robmcmullan

Hello from Gold Coast, Australia! Im keen to chat to local FDR listeners as well!

Murder cannot be universally preferred behaviour, because by definition is not preferred by the person being killed? or as most people use the words Good, Bad, Virtuous, Evil etc The act of murdering, cannot be called 'The Good', because 'The Good' is a universal moral judgement, and murder by definition is not called 'good' by the person being acted upon?

Ok great! Thanks!

Sorry that I haven't communicated clearly. My main objection is not with the theory, but on many occasions Stef has tried to communicate the argument against murder by saying that two people in a room cannot both murder each other, or something along those lines. I don't think that's a very clear way to communicate it because it seems to put the emphasis on whether two people can die simultaneously or something like that. And I think its a shame, as its such an important thing to be putting out into the world, if it is not communicated in the most efficient way. How you summarised it above I think is much clearer, and that is what I was trying to say above. How ironic that I make a post about communicating an idea more clearly and succinctly… but my post is hard to follow and a bit rambly! Sorry guys!

Hi everyone, I was just on the call in show and wanted to offer a possible refinement for the communication of the UPB arguments. Unfortunately we got a bit sidetracked and I felt like we only got to the real guts of what I wanted to say close to the end and it we didn't get to spend much time on it. So I would like to also post it here and get some feedback on whether people think its a valid contribution. I used the murder example. Very often Stef has said that two men can't murder each other at the same time, or some variation of this. After listening to so much of his work, I understand his arguments, but I don't think this is the best way to communicate them. I think it would be clearer and more accurate to say that a person cannot kill another person… and have both of those people call that singular action 'good', and have the concept of murder still be valid. If the person being killed calls that action 'good' then the concept of it being a murder vanishes. I would even go so far as saying that the judgement of the person being acted upon, at the moment they are being acted upon, is the smallest discreet criterion for whether the act exists as a 'murder' or not. The person doing the acting has already expressed their preference, because they are doing the acting. But at the time that the killing of the person being killed has been put into place, if the person being killed wishes that action to happen, it is not murder, but if they do not, it is murder. So the defining characteristic is the consent or lack of, of the person being killed. As I said in the call, I think it is potentially misleading to say that two people cannot murder each other, because as i said I think they can, or at least both have the goal to be mutually corrupt and try to kill the other person, whilst not being killed themselves. But what cannot happen, and have the concept of murder be sustained, is that one person kills another person, and that both people call that singular act 'good', or preferred. If the person being killed prefers that action, it is not murder. If they don't, it is murder, but the two people have opposite moral judgements of the same act, and therefore that act cannot be called universally preferable. So I guess the guts of what I was trying to say is that instead of talking about whether two people can murder each other at the same time… I would refine it to... "One person cannot murder another person… and have both of those people call that action good". I think a huge benefit with this way of saying it is that it shows that the consent of person being acted upon is necessarily binary, either the want that to happen or they don't. And so that each of these major actions must necessarily be universally preferred or not, that their categorisation must also be binary. The second is that is puts the emphasis one the moral judgement of the action. A lot of people get caught up with whether someone can murder someone else. Of course they can, but according to the theory, they cannot perform that action which is not preferred the person being acted upon, and still logically claim to be acting in universally preferred behaviour. Stef was right to point out the comparison to Maths… someone can get the wrong answer in Maths, but just because they failed to act in accordance with the theory, doesn't mean that Maths is invalid. And similarly, the way I would communicate murder above, puts the emphasis on whether both people would call it a preferred action. And they would not so it fails the theory. If they did… then the categorisation of murder vanishes. What does everyone think about this slightly different way of saying it?

I actually had another thought on this one, which might be an interesting rebuttal to anyone who makes this point in the USA. The US was actually meant to be a libertarian society of the least government and the most freedom possible… but it has grown into the monstrosity that it is today. Maybe next time anyone tells me that you can just leave, I will say that people did leave. They already travelled to the other side of the earth to be more free… and you busy body assholes still followed!

Hi everyone, What do you all think are the best arguments against the 'you can just leave if you don't consent to be governed' line from statists. I have to admit when I hear it from people, I get so angry that I lose my ability to think of a clear and concise rebuttal. All that pops into my head is an image of a school yard bully beating up a kid, and instead of anyone caring at all about the immorality of the kid being bullied… everyone simply shrugs their shoulders and says that the bullied kid could always move schools, so who cares. Anyway, I would like to hear your ideas on how to rebut this 'you can just leave the country' arugement so that it can give some clarity to my own thinking and so that I might be able to throw some good arguments back in the face of the next person that says it to me. Cheers! Rob

When she speaks its pretty clear to me that she is very young and doesn't really have any deep understanding of the issues she talks about… she doesn't come across to me as having any real life experience or wisdom, she doesn't even sound overly articulate. But she does have a pleading victim voice, and is young and pretty. So a pleading young, pretty woman, asking for men to save women… is presented as the face of gender equality…. fucking yaawwwwnnnnnn.

I would like to to thank everyone for taking the time to comment on this. I really appreciate all the advice. Especially the comment about universalising her behaviour as a means of understanding what she wants from me too… that was a really great insight and is very useful. My GF is now back from her trip and we have been talking everything over constantly. The central issue with everything is that she feels pressure from her religious mother, and pressure from 'everyone' in general to marry a jew and live a jewish life. She is even saying now that she is not sure about whether she believes in god or not, and she kinda doesn't care either way. We had lunch with her fathers family who are all jewish but also Atheists and we had a big discussion about religion. She told me that everything we said made so much sense, but she still feels a pull there other way. But in being able to come to the realisation that she feels pressure from her mum to marry a jew… she also instantly came to the realisation that its wrong that her mum should have that kind of influence over her and that she needs to live her own life and make her own choices. And she loves me and thinks we are perfect together so she is prepared to stand up to her mum about it. It will be very hard for her though, but I will just try and stay supportive. I made my concerns clear that she could have such different opinions about it all when she was overseas and in the presence of others… she agreed she felt that's not right and she is going through a process now of thinking about it all and trying to sort it out in her head. She did tell me though that the Rabbi on her trip told her not to be with a non jew… and she felt that pressure from all the leaders on this trip to go back to Israel… but she never bought into that and she could tell that they were trying to influence her into certain decisions. Her position now is that she is not sure whether she believes in god or not, and that she really doesn't care about it, doesn't care if I believe, and doesn't care to tell our children about it. She says that for her religion was always about family being together, and having dinners and doing little rituals that bring everyone together so the family togetherness of it all she would want to preserve which I obviously have no problem with at all. She also hates politics and was able to identify how political the Rabbis were. She also said that the Rabbi would preach to the group the value of not being angry and being peaceful, yet she overheard the Rabbi arguing on the phone and getting quite angry so she could see the hypocrisy there. She also said that the Rabbi would answer her questions but only very shortly and would not give her much time, but would spend much more time explaining and talking to the men and she realised that wasn't right either. So it seems in general that she is going through a pretty big change and is facing the challenge of standing up to her mum and standing up to the alter egos in her head which will be hard for her. It really is true that Stefan said that often religion is really just fear of others… and that is certainly the case here. I guess it's a bit of a fork in the road and one way she is not strong enough to stand up for what she wants and make her own choices and decides to just conform to what other expect of her… which is a position that I have no respect for. And the other way where she becomes her own person, comes to clear decisions about what she believes and what she wants and stands up to the people that want her to do something else… which is a position that I immensely respect. And it seems that the latter is what is happening. I'm sure it will still be a process but its looking good so far.

Hi guys, thanks for the extra replies. I've talked a fair bit about the Israel/Palestine conflict with her and her family quite honestly, and that is another thing I like about her and her family is that I can have conversations with substance, and I've even given them some of the philosophy stuff too and they are not offended and don't back down in any way, they just engage in a good rational discussion. This kind of thing is a breath of fresh air for me as I have not met many people at all that I can be so honest with, and who can hear an opposite point of view, but then still say that they love and respect me. I mean, I may not be able to full on convince them over the course of a year to understand the philosophical arguments for all these things, but to even be in the ball park of these things with people that would give anything I say more than a second thought, seems to me to be a pretty rare thing among girls to date and their families. I had a huge talk to her dad about it all the other day. I explained to him my views about things such as that the difference between a tree and a forest is the difference between a thing that exists in the world and a concept, and that the forest is a concept for a group of individual things that all actually exist… i.e., trees. I told him that my view is that humans are like trees in that they actually exist as a discreet thing in the real world, and that cultures or religions, i.e. being 'Jewish' are concepts. I then said to him that as we are talking now, and relating, and spending this time together, one human to another… this connection or relationship is something genuine, but the idea that my girlfriend feels so connected to total strangers just because they share the concept 'Jew' I see as an inauthentic connection and not real compared to a relationship between humans who don't necessarily share the same identity 'concepts' but relate to each other as humans. And the same with the circumcision thing.. I told him that I don't want it because its a violation of a child's body, and a person's body is their own and not for others to take part of. He listened to all my points of view and we debated them a bit. I never expected to change his mind, but he did say that he knew I was a great guy, but never knew how much until now, and that I obviously don't say anything without considerable thought behind it. At the end of the conversation he told me that If I wanted to marry his daughter I would have his blessing. Not that we are at that point. I asked him what the base line, must-have requirements would be for him, and he said that he honestly thought it would be ideal that she marry a jewish guy, but it wold be no good if she married a jewish guy who beats her up. He said that even if she decided to leave the whole jewish thing behind, his only true must have is that his daughter is happy. It's all a bit of a moot point though because the way she is talking I don't think thats possible… but you know, I think that even though I don't agree with everything he thinks, he obviously could put the happiness and humanity of his daughter above his cultural identity which I think is absolute light years ahead of 99% of the religious people on the world and I respect him for that. And what I mean about my girlfriend being loving and supportive is exactly that. She has never had any financial requirements of me, she doesn't want to be paid for, she loves what I do, she buys me little presents, she cook me food. One time when I was working like crazy I said to her that I was feeling stressed at being so busy, so she stayed behind one time when I left for work and cleaned my house without telling me. I just cam home and it was all looking great and she said that she just wanted to help me out. She's also not a feminist, which in Australia I find so refreshing. I honestly don't know what would be harder to deal with… the whole jewish thing, which at least has a strong family focus, and her parents and both of their parents all stayed married… or a common cultural feminist who sees men as pigs and needs to get on the treadmill to work overtime to keep her 'happy' up until the day she gets sick of you and you've had kids and earned enough money for her to bail on you and use the courts to make your life hell. Plus she's gorgeous and amazing in bed…. hehe But the jewish nationalism thing is really scary I agree. I honestly think that the idea that Israel is the jews 'birthright' is just as dongeous an idea as the Nazi's saying the aryan race is superior. And you're right all the uncritical swallowing of these means that she is not courageously looking for truth in these things… she is conforming. So now I really don't know how it will pan out. All my friends love her and think she is just conforming to her environment, which itself as you say is not hugely confidence inspiring. But they think that the conversation will be so much more productive when she is back in 10 days. So I guess I'll just see what happens. It's all very painful though because whenever Judaism is not in the room with us, as two humans, we have a great relationship and I love her. But it seems the judaism was always in the room because it can't be separated from her….

Thanks for the answers guys, Yes I've already had this talk numerous times, as I said i'm very honest, even blunt with her. And she says the loves about me the way I think and would never try to change it. But she also seems to be speaking differently now that she has gone to Israel, and this undermines my confidence in her. I've even been so blunt that when she asks me to explain the feeling she gets inside about being around other jews and being in Israel and stuff, I just say that well we are all 'brainwashed' into our own tribes and stuff, and its not unique to her, we all grow up a certain way… but we are social and often conformist animals, and that feeling she gets s likely her brainwashing as its the culture she grew up with. And that every other group has this same effect so it has nothing to do with it being true, just the in-group high of being around other people in your 'tribe'. But I said that to her months ago, and it seemed to make sense to her and I thought we were on a pretty similar page… but now she's in Israel talking about god and how amazing the land and the rabbi is… so I then wonder, was she just confirming to me when I talked to her, and now she is conforming to others? And yeah I worry about what will happen if we had kids… I have seen that too, where after a big life event like having kids all of a sudden people get consumed with guilt about rejecting god and culture and go crazy back into it. And as Steph has said, having kids brings up your own childhood. So yeah I wonder how this could affect my life. And I really thought we were great together and she knows everything about exactly how I think… yet this flip around has got me worried.

Hey everyone... I've been with my girlfriend now for a year and it has been great. She is kind, loving, beautiful, hard working, giving and absolutely thinks the world of me. She respects me and how I think (i'm a FDR listener). She respects my work (I'm a professional musician). We have a very frank and honest relationship, but also very loving and I would say a very functional relationship. We talk openly when we disagree etc etc… she really is just a great person and I respect her… which for me is the basis of loving her. She is Jewish, her fathers side are very secular, with her grand mother saying to me quite honestly that she doesn't like religion so I'm on a similar page there. Her brothers are into music and one of them is studying science at university. So lots of common ground with me. Her mother was born in Israel and is not religious in practise but very 'spiritual'… believes in god, but probably couldn't give you a working definition of what god is if you know what I mean. My girlfriend is like that too. I'm an atheist FDR listener so I say that I think it's not legitimate to believe something that can't be proven, or even defined. My GF says that she believes everything I do about the material world, and she loves the way I think and never wants to try and change me or push any other belief on my…. but that she believes in an energy behind everything, and thats what she calls god. An energy in everything that gives it life. So she left last week for a trip to visit family in Israel.. and she signed up for this thing they call the 'birthright' tour or something. Basically if they left Israel before a certain age and are jews living elsewhere… they may qualify for a free trip to Israel to learn about it. They have their flights paid for and they have to go on a 10 day tour around seeing sights of Israel. At least thats what she told me. Now she has been over there a few days and I skyped with her the other night and she started telling me that they go around with a Rabbi on this tour and it seemed like the whole thing was very 'bible camp' for young Jews. Then she starts telling me that she is feeling things that she forgot she could feel, and feeling her belief in god become stronger… and even telling me that she was listening to the Rabbi talk and she was crying because it was so beautiful… yet she couldn't tell me exactly what he was saying or why it was so right or beautiful, only that she felt it was right in her body. I think they were even encouraged to kiss the ground as the land of Israel is their 'birthright'. I'm kind of freaked out because I see this as religious and cultural brainwashing and as a threat to our relationship because its just so antithetical to how I see religion and culture. I also feel like she is letting all this play on the tribal, in-group euphoria part of her brain, and that it seems to have power over her. And the more power over it has… it think… the less she is thinking for herself and strengthening her identity as an individual. When we talk she understands me, but now she is around other people and she is saying different things… it feels like she is a bit of a flag in the wind of others influence, and that makes me feel insecure to invest my heart in her. My friends say that she is likely just getting a bit swept up in being overseas and that she is only young (23) and that as i'm older (30) I have a little more experience than her, so its likely no big deal and that she still has lots of learning to do. I kind of agree but I don't want a slippery slope into me becoming some kind of father figure, or patronising her as the older one that knows better. I don't want that I want an equal partner. I also worry about the degree to which the seeds of religious and cultural indoctrination are embedded within her brain and if we marry and have children, how important will it be? How much will this affect my life and my children's lives? I don't talk to my family and my friends are great but generally say that i'm a uniquely 'analytical' one so tend to downplay it and don't provide too much analysis. I've also booked into a therapist but I can't see him for a couple of months so i'm kind of at a loss for thoughtful and philosophical feedback! haha So any thoughts or perspectives you can offer are much appreciated, Thanks Rob