It's tough to be true to yourself, but I hope in the end, your will — Questioner
"Let your inner convictions maintain your soul's integrity." — RadicalJoe
However, predestination does preclude free will. Also, determinants (i.e. genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences) preclude free will because biological organisms do not choose all of their determin — Truth Seeker
This is.... not the case. there's some vague, unfounded assumptions in Braeber among others, that travel reports were somehow assimilated as philosophically serious — AmadeusD
Simply asserting that closer to nature = less egalitarian is unconvincing. — Jamal
Neither did Austrailian aboriginees or the theoretical inhabitants of distant galaxies but when the majority population of a society prospers then that is, without qualification, a historically massive achievement for any society to ever be able to claim anywhere. — BenMcLean
• God creates the person,
• God creates their temperament,
• God creates their environment,
• God foreknows every outcome,
then ultimate moral responsibility cannot rest on the creature. — Truth Seeker
No, they really dont. The category of "indigenous" means "oppressed by whites" and nothing else. Their only interest in so-called "indigenous peoples" is simply anti-white: they do not want to roll back feminism to return to the ultra-patriarchal ways of life that were in fact the near universal historical norm for humanity. — BenMcLean
To disprove it, you would need historical counterexamples, not psychology. — BenMcLean
Did you really try to bully, then when you were called out on it say, "I was just joking bro?" — Philosophim
Looking at your examples I feel like you're trolling at this point and not taking the conversation seriously. — Philosophim
All you did was reverse the definitions I gave you on the terms. Let me explain it another way. A fact deals with knowledge. What you know is not necessarily the truth. What is true exists whether you know it or not. A fact cannot exist if no one knows about it. Truth does. — Philosophim
manipulative - especially : serving or intended to control or influence others in a deceptive and often unfair or selfish way
a clever and manipulative child
manipulative behavior — Philosophim
"Pluto is a planet." Years later..."Pluto is no longer a planet". Both are facts. — Philosophim
Truth it what is, and it isn't owned by anyone. There is no "My truth". — Philosophim
I consider using manipulative language one of the few clear evils that people can do. — Philosophim
Manipulative: influencing or attempting to influence the behavior or emotions of others for one’s own purposes. — dictionary
I am making a far more modest claim:
Certain kinds of involuntary suffering are morally incompatible with perfect love combined with perfect power and knowledge.
That claim does not require complete moral knowledge — only consistency in the concepts being used.
Calling that “hubris” mistakes logical analysis for arrogance. — Truth Seeker
If you care to look closely into ancient Greek art objects such as sculptures drawings of humans, you will notice there is no changes in the human physical body compared to folks in recent times. — Corvus
Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second. — Truth Seeker
suffering is not necessary in principle for virtue, — Truth Seeker
If evolution is true, then why humans have not evolved since Socrates and Buddha were alive? — Corvus
Given an infinite universe the unbelievably unlikely will happen at least one time, though. (and if it's truly infinite, it will happen an infinite number of times) — Moliere
To reject suffering and death is not to reject the sentient condition. — Truth Seeker
(I pity historians for being at) so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and necessary, I have often wondered at the person’s courage that could sit down on purpose to do it.”
“That little boys and girls should be tormented,” said Henry, “is what no one at all acquainted with human nature in a civilized state can deny; — Jane Austen
Suffering and death are part of the human condition. You are contradicting yourself.
— Ecurb
No contradiction is present.
Suffering and death are parts of the human condition — they are not the whole of it.
Likewise, they are parts of the sentient condition more broadly.
What I reject is the slide from:
“Suffering and death are part of the condition.”
to
“Therefore, rejecting suffering and death means rejecting the entire condition.” — Truth Seeker
I oppose the harmful components, not the existence of sentient life itself. — Truth Seeker
I have saved and improved many sentient lives. — Truth Seeker
I affirm life strongly enough to want it without cruelty, without injustice, and without premature death. — Truth Seeker
Making the best of the world does not require pretending it is already good enough. It requires reducing harm, expanding care, and refusing to baptise suffering as morally ennobling. — Truth Seeker
I do not despise the human condition.
I despise suffering, injustice, and death — Truth Seeker
So no — I do not despise the human condition.
I despise the fact that sentient beings are forced into existence, forced to endure suffering, and forced to die — and then told that the virtues developed in response somehow redeem the coercion itself. — Truth Seeker
• If suffering were preventable, it should be prevented.
• If injustice were removable, it should be removed.
• If death were avoidable, it should be avoided. — Truth Seeker
You write that “every child is born to grant eternal life to his or her parents (through descent).”
Taken literally, this is not biologically correct. — Truth Seeker
What about those who don't want to be courageous or adventurous? — Truth Seeker
Yeah, and a killed woman's murderer in our society is most likely to be her intimate partner. Marital violence was legal up to a generation or two ago. And there's that history of burning witches. — Questioner
Here's the truth about the Apache nation
Apache women were the pillars of the tribe. — Questioner
If we go back over a thousand years, we’ll find a lot of societies in which women enjoyed independence and self-autonomy. But then, Christianity – and the Bible - forced them into an oppressed role. — Questioner
I am arguing something narrower and firmer:
Even if suffering exists, and even if courage arises in response to it, suffering itself does not gain moral standing from that fact.
Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second. — Truth Seeker
I assume that's what Whitman is referring to. The stars are both a scientific fact, and a presence that engenders feelings of awe, in part because of their spiritual significance (i.e. cultural associations).Mystical: having a spiritual symbolic or allegorical significance that transcends human understanding. — dictionary
You worry that reducing suffering drains the world of meaning. — Truth Seeker
If by worldview you mean:
a comprehensive source of meaning, value, love, beauty, and guidance for how to live, — Truth Seeker
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
By Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Courage: 1) the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery:
"she called on all her courage to face the ordeal"
2) strength in the face of pain or grief
A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches. — Truth Seeker
Meaning does not require victims.
Courage does not require cruelty.
And suffering does not become sacred just because humans are good at telling stories about it.
That position is not negative.
It is compassionate, coherent, and fully compatible with depth, adventure, and love.
What it refuses is the one thing you keep trying to smuggle back in:
The idea that suffering deserves reverence simply because it exists. — Truth Seeker
But none of them get to sanctify harm — not by age, not by beauty, not by poetry, not by romance. — Truth Seeker
If suffering disappeared tomorrow, we would not mourn the loss of cruelty to give courage meaning. — Truth Seeker
“When beliefs make contact with reality, consequences, or harm, they must answer to evidence.” — Truth Seeker
We reserve love for those closest to us, but hate can drive an entire segment of society to wish ill upon those who they don't even know. — Questioner
No serious defender of a scientific worldview denies the existence of:
ideas,
ideals,
fiction,
mathematics.
What is denied is something very specific: that these entities have causal or moral authority independent of sentient experience and empirical constraint.
Ideas exist as patterns instantiated in minds.
Fiction exists as structured imagination.
Mathematics exists as an abstract formal system.
None of this contradicts a scientific worldview. It depends on it. — Truth Seeker
Mathematics is formal, not empirical.
Science is empirical, not formal.
They are complementary, not contradictory. — Truth Seeker
Joy, freedom, adventure — all are compatible with this framework. — Truth Seeker
Culture is not “supernatural” in any philosophically useful sense. — Truth Seeker
Perhaps God prefers those who eat from the tree. — Truth Seeker
No worldview is morally serious if it refuses to let facts about suffering, harm, and flourishing constrain its values.
Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.
But none of them get to excuse avoidable suffering. — Truth Seeker
What kinds of things exist?
How do we know what is true?
What constrains our beliefs?
A scientific worldview holds that:
Claims about reality must be answerable to evidence.
Explanations should be non-arbitrary, publicly testable, and revisable.
Appeals to authority, tradition, or revelation do not override evidence. — Truth Seeker
But once you care about suffering and flourishing, science tells you:
which actions increase harm,
which reduce it,
which beliefs reliably misfire,
which social systems systematically damage lives. — Truth Seeker
Culture is not “supernatural” — and calling it that smuggles theology back in. — Truth Seeker
But again, the Eden myth frames knowledge as forbidden. — Truth Seeker
But moral insight has progressed: — Truth Seeker
Compassion comes from empathy. As a vegan, I insist that moral concern extend to all sentient beings. — Truth Seeker
Consciousness arises from neurological activities, not supernatural souls.
Therefore, while religious faiths differ irreconcilably in beliefs, scientific cosmology and biology converge on a single evidence-based worldview - one that continues to expand through discovery rather than divine decree. Hence, my worldview is scientific, secular and vegan. What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview? — Truth Seeker
The problem arises when myth is allowed to dictate ontology or moral authority, rather than being interpreted in light of what we know about sentient beings and suffering. — Truth Seeker
God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve — Truth Seeker
If Satan is an essential part of human life, is God complicit with him. Is it possible that God was complicit in the initial rebellion? — Ludwig V
