The Tanager wrote:What do you mean by 'possible' here? We know a mega-entity is logically possible. Do you really mean that it's far enough removed from the beings that we know are actual?
We don't know it's possible. The sorts of powers ascribed to most entities termed God are hardly necessarily possible.
The Tanager wrote:I'm having trouble understanding your question. Could you rephrase it?
Let's say you meet one of these mega-entities. How do
you decide whether it is God or a garden variety evil entity pretending to be God?
The Tanager wrote:I think you are conflating two different arguments in this thread. My critique was in the specific context of you arguing that morality being a human invention gives us good reason to believe morality is illogical. I countered that most other human inventions are logical, so
on this fact alone one should not conclude that morality is illogical but that it is logical. All I claim here is that human inventions other than morality are overwhelmingly logical.
Human inventions other than morality
are overwhelmingly logical, for a specific reason: To appeal to other humans. That reason doesn't apply to morality, and morality alone out of all human creations.
If fiction, or math, or art, could serve its intended purpose without being logical, there would be no reason to expend extra effort making it so.
The Tanager wrote:Your response here, I think, refers back to what has been said about how people say one thing and then act in a different way regarding morality. I agree that people act inconsistently when it comes to ethics. Ultimately, I think we want to do what makes us feel good. Appearing logical to ourselves and to others makes us feel good because humans prize the logical. When confronted with acting in a way inconsistent with what we've previously claimed and doing what feels good, we often choose what feels good.
That's true. Humans are also amazingly good at identifying when others do this, and they're great at policing each other, not just on morality. Usually the choice between what is logical based on one's goals and what feels good in the moment takes the form of instant gratification versus actually pursuing goals - the bucket of ice cream now, or exercise now and be skinny later. All humans correctly identify the bucket of ice cream as the wrong choice, even those who chose it.
The Tanager wrote:If we can feel good without thinking about things too hard, then we will do so and assume we are being logical all along even when we aren't being logical. When we get challenged and forced to think harder about it, we will usually try whatever it takes to make it appear that we were being logical all along. We want to eat our cake and have it too. We say our claim was misquoted, misunderstood, out of context, just ignore it and scream louder and insult our opponents, etc. We definitely don't like to admit we were previously wrong, but people don't usually openly praise inconsistency.
They don't praise inconsistency. Not openly.
The Tanager wrote:I think these actions actually show that we believe there is one standard for all. I think the universal initial human intuition is that there is one standard. I think it is perfectly rational to believe that our universal human intuitions are warranted until other defeaters come along. Atheism being true could be such a defeater but I think logic is on the side of theism over atheism.
Actually if theism is true, we at least know that the standard for God is different than the standard for humans. We know for a fact that I'm right, it's just a matter of which humans are bound by which standards. They could all happen to be bound by the same one but I doubt it.
I think it's more likely that the human desire of the lower is for the higher to be bound by the same morality as they are, but that the intuition of the higher is that they have to pretend they follow the same standard as the lower, but they know they're not actually bound by it.
I say it's more likely simply because of how adulated the higher always are. They are alphas, and the rest are omegas. They know it, you know it, I know it. But for the sake of society and law (that protects them the most) they pretend otherwise. The minute they admit they're really better than others, those others start trying to kill them, simply because it's the fastest way to equality: Kill those who are better. They're always comparatively very few.
The Tanager wrote:You are obviously tired of talking with unrational people who hurl insults instead of arguments. But do you really think their stubbornness equals truth?
Yes. It is the final truth that alone remains possible after I have eliminated everything else.
The Tanager wrote:I'm not a Catholic but I agree with the Pope on this one. I would also make a stronger claim and say the only plausible reason for thinking racism is objectively wrong is God's existence.
Then just pretend I'm one of those people who think God is the good in people and we agree absolutely.
The Tanager wrote:Using the term in that specific way, then yes if only white people have the power necessary to control society in prejudicial ways, then only white people (at that moment) could be racist. I don't think the "if" is true, though. There are tons of societies. Many have white people largely in power. Others have systems that came about or were transformed by prejudiced white people in the past and have not been foundationally changed since then by those who now have the power. Others have non-whites in power. The non-whites that have power can be racist. Probably some are and some aren't.
Well, the person I lost to in a debate said that what was happening in South Africa was not an example of black racism. They put the whites off their land, confiscated the land, had the power to do it, and it still wasn't racist.
You can
argue that it's wrong (but, you would be wrong) but you can't even argue that it was racist.
The Tanager wrote:I don't think it is permissible to punch anyone for their ideology alone.
That makes you one of the set of
all humans who believe that it is unacceptable to punch a black supremacist for their ideology alone.
There is only disagreement on what you can do to a white supremacist for his ideology alone.
If God is the good in people, then he says no to punching the black supremacist for his ideology, and maybe to punching a white supremacist for his. I'm not pasting together pieces of different arguments from different people; I'm looking at the purest good in people.
And as to the idea that nobody praises flat contradiction, well, you might want to look at this universally lauded infographic from Karl Popper.
For fun I'm posting the one where some racist, knuckle-dragging idiot thinks he has "destroyed" Popper's logic (which he can't do, because Popper is not attempting logic). Popper is using pure morality,
and admitting the paradox. The "logic" doesn't apply equally to all things, and only a racist would think it was meant to.
(In case this has been sized down too far to read...)
Popper: Should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance?
Nazi: Yeah! Tolerate my ideas!
Popper: When we extend tolerance to those who are openly intolerant...
Hindenburg: Let's give Hitler a chance.
Popper: ...The tolerant ones end up being destroyed, and tolerance with them.
Any movement that preaches intolerance must be outside of the law. As paradoxical as it may seem, defending tolerance requires to not tolerate the intolerant.
(implied) ...And it only applies to Nazis.
The fool who thinks he has caught Popper relies on completely glossing over where Popper admits it's a paradox.