Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Judges in Texas can legally discriminate against some citizens.

If a school chaplain gives a student advice that turns out harmful, or fails to recognize a serious mental-health condition, does the school district bear risk? Let’s put these questions to the city council for clarity.

The Christian Nationalist hunger games being played out as Trump plays golf.

People on social media are very vexed indeed.

As atheists, we should help where and when we can.

The leading edge of social justice is secular.

World of Woo:  GLP-1 Patch Scams.

Environment: Current emissions cause Sea Level rise for centuries.

Challenge dogma within the skeptic community but don’t allow that to justify weak science. It is the scientifically misinformed that generate weak science and response times to potential health emergencies will suffer. Often, the scientifically misinformed don’t even know the basics. Is that because they listen to social media influencers instead of medical doctors? Maybe we could learn something about being rational from Chimpanzees?

How the first animals evolved – a new clue from a tiny relative.

You can’t fully describe a system from within so this is a theoretical argument and not empirical proof that “we’re not in a simulation.”

I think Carlo Rovelli is a respectable heretic as he challenges the classical ideas on the nature of reality.

Long Reads:

From Uri Geller to Oz Pearlman: Old wine in new bottles.

The food that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cuts.

Why doesn’t anyone trust the Media?

Sunday Book Club:  The Painted Bird.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: Is Atheism a Religion? Carlo Rovelli: ‘Time Is an Illusion‘. Mosab Hassan Yousef meets with former Israeli hostage.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!

[jakelafortParticipant]

Toppings and droppings.

Those chimps can of course do that. It would be surprising were it not so. I knew when i was a kid how stupid the so called scientists’ approach to other animal intelligence. But that is not same as beliefs humans hold in Trump and lefty beliefs et. al.

If chimps are capable of that sort of ideological belief formation i would predict same resistance to evidence and critical thinking.

I want to know if humans are capable of being trained to live lives divorced of the inclination to be pro palestinian morons or Maga morons or fill in the blank morons. Idk maybe a coterie of intelligent mating adults who teach their kids how everything is bs and why they think the way they do. Parents who consistently expose the bs to their kids. Do those kids retain their skills if you will. Or do they become religious? Do they become communists? Ya know if you are intelligent you will ALWAYS question popular beliefs. In my estimation if you are or were pro palestinian you are or were stupid. Yes, stupid. Life should have taught you how to approach issues of mass hysteria before becoming swept up in the river of belief. Fundamental, no?

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Why doesn’t anyone trust the Media?

Well, here’s part of your trouble within the article itself, in the last four words of this quote:

taylor lorenz: Well, I think there’s a lot of culpability on the media side. Corporate media in particular has spent years selling people out and getting things wrong. Look at mainstream coverage of the Iraq War, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the genocide in Palestine.

If people in the media don’t understand what is true themselves, they can’t possibly convey it to others.

It’s also noteworthy that mainstream media, most notably Oprah Winfrey, over the years popularized Trump, Doctor Oz, Doctor Phil, Jenny McCarthy, and many other Woo-Peddlers. Mainstream media is part of the mess we live today.

This short doesn’t show up, but it’s Trump’s interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show

https://youtube.com/shorts/a88Bo1vNadU?si=LlwqllOfO_gi6s_o

• This reply was modified 4 days, 20 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Note

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

People on social media are very vexed indeed.

JD Vance respects his wife’s atheism.  That’s good.  But they bring up their kids as Christians.  Surely the kids should be allowed to make their own minds up.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@simon –

Simon, the problem with JD Vance isn’t that he “respects” his wife’s atheism — it’s that he doesn’t respect her Hinduism. He’s implying she’s an atheist simply because she isn’t a Christian, which is a rather offensive way to erase a faith practiced by hundreds of millions in India. It’s disingenuous. What he’s really doing is getting ahead of awkward MAGA questions about her religion if (or when) he runs for president.

And yes, of course the kids should make up their own minds — ideally when they’re old enough to tie their own ideological shoes. They’re, what, between four and eight? At that age they shouldn’t have to choose between Christianity and Hinduism any more than they should have to pick sides in Keynesian versus monetarist economics. Let them wait until they’re mature enough — say sixteen or eighteen — to decide whether to believe they can communicate telepathically with a single Creator of the Universe, or courageously embrace a pantheon of thirty-three. Forcing a choice now isn’t guidance; it’s indoctrination.

Of course they could pick both as it might be the safer option.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Simon – I moved your update here so it does not disappear down the list.

I have been studying morality for about 16 years, and now I feel I have it all figured out. I can give a full and comprehensive answer for what justifies our moral beliefs: the question that is on every moral philosopher’s lips, and is the reason for the mistaken belief in moral realism. (“Moral beliefs are justified because they are factually real”.) We act according to our moral beliefs because we have to (obligation), because we want to (volition), and because we care (compassion). There are good reasons for those three positions.

I thought, all you had to do, was figure it out and this would storm the industry. However, it’s not so simple as that. I do find a receptive audience with the professors etc., and the ones in the field do seem to listen sometimes. Michael Tomasello said it is super-interesting. There are other paradigms close to mine that get a lot more attention, but my ideas bleed into those through discussion. All in all, a tough crowd to break into.

Simon, that’s a strong framework — obligation, volition, and compassion pretty much map the full landscape of moral motivation. What you’re describing isn’t moral realism but moral function: why we act morally, not whether morality exists as some external reality.

Morals don’t have properties or forms as Aristotle might’ve said before Occam came along to shave the excess. They’re emergent patterns of behavior, not entities in themselves.

No surprise philosophy’s slow to adapt; it still loves its metaphysics. Kant was the one who finally severed philosophy from theology in any serious sense. He didn’t kill metaphysics, but he forced it to justify itself without appealing to God. But Tomasello’s interest is a real endorsement. His work on cooperation and shared intentionality runs alongside what you’re describing.

Your take on it grounds morality in how humans evolved to behave. We act morally because we must, we choose to, and we care to. That’s not only evolutionary sound, but it’s also clean reasoning.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Good Website here.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

What you’re describing isn’t moral realism but moral function: why we act morally, not whether morality exists as some external reality.

Thanks @Reg, that’s it in a nutshell.  Talking about morality is like talking about the middle east – the answer is always complicated.  The remit was to figure out morality so that Christians could stop mocking us for not being able to say “where it comes from”.

Christians believe in moral realism, grounded in God.  I.e., something is moral because God says it is, and if so, it’s “real”.  But this implies a single over-arching moral judgement of something – a single right answer.  In reality, there are multiple values at play at any one time – and this is what slays the Christian argument.  They say there’s a single right answer, in reality there are multiple right answers.  How do you choose the “real” one?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Simon, the problem with JD Vance isn’t that he “respects” his wife’s atheism — it’s that he doesn’t respect her Hinduism. He’s implying she’s an atheist simply because she isn’t a Christian, which is a rather offensive way to erase a faith practiced by hundreds of millions in India. It’s disingenuous.

But he did say this:

“In fact, when I met my wife, we were both — I would consider myself an agnostic or an atheist. And that’s what I think she would have considered herself as well.”

However, it seems like he doesn’t want to say the word “Hindu”.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Good Website here.

For what and for whom? So kids can learn how to replicate all the screwy foreign policy moves of previous CFR members and U.S. Administrations?

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Ben Shapiro isn’t the best at arguing for Theism, but he does a good job at showcasing Tucker Carlson and Kevin Roberts as miners of Nick Fuentes’ motherload of bad ideas:

Between all the Alt-Right Groypers and the Leftie Woke Mobs, it’s a bad time for friends of The Enlightenment.

• This reply was modified 2 days, 20 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Correcting link
• This reply was modified 2 days, 20 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Punctuation

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

And Tucker Carlson’s Anti-Enlightennent goes deeper than history and politics. Get a load of this:

https://youtube.com/shorts/w9IHTMYzLck?si=llR3IG-LAg9-9jfs

Hey, Tucker, couldn’t it have been one of the four dogs in the bedroom with you while you were half asleep instead of demons?

And he manages to get both his religion and science wrong at the same time:

https://youtube.com/shorts/A2u8UPt7NDo?si=YvYuyxENyPeMnf5C

Uh, Tucker, vaccines and variolation were both around long before Communism, and there wouldn’t be a Cross in a Baby Jesus mural because, as the story goes, he wasn’t crucified as a baby.

And they’ve now found that vaccines may be a prophylactic against cancer by attacking the food manufacturing faculties of tumor cells. So vaccines can be oncological.

A walking Strawman arguing from Incredulity.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@Enco – It could be that Tucker Carlson made a balls of his testosterone booster with too much testicle tanning?

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