How exactly would deregulation stop drug makers from abusing the patent process? Doesn't their ability to nickel and dime it mean we need more regulation? You're not radically proposing doing away with patents are ya?
How exactly would deregulation stop drug makers from abusing the patent process? Doesn't their ability to nickel and dime it mean we need more regulation? You're not radically proposing doing away with patents are ya?
See above
You guys do realize there's a vast difference from nobody working and being completely required to work or else starve? That's where legislation that actually helps people comes in even if they are still by and large working.
Also I'm not down playing needing to work. But I am saying it's not right to call it freedom like conservatives say. And again government can help. The horror, amiright??
What you call yourself and the way you describe your beliefs above, are polar opposites, still
.....
Why do you call yourself a fascist? Those guys are right wing. With these views, you are literally a communist or socialist.
But as in all areas of life, you are obviously very confused
"I can't believe people think having to work for basic needs is synonymous with freedom. It's literally a bunch of rich people hoarding essential resources and telling us to serve them or die."
I shouldn't have said for ordained as we have freewill. I should have said God allows evil and suffering to bring about good. Jesus said the man born blind nor anyone else did anything wrong but it will bring glory to God when he sees again someday. Evil and suffering would be bad, but with our free will and God's power we can turn a bad thing into a good thing
Whereas you believe that God watches evil and is unwilling or unable to stop it
We are not the same
We could always use more supply and that'd help drive down costs
But aren't tax cuts an inefficient blunt tool? What does it do? If Microsoft gets a tax cut they just buy back stocks and drive up stocks and bank accounts. If anything that could drive up demand and costs just as much as it might help drive u p supply.
So wait, you for real think giving tax cuts to the wealthy would make life more affordable for everyone else?
Giving more tax cuts to the wealthy?
Yeah leftists have a lot of interventions to try to make life more affordable. Some r good ideas and some are not.
But what are the rights solutions? It seems as far as I can tell is do nothing and hope somehow the economy that is making things worse will just magically get better. Or to the extent that I see solution attempts it's just throwing money at rich people. As if that'd fix anything
This critique is rhetorically sharp because it targets a real tension in Christian theology: if eternal conscious torment is the central fate awaiting most of humanity, why is the biblical communication so indirect, uneven, symbolic, and historically layered?
A few things make the argument powerful:
* The Hebrew Bible really does focus overwhelmingly on death, Sheol, exile, covenant, justice, and national restoration rather than detailed descriptions of eternal torment.
* Jesus’ use of “Gehenna” is historically tied to a real valley outside Jerusalem, which creates interpretive ambiguity.
* Paul the Apostle does not give systematic descriptions of hell the way later theology often does.
* Book of Revelation is highly symbolic literature, full of imagery that virtually all Christians already interpret selectively.
So the critique isn’t frivolous. It presses an important hermeneutical question:
If a doctrine is essential and obvious, why is it not presented with repeated clarity across the entire canon?
That said, defenders of traditional Christianity would respond in several ways.
First, they would argue the Bible often reveals doctrines progressively rather than all at once. For example:
* resurrection becomes clearer later in the Hebrew tradition,
* the Messiah concept develops over time,
* Trinitarian theology is not fully explicit early on either.
So they would say: “absence of early detailed revelation does not imply falsity.”
Second, many Christians would dispute the claim that hell is absent from Judaism. They’d point to:
* later Second Temple Jewish writings,
* Daniel 12,
* intertestamental literature,
* Pharisaic beliefs about judgment.
Third, traditionalists would argue Jesus spoke about final judgment constantly, even if not in later medieval categories. They’d cite:
* “outer darkness,”
* “weeping and gnashing of teeth,”
* separation of sheep and goats,
* destruction/perishing language,
* unquenchable fire imagery.
But the deeper issue beneath Martin’s critique is not merely textual. It is moral and existential.
He is really asking:
Would a loving and rational God communicate the most catastrophic truth in history this ambiguously?
That question is one reason many Christians have moved toward:
* annihilationism,
* hopeful universalism,
* metaphorical interpretations,
* Eastern Christian views emphasizing union/separation from divine love rather than torture imagery.
For example, many within Eastern Orthodox Church have historically emphasized that heaven and hell are less “places” than differing experiences of God’s presence.
The critique also exposes how much later Christian imagination was shaped by sources outside scripture:
* medieval art,
* Inferno,
* Greco-Roman imagery,
* popular preaching traditions.
Many people unconsciously treat those later developments as though they were plainly taught everywhere in the Bible.
At the same time, a traditional Christian could still reply:
“The seriousness of judgment does not require modern-style systematic clarity. Much of life’s deepest truths are communicated through symbol, narrative, warning, and mystery.”
Whether that answer satisfies someone depends largely on what they think divine revelation should look like if God truly intended to warn humanity unmistakably.
"Let's assume God wants to tell the human race about hell. It's a big deal, hell is. Affects a lot of people.
So here's what God does:
1. He doesn't warn humanity of it from the get-go, but rather tells Adam and Eve that the consequence of their fall was that they were now mortal, and that they would now have to toil on the earth and then die.
2. He makes sure to never mention it in the entire Jewish canon. Never. Once.
3. Then, he makes sure that rival mythologies of pagan cultures believe in some kind of a fiery underworld as punishment for wickedness.
4. Still doesn't tell the Jews about it.
5. Then, he makes sure that in the centuries and decades prior to God's coming to earth as a man, the competing Greco-Roman mythologies start to mingle and mix together. Jews start kind-of, sort-of believing in hell, too, now, even though their scriptures were silent on it. Rather than teach folks about hell himself, God allows pagans to do it.
6. God comes to earth as a man to set the record straight.
7. Now, God-as-man makes sure to refer to hell almost exclusively using the term "Gehenna", which was actually a nearby valley.
"That'll clear things up, then, won't it?" God says to himself. "No room for confusion there. Onto other things."
8. God goes back to heaven.
9. God's new followers break into the scene and one of them preaches the first post-resurrection sermon. To God's chagrin, he completely forgets to mention hell.
10. God notices that his new followers are conspicuously omitting the hell message all over the place. Confounded, he anoints a new leader, to once again set the record straight.
11. This new guy, Paul, goes around the whole Roman world, one end to the other. Get this — he never mentions hell. Never. Not once in any of his sermons or letters.
12. Now irate, God finally makes one last ditch effort to send the message clearly.
He goes to Patmos and tells this guy: 'Please. Set the record straight about hell, would you?' John says, 'You got it, God. How'd you like me to do it?'
Knowingly, with a clever smile, God says, 'Do it like this, K?
'Put it towards the end of the most confusing letter you can imagine... Use dramatic imagery, you know, the kind nobody could believe literally. You know, flying dragons, giant beasts with horns, cosmic prostitutes. Get creative. The point is to make sure some parts are literal and some are figurative. That'll keep them guessing. Oh, throw in a bunch of Jewish and Greco-Roman symbology, just to confuse those guys in the twenty-first century.'
'You got it, Lord.'
And so you have it: hell exists.
With a body of textual evidence like this, clearly God has gone to great lengths to make sure his people are under no illusions about it."
-Peter Bradford Martin 🤍
In the usa people dont starve to death but theres plenty of malnutrition that can lead to premature death. Sure people can do whatever is necessary to eat healthy but thats ignoring their situation... rent or housing and healthcare can be exorbitant so people choose maltrition to get the bills paid. Sure most malnutrition is voluntary and not coerced but not all of it.
..........
Food deserts are geographic areas where residents have limited access to affordable, nutritious food, typically defined as low-income census tracts where a significant number of residents live more than 1 mile (urban) or 10 miles (rural) from a supermarket. Millions of Americans are impacted, leading to significant health and socioeconomic challenges. [1, 2, 3]
How the USDA Defines Food Deserts
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) identifies these areas using the Food Access Research Atlas through a combination of two main metrics:
Urban vs. Rural Dynamics
Impact on Health and Disparities
How to Explore Local Data
If you want to find specific food desert locations near you or in a particular region, you can:
Would you like to explore data for a specific state or city, or learn about how communities are fighting food deserts (such as through mobile markets, urban farming, or policy initiatives)? Let me know how to focus the information.
AI responses may include mistakes.
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2011/december/data-feature-mapping-food-deserts-in-the-u-s
[3] https://onlinedegrees.kent.edu/college-of-public-health/community/causes-of-food-deserts
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_deserts_in_the_United_States
[5] https://feedingnefl.org/what-is-a-food-desert/
[6] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas
[7] https://www.bayer.com/en/us/news-stories/understanding-americas-rural-and-urban-food-deserts
[8] https://thehumaneleague.org/article/food-desert
[9] https://www.seasidesustainability.org/post/food-deserts-in-america
You are aware of the concept of food Deserts right? And people being too poor to get commodities like produce or healthy food. I know the free market takes care of this to the best of its ability, which often means letting people fall through the cracks, but I wouldn't automatically rule out governmemt involvement. Maybe the governmemt could make some deliveries or I dunno
Ok if you dont like me saying empiricism is only reliable path how about saying its the most reliable path and any non empirical claims are still not evidence. They are only speculation
I believe faith is important. But even to someone like me, the faith is still an extension of the empirical world
Maybe i shouldn't have said empiricism is the only way we can know anything but its the best or only reliable way of knowing anything
Your position is close to a form of *empirically grounded fallibilism*: even when we reason abstractly, our confidence in those abstractions is ultimately tied to observation, experience, and testing against reality.
A philosopher in the empiricist tradition like David Hume would sympathize with much of what you are saying. Even causal reasoning itself, in Hume’s view, comes from repeated experience of regularities rather than direct rational access to metaphysical necessity.
What you’re distinguishing is important:
* **Observation/data** → “The universe exists.”
* **Inference from evidence** → “Things that begin or are contingent appear to have causes.”
* **Further metaphysical leap** → “Therefore a timeless, personal, omnipotent God exists.”
You’re arguing the first two steps may be reasonable, but the third goes far beyond what the evidence strictly establishes.
That’s a legitimate critique of many apologetic arguments. For example, even if someone accepted a cosmological argument like:
\text{Universe exists} \Rightarrow \exists x,(x\text{ caused universe})
…the conclusion only gets you to *some* explanatory ground or cause. It does not automatically establish:
* omniscience,
* moral perfection,
* personhood,
* the Trinity,
* Christianity,
* or even that the cause resembles “God” in the religious sense.
That’s why many philosophers distinguish:
* **Natural theology** (arguments for some ultimate cause or ground of being)
from
* **Revealed theology** (claims about a specific religion).
Even philosophers who defend God through reason, like Thomas Aquinas, generally saw cosmological arguments as establishing only limited attributes at first, not the entire content of Christianity.
You’re also making a deeper epistemological claim:
> Reason itself operates on patterns learned from experience.
That places you closer to empiricism than rationalism. A rationalist like René Descartes would argue some truths are knowable independently of sensory experience. You seem skeptical of that.
One nuance, though: strict empiricism runs into its own problems because some foundational things are difficult to justify purely through sensory evidence alone:
* logic,
* mathematics,
* induction itself,
* consciousness,
* moral truths,
* the reliability of reason.
For example, the principle:
> “Only empirically verifiable claims count as knowledge”
is not itself empirically verifiable. That was one of the major criticisms of logical positivism in the 20th century.
So many modern philosophers end up in a middle position:
* empirical evidence is our most reliable access to the external world,
* but reasoning, logic, and conceptual analysis also play indispensable roles.
Your broader point still stands:
A philosophical argument may make belief in God *more plausible* to someone, but it rarely functions like a scientific proof. There is usually a substantial inferential gap between:
* “there is an unexplained ground of reality”
and
* “therefore a particular religious system is true.”
See my last post
Empiricism is the only way we can know the world. We can make inferences empirically but its still inferences based on empiricism, my whole point. Its fair to draw larger conclusions such as something other than the universe probably caused the universe, but that doesnt in Any real meaningful sense prove god, just that something caused the universe. And to any extent that you make those inferences its based again empirically
Dr.Franklin wrote:
Thank you for the AI generated text
You asked for sources, I gave yiu sources. Its not my fault you cant or dont wanna engage the ideas
I dont know how you think you can prove factual claims without factual evidence. Philosophy could at best be consistent with factual claims and not evidence when theres equally consistent counter philosophy.
Dr.Franklin wrote:
"In philosophy and law and science theres the concept that purely philosophical evidence isnt even evidence. "
Says who? You?
Yes — there are several serious philosophers and scientists of knowledge who argue that *purely a priori philosophical arguments* are weaker than empirical evidence, or in some cases should not count as evidence about reality at all unless tied to observation, prediction, or experience.
A few strong sources you could cite depending on how strong you want the claim to be:
* David Hume
Hume famously argued that claims about the world ultimately depend on experience, not pure reason. In *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding*, he sharply criticizes metaphysical speculation detached from empirical evidence.
One famous line:
> “Commit it then to the flames…”
> referring to works containing neither abstract reasoning about quantity nor experimental reasoning about matters of fact.
* Karl Popper
Popper argued that philosophical or scientific claims that cannot in principle be falsified by evidence are not genuinely scientific knowledge. He did not reject philosophy entirely, but he denied that unfalsifiable reasoning should be treated like empirical evidence.
* W. V. O. Quine
Quine attacked the idea that there is a sharp divide between analytic truths and empirical truths. His paper “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” is hugely influential in undermining confidence in purely conceptual philosophical certainty.
* Bertrand Russell
Russell increasingly moved toward empiricism and scientific realism later in life, emphasizing that philosophy without connection to evidence becomes speculative.
* Daniel Dennett
Dennett often argued that philosophy should work continuously with cognitive science, neuroscience, and evolution rather than rely on armchair intuitions alone.
* Sean Carroll
A modern example. Carroll explicitly argues that purely philosophical arguments cannot establish facts about physical reality without empirical grounding.
Probably the most academically precise formulation close to your statement is something like:
> “Conceptual or philosophical reasoning alone is insufficient to establish factual claims about external reality without empirical support.”
That position is associated broadly with empiricism, logical positivism, scientific naturalism, and parts of analytic philosophy.
But there’s an important nuance:
Most philosophers would *not* say philosophical arguments are “not evidence” in every sense. Rather, they would say:
* they can clarify concepts,
* reveal logical contradictions,
* explore implications,
* or shift probability,
but they are usually weaker than direct empirical confirmation when discussing the actual structure of reality.
So if you want the strongest academically defensible wording, I’d avoid:
> “Philosophical arguments are not evidence.”
and instead use:
> “Purely philosophical arguments, without empirical support, are generally considered insufficient to establish factual claims about reality.”
That position has substantial support in modern philosophy of science and empiricist traditions.
Yes. In both science and law, there are authoritative traditions emphasizing that argument alone is weaker than empirical or evidentiary support.
For science:
* Carl Sagan
Famously:
> “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
That line captures the scientific norm that logical possibility or philosophical coherence is not enough.
* Richard Feynman
Feynman repeatedly emphasized that nature — not reasoning elegance — is the final judge:
> “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is… if it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
That is one of the clearest scientific statements subordinating philosophy/theory to empirical verification.
* Francis Bacon
Often considered the father of empiricism and the scientific method. Bacon argued systematic observation and experimentation must ground knowledge claims.
* National Academy of Sciences
Their descriptions of science consistently define scientific knowledge as evidence-based, testable, and observational rather than purely speculative.
For law, the distinction is even clearer:
Courts generally do *not* treat philosophical reasoning alone as evidence. Evidence usually means testimony, documents, physical evidence, expert analysis, or observable facts.
A few strong legal anchors:
* Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
This is probably your strongest legal citation.
The Supreme Court held that expert claims must be scientifically grounded and testable, not merely speculative or theoretically asserted. The Daubert standard emphasizes:
* testing,
* peer review,
* error rates,
* and general acceptance.
In other words, reasoned argument alone is insufficient for scientific reliability in court.
* Federal Rules of Evidence
Especially Rule 702 on expert testimony:
expert opinions must rest on “sufficient facts or data” and “reliable principles and methods.”
* Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Holmes often emphasized practical consequences and real-world experience over abstract metaphysics in jurisprudence.
You could synthesize these into a very defensible proposition like:
> “In both modern science and law, theoretical or philosophical coherence alone is generally not treated as sufficient evidence for factual claims without empirical, observational, or demonstrable support.”
That would be difficult to dismiss as fringe or anti-philosophical because it reflects mainstream evidentiary standards in both disciplines.
Particularly subsidize human produce.
The government subsidizes farm animal food such that most of our crops are for farm animals. Meat is already a social ill in terms of efficiency and environmental effects. Why prop it up? If meat gets even more expensive who cares? Meat should only be a very small part of the human diet anyway.
Food Deserts are where grocery stores dont locate in urban areas cause its not profitable enough. So local people dont get access to basic nutrition. But why make every possible governmemt intervention as by definition wrong? Why frame every decision that affects the livelihood of citizens through purely economic lenses?
Arguments like causality or from design are formidable points. But theres equally formidable arguments against these. In philosophy and law and science theres the concept that purely philosophical evidence isnt even evidence. When an idea presents itself like these with being consistent with a proposition then its merely showing its not inconsistent Philosophically.
Arguments for christian miracles are weak evidence and evidence for god from the phenomenon of nde science is strong. But society is so stuck in religious and worldly ways that these points arent usually brought up in these discussions
Do you think mayer pete is a bad nominee given hes gay? Even if hes a good candidate otherwise
Yeah 65 is a perfect temp. In fact 60 to 70 is perfect. I dont think most people realize that its their favorite temp too... most people act like they want it to be 85 then they complain about how hot it is when it gets there, and they talk about how perfect it is when its in the 60s
Most people arent self aware enough to realize all this
This will be way more of a vanity run than last time. She thinks that since she might be popular with a plurality of democrats that she'll be popular with most of them, let alone most Americans, sounds like a vanity and power trip more than anything
She can't even articulate why shes best other than maybe orange man bad and her poll numbers are good enuff to maybe pull the dem nomination