Flake

Interesting theory. However it doesn't necessarily follow that a life full of joy will lead to inevitable strife at any small inconvenience or that a life of sadness will lead to inevitable happiness at the smallest convenience. People who have lived a life of sadness usually become pessimists so any small convenience will be just seen as temporary and people who have lived a life of joy for the most part will see a inconvenience as temporary so won't see it as that bad.

This won't really have much of a effect in deterring people interested in those things. People will just be annoyed for having to put more effort into their porn viewing.

Virtually impossible doesn't mean impossible. Just because something would be exceedingly difficult to test doesn't mean that it can't be tested. Ignosticism however isn't blind faith no matter how it is looked at. I don't have faith that the word "God" is meaningless, it is a purely logical position, there is currently no proof that there is a specific referent for the word "God", so for now the word "God" is meaningless.

He's talking about strong atheism, which states "There is no God.", a truth claim which does require evidence/proof. He's also talking about the strong version of agnosticism which says, "We can never know if God exists." I'll expound on why ignosticism isn't a religion. The condition which must be met, to logically get a ignostic to renounce their position, is to prove that the word God has a referent, a referent being something you can point to to say what a word means. (e.g. The referent of a orange is the fruit it's named after.) You could say, "People do give referents for God, like saying it's the universe.", yes, but they can't prove that that is what the word originally referred to. To prove it there would have to be research into the first possible use of the word, then logically explain how it referred to something specific. Which could theoretically be done I guess, but to the best of my knowledge that hasn't been done. So logically, something could persuade a ignostic to change their position, therefore it isn't religious.

Ah, that clears things up. This is just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, but I believe that on this subject proof doesn't matter to most people. They will pay lip service to it of course, to make a attempt to look less dogmatic, but at the end of the day no proof will convince a theist to become a atheist or a atheist to become a theist. Some will say this isn't true, saying that they themselves changed their minds when shown the proof, but that is because they were already doubting their previous beliefs.

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/strong_weak.htm Weak atheism makes no knowledge claim, meaning no proof is required. What you are talking about is strong atheism, which does make a knowledge claim, meaning proof is required. As you can see in this thread, strong atheists try to prove that the concept of God is contradictory. The most logically rigorous position is ignosticism (not to be confused with agnosticism). Ignostics believe that the word God is meaningless, so any discussion about the existence or non-existence of "God", is a waste of time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

The reason people accept the NAP is mostly because they think it will cause the least harm. Could one reasonably say that letting a child starve would be in line with the reasons they accepted the NAP in the first place? Put differently, if you want the least amount of harm possible, which caused you to accept the NAP, then why would you let the parent starve the child? It would clearly cause needless harm, which would go against the reason you accepted the NAP, if you wanted to get poetic you could say that letting a child be starved by its parents would go against the spirit of the NAP.

You might want to check out the Wikipedia entry on the guy's book. The studies he bases it on are questionable. On a side note I'll agree that some people really don't like having to make choices. Just because those people don't want so many choices doesn't mean that everyone should have their choices restricted. Some people enjoy having plenty of options, to those people restricting their choices would lower their satisfaction, and this is the point Libertarians / AnCaps are trying to hammer home. What's good for some isn't good for all.

Atheism in it's weakest form is logically obvious. There is no proof for God's existence therefore there is no reason to believe God exists. Anarchism isn't as logically obvious. Many reasons exist to convince a person that government is needed. Those reasons are false, of course, but it takes much more thought to realize that. I think atheism is no intellectual achievement at all, anarchism that has been accepted based on reason, is a intellectual achievement, how big a achievement is another question.

You try to use a analogy by saying that philosophy and science are the same in that both are objective. That if science doesn't help someone then it doesn't invalidate science just as if philosophy doesn't help someone then it doesn't invalidate philosphy. Which would be fine except Lowe's standard is that it must help the person get the life they want or it isn't philosophy. Your analogy is irrelevant in that I didn't argue against the validity of philosophy based on people's opinions, I argued against Lowe's standard for considering something philosophy, for you to make a relevant analogy in support of Lowe's standard you would have to accept some off-the-wall presuppositions. (A relevant analogy wouldn't help support Lowe's standard anyway. Those off-the-wall presuppositions would be wrong.)

What is the purpose of epistemology, etc, if not to get you the life you want? Has anyone under the sun ever said, here is my new philosophy, through which you will never accomplish anything you desire? That wouldn't be philosophy. To me, philosophy matters. It's something I put into action. I have done a year and a half of therapy with the same psychotherapist, which started about two and a half years after finding FDR, reading Alice Miller, and starting to introspect and journal, for the first time in my life. Since then my life has improved noticeably. I'm braver, more open to ambiguity, and to compassion, and less driven by the collected pain of my childhood. There's still a ways to go, but already I am better at public speaking, better at making romantic advances, and in better shape physically. I recently got a new job that pays far more than any I've had before now, and I love the work I am doing. So, I care about arguments. I care so much, I acted on them, and tested them (came back positive). People who don't act on truth, care about other things more than truth. If that's so, what good is their philosophy? Philosophy is all about truth. By your standards something must "help you get the life you want" in order to be philosophy. Something which sounds appealing and seems intuitive. Let us apply those standards. Does the philosophy here at FDR help you get the life you want? It has helped you, you could consider FDR the epitome of philosophy. What about other people? Does FDR help them get the life they want? Certainly not, there are plenty of people out there who find FDR anathema to what they want. By your standards, to them FDR wouldn't be philosophy, so your standards of what makes philosophy philosophy can't be universalized, meaning that standard can't be logically acceptable.

Credibility matters when, say, you are giving advice on how to live a happy life, how to be successful, how to be a better person, generally speaking. Which would provide justification for your assertion if that were all that philosophy were limited to. Philosophy is more than that. It is also the study of metaphysics, semantics, epistemology, and other subjects. Subjects where the only thing that matters is the arguments and not the person making the arguments.

I don't know the context it was said in, so I don't know if he meant to imply that philosophy should be done only in the spoken word, at the exclusion of the written word, I'll assume he didn't mean that. Philosophy can mean love of wisdom or the study of a variety of subjects such as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc. Philosophy as love of wisdom it would be understandable why Stef would say philosophy should be a spoken discipline, talking about something is often more fun than writing about it, to most people, they get a instant response from their interlocutor which often doesn't happen in the written word. Philosophy as the study of a variety of subjects is poorly suited to the spoken word, after your interlocutor has spoken, you usually feel compelled to start giving your response right away, which doesn't give you as much time to think about what was said, the presuppositions of what was said, and what you are about to say. In the spoken word you would have to ask questions to clarify your interlocutor's position, more than you would in the written word, because in the written word you can see everything that has been said, you can spend as much time as you need critically analyzing it, and of course you can spend as much time making sure your response has as much logical rigor as you want it to have. All of this adds up to the spoken word will likely be less logical, since mistakes are more likely to go uncorrected, due to you not having as much time to think about what was said and what you are about to say. With spoken philosophy being more likely to have errors go unnoticed, it calls in question philosophy in the first sense, it may be more fun talking about a subject than writing about it, if you love wisdom shouldn't you prefer the one that yields better answers, better wisdom?

You're arguing that since they have training, they can do something which another person can't, because the other person isn't qualified. This would exonerate the government's actions, if that were the only reason why they didn't allow competition, but it isn't. There are people who have firearms training and investigative training, yet if they wanted to start their own police department, it wouldn't be allowed.

You've talked a lot about her past, mentioned that you're having some difficulties, but the only difficulty you've listed is that she gets defensive and self-diminishing in arguments which spoils the mood. The easy fix here would be to simply don't argue. It sounds overly simplistic but the only difficulty you mentioned was when you two argue. Now you could enjoy arguing, so this advice might not be what you're looking for, but you need to consider which you enjoy more, arguing or her.

What Simon said. Could also be that he became a atheist but only for emotional reasons as a revolt against his prior bad experience with theism, then he later came to find agnosticism the more logical position, to him.

If you meant that the main reason you like the show is because of fantasies of vengeance I can't argue with that. What I think you meant was that the core theme of the show / novel is vengeance, which is a possibility, but I think the core theme of the book is power. With a title like Game of Thrones that's what came to mind when I first started reading the novels, after reading all the novels so far, I'm inclined to think that power is still the core theme. Some are trying to seize it, some are trying to keep it, and the vengeance seems to be a side effect of people's various struggles to get / keep power. (I haven't watched the show so it might be different from the book.)

Classical Liberalism was a political school of thought while the Austrian school was a economic school of thought. Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, and Bastiat would all fall under the label classical liberal. Just to be clear though, it's possible for someone to have been a classical liberal but not part of the Austrian school, however the conclusions reached by the Austrian school would entail classical liberalism or something similar.

People experience those things for different reasons. Why do you think you experience those things?