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[Nearly Sane]

This needs kept in the context of what it was replying to. Outrider in reply to Vlad

I feel you have tried to deflect the category question back to consideration of mere unfalsifiability.

How can you have a category question about asserted concepts without any means to determine anything categoric? It's not that there's a 'mere' consideration of unfalsifiability about the existence of these things, it's that there's an unfalsifiability about anything to do with them. How can you definitively state that there's a categoric difference between two things that we have no evidence for? You're making assumptions about their natures in the absence of any justification.

There is a whole antitheist industry or modus of entertainment/expression based around ridiculing all of theism which rides on the back of unfalsifiability.

And there's an entire industry of suppression and denigration from various theist groups at anyone outside of their 'in-group' - hardly surprising, given that religion is used (or perhaps even created purely for) the purposes for determining tribal in- and out-groups.

Neither of which, of course, actually impacts on the validity of the claims. If I laugh at formulations of the idea of god because of their unfalsifiability, that doesn't undermine the fact that they are unfalsifiable claims.

Apart from revealing the inner redneck there is real social harm to be had here.

As there is in supporting the unsubstantiated claims of religion: terrorism, abstinence-based sex education, ideological wars on certain drugs and over-reliance on others, political interference, gender discrimination, sexuality discrimination...

If there wasn't any social harm here, no-one would have a problem with religion, it would be no more than a personal choice like wearing a hat.

The term ''there might be categoric differences'' is disingenuous.

Only in the sense that it was giving the benefit of the doubt that any of these claims might have a basis. There is only a categoric difference between God and Russell's teapot if either of them can be shown to exist - otherwise you've just got claims of categoric difference, just like you've only got claims of existence.

These are either points to take seriously or humourously. If we are to take philosophy seriously we must look to non categorising or generalising.

If anything becomes so serious that you can't laugh at it, at least a little, then it's got a power over you. That's why things are described as 'sacred' in the first place - if you put them beyond question, beyond humour, beyond mockery then they have power. We have to laugh at them, after all...

... there's real social harm here.

Atheists find God unfalsifiability.

That doesn't make sense as a statement - I presume you meant 'unfalsifiable'? We aren't the only ones - all agnostics find the notion of god to be unfalsifiable, that's the definition of agnosticism, and many agnostics are theists.

Atheists find ridiculous things unfalsifiable

Boris Johnson. Donald Trump. Both eminently falsifiable, eminently ridiculous. I think you meant to suggest that atheists find unfalsifiable things ridiculous, in which case I'd accept that I personally (and let's assume I'm representative) find some unfalsifiable things ridiculous, and some claims about unfalsifiable things ridiculous, but not all ridiculous things or claims about ridiculous things.

Atheists then conclude that all unfalsifiables are ridiculous

Neither in the attempted formulation, nor in what I think you meant, as demonstrated above.

Atheists challenged by multiverse

Aren't we all challenged by the idea of a multiverse? I don't struggle to accept the concept, I struggle to get my head around all of the possible implications.

Atheists conclude not all unfalsifiables are ridiculous.

Given that it wasn't a valid claim in the first place, this doesn't come as a surprise.

Antitheists still like the ridicule link though.

Are antitheists definitively a subset of atheists? What's the criteria? Some of them probably do, it can be useful. Sometimes the best defence is to make it clear that the pretentious sounding waffle being espoused is just multi-syllabic jibberish; Theology is, after all, the Emperor's New Clothes of philosophy.

Antitheists arbitrarily single out which unfalsifiables are ridiculous and include God.

I think it more likely that those people who find the unfalsifiables relating to God to be ridiculous are subsequently branded anti-theists as an attempt at an ad hominem argument.

Antitheists take the rise out of theists and mock them on the same bases that homophobes might ridicule say a gay pride march........ based on logical fallacies.

What's the 'logical fallacy' of a gay pride march? Anti-theists mock theists for any number of reasons, from the pretty dresses the Pope wears to the lack of awareness that leads billions to be spent on suppressing sex education in favour of abstinence programmes in the face of the evidence of their ineffectiveness.

Of course we know we are talking about the FSMers here.

Well at least you've come to the light - it's good to see you've been touched by his noodly appendage (he boiled for our sins, you know. Allegedly.)

Other than that lapse though Outrider, a fair post.

I think you'll find there might be a categoric error between your claims of  a lapse in my post, and the actuality of my post - but at least we can both agree that there's something there to make the determination on, right?

O.

[Nearly Sane]

From Dicky Underpants


I think that was part of Robinson's agenda. I think that in the early Victorian period, this largely 'germanic' critical scholarship did take root in England - certainly T.H. Huxley seems to be aware of it. But there was a very strong backlash - particularly in America, which resulted in the intransigent stance of modern Fundamentalism. Whether the Brits were quite so horrified, I don't know. Perhaps Synod and other worthies thought that if they kept quiet, brushed it all under the carpet, then none of the faithful would ever notice, and things could continue just as before.
Strange though, isn't it, that the first person to translate Strauss into English was none other than George Eliot, and the work of Strauss and other Germans is alluded to by Will Ladislaw in 'Middlemarch' - as a put down to the decayed ideas of the Rev. Casaubon.
It is a paradox, though, that neither D.F. Strauss nor that great OT scholar Julius Wellhausen, wished to destroy the Christian faith (I think they both remained believers in some sense), but the effect has often caused a loss of faith in some. But if that is the price of starting to think for oneself after hundreds of years of indoctrination - so be it.

[Nearly Sane]

Saving this from Alan Burns for the perfect oxymoron in the first two words

'My objectivity leads me to the conclusion that God is the only possible explanation for my existence.  For the full detail, see my previous posts.'

[Nearly Sane]

From enki on the death of Chuck Berry


Chuck Berry had a particular place in my life. At my tender age of 16, along with artists such as Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, he was probably instrumental in making me colour blind, an attitude which has never left me. His influence led me to appreciate the blues and gospel music of such people as Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Willie Johnson, Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and many others too numerous to mention, and some of whom I have been privileged to see performing live. The influence of his brand of music eventually led me to listen with awe and fascination to all kinds of jazz, from the Louis Armstrong Hot 5 and Hot 7 sessions to the likes of Duke Ellington, Johnny Dodds, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins..the list seems endless.He was a springboard for me wanting to play New Orleans Jazz, and forming a band in those heady days in my late teens and twenties.

Thank you, Chuck Berry. I loved your music, and I can say you helped me find my 'particular place to go.'

[Gonnagle]

Dear Level Headed Thinkers,

The Indyref2 thread, post 322, Jeremyp,

I think the language is becoming a little intemperate. Words like "vilify" imply more than deserved criticism. It's true that this whole Brexit and hence Indyref2 was caused by the Tory leader of the time embarking on a poorly thought out strategy for silencing the Eurosceptics in his party. Yes he deserves criticism and Theresa May's handling since has hardly been stellar but "vilify" has a connotation of unjust criticism. Can't we just agree that the Conservative Party has fucked us all royally up the arse?

100% Correct Jeremyp

Gonnagle.

[SweetPea]

From Jim/Anchorman, on the Faith Sharing Thread:

Since it's the faith sharing board, I. for one, give thanks for the sovereign grace of God. I know there's nothing I can do to earn His love; nothing I can do to earn that eternal life He promised, because He's done the ground work for me. His pouring of Himself into Christ, the man who is God in a way no language of mine can properly express, and being the perfection I could not be on an instrument of torture, being made lower than a slave so that I could be lifted to His presence. By His action of supreme, unmeasurable love He opened the way for me to stumble - sometimes kicking and screaming in the early days -  into a relationship with Him which will last beyond the end of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrSz0ZR4vyY

..... and agreeing with Robinson, to say wonderful!

[Gordon]

The inimitable NS noting us getting to page 666 in the 'Searching for God' saga/thread.

'It is noted that as foretold in the Book of Irrelevation, this thread has reached the Number of the Beastie in terms of pages, and since this means the unlocking of the Seventh Penguin, and the emergence of the Auntie Morag who shall wander the earth in search of Trumpageddon but shall find it in brussel sprouts, that the Floo shall leave and there will be a gnashing of artichokes and much wailing, mainly by the Daily Mail about grooming of teenagers while publishing pictures of celebrities' pubescent children having a nip slip, that the End Is Bill Nighy, and the board, the universe and even that feeling that someone is watching you will cease at the appointed time, subject to timetable changes by Southern Rail.'

[Nearly Sane]

The one and only Gonzo in full flight



'Dear Country,

Yes!! What the hell have I been thinking How could I ever support  Corbyn, at a time like this we don't need lovey dovey's we need men ( I will leave the weaker sex out of it for the moment ) who talk of war, men with backbone, where are the Churchill's, where are the men who will not think twice about putting our armed services in harms way.

You want a war Russia, we will give you a bloody war, we are British ( now where did I put my Union Jack jockey shorts ) where do I sign up, Gonners your country needs you

Dear Mr Foolon,

Don't you worry your little addled brained Tory head, we are right behind you ( sorry will you be leading the troops, can I volunteer to carry your musket ) I will take the Kings shilling, never fear Mr Fallon the country is right behind you as we nobly march into bloody war ( sorry another bloody war ).

This what we want!! another bloody war to take our minds off of Brexit, NHS crisis, foodbanks and the fact that the country is going to hell in a hand barrow, yes Mr  Fallon!! Old Brittania is right behind you, bloody Johnny foreigners coming over here and stealing our wummin

Gonnagle.

PS: Can I be excused trench digging my old back problem is playing up.'

[Gordon]

A little ditty posted by Anchorman, which I haven't heard before but like.

'Twixt optimist and pessimist, the difference is droll: The optimist sees the Polo mint - The pessimist, the hole.'

[Aruntraveller]

HH from the Ghost words thread:

Modern English is virtually two languages existing side by side - Norman French and Anglo Saxon (including words sourced from other north European lanquages). It is quite possible to make statements which are largely influenced by only one language which can be matched by an equivalent statement using the other source.

For instance, deriving from Norman French, you could say "Meretricious sesquipedalianism".

And, deriving from Anglo Saxon "Bullshit baffles brains."

Anglo Saxon, I believe is characterised by meaning arising from the use of short "particles" while Norman French is inflected, meaning being determined by specific word endings (clearly influenced by Latin). Our normal everyday usage is about 80% Anglo Saxon and north European and 20% latinate words. People wishing to appear intellectually superior tend to use multisyllabic and multimorphemic words which are more likely to have had a Latin-influenced source

A quick glance in my Oxford Dictionary gives "window" as coming from the Norse vindauga, the latin word for which was fenestra.


A level of complexity, however, is added by the old Norse word meant an unglazed opening (Wind eye) and the German word for glazed opening is actually fenster.

This is why I still keep reading this board because every so often I come across  something that just helps me understand things a little bit more.

[Nearly Sane]

From Torridon

Not quite sure where disrespect of emergence comes from, sometimes I think I need lessons in Vladish to get what you are saying.  But moving on, consider the emergence of intelligence in a bee swarm. A 100 million neuron bee is not so smart; granted it may be somewhat smarter than your average creationist, but that aside, a million bee swarm can make much smarter decisions on finding a nest site than a single bee.  Where exactly is that intelligence ? It is hard, if not impossible, to put a spatial location on the focus of that intelligence. Similarly, I find it difficult to identify a spatial location for my self.  Do I know always know the exact location and circumstances of every decision made ?

I was just reading about the eye fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum, which for part of its life cycle lives as a parasite inside the eyeball of freshwater fish, from where, somehow, it controls the behaviour of the fish, altering it such that the fish is more easily predated which enables the fluke to get into its next host.  From what we have come to understand from cognitive research, I would bet that the fish does not know it is being controlled, it is probably unaware it is hosting a parasite, yet its choices are altered to suit the parasite. Human persons too are not just vastly complex organisms, we are walking ecosystems of bacteria, viruses and parasites and all these symbiotic flora feed into our thoughts and influence our moods, so when 'we' make a decision, it is not just a question of competing neuronal assemblies, rather it is a composite decision of billions of intimately interacting organisms, a wisdom of crowds in a sense. So when I make a decision, what exactly is its provenance and its location ? What the research suggests, is that rather like the poor river trout, unaware of the provenance of its decisions, we too are somewhat in the grip of a bigger population, unaware of the incalculable goings on below the level of our consciousness, but our conscious self is a cerebral mechanism for claiming ownership and responsibility for those decisions, and this is a profoundly important plank of personhood; it is not just about a continuity of identity that transcends the constant turnover of bodily cells, it is also about the feeling of ownership and control over decisions that arise out of this great big working biological system. This is why I think we have a conscious self, it is about empowerment at the level of the entire system.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Another idea beautifully expressed by torridon on the "Searching for God" thread.

"Oh dear, your usual hotch potch of baseless assertions, logical fallacies and misunderstandings.  I'm beginning to think this penny is never going to drop for you.  Just throwing in a few bolded words want, deliberate, conscious is not going to change the fundamental logic of the situation.  That we have wants, that we have consciousness, that we form intentions, these things do not qualify us as escaping the fundamental laws of nature or of logic. A meaningful choice is one that takes account of relevant considerations; a choice that is free of all relevant considerations is not a choice at all, it is merely a random event and this is true whether the decision is made biologically, spiritually, computationally or popsaquidigiously.

Your position on this is somewhat akin to the compatibilist account of free will, with added spiritual, thrown in for good measure. Consider an inmate exercising in the prison yard. He can do anything he wants in the prison compound, he can jump up and down, he can blow a raspberry, he can recite Shakespeare sonnets in a French accent, so, within the compounds of the prison, we could say he has several degrees of freedom.  And suppose this compound is large, so large that the walls are over the horizon, he may not be aware of his imprisonment.  The walls are so far away that he could set off running and never actually reach the walls. A compatibilist will say that this amounts to free will and this is analogous to the free will that we humans enjoy.  To a compatibilist, it is not so much the fundamental overarching truth of the situation that matters, what matters to the compatibilist is what is important, rather than what is true. For the prisoner in the compound, he has effective freedom as he is unaware of the restrictions on his liberty and that is what matters. 

So, of course, I would agree with you, like the prisoner in the compound we have seeming freedom, being unaware of those distant walls.  When we make a choice we are identifying our preference, but we do not, can not, choose what our preference is in the first place, just as also we cannot choose our beliefs. This is why we are not ultimately free, and also why ultimate freedom would in fact be meaningless."

[Nearly Sane]

Honesty is the best policy, the lovely lovable Anchorman



'Most scholars - even Orthodox scholars - agree that the winter solstice was a cynical political move to trump the pagan Saturnalia by the political priests in the nascant Empire church.
The Incarnation probably happened in February March - or September, at the outside.
When you get right down to it, the only semi-fixed observance in the 'Christian year' is Easter - and the Church can't even get that right (and, as I understand it, various Orthodox churches are as confused as the rest of us)
It doesn't matter a bean when the Nativity happened.
All that matters is that it happened.
Dates were given to try and keep the semi-literate in line, denied as they wwere the joy of reading Scripture for themselves by a church frightened they would see the flaws in 'tradition'.'

[Aruntraveller]

Gabriella spot on as she is quite often on the London bridge atrocity thread:


I disagree with your opinion. If deliberately dropping the bombs cause the death of civilians - as in 'but for' the dropping of the bombs the civilians would be alive - in criminal law you can't class the deaths of civilians as accidental.

So for example, when the Saudis bomb hospitals in Yemen, supported by British military personnel helping them identify targets, supplying weapons etc - the civilian deaths tend to cause outrage, especially amongst relatives of the dead, and can lead to people becoming radicalised and seeking revenge by bombing civilians in the UK. That is not a controversial point - violence leads to violence.

I am equally outraged by both sets of bombings. Children are blown to pieces and suffer shrapnel wounds in both sets of bombing. The children and their relatives presumably don't feel better about being blown up simply because the people sharing responsibility for the shredding of their limbs and heads were wearing British army uniform at the time and 'cocked up'. The cock-up was reasonably forseeable, given it has happened a few times now - so morally they should stop helping the Saudis. If they continue helping the Saudis, they can't shrug the deaths off as an accident - morally it might as well be deliberate.

[Shaker]

A splendidly incisive bit of writing from trent:

The polls are all over the place Floo. Yesterday there was one that gave the Tories an 11% advantage. Today 1%. I hope for a miracle but I fear, as they nearly always seem to do, the British people will go in for yet more self-flagellation and vote the despicables in to power. 

Maybe it's an appeal to the baby in us that wants a Nanny - albeit that the Nanny is more Rebecca de Mornay than Julie Andrews.

[Aruntraveller]

Prof Davey with what I think is possibly the best 'best bit' I have seen so far. Thank you



Interesting that you did not chose to post the balancing ant-circumcision article quoted in the first paragraph.

Note too this article is from 2004 - things have moved on significantly.

Nothing in this persuades me of any health benefit that outweigh medical risks. And that is the elephant in the room - although people often glibly refer to neonatal circumcision as simple and safe the risks aren't zero.

http://www.academia.edu/6394940/Lost_Boys_An_Estimate_of_U.S._Circumcision-Related_Infant_Deaths

This article should pull people up short. For every 100,000 circumcisions there are about 250 incidences of complications and about 9 deaths - yes that's right 9 baby boys dead due to complications from circumcision. And this study is in the USA so a first world developed country with high quality medical care. Every one of those deaths is entirely preventable.

So you need to be convinced of stunning health benefits to justify those 9 deaths. So let's look at those - there tend to be three areas typically cited. HIV transmission, penile cancer and cervical cancer in women partners. Remember we are talking about circumcision here in the UK not in sub-Saharan Africa where there may be some value.

So let's assume all baby boys born this year (about 350,000) are circumcised - what would be the effect.

1. HIV transmission - the only effect reported in observational studies is on infection of men in heterosexual relationships - there is no effect on homosexual sex or on women becoming infected in heterosexual relationships. And even then most recent studies imply this effect to be largely due to cultural effect other than circumcision.

But let's work with a 50% reduction - annually in the UK across the whole population about 1500-2000 men become infected with HIV due to heterosexual sex. So that might equate to 8 less people contracting HIV - note that HIV is now readily manageable with just 600 people dying of AIDS-related illness last year. Also HIV transmission rates are falling in the heterosexual population and have been for years. Finally about 95% of the new infections were from unprotected sex - wearing a condom almost totally eradicates transmission - so much, much more effective than circumcision.

2. Penile cancer - issue is that penile cancer is ver rare - so the balancing article indicates that 300,000 cicumcisions would be required to reduce penile cancer incidence by just 1 - that's one diagnosis not one death.

3. Cervical cancer due to human papilloma virus infection - sounds compelling (bar the medical ethics issue or elective surgery on a non consenting patient that does not benefit them but does benefit others). Ah but there is a problem - all girls aged 12 and 13 in the UK are now routinely immunised against human papilloma virus. So there is unlikely to be any benefit due to improvement in medical treatment.

So to summarise - were we to circumcise all baby boys in the UK born this year the health effects would be:

300 cases of circumcision rated complications this year
30 deaths of baby boys due to circumcision rated complications this year
Possibly 8 fewer HIV infections in perhaps 20-40 years time (but medical treatment may have moved on so perhaps much less)
Possibly one less case of penile cancer in perhaps 40-70 years time (but medical treatment may have moved on so perhaps much less)
Likely no change in cervical cancer in  perhaps 40-70 years time as immunisation is now routine

And that's without bringing in the loss of penile function and detrimental effect on sexual health.

So no there aren't compelling health arguments - and those that make them need to recognise that if they argue for universal infant circumcision in the UK then they are arguing for about 30 dead baby boys a year that died needlessly.

[Shaker]

Prof Diddy turns it up to 11 (again):

We aren't talking about whether people who have a particular belief would, ideally, hope others agree with them.

No, we are talking about the methods that the might use to ensure that others believe the same as they do. 

It isn't secular humanists who devise initiation ceremonies to 'welcome' new born babies into their belief with parents required to promise to bring up the child to believe. 

It isn't secular humanists who create complex layers of further initiation throughout childhood linked to belief but carefully (and disingenuously) also linked to growing up.

It isn't secular humanists who get the state to fund a thousands of schools run by their organised belief system which have as part of the their ethos a requirement to ensure that the children that attend become members of that belief system.

Nope those all exist elsewhere - I guess you know where that is don't you Vlad.

[torridon]

from the sublime NearlySane :

As ever, I return to my feelings of the absurdity of life, its lack of following easy schema, the contradictions of our power and powerlessness. What a piece of work is man, of indeed woman, as Shakespeare nearly put it, and yet also the quintessence of dust. The absurdity, I see, turns me from me that idealism of my youth but leaves me with the knowledge that in an absurd world, everything, rather than nothing matters. Utopias are nowhere but there is always good to be done. Maybe it won't change anything ever, maybe it doesn't matter beyond the tenous grasp of my neurons but that's all it needs. A tiny spark, disappearing in a instant, lost forever but still the most beautiful shining moment.

[Owlswing]

Professor Davey - Quoting Jesus thread 19.07.2017

I thought the conventional view was that they rapidly scattered to a range of places where they preached about Jesus. So by the time the first records we have were written they were mostly dead and hadn't been together for perhaps 30 or more years.

And even had they been together, why would you think that would result in an accurate account. I think that is extremely unlikely as they were sadly neutral were they. If you want an accurate account of a football match you don't ask a fanatical and passionate supporter of one team, totally caught up in the emotion of the match. For that person it was the clearest penalty in the world and the ref was blind for not giving it. No - you ask a dispassionate neutral, or if there isn't one better to get accounts from the supporters of both sides.

The bible is the equivalent of an account written by fanatical and passionate supporters of one team only, with no balancing view available whatsoever. It is partial and biased and therefore should be read with that is mind.

[Shaker]

Torridon plays a rather beautiful blinder on the Searching for God thread:

Maybe some of those arguing against you are of the 0.01% of the population who are curious to look beyond the obvious, to scratch the surface and see what lies underneath.  I'd agree with you in the sense that the vast majority of people for the vast majority of time do not concern themselves with concepts of logic or of epistemology or try to figure the mind bending concepts in cosmology or fundamental physics.  It's not for everyone.  I've never watched a single episode of Big Brother.  I really can't figure why people watch soap operas.  Maybe I'm just weird, but it seems to me like so many just fritter their time away on trivial flimflam when there is so much to learn and so little time to learn it in.

[Nearly Sane]

When only a step by step dissection will do, who you gonna call, bhs.

AB,

Genetic mutations are the driving force -…

There’s no such expression as “driving force” in the TofE. If you meant something like “a critical component but by no means the only one” then yes, you’d be right.

…without them there would be no natural selection.

That much at least is true because there’d be nothing on which natural selection could act. Just as, say, without an engine a car wouldn’t be a car. That's not to say though that a car isn't a lot more than just an engine.

The main point I have tried to make is that truly beneficial mutations will be extremely rare if all mutations are randomly generated.

Two problems there. First, once again “beneficial” is a judgment after the event. As you actually mean something like, “better adapted to their environment” then say so.

Second, yes adaptations that better enable the genome to relate to its environment can be said to be rare in the sense that, say, they happen 1/1,000, 1/1,000,000 etc times a mutation occurs. They are precisely not rare though when you take into account the billions of events and the huge amounts of time involved. Rarity depends on context – when you look at the number of opportunities for them to occur they could just as well be described as common.

To point it another way, your “point” still fails.   

Yet the TOE seems to presume…

The TofE doesn’t “presume” anything. Rather it relies on evidence, mathematical modelling and various other techniques to arrive at its conclusions. It’s an exceptionally well-supported theory – in some was better supported than the germ theory of disease and the theory of gravity – and your personal incredulity about it doesn’t detract from that.

…that there will always be sufficient beneficial mutations to drive the natural selection process to build up highly complex organs using thousands of incremental steps, each of which has to have substantial survival benefit in its own right.

No it doesn’t say there will “always be” anything. What it actually says is that all the available evidence tells us that complexity has always come from prior incremental steps. 

You claim the end product is just pure chance, because the TOE has no underlying aims or goals apart from survival.

I don’t “claim” it – it’s just simple logic.

But can you not see divine purpose in the awesome attributes you have acquired?

No, because that would be irrational and potentially idiotic for several reasons that have been explained to you repeatedly and at length already but that you continue to ignore. 

[Gordon]

Great post from Udayana in the 'Pigs as organ donors' thread:

There is no "there" ... we are always here, in a life or death situation at least until we do die. My father had a pig heart valve replacement, dying a few months later when it became infected. My sister died after refusing treatment for flu after far too long spent paralysed by MS.

BeRational is correct in that many of the lines drawn in the argument are arbitrary and it is not possible to come to any objective position on the extent and acceptability of suffering.

Every moment of ones life, one is causing the deaths or affecting the continuing lives of innumerable other lives.

Where you draw the line really depends on the extent of your empathy with them. We try and limit it by including "my family" or "humans", or "the same species", or  "entities with nervous systems", "sentient" beings - but ultimately it is illusory - we have no real way of separating our "individual selves" from that of our own gut bacteria or the rest of life in the universe. So what we ultimately do to other lives depends on how connected we feel to them and how responsible we feel we should be for their suffering or destiny - and our own.

[Shaker]

bluehillside on tip-top, possibly Blackadder-influenced form once more:

when you point out he's at least knocking on the door of the negative proof fallacy he goes all faux indignant, "Who me? – Never!". It's slipperier than an eel in a Swarfega jacuzzi, but as true to form as ever.

[Shaker]

A belter from Rhiannon:

I do not support hate crime but I do support the right to speak out against the campaigns by the RC church to prevent legal abortion for those who need it - even victims of rape and incest - and their desire to reverse marriage equality and the damage that would do. If you hold abhorrent views and try to foist them on others then you have to expect to find that society does not much care for what you stand for. 

And it's not 'mainstream' to support abortion rights and marriage equality, as if this man is taking some courageous stand against liking the X Factor or Pizza Hut. It is still risky to be openly gay. We still judge women for abortion - it's still taboo to talk about having one. It's not 'mainstream', it's humane to want a society that allows both, its humane and compassionate. It's no surprise that Catholicism fails drastically in this regard, but then its made-up god of guilt and vengeance is created in its image.

[Shaker]

Some people are on fire at the moment - like wiggy with a particularly good point about emergence (saved for future pinching):

Yes, triple irony quoting Lewis on fallacies.   Fake dichotomies abound in Lewis, e.g. lunatic, liar or lord.   I think he also got into the impersonal/personal arguments, which usually fall off a cliff.   For example, atoms are impersonal, therefore can't produce personality.   Eh?   Well, atoms aren't green, therefore can't end up in green things.   Yeah, sure, would you like  to give me your bank card pin?