Gabriella,
This is getting unwieldy. I’ll try to be brief therefore, and will address later anything you think deserves more time.
No idea what your response means. Perhaps you can explain what you think "belief" means and what you think I am conflating. Here is what I understand belief to mean:
Person A believes that the speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s.
Person B believes that Prince Phillip is a shape-shifting space lizard.
Both “believe” something, but with very different rationales – evidence and faith respectively.
OK - then I misunderstood. Maybe you can explain where the reason-based stuff you were talking about comes into the equation.
See above. Person A has a belief based on reason and evidence. If more robust reasoning and evidence change emerge, he’ll change his mind. That is, his claim is
investigable and
provisional.
Person B has a faith belief. That’s it.
I am responding to your assertion that legal faith privileges provide cover for illegal criminal acts - it just sounds like a nonsense theory to me.
Why? If our society privileges faith beliefs over just guessing, why shouldn’t anyone point to that and do the same thing in his?
That that person’s conclusions may be a lot less benign than those of the local vicar is a secondary matter.
So long as they go through the same legal and democratic process that got faith a status in the public square I don't have a problem with it.
You’re not getting it. Forget legal processes and the like. Really.
Regardless of the legal rationale, the assertion that faith isn’t epistemically worthless
is the same regardless of who’s making it. Having got there, which particulars you populate it with is a separate matter.
What I did was point out your bias.
No you didn’t. Responding an argument in one area with “what about the same thing in a different area then?” (albeit wrongly as it happened) just ignores the argument. Even if there was bias in talking about one example rather than others, that has no relevance to the argument on hand.
Another assertion - you could join the real world where politics and conflicting statistics involve some politicians making claims that increasing corporation tax or taxing the rich even more to pay for the welfare state is the "right" thing to do or that British sovereignty is vitally "important". These statements are based on beliefs of what is right or important, not evidence.
Perhaps you missed this bit of what I said: “It’s inexact and uncertain and subject to re-interpretation but in some manner it’s investigable. That’s why politicians and moral philosophers on the whole don’t say, “X is correct because that’s my faith”: they don’t need to.”?
I didn’t say it was perfect, but it’s qualitatively
different from, “X is true because that’s my faith”.
And that difference matters. Really matters.
Not sure what your point is here. If claims are made that impact on public life it is possible to decide if those claims break any laws or not and therefore if they need addressing. Other than that any other claims people want to believe or not believe are for people to decide for themselves.
See above.
And? What's your point?
That they had a faith rationale.
It's a simple distinction. People can shout "Allahu Akbar" or even "You'll Never Walk Alone" or whatever slogan so long as they are not committing a crime. But if someone is going to commit a crime, we get involved and use the available legal powers to investigate and prevent or prosecute a crime.
If you want to grasp the argument you’re going to have to stop talking about legal powers and the like. Faith beliefs in this country have privileges better than for guesses, provided and enforced by law. No-one says otherwise. I happen to think that that’s a bad thing, and one of the reasons I think it’s a bad thing is that anyone can take the same position about “faith” as a generic substrate to validate and rationalise their actions regardless of what they happen to be – 9/11 hijacking included.
Ok - should I take it that you dislike the idea of honouring people who die for a cause? That's is the general concept of martyrdom. Or do you only dislike the idea of honouring martyrs if they have killed people themselves?
Eh? I dislike the idea of honouring people who have murdered for a cause if that’s what you mean?
Again. What's your point?
That privileging faith over guessing in the public square is a bad idea.
Ok. What insults have I thrown ? As far as I am concerned we are having a civilised discussion where we disagree. If you find disagreement insulting, may I suggest that your emotional response could be a bit of a handicap for you if you intend to continue on this forum.
If you think something I say is “simplistic” then explain why – just saying it and moving on is Vladdism.
Just as an aside, you insult Vlad in your posts to him - you start every post by calling him a name - given your comment about insults, it must be your way of admitting that you're out of your depth in your discussions with Vlad and ca't counter-argue, but anyways....
Yes I know I do. I don’t consider you to be a troll though, so normal rules apply.
And that’s the difference.
Yes.
What's the difference? And the minds of people who were theists and then became atheists or changed from one faith to another....?
Provisional vs certain; reason- vs faith-based; adaptable vs atrophied; self-responsible vs holy text responsible…
Sometimes people do change from one to the other, but the reasons for that vary too much to draw any general conclusions I think.
Am I being silly? What was that you were saying about throwing out insults when you feel out of your depth and can't counter-argue....
Yes. When the rationales is, “But that’s my faith” what checks and balances can there be?
What's the point? Your statement is just a statement - it has no point.
Yes it has. How can you reason someone out of something when he hasn’t been reasoned into it?
And someone who was not of faith might decide that both might live longer than doctors predict and it was right to give them that chance. What's your point? It still gets decided by a court.
Why though would you trust that someone referencing his “faith” over medics who actually knew about the subject?
And the point was to explain that courts do sometimes permit “violence” when supervening factors are brought to their attention.
It is irrelevant because we are discussing the difference between moral beliefs or political beliefs and faith beliefs.
No it isn’t – at least not unless you’re seriously trying to equate faith beliefs with legal and moral argument.
You’re not are you?
And someone else of faith will say the same book supports the opposing moral belief, and much like competing moral beliefs that aren't based on religious faith, there may need to be a legal mechanism to make a decision or there may not. What's your point?
Nope. You can line up ten different faith beliefs each of which contradicts the others, but still al you’d have is faith beliefs. Why pick any one over any other?
On the other hand, you can consider the arguments and evidence of the moral philosopher and the politician to test for holes in their thinking, and to accept, reject or challenge when you do.
That’s a huge difference.
Can you provide some evidence for your assertion about how terrorists argue to themselves.
This is nonsensical. If a terrorist thinks he’s carried out his god’s will, then clearly he has argued something to his own satisfaction at least.
"It's my faith" doesn't even fill a line. So for example here's the declaration of war document from Osama Bin Laden and it takes up quite a few lines. Is it your opinion that the document contains multiple repetitions of "It's my faith" or does it contain political and moral reasoning as well references to faith? Suggests that terrorists don't feel that "it's my faith" quite covers it. Ok your turn. What have you got as evidence to support your opinion that "it's my faith" is all that needs to be said?
That’s just silly again. Once you’ve decided that faith is a better bet than just guessing about stuff, you can build on that sand foundation as much superstructure as you like.
No.
Then you should be.
You're kidding right, about it being entrapment? Was that a joke on your part?
No, it’s how the courts respond. Take it up with them if you don’t like it.
I think your argument might be more convincing if you linked to some case law rather than just repeat your opinions about what you think entrapment means.
It’s precedents rather than case law. My law studies were 20 years ago, and then not specifically about criminal law. Nonetheless, I’ll have look.
I think your argument might be more convincing if you linked to some case law rather than just repeat your opinions about what you think entrapment means.
See above. Aside form anything else though, courts will always want to establish mental competence. If someone has no idea what “law”, “wrong”, “consequence”, “punishment” etc even mean that’s be hard to do. Imagine an alien landed tomorrow and told you you were guilty of all sorts of crimes on Alpha Centauri for example.
No I didn't. I just answered your question about how I parent my daughters. You brought them up. Then you tried to draw an analogy with my answer.
I was getting to whether you think that “because I say so” is a good example of moral perfection is all – the claim some make for the “God” of the A&E myth who used the same line.
I hold myself out to be in charge and the decision-maker when I do it. Why do you ask?
See above.
No it doesn't - your opinions aren't convincing.
To you, clearly.
