It’s still not falsifiable, to such people, because they’ll have an explanation for all the contradictions, both internal and with facts on the ground. There are people claiming that God faked geological evidence as a test.
People have been spending thousands of years arguing over the meaning and validity of bible verses, and what we get is more and more religious sects, because the arguments don’t lead to agreement but to schisms.
But arguing in legislatures about unfalsifiable beliefs is a waste of time.
And I don’t think we’ve currently actually got people arguing that laws should be written in a certain fashion “because Marx said so” – or, for that matter, any significant number of people in current USA legislatures arguing for Marxism. People arguing for other degrees and types of socialism bring practical arguments, and point to existing societies which function well while doing things that USA politics writes off as “socialism!”
Which is why I referred to the Pratchett quote.
We have to believe in justice, in order to be human. That doesn’t mean that justice exists in the universe as a whole. (And it pretty obviously doesn’t mean that humans are going to always agree on what’s just and what isn’t. We wouldn’t need all those legislatures in the first place, if we did.)
Would you abandon these positions if the rules were changed in legislative bodies to restrict religious based arguments as part of public policy legislation? I would assume (hope) not. I would assume you would continue to espouse them in public debate forums such as this, including various media outlets, etc…
Mr. Pratchett’s Death character reads like a nihilist, so my question to him is how he could possibly take a position on a political question. How can one answer “should we…” if one believes the word “should” is meaningless? Nihilism implies anomie.
He is making the claim that DESPITE the seeming futility and arbitrary nature of it all (i.e.: from a nihilistic point of view, the universe will end in entropy), humans still strive to do the RIGHT thing. Which is EXACTLY THE POINT.
All hypotheses are welcome in the Marketplace of Ideas. But don’t be offended if what’s considered priceless wisdom in your village is relegated to the bargain bin in the Marketplace. It’s value drops to almost zero when compared to the 24k gold Ideas of reason and logic.
Please understand that as we don’t have a lot of time to peruse all the trillions of Ideas available we’re going to choose from the time-tested 24k stuff.
If anything, Death’s saying that it’s important for humans to believe in justice and mercy BECAUSE the universe doesn’t. That’s not nihilism. Defiance, maybe; but not nihilism.
I’m not sure how you got that. First Death says justice, mercy, and duty are a bunch of big lies. Then Death says in no uncertain terms that humans act “AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED”. Susan asks, if there were there no such ideal order, what would be the point? To which Death implies, there is no point.
That was my read of the snippet without surrounding context, and it reads a lot like nihilism. I’m not sure how you came to your alternative conclusion.
ETA: Maybe Death was saying this search for an ideal order is the point, but that doesn’t square up with calling the same order a “fantasy” or such things as justice a “lie”.
I gotta ask and I assure you that this is in no way meant as an insult.
However, I get the subtle feeling that there may be an Asperger’s type issue at play here. Am I completely off base? We seem to be communicating in a common language but failing to understand each other on some fundamental level.
Death is saying that humans have to believe in justice, mercy, etc. in order to be human. And that it matters a great deal that we do so. He’s not saying that there is no point; he’s saying that because we believe them, then there is a point.
We* invented these things because we need to believe in them. But because we believe in them, they do exist. Just like money. Those bits of pieces of paper, let alone ones and zeros stored somewhere in the cloud, are entirely worthless except for our belief that they have value – but that belief changes the world. So does belief in justice and mercy.
*not just us, and not out of whole cloth. There’s evidence that other species have some sense of justice also. My guess is that social species evolved these things so that we can live together. [ETA: not ‘so that’ in any sense that evolution planned it, which doesn’t happen; just that it improved survival by making it possible to live in groups.]
No offense taken, although I don’t have Asperger’s syndrome. At least I am unaware of any such diagnosis of myself or any relatives, and I don’t identify with the symptoms normally attributed.
My word-for-word pedantry might come off as unusual but that is just how I think sometimes - substitution and comparison and categorization. Especially so when analyzing a snippet of writing, such as a post on these forums or a quote from a book (Pratchett or the Bible or the Constitution). In spoken words I use more pronouns and less rigid language because the feedback is immediate and varied if I am not understood. Here online, all I have to go by are the letters.
Death also implies those things - justice, mercy, duty - are big lies. That they are fantasies. It seems that Death had been talking down towards Susan before the text begins, because she opens up saying “I’m not stupid”, as if Death had implied she was too stupid to understand his point.
Well no, they do not exist in reality. This is made clear by Death’s penultimate speech, where he says you cannot find a physical atom of justice “And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world”. Combined with calling justice, mercy, and duty ‘big lies’, Death is saying morality is made up. It’s not real, it doesn’t exist. That is the definition of nihilism.
People believe morality exists, which does change the world as you say. According to physicalism, you could theoretically look at someone’s brain and say “this person believes that act is moral”; belief would be an emergent property of a physical brain. But this is like a description of the Cheshire cat; no matter how many words or paintings describe the famous cat, it never actually existed. So it is with morality, one person’s belief of morality is like a description of morality, and the underlying thing described never physically exists.
Glad I didn’t offend you with my previous post. I’ll try harder this time.
You appear to be taking the view of the Death character quite seriously. I know that you appreciate that he is no more real than the Cheshire Cat. However, that doesn’t stop you from arguing his position without the appearance of awareness of who is really speaking here and what idea is being expressed. TP, the author is speaking, and he is (was) unmistakably real. He created an imaginary dialogue to illustrate a point about human existence and the need for a moral framework, which, while entirely “made up” does deal with the concepts of “right” and “wrong” and does tend to choose one over the other, usually (with countless notable exceptions) tending towards that which benefits the overall benefit/good/right/justice for all. Lofty goal, certainly. Impossible, probably. Futile when everything comes to an unavoidable end. But not until then. Which, again, IS EXACTLY THE POINT.
Well, no. I am not a religious person so I can’t offer my rationale for accepting some part of the Bible as true. I imagine that nobody actually does so, but the reasons behind the faithful are incredibly personal - perhaps a direct revalation (eg: visions of Mary and Jesus), more likely a series of very personal life experiences that somehow convinced one to accept Christ. The rationale would not necessarily be illogical, but there is probably nothing verifiable or scientific, or we would have heard about it.
Alternatively, people just assume the New Testament, or their denomination’s interpretation, is axiomatically true out of ignorance or on unverified authority (from parents or ministers). These are the people you want to hear your debate - if you get them to go home questioning their axioms, or even thinking “I can understand Voyager’s argument but I just disagree on the fundamentals”, that’s a victory for the public who becomes more informed and can make a better policy decision. If all they hear is silence or laughter, what do you gain?
I don’t think contradictory premises (including axioms) constitute evidence as to the validity of either premise. A contradiction is evidence that one of the two must be rejected, but offers no guidance as to which; more importantly, the argument does not follow from the premises because both premises cannot be true.
Sort of, yeah. If I am to reject the supernatural and universal morality, for lack of alternatives I see kraterocracy as the foundation of society and morals (might makes right). Through a series of struggles I think the various factions had come to a truce; the powers-that-were surrendered parts of their self-proclaimed sovereignty and dedicated their might to upholding what we call a constitutional democracy.
In our constitutional democracy, the laws are decided by votes of representatives, subject to limits in the constitution, which is also the law. The people themselves vote to elect their representatives (directly or indirectly), and certain majorities of those representatives may modify the constitution.
If enforcing laws does not equate to enforcing morality I don’t know what laws are. Laws are determined by the vote of representatives, who are in turn voted in by the people, and this whole system is justified by the sheer force which by truce upholds it. So yes, in a sense, I do believe morality is subject to a vote.
You could say that this position is stage five of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, but I specifically condition all of this on the absence of universal morality.
I think the god argument should be at least debated (laid out and examined) because apparently some people do think it is a good reason to put children at risk. I have no idea how the anti-vaxxers use religion to justify their position. Even from a religious perspective it doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t even know what their argument is, as I have only heard the religious justification secondhand where it is derided as unjustified. So I welcome arguments against vaccination, if only for me to reject them upon examination.
That doesn’t mean I would vote for an anti-vax candidate or ask the school board to hold off on mandatory vaccinations. My default position is strongly in favor of vaccination and I seriously doubt any argument will persuade me to abandon that. But if an anti-vax person wants me to support their cause, it is on them to convince me.
There is of course a limit as with all things. I don’t have unlimited time and neither do representatives. They cannot solicitate and respond to the opinions of every constituent. So it may be that they address the opinions of their friends, and of representatives of various factions within their constituency (lobbyists), of petitions, of the media, of notable people, and occasionally of normal people too (town halls).
Also agreed, but while I would point that out, it is my impression that you think it better to meet such an argument with laughter or silence, just because you disagree with the premises.
This is either a straw man or worth pointing out instead of laughing/staying silent.
Certainly not for the person who had the revelation! It’s bunk (meaningless) to you, not to them.
May I take this as your concession (at last) that there are plenty of opportunities and venues for these kinds of discussions outside of the halls of congress where laws are debated/made?
I’m not aware of any religious positions that deny the human effect on climate change. I mean, I could make one up ad hoc but I don’t see the point when we have a much better example to go by:
I’m not sure what argument you think you are up against, but it probably isn’t “God told us that vaccinating children risks significant damage to those children”. Take out “God” and you have the non-religious argument, which is in my opinion pure ignorance. I don’t know what the religious arguments against vaccination are, but it’s probably set against your premise that keeping children physically safe and healthy is “better” than risking disease and possibly death.
He’s not ignoring the Constitution, he’s asking the courts to reconsider their interpretation of the Constitution. As I said later in that post, “It will be understood that the law will meet an immediate injunction, and the senator’s arguments on the floor count as a brief for the State.”
After all, Supreme Court decisions can be overturned by the same court as opposed to abrogated by a Constitutional amendment. Long ago, the Supreme Court had ruled that legislatures cannot infringe upon the “Liberty of Contract” (Lochner v. New York, 1905), including minimum wage laws (Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 1923; Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 1937). Would you have the state of Washington (West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 1937) and the federal government (FLSA, 1938) wait for a Constitutional amendment before passing their own minimum wage laws?
I’ve re-read that post and don’t see where you addressed it. You say “Would he be lying? Only if he doesn’t find the secular arguments convincing”, but this doesn’t address the likely case where our senator is not convinced by secular arguments. You are asking this senator to either fail to do his job or to steep to blatant lies, and unconvincing ones at that; you may as well say he is worthless and the religious convictions of the people he represents are invalid and their position is untenable without religion; thus you have disqualified that population from public policy debate on the issue they care about most.
