The question I asked was what makes dishonest contractual utterances properly subject to regulation but not non-contractual utterances. — Hanover

Properly? What sort of question is that? I'm not saying anything about "properly."

that is just one more declarative statement without support - — Rank Amateur

Right--I can't imagine why you'd not say that in response to anything I'd say, because I have no idea what your criteria are to count as support rather than counting as a declarative statement without support.

For Q to count as support of P rather than just being another declarative statement without support (as P was), Q needs to . . . to what? What are the criteria?

being able to experience all of time as a whole, — AJJ

I can't make any sense of that, because time is simply motion or change. So one, if there's no change or motion we don't have time after all, and two, I can't make sense of what it would be to experience something where there's no motion or change--I could have no change in my thoughts, for example. I can't make sense of experiencing something where that's not an active process.

I challenge that lack of empirical evidence does not elevate to fact — Rank Amateur

But then I explained that facts are not something "elevated." Facts are states of affairs, and the state of affairs that's apparent in the world is that there is no God.

You didn't respond to this. So what's your response to it?

It’s impossible to imagine an infinity of something, but that doesn’t make the concept of infinity incoherent. — AJJ

So you're not saying "impossible to imagine" a la "impossible to make sense" of something then. I was using "incoherent" as "can't make sense of," and you substituted "impossible to imagine" for the term.

So would you say you can make sense of nonphysical existents or something "transcending" time?

You just said "you just continue to make declarative statements without support" (And I quoted that in my comment above.)

So apparently we don't agree on what counts as "support." Hence I'm asking you what your criteria for support are. What would be the requirements for me supporting a declarative statement I'm making in your view?

you just continue to make declarative statements without support. — Rank Amateur

So you're getting much more restrictive on reasons here. What are the criteria for support in your view?

How does "coherent but impossible to imagine" make sense?

The arguments for theism demonstrate the existence of a transcendent, and so timeless and immaterial, God; — AJJ

They don't demonstrate something incoherent.

un basically - that is again - just opinion - which is fine - but one can not defeat a proposition in an argument simply because it is your opinion it is wrong. Make an argument, or allow it. — Rank Amateur

Because it's incoherent. The only way to defeat that is to attempt to make it coherent.

Again, it's both the lack of evidence for it and the incoherence of it. Basically, it's just ridiculous nonsense. You don't reserve judgment on ridiculous nonsense for anything else (like the cigar-smoking rabbits in Jupiter's atmosphere, and that isn't even incoherent)

Lack of empirical evidence is a reasonable argument that God is not. It does not elevate the proposition God is not to the level of fact. — Rank Amateur

Facts are states of affairs. It's a state of affairs that there's no God, just like it's a state of affairs that there are no cigar-smoking rabbits floating around in Jupiter's atmosphere.

would you say evil ( however you wish to define it) does not exist ? — Rank Amateur

It doesn't exist as something objective. It's only a judgment that individuals make when they make that judgment. (Not everyone does.)

this is an aside - this is just the same old - lets argue about definitions and not the concept in question. Very very tiresome and unproductive. — Rank Amateur

But it's not "just about definitions." It's a matter of what we're claiming to be the case ontologically. The argument as it stands wouldn't make much sense if we're talking about subjective assessments that individuals make.

It's primarily an empirical matter. There's a complete lack of empirical evidence for it.

I say "primarily," because there's also the problem that the claims being made are incoherent, in that they posit things like nonphysical existents, things that "transcend" time, etc.

unsupported - that is just opinion - — Rank Amateur

I don't think so though. I think it's as clear as anything can be.

let me try an example - I find the argument from evil a reasonable argument. the logic is good, the preemies are true, the conclusion follows. I am also aware of the counter arguments to the argument from evil, which I also find reasonable. I chose to believe the counter arguments have more weight and defeat the argument. I do not believe the argument from evil is true. That does not mean it is not a reasonable argument. It also does not mean that my judgement of what I chose to believe is true is or is not correct. — Rank Amateur

I don't really think that the "argument from evil" is reasonable, because it parses evil as if it refers to something objective and not vague.

"Evil" is just a judgment, a negative assessment that individuals make about behavior. Basically, on a continuum, it's all the way to the extreme end of the negative assessment dial.

For me to say that the argument is reasonable, it would have to rest on a more accurate account of what evil is.

I am using reasonable as based on reason. - not sure what you mean by " that is not evaluative" - can you explain. — Rank Amateur

In other words, someone might say, "I believe I'm Napoleon, because I ate a taco last night." "Because I ate a taco last night" is a reason they gave for why they believe they're Napoleon. In that sense, their argument is based on (a) reason, and we could say that if "reasonable" simply refers to "being based on (a) reason," then their argument is reasonable. We're simply being descriptive. They had a reason motivating their conclusion.

This is different than us evaluating the merit of their reason, which is usually what "reasonable" connotes--that we've evaluated their reasons/their reasoning, and we've found it satisfactory (otherwise, if we reach a negative evaluation, we say it's unreasonable). "I ate a taco last night" is a reason the person gave for believing that they're Napoleon, but most of us would say that it's not a good reason, that it's not reasonable in an evaluative sense.

and not sure what any of that has to do with P3 which you claim is false — Rank Amateur

Nothing. I brought up the above re P5 and P6 instead.

P3 is false because I think it's pretty clear empirically that it's a fact that there are no gods.

On my view P3, P5 and P6 are false.

You seem to be using "reasonable" as "based on reasons" though. In the sense of "based on reasons" where we're looking at that purely descriptively, though, and not evaluatively, then P5 and P6 would be okay, but it would be odd to use especially "reasonable" that way.

Contracts are formal agreements that each party is going to offer something in exchange for something else.

I don't know why you'd think something is useless just because it's an individual judgment. And whether it's an individual judgment or not, simply telling someone that their argument is unreasonable isn't going to make them say, "Oh. Well I guess I'm wrong then."

Re the other comment, I also don't know why those seem at odds to you. You can see how something makes sense in some context but not agree with a conclusion.

I'd not allow contractual fraud, but that's an issue of contractual law, not a speech issue.

Well, both your tastes and preferences can change, and sometimes rapidly, and yeah, sometimes we don't introspect well enough to know our preferences well at that moment.

i mean just because you find it unreasonable - does not mean it is unreasonable. — Rank Amateur

Oh . . . I don't agree with that. "Reasonable/unreasonable" is a judgment that individuals make, and it's nothing more than that. There is no objective reasonableness that we can get wrong.

do you believe it is possible for there to be competing reasonable arguments both for and against a specific point? — Rank Amateur

Yes, for some things. But not for just any arbitrary thing. It depends on the subject matter, how it's approached, etc.

Tiresome. Do you not realize that a punch in the stomach of x power that could be enough to cause serious damage to the organs of and even kill a child may have little or no discernible physical effect on a professional boxer, for example? — Baden

I don't realize this because it's false. A punch of x newtons that can kill a child is not going to have zero effect on a professional boxer. That punch of x newtons still affects the skin cells, muscle cells etc. of the professional boxer. Heck, rubbing an emery board on your arm lightly is going to have a physical effect on the skin of your arm that we can see if we examine your skin cells closely--we do this sort of thing in forensics all the time.

Do a bit of reading. Words can have lasting physical effects in some circumstances*. That those circumstances may be more limited than the effects of physical trauma is a matter of degree not type — Baden

If this were true, then we could peg the exact physical effect in question, where that physical effect necessarily obtains in everyone subjected to the speech act in some degree, akin to being able to examine skin cells and see that there was a force applied.

So what physical effect are you claiming there for speech acts?

You'd have to be claiming some effect due to the soundwaves (for example) reaching your ears, proceding through your eardrums, etc., and for some speech to be okay and other speech to not be okay, you'd need to be claiming that certain combinations of phonemes have the effect that's not okay whereas other combinations of phonemes are okay, etc. That's what's physically going on during speech acts, at least insofar as the "perp's" actions go.

your belief in specific that a position is unreasonable - does not make the belief unreasonable in the general. — Rank Amateur

I don't understand this comment. What does it mean for a belief to be "unreasonable in general" versus a "belief in specific that a position is unreasonable"?

I'm not wanting to argue against theism. I just don't think it's clear that it would make sense for any arbitrary view to respect the belief that it's reasonable while not actually finding the view reasonable.

This is obviously false — Baden

Give an example of two people's bodies acting completely differently to the same "physical" force a la a punch, knife stab, etc.

On the idea that speech is causal to harm.

A woman says to her husband, who doesn't at all understand German:

"Ich hasse dich. Ich habe seit zehn Jahren eine Affäre mit deinem Bruder. Dein Bruder ist der kleine Joey's Vater."

Does that hurt her husband? If speech is causal to harm, how could that not harm her husband (while it could maybe harm a husband who speeks German)? What are the physical differences in each case?

Completely differently--not anything in common, not at all the same type of reaction.

Versus a difference in degree, but not type of effect.

Not really i believe it is possible to have reasonable arguments on both sides of an issue. And if one feels compelled to take a position on the issue they are forced to chose between reasonable alternatives. Your point, if i understand it correctly is that for any issue - there is only one reasonable argument. Or if you disagree with an argument it is therefor unreasonable - — Rank Amateur

That's not my view, actually. It's just that I think that religious beliefs are absurd.

So how would I respect the belief that a religious conclusion is reasonable when I don't think that religious conclusions/beliefs are reasonable?

Which part do you disagree with:

Two people's bodies can react completely differently to the same speech act.

Two people's bodies can not react completely differently to the same "physical" force, such as a punch, a knife stab, etc.?

You must disagree with one of those (given your comment above, that is)

you didn't say similar you said: — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Yes I did. I wrote this: "Which isn't true. If you punch two different people with equal force etc. in the same spot, they're not going to react completely differently. There will be similar physical effects."

It's got to be that you're being dishonest. You can't possibly be that stupid to not be able to see the next sentence from what you quoted.

but the answer is clear. There bodies will react completely differently. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Okay, so what happens, re skin cells, muscle cells, etc. when you punch an MMA fighter with, say, a 5,000 newton force, where that's completely different than what happens to skin cells, muscle cells, etc. when you punch someone else with a 5,000 newton force?

Someone who has conditioned his body to receive punches, is going to have a different bodily reaction that someone who has brittle bones or is a baby. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

They're not going to have a completely different reaction, so that, as I said, they may only get rid of an old scar. Regardless of who they are, the punch is going to have a similar effect on their body. It's not going to be an identical effect--hence why I didn't say identical, just similar. The punch is going to affect skin, muscle, etc. cells in similar ways, regardless of who they are. The difference is going to be of degree of effect, not type of effect.

We'd not be talking about how the person chooses (or habitually) responds to someone attempting to punch them. We're talking about what happens to their body when punched.

I am asking others to respect the belief that theism is a reasonable belief. I am not asking that they find theism reasonable. — Rank Amateur

It's not clear to me how one would "respect the belief that theism is a reasonable belief" while finding theism to not be a reasonable belief.

Maybe you mean something like tolerate or "leave people alone in what you take to be their unreasonableness"?

Ah--I just saw above that you're referring to logical validity? I wouldn't say that a belief is reasonable just because it's the conclusion of a valid argument. Remember that, for one, in traditional bivalent logic, anything validly follows a contradiction. So you'd have to say that all beliefs are reasonable, just in case we frame them as conclusions to arguments whose premises are a contradiction. (If you're saying instead that reasonableness is soundness, then we're back to how one would respect that theism is a reasonable belief while not finding theism reasonable, because someone who doesn't find theism reasonable isn't going to think that an valid argument that concludes with theism has true premises.)

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you" — Mr Phil O'Sophy

If you anthropomorphize a ladle, the ladle will serve you.

Hey, we agree on something finally.

"physical assault can't be shown to be causal to any particular harm, because regardless of the assault in question, we could take two different people and expose them to the same assault and they'd react completely differently. — Baden

Which isn't true. If you punch two different people with equal force etc. in the same spot, they're not going to react completely differently. There will be similar physical effects. That would only be analogous if the punch results in one person bruising and the other person, say, getting rid of an old scar, with no other observable effect.

Everything is a term for all objects, all phenomena, etc. Anything that occurs, appears, etc. in any manner.

You're the one making the claim. If you want me to think it's not just bullshit, you need to present the evidence for it, at which point I'll examine the evidence . . .and tell you the problems with it, — Terrapin Station

And as I just said, I couldn't care less what you believe.

I said, "If you want me to think it's not just bullshit"--well, maybe you don't care what I think.

As I noted after that, it was a set-up anyway, because it's not possible to causally demonstrate that speech is causal to such things. There are a number of reasons for that, including both ethical and logistical problems with executing the sorts of experiments that would be necessary.

Dude you literally ignored everything that came before that which included the logical refutation of your statement. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Logical refutation of what statement?

You can't understand five-word sentences I type. I'm not going to type longer things that you won't understand just because you typed more.