Justin K.

The slaughterhouse having glass walls was not on YouTube or I couldn't find it. But when listening to it here, Stef tap dances a bit. When the alien question came up, he says that if they were more intelligent than us that they wouldn't enslave us. This implies we ought not to, or with increased intelligence we wouldn't, but he doesn't answer whether or not they would be in their rights to do so, which is conspicuously absent as it is so obvious that it means we are wrong to do so, as would the aliens be. Instead he talks about how complicated and un actionable it is to prevent or at least not cause unnecessary suffering. No, not complicated. I just don't eat animals. Because the whole world does something, does this mean it is moral, or right, or that we should? And then all these redutio ad absurdum arguments, "if your daughter is drowning next to a mouse"? -who cares? Your daughter isn't. How about just the mouse is drowning, better still - to really be accurate, the question is, because you would save your daughter over a drowning mouse, should you go around killing mice unnecessarily? C'mon...

I came here hoping I'd get more open & intelligent discussion than YouTube - but so far it's about the same level of vitriol for anything contrary to what we already believe - with a couple polite exceptions. I wasn't being sneaky or shifting the burden of proof. I don't think it does prove God's existence. I just find it odd and because some others do, & have written books about it, I thought perhaps someone here might be able to explain it. Telling me to look up gravitational patterns and circular motion is what does seem disengenuous as it makes it seem like you know, but given that not ALL orbits and rotations have direct relations to distance and use this same ratio, this isn't very helpful. I mean it could be something like if a planet orbits one thing than things orbiting around it would for some reason have to be a distance from it at the same ratio to make it all work, I don't frickin know. Apparently no one here does either. I agree with one comment, and have always had the opinion that synchronicity & coincidences kind of have to occur somewhere with all the complexities of life and it would actually be a stranger statistical anomolie if they did not, I just don't think that this fully explains this here, particularly given how poetic the Sun & moon appear to humanity, appearing the same size, representing opposites & what not. I don't know why everyone's first inclination is just to be so rude and obnoxious.

James Dean. I've spent nine years working with the disabled population and my entire life with many types of animals and indeed there are people with mental impairments below animals. I have seen cats eat a portion of the food I leave out, & then guard the remainder & even chase the neighbors cat away from it only to leave it for both a raccoon and also a baby possum. The cat has no fear of either one and at other times will eat right next to it. He leaves it for the other animal so that this animal will know he did so and return the favor later, which shows foresight & the ability to delay gratification. Chimpanzees have very complex social rules. I have an African Grey parrot who doesn't just repeat words. I know this because if you put several items in front of him, Scooter not only can identify them but if you ask him to identify something not present, he will reply "no green block" meaning he even recognizes the absence of something. I have cats that were once ferrel who now sleep next to and cuddle with hamsters and pet mice. None of my cats are held captive. They have all come from come & go as you please scenarios. I have taught them through language what "good guy" means. First they were members of our family/pack. Today if an outdoor mouse gets in the house I have 3 cats in particular who will catch them and bring them outside without hurting them. The first time I told Blizzard, "Blizz, he's a good guy too, don't hurt him" when he caught the mouse he brought him to me & dropped him in a Tupperware container. They have learned to have affection for creatures which in nature would be prey. People don't understand animals at all. The reason I am not seeking to be a Nobel Laurette as you mentioned is because there are many books written on the subject already. "Unlikely Friendships" is a simple pictorial showing several animals, like a turtle & a snake, chicken & fox, etc. who formed bonds that had nothing to do with pragmatism, & some others that did. I have videos of my handling wild birds that you can watch fly away & come back. None of this however, the fact that animals are in fact capable of reasoning and the ability to spontaneously act far outside of their instinctual behavior, has anything to do with our right to kill & eat them. The disability question comes up a lot in animal threads because it is a complete logical contradiction. What you are basically saying is that moral agency doesn't apply to individuals but the species in general if you make an exclusion for special needs. Why? Also, your behavior isn't Universally Preferable to the animals. You are saying their feeling is irrelevant because they can't articulate your language. But a chicken isn't initiating aggression toward you, what reason can you have to do it to them? There was a time the same argument was made about other races. It was as wrong there as it is here. Pythagoras, Plato & Aristotle as well as several Neo-Platonists agree with me. Not an appeal to irrelevant authority, just a point of fact - & the authority is quite relevant as Ayn Rand shares much with Aristotle. There is a reason why the founders of almost every world religion, as well as major philosophers & people like Emerson & Thoreau didn't eat animals or gave it up. It is wrong. Not to mention, and I'm not picking on Stefan because I love Stef and the show, but I've seen in another place where he says it makes his blood boil to see people abuse animals. In this context he meant like kicking a dog - something like that. But why then would it be okay to kill a cow? It can not be only because you want to eat it. You don't need to eat it. To harm something is either inherently wrong, or it isn't. The reason behind why you initiate force against something not doing it to you is irrelevant, as is their capacity to understand your morality. If it isn't wrong in one instance, then why is dog fighting illegal? You can eat a dog. Why is one thing considered barbaric & not the other. We can talk about the difference between animals & humans all we want, but that argument falls apart when you are discussing the difference between one type of animal & another. Pigs are smarter than dogs and cats. None of this speciesism makes any logical sense.

To Kevin Beal & Ayn Rand: Your sarcasm and dismissal only shows you didn't understand the question and also to Ayn Rand, you are making several assumptions as to what I believe on the matter or what I would believe even if the implication was that something intelligent had set it up. Foolish response. Everyone gets real testy when they don't have an explanation. First, to whoever else mentioned a km off on one of the moon #'s, really? All the numbers I posted are 99.9% accurate as taught historically in the quadrivium - if a kilometer off here or there it doesn't detract from the point but actually argues more for an entity which isn't an omnipotent God but some other entity prone to error but still it looks quite intentional. I don't believe in God I just want a good explanation. No one has provided one. Saying that you can manipulate the numbers to mean anything you want isn't a rebuttal to the question because I'm not talking about numbers, I am talking about ratios, which in no way can be manipulated. Any measuring system you use, whether kilometers, feet, miles, are all going to be the same ratio versus another. This would lead us to conclude that whoever set it up this way did so SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE they/he/she/it whatever didn't know what measuring system would later be invented or used but knew that it wouldn't matter if they made the ratios all line up perfectly it would be a clear indication to whatever type of intelligence that eventually evolve, that something definitely was trying to communicate with it. - is the idea here. The only place I listed where you could have that argument would be the number of miles of the moon equal to the number of years in a great month. Of course all the card & table games are of human invention as well. As I posted, I only included that to show how earlier people obviously had all of this on the mind when writing Holy books, & creating monuments like Stonehenge, & the great pyramids (like the speed of light being the same number as the distance of the pyramids. But just so we are clear, the the ratios of the sun moon earth relationship being not only identical but then lining up perfectly with the days in their orbits can not be a human invention or idea, for we are again talking about the number of times a planet spins or goes around something and the ratios of distance between several things like Mars, Venus, Earth, Sun, Moon. It is telling how people start belittleing a person at the mere mention of God, but have no answer tote question. Perhaps the intellectual rigor is not quite what you think. If anyone has a real explanation to the question I'm all ears, but again I'm not a religious person. I'm genuinely looking for an answer so I can put the idea to bed in my own mind. I haven't found anyone who can say anything other than "coincidence". One coincidence, sure. 2? Perhaps. 3 starts getting weird. Several all relating to the same thing? It just isn't intellectually honest to not consider the idea that I could be wrong about the formation of our solar system or we just aren't scientists. We are committing redefinition fallacies and atheism is then also as unfalsifiable as religion generally. That's why I bring it up. I genuinely want to be wrong about it, I just can't figure out how this occurring naturally is plausible beyond a reasonable doubt.

Whatever the reason that non aggression is preferable must be applied to animals. If not, then what we are saying is the only reason not to initiate aggression upon a person is because you want them to reciprocate. Regardless of whether or not animals are "moral agents" most of the animals we eat are herbivore and aren't showing us any aggression. Does it matter why a person isn't showing you aggression for you not to aggress upon them? Without a fundamental core empathy not to harm it cause suffering, NAP is devoid of any power as a principle. It is simply saying that if you can get away with it, do it. Why don't we test on the developmentally disabled population, or people with dementia? Many of them aren't moral agents either. How can we claim to know the difference between right and wrong while imprisoning, slaughtering, and in many instances torturing sentient creatures just because they don't speak our language? Forge the word "rights". That isn't the point. How about actions? They'll say, well a lion can't be held responsible for killing a gazelle. What does that have to do with you treating cows, pigs, & hens horrifically? What did that chicken do to you? What could it do to you even if it wanted to? Before thinking about who you should or shouldn't initiate force upon, ask why initiating force is wrong. Whatever the reason you come up with, it does not follow logically that you would have any reason not to apply it to animals. Arguing whether animals can know right from wrong (which, as an aside, I can prove they can) is utterly irrelevant. It is called universally preferable BEHAVIOR, not U.P. Reasoning skills. Moral agency has never been and will never, can never be a sufficient answer to this question.

If Stef or anyone else can explain this to me I'll be forever grateful. 3, 11, & 7 Want your mind blown? 11/3 = 3.66 3/11= .273 or .272727 The Radius of the moon is 1080 miles (3 x 360 miles) The radius of Earth 3960 miles (11 x 360 miles) There are 360 degrees in a circle of course. The sun takes 33 years (3 x 11) for a perfect repeat sunrise on the horizon Ramadan occurs every 12 moons & takes 33 years to move around the calendar. Jesus dies and is resurrected aged 33. There are 33 gaps in the human vertebrae (Jacob's Latter) & 33 degrees in Scottish Rite freemasonry. In between 3 & 11 is seven, 11/7 is the ancient Egyptian value for half of pi. 3, 7, & 11 are all Lucas numbers. Skull & Bones at Yale uses the #322 - it may be a coincidence idk but 322 is the 12th Lucas number Two full moons occur every 59 days, so a full moon is every 29.5 days. Stonehenge records this in it's outer circle of 30 stones, one of which is half width (29.5) Each great month in the great year, or procession of equinoxes, such as the age of Pisces or Aquarius is 2,160 years which is also the diameter of the moon in miles. There are 52 weeks in a year & 52 cards in a deck of playing cards. Adding 1+2+3 etc up to 13 gives you 91, the number of days in a season, x 4 = 364 adding a joker (or two jokers) gives you 365 (or 366) The 36th triangular number is 666, so if you add up the 36 numbers on a roulette wheel (circle) it comes to 666 The moon orbits earth every 27.3 days, the same% of its size of earth, meaning the earth is 3.66 times the size of the moon. The earth also orbits the sun every 366 days. The moon is 1/400 the size of the sun & also 1/400th the avg. distance from earth making it appear the same size from earth & both being visible exactly 1/2 the day. The closest to furthest distance that Mars & Venus experience in relation to each other is also 3:11 99 is the number of names or reflections of Allah in Islam. Islam is symbolized by the crescent moon. Venus draws a five fold pattern around earth every 8 years, in those 8 years there are 99 full moons (9 11's) Without the moon & it's effect on earths speed as well as its effect on our tides and also its effect on making seasons possible (a season is 91 days), it is widely understood life would be very difficult if not impossible on earth without it. The time allotted from new to full moon is also the same as a woman's menstrual cycle lining up with the best time to conceive -appearing to be metaphorical for a full moon. The moon is made of the same type rock as the earth but nothing like its weight keeping with its size. Therefore it is only a thin layer of this rock lining the outer layer of the moon with its most reflective side always facing earth. In our modern era with science all but believing it has figured out everything (with the exception of how the moon originated, "big whack" is frought with issues) we have also reached a time where the moon has moved far enough from the earth that eclipses will no longer be total but instead will look like an eye looking down on us (kind of like you see on the back of the dollar bill) & while this is just the tip of the iceberg pertaining to the strange & precise numerical anomalies of the Sun/Moon/Earth relationship, Science of course doesn't find any of this strange. Now I'm not a paranoid conspiracy theorist & put in some extra number relationships just for whoever may be interested, and to strengthen the idea religion is really all based around astronomy & astrology but my main question, & I am not a religious person or believe in God generally either, but it has always bugged me how would the Sun moon & earth all have all these precise distances and orbits with 3:11 ratios (3.66) naturally. I know in nature the Fibonacci sequence & pi occur frequently but that is just a logical progression of adding a quantity in a growth. I there some physical law that makes orbits & distances use 3 to 11? I ask genuinely & non facetiously because I do not know the answer. I always try to follow the evidence where it leads - I just can't get around how this is possible without some kind of intelligent design. Anyone versed well enough in science that they know or have ever read why, or just have any ideas themself that can add to why it could be?