"Curating Safe(r) Spaces In Comments"

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

Understandable, but how do we know that these certain people are always right on, well, everything? That's more of the point I was trying to make - yes, it very well could be that, but there's no way to prove that these people are right on every issue ever.

Um, where did I say that these people are right on every single issue? If the point you were trying to make is that nobody's opinion can be proven 100% right on every single issue ever, well, that's a kind of obvious statement and I don't think that point really need to be made.

Okay, first off, I have nothing against them - in fact, I have deep respect for most, if not all of them, but I don't think that the opinions of those few members should be blindly taken as truth, which I can't help but sense goes on quite a bit here, and which I have been tempted to do every now and again, despite not fully examining the issue at hand, and blind belief does not foster a good debating/serious discussion board.

So, apparently being convinced by rational debate is now taking something blindly as truth. Also, have you considered the possibility that, rather than this forum being populated by sycophantic sheep who follow this select elite you are so intimidated by, this forum is simply populated by like-minded people? Honestly, the way you are talking about the people on this forum is quite insulting.

 

[Light]

There are an infinite number of serious topics two people could disagree about, but this is one case where I would argue that opposition to QUILTBAG rights directly harms and implicates people, as well as compromising the safe space we're all trying to maintain.

See: Age, Sex, and the Taking of Virginities, Having a Video Game Character Commit Adultery, Is Cannibalism that Wrong?, Incest, etc. Point being: we don't really try that hard in Serious Business to "maintain a safe space", because of the discussions it would compromise. People actually have opinions that oppose same-sex marriage. That's the world. Don't try and hole up and pretend they don't exist; this is not TCoLGBT. I am glad there are sites out there who curate their debating threads so that the faint of heart have some place to find refuge.

And it's perfectly okay to have dissenting opinions, with the caveat that they must be a) logical and b) not potentially harmful to any persons. These criteria are not very subjective, as far as I can tell.

Really, you could argue a lot of arguments are potentially harmful to certain persons. And so judging which opinions you are not going to allow is subjective.

If we continue to use my QUILTBAG example, a person who comes in and says "Same-sex relationships are immoral because..." is not only driving the conversation into needless absurdity, but possibly making a certain portion of the population feel unwelcome and/or unsafe. (And I know that TCoD is special in that anyone who disagrees with QUILTBAG folks gets pounced on immediately. This is not the case with the entire internet, which is the focus of the article.)

Disqualifying an argument because it makes certain people feel unwelcome/ unsafe is an appeal to consequences fallacy (one of my favorite fallacies to call out :p it seems to get so abused without notice). And since the argument does not seem absurd to the person who said that, they deserve a fair shot to see where it leads.

We should allow dissenting viewpoints, always, that is a part of discussion and science and rationality and it's our modicum and vehicle to inspire change and greater things, but there's a limit to how far we can go. Even in a serious business thread, homophobia and such have no place. Never, ever. There should be no platform for this. Free speech is a misnomer.

Hm, then where are people who don't support gay rights going to test their arguments? Don't say, "Those arguments all absurd; if they actually think they hold weight they're either close-minded or stupid". As an example "It's totally unnatural" at first glance seems like a valid point, and unfortunately homosexuality in animals isn't ubiquitous common knowledge.

Furthermore, I find it offensive to suggest that gay people should not be entitled to the same rights as straight people (just leaving out for the moment the complications for transgender people etc etc, to simplify the discussion a bit). Who is anyone to take away anyone's basic human rights? Of course, you can ask whether marriage constitutes a basic human right, but then you're entering a different discussion.

I think the problem here is that anti-gay people don't realize that homosexuality is as innate as heterosexuality to some, which very well may be the fundamental struggle of the issue.

Most debating posts on a subject like this made by people who aren't into the subject matter always seem equally fraught with prejudice and ignorance and that really hinders basic discussion.

...You switched your qualifier here. At first you said "most" as if to sound less committal to the opinion you were about to make and then you changed to "always" right before you hit your point when your feelings on the matter were activated. It makes me sad that you see all religious people (or anyone) who argue against homosexuality as prejudiced and ignorant. Heck, I used to be one of 'em! You might say I was prejudiced and ignorant, and maybe I was. But it wasn't my fault for one thing. And if I hadn't had those discussions I wouldn't be where I am today. I get that you're jaded from chronically fighting anti-homosexuality (and I don't use homophobia here because it is often times a crude misnomer. I for one can testify that if a book many people hold sacred did not clearly scorn homosexuality the vast majority of people holding that book sacred wouldn't have a problem with it, and many people who oppose homosexuality on grounds of religion are not homophobic at all: they feel no personal disgust with homosexuality but nevertheless act on faith.) but it would be really neat if you would extend the world of intelligent thinkers to beyond people who agree with certain views of yours.

Like I said above, non-legalization is offensive to many people. As the witty banner puts it - "I didn't ask her to civil union me!" That's why. Some opinions are simply absurd and offensive no matter which way you put this. I've already explained above that it depends on the way you phrase the argument, but most people run the legalization argument through some kind of religious filter, which means it eventually boils down to "God said so", and that under no circumstances constitutes an argument any self-respecting ethicist would accept.

Unless the ethicist is religious -_-. An anti-gay proponent on a mainly anti-gay forum could argue (though nowhere near as strongly -- but it wouldn't matter if the community was anti-gay enough) that to say "mariage between two people of the same gender is equal to marriage between two people of different genders is equal" is offensive. If you're going to censor out anti-same-sex marriage responses, the site you are censoring is decidedly pro-homosexuality.

Also keep in mind that even if people on a forum are flocking to disagree with you, if you are actually making a good argument they can't really touch you.

On the contrary, they can throw out a bunch of red harrings that sound perfectly reasonable but only tangentially respond to what you said, and, wanting to be thorough in fully addressing anything the other people say, anyone who had just made a well-reasoned argument can be flustered. I don't believe I've seen it happen on here very much, but it happens*. Also, especially on sites with teenagers, not everyone can fully express their ideas or reasoning. I think a lot of not being able to aptly explain your opinion to other people in a debate gets passed of for narrow-mindedness when the person doesn't suddenly reformulate their views when you think you've "debunked" their argument. AND if the opinion you are arguing is counter to the general opinion of the forum, no one is going to give you the benefit of the doubt on what you say, and you have to be really careful to say exactly what your thought process is, which is usually both difficult and exhausting, or else they're gonna come in from every corner and find something to disagree with.

*Unless the person throwing the red harrings is trolling. Then it can be annoying as hell or just plain hilarious, depending on the execution.

 

[Tarvos]

Hm, then where are people who don't support gay rights going to test their arguments? Don't say, "Those arguments all absurd; if they actually think they hold weight they're either close-minded or stupid". As an example "It's totally unnatural" at first glance seems like a valid point, and unfortunately homosexuality in animals isn't ubiquitous common knowledge.

See, this is where we beg to differ. There are things you can have a debate on (such as what causes gravity, or whether it's ethical to pursue a certain course of action in government) and there are things that are simply true and people don't accept the truth for what it is because it doesn't fit with their conservative way of viewing the world.

"unnatural" is never a valid point. Claiming we do something because it is natural is the is-ought fallacy. If we're gonna talk about those, I can return the favour.

If it's not common knowledge, then we should educate people that it is. The fact people don't know isn't because it's not true, but because conservative people are blocking our means to really educate people about homosexuality! Playing devil's advocate against this HINDERS THAT PROGRESS.

People can debate homosexual arguments with actual arguments. Using the is-ought fallacy isn't one of them and appeal to imaginary authority isn't one of them either.

I think the problem here is that anti-gay people don't realize that homosexuality is as innate as heterosexuality to some, which very well may be the fundamental struggle of the issue.

Some don't know, and some wouldn't accept it if confronted with the fact. This is much more common, and as far as most anti-gay people - which are in the majority religious - well, you can see where I am going with this one. It's such a fundamental struggle because people are too close-minded to change their view in favour of overwhelming evidence. Yes, that is ridiculously close-minded. Yes, that is stupid.

...You switched your qualifier here. At first you said "most" as if to sound less committal to the opinion you were about to make and then you changed to "always" right before you hit your point when your feelings on the matter were activated. It makes me sad that you see all religious people (or anyone) who argue against homosexuality as prejudiced and ignorant.

Same-sex marriage should be a right for anyone. Yes, anything else is indeed prejudice and ignorance. There is no sane reason why we should not allow same-sex marriage unless it's an argument against marriage itself. Particularly any religious argument against it just does not make any sense. Provide me with an actual religiously funded argument against same-sex marriage and we can come back to this. I challenge you.

Heck, I used to be one of 'em! You might say I was prejudiced and ignorant, and maybe I was. But it wasn't my fault for one thing. And if I hadn't had those discussions I wouldn't be where I am today. I get that you're jaded from chronically fighting anti-homosexuality (and I don't use homophobia here because it is often times a crude misnomer. I for one can testify that if a book many people hold sacred did not clearly scorn homosexuality the vast majority of people holding that book sacred wouldn't have a problem with it, and many people who oppose homosexuality on grounds of religion are not homophobic at all: they feel no personal disgust with homosexuality but nevertheless act on faith.) but it would be really neat if you would extend the world of intelligent thinkers to beyond people who agree with certain views of yours.

I have a lot of trouble finding anyone who believes in something comparable to the Great Fairy in the Sky intelligent. There are religious people who are intelligent, of course - Francis Collins, who heads the human genome project, is a neat example - but I can hardly take an argument based on faith seriously. I will always have trouble doing this as long as faith continues to be based on faith and not on evidence or reason. I cannot debate with someone who is effectively saying "you're just have to going to trust me on this one" while explaining a lot of imaginary nonsense about something which he or she can't even prove to be correct. It's simply not an argument. That's why faith should have no place in a debate. What people believe in their own time in their own houses isn't my business. But it's never justification for an argument. I would say anyone religious and intelligent is intelligent because they are intelligent, not because they are religious - and oftentimes they are intelligent despite of their religion because at the opportune moments they choose to sweep their religion under the rug in the face of evidence.

Unless the ethicist is religious -_-. An anti-gay proponent on a mainly anti-gay forum could argue (though nowhere near as strongly -- but it wouldn't matter if the community was anti-gay enough) that to say "mariage between two people of the same gender is equal to marriage between two people of different genders is equal" is offensive. If you're going to censor out anti-same-sex marriage responses, the site you are censoring is decidedly pro-homosexuality.

I've never seen any religious ethicist with a sense of morality further than I could spit a rat. Are these the same ethicists that condone the holocaust, condone the walking around of missionary priests continuing the spread of AIDS, continuing the policy of trying to get people to have a deathbed conversion, and so on and so forth? In what have you seen religious ethicists produce anything that is remotely comparable to any sort of morality? Of course, that is THEIR VIEWPOINT, as you are so happy to suggest. Of course, they can consider it morality. But it doesn't take a lot of effort for any sane human being here to see that it fails on both argumentational and moral levels. You just cannot condone religious ethics with a straight face in this day an age without looking like you have to apologise for something. And that's because religious ethics is really embarrassing!

 

[bulbasaur]

See, this is where we beg to differ. There are things you can have a debate on (such as what causes gravity, or whether it's ethical to pursue a certain course of action in government) and there are things that are simply true and people don't accept the truth for what it is because it doesn't fit with their conservative way of viewing the world.

How are such things simply true and not debatable? When you can boil it down to a few axioms, that's when it becomes truth. Everything else is just speculation. Of course, given some supporting observations, speculation may be valid by some people's standards, but please do not try to pass something as "true" unless you can systematically deduce it to be so.

Are these the same ethicists that condone the holocaust, condone the walking around of missionary priests continuing the spread of AIDS[,.,]?

Please elaborate.

 

[shy ♡]

How are such things simply true and not debatable? When you can boil it down to a few axioms, that's when it becomes truth. Everything else is just speculation. Of course, given some supporting observations, speculation may be valid by some people's standards, but please do not try to pass something as "true" unless you can systematically deduce it to be so.

What do you consider to be a simple truth?

It is simply true because it is a matter of human life. It is simply true because if you consider each life equal, as one should, there is no reason to value one above the other, quite obviously.

The problem is, many debaters practice moral relativism; and that is not practical in all situations. Do you believe the morals of murder are relative? That 'do not kill someone unless your life is threatened' is not a simple truth? I believe it to be. The reasons boil down to our being a pack animal, our instinct to protect one another, etc etc. and the fact that we are sapient and thus can recognize another person as existing at all. This extends towards giving another person the same quality of life as we would have - thus, if straight people can get married, so should gay people be allowed to.

 

[Light]

See, this is where we beg to differ. There are things you can have a debate on (such as what causes gravity, or whether it's ethical to pursue a certain course of action in government) and there are things that are simply true and people don't accept the truth for what it is because it doesn't fit with their conservative way of viewing the world.

Which is why so many debates end up going back to religion. Religious people think their views, like "god has made himself known to mankind" and "we should obey god" are just as simply true and many people in the world "don't accept the truth for what it is because it doesn't fit with their liberal way of viewing the world".

"unnatural" is never a valid point. Claiming we do something because it is natural is the is-ought fallacy. If we're gonna talk about those, I can return the favour.

So people who haven't studied their fallacies are ignorant? And they deserve no room in a discussion?

If it's not common knowledge, then we should educate people that it is. The fact people don't know isn't because it's not true, but because conservative people are blocking our means to really educate people about homosexuality! Playing devil's advocate against this HINDERS THAT PROGRESS.

Actually, allowing discussion is far more effective in getting that knowledge out than shutting people down who don't know about it.

People can debate homosexual arguments with actual arguments. Using the is-ought fallacy isn't one of them and appeal to imaginary authority isn't one of them either.

Unless part of the audience holds that authority with respect, I'd like to point out. If a bunch of religious people suddenly came on to this forum then one saying to another "homosexuality is immoral because God clearly said so" that would be a valid argument within that group of people. And when you don't know if anyone else holds that authority (and you don't assume that authority is obviously real) at least you have given your reason for holding an opinion.

Some don't know, and some wouldn't accept it if confronted with the fact. This is much more common, and as far as most anti-gay people - which are in the majority religious - well, you can see where I am going with this one. It's such a fundamental struggle because people are too close-minded to change their view in favour of overwhelming evidence. Yes, that is ridiculously close-minded. Yes, that is stupid.

People are not going to change their entire worldview because of a miscellaneous non-central idea which is inconsistant with the worldview that seems to be true at one certain moment, if that makes sense. It's unreasonable to ask a Christian to give up eir religion because of the homosexuality problem.

Same-sex marriage should be a right for anyone. Yes, anything else is indeed prejudice and ignorance. There is no sane reason why we should not allow same-sex marriage unless it's an argument against marriage itself. Particularly any religious argument against it just does not make any sense. Provide me with an actual religiously funded argument against same-sex marriage and we can come back to this. I challenge you.

Religiously funded as in valid if you accept that religion to be true? Romans chapter one, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13. Of course you cannot make an argument against same-sex marriage other than on religious or instinctual grounds. You can say "love is a choice" and "gay people have just as much right to marry heterosexualy" ... but I'll admit that's ignorant.

I have a lot of trouble finding anyone who believes in something comparable to the Great Fairy in the Sky intelligent. There are religious people who are intelligent, of course - Francis Collins, who heads the human genome project, is a neat example - but I can hardly take an argument based on faith seriously. I will always have trouble doing this as long as faith continues to be based on faith and not on evidence or reason. I cannot debate with someone who is effectively saying "you're just have to going to trust me on this one" while explaining a lot of imaginary nonsense about something which he or she can't even prove to be correct. It's simply not an argument. That's why faith should have no place in a debate.

No, faith is trusting in what appears to have the most evidence. Ultimately what is faith but trusting that a premise, in this case a religious doctrine, is in fact true, as one has built up the validity of that premise over a long period of time in their life.

What people believe in their own time in their own houses isn't my business. But it's never justification for an argument. I would say anyone religious and intelligent is intelligent because they are intelligent, not because they are religious - and oftentimes they are intelligent despite of their religion because at the opportune moments they choose to sweep their religion under the rug in the face of evidence.

Give me a break. You hate Christianity, don't you? You have just as much dogma against religion as religious people do against atheism!

I've never seen any religious ethicist with a sense of morality further than I could spit a rat. Are these the same ethicists that condone the holocaust, condone the walking around of missionary priests continuing the spread of AIDS, continuing the policy of trying to get people to have a deathbed conversion, and so on and so forth? In what have you seen religious ethicists produce anything that is remotely comparable to any sort of morality? Of course, that is THEIR VIEWPOINT, as you are so happy to suggest. Of course, they can consider it morality. But it doesn't take a lot of effort for any sane human being here to see that it fails on both argumentational and moral levels. You just cannot condone religious ethics with a straight face in this day an age without looking like you have to apologise for something. And that's because religious ethics is really embarrassing!

First of all, this is offensive. I'll come back to this later when I have more time to reply.

 

[Cerberus87]

Members taking sides and influencing others isn't the problem. The main problem llies when moderators and admins start banning people outright because of different opinions, with the excuse of "trolling". In one of the forums I used to visit and post regularly, people were being banned simply because they didn't like the new version of a game in a series, which is ridiculous.

The issue of LGBT rights is much more sensitive, though. I've seen people trying to rationalise LGBT hate and deprivation of rights, but every argument against legalisation of LGBT rights is discriminatory so far, at least in my opinion. Why can't two men marry each other? What harm is there in two men raising a child? Why can't two women kiss in public? Why not criminalise prejudice against LGBT people? I've been brought up in an environment which put LGBT people in a negative light, and TBH I still cringe a little when I see two men kissing in a movie for example (never got to see two men kissing IRL), but I acknowledge the fact that LGBT hate is irrational, no matter how nicely worded it is. Therefore, it's my opinion that it's very difficult to build a reasonable argument against the rights of LGBT people, which is why most people who try to do so end up banned or simply excluded from the community.

 

[bulbasaur]

A few simple truths:
1+1=2
x=x
if A and A=>B, then B (modus ponenes)
What is, is.
The set of real numbers is complete.
if A ∈ B U C and A ∉ B, then A ∈ C

Most of these truths are highly theoretical, as you may notice, but you can do stuff with them and form pretty neat conclusions that will last forever. Then, there's what is generally accepted as truth, but may be actually wrong (like how Newtonian physics got superseded by Relativity):
An element with one proton in its nucleus is Hydrogen
When particles have an average of no energy, they have a temperature of 0K
What is observed, exists.

And then, there's definitions. These are more controversial than one may think:
A second of time is equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom ((WTF?))
"Red" light has a wavelength of close to 650 nm
Homosexuality is when a person is sexually attracted to one of the same gender but not the other (correct me if I'm wrong about this)

NOT truths, but not untrue either. These subjects are what most debates are about:
Gold is better than silver
Women should be allowed to undergo an abortion anytime
One should not run red lights
The comfort of many outweigh the suffering of a few

"if you consider each life equal, as one should"
That's an assumption, and I ... actually disagree. There are plenty of reasons to value one above another. I value Adolf Hitler less than I value Pierre Trudeau, for example. A debate could be set up on the assumption that each life is considered equal, but it wouldn't be considered valid by those who disagree with the notion.

 

[Tarvos]

Which is why so many debates end up going back to religion. Religious people think their views, like "god has made himself known to mankind" and "we should obey god" are just as simply true and many people in the world "don't accept the truth for what it is because it doesn't fit with their liberal way of viewing the world".

Obviously. But this is not what we set out to debate. I know you're trying to reverse this, but I have no burden of proof, religious people do. They're claiming that God made all of mankind. Then: PROVE IT. I have plenty proof for evolution, mountains of it. If you want to know, you can just go out there and find out. It's not that complicated to understand.

So people who haven't studied their fallacies are ignorant? And they deserve no room in a discussion?

Nah, my point is that we all make fallacies, and if you can call me out on them, I can do so in reverse. But yeah, it would be nice if people in debates knew when they were making a mistake in an argument, I won't deny that.

Actually, allowing discussion is far more effective in getting that knowledge out than shutting people down who don't know about it.

Not necessarily. Some things need to be taught, some things need to be discussed.

Unless part of the audience holds that authority with respect, I'd like to point out. If a bunch of religious people suddenly came on to this forum then one saying to another "homosexuality is immoral because God clearly said so" that would be a valid argument within that group of people. And when you don't know if anyone else holds that authority (and you don't assume that authority is obviously real) at least you have given your reason for holding an opinion.

Absolutely not.


Just because a lot of people accept the argument does not mean it is valid. Arguments don't get decided by consensus - they get decided by evidence, and in a case where the division of evidence is more or less equal can we even think about consensus discussion. Consensus gets screwed over by power politics - pity the church has too much to say in too many areas of the world. This is an appeal to population.

What Christian moralists do in their own time is not my problem, by the way - if they want to have their celebrations, be my guest. But they're not taking away basic human rights.

People are not going to change their entire worldview because of a miscellaneous non-central idea which is inconsistant with the worldview that seems to be true at one certain moment, if that makes sense. It's unreasonable to ask a Christian to give up eir religion because of the homosexuality problem.

Yeah, this is why people leave the churches in droves. I'm sure all the gay ex-Catholics will love this statement. Any reasonable person will notice when their worldview is flawed. This is why so many gays struggle with religion - they know how they feel and want to act, but they're not allowed to do it. I bet a lot of them will just drop religion for that reason. And if you're sane, you're not going to adhere to a viewpoint that makes you feel mentally and physically ill. Any real moral person knows when they make a mistake - and they admit it. So would I. But not in this case, because I don't buy that there's evidence for the contrary.

Also, I'm not asking anything of them. Their struggle with religion is their own. I would simply find it sane.

Religiously funded as in valid if you accept that religion to be true? Romans chapter one, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13. Of course you cannot make an argument against same-sex marriage other than on religious or instinctual grounds. You can say "love is a choice" and "gay people have just as much right to marry heterosexualy" ... but I'll admit that's ignorant.

No, valid in general. But based on scripture. We should be able to deduce it without first having to pose God exists for it to be an argument, because then anyone can invalidate the argument by attacking the premise of God.

No, faith is trusting in what appears to have the most evidence. Ultimately what is faith but trusting that a premise, in this case a religious doctrine, is in fact true, as one has built up the validity of that premise over a long period of time in their life.

No, that's not faith. That's confidence in evidence, but religious faith is blind faith - it's faith despite, not because of the evidence. I do not trust my own premises further than I could indeed spit a rat - and if you tell me gravity's wrong for a good reason, gravity's wrong. But faith HAS NO EVIDENCE - THAT IS WHY IT'S FAITH. YOU CANNOT IN GOOD CONFIDENCE BELIEVE A GOD EXISTS WITHOUT ANY - AND I MEAN ANY - PROOF AT ALL FOR IT (and no, "personal experience" does not count as an argument. Religious faith is faith because you have no FUCKING CLUE, and you're trusting it exists.

Trust with evidence, trust through mathematics or reasoning or through physics and allowing for mistakes is a completely different type of faith. Never, ever, ever confuse the two. It's the difference between life and death, between right and wrong.

Give me a break. You hate Christianity, don't you? You have just as much dogma against religion as religious people do against atheism!

What dogma do I have? I indeed have no love for religion, but it's not Christianity in particular. I dislike Islam, Scientology, Judaism, Hinduism, etc etc, to varying degrees, depending on how much shit they've pulled over the years. I dislike faith without evidence. You're putting a name on it. Christianity and Islam have pulled the most stunts, so yeah, they get the brunt of the hatred. Poor them, shouldn't have molested children, sacrificed innocent people's lives, planted bombs, done the crusades, hunted witches, hindered the progress of science, prevent the spread of sex ed, and so on and so forth.

If you had that on your list of "Things I've Achieved In the Last 2000 years", everyone else would have the right to be miffed at you. If God is said to be benevolent, he's done the job of an office temp with a horrible temper. He failed like an idiot. You don't want this on your resume as a god. There's a reason I don't like it, I don't just assume it is true because it is.

Let me repeat this: if you've done what religion has in the past couple thousand years, and you would still be adhering to that morality...you should probably be thinking twice. Or three times. Or fifty. I'm serious. The list of religious nutjob ideas goes on and on and on and on and I could quote you thousands of incidents from various places. But I'm sure you don't want to hear it, because, "I am dogmatic against religion!". This has got nothing to do with dogma. This has got something to do with evidence. Evidence. EVIDENCE. And that's the key to every debate, evidence. Eventually rhetoric will get you so far. This isn't a game of poker we're playing.

But trust me, if there was one good shred of actual evidence (not conjecture, evidence) that God existed, I'd be on the other side in a flash. The reason we're all being goddamn atheists is because there isn't.

First of all, this is offensive. I'll come back to this later when I have more time to reply.

I'm sorry, but nope. It's not. I am attacking people's views as being stupid, not people themselves as being stupid. I have every right to do this as long as I don't insult their actual intelligence - I just find clever people who are strongly religious (take Kurt Wise as an example) to be tragically misguided. I do not and will never understand why such clever people won't do anything useful with their lives instead of pondering on mysticism and mythology. Gods make for good stories but bad bedfellows.

@bulbasaur

Yeah, it's nice and cool to be a moral relativist and all. We can never be 100% sure about anything. But you know what? I'll take 99.9999%, or 99%, or 95%, or any percentage really, over non-falsifiable.

Just because I cannot prove the sun will rise tomorrow does not mean that it won't. I think it's pretty reliable, and you're not going to be stupidly solipsist about it living as if you're unsure it will rise. And you know very well why that is.

 

[bulbasaur]

@bulbasaur

Yeah, it's nice and cool to be a moral relativist and all. We can never be 100% sure about anything. But you know what? I'll take 99.9999%, or 99%, or 95%, or any percentage really, over non-falsifiable.

Just because I cannot prove the sun will rise tomorrow does not mean that it won't. I think it's pretty reliable, and you're not going to be stupidly solipsist about it living as if you're unsure it will rise. And you know very well why that is.

Right, you'll take 99.9999% or 99% or 95%. As it stands, though, not everybody will. Things that can be proven deductively are truth, and are non-debatable. Everything else is debatable, although certain topics may lean heavily to one direction.

And why do I believe the the Sun will rise tomorrow? Because I have faith it will. I put my faith into the reasoning behind it. The principals of physics. The laws of gravity and motion. I believe in the 99.9999% chance, as do most people. That's one assumption most people will make, and that very few people will challenge.

 

[Tarvos]

Right, you'll take 99.9999% or 99% or 95%. As it stands, though, not everybody will. Things that can be proven deductively are truth, and are non-debatable. Everything else is debatable, although certain topics may lean heavily to one direction.

And why do I believe the the Sun will rise tomorrow? Because I have faith it will. I put my faith into the reasoning behind it. The principals of physics. The laws of gravity and motion. I believe in the 99.9999% chance, as do most people. That's one assumption most people will make, and that very few people will challenge.

I don't believe in it. Not unconditionally, at least. I don't believe in anything. I just know there's evidence for it and that's why I take it to be true until something better comes along. The fact it hasn't makes it all the stronger.

 

[Butterfree]

"Faith is anything you're not 100% sure of" is a silly definition of faith. It's including things you're 0.00000001% sure of as far as the evidence is concerned with things you're 99.9999999% sure of as far as the evidence is concerned. There is literally a world of difference between the two - a world of evidence, pointing one way and not the other. You can't just lump them together as if they're the exact same thing. They're not, because it is reasonable to believe in things the evidence tells you are 99.9999999% certain and not to believe in things the evidence tells you are 0.00000001% certain. (And yes, I do get to call one reasonable and not the other - because only one of them leads to you making accurate predictions about what the world is like. If you have one person who believes every morning that the sun will rise and another person who believes it won't, the former will be right 99.9999999% of the time. That's what 99.9999999% certainty means.)

Not that this has much of anything to do with morality. Morality isn't based on evidence (directly), but instead on shared basic moral intuitions such as "suffering is bad". There is no universal law saying suffering is bad - if there were, there wouldn't be so much pointless suffering in nature - but it is something humans pretty universally believe, discounting special cases such as sociopaths. You can't "prove" or give "evidence" that suffering is bad - you just feel that it is. And the reason you can still debate about it without tossing out all of morality is that the person you're arguing with also feels that it is; it becomes a shared premise in the argument, and you can build arguments from shared premises no matter the premises' truth value or whether they have any such thing as a truth value at all. So long as two people agree that suffering is bad, they can debate back and forth on what causes suffering and what doesn't, what causes more suffering than something else, etc. and thus, on that basis, what is the right thing to do. If they genuinely don't agree that suffering is bad - then yeah, you're not going to be able to conduct much of a debate, but the fact is humans agree on that pretty universally. Different cultures allow different principles to justify suffering in different situations, but the underlying principle is pretty constant.

 

[opaltiger]

Things that can be proven deductively are truth, and are non-debatable.

I'm not sure I agree. There is an argument that can be made against deduction on grounds that deductive laws rely on induction just as much as natural laws do.

 

[bulbasaur]

Hmm?

 

[opaltiger]

Well, what's the difference between predictions arrived at using deductive logic and, say, predictions arrived at using mathematical laws? Presumably you would answer that deductive logic always holds and always will hold, but why should that be so? It's easy enough (I think) to conceive of a universe where the laws of physics are different, and thus easy enough to accept the (unlikely) possibility that the laws of physics in our universe might change at some point. That's the problem of induction. By the same line of reasoning, if it is possible to conceive of a universe in which the laws of deductive logic are different, then our faith that they will not change is just another facet of the problem of induction.

I'm not saying it's the most convincing argument in the world, but I don't think it's a good idea to treat deduction as a path to absolute truth.

 

[shy ♡]

"if you consider each life equal, as one should"
That's an assumption, and I ... actually disagree. There are plenty of reasons to value one above another. I value Adolf Hitler less than I value Pierre Trudeau, for example. A debate could be set up on the assumption that each life is considered equal, but it wouldn't be considered valid by those who disagree with the notion.

hello godwin's law debate over.

Taking this comment seriously: a human life, at its basis, is equal to another human life. If you consider who the individual is, it becomes more complex; is this person 'good' or 'bad' (which I would think that someone who is a moral relativist would have difficulty with labeling; how can Hitler be a 'bad' person if there are no moral absolutes?!! By what means can you determine that Hitler's slaughtering of millions of people is bad if there is no certainty, in a way that 1+1=2, that the slaughtering of millions of people is actually wrong?! But anyhow); but that is all flavour. The basis of a human is equal to another. We're all the same stuff. If you don't know Jon from Joe, they're just two... people.

So basically, you're arguing it's the morals of a person that make us different from each other, which seems to be our side of the argument rather than yours.

 

[Butterfree]

Well, what's the difference between predictions arrived at using deductive logic and, say, predictions arrived at using mathematical laws? Presumably you would answer that deductive logic always holds and always will hold, but why should that be so? It's easy enough (I think) to conceive of a universe where the laws of physics are different, and thus easy enough to accept the (unlikely) possibility that the laws of physics in our universe might change at some point. That's the problem of induction. By the same line of reasoning, if it is possible to conceive of a universe in which the laws of deductive logic are different, then our faith that they will not change is just another facet of the problem of induction.

I'm not saying it's the most convincing argument in the world, but I don't think it's a good idea to treat deduction as a path to absolute truth.

See, while it's definitely easy enough to conceive of a universe with different laws of physics, I really can't go with the idea that there could be any conceivable universe where the laws of deductive logic or mathematics don't apply.

 

[bulbasaur]

"Presumably you would answer that deductive logic always holds and always will hold, but why should that be so?"

Because we created the system off of which we base everything. If there are no changes to that framework (which there would not be if we don't change it ourselves), then everything based exclusively on it will hold.

"It's easy enough (I think) to conceive of a universe where the laws of physics are different, and thus easy enough to accept the (unlikely) possibility that the laws of physics in our universe might change at some point."

That's why I didn't include those as absolute truth.

"hello godwin's law debate over."
I'm sorry... mind if I change it to Stalin or Pol Pot?

I didn't label Hitler (or Stalin or Pol Pot) as a 'bad' person, all I did was value him lower than someone else. I'm basing it on what they did, not their morals. And judging from what they did, I could take a guess at what they would do in the future. And if they took life from someone else, then that person's value gets deducted from their value. Simple as that. Each person's potential at birth I judge to be similar, though, if that's what you're trying to say. People with disabilities do have a lower potential on average, but society tries to make up for it, with various degrees of success. Disclaimer: I certainly don't think less of these people, it's just that, on average and in terms of net societal gain/loss, they start out lower and have a harder time climbing up, depending on the disability.

EDIT: I'm sorry if I ticked anyone off with my ambiguously presented views on this. By all means, we should strive for equality, but as it stands, we're not doing a very good job with that, which is why people with disabilities have a hard time.

"which I would think that someone who is a moral relativist would have difficulty with labeling"

What's a moral relativist? And no, I have no problem labeling.

"So basically, you're arguing it's the morals of a person that make us different from each other, which seems to be our side of the argument rather than yours."

In fact, by now I don't know what we're arguing about. I raised my points to argue that since a certain set of values are not truths, then it would be against the purpose of a debate to limit what can be challenged to exclude those set of values. What are you arguing for?

 

[opaltiger]

Because we created the system off of which we base everything. If there are no changes to that framework (which there would not be if we don't change it ourselves), then everything based exclusively on it will hold.

You think deductive logic is artificial? But if that's so, why on Earth do we place so much confidence in it? There must be something about the universe which dictates that a deductively valid argument will always yield a true conclusion from true premises.

 

[Butterfree]

I don't think it makes any sense to say something "about the universe" must make deductively valid arguments from true premises sound. We have areas of math, for instance, that are completely abstract with no connection to the physical universe; why should the structure of the physical universe affect them?

(We're getting rather off topic. Maybe we should make a new thread.)