What exactly would constitute a victory in the 'war on terror'? That terrorist attacks are no longer being carried out, or that terrorist attacks are no longer effective?

If the first is the case, then one need only look at Europe to realize that terrorists have simply switched to an easier target which doesn't require one to cross hundreds of miles of ocean. In other words, Europe is reaping the "benefits" of America's war on terror.

If the second is the case, then I guess the 2015 Paris attacks would provide a counterargument. In fact, given how easy it is to attain weaponry (and turn common objects into them) I find it miraculous that attacks haven't been worse.

In word and intuition 'modern societies' may feel compassion, but in their actions they consume more and more, to the detriment of exactly those they supposedly feel compassion towards, and to the detriment of their own spiritual well-being. The greatest act of charity any such society could perform for the world is declare: "We have enough. We are satisfied. I can live with one car instead of two. I do not need luxury toothpaste. Eating meat twice a week, instead of seven, is enough for me."

Until such a point is reached, nothing good can come of it. And declaring compassion while willfully or in ignorance indulging in this insatiable lust for more is naive and hypocritical.

You just proved his point. Chapeau!

If you're interested in uncovering the meaning of dreams, there's a series of lectures you may consider watching.

You can find them here on YouTube:
Pierre Grimes - Dream Series

It's a five part series on the meaning of dreams and how to try and decipher them. Even though it's a subject that's difficult to tackle, the lectures take quite a 'no-nonsense' approach. The lectures also feature analysis of some of the dreams that students had.

The broad idea that's presented, which after deliberation I've come to find quite plausible, is that dreams tackle subconscious issues you are having in your life, which may block your development as a person. Especially the more profound dreams seem to tell us something about ourselves and what we're struggling with.

Apart from his Dream Series, there are a ton of lectures by Pierre Grimes on YouTube. It's an absolute gold mine for those interested in philosophy, especially classical philosophy.

As long as wisdom is relevant, philosophy is relevant.

Whether one agrees with these rules or not isn't relevant to the point.

The fact is that civilizations throughout the ages have attempted to formulate rules that when followed would create a more unified world. The Ten Commandments are an example of such a ruleset. The Egyptian Negative Confession is another. Clearly there is some merit to these rules, no matter how much one wishes to deny it.

The degree to which these rules are right is truth. That is objective morality based on reason.

Nowhere did I claim it would be the solution to all the world's problems. Simply that following those two rules as an entirety would universally make the world a better place.

Omnipotence is a rather strange and paradoxical term, but it's also not the staple atheists pretend it to be. After all, if God was not omnipotent, but still capable of all things that Christians attribute to God, such an entity would still be powerful beyond comprehension, omnipotent or not. Pointing out the paradoxical nature of omnipotence at most implies the use of a different term would be more accurate.

Secondly:

Note: This universe is by far, theistically describable as not the best God could create, and in theistic theory, God would have in his supposed omnipotency, created far better, far more valuable things. — VoidDetector

Existence and the universe are perfect, but it is man's interpretation of his circumstance that is imperfect.

A wise man once said:

"A problem cannot cause suffering, it is our thinking and attachment to it that causes suffering."

In other words, any imperfection you may observe is an illusion.

Doesn't this tie into the story of Adam and Eve and how they ate of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil? After all, without labeling things as "good" or "bad", there is just 'being'. So by eating from the Tree, Adam and Eve created their own suffering. Labeling things as good or bad, and thereby refusing to accept the reality of being (as good and bad necessarily imply 'becoming').

How could not calling men beautiful possibly damage them?

Surely, if affirmation is required in order not to be damaged, the one that's doing the damaging is oneself.

We surely can agree that it is important for the psychological health of a person to feel attractive, accepted and wanted. — Abel Alarco

Yes, and such feelings can only come from within oneself.

Relying on the affirmation of others does not constitute psychological health. It is delaying the inevitable conclusion that one is in fact not psychologically healthy.

An extremely interesting topic, but clearly not about statecraft, no?

Central in Plato's theory on the nature of reality or 'The Good' or 'The One', is how an individual would go about attempting to glimpse ultimate reality and experience 'The Idea of the Good' (since the Good itself is beyond experience). This can be seen as reaching a form of enlightenment.

His theory of Forms he never fully elaborates on, but is indicative of the idea that what man experiences is not reality itself, but merely a reflection of the essential Forms.

Justice is a big part of his moral philosophy and does directly deal with statecraft I believe. The tripartite soul is another one that reaches maturity in the Republic and this is more about the individual and morality, which is also an important part of the society. — Jamesk

They're both related to the individual. For Plato explains justice to elaborate on his assertion that it is better to be just and spurned than unjust and loved. To describe what justice is, Plato mentions the three parts of the nature of the soul. Reason, spirit and desire. According to Plato, a man is just when his spirit and desire submit to reason and spirit and reason work together to resist desire. He strikes a parallel with the state to illustrate his point.
He finally supports his assertion by saying that an unjust man is ruled by his appetites, which are insatiable and thus the unjust man will never be satisfied. The just man on the other hand is ruled by his reason and by controlling his appetites is much happier, simply enjoying the fruits of his own soul.

Plato is not describing the perfect state. He's describing the perfect man.

As Valentinus pointed out before me:

If it please you, then, let us look for the quality in states, and then only examine it also in the individual, looking for the likeness of the greater in the form of the less. — Valentinus

Plato's Republic is about using the example of a state as a means to better understand the individual. It should be read primarily as an allegory on the individual. This should come as no surprise, considering the nature of his other works.

@Dagny said this in the original post:

I didn't expect the Republic to be so interesting, I am up to the point where Socrates is getting weird and talking about how the rulers of state should censor books and fairy tales (???) but hopefully he has a deeper meaning. — Dagny

I believe they are referring to the part where Socrates says one should not allow oneself to have false ideas about God. If one were to read the Republic as a manual for statecraft, this clearly sounds like religious censorship, however Plato was primarily concerned with the nature of ultimate reality which he called The One or The Good. The Republic can be seen as describing the steps one needs to take to prime themselves for a vision of The Idea of the Good. If we then consider the same passage, what Socrates (through Plato) is saying, is that if one wants to experience a vision of ultimate reality, one should never allow oneself to hold false beliefs about The Good, primarily that it is anything other than Good, since this would be akin to denying the nature of reality.

Plato is not for the faint of heart, and I couldn't possibly do it justice in so few words, but I hope I got the picture across.

Plato's republic would have not have been a very nice place to live according to our standards today. — Jamesk

I sincerely hope you realize Plato's Republic is not a book on statecraft.

What about the costs of science?

3. Morality is not universal. — gnat

What if morality is universal, but societies simply get them (partially) wrong most of the time?

Aren't there many 'rules' that one could think of, that when humanity would follow them the world would be a better place? Isn't that universal morality?

2. Selfishness is inescapable. — gnat

If a person is motivated by the needs of others, how can that be considered selfish?

Ah, insults. The last refuge of the ignorant.

It takes a special kind of debater to call a sensible statement like "the world would be better without people killing each other" an 'irrational and unsupported opinion'. Asking for clarification on the word 'better' in this context is yet another attempt to shift the argument. It's indicative of the way you've been twisting and turning every which way in order to disagree on something that should be common sense, and it reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

I can think of no other reason a person would have this amount of difficulty answering such a general question. A question which could have simply been answered with "No." or "Yes, but...", I might add.

Since you didn't react yet, I'm assuming you won't be answering my question. I'll answer it for you in that case, and make my point anyway.

Any rational person could agree that if people followed the rules 'Thou shalt not kill' and 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours assets' the world would be much better off. One may have one or two caveats, like 'but what about self-defense or euthanasia?', but for the other 99.9% of killing we can agree it would be best if it simply stopped. The same goes for jealousy and envy.

This is a rational argument based on reason and it is simply undeniable. It is truth. Morality is based on fundamental truths of human existence.

In Taoist philosophy the feminine is seen as a symbol for everlasting.

"The Valley Spirit never dies.
It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the doorway of the Mysterious Female
Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while;
Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry."
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Jing, Ch. 6.

It was a general question, and you're free to respond with your opinion.

A point of order: universal doesn't mean absolute.

You continue to dodge my question, by trying to find exceptions to a rule that any sane person can agree would create a better world if followed. In this case I'd say the exceptions underline the rule. If you were honest, you would acknowledge this.

Instead, you continue arguing semantics and it's getting rather dull. I'm not going to argue with you for the sake of arguing. I've made my stance clear, and it should by now be clear that all the contrived exceptions you're coming up with are completely missing the point of my argument.

I am trying to show you the danger of your argument and how all arguments following such sweeping statements that cannot be backed up will lead you into trouble. — Jamesk

Thanks for your concern; can we now please get on with the topic of discussion?

I considered this, but in order for something to be murder it needs an element of crime, in which case things like war and capital punishment couldn't be considered murder, even though I think those forms of killing are still fundamentally wrong.

We've gone over this already. Killing someone as an unintended side-effect of self-defense cannot be considered wrong. Similarly, killing someone by accident, except in cases of extreme negligence, it isn't wrong either. It is unfortunate, but not wrong or evil.

Now quit beating around the bush and answer my question.

It certainly is always wrong and that is what I am arguing. I think I have pointed that out for the examples you gave me.

Self-defense is a strange case, however causing someone's death as an unintended result of self-defense hardly constitutes killing. The same goes for the accidental killing of a person. For something to be a crime, there must be mens rea, an intention (or the knowledge that one's neglect may cause harm to others), and I suggest we view the morality of killing a person in a similar fashion. So causing a death as the result of an unfortunate accident or as an unintended side-effect of self-defense is not evil.

Also doesn't your last sentence support the view that killing is wrong? After all, why should someone feel remorse for an act wasn't wrong?

Alas, we have wandered enough. So let me restate my question:

Would you agree that if the entire world took the rules "Thou shalt not kill (except for when it is an unintended side-effect of self-defense)" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's assets" to heart and would follow them devoutly, the world would be a better place?

To terrorize people into following the rules can only be seen as wrong. It is the sort of practice that made Stalin's regime so terrible. If terror is the objective, I cannot see your argument that killing in this instance is not wrong.

This is where we need to make a distinction. Do you think that it is okay to kill in self-defense, or do you think you're allowed to defend yourself and the attacker's death may be an unintentional side-effect? The latter is a very reasonable stance, and I would say in such an instance we are hardly talking about killing in its intended context. With the former I cannot agree, since I do not believe that if you can overpower your assailant, you should then kill him because you can. If you overpower your assailant and you then kill him out of spite, vengeance, dominance, pride, you're committing a wrongful act that cannot be justified.

The survival of a society is an interesting point, but again hard to defend. I used such an example in my first post, in which a warlike society facing famine chose to go to war against another society. Clearly this cannot be justified, because why should one's misery be reason to impose even more misery on another?
If you're talking about a society defending itself against aggression, we are back to the point that was made about self-defense. In such a situation the society should defend itself, and people may die as an unintended side-effect of their defense, but it would be wrong if a society would then overpower their enemy and exterminate them.

The issue of killing as punishment has been addressed in my reaction to Athena, but to recap: Two wrongs can under no circumstances produce a right. Any goal such a killing may have; terror, revenge, utility, are clearly no moral grounds for such an act.

The use of the term "moral order" seems rather vague here, but you seem to be suggesting that killing as a means of maintaining public order, capital punishment, is not wrong. I'll disagree with this on the basis that two wrongs cannot possibly produce a right. In your example, you would kill a killer, committing the same act you wish to condemn him for. And to what end? Retribution? Terror? Utility?

Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that psychiatry finds it more plausible to change the individual rather than the society that is making him or her miserable.

You're purposely dodging my question, I would assume because you are afraid what I might do with your answer. I'll put it plainly:

You disagreed with the statement that all killing is wrong.

So when is killing not wrong?

When is killing justified?

Devout means with deep commitment. Fanaticism requires an element of excess, so they are not the same. And in what instance would you say murder is justified?

Would you agree that if the entire world took these two rules to heart and would follow them devoutly, the world would be a better place?

Morality; good and evil, virtue and sin, is a universal, absolute concept. It cannot change. It simply is. Mankind can try to interpret good and evil and act accordingly, but morality itself does not change. As a result, humans often get it wrong. Society may try to interpret morality differently to justify their actions in view of their situation, but again, this is not how morality works.

Example:
When faced with famine, a warlike society may look at their neighbour's land and conclude it should rightfully be theirs. So the societies go to war and the warlike society wins. To justify their actions they may say that they committed no evil, because they were faced with famine. They changed their interpretation of morality according to their situation. However, this doesn't change the fact that they violated two universal rules of good and evil: "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's assets". Two very sensible rules, regardless of whether you are a Christian (I am not).

So no, morality is not a social construct and it does not evolve. Only our interpretation of it changes, which means we vary the degree to which we are wrong about the nature of good and evil and the nature of our own deeds.

I did not choose where to live. The internet enhances my life. I would use it no matter where I lived. The world's information at my finger tips. It's brilliant. As for the sicko's they would probably express themselves some other way if it was not for the internet. We can police the internet so I don't see a problem. — Devans99

Either the internet provides something unique and therefore uniquely creates avenues to do both good and evil, or the internet provides nothing unique and just like the sickos will find different avenues to express themselves, so you would find different ways to educate and entertain yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

You cannot argue surely that nuclear weapons did not avert WW3? — Devans99

That is not what I am saying. If it is to succeed in its role of deterrence, it may never fail. Not now, not in a hundred years, not in five-hundred years. Ultimately, we could repeat WW2 a dozen times over and it still would pale in comparison to a nuclear war. Considering mankind is prone to both conflict and error, and the fact that in roughly fifty years we have gotten close to nuclear war on multiple occasions, that's a risk no one should be willing to take.

No I would not. I live in the back end of beyond. The internet is of great value. Without the internet I would need to hire a full time tutor to educate me; I cannot afford that and the internet is so superior to what a tutor could teach me. — Devans99

Of course the internet has value. The question is whether you'd miss it had you never known it existed. You probably would've made different choices and if you had some desire to engage socially with people you wouldn't have chosen a home in the middle of nowhere. If you desired to engage in studies, you would've bought a book. But I digress and I am speculating now. For most people, they would find other ways to educate and entertain themselves. The internet doesn't have a monopoly on those things for the vast majority of people. Besides, we haven't even touched the fact that the internet is, amongst other things, a breeding ground for mankind's vilest of deviants.

The increased free time of the modern world does allow for more music and literature than in the past. More should mean higher quality in the end... maybe we need to spend longer on each piece. — Devans99

You said it yourself. Quantity doesn't equal quality, especially for music and literature, both of which I hold in high regard. I think you'll agree with me that with all that time and money spent on these subjects they have very little works of substance to show for it.

I know there have been many minor wars, but know more major wars like WW1 or WW2. The 21st century is less warlike than the 20th, which is less warlike than the 19th. Etc... We are very fortunate to live in the 21st century; hardly any of us have seen military service. — Devans99

Yes, I understand your sentiment, however your argument is based around the hope that the weapons which are keeping us safe right now will never be used in war. If they do get used, it will probably mean our end. Forever is a very long time. How many decades of close calls can we endure before finally one tips us over the edge? Like the sword of Damocles it is a ticking time bomb, and given mankind's propensity to war I very much doubt it would keep ticking for all eternity.

How about anaesthetics? It was a bundle of laughs before that I'm sure. In fact modern medicine in general makes our lives much better. — Devans99

Medicine has been around since recorded history and probably before that. Modern medicine makes it possible to treat more severe diseases and conditions. So apart from those (un)fortunate few who had their serious ailments treated by modern medicine, it doesn't make healthy people's lives much different. With that said, people are still dying in droves to all sorts of things modern medicine can't treat, so at large modern medicine is exchanging one death for another.

Anyways, since you seem to be in favour of killing people off after they have lived sixty healthy years, why not instead let nature run its course and control the population that way? We don't have to start arbitrarily killing our parents when they reach sixty healthy years, and we can remove the incredible drain the pharmaceutical industry is on the world's resources (#4 950 billion). Arguably 950 billion dollars worth of resources wasted on keeping people alive, which would be killed off later.

The Internet is improving my life quality as I type this; I'm rather isolated so it great to have people to discuss this stuff with. — Devans99

Without the internet you may have been an entirely different person. Consider that without modern technology you'd have no way to entertain yourself but to engage with other people. People would be more social in general. You'd be completely fine.

For entertainment, modernity spoils us with a choice of books, TV, Film, play, music, computer games. — Devans99

Music and literature are hardly a product of the modern world. Additionally, experts have long since debated whether more choice makes us happier, and a lot of them conclude it doesn't. If you want to read about this, read "The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less" by Barry Schwartz.

For safety, the atom bomb has keep the lid on war for the last 75 years. — Devans99

Now this is veritably untrue, since there hasn't been a year in the 20th century without war. Countries have threatened with the use of nuclear weapons throughout the second half of the 20th century and they still do to this day. Not only that, we've gotten extremely close to using them on numerous occasions, which would have ended life as we know it. So neither did it put a stop to war, nor does it provide any guarantee for the future. Major powers are renewing their nuclear arsenals as we speak.If your final argument is that technology is a blessing because it has given humanity the power to wipe itself out, then I'd say humanity is the last entity we'd want to trust with that power.

I think the most important metrics for human progress are quality and length of human life, both of which have been improved greatly by technological progress. — Devans99

Quality and length of human life should not go above all else. Presently, there exists a negative correlation between our quality and length of life and the life of everything else on the planet. Not only that which exists, but we are also potentially compromising the quality and length of human life of our offspring. And with every year we live longer, we consume more. Why should we impose harsh suffering on everything else just so we can live a little longer and a little more comfortably? And a better question; when is it enough?

Secondly, I think you're grossly overstating the role of technology in improving the quality of life. There's very little to indicate people are happier now than they were a hundred years ago. There have been several key discoveries, most notably when it comes to childbirth and combating diseases, which have drastically decreased infant mortality, maternal death and death by common illnesses. These were very valuable, but they hardly represent technology or even science as a whole. Most of the rest is dead weight.

You have to ask yourself: almost three-hundred years since the industrial revolution, and what have we to show for it? A population which is marginally happier than it was before, if even that. Perhaps a dozen or so extra years to live on average? (Infant mortality tends to horribly skew these numbers. The ancient Greeks used to live into their 70's) And for what, I ask you. Cars? A fancier dwelling? Fancier entertainment?

Humanity can start moving into the direction of perfection by getting rid of all the useless crap it doesn't need. But instead it prefers to watch the world burn while it indulges just a little longer.

There's something terribly wrong with the way humanity handles technology, and this needs to be addressed before we can even start thinking about moving "towards perfection" if there is such a thing.

There's nothing that stopped man from being at harmony with nature 2000 years ago, and there's nothing that's stopping man today, except man itself. The number #1 cause for all the imbalance we cause is technology, specifically the industries required to produce it. Yet there's nothing that modern technology produces that isn't redundant. In this regard mankind has degenerated from being a generally destructive force that had little effect on its environment, to a generally destructive force that has a massive effect on its environment.

It's all choice, though. Not necessity. So I'd argue we're not moving towards perfection, but rather away from it.

You seem to be questioning the morality of human existence, rather than life itself. And haven't you already stated that human existence isn't fundamentally immoral by stating the following:

I feel that any moral system or ethical research methodology will reveal that life is generally immoral. — Andrew4Handel

Considering you said generally I'm assuming there's room for morality in human existence, meaning it cannot be fundamentally immoral, even if the immoral outweighs the moral.

I honestly don't see a direct relation to what I was saying.

Care to elaborate on that?