Does anyone have a thought about why religious people are willing to believe things in their spiritual lives that they would never believe in other areas of their lives? 1) it is a mental patch that allows people to hold conflicting models in their brain. 2) it is used to explain coincidence. Our b...

Keep in mind, I DO believe in individual sovereignty as a guiding ideal.  I just happen to think it's impossible ... to prove deductively. Well, I am with you on that one. I think that these concepts (memes) have evolved because they help us survive. It is useless imo to try and deduce them from fi...

Can you use this method to prove "Self-ownership?" Self ownership is a derivate from responsibility. Asking to prove it from first principles is imo impossible. As I put in an earlier post, responsibility is a product from evolution. It came to existence because this concept gives us an a...

OK, this is going to sound crazy, but consider these questions: 1. Are trees moral? 2. Do trees have free will? 3. What presuppositions do you hold to be true in order to answer the above two questions?  4. Do we really think we know the as yet unknown, and if so, what is the basis for that? 5. Do ...

Yes. But that does not change that morality is an inter-people thingy. The goal of morality is to guide interactions between people. To make the interactions predictable. If a persons morality deviates too much from the consensus it will be detrimental to the survival of the memes (and genes) of th...

In HB's audio course, he said that when it comes to morality we should act in a certain way because of the consequences, not in spite of the consequences. Morality is meant to help our genes survive, its a product of evolution, a meme in itself. Morality has nothing to do with free will. It's merel...

In HB's audio course, he said that when it comes to morality we should act in a certain way because of the consequences, not in spite of the consequences. Morality is meant to help our genes survive, its a product of evolution, a meme in itself. Morality has nothing to do with free will. It's merel...

Gumby wrote:This idea of "free will" is just something that Homocentrist armchair philosophers have dreamed up to explain our differences from other non-human primates.

Free will is like religion: it is meant to "explain" something without actually explaining anything.

- Morality is unprovable What exactly do you mean by that? Do you claim that morality has no consequences? Based on your previous posts I do not believe you do. If you accept that morality has consequences then it becomes possible to judge a certain morality on these consequences. Common to all mor...

Can I kill puppies in my front yard in front of children? Yes. They are your property and you can certainly do just that. In retaliation if you were to do this in my neighbourhood, I would make sure that your life would become so unpleasant that you would choose to leave rather than stay. I would n...

But getting this correct has HUGE implications for society.  Whether we have the right to claim trillions of dollars worth of resources from the earth while others starve to death is of pretty huge importance to those without the property.  I disagree with that. The implicit assumption that you see...

Oh, would not the world be a better place if we humans just agreed there was the triune God and the 10 Commandments and the two Jesus gave, and they were the way to live our lives.  But, I guess that would make for rather dull discussions about moralism or the rights of the grasshoppers, let alone ...

I don't know if I could ever be 100% sure it's correct. The older I get, the more I like the pragmatic approach: we don't need 100% certainty in all things. The idea that we can achieve 100% probably stems from science, but has little application in our daily experiences. Things like ownership are ...

Also remember that a little while ago the bail-in was universalised.

If the banks charge a negative rate, what do you think will happen to their capital structure?

I don't know if I could ever be 100% sure it's correct. The older I get, the more I like the pragmatic approach: we don't need 100% certainty in all things. The idea that we can achieve 100% probably stems from science, but has little application in our daily experiences. Things like ownership are ...

Too much.... overload warning.... too much.... I simply do not know where to begin, so I just pick some points I'd like to make an observation on. a) I agree with moda that something like ownership is inherently difficult, and in some cases impossible. I think the word ownership is best used in comb...

If you want to talk about improving government, I can have that discussion, but its total elimination is so utterly unrealistic that its a waste of time to even discuss. I think this might be a misunderstanding. I am not against governments per se, I am however against the initiation of force. Gove...

If you want to talk about improving government, I can have that discussion, but its total elimination is so utterly unrealistic that its a waste of time to even discuss. I think this might be a misunderstanding. I am not against governments per se, I am however against the initiation of force. Gove...

If you want to talk about improving government, I can have that discussion, but its total elimination is so utterly unrealistic that its a waste of time to even discuss. I think this might be a misunderstanding. I am not against governments per se, I am however against the initiation of force. Gove...

If the earth is a condo, then we already have competing boards. Would you say the countries on earth are in a state of anarchy? Of course! That is why we have militaries. We also have international organizations like the UN that try to establish rules of conduct between countries. Then you are sayi...

Comments? I think there are some mixed issues being debated as if its all the same. They interrelate and that makes it difficult to clearly separate issues. The question of government is imo slightly different that simply yes/no. It is a given that in a society there will be rules, and these rules ...

Comments? I think there are some mixed issues being debated as if its all the same. They interrelate and that makes it difficult to clearly separate issues. The question of government is imo slightly different that simply yes/no. It is a given that in a society there will be rules, and these rules ...

Mountaineer wrote:If the answer is the Trinitarian God, then the moral questions and much more are settled;

At least it would if god would speak to all of us.
Unfortunately he/she/it does not.
So we are back to square one where somebody provides us with his own moral views.

Should everybody at all times adhere to the same moral standards? If the answer to that question is yes, then it follows that the moral standard should allow everybody to behave morally correct at all times. Then it becomes possible to logically derive a set of consistent moral guidelines. If howeve...

Government's enforce all the laws of society through violent threat. Modern government's are so meanacing that you learn at a tender young age to always submit. Resistance is irrational because you can't win. It's so well ingrained that you should submit it's like the law of gravity. One of my worr...