mererdog

The Earth is not spherical, just round. But, yes, I know that. JTB.

Nope. That only changes how you feel about it. Imagine you mow my lawn for me, and I give you a hundred dollar bill in exchange. Imagine further that you don't know what a hundred dollar bill is. Naturally, you feel that your efforts were wasted. After all, what are you supposed to do with this tiny piece of weird cloth? But when you later learn that the bill can be used to purchase goods and services, you realise that your initial judgement was wrong. What you received for your efforts had value, it was simply value you could not appreciate at the time. But what if you never learn what a hundred dollar bill is? You will still have recieved something of value for you efforts, so your efforts were not wasted. What is wasted is the value of the reward recieved. In the same way, you get something of value from these exchanges, so your time is not wasted. But if you fail to see the value in what you get, you probably wont make good use of that value and it will go to waste.

Math is built to be simple. Every symbol has a specific meaning and a specific relation to every other symbol. Until you try to apply the math to the real world, the rules are straightforward.

I am urging you to stop justifying your position on this subject with arguments that justify bad positions on other subjects. Its about critical thinking, not the soecifics of the claims.

True.

There are no 5s in binary. If your answer to that question is valid, a valid answer for any true/false question is "Not if we're speaking Mandarin." That feels more like a dodge than an answer, no?

None of that is a wasre of time.

Only if someone sees it. A very important point for any pacifist to remember.

It could be. Based on the definition given for innocent, all bets are off. The distinction I was making is between pain and damage. Some things are painful (hurt) but do not damage (harm), while some things harm (cause damage) but do not hurt (cause pain). Its an imoirtant distinction in my personal moral decision-making.

There is bit enough information to answer the question. Is the pen tied to a helium balloon? Am I in the space station? Is there something between the pen and the ground? Are you planning to catch the pen?

It is a fairly bad definition. Still, at no point did I say the child was putting its hand in the fire. Perhaps the fire was moving towards the child. Slapping the hand simply triggers the reflexive draw-back that prevents the burn. The moral principle at work is the notion that preventing harm is justification for causing hurt. Similar to the justification for enduring the discomfort caused by exercise.

Slapping a child's hand to keep it out of a fire. Giving a child a vaccination shot. Kicking a child for being ugly.

And sometimes we have to decide based only on the testimony of strangers. We often don't know the car's history and don't know how to check the brakes for ourselves, metaphorically speaking. The only way to know the truth may be to experience catastrophic failure at a catastrophic moment. In those cases, it is strictly a gamble. And the kind of gamble where you don't really know what the odds are. Probably not the sort of gamble where you should bet the farm, you know?

A bomb is a bomb, whether you are warned about it or threatened with it. If someone calls in a bomb threat at a school, but provides no evidence that there is a bomb, is the proper response to assume there is no danger and ignore the threat?

If told the brakes are bad, but given no other evidence, do you still drive the car? Prudence often suggests that we accept a claim, on a conditional basis, while waiting for evidence. Prudence also often suggests that we look for evidence, rather than waiting for evidence to be provided to us. Not in everything, but in at least some thiings. Perhaps it is the exception that proves the rule. Perhaps it is evidence the rule is false.

I don't know. Someone else might. I perceeve imperfectly and I reasen imperfectly. I assume that others also do so, but I cannot know if this assumption is more than simply a product of my own imperfections. I work with what I have. I have strong opinions. They are often wrong and usually in a state of flux. But they are what I have to work with. My beliefs may not rise to the level of knowledge. They may be dangerous, or even harmful. I am kind of stuck with them, though, you know? My mind is not of my own design. And perhaps that is a good thing.

To say that no one knows is to project our limitations onto others. It assumes that we are able to concieve of every possible scenario wherein someone could obtain knowledge- that the limits of reality cannot extend beyond the limits of our imagination. It is the "I cannot see it, therefore it does not exist" argument- an argument that deifies blindness. When we do not know, we do not know why we do not know. When we do not know why we do not know, we do not see how someone else could know.

I apologize for seeming antagonistic. It was not my intent. I do see, in hindsight, how it could seem that way. I'm not able to prove the claim to you. My intention was to talk about the claim, not to prove it. Perhaps, in the process, you would become convinced that the claim is true. Perhaps, in the process, I would become convinced the claim is false. Neither was my goal. The goal was to have a conversation- to compare and contrast our positions, thereby coming to a greater understanding of each other.

In the US, the law is created through the negotiations of law makers, then interpreted and applied by negotiations among judges and lawyers.

You may be correct about the danger of drawing a line in the sand. At the same time, thinking things should never be looked at in terms of black and white requires looking at things in terms of black and white. Refusal to draw a line in the sand is just a way of drawing a line in the sand, you get me? And if there are lines that exist in the sand already, whether naturally or made by others, knowing they are there would help us avoid tripping over them.

Thanks. I'm just waiting for my wife to finish packing. Hope you enjoy your day just as much.

It goes beyond that. This isnt really about God. It is about knowledge. Epistemology, not theology. The same things that determine whether a belief in God is justified determine whether a belief in dark matter is justified. The same things that determine whether it is reasonable to believe that God is not real determine whether it is reasonable to determine that someone is innocent of murder. Sometimes, the monster in the woods is real. You know, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Sometimes, its metaphorical, because the guy next door may be cooking meth, the restaurant up the road may be serving e. coli, and Vesuvius may be about to blow. The world is full of dangers neither of us have seen. The world is also full of liars and fools. So having some practice at sussing out the truth is useful.

When is it reasonable to believe in something you have not seen? When is it reasonable to believe that somethimg you have not seen does not exist? When is it reasonable to believe that a truth cannot be determined? If we adopt a habit of believing when it is unreasonable to do so, what dangers do we face? Is it better to unreasonably believe there is no monster in the woods than to unreasonably believe there is? Is it better to gain hope for a bad reason than to lose hope for a bad reason?

Let me start by saying that your demands for proof are noted and ignored. You are becoming increasingly antagonistic seeming. I'm here for conversation, not to measure manhoods. Let me know if your goals differ, so I can bow out. If I am wrong in my conclusion that you are being intentionally hostile and rude, I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part. I try not to judge. It is not always easy. That said, you omit the possibility that some things are free will and some things are fate. That some things happen to us and some things happen because of us. This is not a simple subject built on a dichotomy. I do not believe in the supernatural concept of fate, but I do believe in materialistic fate- Physical Laws and constants, necessities caused by organic chemistry and biology- stuff like that. At the same time, I believe in the human capacity to choose. The wind blows. We can sail with it, or we can tack against it. If I am pushed off a cliff, I cannot choose to fly. I can, however, choose to sing on the way down. When my temper flares, I can choose to not hurt those I love. I can choose to run into the burning building. I can choose seppuku over disgrace. I can choose to tell the mugger to go ** himself. I can choose to fight with my every ounce of strength until my dying breath. I can choose to never be a slave, and to prove all claims that I am to be a lie. These may not be the safe choices, or even the right choices, but they are choices that I can make.

Testimony is evidence. When you are told a thing is true by people you trust, you will believe it unless some other factor stops you from doing so. The more people tell you the thing is true, and the more you trust those people, the harder it is for.any other factor to stop you from believing them. I see it as a survival trait that allows us to avoid dangers we learn about from others, but one that backfires easily and frequently.