PhilosophicalJay

Question 1: What should be the default rules for AI in Debate Arguments?

Option 3: A middle ground

Prohibited from copying and pasting directly, but permitted to research, review, find sources, simulate rebuttals, etc.

While I am not the biggest fan of AI in debates, I do think that this is fair enough. The issue is when people exclusively use AI for research, finding sources, etc., but it would be hard to regulate any sort of blanket ban.

Question 2: What should be the punishment for violating AI rules?

Option 2: Progressive punishment

Frist offense warning; second offense 3 day ban; fourth offense 30 day ban; 5th offense 6 month ban, etc.

Again, this is fair.

Question 3: How should we moderate AI VOTES

Option 1: Complete prohibition

Question 3 How should we punish voting violation?

AI voting should be instant ban of voting privileges.

Question 4: Should we allow debaters to change the default rules?

Yes. Debaters should be able to specify harsher or laxer rules in regards to AI usage within the debate. If a debater disagrees, they can choose not to accept the debate and negotiate changing those rules in the comments before accepting.

Even if you don't agree, maybe don't misrepresent me in the future like you did when replying to Debby

When it say Zeus rapes women, but he doesn't actually rape women. Sounds like saying they asked for it. Imagine that.

That isn't even close to what I was saying. At this point I am al.ost convinced you are purposely misrepresenting me, so let me try this one more time.

I am saying that the myths are just stories where the Gods appear as characters, but that they include elements not true to history, the Gods, etc.

Not that different than people can tell stories about Abraham Lincoln as a Vampire Hunter.

Was/is Lincoln actually a vampire hunter? Of course not.

Same with Zeus. There are stories of him raping people, but did the actual Zeus, the God that exists, do those things? No.

The Gods are Good. It isn't that what they do is good so if Zeus raped someone then it wasn't evil when he did it, it is that the Gods are good and thus don't do evil, which means Zeus, being good, didn't rape anyone.

Yes, Zeus in some myths did rape people, but those events were the invention of the poets. You wouldn't read Percy Jackson and say that what the Gods do in those books are what the actual Gods have done/do in real life, that same standard should be applied to the ancient myths.

And this way of viewing the Gods, the myths, etc. was normal in ancient Greece and Rome.

Please tell me you finally understand the point I was making, because I genuinely don't know how to simplify it any more than I have.

Rape, whether done by a god or not is a bad thing.

I agree, rape is bad. So what? That doesn't address anything I actually said.

And there is nothing poetic about it.

No idea what point you even think you are addressing with this.

I will not excuse behavior like that from any being just because they might be a deity or they might be more powerful astraly than me.

Okay, and? You literally are arguing with points I never made. Try actually reading what I said, not just creating a straw man to attack instead of putting in the effort to read.

How am I excusing bad behavior? I am not saying Zeus raped people and is Good, or that Zeus is good despite having raped people, or even that what Zeus did isn't rape for reason X, Y, Z.

I am saying that it just didn't actually happen, that you are conflating mythology with religion too much, that Zeus engaging in such acts is poetic invention.

How is that "excusing bad behavior"? That accusation only makes sense if you think it is absolute fact that Zeus raped people, but I showed how such a view wasn't even really taken seriously even in ancient Greece and Rome.

Your opinion the gods are one does not have to be shared.

Also, I don't know what you mean by me saying the Gods are one.

I am neither a monotheist nor a soft polytheist, the Gods are many.

I don't know why you seem to suggest I think otherwise.

To expand on this, Cicero when talking about the nature of the Gods never even considers the view of mythic literalism as anything serious, not even to simply dismiss it. It was so far from his thoughts that he basically ignored the possibility that it would be considered by those reading his works.

Sallust, whose work On the Gods and the World was essentially a primer meant for the broadest possible audience (rather than an in depth analysis meant for the highly educated) even says that it is requisite for people coming to the Gods to not have been nourished with foolish opinions and that they need to have common sense, and part of that common sense is that the Gods are Good.

Plato, Aristotle, Xenophanes, etc., are philosophers that all talk about the Gods being good. The idea that the Gods were flawed, that they might rape people, etc. was so ingrained in public consciousness that even poets would include nods to it in their works sometimes (“For my part, I do not believe that the gods indulge in unholy unions; and as for putting bonds on hands, I have never thought that worthy of belief, nor will I now be so persuaded, nor again that one god is naturally lord and master of another. For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable tales of the poets.” Herakles, Euripides).

In fact, when you look at the texts, hymns, etc. that portray the actual practiced religion, not merely the stories and myths told for entertainment and to impart lessons, it is so prevalent that the Gods are good that even modern scholarship admits such. See HS Versnel Coping with the Gods and Jon D Mikalson Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy for two prominent examples.

Such mythic literalism wasn't even common in Ancient Greece or Rome. The view that Zeus is a rapist isn't even logical, let alone something people ever actually believed (with maybe some exceptions among the least educated rural populations).

The idea that such characterizations were anything but inventions of the poets for the purposes of telling stories was mostly popularized by early Christians as a means of attacking and criticizing the pagan beliefs and Gods.

Kinda sad to see someone calling themselves "Polytheistwitch" parroting those talking points.

If you think Zeus is good because he rapes women

Again, myths are stories, not necessarily accurate reflections of the Gods. Zeus does not rape people, that is just a characterization he is given in various myths, but not an accurate reflection of his true nature.

And which creation god are you giving credit of the Earth to?

Why should I limit it to a singular God? Reality emanates from all the Gods, they all participate and can act as the metaphysical "center".

What makes something immoral, is that it violates another. You can't do that without a body.

I disagree with your concept of morality, but even granting it, why wouldn't you be able to "violate" another without a body? Or a better question might first be to ask what you mean by "violate"

Because the gods are rarely moral themselves

Very strong disagree there. The Gods are Good.

Sure, myths will portray them as flawed beings, but mythic representations of the Gods are not there to accurately portray the nature of the Gods, the Gods are given flaws for the sake of the story and lessons being told/imparted.

gods don't deter immorality

Even if I grant that, I don't see why that means they have nothing to do with morality? The Gods created the world and helped direct its development, which includes our own development.

While we are flawed and imperfect beings due to the nature of physical existence, humans evolved to generally find things like murder to be immoral (as one example). While cultural elements can influence how we interpret our base moral intuitions, the most foundational moral intuitions humans generally have seem to be aligned with the Good.

If the Gods played a role in our development, then that means they played a role in our moral intuitions as well.

once you lose your body, morality is no longer a thing. So once you're on the same plane of existence is the gods, morality isn't even a factor.

Why would morality stop being a thing absent the physical world?

Gods have little to do with morality. Most behavior that listed as acceptable in myths is more to explain tabboos and appropiate offerings in that religion.

I agree that myths are, by and large, stories meant to convey lessons, and thus can be useful for understanding taboos, norms, etc., but why do you say that "Gods have little to do with morality"?

Great, but I asked for the logic behind the ethical system, not merely a singular command.

Good job, you failed to actually answer my questions!

Really now? What logic is employed to argue for moral realism within the Bible? What means do we have to understand what is good or not in the Bible (not just what it says is good or not, but the method to employ for cases that aren't strictly commented on)? Etc.

Really depends on how familiar you are with the philosophical discourse, but I'd personally say to start with After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre.

The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism by Terence Cueno is really good, but probably the last of the 4 you should read. It does an excellent job arguing for normative moral facts by employing a companions in guilt argument with normative epistemic facts, and is one of the big hitters within more academic circles for that reason, but it is the other works that really lay the groundworks for moral realism.

I'm a reluctant moral relativist, I suppose. I would like to be persuaded that morality is more than how good society happens to be at the time.

I would probably have to reread and review things before ever being comfortable debating the topic, but, imo, the absolute best case for moral realism comes from reading the following 4 books:

After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre

On Virtue Ethics by Rosalind Guesthouse

The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism by Terence Cueno

Moral Realism: A Defence by Russ Shafer-Landau

It was reading those books while talking with a friend that was a grad student for metaethics that ultimately convinced me of moral realism. I have been intending to buy them (as unread them by borrowing them before) and reread them, but if you are interested in the topic then this is probably a good place to start.

I mean, if you use that broad a definition for religion then almost anything can be called a religion.

But is atheism a belief system (with emphasis on the word system)? That would depend on how you define both system and atheism.

But I ultimately think that with as broad a definition of "religion" that you are using, that it the entire argument is meaningless to begin with.

On Desktop, when you are in /forum you can see the timestamp for the last comment in a thread (this thread for instance says Last Comment 4 minutes ago). When in the specific category, you only can see the name (under Last Post it just says Mikal).

I'd say that having the timestamp always there would be more helpful.

Eh, I say that you are underappreciating psychological impacts in regards to belief. People can have very strong beliefs yet still, due to emotional and group reasons, change their beliefs despite their convictions. This is especially the case with loneliness, as we are a very social species and better thrive when part of a group. There are always exceptions, and I feel as if a lot of people whose mentality falls under that "exception" are the lifelong pagans we currently have, but if a religion cannot "throw a wide net", then what growth will there actually be?

Honestly, AI religion is super weird. I do find it funny that one of the top atheist mods of both the debatereligion and debateanatheist subreddits got super into AI worship and building an AI God

I find emotivism to be interesting and can understand why some people find it convincing. The idea that ethical statements are mere expressions of emotional states in regards to certain actions, states of being, etc. can seem convincing, and I find that it is somewhat useful in understanding why people might have the moral intuitions they have (though I find it too simplistic).

How do you define religion?

I would say atheism is a religious position, but whether it constitutes a religion is heavily dependent on how you define the term.

Trump did not pardon Jizzlaine Maxwell, at least not yet.

And as much as I despise it, I actually can see a reason why a pardon might be issued.

Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 agreement with prosecutors included immunity for Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, Nadia Marcinkova and "any potential co-conspirators."

Which Ghislaine would be counted among.

So, it becomes a question on if that deal should have been extended to Ghislaine and, if so, will she go free?

If it should have been but they choose to keep her locked up, I can see an argument for a pardon.

I despise it entirely, that deal Epstein made is disgusting and whoever agreed to allow such broad immunity should be investigated (at worst), but the dumbasses in our government actually made such a mess that pardoning the POS that belongs 6-feet under actually might make sense.

But if he does actually pardon her, I want to know exactly why. I want watchdogs, whistleblowers, everything going as deep as possible to figure it out. If it ends up being because it was the only way the immunity deal would actually be honored, then I will hate it but understand it. Any other reason, and I will be pissed.

Ultimately though, I will be unsurprised. To quote Douglas Adams,

"It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

The last thing pagans and polytheists need is to become more like standard religions.

I'd say that depends on what constitutes "more like standard religions".

I mentioned Steven Dillon, and that was for a reason. If you have ever heard his interviews after converting to Christianity, it is clear that he holds that logic still points to polytheism but he simply takes Christianity as true as an axiom moving forward.

All because a religious experience that came to him at a moment of loneliness and isolation that is all to common in pagan communities, which just happened to be interpreted in such a way to allow him to have connection, community, etc. that he was craving.

His religious views were initially influenced towards polytheism because of a religious experience with Asclepius combined with logic and rational arguments, and only reinforced over the years.

It is clear that the lack of a strong, real world community is a significant part of what ultimately led to him becoming Christian. And that is not a unique story to him, it is just more significant since he was one of a very small handful of polytheists that actually engaged with philosophy and made philosophical arguments for polytheism. If such a lack of a strong, real world community can cause someone like him to ultimately convert to Christianity, then that should be a warning that that is an important part of religion that we are missing and need to address.

This is more a discussion for/about various pagan religions in the west, but I welcome the perspective of others as well.

The internet has done much to spread knowledge of smaller religions, but how effective has it made these religions spread? Is there a “cap” to the growth of these religions?

I think that there very much is. While we have online communities, we have almost no communities in real life. It is lonely, and even Steven Dillon (who was one of the few prolific defenders of polytheism) says that that loneliness is one of the elements that led to his conversion to Christianity, though he does put the major emphasis on his religious experience.

We also tend to lack a unity in structure. So many online communities emphasize a big tent philosophy, welcoming people of every tradition. Even when you get more dedicated communities to a “single tradition”, often there is such a fear of gatekeeping that eclecticism becomes prominent to the point that there is still no real unity of belief and practice. Often you will find people new to a faith ask questions and be unable to get clear answers in the same way a new convert to Christianity, Islam, Shintoism, etc. might get. I have personally seen this cause many people to feel lost and ultimately give up.

The sad reality is that the communities we are building are not effective at having substantial growth, at keeping people in the religion, etc. Gatekeeping is not a bad word, having a stricter structure does not mean imposing a strict orthodoxy onto an orthopraxic religion (though scholarship increasingly suggests the ideas are less divorced from each other than many pagans would like to otherwise belief), etc.

People say that the issue is that we do not have temples to go to, but did Christianity only spread to places that already had churches? No, they met at people's homes until such a time a church could be established. If we wish to see real growth in our various faiths, we need to do the same. Have regular and consistent meetings, hosted either at parks, homes, etc. Stop being so big tent all the time and not be afraid to "gatekeep". Be able to help new people understand the religion and provide resources, hold discussions, etc.

If these are not implemented, then the various polytheistic faiths will slowly die out. Heathens, in various locations, have already been doing some of these things. I have been a guest at a Blot before, a guest to a group that regularly has them. It is thanks to practices like that that Heathenry has been growing. Other faiths under the umbrella need to start doing the same.

Oh, I agree, idealized Capitalism is better than idealized Communism & Capitalism in practice is better than Communism in practice.

This discussion is more oriented towards provoking thoughtful discussion among those that might not have conceived of the idea that, much like people talk about “real Communism”, that there could be a Capitalist equivalent and to then discuss how “real Capitalism” might enter into the discussion/debate.

More an intersection between politics and philosophy, but the question of discussion is on whether “real Capitalism” has ever actually been tried or if all examples are subpar/failed Capitalist systems?

This is, in a way, an extension of the idea many Communists have that “real Communism” has not yet been tried and that all failed Communist nations were no “real Communism”.

But could not the same thing be stated of Capitalism?

Just as there is a Communism that exists in theory, on paper, could one not say the same of Capitalism? In that case, comparing the ideal Communis, the so-called “real Communism” to actual Capitalism would be an apples to oranges situation.

This is, ultimately, the point argued by Jason Brendon in his works, including his book Why Not Capitalism? (which is a response to the book Why Not Socialism?). Great book that I highly recommend.

Aristotle was a Greek geezer.

Okay?

morality was/is an evolved preferential state of coexistence

Seems like a big claim to boil it down to mere preference. What justification do you have for this view?

I think that whether or not morality requires God(s) is heavily dependent on what system of morality you are saying exists.

I believe that Aristotelian Virtue Ethics is likely correct, and I find that there isn't anything that necessarily indicates that telos necessarily relies on the existence of the God(s). I know some that hold to a naturalistic view of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics with an evolutionary slant when it comes to the human telos (and thus morality).

But I do think that, given the nature of what morality is under an Aristotelian system, that one could possibly argue that our telos, and thus morality, being as kind and one that does not necessitate suffering could be better explained by it ultimately emanating from the One, and thus the Good (combining Aristotle's ethics with a more Platonic ontology and metaphysics), rather than being entirely coincidental due to naturalism.

But, ultimately, I would agree that Aristotelian Virtue Ethics could exist whether or not theism is true, thus morality does not require God(s).

Philosophical Jay.

On DDO I went by SNP1.

On DART I went by TheMorningsStar

Wasn't very active on either platform, not sure how active I will be here.

I checked back in on how things were on DART pretty much right before the shutdown and was able to learn about the discord and this new site thanks to wylted.