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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 3:47 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 3:30 pm So he, the skeptic, is the inconsistent one. At least the Theist can acknowledge the theodicy problem, since he grounds the existence of "evil" in the objective fact of God's existence. The skeptic may allege the Theist is simply factually wrong; but he can't charge the Theist's belief with rational incoherence, as we can the skeptic's own allegation.
The “theodicy problem” derives from specific theological convictions,
Not at all.

It's a skeptic's story. And it's one they love. It almost always appears when they pull out their stock objections. It's called, "the argument from evil." It's simply, "If God is good, how come He allows X." Whatever "X" is taken to be, the objection is dead if the "X" isn't something intrinsically bad, evil and morally unwarranted in some way.
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iambiguous
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Re: Christianity

Post by iambiguous »

Why We Shouldn't Hate Philosophy
Michael Gleghorn at the Bible.org site
A Walk on the Slippery Rocks

For many people in our culture today, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians got it right: “Philosophy is a walk on the slippery rocks.” But for some in the Christian community, they didn’t go far enough. Philosophy, they say, is far more dangerous than a walk on slippery rocks. It’s an enemy of orthodoxy and a friend of heresy. It’s typically a product of wild, rash, and uncontrolled human speculation. Its doctrines are empty and deceptive. Worse still, they may even come from demons!
Okay, but some philosophical slopes are slipperier than others. For example, there are philosophers here who can engage the Christians among us far up in what I construe to be the abstract spiritual clouds and find a common ground between philosophy and Christianity.

And I myself am more than willing to concede that given the profound mystery that is the existence of existence itself, a God/the God is one possible explanation.

And though there are many, many narratives here -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions -- all are entitled to make their own existential leap of faith to God.

What I have found frustrating in exploring religious faith and spiritual convictions is the manner in which many seem to construe these subjects...
1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path
...as a bit too slippery for them. Especially number 4 as it pertains to the world that we actually do live in.

So, all I can do is to keep plugging away and hope that they will become more inclined to go there. In discussions that pertain to my own particular inclinations regarding [on this thread] Christianity. Given that I was once a devout Christian myself. And thus am able to grasp why it is so appealing.

And, given that this is a philosophy forum, hopefully I will come across fewer religious folks who do blindly believe that philosophy is the "product of wild, rash, and uncontrolled human speculation." That "it's doctrines are empty and deceptive." Let alone that they "may even come from demons".
Such attitudes are hardly new. The early church father Tertullian famously wrote:

"What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic? . . . I have no use for a Stoic or a Platonic . . . Christianity. After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research."
Especially into a philosophy embodied "here and now" by those like me. A philosophy that revolves around my own rooted existentially in dasein assumptions that human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless, that in the absence of God there is no secular equivalent for establishing an objective morality and that death = oblivion.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 5:06 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 3:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 3:30 pm Human beings are often inconsistent. But systems of thought are valued for their consistency. That's logic. That's reason. That's sound philosophy. That's good sense.
Man, you’ve really been hoodwinked!

The core of your personal errors, I submit, is to be located here.
So you embrace irrationality, illogic, and unsystematic belief systems? Because that's the only alternative to being consistent, logical, rational, sound and philosophical.
Ah ha! You are a tricky devil! My response goes like this: Logic, reason, mathematical reasoning, geometrical reasoning -- these all function extremely well in their domains. They are absolutely indispensable within their domains and there are so many domains where they are indispensable that to list them would be absurd.

But when it comes to the Giant Questions -- existence, how things can even be, and then why things are, what is necessary for man to do and not to do (and many many other questions) -- these issues have not been resolved in the same manner that a Euclidian proof is clearly, definitively, and finally resolved.

The root of your problem, my dear Immanuel Can, is that you are fronting a game (playing an elaborate game) wherein you send up this preposterous pretense of being *rational & reasonable* while actually the underpinning of your metaphysical assent derives from an irrational faith-choice.

If a million *proofs* against any specific tenet of your belief were presented, and they were all sound, you would yet deny that your set of rational arguments had shown inconsistencies, because of your a priori faith-commitment.

So I think you are, once again, confusing epistemes as I have asserted before. It is imperative to you, given your mental structure, that your faith be necessary as a result of a set of rational propositions, and you seem to trick yourself, and then trick others, that this is how you came to your *unassailable faith*. But I do not think this is actually true. For the reasons I have clearly explained.

Are you aware that I go over all of this, in excruciatingly tortured detail, in Chapter 32 in Subsection B of my 10 Week Email Course?!?

For god's sake man! Sign up!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 6:20 pm ...when it comes to the Giant Questions -- existence, how things can even be, and then why things are, what is necessary for man to do and not to do (and many many other questions) -- these issues have not been resolved in the same manner that a Euclidian proof is clearly, definitively, and finally resolved.
Let's say we accept that. Just for argument's sake. Let's play out that scenario.

If so, then the theodicy objection is dead. "Evil" is not something that can be "defined" or "proved" or "resolved." So it cannot be asserted that there is any inconsistency between the existence of a good God and the existence of your "undefinable," "unprovable" and "unresolvable" thing. Indeed, the skeptic cannot even say what he means.
seeds
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Re: Christianity

Post by seeds »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 3:47 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 3:30 pm So he, the skeptic, is the inconsistent one. At least the Theist can acknowledge the theodicy problem, since he grounds the existence of "evil" in the objective fact of God's existence. The skeptic may allege the Theist is simply factually wrong; but he can't charge the Theist's belief with rational incoherence, as we can the skeptic's own allegation.
The “theodicy problem” derives from specific theological convictions, based in mythological story.

The skeptic rejects the mythological story and thus ::: poof! ::: the theological problem is no longer a problem.

That leaves the skeptic with a vast and new set of problems however. How will man get along without the so-called truth-solutions derived from mythological tales infused with metaphysical values?
That's easy to answer. Humans will simply come up with a new mythology that makes more sense than the old mythology.

We will then put on our favorite pair of tight-fitting underwear...

Image

...and get on with the business of doing what the earth was designed for: --> bringing new eternal souls into existence.
_______
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 6:37 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 6:20 pm ...when it comes to the Giant Questions -- existence, how things can even be, and then why things are, what is necessary for man to do and not to do (and many many other questions) -- these issues have not been resolved in the same manner that a Euclidian proof is clearly, definitively, and finally resolved.
Let's say we accept that. Just for argument's sake. Let's play out that scenario.

If so, then the theodicy objection is dead. "Evil" is not something that can be "defined" or "proved" or "resolved." So it cannot be asserted that there is any inconsistency between the existence of a good God and the existence of your "undefinable," "unprovable" and "unresolvable" thing. Indeed, the skeptic cannot even say what he means.
I am not sure how the world at large, or people at large, or people on this forum would resolve any conflict they may have. But if you are asking me I can say a few things.

In my own way of seeing, I feel I long ago resolved the potential of theodicy as a problem. It simply became clear to me that life, this world, and certainly this Universe, are of good and bad all compact to employ 17th century phrasing.

If I think about what choices I have made in my own life that have resulted in bad outcomes, and have hurt my own self and my interests, and others, it is possible that I might have located something then creates evil ends, but I would use the word as it is popularly used, not so much with the theological inflection.

I agree with most who have shared their sense of things that *evil* is a theological term. I am no longer sure what real and tangible use that term has. But, I can still, and very readily, locate and talk about things I consider genuinely bad and extremely bad. But in some sense such an ultimate designation will take us away from the more important aspect of the question of good and bad. Because it is not the extreme examples of badness that we should refer to, but rather the ones that are part-and-parcel of life and certainly of our civilized life. The ones we become used to perhaps. Many of these can quite easily be labeled and, in fact, most will agree about them.

The theodicy problem is not dead for those deeply involved in and concerned about the Christian picture. How could they be? The religious view explains evil in this world as resulting from the Fall. It contaminated man and it contaminated the cosmos.

The skeptic can certainly say what he means -- coherently. But Immanuel Can cannot accept that what the skeptic says has merit, because Immanuel Can is totally committed to a specific picture and cannot, and will not, see things in any other way.

Selah.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 7:18 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 6:37 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 6:20 pm ...when it comes to the Giant Questions -- existence, how things can even be, and then why things are, what is necessary for man to do and not to do (and many many other questions) -- these issues have not been resolved in the same manner that a Euclidian proof is clearly, definitively, and finally resolved.
Let's say we accept that. Just for argument's sake. Let's play out that scenario.

If so, then the theodicy objection is dead. "Evil" is not something that can be "defined" or "proved" or "resolved." So it cannot be asserted that there is any inconsistency between the existence of a good God and the existence of your "undefinable," "unprovable" and "unresolvable" thing. Indeed, the skeptic cannot even say what he means.
I am not sure how the world at large, or people at large, or people on this forum would resolve any conflict they may have.
It's not personal. It's an inherent flaw in the position. So it makes no difference which "people" do or don't experience it.

It's very simple: one cannot say, "It's wrong that there's X in the world," if one also says, "There is no such thing as real, objective X." Because then, by definition, there's no "X" to indict. And it doesn't matter who the speaker is.
I agree with most who have shared their sense of things that *evil* is a theological term.
It doesn't need to be "evil" for the problem to pertain. The word in question could be "bad," or "negative" or "harmful," or "unwanted," or "not-socially-approved," or "unhelpful," or "wrong," or "unprogressive," or "unhealthy" or any other of dozens and dozens of possible synonyms one might prefer. If any of these terms fails to be objective, then the same result follows: no coherence to the theodicy question.

And I think you can see that. You don't need me to tell you. Once it's pointed out, one can't not-see it.
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iambiguous
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Re: Christianity

Post by iambiguous »

See what I mean?

:wink:
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 2:29 pm
attofishpi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 2:21 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 2:06 pm
Plenty of religious people think not. They think morality comes from God alone and without God there's no point to morality. I disagree of course, interesting to see you disagree with that as well.

Yeah it's a strange one for me. I sort of rearrange my thoughts one way and objective morality makes sense and I rearrange my thoughts another way and it stops making sense. It doesn't have a stable way of making sense to me, where I intuitively understand that it's the case. I have to struggle to put my mind in one way or another. Perhaps there's a sequence of words out there that would allow me to understand it without the struggle, but I haven't found them yet.
How does this fit?

Acts of morality are always subjective.
Acts of immorality CAN be objective.
You tell me. How did you come to those ideas? Do you think they're true, and if so why?
..How? I thought about them.
Acts of morality may have unforeseen consequences. (those consequences may result in what some see as an immoral outcome) Whatever action is taken on account of morality, is subjective.
Acts of immorality CAN be objective. (planning and killing a child for example)

Do I think those ideas are true? - nah, given more thought on the "Acts of morality being always subjective" - I think that's bollocks. :)
Harry Baird
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 12:39 pm I read this again:
By that I mean that I think that by "the actual bleeping truth" you misunderstood me as referring merely to descriptive truth, whereas I was actually referring to both descriptive and prescriptive (i.e., moral) truth.
I understood you as feeling frustrated that “the real snd actual truth” about what is moral and immoral (but there must be much much more, no?) is not clearly and definitively (objectively) known.
I see.

My characterisation of your misunderstanding then seems to itself be a misunderstanding. In any case, given what you say there that you understood me to mean, I still don't see how your response...
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 12:22 am Then you must realize that the visible model, our Earth and its biological/physical ecological system, is the ‘reality’ that you are chained to. There, in that, there are no truths, no right and wrong, and certainly no evil.
...at all followed from it, so, it still seems open to me to have - albeit mistakenly, as you've asserted - paraphrased it as I did.

I don't expect you to be interested in hashing things out beyond that, so I'm marking this case as:

🗃 Closed and filed.
Harry Baird
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harry Baird »

Moving on, then, to the response I'd promised:
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
Harry Baird wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 6:31 am Perhaps, given the design of this reality, some or even many of the sentient beings within it (both human and non-human) are as you say forced to behave in less than preferred ways just to survive, but "should" implies "could", and so, to the extent that their choices are forced, they aren't in the moral domain anyway. Otherwise, although probably not all or many of the non-human sentient beings in this system engage in explicit (especially abstract) moral reasoning, I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.
“Less than preferred ways”? It is a curious phrasing. To whose preference?
To the preference of moral beings - isn't that obvious? Moral beings are characterised by having an interest in avoiding harm and suffering where possible. It is obviously, then, not their preference (not preferable in general) to be confronted with situations, given the system in which they occur, in which it is not possible to avoid causing harm and suffering. Right?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm I am curious to know if you’ve studied much natural history?
Put it this way: by the time you finally discovered David Attenborough, I'd been aware of him and his work for several decades.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm Is your view of nature romantic?
No, but yours is pessimistic.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.
The lion runs down the gazelle but at the last moment has a “change of heart” and decides “I’ll go hungry this week!” “My cubs will have to get by …”
I've already addressed those sort of sentiments.

Is it in any way productive to re-raise sentiments to which I've already responded without your having even acknowledged, let alone addressed, that response?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm I think that sone animals can recognize when a fellow is in danger and offer help. A dog whose companion has fallen into a swimming pool comes to mind. Animals strictly in the wilds might act similarly. But they cannot act against the “rule” of ecological determinism.

Do you have a (non-romantic) contrary argument?
I don't need one, because I'm not denying that what you say there is roughly true.

The clarification that I think is worth making is that although, generally speaking, non-human living beings don't - for very good reason - act against that which you characterise (in terms different to those I'd use) as "the “rule” of ecological determinism", they are - in the metaphysical sense - free to do so, and capable of doing so. That metaphysical freedom is why I'd choose a different term in this context than "determinism".

I also think it's worth affirming that the example that you provide of moral behaviour in animals is a good one, and that there are plenty of others.

Finally, let's have a closer look at this in context:
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm one can begin to examine man’s choices: a contrary spirit determined (or strongly influenced) by an imposed value system
A lion is - as best we understand - an obligate carnivore, meaning that, to survive in the wild, a lion has no choice but to kill (that gazelle that you mentioned or some other animal). Lions, though - and predators in general - tend to succeed most at killing the very old and the very young, so, if a gazelle isn't almost immediately killed after birth, that gazelle has a pretty good chance of having a long life relatively close to its natural lifespan; a life spent free in the wild and relatively pleasurably: wandering around with friends and family eating yummy stuff, having sex, having kids, and looking after those kids (note carefully: I am not contending that aside from predation, the life of a gazelle is guaranteed to be solely one of pleasure: obviously, there are all sorts of unpleasant possibilities, such as breaking a leg - resulting in a slow death from starvation - or falling incurably ill, etc etc).

A human, in contrast, is - as best we understand - an omnivore, meaning that, to survive in the modern world, a human can[1] freely choose whether or not to kill (even if that killing is "only" by proxy, via that human's consumer choices). The animals that a human avoidably chooses to kill (by proxy) or to otherwise extract food (milk; eggs; etc) from - are generally deliberately bred to grow rapidly and are killed a short fraction into their natural lifespan. They are typically kept in captivity (often, such as in the case of battery hens, in appallingly cruel close confinement), denied access to sex (instead, being artificially inseminated), denied access to their children (the male calves of dairy cows, for example, are typically torn from them immediately after birth and either slaughtered immediately or raised to be killed for veal only a short while later), and mutilated without pain relief by various procedures (debeaking; disbudding (dehorning); mulesing; etc etc).

Sometimes, that human will then explicitly say that (s)he doesn't feel the slightest moral guilt over his/her avoidable choice to kill, and sometimes, that human will rationalise it as necessary.

So, yes, let's examine man’s choices, but contextually:

Between the human and the lion, which is more of the moral monster, and which is more of the moral exemplar?

[1] To a meaningful extent; yes, I get that totally avoiding deaths in modern agriculture is difficult to achieve.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm..
A bit off topic Alexis, but my cousin that I met in India sometimes lives in Spain, and he tells me his Spanish is very good, a lot better than his Hindi. He asked me in an email whether I had recovered from the journey (I got the virus on the way back) - so I replied with this, in Spanish:-

Yes I am fully recovered, but am finding my mental state has worsened to the point that now I occasionally, just randomly start talking in Spanish! Yes, that journey home was rather awful, I just hope I didn’t pass the virus on to the girls sat next to me that were headed for New Zealand to work on an IT project..

You must be in Andalucia now, enjoying the lovely weather and practicing your Spanish. My phone finally recovered from speaking Hindi after I reinstalled the app!

====
I then got ChatGPT to translate the Spanish, back to English - that took a lot longer, but it absolutely nailed it - perfectly!!

Not sure how good your Spanish is, but see what you think?

Sí, estoy completamente recuperado, pero he notado que mi estado mental ha empeorado al punto de que, ocasionalmente, empiezo a hablar en español sin razón aparente. Sí, ese viaje a casa fue bastante horrible. Solo espero no haber contagiado el virus a las chicas que estaban sentadas junto a mí y que iban rumbo a Nueva Zelanda para trabajar en un proyecto de TI.

Supongo que ahora estarás en Andalucía, disfrutando del buen tiempo y practicando tu español. ¡Mi teléfono finalmente dejó de hablar en hindi después de que reinstalé la aplicación!

:)
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Christianity

Post by Flannel Jesus »

attofishpi wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:05 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 2:29 pm
attofishpi wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 2:21 pm

How does this fit?

Acts of morality are always subjective.
Acts of immorality CAN be objective.
You tell me. How did you come to those ideas? Do you think they're true, and if so why?
..How? I thought about them.
Acts of morality may have unforeseen consequences. (those consequences may result in what some see as an immoral outcome) Whatever action is taken on account of morality, is subjective.
Acts of immorality CAN be objective. (planning and killing a child for example)

Do I think those ideas are true? - nah, given more thought on the "Acts of morality being always subjective" - I think that's bollocks. :)
Yes, of course you thought about them. How does the sequence of thoughts look? What thoughts do you start with, and how does that lead you to the statements you ended with?

If morality, as you say, is subjective BECAUSE it can have unforeseen negative consequences, why can immorality not also be subjective if it can result in unforeseen positive consequences?

What if I shoot someone in the head, trying to kill them, but instead they survive and the only damage my bullet did was destroy a brain tumor they didn't know they had? Was that action accidentally moral?
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 7:29 am
attofishpi wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:05 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 2:29 pm

You tell me. How did you come to those ideas? Do you think they're true, and if so why?
..How? I thought about them.
Acts of morality may have unforeseen consequences. (those consequences may result in what some see as an immoral outcome) Whatever action is taken on account of morality, is subjective.
Acts of immorality CAN be objective. (planning and killing a child for example)

Do I think those ideas are true? - nah, given more thought on the "Acts of morality being always subjective" - I think that's bollocks. :)
Yes, of course you thought about them. How does the sequence of thoughts look? What thoughts do you start with, and how does that lead you to the statements you ended with?

If morality, as you say, is subjective BECAUSE it can have unforeseen negative consequences, why can immorality not also be subjective if it can result in unforeseen positive consequences?

What if I shoot someone in the head, trying to kill them, but instead they survive and the only damage my bullet did was destroy a brain tumor they didn't know they had? Was that action accidentally moral?
You need to take note that the only ALWAYS condition I set, was that ACTS of morality is always subjective. (which I now think is bollocks as stated)
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Christianity

Post by Flannel Jesus »

attofishpi wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 8:53 am You need to take note that the only ALWAYS condition I set, was that ACTS of morality is always subjective. (which I now think is bollocks as stated)
Seems like we're back to square one then.
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