Terrapin Station

Definitions are for example the text strings you find in dictionaries, or the string of spoken phonemes re a verbally given definition. Meaning is a m...

It makes no sense to me why you'd think theism is any different in that regard. (Keeping in mind that I use the term "the universe" to refer to everyt...

If you were to ask me if moral stances have anything to do with what's "proper," I'd say "No."

How would there even be anything "supernatural"?

So in other words, the idea is that given that you're okay saying it's a fact that there's no x on an absence of evidence of it even when the idea of ...

But I didn't use the word "proper" anywhere, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying what I am/am not in favor of (well, and what I'd do "if I...

But with the Easter bunny notion, that's not even incoherent. There's just no evidence for it. So it doesn't seem consistent for you to not say that i...

Sure. So you wouldn't say that it's a fact that there's no easter bunny, for example?

Where am I saying that?

I already responded to this. Do you withhold judgment on everything conceivable that there's no empirical evidence for, no matter how crazy the idea i...

Right. So one reason that we know that it's a fact that there is no god is that there's no empirical evidence at all that there is a god. Now, you'd s...

That would imply that you have criteria for what counts as reasons. So, for example, "I believe I'm Napoleon because I ate a taco last night." Is "bec...

Properly? What sort of question is that? I'm not saying anything about "properly."

Right--I can't imagine why you'd not say that in response to anything I'd say, because I have no idea what your criteria are to count as support rathe...

I can't make any sense of that, because time is simply motion or change. So one, if there's no change or motion we don't have time after all, and two,...

But then I explained that facts are not something "elevated." Facts are states of affairs, and the state of affairs that's apparent in the world is th...

So you're not saying "impossible to imagine" a la "impossible to make sense" of something then. I was using "incoherent" as "can't make sense of," and...

You just said "you just continue to make declarative statements without support" (And I quoted that in my comment above.) So apparently we don't agree...

So you're getting much more restrictive on reasons here. What are the criteria for support in your view?

How does "coherent but impossible to imagine" make sense?

They don't demonstrate something incoherent.

Because it's incoherent. The only way to defeat that is to attempt to make it coherent.

Again, it's both the lack of evidence for it and the incoherence of it. Basically, it's just ridiculous nonsense. You don't reserve judgment on ridicu...

Facts are states of affairs. It's a state of affairs that there's no God, just like it's a state of affairs that there are no cigar-smoking rabbits fl...

But it's not "just about definitions." It's a matter of what we're claiming to be the case ontologically. The argument as it stands wouldn't make much...

It's primarily an empirical matter. There's a complete lack of empirical evidence for it. I say "primarily," because there's also the problem that the...

I don't think so though. I think it's as clear as anything can be.

I don't really think that the "argument from evil" is reasonable, because it parses evil as if it refers to something objective and not vague. "Evil" ...

In other words, someone might say, "I believe I'm Napoleon, because I ate a taco last night." "Because I ate a taco last night" is a reason they gave ...

On my view P3, P5 and P6 are false. You seem to be using "reasonable" as "based on reasons" though. In the sense of "based on reasons" where we're loo...

Contracts are formal agreements that each party is going to offer something in exchange for something else.

I don't know why you'd think something is useless just because it's an individual judgment. And whether it's an individual judgment or not, simply tel...

I'd not allow contractual fraud, but that's an issue of contractual law, not a speech issue.

Well, both your tastes and preferences can change, and sometimes rapidly, and yeah, sometimes we don't introspect well enough to know our preferences ...

Oh . . . I don't agree with that. "Reasonable/unreasonable" is a judgment that individuals make, and it's nothing more than that. There is no objectiv...

I don't realize this because it's false. A punch of x newtons that can kill a child is not going to have zero effect on a professional boxer. That pun...

I don't understand this comment. What does it mean for a belief to be "unreasonable in general" versus a "belief in specific that a position is unreas...

Give an example of two people's bodies acting completely differently to the same "physical" force a la a punch, knife stab, etc.

On the idea that speech is causal to harm. A woman says to her husband, who doesn't at all understand German: "Ich hasse dich. Ich habe seit zehn Jahr...

Completely differently--not anything in common, not at all the same type of reaction. Versus a difference in degree, but not type of effect.

That's not my view, actually. It's just that I think that religious beliefs are absurd. So how would I respect the belief that a religious conclusion ...

Which part do you disagree with: Two people's bodies can react completely differently to the same speech act. Two people's bodies can not react comple...

Yes I did. I wrote this: "Which isn't true. If you punch two different people with equal force etc. in the same spot, they're not going to react compl...

They're not going to have a completely different reaction, so that, as I said, they may only get rid of an old scar. Regardless of who they are, the p...

We'd not be talking about how the person chooses (or habitually) responds to someone attempting to punch them. We're talking about what happens to the...

It's not clear to me how one would "respect the belief that theism is a reasonable belief" while finding theism to not be a reasonable belief. Maybe y...

If you anthropomorphize a ladle, the ladle will serve you.

Hey, we agree on something finally.

Which isn't true. If you punch two different people with equal force etc. in the same spot, they're not going to react completely differently. There w...

Everything is a term for all objects, all phenomena, etc. Anything that occurs, appears, etc. in any manner.