Russia embraces religious intolerance with draconian blasphemy and anti-gay laws

[Statler Waldorf]

@Statler Waldorf

Why do you use this stupid signiture?!

What are you the signature police now? You’re going to have your hands full Officer if you’re citing people for satire in their signatures in these here parts. I like my signature, as do other theists.

He's not here for debates. He's a troll.

Calling someone who destroys you in debate time in and time out a troll doesn’t reflect too well on your abilities.

He seems to want to be the Pompous Apologist with a satirist spin but doesn't have either the education or the wit necessary.

[Emphasis added by SW]

You demeaning my level of education and then posting what you did below is ironically hilarious; life is so often more fantastic than any fiction imaginable. Thank you for that.

The fact that he hasn't generated any sales from his efforts. Again, agreed upon definitions (in this case, what a salesman is) are important otherwise we can't have a rational conversation.

It’s interesting that you have now changed the definition of a good salesman from one who generates new clients to one that generates sales; it’s amusing that you cannot keep your own analogous proof straight. You have an even graver problem than that though, as it stands now your meager proof by analogy is completely fallacious. Sure, you can make some sort of judgment about whether or not our hypothetical salesman is good in a pragmatic sense of the term. However, the only reason you can do this is because by being a salesman he has taken on a specific purpose and duty. In order for the proof by analogy to be valid you must first demonstrate that humans have a specific and intrinsic purpose and duty in life. After you have demonstrated such duties and purpose exist you must demonstrate that we can know what these duties and purpose are; and finally you must logically demonstrate that someone who postulates a different purpose in life is actually wrong. Once you do all of that, then we can begin to debate whether a person still has a moral obligation to fulfill their duties and purpose in life. You’ve got a lot of work to do! I am sure someone of your superior intellect and education is more than fit for the task though!

Frankly, I'm starting to suspect you're a solipsist. Your arguments seem to dance on that edge (as do most presuppositionalists).

No, I am not a solipsist at all, but I am a Christian theist so my conceptual scheme can account for the possibility of knowledge. Apparently subjectivism does in fact reduce to solipsism though since you have provided nothing but personal opinions, fallacious analogies, and arbitrary standards to date; none of which can account for knowledge of course; but who am I kidding? Someone of your superior intellect and education surely already knew that.

Correct. Some favor a deontological approach to ethics but even philosphers of this style don't restort to "duh coz big invisible sky-daddy sez so" (or if any do, I hadn't heard of them).

For some reason you confused theories of ethics with theories of meta-ethics (a strange mistake for someone of your superior education to make indeed). What I was referring to was opposing meta-ethical theories held by philosophers (notice how that word is correctly spelled?); which would include moral realism and moral nihilism- both of which seem to be more defensible than your roughly stated version of moral (ethical) subjectivism. Yet, the only reason you seem to ascribe to moral subjectivism is because several philosophers you’ve clearly never read also do.

Respectively: The Social Contract and thought experiment.

Contracts are only binding if all parties know what is in them, has the ability to agree to them or opt out of them; so where is this social contract? How does one agree to it? If any such contract did exist (which you have not proven one does) it still does not demonstrate that we ought to treat others as we want to be treated. You’ve got quite the hill to climb.

Respect is earned, not a given.

I thought we were supposed to treat others how we want to be treated? Do you want others to misrepresent and mock your position while not adequately defending their own? Or does your moral subjectivism only apply when you want it to apply? Oops!

And by the way, ridicule is not necessarily fallacious. Sometimes, it can be used to drive home a point.

No, ridicule proves nothing. You’ll have to do better.

Like with the ad hominem, it's only a fallacy where it's used in place of an argument, not alongside an argument.

You’ve made another argument? Where is it? I have seen no syllogism provided by you, perhaps I missed it? Please point me to it so I can determine if it is valid and sound. Thank you.

I have offered you plenty of reasons why GodWillsIt is not at all meaningful or helpful as far as our understanding of morality is concerned.

You’ve given me plenty of arbitrary reasons or opinions, but arbitrary reasons and opinions are meaningless. Morality deriving from God is not only meaningful and useful, but as you have helped to demonstrate it’s the only definition of morality that is logically defensible.

Everything that is thinking and feeling and self-aware.

How do you know that’s the criteria? Did you just make that up? People are not self-aware until around two years old; do infants therefore not have existential rights?

Because it is generally harmful to others and typically not how we wish to be treated by one another.

Nice circular rationalization! For being the boy who cried circularity on this forum you sure don’t seem to avoid it in your own reasoning.

- It’s morally wrong to treat others how we do not want to be treated
- Why?
- Because that makes you a hypocrite
- Why is being a hypocrite wrong?
- Because it’s being dishonest
- Why is being dishonest wrong?
- Because it’s treating others how we do not want to be treated
- Why is treating others differently than you want to be treated morally wrong? (Return to the Top)

And around and around we go!!!

Do you have any actual logical reasons why any of this is morally wrong or is it all based on circularity?

Double standards like the kind you hypothetically suggest require justification. Why is it OK for you to persecute atheists but not for atheists to persecute you?

That’s not a principle of reasoning. If I want to better my life by treating others differently than I want to be treated, why is that morally wrong? Where does this moral obligation for sacrificing my greater good for the good of others come from?

Why is God a special exception to the rule offered by the dictionary's definition of a word? I'm not the one adding words. You are.

He’s not a special exception, if there was some rule outside of God’s mind that His opinions and will could not affect then that rule would be objective from God’s perspective just like God’s rules are objective from man’s perspective. You’re not using the word correctly at all.

But the things these man-made units actually measure are not subjective. Distance is the same whether measured in miles or kilometers. Temperature is the same whether measured in Fahrenheit or Celsius. Distance and temperature are objective. How they are measured is a matter of choice but that choice and the means by which these units are agreed upon does not make it any less objective.

Nice try, but you didn’t use the word objective in reference to what was being measured; you used the term “objective units like degrees or meters” (Post #61). Are meters and degrees now all of the sudden not objective? Not only this, but couldn’t god change the distance between two objects if He wanted to? So given your bizarre definition of objective that includes all beings regardless of perspective and relationship distance and temperature are not objective because God could always subjectively alter them. I am using the word correctly, you obviously are not.

Do they exist outside the mind of God? If so, God didn't make them. If not, they are subjective, by definition.

Doesn’t matter either way, from man’s perspective they’re still objective because they exist apart from mankind.

It's almost like you expected the dictionary to have a section by each definition entitled, "Here is a list of all the special exceptions Statler Waldorf is going to want to assume and we want to specify they don't apply."

No, I expected you to know how to use the word correctly (which you did in reference to meters and degrees oddly enough), that is that if something is independent of one’s mind it is objective in relation to that individual. That’s how the word is always used, and that makes god’s laws objective to all of mankind, done. You’re utterly irrelevant attempt at changing the function of the word has only made you come out of this looking hopelessly inconsistent because you have already used the word how I am using it. Apparently objective means one thing when you use it in reference to meters and degrees but something completely different when you use it in reference to God (fallacy of equivocation).

Exceptions to a rule are spelled out.

I didn’t say anything about an exception, I am saying that the word is used relationally; I know that you already know this because you have already used it that way.

Does God not have a mind? Does God not have thoughts or feelings?

Doesn’t matter; you’ve changed the frame of reference from the creature to the creator.

Either something is objective or it isn't. There is no such thing as "objective to this being and subjective to that being".

Where does the dictionary say that? You’ve already contradicted yourself here by asserting temperature and distance are objective even though they are determined, created, and altered by the mind of God. Oops.

Let’s look at the definition you keep using…

4. Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion. (Webster’s)

Did you catch it? The example? An objective OPINION? Given your bizarre usage of the word, how could an opinion ever be objective since opinions derive from the mind?

What about aliens to earth, hypothetically? If aliens invaded earth and imposed laws upon us, would their laws suddenly be magically transformed into "objective rules", since the beings that made them aren't human? Would these aliens not have minds and personal feelings?

Oh brother, aliens? If aliens existed and they imposed laws upon us, those laws would be objective from man’s perspective and subjective from the aliens’ perspective. Is this really that difficult to understand?

You're starting to project here and the fact that you want to go to "well, it doesn't matter because sky daddy's gonna beat you up no matter what you argue" shows you, on some level, know you're losing the argument.

No, obviously I have won the argument because you’ve used the word how I use it and the dictionary even uses the word how I have used it (objective opinions); I am just pointing out that it was an irrelevant point to begin with and for some odd reason you seemed far too zealous about it.

Such as?

The negation of that premise leads to the impossibility of all knowledge.

The Yahweh you mention is not one god but many. Michael Moore and Fred Phelps both worship the same Yahweh-Jesus god and yet I think it's fair to call these two different gods with two different ideas on moral and social justice. Jesus is a liberal or conservative, a capitalist or a socialist or whatever you want him to be. Christians, like anyone else, create a god based on their own glorified self-reflection and use that to justify believing and doing the things they do anyway.

You’re confounding conception with reality, which is a huge mistake for someone of your superior intellect and vast education to make. We know of Yahweh through the things that are made and His revealed word, anything conceptualized beyond that is irrelevant.

This is yet another problem with the GodWillsIt approach to understanding morality. What does "God" will again? Depends who you ask. God never seems to communicate that personally. Even the Bible contains no "Book of Jesus". It's always human beings who convey "God's wishes".

What a gross misrepresentation of Christian theories of meta-ethics. We derive our definitions of morality from God’s moral commandments revealed to us in scripture, not from His efficacious will. Your inability to accurately frame your opponent’s position makes it quite obvious you understand it about as well as you understand your own position…very poorly.

And you think that's not true of every other religion? You think the other gods by other names don't offer commandments or express their will on how we should behave?

That’s not what I said.

The fact is you can't offer one shred of evidence that your interpretation of the will of Yahweh-Jesus is any more accurate than Micheal Moore or Fred Phelps. Both these people can quote the Bible too and they offer no more and no less evidence of divine insight than you.

Again, we’re dealing with God’s commandments and not His efficacious will; but that’s where exegesis and hermeneutics comes into play to arrive at truth, something Michael Moore isn’t the least bit familiar with. I suggest you actually try to defend your own position for once before you start whining and crying about Christians, I realize that’s probably really the only card you’ve got but please just try.

Neither can you prove that Yahweh-Jesus is the "One True God". Muslims offer just as much evidence as you do for the existence of Allah (which is to say, none).

More just meaningless rhetoric and whining, Hitchens is that you back from the grave?

You can slap the label "axiom" on your bare assertions and circular reasoning and use the Tu Quoque that "oh yeah, well you have them too" but you can't escape the fact that you're pulling stuff out of your butt and you have no evidence to back up any of what you are claiming.

I do not need evidence when I have proof. You’re still just whining though, I’ll wait for you to actually defend your position though since you’re the one who jumped into this thread arrogantly proclaiming you could do so. It was quite the anticipatory build up for nothing more than a fallacious proof and the tossing out of a few names in the philosophical community; I should have known better than to get my hopes up that maybe you’d learned a thing or two during my hiatus…alas.

I don't know of any scenario where what is morally right is also logically absurd. Can you map out any for me?

Now you’re in a bind! You’re only justification for why people ought to treat others how they want to be treated was a fallacious appeal to force (consequences), “You should treat others how you want to be treated or else you’ll be labeled a hypocrite.” So if you’re going to use an appeal to consequence as justification for your definition of morality then it is only fair that someone else can say, “You shall not steal or else we’ll cut your hands off and therefore it is morally wrong to steal.” Fair is fair!

Predictably, you confuse legality with morality.

Predictably you created a false distinction between the two. As a moral subjectivist, since morals are determined by mankind, there is no distinction between what is morally right and what is legal. If morals are merely codes of behavior created by Humans allowing us to live as a functioning society then there is no difference between the two. It never ceases to amuse me how you’ll make subtle appeals to a transcendent and objective concept of morality whenever your subjective version is trapped in a corner. I’ll ask again, does the US Government have the authority to punish someone for violating it’s laws? Why?