If there is no such thing as natural law, no objective morality, then you bring absolutely nothing to the table, I have no obligation to anyone but myself. And no, the whole discovery of natural law is that they are laws that transcend human construct. Natural law is not a form of government, and as I have said, people can voluntarily enter into contract and create a government, that is their business, but they don't have the right to impose that on anyone who doesn't also voluntarily enter into such contract. Natural law is a deduction from the premise that there is a transcendant power, I.e. Creator, which is apparent when you read the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident... That we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights". If you don't pin morality to the transcendent then it is merely subjective and therefore illusory. I would be happy to go into more detail on all of this but I would also encourage you to investigate it yourself. As I said I don't care what is true, I just want to know what is true and have bound myself to that principle. No matter how uncomfortable it is or how hard it is. I am afraid you are mistaken, I only have to justify not helping my fellow man if I am otherwise obligated to help. In my worldview I do have an obligation to help my fellow man, and the greatest gifts man has are life and liberty, so I fight for those, even though many are in denial of those truths and in fact fight against them. You keep saying "a poor society is a poor society to live in". That is just an empty platitude that presupposes what makes a life rich, a product of a superficial consumerist society no doubt. As I have said, I do NOT claim to know all the natural laws, we are in the process of 'coming to know', since we are finite beings we cannot know them perfectly. We do recognize rape, murder, stealing etc are violations of natural law and lead to disharmony, and we often judge the civility of a society on how well they adhere to natural laws we have discovered. I hope I didn't leave anything out, if I missed something that you specifically wanted addressed just let me know. And kudos to you for taking the time to check out the video, I try not to post videos like that but once in a while I think they can be valuable. Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
So now you're a bible guy it seems? How are these natural laws enforced? Alright bro, you win the debate. Literally, I concede. With this post, you are so far out of touch with reality, that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to bring any semblance of reality to your imagination. I'm sorry I have to actually concede this way.
No I am not a Bible guy. How are they enforced, that is the challenge, I think we have to do it with wisdom, justice and mercy. Thats cool man, been a pleasure. @VikingToker
Coming from the guy who doesn't value human life... Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Well hang on you've peaked my interested again, if you are not a "bible guy" like I said, why are you basing your argument on the more than likely unproveable supernatural? Why is your opinion coming from something so far out from what we consider reality?
Bringing belief of a magic sky god and an anarchist utopia in to political discussion (constantly) is the equivalent of dressing up as a wizard, waving a wand and saying "why doesn't anyone take me seriously?" It's nuts, and there's absolutely nothing scientific or tangible behind any of that. "Black Project..?"
Norse are you familiar with Marcuse at all. Been reading a lot of his shit lately and I feel it’s actually pretty relevant to this point you bring up. I’m not talking about the more Marxist critical theory stuff but specifically his critique of the enlightenment which is really good. I think Marcuse has a brilliant point about why this quote from you “Let us use the scientific method to determine what kinds of societal structures lead to various outcomes.” This type of thinking imo would never work out in the real world and I actually think marcuse’s critique of enlightenment actually lends itself towards a critique of a more libertarian ancap style government. This is gonna be a semi long post so I really hope you read and consider it even if you still disagree at the end. Marcuse’s big critique of modernism and enlightenment thinking has to do with the idea of instrumental rationality (basically using rationality as a means to an end). A lot of our scientific and technological drive can be described as instrumental rationality. He argues and I think somewhat effectively that a big aspect of enlightenment thinking and modernism was the notion that individual atomize instrumental rationality would lead to a better society and progress for mankind overall. That if we all were able to construct logical and rational modes of being that it would lead to the most efficient prosperous society. But the point Marcuse makes is that individuals can act in a totally rational way and it can lead to a lack of progress and a worse society or even worse totally irrational outcomes. There’s a couple types of trivial examples Marcuse uses but I think you can get the idea from these examples. Marcuse argues that rationally most of us want to get home ASAP from work and rationally it makes most sense to work when there is a lot of sunlight out. Both of these lead to the individual with instrumental rationality to leave work at 5 o'clock and get on the highway only to find that all the other rational actors also wanted to leave at 5. Meantime the highway has barely anyone on it half the time. So in this case individuals making the rational decision to leave work leads to a totally irrational traffic jam that could be avoided if we didn’t all leave work at the same time. A more classic philosophical example is a problem involving two sheep herders. Both have 100 sheep and between them grass that can only sustain up to 100 sheep. If both actors act in this sort of individualized rational way then they would have 100 of their sheep graze the field and likely would the other guy leading to all 200 sheep dying. Obviously this is an extreme example but it’s pointing to the idea that englightenmnet and rationality can’t be though of in these very compartmentalized individual knowledge and that we have. Your belief that we as a society can use technology/science (instrumental rationality) without a government or centralized structure to progress is wrong imo. In the more libertarian type of government you want we will get a situation where we are not looking at these issues from a birds eye view but rather coming from it from an individual perspective where we don’t take into account what other actors are doing. Even if we can for example use instrumental rationality to determine that we could say suck CO2 out of the air and maintain a good temperature that it would require massive political change. These individual scientists could create these machines but there is no way you can scale up to the size necessary without some kind of centralized power. In a libertarian world these individual actors will be companies and they will constantly make decisions from their perspective that are totally rational (not taking into account other actors) which will lead to to totally irrational outcomes This article’s pretty solid if you want to read more about this topic. Marcuse | PHILOSOPHY
I appreciate you not abandoning all hope in me lol. I was raised Christian and never felt satisfied with it so I really delved deeply into the philosophical aspects in search of truth. There are some brilliant Christian philisophers, I have listened to tons of prominent ones, and still found it ultimately lacking, but somewhat close to truth. I realized that their arguments for theism are sound and compelling, but beyond that, entering into the religious beliefs, they break down for me. (Theism being the general belief in a Creator, contrasted with religion which is belief in a specific Creator with a lot of unnecessary additional beliefs attached). So I dumped everything that was inconsistent or unjustifiable and kept the things that I could justify logically. Sadly most people don't realize that the scientific method is a derivative of philosophy (epistemology) and philosophy is a derivative of logic and metaphysics, and those are not self-justified, they rely on what are called basic beliefs or axiomatic beliefs. We all have such foundational beliefs, but most people don't trace their worldview back that far, so they don't realize the inconsistencies in their worldview. Some stop at religion, some stop at science for their foundation, some go even deeper with philosophy andnsome go deeper yet. I'm heading to bed... Until tomorrow. Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
So your beliefs stem from a creator creating natural law. It's still a form of government. It's not government in the form of men enforcing laws, it's simply government in the form of laws. We have no proof of a creator, so why would you have your views stem from that. How are those views "sound" whent here's no evidence behind any of it. I guess it sounds to me like you believe there's a creator... and from that... law... and philosophy. Holy hell. Maybe I'm tired rn and dumb but what the. You've got some 'splanin to do!
If you want an intro into this you should watch the 2 part debate between Robert Taylor and Jay Dyer. Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I should say, I am more than capable and willing to justify my position if you prefer, it will definitely require some familiarity with logic, philosophy and metaphysics. Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
No proof of God..... Really? Can we create life from chemistry like God did? No. Can we explain the big bang? No. There is equal amounts of anti mater and regular matter, even top scientists say we shouldn't exists, but we do..... Without God, explain the birth of the universe...... Darwin's theory of evolution is crap, and everybody knows it. Never in the history of the world have we seen evolution between species. We have seen a shark evolve to another type of shark, but zero evidence of evolution across mammals to reptiles ext . Darwin also said it was the competition between species that created evolution, but science now shows that humans evolved in very isolated areas. I could go on, but the type of person who compares God to a wizard is clueless. You don't have to believe in God, that's fine, but then please tell me how the first piece of matter came into existence please.
Damn I almost missed this post, I will definitely read it all after work! Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Care to add anything of value? Nobody said anything about a sky god, nor about utopia. Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
The better question is do you? You always bring up your anarchist utopian ideals and try to convert the others here to that insane philosophy. To be honest I'd rather slam my head against a wall for a few hours than try to debate with the religious who conveniently ignore every science that disproves creationism. "Black Project..?"
I love how you can shit on my philosophies but you won't debate them. I dont just sit on the sideline and criticize people, I offer something, whether or not it is valuable is up to the other party. Sent from my VS995 using Grasscity Forum mobile app