Journal smittyoneeach's Journal: From the purely intellectual viewpoint, I'm an extra-special-pleader 28
special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple?
Special plead: you donâ(TM)t understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will.
Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person?
Special plead: You donâ(TM)t understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity.
Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam â" each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion â" to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long?
Special plead: You donâ(TM)t understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.)
My response is that the insistence on requiring rigorous, physical-style proof for meta-physical questions, itself , seems akin to a special pleading. External philosophy and ethics of the mind have yet to deliver any sort of final answer for the internal faith and the soul.
The 3D body/mind/soul model that I peddle isn't true in any "intellectually objective" sense, either. I accept its futility straight up. I do submit that it has some explanatory capability. There is no "divine revelation" on offer. However, if we can differentiate between those arguments that are provable in some rigorous way, vs. the internal, subject, faith-based arguments that lack such closed-form solutions, then we can be more efficient in discussion.
My co-religionists are continuous offenders of this idea. When we take our internal affirmations and try to externalize them with "YU'V GOT TA BUH-LEEV" statements, Newton's Third Law of the Human Soul kicks in, and we achieve the opposite result. (I have summarized ~half of the Roman Epistle here.) We cannot collapse the model from three to two dimensions without crushing humanity.
Conversely, politics has attempted to collapse from the mind to the soul, essentially going the other direction with the Woke Faith. Scientists are not priests, St. Fauci was full of hooey, and the State is no source of any kind of salvation. People are not livestock, whatever the WEF thinks it can achieve via propaganda.
In summary: two cheers for Sagan, and a commitment to play it clear and straight.
A man of true faith is a practitioner, (Score:1)
not a preacher with his false idols
Words mean nothing without the act
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I could bore you with detail
By all means, please do, I'm always interested in the foggy bottom...
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Since then, I've contributed in just about every non-ordained way possible.
It amounts to an upaid second job (indeed, an "anti-job" were one to consider the financial contributions).
There have been three pastors during my membership. I was married there, and we're raising two lads within a strong extended "family".
The church is a rainbow coalition, and an oasis of sanity as the world 'splodes. Par
Where did this happen? (Score:2)
My response is that the insistence on requiring rigorous, physical-style proof for meta-physical questions, itself , seems akin to a special pleading
I don't recall asking you for physical proof on a "meta-physical" question. When you state something to be fact, you should have facts to back it up. If you state something as your belief and have no facts, then you are just stating your faith.
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When you state something to be fact, you should have facts to back it up. If you state something as your belief and have no facts, then you are just stating your faith.
And this is what I meant by "...a commitment to play it clear and straight."
However, while I agree that we ought not to mix-n-match between the physical and the metaphysical, I'm nonplussed by the "special pleading" dismissal.
The hard questions of life, in a manner similar to rectilinear motion, are clarified by resolving them along body/mind/soul axes.
Punting on the soul
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However, while I agree that we ought not to mix-n-match between the physical and the metaphysical
It does seem though that one could easily use that as a crutch to avoid supporting their opinions on physical matters by claiming them as articles of faith. There are certainly cases out there where people have said they believe something to be true, and then brush off requests for factual support for that thing because it would challenge their belief system.
Now...
When you state something to be fact, you should have facts to back it up. If you state something as your belief and have no facts, then you are just stating your faith.
And this is what I meant by "...a commitment to play it clear and straight."
I believe that requests for facts when something is stated to be factually true is fully compatible with that ideal. That you view reques
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It does seem though that one could easily use that as a crutch to avoid supporting their opinions on physical matters by claiming them as articles of faith. There are certainly cases out there where people have said they believe something to be true, and then brush off requests for factual support for that thing because it would challenge their belief system.
Which I admitted directly in my JE, yes. See "co-religionists".
I believe that requests for facts when something is stated to be factually true is fully compatible with that ideal.
When facts are presented, they have to be accepted, not dismissed as references to partisan websites. Such unfair dismissals amount to nuking a thread from orbit.
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I believe that requests for facts when something is stated to be factually true is fully compatible with that ideal.
When facts are presented, they have to be accepted, not dismissed as references to partisan websites.
Partisan websites are not concerned with facts. If I posted a link from Daily Kos or Huffington Post I fully expect you would brush it off. When you present links to partisan sites I ask you to do better and present a link to factual information rather than partisan editorials.
Such unfair dismissals amount to nuking a thread from orbit.
There is nothing unfair about brushing off your circular reinforcement of your bias. You found someone who shares your opinion, good for you. Now find someone who can provide factual support for your beliefs.
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I actually subscribed to the Daily Kos in RSS. Lord, have mercy on those twisted souls.
The sources you cite are no less partisan than Daily Kos (and likely in many cases far more partisan). Why are your sources great while Daily Kos is "twisted"?
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If you think PowerLineBlog, or Instapundit, or Legal Insurrection, are "partisan", then that constitutes an endorsement.
The opinions expressed on conservative blogs written by lawyers tend to be historically, morally, and factually correct. Daily Kos is relatively...amusing...at peak.
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To cite one example familiar to us both, https://www.powerlineblog.com/ [powerlineblog.com] is written by sober, sane, educated adults.
If you think PowerLineBlog, or Instapundit, or Legal Insurrection, are "partisan", then that constitutes an endorsement.
I showed you before where your friend at PowerLIne was lying. I demonstrated his lie in plain and irrefutable English. You then squirmed to defend it in spite of the facts being in front of you. Maybe his other work is honest but the one you were so excited about was definitely not.
The opinions expressed on conservative blogs written by lawyers tend to be historically, morally, and factually correct.
Really? The first one you directed me to was blatantly lying. Again maybe that's not his standard M.O. but I'm not going to look through his writings to find truth, that should be his mission.
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I showed you before where your friend at PowerLIne was lying.
Didn't happen. What I saw was a peevish tantrum that "proved" nothing regarding PowerLine. But it was a window into your character.
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I showed you before where your friend at PowerLIne was lying.
What I saw was a peevish tantrum that "proved" nothing regarding PowerLine.
I'm sorry that you took so personally to seeing a friend of yours exposed to be a liar. However here again you are completely and utterly inaccurate in your attempt to assign emotions to me. I had no such tantrum; I merely showed you that your friend's statements were untrue. It's silly of you to assign such feelings to it, especially when you know there is less than zero evidence to support your claim.
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I'm sorry that you took so personally to seeing a friend of yours exposed to be a liar.
(a) I did not take it personally. I don't actually know any PowerLine writers, though I've traded tweets with Hayward.
(b) You haven't "exposed" anything beside colossal arrogance.
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I did not take it personally.
Your accusation of me having a "tantrum" - in spite of not the slightest shred of even conjecture to support your allegation - suggests I hit a nerve.
You haven't "exposed" anything beside colossal arrogance.
Maybe your friend is not a pathological or habitual liar, but I demonstrated that he lied in the post you linked to. You can pretend otherwise but it was laid out plainly in front of you. Not sure why you go to such great lengths to defend his lie; you could have just said "whoops, he was full of shit that time in his enthusiasm to score partisan points, h
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Maybe your friend is not a pathological or habitual liar, but I demonstrated that he lied in the post you linked to. You can pretend otherwise but it was laid out plainly in front of you.
I am confident that you believe that you did this, but rejecting another writer's choice of adjectives only proved your peevishness.
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Maybe your friend is not a pathological or habitual liar, but I demonstrated that he lied in the post you linked to. You can pretend otherwise but it was laid out plainly in front of you.
I am confident that you believe that you did this, but rejecting another writer's choice of adjectives only proved your peevishness.
It wasn't just a matter of adjectives. Your friend lied.
True statements are true, and false statements are false. His statement was false. He tried to sell it as true, hence he was lying. I strongly suspect his lying frequency is far less than that of other man-gods from your team, so I would expect you could call that a victory in itself. As I said I don't consider him a pathological or habitual liar, it just so happens that you promoted a lie from him before.
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Sorry, I actually thought you rejected such an idea.
Or does truth exist in some transient manner when there is a need to denounce The Other?
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Wait: are you touting an absolute truth, then?
Sorry, I actually thought you rejected such an idea.
I don't know where you came up with the idea that I would reject true things to be true. When things can be proven to be true, they are true. When they cannot be, then they are not proven to be true.
The bigger question really is why you push so many things that cannot be proven to be absolute truths.
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why you push so many things that cannot be proven to be absolute truths
I have explained, in this very JE, in fact, where I'm coming from.
Possibly, in your wisdom, you could
(a) demonstrate why Jesus of Nazareth is NOT the meaning of life, and
(b) offer an irrefutable alternative.
As an intellectually honest person, I would be honor-bound to salute your "truthier" truth.
So, lay it down.
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why you push so many things that cannot be proven to be absolute truths
(a) demonstrate why Jesus of Nazareth is NOT the meaning of life, and
That is a great example of something that cannot be proven or disproven. If I said that the truth is in the Flying Spaghetti Monster we'd find no less factual support in that.
As an intellectually honest person, I would be honor-bound to salute your "truthier" truth.
Is that your attempt at Saturday morning humor?
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While I don't claim that it's absolutely true (all models are wrong) I do think it useful in resolving much of the apparent contradiction of life.
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While I don't claim that it's absolutely true (all models are wrong) I do think it useful in resolving much of the apparent contradiction of life.
Odd that you would ask me to disprove it, then. Regardless I don't see it as something that could be proven or disproven and I really don't have much interest in going after it. You have other things that you take completely on faith that I am much more interested in discussing and trying to root out why you hold to them so dearly.
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trying to root out why you hold to them so dearly.
Wisdom stands the test of time. Folly rejects wisdom, "because: old".
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trying to root out why you hold to them so dearly.
Wisdom stands the test of time. Folly rejects wisdom, "because: old".
Then why do you and so many of your teammates hold so dearly to Trumpism? It is one of the newest cults to arise from your team, and one that has some of the most fervent believers. If wisdom stands the test of time, and this has neither, then why does it have so many followers?
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Then why do you and so many of your teammates hold so dearly to Trumpism?
Because the Uniparty is a quasi-aristocracy as alien as the 18th century British Parliament.
Supporting Tea Parties/Trump/DeSantis has to do with the first three words of the Constitution. Mildly sad that I have to offer you an "America 101" course, but here we are.