Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Normal · 06-24-2003, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Philosoft
I wasn't aware materialism was in any position to provide such answers.

I suppose the materialist doesn't have to provide these answers, and can accept the system in place as a product of evolution. But the problem is there is no rational basis for morality, so why should it exist?

Thomas Metcalf · 06-24-2003, 09:49 PM

Originally posted by theophilus :

Quote:

Atheism has no choice but to be committed to materialism, ...

Ha. Not even close. There are several atheistic non-materialistic religions.

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Now, if you want to import some element of supernaturalism, you'll have to "prove" that like you challenge me to prove God.

Do you think that your presuppositionalist approach proves God, or just shows that one must commit oneself to his existence to behave rationally? If the former, you're seriously misunderstanding your own argument, and if the latter, I've already answered this: I believe in objective epistemic foundations as a brute fact in the universe.

theophilus · 06-24-2003, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spenser
I don't buy that for an instant. I think the problem you are having is that you are making a presumption yourself. A presupposes B. (I'll keep this to PoE considering that is what the UPD is trying to discredit), God presupposed Objective Morality.

You make so many inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims, it's hard to know where to start, so I'll start at the top. The problem with responding to each statement is that it gives the appearance that I afirm your ability to make meaningful statements based on your worldview and I don't.

First, I'm not having a problem; I'm arguing. A meaningful response would be to argue back. An argument doesn't consist merely of attacking the other persons approach.

Boom, argument over. You have assumed that there is an Objective Morality. Considering the number of differing view points around the world and through out time, I'd say observed morality is subjective.

Again, you confuse moral standards with morality as an immaterial entity (concept) directing human conduct. Besides, I don't know many people, atheists included, who would argue that murder (the unjustified taking of a human life) is ever "subjectively" okay.

So I don't assume that any such thing as objective morality does exist.

You may deny it consciously, but you affirm it by the way you live.

Now when taking on the PoE, an atheist does have to assume God (for the sake of the argument) to display his unlikeliness. Next you must assume that God would have 'objective morality' however, since Xians can't agree on morals (making it look all the more subjective) as demonstrated by simply looking at society, then the atheist must consider the Xian consensus on what is good and what is evil.

But this is all speculation. What is the material basis for making any assumptions about the nature of a God? If you want to argue that the bible's system of morality is incoherent, that is one thing, but you cannot accuse God of being less than perfectly good unless you have an objective basis for knowing what good is and you've admitted you don't.

The majority of Xians, plus most any one else on the planet
would agree that needless suffering is evil. The planet is filled with suffering. The amount of suffering alone makes it difficult to conceive of it all being needed, however you'll probably just dismiss this statement as a mere assertion of mine.

No, I won't. I'll point out that this consensus is evidence that all men, as the image of their creator, possess an innate sense of morality.
Suffering, by your own admission, is a subjective idea and, therefore, no meanigful statements can be made about how "much" is too much or how much is needed.

You follow on by saying God has revealed himself in the Bible. (What about all the parts of the Bible that weren't VOTED in, were those not God's words or were hanging chads screwing the rest of us out of God's words?) Xians seem to believe that the bible is the basis for morality.

Actually, we believe that God himself is the basis for morality. He has revealed himself and his standards in his word.

They believe that the bible's morality is objective, even if they can't agree on which things are moral and immoral i.e. abortion, euthanasia, condoms, Harry Potter, Etc.

Again, the disparity is not so great as you like to pretend. Differences of application do not suggest differences of standard, i.e., no one defends abortion while admitting that it is murder. No one defends Harry Potter while believing that it's sorcery violates God's standards.

All we have is human consensus on what is moral and human consensus on what the bible says is moral. If we can identify things that these censuses consider evil, then find them in the world and observe seemingly no need for their occurrence then we can lend credit to PoE.

This consensus idea, besides not truly reflecting the nature of human moral concepts, doesn't really help because there would have to be some standards by which this consensus was formed and why they were formed.

Saying there is some unknown purpose, some reason only God knows, is a paper wall you are hiding behind because there is seemingly no reason. I use the word seemingly because it is possible that there is some unknown reason, but admitting the possibility doesn't make it so nor destroy PoE.

I'll assume you haven't read my other posts on the UPD. I deny that there is an unknown purpose (besides, the PoE requires no UPD or other defense, since it is meaningless without a demonstrated, objective (yes) basis for asserting certain things to be evil and asserting that some evil is unnecessary). I assert that God's purpose for evil is quite clearly revealed in his word. The fact that you haven't found it there (have you really looked) does not prove its absence.

You see, if only one person was suffering, it could be slightly more conceivable that there was some reason we didn't know. When millions upon millions are suffering, it makes some unknown purpose more ridiculous especially when the human intellect can imagine ways that these people could be learning morality without suffering to such extents. The raw amount of perceived evil in the world gives little credence to the concept of God, thought it my not disprove him, it makes it more reasonable to assume his lack of existence.

You cannot make this argument from an atheistic, materialistic starting point. There is no such thing as evil in a materialistic world. There is only experience. No experience, in a materialistic world, is either good or evil; it just is. You cannot use the argument from evil without first accepting the existence of objective evil and you can only do that on a Christian theistic basis.

I'll go as far as to say that if God exists, and he has some unknown reason for the vast amounts of suffering in this world, that it is needlessly evil not to give us a better idea of why. Your most powerful Xian God cannot even convince a majority of the world of his existence, much less his own followers a complete list of objective morality.

You assertion that God cannot even convince a majority of the world of his existence is gratuitous. It assumes that most of the world doesn't believe in him. Your own argument from evil proves that you do know him (or you couldn't make the argument) but you refuse to "acknowledge" him.

The Bible has caused more controversy in the world than most
any other book imaginable, not to mention has been used to justify burning witches, starting inquisitions, the crusades, and single handedly taking the world into the 'Dark Ages.'

This last point is pure nonsese. It was the collapse of the Roman Empire due to internal corruption that brought the dark ages. Besides, it was the churchmen who preserved learning. Not to mention that it was the reformation that brought Europe out of the dark ages.

If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good he is doing a horrible job of letting us all know what he expects from us and what we are to consider Good and Evil.

He is only doing a horrible job if he is not doing what he intends to do.

I can conceive of a morally good world with minimal suffering (far less than exists currently) so therefore I'm left to believe that I am smarter than your all knowing God.

Well, what would you expect from someone who is suppressing his knowledge of God because he does not want to confront his own sin? Nothing personal, that is the condition of all men.
Once again, the fact that you can "conceive" of a morally good world (while admitting that you have no standard for such a conception) is proof that your thinking is determined not by your materilistic profession, but by the nature of things as God has declared them to be.

Wow, I feel pretty smart now.

Your mother must be proud.

Anyway, starting to stray. Your TAG argument has been refuted before and I'm not aware of much of a drive for it anymore in the philosophical world.

I'm not aware that it has been refuted. Michael Martin's pathetic attempt to construct a counter argument (TANG), simply begged the question. He did not answer the TAG, he ignored it and attempted to construct an argument without explaining how he could account for the knowledge he claimed to have about the nature of reality or the possibilities of existence.
He brought in utilitarianism as an arguemtn for morality, but did not justify the existence of any system and certainly didn't justify utilitarianism.
I'd be interested to know why you think it has been refuted and what the arguments are.

Your statement that "In fact, they are borrowing from the world view which is based on the presupposition that the creator God has revealed himself in the Bible and that his revelation is the only authoritative foundation for understanding human experience." is absurd considering all these concepts that make up the human experience predate the bible.

God's word is the only foundation for understanding those experiences. Of course those experiences existed before the bible was written, but men still had knowledge of God through direct revelation and through oral communication. No one claims that there was no morality before the bible but the bible gives the only meaningful account of how those experiences exist and what they mean.

How could they presuppose what is in the bible before it even existed? You play a mean word game that essentially says nothing, and the funniest part is that not only is TAG already a weak argument, you further damage it by presuming the word 'Christian' comes before the word 'God' in the argument.

I'm not sure what you mean, but the word Christian is used to distinguish Christianity as a system from other theistic systems.

That just makes the argument open to parody further destroying its credibility... Enough!

[/b]

This makes no sense, but if it makes you feel "good" about yourself, that's fine.

theophilus · 06-24-2003, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Metcalf
Originally posted by theophilus :

Ha. Not even close. There are several atheistic non-materialistic religions.

I confess to finding this inexplicable, so you'll have to explain. Certain spiritualist systems may be atheistic, i.e., they do not posit a personal deity, but they are surely supernatural and therefore, not help to you.

Do you think that your presuppositionalist approach proves God, or just shows that one must commit oneself to his existence to behave rationally?

It proves the existence of God by the Impossibility of the Contrary. To deny God is to make life a pure mystery and render all men's achievements meaningless. But rational people do not believe that or live that way which means that they "secretly" know that the world is the way God has declared it to be.
The committment is unacknowledged.

If the former, you're seriously misunderstanding your own argument, and if the latter, I've already answered this: I believe in objective epistemic foundations as a brute fact in the universe.

Well, you can believe anything you want, but you must give an account of how that could be so if you want to engage in argument.

If you want to deny god on some inexplicable rational basis, then you must explain the metaphysic that makes such rationality meaningul.

mosaic · 06-24-2003, 11:05 PM

And to make that rationailty meaningful you have to give its metaphysical reason. You dont simple postulate an end. Either you postualte some closed duality between god and man. God depends on us to have meaning, as we depend on him for meaning. If god itself as no metaphysic for right or wrong, other than asserting it, what is the difference between Stalin doing the same? He offers no logic that we cant figure out for our own and refute if we find it despicable. Such as sending people to hell for calling its values nonsense.

Theo, answer this question. Do you honestly belive there exists zero human reason for repudiating murder? That abhoring murder in society is entirely nonsensical and thus needs metaphysical meaning? As for normal question about adultery. I dont belive its "wrong." I simply dont like it if my girl cheats on me. Its mere feeling. Where does that come from? Mayb some evolution need to maintain close relationships. I really dont care. I'm man enough to admit that if my girl cheats on me, its my subjective feelings on the issue that make me "feekl" bad about it. Not because god decreed that women who cheat are bad, and implanted some feeling to demonstrate this fact.

We make commitment. When its broken, we dont like it. If you need ethereal reason, for why breaking commitments "hurts" us then I really have nothing to say to you all. You can project your little feelings as having some intricate meaning to the universe.

Thomas Metcalf · 06-24-2003, 11:27 PM

Originally posted by theophilus :

Quote:

Certain spiritualist systems may be atheistic, i.e., they do not posit a personal deity, but they are surely supernatural and therefore, not help to you.

They are, because they block your attempt to straw person atheism by lumping it with materialism. Until you show that atheism entails materialism, you can't modus ponens it.

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To deny God is to make life a pure mystery and render all men's achievements meaningless.

No, to deny epistemic foundations is to make life meaningless. I'm not doing that. I'm just denying that a god is required to explain them.

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Well, you can believe anything you want, but you must give an account of how that could be so if you want to engage in argument.

Really? When has anyone ever given an account of how it could be so that epistemic foundations depend upon the existence of a person, or how it could be so that a god could exist? If you think God is explanation-less, my epistemic foundations are explanation-less, and more parsimonious.

HRG · 06-25-2003, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by theophilus
The point is that you dismiss naturalistic explanations as "not meaningful/cogent/coherent" [b]based on your own presuppositions.

That is simply not true. I do not dismiss them. I argue that a "meaningful/cogent/coherent" explanation cannot be given on the "unbeliever's" presupposition and challenge the unbeliever to disprove that by demonstrating how a purely materialistic system can explain human experience, including the possibility of knowledge, morality, rationality, and science.

The absence of gods guarantees that the universe will continue �ts behavior, because there is no reason why it should change. This makes knowledge, rationality and science possible.

You haven't shown the existence of an absolute morality, so I don't have to explain it. That people show specific behaviors which we call moral can be explained on the basis of biological and cultural evolution

Quote:

The first presupposition is your analogy between descriptive and prescriptive laws;

the second presupposition is the existence of an absolute morality.

The third presupposition is the characterization of ideas, concepts etc. as existing things, and not just patterns in the (material) brains of sentient beings.

There is only one presupposition, that God is the source of all existence and that his revealed word is the necessary prerequisite for all knowledge. That this is untestable by "objective" means in undeniable, just as it is undeniable that any other presupposition, as the starting point for thought is untestable by something "above" it because that thing would become the presupposition.

You are missing an essential presupposition: that your God will never lie to you or deceive you. You cannot take his word for it, of course.

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Without these presuppositions, your point collapses.

No, I am perfectly willing to argue on the basis of the unbeliever's worldview and ask him to explain how his worldview gives a meaningful explanation for the reality of human experience, e.g., how can materialism account for the existence of immaterial entitites.

Easy. There are no immaterial entities. Thoughts, abstract concepts etc. are patterns or properties of material entities, or processes running on material entities, and not entities themselves.

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The "laws of logic" ? They are consequences of the semantics of the language we use to describe the universe and do not exist independent of us.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The fact is, logic is the nature of reality,

Logic is not reality. It is part of the language we use to describe reality. The excluded middle is the consequence of our decision to use a two-valued logic; it is invalid in three-valued logics, as have been proposed for quantum theory.

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it is not derived by consensus. The law of contradiction is true whether someone has ever heard of it or not.

The law of contradiction is tautologically true. However, without intelligent beings who formulated concepts like "and" or "not", there would be no law of contradiction.

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Similarly, the "laws of nature" are our descriptions of the regularities of the universe that we have observed. That such regularities exist is easily explained by naturalismm - by the absence of supernatural beings who might disturb the behavior of the universe.

The laws of nature are not based on a naturalistic worldview. A naturalistic worldview would have to take each event as unique and could make no predictions about what might happen in the future under similar circumstances.

Come on. In the absence of intermeddling gods, there is no reason to assume that the future is different from the present, and the present is different from the past.

It is only the theist who must worry that his god - for inscrutable reasons - might suddenly decide to cancel gravity. And there is no reason for a creator to decide that the same behavior holds in Vladivostok as in Valparaiso.

In any case, I can add "local invariance under space-time translations" to the presuppositions of naturalism. It is a presupposition you need as well, because it does not follow logically from the presupposition you have listed.

The big advantage of this presupposition is that it can be tested. Not proven, but tested.

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It is not the "laws of nature" as statements, it is the statements as "laws" that cannot be explained by materialism.
You do not know what the "regularity" of matter is. You only know how matter has "appeared" to behave until now. You have no experiential or rational basis for asserting that it will continue to behave the same way.

Yes I do: the absence of intermeddling gods, as above. It is you who is lacking a rational basis for assuming that no supernatural being will intervene and throw the universe out of kilter.

Naturalists do not have to fear a world-wide flood. You do.

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But we do "know" that the creation behaves in a predictable way. How is such knowledge possible? Only on a Christian theistic basis.
If you want to argue with this, please provide some evidence that I'm wrong.

Evidence ? THe reason is logical: you cannot trust that your God does not lie to you. After all, his thoughts are not your thoughts.

OTOH, the mechanisms of nature may be complex, but nature cannot intentionally deceive us.

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The sheer chutzpah of presuppositionalism in hijacking ideas (e.g. of early Greek philosophers) for themselves has to be seen to be believed, and finds it counterpart only in the Soviet claim from a bygone area that all important discoveries have been made by Russian scientists.

First of all, presuppositionalism is not a peculiar Christian idea. As I've explained elsewhere, thought would be impossible without making some assumptions about the nature of reality, experience, perception, etc.

The point of course is that naturalism has to make much fewer untestable assumptions than theism.

The chutzpah lies in the post factum hijacking of Greek and other ideas about the universe and its regularities by Christian presuppositionalists.

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Second, Christian presuppositionalists do not pretend to have invented this argument. The uniquness of the argument is as a Christian apologetic method.
The argument is still valid and you're attempts to simply dismiss it or descry us for "hijacking" it don't answer it.

The invalidity of the argument has been demonstrated too often - and again in this thread - to take you seriously.

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Since atheists strictly deny that alleged revelations are a foundation at all, how could you claim that they borrowed from a worldview which is based on the claim in your last sentences ?

Because they cannot account for the immaterial aspects of human experience based on an exclusively materialistic worldview.

Which immaterial aspects ? Pattern, processes, properties etc. of naturalistic entities are quite naturalistic as well.

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Now, if they want to import some immaterial aspect into their worldview, let them acknowledge that and we can discuss whether that helps or not.

We are not "borrowing" anything. We take that which is legitimally ours and has been hijacked by presuppositionalists.

Well, that's the whole point at dispute, isn't it? If it is "legitimately" yours, you shouldn't have any trouble demonstrating that and won't need to spend anymore time trying to discredit my approach.

I have demonstrated it. No need to discredit anything.

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"Ubi rem meam invenio, ibi vindico" (I reclaim my property wherever I find it - Roman legal maxim).

And just how do you explain concepts like "legitimacy" and "property" rights from a materialstic worldview?

Easy. A property right exists when the legislature of a particular territory grants it, according to the constitution of the same. Read Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law.

Of course, I spoke metaphorically about the "ownership of ideas".

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OK. It's Paul's opinion.

Well, it's God speaking through Paul, unless you know better. You'd have to explain how you "know" that.

Now you are becoming ridiculous. I should carry the burden of proof that an unevidenced supernatural entity did not speak through Paul ? That's not even a good joke.
[quote]
No, we charge you with presenting the opinion of an early Christian propagandist *) as reality, without being able to support it by any objective evidence.

The objective evidence is that you operate on a worldview that can only be explained by the Christian system while denying that system. You may not agree with that, but it is objective.

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As objective as the victory messages from the Iraqi Minister of Information, I guess.

IOW, by supporting the logically defunct worldview of presuppositionalism, you have robbed yourself of every claim of ability to discern what is objective. That's your problem, not mine.
[quote
Of course, we're back to the same starting point. To prove that it is not so, you have to prove, by "objective" evidence that your system can account for the way you live.

I can prove it by evidence which is objective within that worldview.

HRG.

theophilus · 06-25-2003, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bd-from-kg
theophilus:

1. The AE and objective morality.

In your posts you argue again and again that a materialist (by which I gather you mean a non-theist of any description) cannot make objective moral judgments of any kind. The implication is that this invalidates the AE, since the non-theist has no basis for saying that anything is (or even seems to be) objectively evil.

I have recently been chastised for assuming that all atheists are materialists. Since most do not qualify themselves, I can only assume this. I understand that there are some who claim some other "ingredient" but it is up to them to specify and explain how this changes their arguments.

I pointed out some time ago that this argument is completely bogus. It has been thoroughly refuted and isn�t taken seriously by any competent philosopher. Obviously you haven�t done your homework, and as a result you�re wasting a lot of time with this silly argument.

I love the way people simply "point out" that a fact is so and that is supposed to settle the point. Atheists may be satisified that other atheists have "disproven" (since atheists can't prove anything), but that is not conclusive.
Besides, if they are using their materialistic assumptions, then their disproof is subject to the same challenge as all their assertions, i.e., how do they know?

The AE (in any form) doesn�t depend on the existence of objective morality. It doesn�t assume that there is any such thing as �objective� right or wrong, good or bad. It depends only on the fact that theism, or at least the forms of theism at which the argument is directed, entails that there is, and moreover that it is to some extent known what kinds of acts are right/wrong and what sorts of states of affairs are good/evil. The AE is a kind of reductio ad absurdum argument (although the evidential versions don�t claim deductive certainty the way classic RAA arguments do). The logical structure of the argument can be made more explicit by including the premises:

(1) There is a transcendent, objective moral reality.

(2) God has given us knowledge (to a limited extent at least) of the contours of this transcendent moral reality (through revelation, an innate moral compass, or whatever).

Note that the AE is directed only at forms of theism that assert these premises in addition to asserting the existence of God.

The rest of the argument (of which there are a number of versions) proceeds as before, except that the premise asserting the existence (or seeming existence) of evil of some kind is replaced with one saying that according to the knowledge that God is claimed to have given us of the transcendent moral reality this or that feature of the universe is evil, or seems to be evil.

I assume this is intended to be an explacation of your statement that my challenge to the PoE has been shown to be bogus.
I think you are misrepresenting the case to a certain extent. I have stipulated elsewhere that the only possibly meaningful approach to the PoE is that the presence of evil, as defined by God, is inconsistent with God's stated purposes for his creation. I think this approach is what you are suggesting.
However, this is not, in fact, how the argument is usually presented and to which I have responded.

The ususal argument implies that evil is objectively known apart from God's revelation and its existence is incompatable with an "omnimax" God. I have refuted this approach elsewhere and won't repeat it here.

However, the approach you suggest is not immune to similar problems. Essentially, its premises are not a reflection of Christian doctrine. It argues against "a" god and, therefore, cannot claim God's own revelation as the basis for it's arguments.

It posits numerous descriptions of what this god would/should "want" to do, if he is omni-max, but either can't or doesn't, which form the basis of the proof.

Bt these descriptions are gratuitous, since they are not based on any purpose revealed by God.

Well, as we are all aware, false premises lead to false conclusions. The UPD is an unfortunate argument advanced by apologists who inexplicable accept the faulty portions of the original argument.

2. Unbelievers and knowledge of the transcendent moral reality

You seem be arguing in places that those who don�t believe in God do not have any knowledge of transcendent moral reality. But this is untenable for a number of reasons. First off, if we have no such knowledge prior to knowing God, how do we recognize God? How do we tell that we�re not really in contact with a malevolent being of some kind? And how can we know that we can trust God even if we know that we�ve found Him? Don�t we have to know in advance that a perfectly benevolent being will necessarily be truthful? And even if we know that we�ve found God and know that we can trust Him, why would we love Him if we didn�t have a love of Goodness implanted in our hearts?

Finally, if we don�t have an innate knowledge of Goodness, how can we have the knowledge of God that Christians insist everyone has? How can there be no �honest doubts� unless we know, deep down, not only that a supernatural being exists, but that He is good? After all, if we knew only that an extremely powerful, knowledgeable being exists, why would rebellion against this being be culpable? How could we be �without excuse�?

It's really frustrating, as you can imagine, to have my arguments consistently misunderstood or (worse) deliberately misrepresented. Given that you seem to recognize the nature of the transcendental argument, this is particularly dissappointing.

I have never knowingly said that unbelievers don't have knowledge of morality or anything else. I have consistently argued that the fact that they "do" have such knowledge is proof that they know God since such knowledge cannot be accounted for on any materialistic/naturalistic worldview.

3. Presuppositionalism

Many of your arguments seem to imply that you�re a presuppositionalist. Perhaps the most telling example is:

Your repeated assertions that a nontheist can�t know anything about the �real world� (with the suggestion that a theist, or at least a Christian, doesn�t have the same problem) suggests the same thing.

Again, I don't/have never made this argument and, if I did so, it would not be presuppositional argument since the true presuppositional argument asks the atheist to account for the elements of human experience, including the immaterial elements, [i]based on their own worldview.[/]

So, are you a presuppositionalist? [/B]

We are all presuppositionalists.

theophilus · 06-25-2003, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HRG I can prove it by evidence which is objective within that worldview.

HRG. [/B]

Go ahead, This is what I've been asking for for three years.

Wyz_sub10 · 06-25-2003, 02:54 PM

Okay all,

Everyone needs to "donna summer" here. The nature of these subjects are such that we will often argue heart over head.

While this is to be expected, it is further expected that our esteemed IIDB members will keep their composure when engaging each other.

There have been a few PMs and reported posts all pertaining to the general tone of this thread. While out-and-out insults aren't flying all over the place, there appears to be an escalation here that could lead to the aforementioned.

Let's nip this one in the bud - everyone take a deep breath and focus on the issues at hand, not the people posting them.

Consider this a general, and official, warning.

Cheers,

Wyz_sub10,
EoG Mod

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06-24-2003, 11:05 PM	#95
mosaic Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: anchorage Posts: 321	And to make that rationailty meaningful you have to give its metaphysical reason. You dont simple postulate an end. Either you postualte some closed duality between god and man. God depends on us to have meaning, as we depend on him for meaning. If god itself as no metaphysic for right or wrong, other than asserting it, what is the difference between Stalin doing the same? He offers no logic that we cant figure out for our own and refute if we find it despicable. Such as sending people to hell for calling its values nonsense. Theo, answer this question. Do you honestly belive there exists zero human reason for repudiating murder? That abhoring murder in society is entirely nonsensical and thus needs metaphysical meaning? As for normal question about adultery. I dont belive its "wrong." I simply dont like it if my girl cheats on me. Its mere feeling. Where does that come from? Mayb some evolution need to maintain close relationships. I really dont care. I'm man enough to admit that if my girl cheats on me, its my subjective feelings on the issue that make me "feekl" bad about it. Not because god decreed that women who cheat are bad, and implanted some feeling to demonstrate this fact. We make commitment. When its broken, we dont like it. If you need ethereal reason, for why breaking commitments "hurts" us then I really have nothing to say to you all. You can project your little feelings as having some intricate meaning to the universe.

06-25-2003, 02:54 PM	#100
Wyz_sub10 Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the land of two boys and no sleep. Posts: 9,890	Okay all, Everyone needs to "donna summer" here. The nature of these subjects are such that we will often argue heart over head. While this is to be expected, it is further expected that our esteemed IIDB members will keep their composure when engaging each other. There have been a few PMs and reported posts all pertaining to the general tone of this thread. While out-and-out insults aren't flying all over the place, there appears to be an escalation here that could lead to the aforementioned. Let's nip this one in the bud - everyone take a deep breath and focus on the issues at hand, not the people posting them. Consider this a general, and official, warning. Cheers, Wyz_sub10, EoG Mod

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