War, what is it good for?

[Jamiet99uk]

I find it curious that Jamie thinks we should actually consider his opinions with any regard or respect when it's clear that he doesn't regard or respect anyone else's.

I am glad that at least you acknowledge your belief in God is merely your opinion.

[Jamiet99uk]

If you want to talk about the bible then create a thread about it.

If you want to talk about the one state which is controlled by right wing, some would say extremists, adherents of the Jewish faith, using their past to justify committing genocidal acts against an oppressed population. Then by all means this is the thread to do it in.

I basically agree that Israel's is committing a genocide, but these cartoonishly one-sided arguments hurt your position more than they help.

The ultra-orthodox matter in Israel, but it beggars belief to think that Jewish fundamentalism is the driving force of this conflict when Israel's religious intensity is about on par with Canada's: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/
An honest argument would have to contend with the real reasons why Israelis are so willing to fear and despise their neighbours. Religious animosity, Israeli chauvinism, and racism are only one small facet of this. Genuine security concerns are the much bigger animating issue and they aren't so easily dismissed. The West killed many civilians in Mosul after comparatively less serious terror attacks by ISIS, because living in fear of terror attacks is intolerable for any nation.

You can find foot-in-mouth videos online where some Jews try to use the specter of the holocaust to absolve Israel of any criticism. But you're absolutely living in a bubble if you think this is a mainstream justification for the war today. Genocidal or not, Israel's war today is obviously being justified primarily on the basis of (i) the extraordinarily shocking cruelty of the terror attacks against Israel's last October, (ii) the ongoing plight of hostages that Hamas will not release, and (iii) Hamas' own stated position that it will use any break in hostilities not to improve the lives of Palestinians, but to plot further acts of terror against Israelis.

If you want to end Israeli genocide you'll need to contend with the facts. It's largely about security and the reciprocated genocidal intentions of Israel's neighbours. There is no solution to this crisis that undoes the Nakba. There is no way to undo the modern state of Israel without a genocide against those living there.

Israel's genocidal behaviour is not driven by extreme religious belief.

In fact, many of the original zionists, right up to Israel's bloody foundation, were secular Jews, using their Jewish cultural and ethnic background as the justification for founding an extreme nationalist ethno-fascist state. That's what we're dealing with here. They are racial supremacists, not necessarily religious zealots.

[orathaic]

There remains to this day a significant religious minority in Israel which has a particular direction they are pushing policy.

I am not claiming they are the only force in Israeli politics, but they are significant.

Being that my point was religion and conflict can go hand-in-jand, especially since the bible justifies violence. And this is a thread to talk about war - and thus warcrimes. Itis possible to discuss the religious elements of various wars.

We could also talk about the Russian Orthodox church and how they have cozied up to Putin and used cover as cleric to perform propoganda and espionage in Ukraine.

None of this shows religious organizations in a particularly good light, even if they happen to read the same bible.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

That Israelis are just bigots or religious fanatics feels like a cope. If they're just meanies then the solutions are simple — stop being mean you selfish Israelis.

The problem is their hatreds are based on the mutual hatred held by their enemies. Their willingness to overlook genocidal violence is reciprocal — it's really easy to hate people who hate you, elect a government whose charter includes your genocide, fires rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas, etc. Everyone in Israel knows someone who died in a previous Intifada. They all do compulsory military service and they live in a country you can drive across in like 2h so no one feels safe from conflict and everyone there has imagined dying in a two- or three-front war where Gaza is one of the fronts.

You can think they've brought this situation on themselves because the project of Zionism is misbegotten, because they elected bad-intentioned Bibi, etc. but the fact remains that fear and mutual hatred, more than bigotry and religious fanaticism, are driving the worst aspects of this conflict.

Maybe the international community can restrain Israel regardless of why Israelis have engaged in the worst possible behavior (war crimes, blocking aid, etc.). But a durable solution won't just be DEI training for Israelis or ending benefits to ultra-orthodox families. They are going to *hate* their neighbours so long as they receive rocket barrages, terror attacks, and threats of genocide from them. That means we need a two state solution with a demilitarized Palestinian state, which is a hard pill to swallow if you're someone who thinks Israel is forever characterized by the sin of the Nakba and/or that Palestinians are the righteous and exclusive indigenous population to that land.

[CaptainFritz28]

I find it curious that Jamie thinks we should actually consider his opinions with any regard or respect when it's clear that he doesn't regard or respect anyone else's.

I am glad that at least you acknowledge your belief in God is merely your opinion.

Any belief is necessarily an opinion, but those beliefs do not change the truth behind them. Objective truth is not changed by my opinion or yours. That God exists is not a matter of opinion or belief but of fact.

(But I recognize that your statement here was not in the interest of actual intelligent discourse on the subject, so I'll say no more.)

[Jamiet99uk]

I find it curious that Jamie thinks we should actually consider his opinions with any regard or respect when it's clear that he doesn't regard or respect anyone else's.

I am glad that at least you acknowledge your belief in God is merely your opinion.

Any belief is necessarily an opinion, but those beliefs do not change the truth behind them. Objective truth is not changed by my opinion or yours. That God exists is not a matter of opinion or belief but of fact.

It isn't a fact, it's just your opinion.

[Octavious]

That it isn't a fact is Jamie's opinion
That it is a fact is Fritz's opinion

One of those opinions happens to be true, but it is a fact that regardless of how strongly those opinions are held it is not possible to conclusively prove which one is correct.

What adds difficulty is that the standard of evidence we demand for most of our beliefs and opinions is actually quite low. I believe that Timbuktu exists, for example, even though I have never been, know of no-one else who has been, know quite a few people who believe the place is fictional, and I'm not entirely certain I could find it if I needed to. The amount of evidence that points to the existence of God, by contrast, is massive. As is the amount of evidence that He doesn't

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

That it isn't a fact is Jamie's opinion
That it is a fact is Fritz's opinion

One of those opinions happens to be true, but it is a fact that regardless of how strongly those opinions are held it is not possible to conclusively prove which one is correct.

What adds difficulty is that the standard of evidence we demand for most of our beliefs and opinions is actually quite low. I believe that Timbuktu exists, for example, even though I have never been, know of no-one else who has been, know quite a few people who believe the place is fictional, and I'm not entirely certain I could find it if I needed to. The amount of evidence that points to the existence of God, by contrast, is massive. As is the amount of evidence that He doesn't

We should all be committed agnostics when it comes to the existence of God. "Is there a God?" is an untestable hypothesis if by "God" we mean some supernatural being whose existence and works would be, by definition, beyond what we could ever hope to understand empirically. You say there's lots of evidence in both directions - the real answer is that there is no evidence in either direction, as it's a proposition that can't be evidenced.

Of course, the follow up question for a believer should be "If there is a God, what are the chances that my particular conception of God is the right one?" This is also unanswerable, but it's logical to think "probably not". The chance that anyone's bespoke view of exactly who God is and how God works is accurate seems abysmally low.

These questions are is quite unlike "Does Timbuktu exist?", as this can be tested quite easily in a variety of ways. You can meet a traveler from there. Phone someone who lives there. Look at satellite imagery of it. Etc. Since Timbuktu's existence is imminently verifiable, it's reasonable, and indeed rational, to believe in Timbuktu even though you've only seen fairly scant direct evidence of it yourself. At a minimum, we're familiar with related phenomena such as "cities" and "Africa", which set some plausible preconditions for a the existence of city named Timbuktu in Mali. It would be a poor use of your time to hold Timbuktu's existence to a much higher standard of evidence.

[Octavious]

I'm not saying that it's impossible to build up a very convincing body of evidence for the existence of Timbuktu, merely that the belief in its existence (or indeed the belief in it being fictional) is generally held with a far lower amount of evidence than the belief or disbelief in God. And we are typically quite comfortable with that degree of evidence for most things we believe in. A Christian who believes strongly in God will have far more evidence for that belief than an atheist will have for the vast majority of things he believes in. An enthusiastic atheist like Jamie will have far more evidence for the nonexistence of God than a Christian will have for most of the things he believes in.

Of course, the follow up question for a believer should be "If there is a God, what are the chances that my particular conception of God is the right one?" This is also unanswerable, but it's logical to think "probably not". The chance that anyone's bespoke view of exactly who God is and how God works is accurate seems abysmally low.

The chances of anyone's exact view of God being absolutely true is indeed low (unless you happen to be a Jesus like character), but the chances of a believer's conception being broadly correct are far higher. And we do indeed see broad agreement on a large number of aspects across most religions.

You say there's lots of evidence in both directions - the real answer is that there is no evidence in either direction, as it's a proposition that can't be evidenced.

Of course it can. You can argue it can't be proven, but there is a wealth of evidence. Evidence has its limitations, naturally. In a court case you have plenty of evidence presented by both sides, but obviously not all of that evidence points to the truth

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

You're confusing different types of knowledge.

Timbuktu's existence is an empirical claim that's imminently testable and closely related to concepts we're intimately familiar with. That you choose not to test this fact closely makes sense given that there is an abundance of independent lines of inquiry that all point to Timbuktu being a real place.

Whether God exists is a non-empirical claim that's not even conceivably testable and for which we have no related concepts to even base our hypotheses on.

There is no evidence for or against God in any meaningful sense. I challenge you to think of a test that could determine whether God exists. It's beyond empiricism and totally unmeasurable. "God" is not the only concept that falls into this category. There are other unknowable issues about which we can only speculate - e.g., I can never know what your subjective experience is like, because if I did, I would just *be* you. It's conceivably unresolvable.

[Octavious]

I challenge you to think of a test that could determine whether God exists

Die. Ask Him. Done.

Of course it's far easier to ask Him before the inconvenience of dying, but I'm assuming you've tried that without success. Quite a few people people have tried it and been successful, of course. Indeed I can say with some confidence that well over a billion people have done this and will happily provide you with testimony to this effect, and will pass lie detector tests if you ask them nicely.

Now if someone told me there was a talking parrot in the tree in the village green I may well doubt them. If it was a handful of people including some I knew to be reliably honest, I would probably believe that the parrot does indeed exist. If a billion people told me that the parrot was there I'd be more certain of the parrot than of the colour of my underwear

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

There could be a God but no afterlife. Or a God who doesn't want to chat regardless of our mortality. Or there could be an afterlife where I think I'm speaking to God, but it's actually something else entirely (some advanced alien race). That's the problem with supernatural claims, they're inherently unknowable with no way to test between competing claims. A lie detector test of the temporarily deceased provides no evidence one way or the other.

If we cared to know the veracity of your parrot story we'd have recourse. Do parrots exist? Have they travelled to that island? Have they been recorded near where you saw them? Can we lay traps and find the exact bird? Maybe we'll never actually find the bird, but we could at lest conceptually look for the bird because your claim wasn't supernatural - there really will be evidence for or against the parrot hypothesis because a parrot's existence is an empirically testable claim. The fact of the parrot's existence would have nothing to do with how widespread belief in it was - the same is true for God.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

It's just a mixing up of different types of truth.

There is no empirical answer to "what's the best income tax rate?" or "what's the best level of immigration?". We can learn about the likely consequences of different policy options. But there is no "right" answer, nor even a concievable method of ascertaining one. We instead rely on government to reach some compromise decision that balances competing preferences.

Many of our stories aren't literally true, but could speak to some conceptual truth about ourselves and our world. Mr. Burns on The Simpsons isn't a real person, but the archetype of the greedy elderly capitalist is one that resonates as a metaphorical truth about how a real life group of people exercise power. It's not an empirical truth, but it's still valuable.

Supernatural claims might fall into some category like faith- or mythic-based truth. I don't disbelieve people who tell me they feel as though they can talk to God - it obviously seems very true to them. Likewise, if someone takes a potent psychedelic they can tell us in detail about what they've seen. Probably they're not all making up that experience. I might even be able to have the same experience if I were to take the same drug, or if I were raised in the same faith community. But there is no objective way to ground these "truths" in an empirical claim that can be proven to someone else who isn't primed for that experience.

[Octavious]

Again, why the obsession with proving the parrot beyond doubt? That you can prove the existence of the parrot by walking to the park and seeing it yourself is not the point. The point is that that the level of evidence required to believe in the parrot is easily achieved without an investigation into media reports of regional parrot sightings or studying CCTV footage.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Again, why the obsession with proving the parrot beyond doubt? That you can prove the existence of the parrot by walking to the park and seeing it yourself is not the point. The point is that that the level of evidence required to believe in the parrot is easily achieved without an investigation into media reports of regional parrot sightings or studying CCTV footage.

I'm not making my point clearly.

Your claim about the bird is an empirical one. We *can* test it. It is conceivably knowable. There would be physical evidence. Maybe the tools available to us won't be sufficient to find the bird. In that case, we would have to declare uncertainty about whether your claim is accurate and we'd have to resort to some balance-of-probability argument on the basis of other empirical facts we can know (e.g., about parrots' range and habits).

Supernatural claims are not even conceivably knowable. No one knows either way and they can't know by definition. There will not be evidence to marshal in either direction if your claim is supernatural.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Any truth claim should be filtered through the lens of:

1.) Is it even possible to know either way? In the case of God's existence and all other supernatural phenomena, it's not by definition - that's what the super part of supernatural means.

2.) If yes to (1.), then does the level of evidence correspond to the likelihood of the event? If parrots are a common feature of the island and they're known to chat with passing humans, then I'm liable to go along with your story without much evidence of your specific claim. But if the island you're describing is in the Arctic and there is no record of a parrot ever being there, then I can reasonably withhold my belief in the truth of your story for want of more proof to back up your extraordinary claim.

[CaptainFritz28]

I'd be curious what Bert's explanation of the order and logic found throughout the universe is. Did it always exist? From where did it come? Why do we even have the universe in the first place? Where did it come from?

As a second note, under what class of truth claim would the accusation of murder fall under? It is not an empirical thing in many cases, if there are no prints or directly scientific connections from the accused to the murder. But it is a knowable thing, certainly. Murderers are convicted even apart from empirical evidence, off of testimony, reasoning, motive, etc.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I'd be curious what Bert's explanation of the order and logic found throughout the universe is. Did it always exist? From where did it come? Why do we even have the universe in the first place? Where did it come from?

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" is an inherently unanswerable question. Competing theories that can't be tested.

God may have created the universe. Of course, that begs the question where did God come from? And if he can be supposed into being, why not the universe?

Maybe the universe is infinite and always existed in some form. Maybe there will be a time with no universe, and so no one will be asking the question. We can get some insights about the mechanics of how all this works from science. But the "why" part can't be known.

As for the "order and logic", it's a fallacy to think of the universe as being fine tuned. We are a product of natural selection within our universe, of course it's going to seem fine tuned to us, we're adapted to it. And if there were some universe that were totally incompatible with life (e.g., gravity is 10^9999.... times stronger and it's all a black holes) then there would be no one in it pondering why it's tuned that way.

As a second note, under what class of truth claim would the accusation of murder fall under? It is not an empirical thing in many cases, if there are no prints or directly natural connections from the accused to the murder. But it is a knowable thing, certainly. Murderers are convicted even apart from empirical evidence, off of testimony, reasoning, motive, etc.

Murder is empirical. Humans are real and are known to kill one another. A specific case of murder may never be resolvable if, for example, evidence gets lost or destroyed. But since we're reasoning about an empirical truth we can at least base our assessment of the likelihood of various outcomes on actual data. Could the stab wound have been inflicted by someone who is two feet shorter than the victim? Has the victim been dead for a day or a week? In similar murders like this, the husband is usually the killer, so let's check his alibi closely? We can and do get murder investigations wrong, but we're not wrong to think that we can reason on the basis of evidence towards an answer that has a better-than-chance probability of being right. The same is not true for belief in God, for which there is neither direct evidence nor even indirect evidence upon which to base our arguments.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

My standard for knowledge is not "perfectly knowable" or "evidenced beyond a doubt". Everything is uncertain. I expect to be wrong about many things I think are true.

But I do choose to only use the word "true" to describe things that are at least conceptually knowable and have a basis of evidence that seems well apportioned to the nature of the claim. Nothing supernatural fits into this category, so long as supernatural means outside or beyond the realm of observability, testability, etc.

[CaptainFritz28]

Out of curiosity, would you call the events conventionally known as miracles (e.g. people rising from the dead) to be observable evidence for the supernatural?