Autumn

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Some good news to start with: Some religions in Canada may be gone for god good by 2040.

The relevance of the church and church community is likely diminishing. Even before the pandemic, church attendance was declining. With lockdowns and people taking time away from Sunday services who might not other wise have done…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Environment: For 7th straight year, Earth sets record for hottest in history.

I, for one, support the Earth in trying to rekindle that old flame and set new records. We have some ways to go before it beats its all time high, but I’m getting a little sick of environmentalists who can’t support the planet and its…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I know. I was too brief for my own good. My point is, should someone be condemned or dismissed for having a psychological disorder?

One of those areas where our thinking on mental illness has shifted rapidly, but much of society still sees it as a stigma despite the likelihood that the majority of people will go though at…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Yes, I agree (In general I find it difficult to disagree with anything you have written over the years and I do like to argue with people :-))

Davis wrote:

Indeed we are very lucky to have you here Autumn

This was always one of the best forums as far as members go of all those I’ve belonged to. Shame at some point…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I was referring to gender dysphoria.

I see. Across posts it ended up a touch confusing. With the way I read Unseen’s question, your reply (with the snipped quote) appeared misaligned, but in the context where we are talking about gender dysphoria rather than non-binary identities, yes, the former is a psychological disorder.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:

dismiss people who think they aren’t absolutely 100% male or female as mentally ill?

Is it dismissing someone to say that they have a psychological disorder, or is it describing them? It depends how you see it.

It actually depends on whether or not they have a psychological disorder, not how you see i…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Good comment. Reminds me of an adage I sometimes use; “what is common sense to one person is special knowledge to another”

That probably needs a corollary of some sort. For many people it’s common sense that you pray for someone when they get sick, for instance. What is common sense to one person is, at times, ‘Wh…[Read more]

When it comes to Trans issues, I do not believe he “gets it” and I thought about not linking the post but I did not grimace as much as I expected to when reading it, given some past comments by him.

The link here makes sense. He’s notable within atheist circles for a reason. I don’t assume links signal an endorsement or categorical agreement wit…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Surely sex is binary but gender is a continuum or spectrum.

Yes. And that’s a perfectly reasonable statement for most people to make with the ordinary understanding that nature is full of anomalies.

What happens in the context of discussions on trans identities is ideologues lock down on “There is only male or female and I…[Read more]

Race is a Spectrum. Sex Is pretty damn Binary, by Richard Dawkins.

In fairness to Dawkins, he didn’t drag up this topic again unprovoked. But the entire article is so painfully fucking naïve.

If you’d asked me if sex was binary two decades ago, I’d have said ‘yes’ without hesitation. If you asked me today, I’d probably say “Well…” followed by a…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Autumn,

It’s actually just the term for a positivity movement centred on the phrase “You da man!” At first they called it ‘youdamanism’, but it wasn’t being taken seriously, so they tried ‘eudaemonism’. The pronunciation shifted a little, but it felt more academic-ish.

That is “veeeeery creative!” 😁 I think some of the k…

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It’s actually just the term for a positivity movement centred on the phrase “You da man!” At first they called it ‘youdamanism’, but it wasn’t being taken seriously, so they tried ‘eudaemonism’. The pronunciation shifted a little, but it felt more academic-ish.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Then we’re rationalising something, making it seem OK, when we can’t do much about it.

I’d wager that is correct in many cases. A lot of it might have to do with preserving stability. Or there are other cognitive biases that probably play into it, for instance wealth we have is often rationalized as wealth we’ve earned or at…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Both. It’s hard to appear fair without actually being fair.

It isn’t. Humans rationalize fairness where it doesn’t exist quite readily. While we tend to value the idea of fairness, we often do very little to ensure it exists in practice.

Simon Paynton wrote:

I would put the difficulty of a full-fledged course at about the 16 year-old level, but more basic stuff could be taught younger, in fact, it would need to be simplified for younger students. My point about Kantianism, utilitarianism etc. is that as given, they don’t work in the real world, and hence, are just useless i…

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I don’t understand the value of needing a comprehensive moral system for ordinary people to live by. I take it ‘ordinary people’ means people who are not moral philosophers.

The basic tenets of a number of philosophical systems can be taught at a high school level. While one might not live by these tenets as though they were a gospel guide to…[Read more]

That doesn’t change anything about my statements.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Autumn wrote:

It might be worth establishing what all parties mean by ‘moral philosophy’ here.

Both the article and myself are referring to the industry-standard of moral philosophy, which has the unnatural and unconvincing bases of utilitarianism, Kantianism, virtue ethics etc. The problem they have is that each one of the…

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Simon Paynton wrote:

Davis wrote:

This is as meaningful as listening to a creationist who doesn´t know anything about evolution complain about evolution.

Can your moral philosophy tell anyone anything about how to live? Really? It can’t, because it doesn’t make sense and is not connected with reality. I’m looking for a simple everyday exampl…

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