western policy establishments are busily alienating core populations and are playing with pandering to increasingly bizarre proclivities. Not to mention their track record of strategic incompetence. So, one does not have to support or like Putin and his foolish policies to say, we do not want to play chicken with nuclear war, or that we have no confidence in our perverse, demonstrably incompetent policy establishment, or that you pounce on us, you call us racists and fascists/nazis, you trash our history irresponsibly, you call out swat squad hit teams to over charge us for little or nothing (while coddling red guards), you run elections that are open to massive fraud [and criminalise criticism] then you want to turn us into cannon fodder again right after you demonstrated strategic incompetence over the past 20 years? So, kindly stop projecting demonising strawman caricatures. KF PS, with that out of your system, can we return to materialism? Or, should we infer from distractors and toxic projections that there is no case on the merits that can make materialism remotely defensible?kairosfocus_{October 24, 2022
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WJM: I’m not sure how any reasonable person is supposed to even attempt to sort any of it out in terms of what is “true.” So, I don’t bother. I have more practical matters to attend. I have no personal reason to support either dog in this fight – I mean, if there is even an actual fight happening. You are a complete waste of space and oxygen, in my opinion. And I shall cease responding to you at all.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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Seversky @71 said:
So how many here support Putin and Russia and think we shouldn’t be involved the war in Ukraine?
With the state of modern news and information sources, and what we know historically about the kind of misinformation and/or propaganda campaigns we've all been admittedly subjected to (and are being subjected to,) I'm not sure how any reasonable person is supposed to even attempt to sort any of it out in terms of what is "true." So, I don't bother. I have more practical matters to attend. I have no personal reason to support either dog in this fight - I mean, if there is even an actual fight happening.William J Murray_{October 23, 2022
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PPS, it is time to read about the Reichstag fire incident and how it was used to seize power in Germany. I find disturbing parallels between nazi propaganda targetting Jews etc and how Republicans in the US as well as the people of flyover country are routinely portrayed and are increasingly treated.kairosfocus_{October 23, 2022
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Folks, what is going on here? There is a serious issue on the table, at civilisation level. What is materialism. I guess the implication of the red herrings led away to strawman caricatures soaked in ad homs and set alight is that the main focus is just a tad too close to the truth and there is no cogent answer. KF PS, Mr Putin is an example of someone playing power games while not listening to sound ethical counsel. He may actually at least half believe his propaganda about nazi thrusts through the Ukraine into Russia's underbelly that had to be fought for at horrific cost in blood in the 1940's.kairosfocus_{October 23, 2022
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"Materialism", like all "-isms," does a great deal of mischief -- we cannot think without -isms, yet all too often the -isms control our thinking. One question to consider would be, "materialism as opposed to what?" I mean, what is supposed to contrast with materialism? If one says that materialism contrasts with dualism or idealism, then one is already conceiving of materialism as a definite kind of position. For some philosophers, Aristotelian hylomorphism is a kind of materialism -- for others, it isn't. (This depends on what kinds of causes one can accommodate within "materialism".) The logical positivists used "physicalism" but for them this was a choice of language -- shall we use a language that refers to physical objects or not? -- as opposed to a phenomenalist language, in which all talk about physical objects is analyzed into talk about actual and possible sensations. From the OP: "I understand “materialism” to be the idea that every existing thing is comprised of the periodic table of elements (rearranged in a vast number of ways described by the standard model and general relativity) and no more." I think this is a good definition of materialism, using that term in one of its senses. I think it captures what most materialists are trying to say: that everything that exists could be, at least in principle, be explained in terms of quantum mechanics or general relativity. (Even if such explanations are almost never useful -- would a materialist say that if we're trying to figure what's driving inflation, quantum mechanics will be more useful than economics?) I think that materialism, thus defined, is perhaps coherent but a deeply unattractive position. And it has to do with reasons that I haven't yet seen addressed in this thread. Why does the materialist think that all explanations are, in principle, reducible to explanations of quantum mechanics or general relativity? It's because those theories belong to fundamental physics: they are true everywhere in the history of the universe, at all times and places. (Technically, only above the Planck scale, but let's ignore that for a moment.) We can talk about molecules in terms of atoms and atoms in terms of fermions and boson, but we don't know how to talk about fermions and bosons in terms of anything else. Likewise, general relativity is also a theory of fundamental physics -- it also purports to be true at all times and places in the history of the universe. But general relativity and quantum mechanics are not logically compatible. They are both true everywhere and everywhen, at every resolution of spatio-temporal scale. Perhaps quantum mechanics will be replaced by another theory that can be reconciled with general relativity. Perhaps general relativity will be replaced by another theory that can be reconciled with quantum mechanics. Perhaps both theories will be replaced with a third theory. Right now, no one can know. This puts the materialist in the embarrassing situation of having to say, "all explanations reduce to fundamental physics, but no one knows what that is, we have no idea how we might ever find out, and it's quite possible that we'll never find out." (One might see this as a modern-day version of Hempel's Dilemma.) Is that a rational position to adopt? If so, I don't see how. So my best stab at the puzzle in the OP is that materialism is not an obviously rational position.PyrrhoManiac1_{October 23, 2022
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RE 85 I forgot to mention the FBI and DOJ all hate Trump as well. Viividvividbleau_{October 23, 2022
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BA77, your turnabout projection is showing.Sir Giles_{October 23, 2022
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I see its time for a Sunday school lesson,
Parable of the Log and Speck- Truma Videos Christian Comedy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z1MynGK3YA
bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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BA77: Hmm, so pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of a Darwinist griping about ‘hypothetical’ censorship,
Nobody is talking about a hypothetical censorship. His books have been banned. Your refusal to answer speaks volumes, and not in your favour.Sir Giles_{October 23, 2022
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“If this is what MAGA Republicans really want here in the US, to do away with democracy and install Trump as President-for-life with a rubber-stamp Supreme Court as an American Volksgerichtshof then there will be trouble.” The one doing away with Democracy is Zelenski https://deadline.com/2022/03/ukraine-president-vologymyr-zelensky-combines-all-national-tv-channels-to-combat-alleged-misinformation-1234982814/ https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/03/20/ukraine-zelensky-uses-martial-law-to-ban-main-opposition-party-in-crackdown-on-division/ As far as your inane MAGA Trump installation comment one must have institutional power to do such a thing. Trump has no institutional power. The military hates him, the media hates him, the CIA hates him, the intelligence agencies hate him. Many Republicans hate him.Exactly how would this installation happen? Vividvividbleau_{October 23, 2022
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Hmm, so pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of a Darwinist griping about 'hypothetical' censorship, as opposed to the real censorship that Darwin skeptics face day in and day out, is a 'non-answer' in your book? Really??? Perhaps, "remove the beam from your eye" might ring a bell?bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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BA77: Kind of like how Darwinists try to forcibly censor any criticism of their theory?
Thank you for the non answer. Would you like to try again? Would you support a book that satirizes the Christian faith being in a school library. Yes or no.Sir Giles_{October 23, 2022
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Kind of like how Darwinists try to forcibly censor any and all criticism of their theory?
At Mind Matters News: Non-Materialist Science Is Wanted — Dead Or Alive - August 29, 2021 Michael Egnor: As an example of how difficult this can be, I’ve been involved quite a bit in the intelligent design vs. Darwinism debates. I have a friend who is a basic scientist and molecular biologist who is one of the leading people in this field. He is exceptionally accomplished… great guy. I was at a meeting with him one time and he took me aside and he said, “I’ve seen what you’ve been doing with intelligent design and so on. I’m a Christian. And I think you’re right. I think Darwinism and materialism are grossly inadequate ways of understanding biology. But I can’t say that out loud. I can’t say a word about that, because my wife is sick. We need our health insurance. I need my job. And if I said a word about materialism or Darwinism not being acceptable frameworks for doing the science, I would never get another grant. I couldn’t feed my family.” And that’s true. They will destroy people. They will destroy people’s careers. Look at what people tried to do to Mike Behe for writing Darwin’s Black Box (1996). He’s tenured. But in his department, he was treated as a pariah. If they could have fired him, they would have done it in a minute. Arjuna Das: I was wondering how he got away with it. Michael Egnor: He’s tenured. I’ve gotten calls to my department in my university demanding that I be fired. That’s a fairly frequent thing. I was called a couple of years ago by the campus police that there was a death threat against me and they wanted to protect me. So this kind of stuff goes on. And some of these people are vicious. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-mind-matters-news-non-materialist-science-is-wanted-dead-or-alive/ Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (full movie) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5EPymcWp-g Slaughter of Dissidents – Book Volume 1 of a trilogy, the disturbing premise of this book documents widespread discrimination by Darwin loyalists against Darwin skeptics in academia and within the scientific community. Multiple case studies expose the tactics used to destroy the careers of Darwin skeptics, denying them earned degrees and awards, tenure, and other career benefits offered to non-skeptics. The book exposes how freedom of speech and freedom of expression are widely promoted as not applicable to Darwin doubters, and reveals the depth and extent of hostility and bigotry exhibited towards those who would dare to question Darwinism. The book also shows how even the slightest hint of sympathy for Darwin Doubters often results in a vigorous and rabid response from those who believe such sympathies represent an attack on science itself.,,, "If folks liked Ben Stein's movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," they will be blown away by "Slaughter of the Dissidents." - Russ Miller http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Dissidents-Dr-Jerry-Bergman/dp/0981873405
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BA77@49,55,57,58, 63, 67, 70, 80, scroll, scroll? Scroll. JVL, all of this over the fact that he doesn’t appreciate Tom Robbins. What I would be interested in is whether BA77, KF and others here would vote against having Tom Robbins novels in school libraries.Sir Giles_{October 23, 2022
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Of course I am against Putin committing his atrocities against the Ukrainians. What made you think otherwise? Especially given Stalin's genocide against the Ukrainians, (Stalin stole all their grain at gunpoint resulting in the mass starvation of millions of Ukrainians), I've opposed Putin from day one in his invasion of Ukraine. My 'simple' point was that in order for you, a Darwinian atheist, to condemn his atrocities you are forced to reach over into the objective morality of Judeo-Christian Theism in order to do it. "Red in tooth and claw" Darwinism simply provides you no objective moral basis in which to condemn Putin's acts as evil. ,,, If only you really did think deeply about such matters instead of just superficially trying to rationalize them away in order to try to protect your atheism and try to cast a shadow on Christianity.
"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life - pg. 133 Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. The Moral Argument – drcraigvideos - video https://youtu.be/OxiAikEk2vU?t=276
bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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I'm also sure that ordinary Russians on average are decent people who love their country and don't want anything to do with Putin and his megalomaniacal ambitions. I'm sure they do care about all the lives that have been lost and the personal and economic hardship they are suffering, things I doubt he cares about at all. What is both alarming and despicable are the signs that MAGA Republican sympathies are swinging towards these really unpleasant autocrats, not just Putin but Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary or Lukashenko in Belarus. Tucker Carlson is said to have become almost a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda. If this is what MAGA Republicans really want here in the US, to do away with democracy and install Trump as President-for-life with a rubber-stamp Supreme Court as an American Volksgerichtshof then there will be trouble.Seversky_{October 23, 2022
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