On 20/01/2014 4:21 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk them
>> >out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing nothing
>> >and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".
> That's a fair point.

It is but balance that with the aims of Dignitas.

I don't want someone telling me, if I am in great pain at the end of my 
life. That I have got to suffer because the priests of the big man in 
the toga, says it is wrong.
Similarly I think Jehovah's Witnesses should be allowed to take their 
chances. But not their children or dependants.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:51:31 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 20/01/2014 4:21 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk
>>> them
>>> >out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing
>>> >nothing and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".
>> That's a fair point.
> 
> It is but balance that with the aims of Dignitas.

Yes.

> I don't want someone telling me, if I am in great pain at the end of my
> life. That I have got to suffer because the priests of the big man in
> the toga, says it is wrong.
> Similarly I think Jehovah's Witnesses should be allowed to take their
> chances. But not their children or dependants.

It also is a balance with the individual being of sound mind and acting 
with full awareness.  Where religious beliefs are concerned, though, that 
gets into more challenging territory, and is a bit muddier.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 20-1-2014 1:20, clipka wrote:
> Am 19.01.2014 23:08, schrieb andrel:
>
>> I don't think I could base a morality on an agnostic point of view, so I
>> stick to being an atheist if you don't mind.
>
> I actually find it pretty easy:
>
>
> * I can't tell for sure whether there is a supreme something or not, or
> what its nature is, and I suspect that it is impossible to known for
> sure.

nitpicking: a true agnost is sure (s)he is not able to know. That is 
what distinguishes her/him from an ordinary person that simply does not 
know.

> Therefore, whatever my personal current belief on this matter may
> be, it may be wrong.
>

> something, nor try to prove what its nature is, neither to yourself nor
> to anyone else.
>

> believe in a supreme something or not, or what they believe its nature
> to be.
>

> fear ponder alone or discuss in groups whether there is a supreme
> something or not, or what its nature is, within the limits imposed by

>

> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits

>
>
> I think these few rules, derived from what I consider the essence of the
> agnostic point of view, make for a formidable set of fundamental ethics.

I am afraid that I don't see how this helps in deciding what to do in 

follow that.

>

> currently think the supreme something's nature is:
>
> * I believe (even though I can't prove it) that there is a supreme
> something; I believe (even though I can't prove it) that hints about its
> nature can be found scattered among all world views and all throughout
> the universe, including science; I believe (even though I can't prove
> it) that its nature is very witty and humorous, very forgiving (to such
> an extent that the word is actually meaningless, because there is
> nothing to forgive in the first place), and very benevolent.
>

> humorous, forgiving and benevolent, and leave the rest.
>

>
>
> Pretty much everything else in terms of moral springs from the
> "commandment" to be forgiving and benevolent.

Going for the roundabout way of trying to second guess what a god would 
want if it did exist does not appeal to me.

BTW thinking about it, I think there is an agnostic way. Just find the 
common ground. If god exists do A and if god does not exist do A implies 
do A.
The problem is again in second guessing a non human. I am not good at that.
Another problem is that we seem to assume a single god, what if there 
are a large number of them and each has, just like us humans, different 
opinions.

OTOH if you take the assumption that if god exists it does not want us 
to be sure (insert THHGTTG quote here) you may only have to consider the 
situation that it does not exist.

-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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On 20-1-2014 7:43, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2014-01-19 04:10, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> And another thing. Every time somebody stands up and defends evolution,
>> they start receiving death threats. When was the last time a good honest
>> Christian received death threats from the scientists for daring to teach
>> Genesis?
>
> This is something I see crop up in a few places, and it makes me wonder:
>   does this argument that the most-victimised party is inherently more
> valid thing have a proper name?  It's a very specific subset of appeal
> to pity, I think.  'X group hasn't been oppressed as much as Y group,
> /therefore/ their position is false (or at least irrelevant).'
>

underdog?

-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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Am 20.01.2014 04:35, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/19/2014 11:12 AM, clipka wrote:
>> Am 19.01.2014 18:09, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
>>
>>> I don't. See, the problem is, if you define god as some "ineffable
>>> something, we can't describe.", then you are correct, and that is
>>> invariably the "fallback" position of believers (since they can always,
>>> later, bait and switch back to the one they really do talk about all the
>>> time). However, any "defined" version, like.. the most common form of
>>> the Christian version, which performs miracles, reacts to prayers, etc.,
>>> and thus has a tangible impact, of some kind, has "testable" attributes.
>>
>> No, it doesn't - because the Bible /explicitly/ denies this testability,
>> saying we can't / shall not put God to the test. (And then there's
>> plenty of scripture that can be interpreted to implicitly affirm this.)
>>
> Well, no, in point of fact, only when it was "convenient" for..
> presumably the latest bunch of priests, dealing with some uppity
> parishioners, who wanted evidence, did it say that. There was some bit,
> I don't remember which part, where the guy did everything short of
> asking god to personal come down and buff his shoes, and god, quite
> happily, did them all, as "proof" that he really was god. Typically,
> believers pick the silly bit later, which says you shouldn't go around
> testing him, and gloss over the other earlier bit, where he was
> perfectly fine with it.

Well, what evidence do we have regarding the question of whether God can 
be tested for?

We have one piece of evidence identicating that we cannot.
We have one piece of evidence identicating that we can.

That's two pieces of evidence, certainly far too few to draw any 
reliable conclusions from them as to whether or not God can be tested 
for; the prudent thing to do would be to assume that we indeed cannot, 
and not bother trying. But let us just pretend that we're happy with the 
sample size - then we must conclude that there is only a 50% chance that 
God can be tested for (give or take approximately 50%, but we're 
ignoring that bit).

In other words, even if we could actually come up with an otherwise 
infallible test for the existence of God, we do have this 50% 
probability of error, leaving us no more than 50% confidence in our test 
result.

Worse yet: This systematic error in testing for the existance of God 
must be assumed to be of such a nature that it not only applies to any 
/individual/ test (which would still leave us with the possibility to 
just repeat our test often enough to increase our confidence), but to 
any /series/ of tests, and even any collection of entirely /different/ 
tests.

Thus, no matter how hard we try, how often we repeat our experiments, 
and how many different experiments we come up with - nothing will ever 
be able to give us a confidence of more than 50% in the result of all 
our testing.

That's not /anywhere/ close to the 95% confidence typically required in 
science for the label "statistically significant".


Thus:

- Presuming that there are less than 20 pieces of scripture in total 
making any explicit statements or providing anecdotal evidence about 
whether God can be put to the test or not, and

- Given that there is at least one piece of scripture explicitly saying 
that he cannot,

- We cannot ever, under any circumstances, conclusively test any 
predictions made by the hypothesis of the existence of the biblical God, 
disqualifying it as a scientific theory.


q.e.d.

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Am 20.01.2014 03:56, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/19/2014 5:20 PM, clipka wrote:
>> Am 19.01.2014 23:08, schrieb andrel:
>>
>>> I don't think I could base a morality on an agnostic point of view, so I
>>> stick to being an atheist if you don't mind.
>>
>> I actually find it pretty easy:
>>
>>
>> * I can't tell for sure whether there is a supreme something or not, or
>> what its nature is, and I suspect that it is impossible to known for
>> sure. Therefore, whatever my personal current belief on this matter may
>> be, it may be wrong.
>>

>> something, nor try to prove what its nature is, neither to yourself nor
>> to anyone else.
>>

>> believe in a supreme something or not, or what they believe its nature
>> to be.
>>

>> fear ponder alone or discuss in groups whether there is a supreme
>> something or not, or what its nature is, within the limits imposed by

>>

>> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
>> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits

>>
>>
>> I think these few rules, derived from what I consider the essence of the
>> agnostic point of view, make for a formidable set of fundamental ethics.
>>
>
> The problem, of course, is that the ones believing in supreme beings
> then tend to use that as justification for believing other vastly
> stupider things, and then imposing those things on other people. It this
> was avoidable, that would be one thing, but.. try being a woman, in a
> **huge**, and growing number, of US hospitals, who is in need to
> emergency services, to save her life, which the Catholic church doesn't
> like (i.e., anything that might threaten the life of an unborn child,
> even, stupidly, a non-viable one). If she is lucky, they ship her off to
> some place that will help, presuming there still is one, which the
> church hasn't bought out, and assuming she doesn't bleed to death, die
> of sepsis, or otherwise fail to make it to the other hospital in time.

Note that a person's current belief re a surpreme something will 
typically include that the person itself is entitled to "life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness" or some such. Thus, I consider this 




mathematical systems, but also to moral ones: No matter how complex your 
set of rules, there's always at least one remaining problem with it. 
Therefore I allow my set of moral rules to be incomplete, and its 
application to be subject to case-by-case decision.

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Am 20.01.2014 05:35, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 01:20:06 +0100, clipka wrote:
>
>> => §1.4: Allow yourself and anyone else to freely and without shame or
>> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
>> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits
>> imposed by §1.1 to §1.4 (sic!).
>
> You had me up to this point, and only not here in a nuanced way.
>
> I'm happy to let anyone follow any rules they derive from their personal
> and current belief, so long as they don't try to impose those on others
> ability to do the same - or if by doing so they put people in harm's way.

Hence the explicit limitation of §1.4 not only to the confines of §1.1 
to §1.3, but also of §1.4 itself.

> And also:  Texas Board of Education.  If the individuals want to cripple
> their own childrens' understanding of science and handicap them in the
> real world, that's less a decision I feel I should get involved in.  When
> they use their influence to cram religious dogma into the public schools
> in ways that affect the entire country - no, they're not permitted to do
> that.

And why do you feel like that?

I guess it's because it interferes with the rules you yourself derive 
from whatever world view you have - in this particular case it might be 
something like "strive to let future generations make educated, unbiased 
choices which religion or other world view to follow".

So, here's a conflict between what two people derive from their personal 
convictions, and consequently neither can claim the right to invoke §1.4 
- the matter needs to be settled on other, more specific moral rules, 
not derived from the generic agnostic point of view but from whatever 
flavor of it you lean towards.

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Am 20.01.2014 21:17, schrieb andrel:
> On 20-1-2014 1:20, clipka wrote:
>> Am 19.01.2014 23:08, schrieb andrel:
>>
>>> I don't think I could base a morality on an agnostic point of view, so I
>>> stick to being an atheist if you don't mind.
>>
>> I actually find it pretty easy:
>>
>>
>> * I can't tell for sure whether there is a supreme something or not, or
>> what its nature is, and I suspect that it is impossible to known for
>> sure.
>
> nitpicking: a true agnost is sure (s)he is not able to know. That is
> what distinguishes her/him from an ordinary person that simply does not
> know.

I'd consider myself a meta-agnostic: I /think/ I'm unable to know, but I 
don't know that either.

Regardless, even if I was sure about the inability to know, the rules 
derived from it would be the same.



>> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
>> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits


> I am afraid that I don't see how this helps in deciding what to do in

> follow that.

I think there's plenty of stuff that can be derived from this particular 
rule:

- Base the rules you follow on your personal and current belief, not on 
what you just happen to feel like doing. (In other words, avoid hypocrisy).

- Allow others to follow different rules, regardless what belief they 

others' rules are not hypocritical.)

- Avoid conflicts between your rules and that of others.


Another thing I find fundamentally important is the words "freely and 
without shame or fear", and applying them to everyone, including myself.



>> currently think the supreme something's nature is:
>>
>> * I believe (even though I can't prove it) that there is a supreme
>> something; I believe (even though I can't prove it) that hints about its
>> nature can be found scattered among all world views and all throughout
>> the universe, including science; I believe (even though I can't prove
>> it) that its nature is very witty and humorous, very forgiving (to such
>> an extent that the word is actually meaningless, because there is
>> nothing to forgive in the first place), and very benevolent.
>>

>> humorous, forgiving and benevolent, and leave the rest.
>>

>>
>>
>> Pretty much everything else in terms of moral springs from the
>> "commandment" to be forgiving and benevolent.
>
> Going for the roundabout way of trying to second guess what a god would
> want if it did exist does not appeal to me.


current belief is that there is no God, then by all means use that as a 
basis.

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On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 02:12:04 +0100, clipka wrote:

> Am 20.01.2014 05:35, schrieb Jim Henderson:
>> On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 01:20:06 +0100, clipka wrote:
>>
>>> => §1.4: Allow yourself and anyone else to freely and without shame or
>>> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current
>>> belief re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the
>>> limits imposed by §1.1 to §1.4 (sic!).
>>
>> You had me up to this point, and only not here in a nuanced way.
>>
>> I'm happy to let anyone follow any rules they derive from their
>> personal and current belief, so long as they don't try to impose those
>> on others ability to do the same - or if by doing so they put people in
>> harm's way.
> 
> Hence the explicit limitation of §1.4 not only to the confines of §1.1
> to §1.3, but also of §1.4 itself.

I guess I'm not seeing how this applies.

>> And also:  Texas Board of Education.  If the individuals want to
>> cripple their own childrens' understanding of science and handicap them
>> in the real world, that's less a decision I feel I should get involved
>> in.  When they use their influence to cram religious dogma into the
>> public schools in ways that affect the entire country - no, they're not
>> permitted to do that.
> 
> And why do you feel like that?

Because they're subverting both the first amendment to the US 
Constitution (which prohibits the government establishment of religion - 
and SCOTUS has found that pushing religious doctrine into classrooms 
violates the establishment clause), and because they are forcing their 
beliefs onto others and using the schools as a means to convert people to 
their beliefs.

And because creationism isn't science, and doesn't belong in science 
classrooms.  The only controversy about evolution is in the minds of 
people who don't understand it.  Rather than push an "alternate theory" 
because they don't understand evolution, they need to learn what the 
current state of evolutionary science is.

Amongst scientists who study evolution, there are few who think it's 
bunk.  But those scientists also very strongly contest that creationism 
is horseshit, and I tend to agree.

> I guess it's because it interferes with the rules you yourself derive
> from whatever world view you have - in this particular case it might be
> something like "strive to let future generations make educated, unbiased
> choices which religion or other world view to follow".

That's a good start.  I would certainly encourage parents to let their 
children figure out the path that's right for them, rather than 
indoctrinate them into their faith.  You can teach morals and ethics 
without steeping it in religious doctrine and dogma.

> So, here's a conflict between what two people derive from their personal
> convictions, and consequently neither can claim the right to invoke §1.4
> - the matter needs to be settled on other, more specific moral rules,
> not derived from the generic agnostic point of view but from whatever
> flavor of it you lean towards.

Ah, I think I understand that. :)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 21/01/2014 1:43 AM, clipka wrote:
> I'd consider myself a meta-agnostic: I /think/ I'm unable to know, but I
> don't know that either.

What would you call someone who has faith that there is no god?
Maybe not faith but sincerely hopes that there is not one.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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