Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 3:20 am
Everything depends on
how they exist. If they exist as an accidental byproduct of impersonal forces, ...
This is the kind of statement you frequently make that upsets a lot of people who accuse you of being dishonest in your arguments, IC. I know it's not dishonesty, just a blindness to any view that does not agree with yours. The alternative view to creation is not, "accident," but the very opposite--
nothing happens by accident, because reality has a very specific nature and all it's behavior is determined by it's conformance to that nature. At the physical level, that nature is discovered by the physical sciences and all merely physical behavior is determined by those principles discovered by those sciences. But reality includes the additional natural attributes of life, consciousness, and human volitional, intellectual, rational minds, which all have their own specific natures.
It is only a belief that reality cannot be trusted to be what it is, because it can all be, "changed," by some unpredictable mystical force, by magic, or miracles, or the whims of some supernatural being that could be called, "accidental."
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 3:20 am
I'm afraid you do not understand (or perhaps believe me) that I do not believe anyone has a right to anything, even to not be beaten, just because they exist.
No, I understand that completely. Was I not clear? A person who does not believe in God has absolutely no justification for believing in rights. I agree with you about that.
It has nothing to do with a belief or non-belief in God. It has to do with the fact that no one has a claim on what does not exist, which no one has achieved or produced, and no one has a claim on anything produced or created by anyone else. It is why every organism's life depends on it's own creative action to sustain its life. The idea of, "rights," is justification of theft, the idea that anyone deserves, and therefor can claim to have or use, what they have not themselves created or produced, because, if it exists someone had to produce it, and the idea of rights means someone else can claim it.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 3:20 am
The reason a rational individual would not beat a woman has nothing to do with some externally imposed obligation to someone else's, "rights," to not be beaten, but because their own sense of self-worth and integrity require it.
Your argument is: a woman has a right not to be beaten, because she might not like it? Because she thinks she has "self-worth," and that it would violate the "integrity" of somebody who, in your view, is merely an accidental byproduct of an indifferent universe?
This is going to take some explaining, I would say.
Really? You cannot understand why a rational individual cannot possibly find any value or joy in anyone else's suffering, that it is understanding what a human being is that makes all other human being a potential value to them, that one's love of reality, all of reality, just as it is, because it is the source of all possible good and virtue means loving all human beings, just as they are without judgment, until they have verbally or through their actions declared who and wha they are. You cannot understand why a rational individual does desires only the best for all individuals to be happy and successful because other's success can only ever further the pleasure and success of one's own life?
If that is true, I have to take your word for it, but I think it is sad that anyone could hate reality so much they would prefer a view of reality as some kind of evil one can only be saved from by some mystical supernatural intervention.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
Well, how do you "know" this thing? Is it not simply that you see no possible grounds of justification for such "rights"? But that's entirely to be expected from a secular worldview.
The secular world does the most screaming about rights and demanding them, as a matter of fact.[/quote]
It often does. But how will it justify all the "screaming"? How will it back its "demands"? The first question is bound to be "Why?" Why does a secular person have to give anybody else "rights"? Why does he even have to believe in them? Can you explain that?
[/quote]
You are the one that needs to answer that question. You believe in the concept rights, just as most other ideologies do. Personally, I know none of your mystical explanations for it are true.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
There certainly is such a concept, but what it identifies is a fiction,
I completely understand why you think so. That conclusion accords with things like Evolutionism or Materialism...or any Atheist doctrine. Under any of them, "rights" have to be nothing but a fiction.
Why do you do that, IC? I address your views in terms of your own avowed theism, not other ideologies, but you continually introduce concept in your discussion with others they to not hold at all. Why do you keep referring to atheism in discussions with me when you know I am not an atheist. Why bring up 'materialism,' [by which is meant, "physicalsim," today] when you know I am not a physicalist. Why do you insert the concept of, "evolution," when you know I reject evolution as a science and all its conjectures. It's tantamount to my saying, well what you believe is what any Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim must believe. It's a dishonest way to discuss anything. Save yourself some trouble in your discussions with me: I do not hold any ideology and reject all, "-isms," which includes all all political/social ideologies, all religions, and pseudo-sciences like psychology, sociology, evolution, and cosmology. That does hot mean I regard everything they say is untrue, even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes. It means, as a, "systematic explanation of reality," they all teach what is not true, (and most of those wrong teachings are very dangerous).
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
So it's your irrational feelings that make you want to be, "not nice,"
Not at all. It might well be quite rational.
I'm sorry, IC, but there is not a rational reason to want to abuse, harm, or intentionally cause another human being unhappiness. I what you believe justifies that, it is evil.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
For example, I might reason that being "not nice" is the way to get what I want the fastest, with the least cost to me: very rational indeed.
I cannot imagine what kind or, "reason," could possibly conclude getting what you, "want," the fastest justifies being, "not nice," to someone else, or worse, what one could want that required being not nice to someone else. I could certainly imagine how some feelings or irrational desires might prompt someone to such behavior, but not reason. If you call whatever justifies such behavior, "reason," you are reasoning from wrong premises.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
To steal, when one can get away with it, is extremely rational as a way of getting what one wants.
Just as I thought. A rational individual knows one can never, "steal and get away with it." Maybe the consequence will be delayed, and most never count the consequence to their own psychology, which no one can evade, but no one can steal without knowing whatever they have gained that way can never satisfy their psychological need to know what they have and enjoy in life is theirs, because the have earned it. They can never enjoy what they think they have gained as the reward for their own virtue and never escape the knowledge that they are parasites. No matter how much they can deceive others, they cannot deceive their consciousness of what they really are and reality never forgives.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
To cheat, to bully, to deceive, to malign and backstab...all highly effective methods, which is what makes them so attractive to so many. Some evil is irrational; but there are also many rational incentives for being evil -- at least sometimes.
If that is what Christians believe, no wonder they have been responsible for so much evil in history. No rational individual believes cheating, bullying, or any other intentional threat or harm can ever achieve or produce anything of true value. Good grief, I hope you do not really believe what you just wrote.
I hope you are confusing, "rationalization," and, "incorrect reason," as, "rational."
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 9:19 pm
Believing in rights as you do, is the way you treat and deal with others different than it would be if you believed there were no rights?
Not only the way I treat others, but my own whole pattern of life is different because I believe in what God says about the value of a person, and because I try to honour the rights God has given them. I can honestly say I would be a much different man if I believed differently. I would likely be much more cold and rational about pursuing my own interests, and far more indifferent to how I was treating others on the way.
Obviously, I can't really prove that to you here, of course; but if you knew me, RC, I don't think you'd have much difficulty believing that's true.
You don't need to prove it to anyone, certainly not me. If you can believe, "stealing, cheating, bullying, deceiving, maligning and backstabing," can all be, "rational," ways of dealing with others, then I guess you are capable of believing anything. I have to say, I am frankly appalled you could possibly really believe that.