Trump Officially a Fascist Little Bitch

[thebeardslastcall]

I think the biggest difference between Muslim religion and Christian religion is that Christianity has gotten very subtle and clever while the Muslim religion is in a more overt and direct stage. They're both irrational and violent in their own ways, but they have a distinct difference in their overt versus covert balance in how they propagate their religion. Both Christians and Muslims, whether labeled as terrorist or soldier, are currently engaged in killing many people with guns and bombs. Both religions also command a large portion of many state's government officials. Trump is a Christian who wants to kill Muslims and many Muslims want to kill Trump and others. You could argue by being more covert Christianity has become more docile, but Christians are still behind a great many killings, just or not, and even without all the explicit killing is still quite sinister in its subterfuge against rationality and reason. Donnadogsoth represents this anti-rationality here quite regularly while trying to promote his religion and defend it against attacks. He's (probably) not out killing people with guns, but he's still engaged in the war against rationality that is religion (Christian, Muslim, Mormom, and more).

[DCLugi]

Christianity has the doctrine of the Just War, courtesy of St. Augustine.  There is no intrinsic incompatibility between being a Christian and killing in time of war, or even in time of peace as in the case of self-defense.

 

http://www.catholic.com/documents/just-war-doctrine

Great. So either way you spin it Christianity advocates murder. 

[RCali]

 

Do you also accept that the ability to call things by their proper names is paramount to survival? Think hemlock is Kool-Aid and you're going to have a bad day. If you don't universalize gravity, you could plummet to severe injury or death. That sort of thing.

 

It's not coercive to lie. And it's not coercive to be wrong, and share these wrong ideas. It may be to the detriment of someone else, to live by these ideas, but you cannot use force to defend from this, as someone is trying to feed you these ideas, or if they're trying to feed to someone else. All you can do is share your own ideas, and that's not using force. From wiktionary, force:

 

Power exerted against will or consent; compulsory power; violence; coercion. 

 

So, once more, I reject your idea that sharing religion is immoral. This would go against free speech, and you would make free speech immoral, which doesn't add up, if you do the UPB test. You can lie freely, you can hate everyone verbally freely, you can incite violence, you can say whatever you want to whomever. You can universally lie. People may think you're an asshole for that, but it doesn't make your actions immoral. Just like honking a horn (I'm still boggled by how people were actually saying this is an act of violence).

[dsayers]

It's not coercive to lie.

This does not answer the question. Thus, the disconnect has been identified. Odd, considering that the ability to identify threats being paramount to survival is not a controversial position.

 

So, once more, I reject your idea that sharing religion is immoral.

As long as you're aware that it's not because you can identify a flaw in the case that I've made. Which would indicate that it's because it conflicts with your conclusion. In other words, bias confirmation.

[RCali]

This does not answer the question. Thus, the disconnect has been identified. Odd, considering that the ability to identify threats being paramount to survival is not a controversial position.

 

As long as you're aware that it's not because you can identify a flaw in the case that I've made. Which would indicate that it's because it conflicts with your conclusion. In other words, bias confirmation.

 

I've not identified a flaw? I've been saying it for a while now, and all I'm getting in return is saying I haven't actually said something, and getting a reputation minus. That's kind of insulting. I didn't disagree on having responsability to do the best for the child as parents, and I didn't disagree that identifying threats is important. Still doesn't prove that sharing religion is immoral.

[ResidingOnEarth]

Do you also accept that the ability to call things by their proper names is paramount to survival? Think hemlock is Kool-Aid and you're going to have a bad day. If you don't universalize gravity, you could plummet to severe injury or death. That sort of thing.

 

I'm trying to comprehend your position, but I'm a little bit stuck on this one.

 

Presently my answer to your question is "no".

 

The reason I think the answer is no, is because in an extremely violent and irrational tribe (or society), fostering a philosophical mind --  coming to conclusions based on reason and evidence -- could actually be detrimental to your survival.  If you question the irrational beliefs of your tribe or question the validity of the tribe's power-structure the tribe may well turn against you.  

 

People with the unjust power in an irrational tribe have a very strong incentive to keep other people in the tribe from challenging the tribe's dominant belief-system that allows for their authority to be maintained.  Even if you decide to keep your philosophical conclusions to yourself, surely your body language and behaviour will betray you.  You will surely act in a strange fashion when compared to the other people in the tribe.  Your behaviour is an emergent consequence of your thoughts and conclusions.  You would have different conclusions to the other people in the tribe; therefore, different behaviour.

 

You would have to maintain a constant vizard to ensure that the people around you did not realise that you were not one of them.  You would likely feel great contempt for those irrational people.  Could you hide that contempt?  Would that contempt build up and at some point lead to the point where -- in a highly emotional state -- you slip-up and have an outburst that lets everyone know that you are not one of them?

 

Conversely; if you do not know reason and evidence.  If you do not call things by their proper names.  If all your conclusions are directly derived from culture and the dominant control structure, then you do not have to lie and pretend just to survive.

 

Socrates was murdered by his tribe for the crime of corrupting the minds of the youth (read: threatening the beliefs that maintained the dominant power structure) and impiety towards the imaginary sky wizards of the time.

 

I know that it's not only possible to survive in this world while holding contradictory information in your mind and holding conclusions that were derived from culture/authority/personal-preferences and bias; it's possible to flourish.  The majority of people I meet in my life (I live in England) are very irrational in many aspects of their lives.

 

It seems like some things (eg driving a car) require rationality to survive.  It seems like other things (eg communicating, trading and socialising with people in a violent, irrational tribe) are feasible with, or even require an irrational way of thinking.

 

For the record: if I had children I would call things by their proper names.  I would teach them to draw their conclusions based on reason and evidence.  I would provide my children with the mental tools to reason.  All to the best of my ability.  My reason for doing those things wouldn't be because of a moral requirement (I'm presently not aware of one), but because that is my personal preference.  I want to live in a free-society; a society where the non-aggression principle is respected and conflicts -- wherever possible -- are resolved peacefully and rationally.  I acknowledge that this choice of mine puts me at odds with a large chunk of humanity; quite possibly the vast majority.  It may also put any child I have at odds with a large chunk of humanity.  That is the nature of the fight.  The fight against evil.

[Donnadogsoth]

Literally every example (with the exception of priests raping boys) I gave is Catholic Doctrine promoting evil. Like I'm honestly asking did you not know this?

 

These are all exact quotes stating the churches Doctrine on the issues. Again Obviously their is no support for priests raping boys, and for some reason I couldn't find the Church admitting to the existence of hell, but we all know they believe that.

 

"The Catholic Church believes that artificial contraception is sinful and immoral and may frustrate a divine plan to bring a new life into the world."

"The Church opposes same-sex unions based on Genesis 1:25–28"

"Catholicism regards life as sacred, and taking any innocent life is immoral and sinful. The Catholic Church uses same principles to condemn euthanasia as it does to condemn abortion."

"The root of all this evil is the apostasy from christianity, so marked in some countries, and the acceptance, or influence, of atheism Once given that there is no god, it immediately becomes unjust and impossible for anyone to exact obedience and submission from anyone else. If there is no God. there can be no master. The anarchist conclusion is therefore illogical."

 

What you describe concords with what I know of the Church.  You may call it evil, but you cannot call it terrorism.  The Church is not demolishing priceless works of art, or enslaving people, or committing rape, or murdering people, or otherwise committing acts of terrorism like we see Moslems committing in Paris, Mali, and tens of thousands of other places we have either never heard of or have forgotten.

Great. So either way you spin it Christianity advocates murder. 

 

The Just War is a just doctrine, so while any death may be in some sense regrettable, the deaths of the unrighteous resulting from a just war or from actions of justified self-defense remain a good thing.  Or do you not plan on defending your daughter from a rapist?

[DCLugi]

What you describe concords with what I know of the Church.  You may call it evil, but you cannot call it terrorism.  The Church is not demolishing priceless works of art, or enslaving people, or committing rape, or murdering people, or otherwise committing acts of terrorism like we see Moslems committing in Paris, Mali, and tens of thousands of other places we have either never heard of or have forgotten.

 

The Just War is a just doctrine, so while any death may be in some sense regrettable, the deaths of the unrighteous resulting from a just war or from actions of justified self-defense remain a good thing.  Or do you not plan on defending your daughter from a rapist?

The just war in Iraq where there was a direct threat to my daughter?

[dsayers]

Your behaviour is an emergent consequence of your thoughts and conclusions.

Behaviors are neither emergent nor consequences. But I think I get what you're saying. Your whole post, I get it.

 

I think you're zooming out to make a conclusion fit though. You can't have a tribe without individuals. Individuals cannot survive if they don't realize a snake is poisonous, that stepping into a roadway is dangerous, etc. I don't think pointing out how a tribe can be dangerous challenges my argument. If anything, it serves as one example of the validity of my argument.

 

Also, just because something can be detrimental to one's survival doesn't mean one cannot consciously choose to override it (again, behaviors being voluntary). In your Socrates example, he may have recognized that his tribe could be dangerous and chose to take "the high road" all the same. Even if he didn't, this would affirm my argument in that he didn't properly identify his tribe as dangerous and therefore didn't survive.

 

Humans are social creatures, no contest there. Sure you COULD make your own pencil, but it's so much easier to stand on the shoulders of others, divide labor, and trade for one very cheaply. I get it. If anything, your criticism helps me to refine my initial argument that parents create a positive obligation to children to protect and nurture them until such a time as they can do so WITHOUT THEM, rather than "on their own." So thank you for that. And for taking the time to provide a rational counterargument.

[Donnadogsoth]

The just war in Iraq where there was a direct threat to my daughter?

 

What just war in Iraq?

[ResidingOnEarth]

Behaviors are neither emergent nor consequences. But I think I get what you're saying. Your whole post, I get it.

 

Glad you get it   I expect that you have come to your conclusions on this topic after considering many things.  I've only been on this forum a short while and I've enjoyed most of the posts that I've read of yours.  I admire your sane and rigorous approach to thinking.  So at this point I'm not saying your wrong; just for the time being I am struggling to see how you reached your conclusion.

 

I'm not fixed on my current conclusion (being: there is no moral obligation for parents to teach their children the truth... or for anyone to teach or speak any truth).

 

I think you're zooming out to make a conclusion fit though. You can't have a tribe without individuals. Individuals cannot survive if they don't realize a snake is poisonous, that stepping into a roadway is dangerous, etc. I don't think pointing out how a tribe can be dangerous challenges my argument. If anything, it serves as one example of the validity of my argument.

 

I think it's easy to make the case that at least partial rationality is required in order to survive in this world.  I gave the example of driving a car: which requires a lot of rational behaviour and acceptance of truths about the properties of this world.

 

Maybe I didn't explain myself well, but I was trying to say that irrationality in some areas of life may help you to survive in certain tribes/societies or may even be a requirement to survival.

 

Also, just because something can be detrimental to one's survival doesn't mean one cannot consciously choose to override it (again, behaviors being voluntary). In your Socrates example, he may have recognized that his tribe could be dangerous and chose to take "the high road" all the same. Even if he didn't, this would affirm my argument in that he didn't properly identify his tribe as dangerous and therefore didn't survive.

 

I don't see how that (in bold) follows.  If Socrates did accurately identify his tribe as dangerous that would not assure his survival of them.  It's my understanding that for many people in the past, they were far more restricted to the tribe that they were born into than I am today, in Europe.  For Socrates leaving his tribe may have meant certain death.  So assuming that was the case (I'm sure it has been for other people, if not for Socrates), it may have been to his own detriment if he knew his tribe was irrational and immoral.  I tried to make the case that simply knowing the truth about your tribe would affect your behaviour and make you stand out.  You may well become a target of the people with the power in the tribe that do not want the status quo disturbed.  I think Socrates became a target because he was far more rational than most people in his tribe.

 

This is something I feel in my own life right now.  I feel separate from my tribes (family, co-workers and even more generally, other people who were born in England).  I struggle with this daily.  I also feel like I stand out.  I feel good about myself and my actions, but I feel a lot like I can't rely on my rationality to guide me in this insane society.  I found out recently that the UK police had in 2011 advised people to report anarchists to them under anti-terror laws.  That event blindsided me.  Even doing the mental gymnastics required to put myself into the mindset of the typical British statist, I did not predict that.

 

This is an example of my rational thinking creating the potential for me to get into trouble:  I was talking with this group of strangers (all statists) at a meal table.  The topic of drugs came up.  I tried to make the case to them that it was wrong for the government to initiate force against people who were voluntarily trading drugs with one another.  This Scottish lady at the table then told me something like "should I be reporting you?"  She said this with a stone-cold, serious expression on her face.  At the time I wasn't in England and if I had been reported to the authorities I would be in a weak position to defend myself.  After being out all day the next day, I came back to where I was staying to find my bags had been heavily disturbed.  I'm pretty sure the Scottish lady was searching for illegal drugs.  It just so happens that I don't take any illegal drugs so she found nothing.  But this highly irrational woman was quite prepared to report me to the perceived tribe leaders.  She wanted me to be kidnapped, caged and questioned in a foreign land.  Perhaps if I was much like most other English people and I derived my conclusions from culture and authority then that situation wouldn't have happened.  Perhaps if I held the irrational belief that "following the law is good and right and breaking the law is bad and wrong" I would have not have said anything that would have made that crazy lady want to do great harm to me.

 

I suppose something supportive of your position is that, because I am a rational person (at least I try to be), I knew that it would be a very bad idea for my survival to carry illegal drugs on me.  So even if I did take illegal drugs, she would not have found anything.

 

Humans are social creatures, no contest there. Sure you COULD make your own pencil, but it's so much easier to stand on the shoulders of others, divide labor, and trade for one very cheaply. I get it. If anything, your criticism helps me to refine my initial argument that parents create a positive obligation to children to protect and nurture them until such a time as they can do so WITHOUT THEM, rather than "on their own." So thank you for that. And for taking the time to provide a rational counterargument.

 

Based on my understanding of the non-aggression principle, that statement in bold makes perfect sense to me.  I agree

[thebeardslastcall]

What just war in Iraq?

Yeah that's kind of the point. Christians are irrational and not using rationality to decide what is a just war. They call it just if they're for it and unjust if they're against it. So the same war is often viewed both just and unjust. If there is no rational basis for justice then it isn't justice and the entire notion of a just war based on religion, based on irrationality, is totally lost. It's a contradiction to build a notion of justice or rationality on top of a base of irrational religion. You say Christianity has the notions of morality and justice and the just war, but I'd contend since it's all based on an irrational religious belief that these are all invalided as legitimate and thus not actually provided, but only provided in name and under false pretense.

[Donnadogsoth]

Yeah that's kind of the point. Christians are irrational and not using rationality to decide what is a just war. They call it just if they're for it and unjust if they're against it. So the same war is often viewed both just and unjust. If there is no rational basis for justice then it isn't justice and the entire notion of a just war based on religion, based on irrationality, is totally lost. It's a contradiction to build a notion of justice or rationality on top of a base of irrational religion. You say Christianity has the notions of morality and justice and the just war, but I'd contend since it's all based on an irrational religious belief that these are all invalided as legitimate and thus not actually provided, but only provided in name and under false pretense.

 

How is dying for the sake of mankind irrational, beard?

[ResidingOnEarth]

How is dying for the sake of mankind irrational, beard?

 

It's irrational to fight and die to save mankind from purely fictional threats (eg the Christian idea of hell).

[dsayers]

"should I be reporting you?"

"For disagreeing with you?"

 

irrationality in some areas of life may help you to survive in certain tribes/societies or may even be a requirement to survival.

My counterpoint is that if it's a requirement to survival, it's rational. Think of a traffic stop. The idea of somebody coming along and threatening to kill you if you don't pull over and kiss their ass is completely irrational. However, we live in a society that were you to resist, you'd be branded the bad guy and they could kill you and be lauded as heroes. So you engage in the otherwise irrational for the sake of survival, which is completely rational.

[thebeardslastcall]

I think a common problem when talking about rationality is that the scope of the rationality changes and people talk about two scopes of rationality as if they are one. I've seen this sort of issue with various terms that it's starting to become more apparent when it happens, while seemingly being unnoticed by most.

 

Survival is rational. There's a limited scope there, now you can say behavior X is irrational based on some global logic of what is rational, but you're ignoring the specifics of the situation, then you've lost a key element in the decision that determines if it's rational or irrational. A belief may be irrational, but if you have a rational reason to believe it (survival), then it's also rational in a way, because we're talking about different layers or types of rationality where one takes priority or precedence over the other. The more any environment demands 'irrationality' in the global philosophical sense of individuals for survival, the more individuals will rationally (specifically, locally, individually) behave irrationally (in the global philosophical sense). This is how religion becomes prevalent, because it rewards and sometimes demands irrational beliefs. Because at the core of the belief isn't the irrationality of the belief, but the conformity of the belief. Religion needs irrational beliefs because it needs to measure the demanded conformity and the only way it can do that is if it demands you do something that is otherwise irrational. If it were otherwise rational you'd be doing it for survival sake outside of their demands and they'd have nothing to measure your acquiescence to their demands (is he obeying us or nature?). When you're looking to create your own group and to distinctly bind it to a leader you start with an irrational belief to separate it out and differentiate it from base standard survival ideas. It's a bonding initiation right like getting into a sorority you do some dumb things to prove you're with them. Religion just keeps you being a bit dumb and blind till the day you die because they want you proving your loyalty always and forever and to help spread their group maintaining their power and benefits of being within a group.

[Donnadogsoth]

It's irrational to fight and die to save mankind from purely fictional threats (eg the Christian idea of hell).

 

But not if Hell indeed awaits.

[shirgall]

But not if Hell indeed awaits.

 

I'd rather spend eternity with Socrates, Freddie Mercury, and Jimi Hendrix than Mícheál Ó Coileáin (Michael Collins), Mother Teresa, and Armand Jean du Plessis (Cardinal Richelieu).

[ResidingOnEarth]

But not if Hell indeed awaits.

 

I try to come to my conclusions about the nature of life and reality based on reason (in particular: critical thinking skills and knowledge of logical fallacies) and evidence (in particular: sense data and through reading scientifically derived conclusions). 

 

"Hell exists" is a conclusion I could only come to through reason and evidence.  I've never been presented with any reasoned arguments for its existence or any evidence of its existence.

 

What I am aware of is that many of the people who do believe in hell have come to that conclusion via shoddy means, including:

• They were repeatedly told about it as children by authority figures (ministers and parents).
• They think that because it's written in a very old book, it is more likely to be true.
• They think that because lots of other people believe it, it is more likely to be true.
• They think that because its existence is not scientifically disprovable, that: it could be true!

I think that many other people believe it without even thinking about whether their belief is likely to be correct or not.  They may have this horrendous mind virus of an idea in their head that: "anyone who tries to convince you that hell does not exist is likely under the control of the devil".  Or that: "the devil will say whatever he can to trick you into believing that hell does not exist."  I feel very bad for people who have been imbued with that idea.  I can see how it would be like a trap that would be hard to escape from.  Someone in this trap has been told that they will suffer for all eternity in the most horrible agony if they go to hell.  The stakes are about high as they can get.

 

It makes me feel sad that people will tell their kids that.  Then again.  The people who tell their kids that probably believe it and probably think they are saving their children from this torment.

[Donnadogsoth]

I believe in Hell not because of the reasons you list, but because I believe the universe is ultimately just.  To believe otherwise is to believe that the universe is mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy.  It is a cornered, mousy belief in the eternal supremacy of cats.

 

"Plato would have agreed with Leibniz that 'in order to satisfy the hope of the human race, it must be proved that the God Who governs all is just and wise, and that He will leave nothing  without recompense and without punishment. These are the great foundation of ethics.' "

--Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy

[shirgall]

I believe in Hell not because of the reasons you list, but because I believe the universe is ultimately just.  To believe otherwise is to believe that the universe is mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy.  It is a cornered, mousy belief in the eternal supremacy of cats.

 

You are making a false choice here. There are an infinite number of alternatives to these two possibilities.

[thebeardslastcall]

I believe in Hell not because of the reasons you list, but because I believe the universe is ultimately just.  To believe otherwise is to believe that the universe is mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy.  It is a cornered, mousy belief in the eternal supremacy of cats.

 

I believe there is no Hell (or God) because I believe the universe is ultimately just. I win? Hell is pretty god damned tragic to me. Eternal pain, limitless scope and depth with no remedy for the damned. I don't see what you've solved.

 

I believe in universal justice and this concept as I understand it requires no God and is in fact hampered and undone by a God.

[ResidingOnEarth]

I believe in Hell not because of the reasons you list, but because I believe the universe is ultimately just.  To believe otherwise is to believe that the universe is mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy.

 

So.... you don't like the idea of the universe being "mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy", so you've decided that because you don't like that idea, you'll pick a different idea to believe in which is more preferable to you; that being: "the universe is ultimately just".  The "universe is ultimately just" therefore [somehow] there is a hell.

 

That's amazing.

 

I don't know what else to say other than: you are severely lacking in the mental tools required to come to rational conclusions.  But, I think you must know that; at least subconsciously.  Why else would you be chatting with philosophers on a philosophy forum?

 

You may be praying for us that we change our ways and don't go to hell.  I don't do prayers but I sincerely hope that you attain the mental tools required to break through the layers of irrationality you are harbouring in your mind.

[Donnadogsoth]

I believe there is no Hell (or God) because I believe the universe is ultimately just. I win? Hell is pretty god damned tragic to me. Eternal pain, limitless scope and depth with no remedy for the damned. I don't see what you've solved.

 

I believe in universal justice and this concept as I understand it requires no God and is in fact hampered and undone by a God.

 

What will implement your universal justice?  Including for all those who lived and died wretchedly, unfairly, and without hope.

You are making a false choice here. There are an infinite number of alternatives to these two possibilities.

There are many alternatives to eternal justice, yes.  But either there is eternal justice or there's not.  What's your point?

So.... you don't like the idea of the universe being "mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy", so you've decided that because you don't like that idea, you'll pick a different idea to believe in which is more preferable to you; that being: "the universe is ultimately just".  The "universe is ultimately just" therefore [somehow] there is a hell.

 

That's amazing.

 

I don't know what else to say other than: you are severely lacking in the mental tools required to come to rational conclusions.  But, I think you must know that; at least subconsciously.  Why else would you be chatting with philosophers on a philosophy forum?

 

You may be praying for us that we change our ways and don't go to hell.  I don't do prayers but I sincerely hope that you attain the mental tools required to break through the layers of irrationality you are harbouring in your mind.

 

Why don't you give me a negative point?  That'll learn me!

[john cena]

Shocking Shocker: Media full of shit - news at 11. In general beware of RawStory and non-specific text quotes which can easily be taken out of context.

 

http://www.dailywire.com/news/1269/no-donald-trump-doesnt-want-register-all-american-ben-shapiro#.Vk9GNoUpGpM.twitter

Great fact checking! I copied this from a socialist friends facebook page rather hastily out of complete disgust, you got me on that one!

 

 

As for the rest of you, wow I didn't expect to spark such a lively conversation! Concerning Christianity being violent like Islam.. Please look away from the statist controlled churches. They not being of Christ is no different than state sponsored science being bunk like climate change.. Sure the statist controlled version is violent and irrational. Do you forget that Jesus was merely a philosopher? his statements are that of observation of the universe, not religion. You can find it all here, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jesus No violence. No initiating the use of force. Very elegant for 2,000 years ago. If you're an atheist, replace "God" with "Truth" and you will be mind blown! Jesus was an anarchist. Maybe I'm reading too much into the words? Maybe not.

 

"It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

[dsayers]

Do you forget that Jesus was merely a philosopher?

He claimed to be the son of a deity.

 

Jesus was an anarchist.

He asserted "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," asserting both an earthly and heavenly leader.

[shirgall]

There are many alternatives to eternal justice, yes.  But either there is eternal justice or there's not.  What's your point?

 

That you have given us a false choice as an argument that Hell exists. (Therefore that argument is not compelling or logically consistent.)

 

You have now posited that eternal justice must exist because it is subjectively pleasing to you. This is also not compelling or logically consistent.

 

If I could claim existence for everything that subjectively pleased me then an argument would exist that would disprove existence for things that subjectively displeases me. This is a rat hole of literally biblical proportions, because you know what would go away next...

[Donnadogsoth]

That you have given us a false choice as an argument that Hell exists. (Therefore that argument is not compelling or logically consistent.)

 

You have now posited that eternal justice must exist because it is subjectively pleasing to you. This is also not compelling or logically consistent.

 

If I could claim existence for everything that subjectively pleased me then an argument would exist that would disprove existence for things that subjectively displeases me. This is a rat hole of literally biblical proportions, because you know what would go away next...

 

No, I am positing that the absence of eternal justice is a mortal blow to human hope.

[AccuTron]

Lemme tell ya' about Hell.  

 

(I went into other aspects of my injury here, post #15:  Will AI be more ethical than humans?-FDR.)

 

 

Long story, gotta take any snippets I offer on faith.  Starts with unpunished criminal intent, which goes wrong, speaking of a just universe.  (And also speaking of anyone needing an idea for a screenplay: I'm it.  And I want to see how you finish the story, with me still alive.)  

 

It quickly transformed into a day-long coma in the Intensive Care Unit, and what happened next I'd heartily take up with both Frodo, and Dorothy of Kansas, comparing notes and hoisting root beer tankards to the variety of utterly ungodly crap that kept trying to kill us.  For my part, I'm closer to Dorothy, my brain got clobbered...ah, but in such ways.

 

(The italics are because I noticed that the words I simply wanted to use sometimes have religious use, and I thought I'd see how often this happens.)

 

Day three...and it was months and years for me to figure out all this stuff I now just recite...my horridly injured brain had a rebound from the #$@% that some damn fool put in my bloodstream two days earlier.  Pay attention here....

 

Day three, mid afternoon, both my brain hemispheres became gooched.  Hyper-throttled.  Way too much of something.  (GABA receptors is where you Sherlock types should start looking.)  Lasted about an hour, thank God that it stopped.  That last italic is not so simply a word as we might think, this I would discover 3 years, 8 months later.  Reads like a novel, doesn't it?  Brain hemispheres again, gooched.

 

Anyone out there ever do really good psychoactive rec drugs?  Not poison, and certainly not mild.  That's the best I can start you with.  Ain't in Kansas anymore.  And it's scary, real scary.  What the #$&! is my brain doing???  My blood pressure went up there with the orbiting satellites, and I have the interesting certification of not having any blood vessels with weak spots, or they'd have blown.

 

 

From the outside, I indeed would look only restless, as the medical books say for a symptom of lorazepam overdose rebound.  What I actually felt, was a giant Thor's hammer crushing my soul.  Notice the disjunct, all you medical therapy types out there.  Two years later, I would understand that soul was indeed the correct word.  No, I don't expect anyone to believe me, I sure wouldn't if I were you.  A bunch of my brain was essentially and selectively dissolved by massive synapse disconnection and resorption, so follow the thread on that one, if you dare.

 

Within that hour, something happened that lasted perhaps only a few minutes.  And I can only short answer it.  I witnessed Hell, capital letter, no nonsense, not just a word, but clearly, absolutely, like a physics equation that says hey look at this term.  It's own horrid timeless dimension.  Not visibly, this is not a photon type of thing.

 

Just a drug state in a battered brain?  Well, nothing just about it, but yes, absolutely.  And yet, like love or longing or ethics or whatever moves you, it couldn't be more real (as perceived).  It slam dunk was everything I'd ever read about Hell; the timelessness, it's own dimension lording over the other 4 of space-time.  (Lost in time, lost in space, Brad and Janet.)  No brimstone, that's marquee theatrics, and trust me, completely unnecessary overkill.

 

The ruler of that dimension is completely unassailable, purely and horrendously cruel.  I can't say that last part enough.  The memory of that day would bring tears to my eyes for years, and still feels damned creepy.   Were those hellish properties projections of what I'd been taught?  I don't think so, tho' I could't explain clearly why.  "It just was."

 

Does this matter, if a bunch of other people never got clobbered like I did?  Beats me.  Or are there analogous brain states, different causes but similar results?   Like those people who kill their kids and say the Devil told them to do so?  I got a sickeningly vivid idea of just what those people might have meant.  I am deeply grateful that it didn't get any worse than it did, for what was left of me would not have survived.  

 

This is extremely nasty business, completely outside any remotely normal brain activity.  That possibility is in all our brains, and mine got chemically whacked really hard, and it broke free.  Go look in the mirror.  But take a silver cross with you and turn the lights up.

 

 

At 3 yrs, 8 months, the following happened:  One night something awful almost happened, and skipping the disturbing details, I was able to fully wake in time, by the slimmest margin.  This was during a period of years where becoming grossly ill was part of the game.  

 

The next night, I could feel the threat again, was terrified to sleep, and sat upright in my bed with stray streetlight.  The really awful stuff crescendoed, fully awake and scared out of my wits, and in that moment, completely unlike previous me, I prayed, thru my newly arrived Christian housemate sleeping in the next room, from her to the Virgin Mary, my being ex-Catholic.  (Which housemate isn't, but when we are inflating lifeboats we are not checking the boat manufacturer's name.)

 

"There are no atheists in foxholes."  I totally get it.

 

In one moment, that really nasty brain attack stopped completely.  Over the next months, I would figure out that my right hemisphere...where the artistic/spiritual/godly seems to reside, and to me it's no longer simply a theory...sent an override message over my corpus collosum for my left hemisphere to chill out.  And it worked, like a software command should.  

 

I tested the theory during later milder attacks and it held.  I wonder if ancient therapeutic/yogic knowledge includes the effects of which ways we hold our eyes, up or down, left or right, when we think.  I'd look/think to the right of wherever my head was, and slightly up.  It would engage the godly mechanism, or at least encourage it.  Looking anywhere to the left would bring that damned evil into presence.

 

Years more, and it all came together to me.  Those people who killed their kids, it was their practical left hemisphere on hyper-throttle, not all of it, since they can still function overall.  Practical message, by golly, kids gotta go, too expensive or other reason.  Wild animals already do that, eat their young during famine.  The software is already loaded.  The brain is somehow chemically gooched into imbalance, and the otherwise dormant message inside the skull becomes loud and very clear.  It's a local network, if you get me, and the signals are strong.

 

And the godly right hemisphere?  Well, they work together towards creature survival (ideally), and the godly element is also gooched, and so the intra-skull traffic reads as "Yes, God approves."  The software is already there.  

 

But generalize, use the word Deity.  On that third day, the very bad become truly horrendous.  The Deific was revealed.  The brain becomes helpless under it's spell (as it should, if the brain is considered a self-referential structure, a neurological survival organ).  

 

Mind you, having this experience is not coffee table philosophy with hems and haws.  This is your car spinning halfway up a tornado, and theory at that point seems a bit thin and useless.  Theoretical inquiry comes after the car is back on the ground and the driver just sits unmoving for a very long time.

 

Yet what about the days of good weather, non-famine?  Is the perceived Deific still available?  Yes.  

 

But for explaining that, I'm too tired for now.  Notice that I've already referenced Hell, the Devil, and God.  Good luck figuring out any of this.  It was a bitch to do first hand (ungodly nausea included), but the sheer force of it created paths of inquiry and insight I would never have dreamed (nightmared) existed.  To just read about it, I wouldn't know how I'd react.  I'm just the singer.

[shirgall]

No, I am positing that the absence of eternal justice is a mortal blow to human hope.

 

That was not what we were talking about.

 

[Donnadogsoth]

That was not what we were talking about.

 

And if I didn't have genuine hope for the entirety of the universe I wouldn't believe in eternal justice.

[ResidingOnEarth]

Why don't you give me a negative point?  That'll learn me!

 

I didn't and I wont, as I currently don't think you're trolling, I think you may well believe the irrational things you're saying and you're here (whether consciously or subconsciously) for help with that.

 

Regarding this post of yours...

 

I believe in Hell not because of the reasons you list, but because I believe the universe is ultimately just.  To believe otherwise is to believe that the universe is mostly an eternal tragedy, of almost limitless scope and depth, with no remedy.  It is a cornered, mousy belief in the eternal supremacy of cats.

 

I recommend you read shirgall's response a second time as you didn't properly address his points.  I happened to have the exact same thoughts as shirgall on what you wrote:

 

That you have given us a false choice as an argument that Hell exists. (Therefore that argument is not compelling or logically consistent.)

 

You have now posited that eternal justice must exist because it is subjectively pleasing to you. This is also not compelling or logically consistent.

 

If I could claim existence for everything that subjectively pleased me then an argument would exist that would disprove existence for things that subjectively displeases me. This is a rat hole of literally biblical proportions, because you know what would go away next...

 

I've coloured in his responses, so you can match them to your statements.

 

If you are really here to learn philosophy, then I recommend you try and understand the points he is making.

 

If you learn how to think rationally, then you are free.  You can make decisions and come to conclusions on your own and those decisions and conclusions are likely to serve you and the people around you well. You will become a contributor to the free and voluntary society that many of us want to build and be a part of.

 

If you choose to remain irrational (and it is a choice), then you are a slave.  You are a slave to authority who dictate conclusions to you and decide for you.  You are a slave to the past.  You are a slave to circumstance.

[Donnadogsoth]

I appreciate your concern, but I think I am being misunderstood.  I haven't given any reason to belief in Hell other than a belief in eternal justice, which I have not justified, but simply taken as a starting point.  If eternal justice exists, then it is possible Hell exists as well.  And for anyone not to believe in eternal justice, is for them to believe in the universe as almost wholly a tragedy.  Does that explain it or am I missing a subtlety?

[labmath2]

Lemme tell ya' about Hell.

 

(I went into other aspects of my injury here, post #15: Will AI be more ethical than humans?-FDR.)

 

 

Long story, gotta take any snippets I offer on faith. Starts with unpunished criminal intent, which goes wrong, speaking of a just universe. (And also speaking of anyone needing an idea for a screenplay: I'm it. And I want to see how you finish the story, with me still alive.)

 

It quickly transformed into a day-long coma in the Intensive Care Unit, and what happened next I'd heartily take up with both Frodo, and Dorothy of Kansas, comparing notes and hoisting root beer tankards to the variety of utterly ungodly crap that kept trying to kill us. For my part, I'm closer to Dorothy, my brain got clobbered...ah, but in such ways.

 

(The italics are because I noticed that the words I simply wanted to use sometimes have religious use, and I thought I'd see how often this happens.)

 

Day three...and it was months and years for me to figure out all this stuff I now just recite...my horridly injured brain had a rebound from the #$@% that some damn fool put in my bloodstream two days earlier. Pay attention here....

 

Day three, mid afternoon, both my brain hemispheres became gooched. Hyper-throttled. Way too much of something. (GABA receptors is where you Sherlock types should start looking.) Lasted about an hour, thank God that it stopped. That last italic is not so simply a word as we might think, this I would discover 3 years, 8 months later. Reads like a novel, doesn't it? Brain hemispheres again, gooched.

 

Anyone out there ever do really good psychoactive rec drugs? Not poison, and certainly not mild. That's the best I can start you with. Ain't in Kansas anymore. And it's scary, real scary. What the #$&! is my brain doing??? My blood pressure went up there with the orbiting satellites, and I have the interesting certification of not having any blood vessels with weak spots, or they'd have blown.

 

 

From the outside, I indeed would look only restless, as the medical books say for a symptom of lorazepam overdose rebound. What I actually felt, was a giant Thor's hammer crushing my soul. Notice the disjunct, all you medical therapy types out there. Two years later, I would understand that soul was indeed the correct word. No, I don't expect anyone to believe me, I sure wouldn't if I were you. A bunch of my brain was essentially and selectively dissolved by massive synapse disconnection and resorption, so follow the thread on that one, if you dare.

 

Within that hour, something happened that lasted perhaps only a few minutes. And I can only short answer it. I witnessed Hell, capital letter, no nonsense, not just a word, but clearly, absolutely, like a physics equation that says hey look at this term. It's own horrid timeless dimension. Not visibly, this is not a photon type of thing.

 

Just a drug state in a battered brain? Well, nothing just about it, but yes, absolutely. And yet, like love or longing or ethics or whatever moves you, it couldn't be more real (as perceived). It slam dunk was everything I'd ever read about Hell; the timelessness, it's own dimension lording over the other 4 of space-time. (Lost in time, lost in space, Brad and Janet.) No brimstone, that's marquee theatrics, and trust me, completely unnecessary overkill.

 

The ruler of that dimension is completely unassailable, purely and horrendously cruel. I can't say that last part enough. The memory of that day would bring tears to my eyes for years, and still feels damned creepy. Were those hellish properties projections of what I'd been taught? I don't think so, tho' I could't explain clearly why. "It just was."

 

Does this matter, if a bunch of other people never got clobbered like I did? Beats me. Or are there analogous brain states, different causes but similar results? Like those people who kill their kids and say the Devil told them to do so? I got a sickeningly vivid idea of just what those people might have meant. I am deeply grateful that it didn't get any worse than it did, for what was left of me would not have survived.

 

This is extremely nasty business, completely outside any remotely normal brain activity. That possibility is in all our brains, and mine got chemically whacked really hard, and it broke free. Go look in the mirror. But take a silver cross with you and turn the lights up.

 

 

At 3 yrs, 8 months, the following happened: One night something awful almost happened, and skipping the disturbing details, I was able to fully wake in time, by the slimmest margin. This was during a period of years where becoming grossly ill was part of the game.

 

The next night, I could feel the threat again, was terrified to sleep, and sat upright in my bed with stray streetlight. The really awful stuff crescendoed, fully awake and scared out of my wits, and in that moment, completely unlike previous me, I prayed, thru my newly arrived Christian housemate sleeping in the next room, from her to the Virgin Mary, my being ex-Catholic. (Which housemate isn't, but when we are inflating lifeboats we are not checking the boat manufacturer's name.)

 

"There are no atheists in foxholes." I totally get it.

 

In one moment, that really nasty brain attack stopped completely. Over the next months, I would figure out that my right hemisphere...where the artistic/spiritual/godly seems to reside, and to me it's no longer simply a theory...sent an override message over my corpus collosum for my left hemisphere to chill out. And it worked, like a software command should.

 

I tested the theory during later milder attacks and it held. I wonder if ancient therapeutic/yogic knowledge includes the effects of which ways we hold our eyes, up or down, left or right, when we think. I'd look/think to the right of wherever my head was, and slightly up. It would engage the godly mechanism, or at least encourage it. Looking anywhere to the left would bring that damned evil into presence.

 

Years more, and it all came together to me. Those people who killed their kids, it was their practical left hemisphere on hyper-throttle, not all of it, since they can still function overall. Practical message, by golly, kids gotta go, too expensive or other reason. Wild animals already do that, eat their young during famine. The software is already loaded. The brain is somehow chemically gooched into imbalance, and the otherwise dormant message inside the skull becomes loud and very clear. It's a local network, if you get me, and the signals are strong.

 

And the godly right hemisphere? Well, they work together towards creature survival (ideally), and the godly element is also gooched, and so the intra-skull traffic reads as "Yes, God approves." The software is already there.

 

But generalize, use the word Deity. On that third day, the very bad become truly horrendous. The Deific was revealed. The brain becomes helpless under it's spell (as it should, if the brain is considered a self-referential structure, a neurological survival organ).

 

Mind you, having this experience is not coffee table philosophy with hems and haws. This is your car spinning halfway up a tornado, and theory at that point seems a bit thin and useless. Theoretical inquiry comes after the car is back on the ground and the driver just sits unmoving for a very long time.

 

Yet what about the days of good weather, non-famine? Is the perceived Deific still available? Yes.

 

But for explaining that, I'm too tired for now. Notice that I've already referenced Hell, the Devil, and God. Good luck figuring out any of this. It was a bitch to do first hand (ungodly nausea included), but the sheer force of it created paths of inquiry and insight I would never have dreamed (nightmared) existed. To just read about it, I wouldn't know how I'd react. I'm just the singer.

I am sorry for what you went through, Your subjective experience is not proof of anything. Even if your experience is compatible with a pre-existing narrative, it could just be your interpretation of an indescribable experience.

[shirgall]

I appreciate your concern, but I think I am being misunderstood.  I haven't given any reason to belief in Hell other than a belief in eternal justice, which I have not justified, but simply taken as a starting point.  If eternal justice exists, then it is possible Hell exists as well.  And for anyone not to believe in eternal justice, is for them to believe in the universe as almost wholly a tragedy.  Does that explain it or am I missing a subtlety?

 

The problem with this approach is that it's the same as saying, "All of my Porsche's are red." Totally true, because I have no Porsches.