1 | Practical Philosophy » 19 ugly truths about addiction that nobody wants to look at » 4/06/2018 12:42 am |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 5
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This is an interesting line that they are taking: denying that addiction exists while simultaneously arguing for the standard liberal/libertarian position on drug legalization. That's a combo that I had not really seen before, since most drug legalization supporters appeal to addiction in order to argue that drug users should be treated "clinically" as opposed to "throwing them in jail".
Interestingly, Peter Hitchens has made himself quite infamous in the drug legalization debate by arguing for the same, or perhaps even a bit stronger, position on addiction; namely, that it is not only a myth, but is a hopelessly confused and contradictory notion. Of course, where he differs with the article cited in the OP is that far from supporting drug legalization, he thinks that drug taking has, at least in England, been de facto legalized since the late 1960's. Further, he thinks we need to actually engage in a war on drugs by enforcing the laws against the possession of illegal substances, as opposed to merely enforcing the laws that relate to the distribution and selling of these drugs; he believes that what we call the war on drugs is merely a show made by the Government to pretend like it is actually doing its job of enforcing the laws on the books.
More on his position can be found in the following links:
| Religion » Reactions to Amoris laetitia » 12/17/2016 12:28 pm |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 18
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Alexander wrote:Jeremy Taylor wrote:As I understand it,the Roman Church permits remarriage if a spouse has died, does it not? How does it square this with the idea that spouses are insoluably bound together?
My own inclination is to say "where's the issue?", but I guess I can see where you're coming from (though I would be very surprised if you take this to be a serious issue with the Catholic position). I could lazily direct you to Romans 7:1-3, which seems to give (more or less) the Catholic position, but there are a few other points that seem relevant:
(1) It doesn't seem that there is marriage in heaven, which suggests the bond of marriage is a good of this life, and does not survive death.
(2) The language of "one flesh" might suggest that the death of one of the spouses dissolves the body formed by marriage, leaving the spouse unbound to anyone in particular (and therefore available for a second marriage).
(3) Death is not relevantly like a person's decision to end a marriage. Jesus' teaching ("what God has joined together, let no one separate") doesn't obviously apply to the separation involved in the death of a spouse - and, in the context, Jesus clearly isn't talking about that kind of separation, he's talking about the decision of someone to leave a living spouse and shack up with someone else.In defense of your point (1), see Matthew 22:23-33.
| Religion » Reactions to Amoris laetitia » 12/16/2016 2:39 am |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 18
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Jeremy Taylor wrote:
Interesting. It is interesting, though, also, that other traditional branches of Christianity, including even the Eastern Orthodox Churches (not known for innovations), don't take quite such an absolute stand. Does anyone know what the practice and teaching of the early Church and Fathers was? Doesn't Paul himself imply some recourse for remarriage, at least if one partner is an unbeliever and abandons a believer?
Well, firstly, only Catholics (I'm leaving aside strange micro-brew stuff like Anglo-Papalists or SSPV types) take the position that we do on the Papacy, so just because all the other cool Christians are doing it doesn't mean Catholics should be.
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But with that said, it's not exactly accurate to say that all the other traditional branches of Christianity take a less absolute stand on Christianity, at least not historically. Even today, for instance, you can find Orthodox bishops who take the position that divorce and remarriage is a sin; Orthodox bodies generally treat that issue on doctrine as something that is not church dividing, and leave the discretion to each individual bishop about whether or not they will allow remarriages to be performed in their diocese, at least as I understand their position. The same thing can be said about the Orthodox view contraception btw; you can find Orthodox bishops who oppose it, as Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I did in a letter to Pope Paul VI.
Furthermore, up until the 1960's (and on paper this is still the case, but has been all but absolutely forgotten), Anglicans, from what I understand, took a fairly hard line on divorce and remarriage; Henry VIII had Cranmer annul his marriages, not divorce them. And in relatively recent memory King Edward VIII kicked off a constitutional crisis in 1936 when he tried to get married to an American women who had been divorced, and ultimately had to abdicate and have the ceremony done in France to get the marriage to go through. I make this point t
| Chit-Chat » 2016 US Presidential Election » 11/09/2016 1:09 am |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 18
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So it appears that, unless something crazy happens, Trump will become President of the United States come January...
And just like that, Ding Dong the Witch is dead!
I'm happy my suspicion was [almost certainly] right, and that we dodged the Clinton bullet. Now we just have to live through the Presidency of King Jackson II, and perhaps we'll get a little John Tyler thrown in the mix too. Here's hoping to the complete and utter destruction of the bohemian Washington bourgeoisie! Maybe Trump might even follow Jackson's lead in a couple of years and break the National Bank (i.e the Federal Reserve). That might be interesting, although I don't know if it will turn out so well.
| Chit-Chat » 2016 US Presidential Election » 11/07/2016 3:46 pm |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 18
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So I'm interested in what you guys think about who will win. I suspect, but by no means predict, a Trump win; Clinton has got the edge by any conventional measure, but it's a pretty weak one, and would almost definitely collapse like a house of cards if she looses either Pennsylvania or Michigan. New Hampshire is a toss-up as well, and if Trump grabs that and can pick-off either Nevada, Colorado, or New Mexico, he's got a strong chance of winning.
I also suspect that the silent Trump supporter is a real phenomenon with a non-nominal strength, which, if my suspicion turns out to be vindicated, will almost certainly give Trump the election. Again, this is not really a prediction, just my suspicion, so I could quite easily wrong here.
The momentum going into the election seemed to me to be clearly on Trump's side until last night, when Comey closed, yet again, the FBI case that he re-opened a little over a week before. That seems like it could very well save Clinton from loosing her edge, and might even give her the momentum in the final hours of voting. I'm not entirely sure however, since I'm not so sure people trust the FBI Director at this point, and I don't know if people are going to actually hear the news that the investigation of Clinton's e-mails is over in time for it to affect their choice.
What do you guys think about all of this?
Finally, as a for the record sort of point, on the off-chance that the election goes to the almost assuredly Republican House, Trump will probably win (although McMullian might be able to stage a coup there if he is able to snatch Utah); Clinton basically has no chance if it gets to that point.
| Chit-Chat » Depression (Against Suicide) » 10/21/2016 7:13 pm |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 2
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Sorry to hear about your depression; I went ahead and prayed that you might get better.
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I've played around with a similar sort of argument, although I typically phrase it a little differently; I originally formed it as an attack on assisted suicide, so it's also has slightly different goals in mind.
In my version, I'm trying to refute the idea that one would be better off dead now than they would if they continued to live. Now, on the assumption that the soul is destroyed at death, and hence suicide makes one completely non-existent, then it makes no sense to claim that one would be better off dead, since it is always better to exist than to not exist; even the tortured in hell have more goodness, and are hence better off, than the entirely non-existent. Hence, one's motive for committing suicide is contradictory, and one should remain alive.
One objection that I've come up with this argument, and one that as a non-Christian will not have as much of the same bite, is from the Holy Scriptures; specifically, Matthew 26:24, or its variant, Mark 14:21, "The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if that man had not been born."
Aquinas actually tackles this question here: . Mind you, this answer is in the supplement, but I think it's basically how I would respond to the objection.
I've actually played around with converting this argument into an argument for the immortality of the soul, but it is rather strange and I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate it.
Basically, the idea is that, if the soul is destroyed at death, and hence death always puts one worse off than if they continued to live, then one always ends up better off if they continue to live, regardless of how bad their life is. So suppose there is a situation wherein one could extend their life if they kill somebody else, but will surely die if they d
| Chit-Chat » Trump, the Debates, and the Election » 10/15/2016 2:32 pm |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 23
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seigneur wrote:iwpoe wrote:
I think he's preferable to Clinton and everything her brand has chosen to lead with. I'll pick a right leaning populist to a pseudo-left corporatist bureaucrat any day.
It's a grave mistake to think Trump is a populist or a political anything. Trump clearly has no politics. Whatsoever. All his ideas come from the business world where it counts to pay the right people and avoid personal costs.
Well, methinks you're forgetting how most populists engage in politics; they do not put forth their own policy opinions as correct, but make their brands slaves to the interests of their base and whoever they "represent". So populists are pretty much by definition apolitical; they leave that part to the people, and just act as the public face.
So I think you're mixing up being popular with being a populist, and those are not the same thing.
In other words, Trump is a populist in the mold of Andrew Jackson: crude, mud-throwing, impulsive, vindictive, and rewarding of political allies (see Spoils System).
The sort of populist that I think you originally had more in mind is somebody like William Jennings Byran; alas, his brand of populist is much more in the minority.
| Chit-Chat » Trump, the Debates, and the Election » 10/14/2016 7:49 pm |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 23
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So stuff has gotten pretty crazy in the last few weeks, and with the Trump Tapes and the Paul Ryan defection, people are starting to call it for Trump. I'm not so convinced, even with Clinton up 6-7 points on average in the polls right now, but I was wondering what everyone here thinks.
Also, what did people think of the so-called debates (mind you, TV Presidental "debates" have been misnamed since their inception; they're joint press conferences at best)? I actually gave the first one to Trump, because they basically tied in turns of "zingers" and Trump showed some people that he wasn't pure crazy; Clinton may have won on "points" but this is meaningless since there is no defined point system, and that implies that this was a real debate, which it never was anyways.
The second debate on the other hand was a clear Trump victory, and supremely entertaining (if someone neglected to watch it, they should go ahead and pop some popcorn for this and only this reason); the biggest rise I got out of the whole thing was looking at the damage control CNN had to run to depict it as a Clinton win.
Mind you I don't know if this will save Trump in the polls or in the election, but it was fun for what it was worth.
| Introductions » New Here! » 8/13/2016 8:02 am |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 4
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I don't know why we are talking about threadjacking when WE HAVE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO TALK ABOUT! People are DYING in Africa right now, and the only way for us to save them is to SEND THEM OUR COOKIES. Everybody knows that cookies are the best way to save a population from starving, and so we need to do all we can to SUPPORT charities that send them to them. I asked Iwpoe JUST LAST WEEK to send in the cookies he PLEDGED, but he has yet to respond. WHERE ARE YOUR COOKIES IWPOE!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!???!!?!
That, my friend, is threadjacking. And welcome to the forum!
| Chit-Chat » Poll: What are Possible Worlds? » 8/13/2016 7:49 am |
- Timotheos
- Replies: 5
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I think possible worlds, in the sort of parlance you see in modern Analytic philosophy, are primarily a logical model of possibility; since I'm a Humpty-Dumptyist about logical models, this puts me well into the "useful fiction" camp.
Now I do think that possible worlds are a useful model and shorthand for possibilities that really do exist out there in the world, and those possibilities I would ultimately try to ground in Divine ideas; nevertheless, the "possible worlds" themselves I would treat as just a useful way to bundle propositions about different possibilities for the purpose of using them in some logical-semantic framework.