And I don't so much have a problem with that, and have pointed it out previously (indicating he was referencing relativistic notions of reality), but that attempt to describe transubstantiation is antithetical to official Church teaching. The Church is saying something actually changed in the bread and wine, even if it can't be empirically verified.

I really do no not see any difference still, perhaps you could try again. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you assess the facts and believe there to be a dog, you will have that belief even if you don't utter it.

If you are a judge and believe the witness to be in contempt of court, he will not be if you don't utter it.

I've said it every way I can. You're going to have to go online and look up the distiction between performative utterances and declarative statements because the distinction is real and not one I've concocted.

The act definitely accomplishes something. So you are very wrong on both counts here. — Metaphysician Undercover

The question isn't what the priest's words do to the minds of the congregants, but what it does to the wine and bread. Either the congregants stand in the presence of a miracle or they've been tricked. Are you saying transubstantiation might just be that event where a priest bullshits believers into thinking wine becomes blood?

It is very clear that something tangible changes in transubstantiation, and this is the attitude of the people toward the items. As I said, "substance" is an assumption we make. So if the substance of the object changes, then this means that the people's assumptions concerning the object change. And that is what we see in the change of the people's attitude toward the objects. Therefore there is real tangible evidence that transubstantiation has occurred. — Metaphysician Undercover

This doesn't follow. I get that folks can be tricked into thinking that iron is gold, but the iron doesn't change because they were tricked. Their behavioral changes about the iron doesn't say anything about the iron. It just says something about them and maybe the guy who tricked them.

You have expressed your concern over sexual jokes before, and it's not that you've been ignored. My view is that this board is an adult oriented board and that the discussions contained on this board are not intended for children. The mission of this board is not to create any particular sort of impression when it comes to sexual jokes and whatnot. If there are children wandering about the internet unsupervised there are far less safe places they could come across than this philosophy forum.

People have the right, of course, to be passionate and from time to time to be intemperate within certain bounds, and we don't wish to over-moderate to the point of censuring legitimate points. Many of the instances cited above do not strike me as particularly concerning and some I know to have been taken out of context. Sometimes jabs are meant in humor between people who know one another and we need to determine which are which.

I do agree with the basic sentiment that everyone should try to be civil and that insulting behavior should be minimized. An example of one such offending comment that I deleted just moments ago came from you, and I think it might serve as a good example of the sort of post to avoid:

"Am I a fool for not sucking your dick and agreeing with every thought that emanates from your little walnut? I know the Marxist in you wants to manipulate your way to having everyone think the same as you do and for everyone to be snooty pricks, but unfortunately, I shall remain in your way until someone breaks and bans me for no good reason.

I also don't agree with much of what MU is saying here, I just feel for him as it would seem that he is this week's prey for some of you here to extend your egos over the internet and its denizens. " Buxtebuddha

A more effective strategy for moderating the comments on this board than appealing to the moderators for relief is to moderate your own behavior and simply not post comments like the one above.

What you said is that there is a difference between reporting facts and declaring facts. I said there is no such difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's not what I said. I said there's a difference between assessing facts and decreeing facts. In the first, you take a look at the world, you assess what you see, and you say "there's a dog." In the latter, you assert as an authority what the facts are. You look at the world and say "you are in contempt of court." The former is indicative, the latter performative. The former fallible, the latter infallible.

This is all meaningless to me I do not see the basis for your claim that transubstantiation is in no way performative, and that this is the Church's position on it. I think your wrong on this point and the rejection of my argument is wrong on this point. Clearly the Eucharist is a sacrament and transubstantiation is therefore performative. — Metaphysician Undercover

The priest must perform an act to make the transubstantiation occur, but that's not what is meant by performative. I must put water in the freezer to make it ice, but my act is not performative from a linguistic perspective. That is to say, the priest's acts do not constitute a performative act to the extent that what he does necessitates the metaphysical event of transubstantiation. It is entirely possible that what he does accomplishes nothing at all. On the other hand, when a judge says, "you are in contempt," that utterance necessitates your being in contempt. The metaphysical status of your being in contempt results from the utterance.

Of course "transubstantiation" has no tangible referent, because "substance' has no tangible referent — Metaphysician Undercover

The tangible referent of the transubstantiation would be the transformation of the bread and wine to flesh and blood, which would occur, according to Catholicism in a non-empirically verifiable way. Regardless, something (whatever it might be) changed, and that changed thing would be the referent. I don't refer to transubstantiation in the abstract (as in a substance generally), but I refer to the specific wafer and wine used in the ceremony. That wafer and wine would be the referent should someone ask "where is this transubstantiation?

I'll repeat my question. How is "assessing facts" something other than deciding what is and isn't fact? — Metaphysician Undercover

Why are you asking a question about a distinction I never raised? My comment was that there was a difference between assessing facts and decreeing facts. I clarified that by quoting what I said, but you instead just re-asked the same question, ignoring my prior clarification.

Yes, "transubstantiation" is a concept proper to the Church. The Church has the authority to state what occurs during transubstantiation. Likewise, "photoelectric effect" is a concept proper to physics, and physics has the authority to state what happens during the photoelectric effect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, and physicists can get it entirely wrong. They might describe a photoelectric effect completely wrong and a simple auto mechanic might get it right. A physicist has expertise in his field, but if his statements don't correspond to reality, then he's wrong. And so it is with the transubstantiation. A Catholic scholar can speak to the issue of what it entails, but he can be wrong. And this is my point: the Catholic position on transubstantiation is declarative and indicative, but in no way performative. If it were, it would mistake the Church for God, as if it could create reality as opposed to simply report on it.

Nothing I'm saying here denies transubstantiation. It simply rejects your proof of its existence, which relies upon an argument not advanced by the Church.

You are saying that maybe the Church is wrong, maybe transubstantiation has never occurred. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that maybe nothing at all (on any level) happened to the wafer and wine. It was no different before or after the ceremony.

What about all these millions of instances of the very same thing occurring, with millions of participants, which the Church has called "transubstantiation"? Are you saying that these events never happened? Are you saying that the events happened, but the Church is wrong to title the event transubstantiation? What are you insinuating? — Metaphysician Undercover

Let us suppose that I tell everyone that I can literally turn rocks into gold. As a result, millions come every Tuesday to my house where I pray over rocks and then I produce a nugget of gold as proof. I call this change "transcombobulation," Let us then suppose that I am discovered later a fraud or that I was just confused. It would be correct to say that transcombobulation never occurred. What actually occurred was that I held a big meeting that turned out to be a big pile of nonsense.

On what would you base such an accusation? Have you taken part, such that you have first hand experience? If so, from what you have said above, it appears like you were expecting a transformation instead of a transubstantiation. Perhaps your experience was such that you observed no transformation and so you fallaciously concluded that there was no transubstantiation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, this is the Church's problem: they have no way to verify their claims. The Church is claiming a change to the wafer and the wine at some level and if that doesn't occur, then transubstantiation hasn't occurred. Whatever the mysterious change is, it must occur for transubstantiation to occur.

I assume that if there is an event where water turns to gas, and this is called "evaporation", then in your opinion there is no referent to this word, the word points to nothing but confusion. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you'd assume wrong. Whether the process of evaporation creates a tangible referent that you can point to or not hardly affects the coherence of the concept. Freedom is a concept without a referent, but it's not confusing. My comment only was that "transubstantiation" had no tangible referent and the only thing it could refer to is a particular state of confusion, but I did not make a general comment that words without direct referents were always confusing.

I think the idea that there's reality which is beyond our capacity to sense, but can still be known by the mind, is way beyond both of them. For them, if it looks and tastes like bread, then it must be bread, regardless of what its true substance is. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your comments misstated the Catholic position by stating that transubstantiation exists because the Catholic church said it did. That has nothing to do with the new issue you've raised, which is that you believe my rejection of transubstantiation arises due to my wholesale rejection of the spiritual realm. That statement is incorrect and non-responsive to anything previously discussed.

How is assessing facts other than deciding what is and is not fact? — Metaphysician Undercover

That's not what I said. What I said was: "The Church's authority is to speak with authority on assessing and gathering facts, but it doesn't have the inherent power to decree an event."

Your position is that the Church has the authority to state what occurs during transubstantiation, so once it has so decreed it, it is that without question. That is, its declaration is a performative act, so disputing it would be nonsensical. If the priest says "I now pronounce you man and wife," you are man and wife because the act of pronouncing was the very event. For me to then say the priest was wrong, you are not now man and wife, I would be misunderstanding the priest's comments. The comment wasn't declarative; it was performative.

And that's where I'm saying you're mistaken in your comments. The Church's declaration that transubstantiation results in the bread and wine transforming into the blood and body of Jesus is a declarative statement, not a performative act. They are assessing what has occurred and telling us what happened, but the simple act of declaration does not make it so. That is to say, the Church could be wrong in its assessment.

Put it this way: Assume that on Monday the church said transubstantiation occurred but on Tuesday it said it didn't.

If their statement was performative, then on Monday it occurred and on Tuesday it didn't. If their statement was declarative, then on one of the days they were wrong.

If the judge says you are in contempt of court and then he changes his mind 2 minutes later, then you were in contempt for 2 minutes. If the judge says you stole the candy and 2 minutes later he decides you didn't, whether you stole or didn't steal the candy was unaffected. The judge has no ability to create the facts, and his findings of what the facts are can be wrong.

Sure it's possible, but in the case of "transubstantiation" it is very clear that there is a referent. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the church defines transubstantiation as an actual event where wine turns to Jesus' blood, then there is no referent in my opinion. The word points to nothing other than confusion. If "bigfoot" refers to an actual humanoid creature, then it has no referent.

There is no difference between these two. To report the facts is to decree what the facts are. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it's not. That I say bigfoot exists doesn't make bigfoot exist. When a court rules "you are in contempt," you are in fact in contempt because the court says it. When the Church says transubstantiation occurs, it doesn't just occur. The Church's authority is to speak with authority on assessing and gathering facts, but it doesn't have the inherent power to decree an event.

Your suggestion is that the Church has the power like a court to perform a performative utterance. I'm saying that the Church itself would not make that claim as it pertains to transubstantiation. If it did make that claim, it would be declaring itself the creator of religion and not the upholder of it.

Transubstantiation occurs, that is a fact. There is something which is referred to as transubstantiation, and to deny this is to deny a fact. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is nonsense. It is entirely possible for a phrase or a word not to have a referent (e.g. "the current King of France," Bigfoot, jkldjdc). What people are referring to when they say "bigfoot" is a non-existent animal, and it could well be the case that "transubstantiation" refers to an event that does not occur. Surely there can be a word for that which doesn't occur, so your insistence that the event must occur because there's a word for it does not follow.

You don't think so? You don't think that they must decide what the facts are before they can report them? They have decided what the facts are, concerning Christ. Are you familiar with the word "creed"? — Metaphysician Undercover

The distinction I'm making is between reporting the facts and decreeing the facts. The former is what the Church would admit doing, the latter is what a ruling authority who created their empire would do. If a king states that all first born children are to rule their households because they are holy, then it is so, simply by virtue of the king's authority. He could the next day modify his decree and decree that it was in fact all second born children who were holy. Metaphysically, though, the king can change nothing, and to the extent holiness is a metaphysical fact, he can't change that by whim. That is, the first born doesn't become holy because the king said so. He just defined some terms and created a law. The Nicene Creed, according to Catholics, wasn't set forth as an internal decree that happened to be subject to the whim of the ruling authority at the time, but it sets forth metaphysical truths that have been discovered and reported by the Church.

It is the distinction between a performative utterance and declarative statement.

Well, isn't there always a bunch of shit disturbers who refuse to accept the word of authority? — Metaphysician Undercover

Either transubstantiation occurs or it doesn't. I think that's a fairly uncontroversial statement. The Catholics say it does occur. The Mormons say it doesn't. One of those groups is correct. According to you, though, you're stuck with them both being correct within the context of their respective faiths because each has the power to decree whatever the hell they want. That relativistic view of reality is surely not one accepted by the Catholic Church, and they would not accept that transubstantiation is the product of the mind of the participant, with the Mormon not being in the presence of transubstantiation during a Catholic Mass while his Catholic friend seated next to him in the pew is.

You may believe that religion is whatever the authority says it is, and that may be true as a political and historical fact, but no religion admits to that, but they insist their belief system is metaphysically true.

I argue that they, being the leaders of the Church, and having knowledge about Christ, ought to be the ones to determine what is the body and blood of Christ, and therefore what ought to be called the body and blood of Christ. — Metaphysician Undercover

You present an argument that the Church doesn't, namely that the Church is the creator of Christ and the determiner of what is the blood and body of Jesus. The Church has decided nothing, but would allege only to have reported the facts as they are. They don't get to decide, like they're the Supreme Court and it's their rules.

There is also much dispute as to what the euchrist is, with non-Catholic, but very Christian denominations asserting that the wafer and wine are but symbolic representations of the body and blood. Why are the Catholics the ones who ought be given the authority to render the decree as to what it is. Are they more learned and knowledgable?

That's a different sort of faith. In religious contexts, faith is an absolute trust in a foundational belief that permits an entire worldview to develop.

Your understanding of transubstantion is simply incorrect. Your analogy offers no change at all in the girl, but a change of opinion in guy. If all you're saying is that you feel differently about the wafer but the wafer is the same old wafer, you're not talking about transubstantiation.

This isn't entirely responsive. Is the child's faith the same faith as the Catholic's and why doesn't my faith in unicorns establish the existence of unicorns to the same extent rocks exist?

If this replacement it not held to occur, then there is claim of "bread and wine turn into the flesh and blood of Jesus" which is empirical and subject to testing. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The Catholic position is that the replacement is actual and literal. That it is empirically unverifiable is part of the supposed mystery of it. Your ridiculing of the idea that somehow Jesus' actual blood finds it way to every mass is the actual Catholic position.

Sorry to have to shatter your illusion, but without faith, nothing is true. Without faith words have no meaning. And without meaning there can be no truth to the words. — Metaphysician Undercover

If a child somehow depends upon "faith" to understand "clean your room" means clean your room, and a Catholic relies upon "faith" to believe in transubstantiation, surely "faith" has two different meanings.

If not, are you suggesting I have as legitimate a right to believe in unicorns as I do transubstantiation as I do rocks?

Hmm, I see where you're coming from. However, I don't think we could even have, in principle, the scenario you're suggesting above. I mean that sort of presupposes that we could have a situation where something occurs commonly in experience, but yet is not incorporated in our scientific theories. So what would that look like? We have a law, like the law of gravity, and people sometimes levitate? Wouldn't that be incorporated in the scientific law then? — Agustino

I suppose it'd be Moses' world, where miracles were commonplace and not alarming. Moses didn't attempt to provide a mundane, non-miraculous explanation for those events because God spoke directly to him and he knew they were acts of divine intervention.

You assume miracles must be deciphered only because God stopped explicitely talking to us a few thousand years ago for some reason.

What I meant by history being divided into before Christ and after Christ, was simply a remark that pretty much everywhere we talk of 100 BC and 2000 AD, and where is the separation point? I — Agustino

BCE (as opposed to BC) is typically used to refer to "before the common era," or, as we used to say back in Hebrew school, before the common error.

Anyway, the Jewish year is 5728, Hindu 3102, Islam 1438, and Chinese year is Rooster if my placemat was correct.

With a few words changed, this is exactly the argument I've been making about your and Sapientia's beliefs. — T Clark

I know it is, and it's an invalid attempt to declare all viewpoints relativistic and equally valid. My belief in evolution is founded upon firmer epistimological foundations than are creationists' beliefs or what a South American tribe might think. When I say transubstantiation doesn't occur, I mean it just like I mean there are no unicorns, bigfoot, and that the earth's not flat.

It is supposed to be inconsistent, it is a miracle. If it wasn't inconsistent, how could it possibly be a miracle? — Agustino

This is an equivocation fallacy. It is tautological that a miracle be inconsistent with the normal scientific order of things. It is not tautological that a miracle be inconsistent with the common consensus experience.

That is, of course miracles are miraculous (definition #1: inconsistent with science), but they need not be rare (definition #2: inconsistent with common experience). In fact, I am open to miracles occuring, but that hardly means anything can occur.

Hypothetically, if miracles of a certain type occurred daily, I would find it dubious if miracles of another sort were alleged, especially if they were significantly at variance from the other ones.

All of history separates in before and after Christ. — Agustino

It's comments like these that broadcast your limited and myopic perspective. To the extent you simply wish to proclaim your fidelity to your faith as a loyal Christian soldier, I guess have it, but to the extent you're really ignorant of the billions who never considered Jesus anything other than another man, it's hard to to consider your views having any validity outside those sharing your limited field of vision.

Buxte is exactly right. The historian is methodologically agnostic. A lack of evidence is not evidence of absence. — Thorongil

This isn't true. A historian is in the business of verifying his facts. He doesn't simply just recite what he's told, unless he simply wishes to document what he's told regardless of veracity. If I were reading the history of the Vietnam war, for example, I would expect the historian to have sorted out the facts from the fiction and tried to establish some degree of credibility. Academic histories are replete with footnotes and references supportive of their claims.

No historian would report that there were purple elephants walking around Peoria without support, meaning precisely that the lack of evidence is evidence of absence.

On the other hand, something like the Resurrection can be ruled out axiomatically if some form of positivistic materialism is true. Were it true, miracles are impossible and those events labeled as such are simply misunderstood physical processes like everything else. — Thorongil

This makes it appear that there are simply materialistic axioms and religious axioms that are incompatible, with neither being more valid than the other, and so it should be expected that materialists will reject the Resurrection as a matter of faith, just as Christians accept it as a matter of faith. It paints a picture of two competing faiths, with the materialists unjustifiably smug in the truthfulness of their faith, but, if better enlightened, would realize they are no better or worse than the religious. I think this accurately sets forth the repercussions of your position. If not, correct me.

The truth though is that my rejection of the Resurrection isn't because it's axiomatically disallowed under my materialistic faith, but it's that because a Resurrection is entirely inconsistent with my worldly experience as well as the worldly experience of every person I've ever known or heard from, save a few isolated ancient accounts from a handful of people and documented in a faith based book. That is, should I see the dead rise from time to time or should that be consistent with anything else I've seen or heard of, then I'd be more likely to accept the Resurrection, despite my materialistic belief system. I reject the Resurrection for the same reason I reject accounts of ghosts, not because ghosts are materialistically impossible, but because no one seems to be able to show me one.

And in truth, I'm not actually a materialist, but I fully allow for a spiritual realm, but I don't believe that offers me any additional room for a belief in the Resurrection. Why would it?

The truth is that most believe in the Resurrection because their parents did or it was a pervasive cultural belief. The belief is simply an adoption of the local legend, regardless of how firmly the believers wish to argue that it's not. On the other hand, my belief that it snowed last night would be my belief regardless of who my parents were, and that belief seems to be cross-cultural, with people of all beliefs and stripes navigating the snow in the same way.

As I think Clarky tried to show earlier, the people who are dying of laughter from any suggestion of religious experience are probably same people who think quantum mechanics makes perfect, measurable, and logical sense. — Buxtebuddha

If I reject substantiation because it's bullshit, but I ignore the bullshitery of quantum mechanics and believe it anyway, that means two things (1) I'm logically inconsistent in my beliefs, and (2) transubstantiation is bullshit.

I mean I get the argument of "sure my beliefs are stupid, but so are yours," but is that really where you want to land on this?

Both Jesus and the wafer never were anything other than ordinary crackers.

I have reviewed this craze, declare it a fad, and await its demise. Carry on.

My point is that extended childhoods are typical in advanced societies as are laws protecting children from sexual and economic abuses. Child labor laws are a protection, not an impediment. Delayed independence from moving from home is an additional symptom in the West of further extension of childhood. I don't suggest young adults be pushed into the world prior to being prepared, largely because I buy into this model.

As you would expect, however, if children are going to extend their dependence economically, you will liklely see laws reflective of that reality that keep them to some extent disenfranchised.

In other words, I disagree with the OP that today's youth are earlier equipped for adulthood than yesterday's.

Ages of consent have never been stagnant and have varied by jurusdiction.

Sexual consent in the South was 14 in some states, then raised to 16. Some are 17, others 18. As the South began to raise its age, the North and Europe began to drop theirs.

You can join the military in the US at 18, but not drink until 21. France and Germany have younger drinking ages while the UK's is higher I believe. When I was young, you couldn't smoke until 16, now it's 18.

The point being these things are and have been in flux, typically evolving toward denying adulthood to later ages.

I disagree with the OP that kids mature faster now. A 12 year old in the 1800s probably had far more responsibility and lack of protection from the harsh realities of life than today's youth. More advanced societies require extended childhoods.

My generation was far less tended to than the current one, which is the result of it becoming more difficult to succeed today than before. An active parent can make a much bigger difference today than before, which results in children staying dependent longer. That is to say, if kids are so mature and independent, why do they stay in their parents's basement into their 20s?

As I have already said in this thread, false sexual allegations destroys someone's life. Merely because a similar accusation made on a forum doesn't destroy someone's life, the principle at the heart of the issue remains the same. False claims are false, whether people shoot the shit over it or not. — Buxtebuddha

Saying your blue shirt is red is in principle the same as saying that someone who's not a pedophile is a pedophile?

Hanover? I don't think so. He wasn't a mod at the old place. And he wasn't a mod here before I was a member. — Agustino

So let's work out the conspiracy angle, considering it's all about you. Who was it that added me in the hopes of gaining enough votes to get rid of you? I mean, if we all hate you, why bring me aboard? We could've banned you long ago without the Hanover and now TL court packing scheme.

You saw the screenshot. Jamal asked to bring her on. I'm pretty sure he can ban without me or TL.

Here's my position: I couldn't care any less if you were a gun toting right wing conservative or a communist. No one really cares. My views have been unapolegetically pro American and pro Israel before a crowd often hostile to that sentiment. I've been snarky, perverse, and stubborn, yet on zero occassions have these or the prior mods had to moderate me. The reason being I don't sidetrack our valuable space with drama like this.

My question always is pragmatic. Would this place be better without you and this constant immature stupidity promoted by you and others with the social ineptitude to interact appropriately with others. I've answered that question aloud before, and it wouldn't change even if you joined me a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. My concern remains that if a serious minded philosopher logged on and read this bullshit, she'd say, "this is bullshit" and walk away.

The mods here simply are not as conservative as me and all the law and order such a personality entails, and for that you owe your continued existence. There is no ideological persecution.

I shall therefore shower you with countless hours of meaningless attention and we shall spend quantity time together.

Your question was "why can't Agustino be a moderator " My response was you can't just ask the moderators (or anyone really) why they think someone is disqualified for a particular position and expect a public response. That is especially true when Agustino never asked to be a mod as far as I know. It's an absurd request, like asking us to tell you why we don't make Wosret a mod and then me spending the next few pages publically telling everyone why he sucks, as if that'd be appropriate in any event, but especially when he never even asked for the job.

And none of this is to suggest that anyone is or isn't qualified to be a mod, but it's just to comment on your question.

I think you guys are rather petty at times. The deflections and farcical responses to my suggestion of making Agustino a mod are proof of that (my favorite: "we're fresh out of mod spaces, alas!"). No legitimate reason was given for why he can't be one. — Thorongil

Your question is absurd, as if one poster has the right to solicit public feedback from the moderators as to their opinions about the potential qualifications of another poster for a particular position, even one he never requested?

How about this: she doesn't like me and is now a mod, which provides her the opportunity to unjustly censure me and others with impunity. — Thorongil

All this explains why you don't want TL to be a mod, but it was unresponsive to my question as to what our underlying motive was for making her a mod. You think we made her a mod because we just wanted to make your life difficult, as if (1) we are that petty, and (2) we couldn't make your life just as miserable without bringing her aboard? We all understand you don't like her and don't want her exerting any amount of control over your life, but your comments weren't limited to an expression of displeasure, but seemed to suggest something more.

Sounds like you were just pissed off and saying whatever. Anyway, you got your say. It's the holidays. Let's all get along.

Fine, don't talk. As you say, you don't have to. But you must know that your silence only raises my suspicions about how it went down and why. — Thorongil

Stop can kicking and tell us why we conspired to bring her aboard. I'm curious as to what havoc we can now rain down that previously we couldn't. Do you really think we sit around thinking of ways to annoy you?

How about this: you don't like her so you're mad about the decision, so you're arriving at irrational nonsense to suggest some sort of incoherent impropriety.

In summary: We think she's qualified. You don't. Good chat.

If parents would just behave like parents I think most the unhappiness in the world wouldn't exist. That's what I think.

Yeah, get out of that situation if you can.

If objective morality exists, then its knowledge must be innate. — Samuel Lacrampe

Why can't objective morality be learned through experience and reason like the rest of objective reality? Why can't I know it's wrong to kill just like I know there are rocks?

I cannot think of anyone who has put forth a scientific hypothesis that mermaids don't exist. You have a link to such a proposal? — noAxioms

If the fact that you've never heard of anyone who has put forth a scientific hypothesis that mermaids don't exist is sufficient evidence that no one has in fact put forth a scientific hypothesis that mermaids don't exist, then why wouldn't the fact that you've never heard of anyone who has actually seen a mermaid be sufficient evidence that no one has ever seen a mermaid?

If your epistemological basis for rejecting empirical claims is that you do so reject those claims when there is a lack of empirical evidence to support it (which seems a fairly reasonable approach), then why all the blather about the null hypothesis?

Obviously there is a difference between a real flower and an artificial flower, but no one suggests the artificial flower was created by something outside of the natural world. It's also not clear that what the non-natural world would be.

Time is the relativistic distance between when two events are experienced.

I'm just going to delete non-introductions from now on, folks. Too many Shout box type discussions around already. — Baden

How about introducing yourself as: "Hello, I'm Baden, and I'm mean as shit."

I am Hanover. My childhood comes to me in bits and pieces. I recall as a youth a cobbler named Daniel crafting the finest of shoes, chatting with me for hours about the old country and the hamlet he was raised in. He described three horses, each with its own unique personality, and how he would be sure to bring an apple for each. That would be bring about the most uproarious laughter as you can imagine! That's where he met his sister who would some day become his bride. He would bed her down every night and rock himself to sleep inside her and he would have the most vivid of dreams. He told me of the dream he had of the sloth and the raccoon and would light up as he discussed the symbolism. I remember his pupilless eyes growing wider as he would talk. As fate would have it, he had the reigns to two of his horses (Kinship and Dirty Stairwell) and they pulled in opposite directions and most literally ripped him apart. He cried out on that day, "Jesus fucking Christ, I'm most literally being ripped apart." Those words rang so true.

So, that's my story.

Too many men that are too oblivious about basic etiquette? — Benkei

The sexual harrassment rules would be spelled out in the HR manual and, if it were like where I worked, every employee would have to take an online test every year, which would include helpful videos of various scenarios as part of mandatory compliance protocol. That along with videos about proper document retention, protecting corporate assets (you can't bring the company chair home apparently no matter how well it matches your other furniture), proper sharing of customer information, workplace violence (you can't wrestle a co-worker, sexual wrestling violates two rules), and I'm sure some others make up your annual compliance training. At some point after taking these tests you actually do your job, which probably entails checking a bunch of other boxes, and then you go home when hear the loud prison release buzzer go off.