If free will is synonymous with individuality, why not just call it individuality rather than free will? dunno, I really don't like using the word free will for anything, as it is a rather odd phrase and concept, my point was the man may actually have given a definition. Also you could simply invert your question "if individuality is synonymous with free will, why not just call it free will...individuality must have some other property not yet mentioned".
If free will is synonymous with individuality, why not just call it individuality rather than free will?
dunno, I really don't like using the word free will for anything, as it is a rather odd phrase and concept, my point was the man may actually have given a definition. Also you could simply invert your question "if individuality is synonymous with free will, why not just call it free will...individuality must have some other property not yet mentioned".
I agree, he did give a definition. The question is whether it was meaningful or coherent.
I disagree that you can invert the sentence in that manner. The point is that the meaning of individuality is not in dispute, if I use the word on this forum I have an extremely high expectation that my reader will comprehend me, and we will be able to accurately communicate. Whereas the term free will is at this moment in dispute, communication is not possible via that idiom. The question then becomes, if a term that IS in dispute is precisely synonymous with a term that IS NOT in dispute, it is quite plain that we should simply use the term that allows us all the most accurate communication and all agree to use the term individuality. The two possibilities now are:
1) We forget about using the term free will, it is redundant
2) The definition of free will as given is not sufficient, or incoherent.
If Mr Roemer is unwilling to swap to the term individuality then it must mean that number 2) is the truth of the situation.
William: How would you define subjective reality?
How would you define subjective reality?
What I alone experience, and what I assume that you alone experience.
William: And how would you look at that in relation to choice (or at least percieved choice)?
And how would you look at that in relation to choice (or at least percieved choice)?
Could you re-phrase that?
William: I guess the best definition of the law of identity may be "a thing which can define itself and that can contextualize the world around it".
I guess the best definition of the law of identity may be "a thing which can define itself and that can contextualize the world around it".
Are you sure that's how most people use that phrase ("the law of identity")?
William: Also, how can you find causal relationships between things or categorize different things (e.g. a circle from a square) without a thing being what it is? How can something be not be what it is?
Also, how can you find causal relationships between things or categorize different things (e.g. a circle from a square) without a thing being what it is? How can something be not be what it is?
But what would it even mean for "a thing to be what it is"?
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
The word "choice" means something in economic language e.g. public choice theory
out of time for the night
EDIT: deleted confuing statement
John Ess:The meaning of 'liberal' , for most, changed when FDR started talking about there being a new type of liberalism when he passed the New Deal. That is in response to the defects of capitalism, in his estimation and many others', that caused the great depression. This is why he couched his rhetoric in terms of 'freedom' (ie: the 4 freedoms he outlined): freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of worship, and freedom of speech. This is why it is different than a millenarian or revolutionary stance. It is really trying to strengthen old liberalism through state intervention, as a reaction to what is perceived to be an impediment to liberalism in so-called private avarice. Even Kennedy had the same philosophy: we have to have government that doesn't make bloody revolution necessary. New liberalism isn't so much a remaking of the world, as a maintainence of the status quo through government intervention where necessary to make administration of things more to their liking. It has nothing to do with animals or God or whatever else. That is nonsense; or trying to fit everything together simplistically.
New liberalism isn't so much a remaking of the world, as a maintainence of the status quo through government intervention where necessary to make administration of things more to their liking.
It has nothing to do with animals or God or whatever else. That is nonsense; or trying to fit everything together simplistically.
FDR wasn't the first liberal to think in those terms. George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells were members of the National Liberal Club long before that. Of course they were both Fabian socialists and founders of the London School of Economics.
Being a liberal certainly does have to do with believing in God. A liberal is someone who thinks believing in God is irrational. The question is whether or not this theory about liberalism is true. Saying the theory is simplistic does not shed any light on the matter. What will shed light on the matter is naming a liberal who is not against religion. What will also shed light on the matter is showing that it is not irrational to think religion is irrational.
David Roemer
Edmund Burke, but I don't think it matters what anyone says to you
You make a very good point there. But don't deists believe in God? Weren't a lot of liberals also deists? Deism isn't necessarily anti-religion, it just does not find it to be necessary in order to believe in God.
William:Edmund Burke, but I don't think it matters what anyone says to you
I think what he's saying is that Burke didn't call himself a liberal. Burke attacked liberalism.
David Roemer:A liberal is someone who thinks believing in God is irrational.
That's not liberalism, that's atheism.
You're like the Marxists who called "bourgeois" anything they didn't like. Perhaps you've been mired in mainstream conservatism all your life, so you've come to inchoately think of "liberal" as a synonym for "bad", and thus you identify the essence of "liberalism" with the thing you consider "most bad": atheism.
There are two usages of the term "liberal" that are conducive to any kind of clear communication. There is the presently most widespread one, which refers to a complex of opinions that include, among other things, economic interventionism and a certain strain of multiculturalism. And there is the classic laissez-faire one. Neither is in anyway essentially atheistic. There are plenty of economic interventionist/multiculturalist theists, and there are plenty of laissez-faire theists.
If you have a beef with atheism, challenge atheism, and call it by its least confusing name. Stop sowing confusion by trying to impose your awkward and idiosyncratic definition of "liberalism" on the conversation.
To be fair, in his essay, he calls it atheistic humanism, whether it comes from Herbert Spencer or Karl Marx.
(By the way, the Marxists also label as "liberal" whatever they don't like, no?)
Mr. Roemer, there is something on my mind, which I think you'll be well equipped to answer. On the internet, one unfortunately finds many "white supremacists". Sometimes, they do not like being called so and they say they are not racist, but they admittedly claim an adherence to racialist and materialist views. They will say that the "European gene" produced Mozart and Bach and that Mozart and Bach could only have been European. On the other hand, we sometimes hear from pious Christians that human talent is a manifestation of God's all encompassing power, whether it comes as Mozart's music or da Vinci's paintings. And pious Christians also say that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, so they cite Nebuchaddarezzar, who believed his kingdom was the most powerful in the world and could challenge anything else, until he became ill and virtually animalistic, thus hurting his people's belief in their racial supremacy.
So what I wanted to ask was this: Could racialist materialists (who claim to be Christian) really be considered Christians or are they ultimately another kind of "atheistic humanist"?
David Roemer:Choose is another word for decide which has to do with free will.
So the term "free will" refers to something to do with making choices. That's still not a definition.
No one but you has any way of knowing what is in your mind when you type the characters [f], [r], [e], [e], [space], [w], [i], [l], [l]. A lot of people have typed that string of characters in the past, and they have meant many different things by it. What do you mean by it?
Why anarchy fails
William,
JohnnyFive's reply is basically what I would have replied.
But also, what's this "law of identity," "A = A," "a thing can't not be what it is" stuff? It sounds like it has to do with diction, but is it an attempt to elucidate verbal statements or is it just wordplay?
I am really at a loss on this. My mind is a bit boggled at the moment (the ouzo isn't helping), but I never really "bought" or understood the Wittgenstein argument on this in Tractus, which I think has always caused a little dissonance in me, and the proposition seems self evident to me.
I think the best way I can phrase it is two fold:
1) That what claims itself is itself (so we are talking about subjective reality), that which it defines is what it defines. It isn't so much word play to me as it is stating the fact of ontological egoism. Which is important when we talk about how things come about
2) If I say "this is red" and show something red, and you "get it" could I also not say "this is itself" and keep pointing to something ad infinitum with infinite divisions and it be understood?
Danny Sanchez:There are two usages of the term "liberal" that are conducive to any kind of clear communication. There is the presently most widespread one, which refers to a complex of opinions that include, among other things, economic interventionism and a certain strain of multiculturalism. And there is the classic laissez-faire one. Neither is in anyway essentially atheistic. There are plenty of economic interventionist/multiculturalist theists, and there are plenty of laissez-faire theists.
I wouldn't say that the 'progressive' usage of the term liberal is more widespread. It is only used in some parts of the United States, for less than a century and only in some narrow uses. Everywhere else in the world liberal still means laissez-faire, and even in the United States the term is still used in that meaning in most uses. For example in expressions like social liberalism or when saying that "fascism was anti-liberal".
I tried, but I can't seem to understand any single one of the sentences in 1 or 2. Just not sure how to parse the grammar / what the words are referring to. (Maybe it's the ouzo? )
Well, I'm off to bed. Maybe sleeping on it will help clarify my position.
OK I lied, one more post. Was there ever a point where you thought that proposition made sense, and if so what made you think otherwise?
"A = A" makes sense, but it seems to be a trivial tautology. Actually I can phrase that better; see here.
Here Liberal Vichy / Vichy Army defines ontological egoism as the view that "value subjectivism is a necessary fact." If I take that to mean that all value is subjective, I would agree, but I still don't know what you're saying (as in, I have utterly no clue at this point).
Deists admit that God exists, however, they don't believe in revealed religion. They don't believe in life after death. Many deists keep their lack of faith to themselves and give religion to their children. A liberal is someone who thinks they are more "enlightened" than people who believe in the Bible and the Koran. Such people want their children to think the same way, so they deceive their children about God's existence and the persuasiveness of the reasons to believe.
Of course A=A does not apply to our use of language, where A does not equal A can be perfectly correct. So for example if you say grass=grass, you may be saying either:
1) The green stuff that grows on lawns = the green stuff that grows on lawns
2) The green stuff that grows on lawns = cannabis
3) Cannabis = cannabis
Does A=A imply ontological individualism? Tautologies are capable of imparting knowledge about the external world, only if they are complex enough that their implications cannot be readily seen. Many of the laws of mathematics come under this category. However as A=A is quite obviously simply enough that even young children know it (implicitly/tacitly) then I do not see how it could be capable of saying anything worthwhile.
^ I'll echo that sentiment.
Are there any liberals who are not against religion? I put forth this question in an earlier post and the only answer I got was Edmund Burke. I also checked up on Milton Friedman. He was religious as a child, but gave up religion "altogether." My guess is that he did not give his children religion. While he was in favor of the free market, he did not understand economics.
The terms theism and atheism are not meaningful. We know that God exists from metaphysics. There is no need to make a decision about God's existence, just as there is no need to decide whether humans are responsible for their actions. The only decision that has to be made is whether God has communicated himself to mankind.
Liberalism was a political movement that began with Machiavelli and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Liberals are the people who participated in the movement. David Hume, John Locke, Herbert Spencer, and Karl Marx participated in that movement. What made them liberals? What did they have in common? This is the question my essay answers. David Hume, by the way, was the one who invented the "Who made God?" argument against God's existence. John Locke said we could never be sure a miracle happened.
There came a time when the likes of John Locke stopped advocating small government and became communists. This occurred because advocating laissez faire stopped satisfying their emotional needs.
Let me try this from another angle: You've said God is an infinite being. What does it mean for a being to be "infinite"?
Ah, I see, so those who profess to not believe in god are simply lying, because it is metaphysically impossible to not believe in god. Isn't that quite the rhetorical trick... Your opponent can't even argue his position, because he first has to argue that he actually can believe his position.
Theist liberals: A.R.J. Turgot, Frederic Bastiat, Lord Acton, Samuel Gorton, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, not to mention a huge number of contemporary scholars with the Mises Institute, the Acton Institute, and other organizations.
"Liberalism was a political movement that began with Machiavelli and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Liberals are the people who participated in the movement."
Only according to your pet definition, which again can only serve to confuse. If you won't use "atheism" for the lame reason you cite above, use "secular humanism".
There are two ways to explain the concept of an infinite being:
1) You exist and I exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are two different beings. In other words we are finite beings. An infinite being is not finite.
2) A finite being is a metaphysical composition of two incomplete beings: essence and existence. The essence of a finite being limits its existence. An infinite being is a pure act of existence: existence with no limiting essence.
A better term for people who have contempt for religion is humanist. Humanists believe we should serve mankind, rather than God. The adjective secular is attached by religious people because calling someone a humanist sounds like a compliment. Another reason for the adjective is that there are so-called religions, like Reconstructionist Judaism, that are humanistic. We can call these people religious humanists.
Some people are in favor of displaying the Ten Commandments (conservatives) in court houses and some are not (liberals). My point is that liberals are humanists. Conservatives are mistaken in thinking of liberals as being for big government. They are now for big government, but in the 19th century they were in favor of small government.
I'm afraid I still don't understand what those words refer to in (1) and (2).
David Roemer: A better term for people who have contempt for religion is humanist. Humanists believe we should serve mankind, rather than God. The adjective secular is attached by religious people because calling someone a humanist sounds like a compliment. Another reason for the adjective is that there are so-called religions, like Reconstructionist Judaism, that are humanistic. We can call these people religious humanists.
No, "secular" was historically appended to "humanism" so as to distinguish it from the earlier Christian Humanist tradition of More and Erasmus.
The humanism of Erasmus was a reference to his interest in Greek philosophy and other intellectual pursuits. I don't know when the word started to be used to describe people who believed in serving mankind.
David Roemer:Liberals think of themselves as being intellectually superior to people of faith. This lack of integrity and immaturity makes them prone to political fanaticism.
David Roemer:My point is that liberals are humanists.
David Roemer:Humanists believe we should serve mankind,
Political fanatics such as fascists and communists are serving mankind?
My personal view of God is that it is an emotional reaction, quite similar to fear. If a wolf jumps out from behind a bush you react without conscious thought, your adrenaline rushes and you tense up, and so forth. God is an emotional reaction to the human condition but played out over a longer time frame. The adrenaline rush and muscle tensing helps us cope with the wolf, and the concept of God helps us cope with the incomprehensibilty of the universe, life and death. Both reactions are advantageous in some respects, the fear reaction helps you stay alive, and the God reaction brings psychological comfort and perhaps belonging.
The attempt to 'reason' the emotion ex-post, is a painful experience to watch and a massive waste of time for all concerned.
The way we cope with the "incomprehensibility of the universe" is to assume that the universe is not incomprehensible. The reason science developed in the West and not the East is that Western philosophers believed God created the universe. Hence, the universe is intelligible and it makes sense to try to understand it.
The Chinese, by contrast, were just as advanced as the West in technology. But they were not interested in science because they felt that the universe was not intelligible.
Political fanatics think they are serving mankind. I don't think any members of the Communist Party in America got rich:
According to a well-known remark attributed to G. K. Chesterton, "When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything." But this was not true of the Jewish immigrants who came to America from Eastern Europe. Almost all of the young intellectuals and political leaders among them had stopped believing in the God of Judaism, but it was not "anything" they now believed in—it was Marxism. (Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals?, New York: Random House, 2009, p. 280)
By incomprehensibility of the universe I simply meant that although parts of our universe are comprehensible, the REALLY BIG questions are not at the moment comprehensible, and may never be. The human race may become extinct in a billion years time without our species ever being able to answer all of the questions raised by the human intellect. In fact it would be reasonable to assume that if we are able to answer the unanswerable questions currently in debate, it will result in a further set of questions that no one at the present has even considered asking.
The point of all this is to say that I am quite able to accept that the human intellect has limits, your emotional need for certainty/comfort/belonging or whatever leads you to fill in the blank in an arbitrary manner by conjuring up God. After the concept is conjured up you then attempt to rationalise it, and enter into the pretence that it was rationality that led you to the concept in the first place.
It may also be worth considering why you feel the need to make yourself impossible to understand. Just look back for a moment at the way you have strung ambiguous concepts together, essence, free will, existence, being, infinite.. in such a way that your sentences could mean practically anything, or practically nothing. I could be wrong, but I have the feeling that you have never really thought deeply about each of these words and whether they correspond to anything in reality, or whether they are simply fulfilling the role of allowing you to hide behind them and preventing you from being 'found out.'
It is quite true that one of the reasons I believe in God is to satisfy my emotional needs. Since God is the author of mankind and revelation, it makes sense that humans have an emotional need for a meaningful life.
It is also quite true that the fundamental categories of metaphysics may not have any content. The proof that an infinite being exists is based on the assumption that the universe is intelligible and that it is meaningful to talk about being, essence, existence, reason, finitude, free will etc. These concepts may have no content.
Most humanist/liberals do not make this point. What they say is that you can't prove that God exists. They say that the proof of God's existence is logically flawed. Richard Dawkins, for example, uses the "Who made God" argument. Karen Armstrong ridicules the 5 ways of Thomas Aquinas without mentioning the work done by Etienne Gilson in making the proof more rigorous and clear.
I believe in God. I believe however that God exists in a realm outside of logic. I accept that this position is illogical and nonesensical, and as such I accept the fact that I have no argument to defend myself with(I don't care to waste time trying to defend myself). I believe any attempt to justify God's existence by way of logic is a fallacy and violates the concept of faith.(Consequently I take issue with most naive theists). I am happy to agree to disagree with everyone, and I care not to dispute the point to anyone. Do you think I am reacting in fear Jhonny? Unreasonable? Absolutely. But how fear?
It's odd because I never imagined myself as a fearful person, I doubt those close to me would describe me in such a way!
I tend to ignore theists who waste their time rambling on such issues on public forums, a naive belief that they are bravely out to save the world. I believe there are more productive ways to spend your time, especially if the intent is to "save" or "help" man kind. Learn economics for example, seek entrepreneurship, see the world through the eyes of a producer, an inherent servent.
Any how it's been a several beers coming, and this is likely the most religious talk you'll ever get from me!
As religion would appear to be a near universal activity/trait/belief within human society I have to assume that it is caused by another more basic human trait. As religion seems at its base to be an explanation of the unknown I have to assume that the cause of religion is fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown is of course an extremely useful trait in an evolutionary sense, it's perfectly reasonable.
Religious faith is a positive response to revelation. It is both a decision and a gift from God. The existence of God is not a matter of faith, but of reason.
Many people assume that God does not exist because they were taught that by people they trust and admire. They forget that their beloved teachers are the same people that caused the horrors of the twentieth century. Woodrow Wilson, for example, was a Darwinist and a racist. It is naive to trust someone like him or those who admire him.
David, lets just make a few things clear:
Your logical proof of the divine is that our universe requires some kind of "Prime Mover" to get things started, some, as you put it, "infinite being". This has many problems, because we don't know enough about the structure of our universe, the nature of human conciousness, or the laws of physics to make such a statement that it is a priori that this infinite being exists. For the purposes of discussion though, lets say that your definition of "God" exists.
Please then, explain, how it logically follows that we know that:
You're couching your entire arguement on the somewhat flawed but respectable position that "Creation requires a creator", but then making all these logical leaps and tacking on thing revealed through "revalation", and justifying them with your original logical proof of God. Your reasons thus far have consisted of the repetition of two arguments: "Historical events" and "People give bad reasons". Put very simply, your entire point is one of these: