Reddit comments from January 2026

What Sunni Islam is today is a different question than what it was when people first began identifying as Sunnis, or how Sunnism was constructed. Today, people who adhere to Sunnism can be identified as: 1. Agreeing that the Quran as is…

Thanks

Too many em dashes

There is no such thing as moral neutrality. All research happens within the context of the researchers' ethical framework, even if great efforts are made not to expressly pass judgments. It's easier to arrive at truth acknowledging that than it is to pretend it's not the case and subsequently distort the entire process.

This requires buying into the paradigm of naturalistic phenomenon being objectively true and provable but non-naturalistic phenomenon being either nonexistant or unprovable. That is a very clear bias.

If I were to ask you, on what basis besides blind faith or modern academic convention, should we accept that naturalistic phenomenon are true or real - what would the academic of Quranic studies say?

If we're taking a truly hard materialistic stance, then you can't rely on the epistemological/ontological systems of secular philosophers like Hegel.

So how does the secular academic of Quranic studies prove that naturalism is a justifiable approach to attaining "unbiased" knowledge?

If you had said, "secular academia makes numerous assumptions and does not bother itself with justifying them, one of them being that supernatural beings do not exist" that would have been tenable.

But the claim of "unbiased" is provably false.

Please see my above comment

I don't see why being biased means you can't use language. People have biased worldviews all the time and still communicate. Actually, when you acknowledge and understand the biases, you can have a much more fruitful discussion and more clearly define the parameters.

I don't understand the next two sentences.

Asking for the epistemological or ontological basis of a method isn't apologia it's seeking robustness. There are positive things that come out of secular academia constantly, but the claim that it's a totally unbiased method is patently false. You don't need to believe in God or Islam to understand or acknowledge that.

They usually do which is why I was surprised by Dr. Marijn's comment. I recall him previously saying that secular academia operates under a different assumption set. Not sure what happened here

If he framed what he thinks as his own personal beliefs instead of objectively true I wouldn't have a problem with it. The problem is that what he said is not objectively provable and is therefore his own belief. It would be the same as someone coming into this sub and claiming Jinn are objectively real instead of saying that's their belief about the issue.

Way to engage 👍

Jinn are supposed to be a supernatural phenomenon and I assume you are saying the burden of proof is empirical evidence. By definition, there would be no empirical evidence of jinn. You're also still imposing a naturalistic paradigm without justifying it.

No, that isn't my logic. That's the logic you'll have to acquiesce to under hard materialism, where that epistemological framework leaves no objectivity for things like logic. You can still be a naturalist and accept the objective validity of logic but you can't be a hard materialist and do so (you can accept it as a convention though)m

I think there is value in distinguishing between the intellectual scholarly tradition of Sunnism, i.e. Sunni Islam, and this much wider sociological, civilizational, anthropological approach (the Islamicate). Something can be Islamic (part of the Islamicate) without being in accordance to the prescriptions or descriptions of traditional scholarship (Islam).

I would hesitate to call the practice of Ottoman prostitutes wearing niqab to hide their faces an "Islamic" phenomenon because that risks attributing it to the prescriptions of Din, but it is certainly a phenomenon of the Islamicate in that it could only arise in a Muslim society that cares about certain Islamic values.

There definitely is a reductionist approach both to Sunni Islam & to Islamicate so thanks for sharing this excerpt.

If we believe that there is objectivity to doctrine & practice then we would distinguish between normativity & heterodoxy. Do we think that the earliest Muslims & their broad strokes understanding of the Quran has authority? Or is "Islam" a much more fluid concept.

I would argue that we never conflate Christianity with Christendom. We wouldn't call capitalism "Christian" simply because it is difficult to imagine modern capitalism arising out of anything other than Calvanism & Protestantism (see Talal Assad). We would call capitalism a model that has Christian "features" in the same way that prominent atheist Richard Dawkins says he is "culturally Christian."

Do the Diwan of Hafez represent Islam or are they a product of Islamicate? Can we say that when Hafez says he uses God's hair as braids for his swing, this coheres with Islamic monotheism? Or would we say that Hafez is a poet with Islamic features?

I think we agree & it's just semantics at this point. I prefer to phrase Hafez as a product of Islamicate than as being representative of Islam but don't disagree with the core of what you're saying vis-a-vis a civilizational or cultural perspective.

I would argue that's true of Sahih al-Bukhari or Mukhtasar Khalil or Nahj al-Balagha insofar as they are trying to directly construct & contribute to "orthodoxy" i.e. official "Islam" with a capital "I" while also being products of Islamicate. For Hafez, I don't believe he had any such goal of making his work a piece of orthodox narrative & was moreso a poet influenced by capital "I" Islam. That being said, we are splitting hairs. We know Hafez is not a theologian, he's a poet. So whether he is Islamic or Islamicate is moreso semantics.

I think it's ahistorical to claim definitively that Muslims did not make these distinctions. If that were the case, there wouldn't be so much scholarly literature lambasting poets, metaphyiscians, and mystics! Muslim traditional scholarship…

I think the caveat you're missing here is "some" because Rumi & Hafez are still considered tertiary sources for nearly all traditional madaris & likely a majority of them today do not consider them acceptable (Deobandi, Salafi, neotraditionalists may have some sympathy in some parts of the world). As for lay Muslims today, outside of Persian descent, it's rarer to find someone familiar with these great poets.

I don't think scholarship's past failures to acknowledge products of Islamicate which fall outside of traditional scholarly orthodoxy as being intellectually rigorous or valuable or worthy of study should cause us to totally eliminate useful demarcations & adopt a totally sociological or anthropological lense. There is definitely a constructed orthodoxy that has held dominant intellectual sway and there are definitely a lot of important currents that don't fit into that fold which should also be analyzed. But if we don't demarcate what is what and just go based off of frequency it will put any conclusions we come to out of step - since the Muslims in these syncretic or quasi-orthodox strains do still think in thisnway themselves!

Yes, if at some point Rumi or Hafez were incorporated widely into traditional madrasah studies. Not in a sense of supplementary material that requires a great deal of work to bring it into the fold of orthodoxy but as a staple part of the…

The problem this poses is that you lack a way to effectively communicate anything about Islam.

Simple question: is Islam monotheistic or pantheistic?

Well when we look at al-Hallaj, ibn Arabi, the Falasifa, and some of Hafez/Rumi we would conclude it's pantheistic. These are interpretations based on the Quran.

But the vast majority of scholarship & Muslim masses would vehemently oppose this characterization.

Does Islam prescribe praying five times a day?

Again, some groups believe that this is abrogated when one reaches "Certainty" or that this is the exoteric of the text while the esoteric reality suggests not (Batiniyyah).

So we will need, at the very least, some rough guidelines as to what constitutes "Islam" versus what constitutes "Sunnism" or "Shi'ism" versus what is a cultural product of Muslims.

I don't see how a totally postmodern approach helps us understand anything better.

If Islam doesn't neccesarily involve monotheism or praying five times a day, then what is Islam?

For posterity (as Dr. Marijn already knows this info): There are also the 4 "shadh" that are still taught but not widely recited. People study them with works like al-Fawai'd al-Mu'tabarah after Tayyibat al-Nashr & Shatibiyyah.

Ahruf is a hotly debated concept that goes back to a hadith. It may or may not have any relationship to the Qira'at. There are many theories as to what is meant by the Qur'an being Revealed according to seven ahruf, but they're all…

When hadith transmitters narrate hadith with a chain they sometimes insert their own commentary (istidraj), early on outright paraphrasing hadith, and no one would expect them to expound on a hadith exactly like their teacher did. I see the sanad of Qira'at somewhat similar earlier on. Yes it's Nafi' gave Warsh permission but does that mean Asbahani accurately reflects how Nafi' recited? Probably not. The students took liberties because the teachers qualified them as top of their field. We don't know whether Nafi' would accept Asbahani's rendition of Warsh even though his name is associated with it.

I think there's definitely a mainstream Islam that is consistent throughout scholarly readings & the largest denominations from the beginning until the current day. It is hard to imagine NOW Ghazali being excised from that since he has become a part of the edifice of Sunni orthodoxy specifically. Islam would need to change so drastically for that to occur.

I don't know of any circumstance where religious Muslims rebelled or protested against their scholarship to the point where the views of the masses were markedly different than the scholarly class. Usually, traditional scholars are just very learned religious Muslims that know more about the same things they already agree about and are stricter against syncretic influences/more iconoclastic.

These scholars write books which are passed on and become reference points for later people trying to understand whaf Islam is.

Again, I'm not speaking from a place of objective correctness but rather dispassionate analysis to try to identify what is and is not Islam versus Islamicate.

I agree with that and I think that this point contradicts viewing Islam as a purely sociological/anthropological phenomenon as proposed above. You are describing the construction of an orthodoxy & ongoing competition to demarcate heterodoxy. The winners become "Islam." The losers are still Islam-ic (i.e. part of Islamicate) but aren't canonized. Tahafut al-Falasifa = Islam. Tahafut al-Tahafut = Islamicate.

What would be the core text & most core idea of Islam?

I think you're overestimating the prominance of tariqas/zawiyyahs in much of the world and definitely overestimating the penetration of Rumi/Hafez. Rumi & Hafez have had very little discernible impact in Arabic (I say this as a fan of…

I really greatly enjoy Rumi's poetry & I wish more work was done in Arabic to understand/expound on it. Even if that requires the kind of gymnastics afforded to ibn Arabi. It really is an untapped resource for Arabic speakers that Persians have enjoyed for centuries.

I'm not as big of a fan of Hafez but that's personal preferences.

The Mu'tazila are a great stress test because they're really on the cusp between sects. I would argue initially there was much confusion as to whether they were "Islamic" or not because orthodoxy itself and therefore Islam as we conceive of it today was still being constructed. That being said, Islam =/= Sunnism. The Mutazilah held that there is One God, Muhammad is His Prophet, the Quran is God's inerrant Word, & that we must imitate the Prophet. They believed in the 5 pillars and 6 articles of faith. So, the Mutazilah are Islamic - even if most Sunnis consider them to be heretical (I think there's a softening happening now).

Islam should be something broad, relatively unchanging, and not extremely particular - but clearly definable. Whereas Islamicate can have much more variety and be less tangible. Islam produces Islamicate.

Ibn Taymiyyah is definitely Islamic as is Ghazali. Whether they represent Sunnism or the most accurate interpretation of Sunnism is irrelevant, because the major broad strokes are there.

But is Farabi "Islam" or are his works a product of Islamicate?

Shi'ism would be a part of Islam but obviously not a part of Sunnism.

I would say any group that has certain doctrines, practices, & spiritual components would automatically fall under the definition of "Islam." There's fluidity & development but we can pretty easily decipher the broad strokes.

The Qaramitah are an Islamicate group that no Muslim group would consider Islamic, for example.

That process revolving around the Quran & some hadith corpus (Sunni, Shi'i, Mutazili) would probably include the five Pillars & six articles yes? I would agree with this conceptualization but this is different than OP.

Well Mutazilite beliefs are primarily recorded in Ash'ari's "Maqālāt al-Islāmīyyīn" or "Positions of the Islamics". Even Ahmad b. Hanbal considered some of them to be righteous.

I would say Islam revolves around the Quran, Sunnah (some hadith corpus, whether Sunni, Shi'i, Mutazili), the six articles of faith, the five pillars, & some kind of spiritual practice. The Qaramitah obviously violate this.

I think Asad & Ahmed are diametrically opposed on this. What Asad says makes much more sense to me.

Same to you. Much appreciated

They are recited in private classes (I once attended a class that even had recitations from ibn abi Dawud's Kitab al-Masahif as a learning exercise) and perhaps if I ever get a formal license I could do a recording but I'm #1. not talented and #2. doing a full high-quality recording of the Quran is strenuous. If that ever happens & I do an excerpt I'll be sure to send it your way before I'm flamed for hereticism 😂

If you come across that please link, would be very interesting indeed.

A discursive tradition with competing ideas attempting to constantly define and redefine itself is very different than a sociological/anthropological definition of Islam as popularly practiced and not as defined by Muslims themselves or their scholarly tradition. One of them is about the constant construction of orthodoxy & argues this construction process is itself Islam (not the results) whereas the other argues that orthodoxy is a byproduct of Islam but certainly not Islam itself definitionally.

From a discursive tradition standpoint:

1. Masajid are mentioned in the Quran & Sunnah
2. Beautification of masajid is discussed in the Quran & Sunnah
3. Orthodox scholarship had debates & discussions about masjid architecture & symbolism/icons

What would not be accounted for were certain kinds of things happening in & around masajid. For example, some masajid have basketball courts to attract the youth. Is it a part of "Islam" or is it a part of "Islamicate"? Asad's system can account for it as a secondary feature that doesn't define Islam but is a part of Islamicate whereas to Ahmed the basketball court is actual lived Islam & what scholars have to say about it is not as important.

The private school polish is real. It's not kids against kids, it's kids against other kids that have teams of highly educated adults putting in years of effort. The smartest 17 year old in the world is not competing with them.

Moistened bint 😂

Please share

Something about Frederick Douglass

I Saw the TV Glow

The fact that the game's writing initially seems to sympathize with the annoying 14 year old Redditor view only to add so many layers of depth is such an accomplishment

I think the Aged Man was writing letters to Yero because he was the Prophet before the main character and when Yero failed/succumbed since his "Calia" was killed, that's what prompted the Veiled Woman to interfere with the main character and make him into the Prophet.

You should be levelling about every 2.5 hours. You should be around level 4.

It seems that the cycle was invented because at a certain point in humanity's development they reach a stage of prosperity which is the pinnacle and beyond which no further progress can be made. So, when humanity nears that point, their…

The writers explicitly made the Legion less nuanced than they obviously could have to avoid people seeing them as good guys. In reality, "evil factions" do way more good things than the Legion do. The Legion essentially does nothing good in the entire game & their faction has few side quests. Somehow people still identify with them.

In reality there are benefits to facism, totalitarianism, & fanaticism. That's why so many people have supported & continue to support these things in the real world.

If someone can't see that the Legion are the bad guys they are just media illiterate.

It's a Michelin star restaurant but I'm not sure why OP can't just ask for a partial refund.

The website is back up... u/wifestalksthisuser

Any idea when?

Super excited for this

What an amazing resolution. Amen to your prayer. These are overall great choices.

I would make a small suggestion. Bukhari was originally designed as a scholarly research text. It's not the smoothest introduction to the Sunnah or Hadith.

I would suggest reading through Riyad al-Salihin instead. It's a bit shorter and is more designed around a lay reader.

Un Prophète by Audiard

Nomandland. Burning. Power of the Dog. Evil Does Not Exist.


High rise pleated slacks

F1 getting a best picture nomination but "All That’s Left of You" & "No Other Choice" getting no recognition at all is quite a choice.

Qurayshi polytheism is a syncretic religion, not an organized one. Therefore, there were henotheists, polytheists, and even proto-atheist mushriks. Judaism revolves around a text which Jews return to and by which their identity is distinguished. The same is true for Christianity. A Christian that denies Jesus is definitionally not a Christian.

However, a mushrik that denies Lat can still be a mushrik. A mushrik that believes only Allah is the true God can still be a mushrik. A mushrik that thinks all of the gods are made up can still be a mushrik. That's because Qurayshi mushrikun were syncretic, a mix of various religious traditions and personal opinion. There is no Qurayshi mushrik dogma.

In fact, the mushrikun were prepared to give rasulAllah power and "accept" Islam so long as they were allowed to host the idols for Hajj, as they feared removing them totally would harm trade. Yet rasulAllah rejected this, because being Muslim 359 days a year but accepting shirk for one STILL rendered them mushrikun and not Muslimun.

Some mushrikun believed Islam is true. Some believed all of the gods were just stories of the ancients. Some worshipped Lat & Uzza.

Why is it up to you to determine that their claim to Islam is indeed valid but what I said, which is based on the Quran, is invalid? Who made you the arbiter?

If Islam doesn't have a clear definition and none of us can determine who is or is not a Muslim then why do you care about mending rifts between Muslims? There's nothing we can clearly distinguish so there's nothing to dispute over.

Unless what you're concerned about is the feelings of people who claim to adhere about Islam. Which is not something that figures as a primary consideration for me.

I value Islam as a distinct way of life and an articulable belief system that is clearly defined so I will continue to be aware of its boundaries so that the tradition I inherited can be preserved for the future. Hashalillahi to accuse Him of being unable to clarify the Way He wants us to follow.

You're gish-galloping and strawmanning.

Either Islam has a definition and we can therefore identify what adheres to that definition and what does not or it is amorphous in which case there is nothing to define.

This is just a stream of consciousness where you're arguing with yourself about things I never said and demonstrating that you have not yourself taken the time to learn what Islam is. It would be more productive for you to focus on studying Din from reliable sources than arguing online.

Imagine trying to reduce the entire Sunnah corpus to the political motivations of the narrators and even claiming riwayat about fada'il al-a'mal are wholesale so Ummayyad "authoritarians" can justify their soldiers massacring people.

This is so silly and intellectually dishonest it almost doesn't warrant a response but alarmingly a lot of people are agreeing with this.

How does he explain many of these same narrations making it into Shi'a hadith collections, that had decidedly anti-Ummayyad political leanings?

Why is it not possible these hadith were fabricated for business reasons and not political ones, since we are speculating? Actually the hadith about Hajj is because the Arabs wanted people to travel to Makkah & Madinah for commerce. And the hadith about forgiveness of sins in Ramadan is about the Arab grocers/butchers wanting people to purchase more food for extravagant iftars. And the hadith about praying 5 times a day washing the sins away is because the prayer mat sellers wanted people praying more.

It's one thing to take a more critical lens of hadith or matn criticism. It is another thing to blindly speculate on entirely opaque political or financial or other motivations. This is why the muhadithun attempted to develop a neutral historiographical method for determining the reliability of the hadith.

Without the sanad anyone can just say anything they want, and that's exactly what we see here.

Where is utilitarianism

https://www.reddit.com/r/pluribustv/s/bV86OmpSFr

50% of this sub is Redditors that think philosophy means "dunk on religion & spirituality" and are really confused when confronted with actual philosophy

The debates where it wasn't random redditors, with no actual interest in philosophy wandering in, & people who actually care were the best. It's been fun smashing the materialists tho

Empiricism is a method, materialism is metaphysical/ontological. Empiricism describes how knowledge can be known (epistemology), materialism describes what knowledge & truth are. OP doesn't realize that nowadays 99% of the time, if you have accepted empiricism, higher up the chain you accepted materialism.

There are some idealists/dualists that utilize empiricism as a method in some areas while acknowledging its limitations.

Or 4000 years of philosophical thinking. That's also an alternative

Please empirically prove that anything outside of your own mind exists. I'll wait.

If solipsism is as justifiable of a worldview as yours then your worldview is totally indefensible. That's the point. You have no grounds to argue any position or advance any idea.

1. This is not true 2. This is not an accurate way to phrase it 3. Being an epistemological materialist or an empiricist is not the only alternative to solipsism. It's the least philosophically robust position. There are 2000 years of…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-pluralism/#LogiNihi

Then a person can simply assume non-white races are inferior because life is more fun that way and advocate for white supremacy simply as an axiom. If any axiom may be adopted without justification. And this would be as valid as materialism.

The amount of people in this sub that don't have a high school level understanding of philosophy and have never asked themselves basic questions is really concerning

Yup

Once we begin to doubt the solipsistic experience itself or the solipsistic viewer then we quickly need some transcendental noumenal anchor (a God of philosophy so to speak) otherwise it gets really trippy fast.

But the fact that people can't grasp the correctness of what you're saying because solipsism seems so counterintuitive to them prima facie is very concerning.

The existence of some kind of viewer is indisputable yes.

I think solipsism has better rational grounds than hard materialism as you initially stated. People that totally reject idealism reject their only rational out, the ontological/epistemological systems of people like Kant or Hegel. In a way, hard materialism/naturalism is as much psuedo-philosophy as logical positivism.

Whenever you bring up solipsism to them they just have an emotional reaction but they genuinely have no way to ground knowledge or truth.

OP: "I don't understand an argument nor can I prove it wrong and it's implications are both beyond my comprehension while also being uncomfortable. Therefore it is false and I am very smart."

I'm sorry OP I treated you too harshly 😔

Unfortunately while what you said seems much more consistent with a naturalistic paradigm, what is in the panel is constantly proposed by naturalists/materialists. If we accept evolution as an unguided process then it would be random, inefficient, often fail, and not be optimized for anything. It would just so happen that some subset of traits allowed enough of a survival advantage that they were passed on, but for whatever confluence of traits allowed for that, there would be a non-zero number of superfluous, counterintuitive, or "harmful" traits.

There would be no way to reliably test whether consciousness or reason was actually evolutionarily "advantageous" because we wouldn't be able to run experiments across billions of years to control for it. That would also require us to define some desire end goal for evolution which it does not have, being a random process.

I'm not a naturalist or materialist but I appreciate that you have some actual nuance on this point

The whole point of the meme is that what you consider "reality" requires some first principle to justify it otherwise Cartesian doubt becomes solipsistic, evil demon, Pyyrhonian, and even deeper layers of doubt.

Your choices are:

1) God of the philosophers (the vast majority of philosophy before the young Hegelians)

2) Radical skepticism (I don't know if anything is real)

3) Some kind of idealism that lends to focusing solely on phemomenal experience, like a modified Hegelian dialectic

4) Naieve materialism (doesn't make any sense, is not actually a justifiable position. Hurr durr it's real because I see it)

You just randomly assigned consistency, an absolutely arbitrary and unquantifiable, attribute as your universal principle. Now please proceed to prove that it exists

Materialism is a step on the epistemological chain before idealism & a philosophical God. If you stop at materialism you just have to accept having no answer to radical skeptics, which is exactly what Plato, Aristotle, Decartes, Berkeley, Ghazali, ibn Sina, etc. basically most of philosophy until Hegel was grappling with. You're basically saying "I give up doing philosophy." Which is fine but then don't claim it as philosophically valid let alone superior.

At least adopt some idealist position like Hegelian dialectic to ground your materialism so it stands some sort of chance intellectually

Empiricism & pragmatism is what the skeptics are doubting in the first place, not a solution to their doubts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism

Medieval Skepticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) see the section on Ghazali https://share.google/GNUxAZGCZqMIhVL9S

René Descartes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) https://share.google/eCIxDDK2O6VXw8z73

You asked why naieve materialism is worse than God, idealism, & radical skepticism. It is worse because naieve materialism is subject to the evil demon problem, the Boltzmann brain scenario, cannot disprove solipsism, is subject to logicial nihilism, and radical skepticism. I cannot teach you what these are in Reddit comments. You will have to actually read some philosophy. I have done you the favor of linking Wikipedia & Stanford.

This is presuming that pragmatism or utility is the goal of philosophy & not truth. But even from a pragmatic perspective, if we give up on absolute truth then morality is also totally subjective. In which case, we should accept moral nihilism & maximize our own personal pleasure at all costs. Therefore hyper militant ideologies that seek to dominate & subjugate everyone else without recourse to any morality & unrestrained hedonism are optimal.

You cannot even prove that this comment is true because it could be a Boltzmann brain scenario. You cannot demonstrate that consistency exists in any meaningful fashion other than the fact that you feel that you experience it. I can just as easily claim otherwise and there's no retort. This is the opposite of doing philosophy, it's just giving up and going with vibes.

This means you're not interested in truth & not interested in philosophy so what are you doing here

The... whole point of the philosophical God is that if he is susceptible to the evil demon problem himself or is untruthful then he is not the actual "God." Hence... the post you're commenting under?

An infinite regress of what? Of you not understanding the arguments?

The other 3 approaches are quite literally attempts to deal with those. Naieve materialism just decides not to engage.

You do realize I don't subscribe to radical skepticism & have my own attempted solutions to it - so it's not me that's subject to "consistency being illusory." Somehow you proved my point but failed to apply it to yourself. I am arguing against your fundamental principle, that doesn't mean I subscribe to radical skepticism myself. It just means YOU are incapable of defending againdt it.

That's not logical absurdity it's a logical possibility which is the entire problem. Just because you find it far fetched doesn't make it less probable. It could very well be the case, you just would rather go with vibes.

Interlocutor*

Why? What if your entire reality does not exist? How can you justify that it does? What if I say, since you can't be sure, & I can't be sure, then ethics is also totally subjective. Since perhaps nothing is real, I should just maximize my pleasure at your detriment and that's actually optimal.

You are justifying to yourself that reality DOES exist. If you believe that it doesn't or are unsure then you are a skeptic and don't justify anything.

It's very simple:

Cold_pumpkin believes the world he sees is real. He should explain why he thinks so.

I misspoke. Skepticism is the one posing the problem. Philosophical theism & idealism are attempts at solving it. There are some "materialists" who are not naieve but I lump them in with idealists because it's more methodological differences than foundational ones.

Naieve materialism is not semantically different than idealism, it's substantively different.

Philosophical theism suggests that a God is the fundamental anchor upon which epistemology can be based, because if there is a benevolent transcendent guarantee that our cognition is not outright deceptive - then we can begin to evaluate other things. This is Plato's form of the Good or Decartes benevolent God.

Kant & Hegel turn to ontology to try to construct an epistemology based in the phenomenon without recourse to the noumenon. While Hegel did believe in God, his work in this regard is definitely the pinnacle of a non-theistic approach to solving the major problems proposed by skeptics. I don't think he succeeds.

Naieve materialists have benefitted from the fallout of Hegelian dialectic & the young Hegelians, assume hard philosophy (metaphysics, ontology, epistemology) is just "solved" because it's so obvious that the material world is real dude.

We end up getting a scenario where the robust options are: theism, idealism, or radical skepticism.

Materialism is still positing that reality is real. What is the justification for this as opposed to philosophical zombies or solipsism?

This evades answering my question which is the exact focus of much of Nietzsche work and what terrified him - that there isn't a direct answer to nihilism in a post-theistic materialistic framework. Hence we see global superpower imperialism destroying the planet's future for immediate gains because: why not?

Marx was a dialectical materialist & a young Hegelian. I consider that to be a "robust" materialist and really a kind of idealist. His ontology & epistemology are based on Hegel, but he didn't take these things for granted per se.

If that's what you're doing may you never cross my path

My original comment,

>The whole point of the meme is that what you consider "reality" requires some first principle to justify it otherwise Cartesian doubt becomes solipsistic, evil demon, Pyyrhonian, and even deeper layers of doubt.

>Your choices are:

>1) God of the philosophers (the vast majority of philosophy before the young Hegelians)

>2) Radical skepticism (I don't know if anything is real)

>3) Some kind of idealism that lends to focusing solely on phemomenal experience, like a modified Hegelian dialectic

>4) Naieve materialism (doesn't make any sense, is not actually a justifiable position. Hurr durr it's real because I see it)

Let's focus on,

"3) Some kind of idealism that lends to focusing solely on phemomenal experience, like a modified Hegelian dialectic"

I just said Marx is a dialectical materialist & young Hegelian. How did I adjust my stance at all?

There is a difference between fundamentally selfishly doing good for oneself & others out of a desire to draw near to God & know him versus fundamentally selfishly doing good for oneself without concern for others out of a desire to maximize earthly utility. Yes, all people are motivated by their self benefit. But what is defined as self benefit & whether self benefit includes the harm of others is at issue here.

I'm not arguing the point on selfishness. I am arguing the point that there's a material difference in choosing to be selfish to gain God & benefitting others versus choosing to be selfish for worldly gain & willingness to harm others.

I use the extra "e" to represent ï. It's correctly spelled naïve.

I don't think capitalism is a good system but that doesn't mean it isn't a utilitarian philosophy. Nazism was a utilitarian philosophy whose aims to maximize good outcomes were limited to the German people (as defined by Nazis). The mass killings under the Soviets were also justified using utilitarian thinking.

Just because someone does not arrive at a successful utilitarian outcome does not mean they do not ascribe to a utilitarian worldview, perhaps even sincerely. It just means that their method was ineffective or their motives were corrupted along the way or that utilitarianism ITSELF is fundamentally defective.

Early 2028 is a joke

It's between FF7 & MGS.

...we're talking about why people are having less sex, not putting people down for "skill issues." Not sure how anything you said is relevant to the topic

Enderal, Fallout New Vegas, Final Fantasy 7

Yes, I would say it's similar quality to base New Vegas with a bit less content. So quite a bit better than Skyrim. Skyrim has more content especially with DLCs but Enderal is a much superior game in every respect.

You clearly know absolutely nothing about US history to think that the Stranger cast getting away without consequences makes any sense. The most realistic outcome based on US military history is summary execution on the spot. Second would be torture to death in a black site. Third would be military trial & indefinite detention. This includes the minors.

They... murdered dozens of troops, ruined a multi-million dollar government project of immense importance, harbored a fugitive, need I go on? The government of 1980s would have no problem slaughtering them and - in the show - REPEATEDLY tried to kill them.

Yeah that's what you do when you cover something up. You let the witnesses go. Because if you got rid of the witnesses, then people would... somehow... know what they witnessed. But if the witnesses get away then for sure no one will ever find out because the witnesses will never say anyrhing... because... yes.

Is the concept of Sudan as a nation state really mobilizing enough that people will make the sacrifices neccesary to establish a prosperous Sudan? Do Sudanese people have enough nationalistic fervor for that?

Does Sudanese culture produce people who have the raw in-group bias neccesary to oppose states with trillions of dollars at their disposal & a vested interest in its natural resources?

Is there something that unites the Sudanese enough for them to overlook their differences and be willing to give their lives for "Sudan?"

What we currently think of as Sudan was granted independence in 1956. Before then, was there a distinctly "Sudanese" identity? Or is modern Sudan partially a construction of colonialism & Arab nationalism?

These are hard questions but anyone that wants to see Sudan as a prosperous modern country needs to ask themselves these things.

25 is old now?

It's... 5 years older.

This looks 🔥

Gorgeous