Hypothetical: God is disproved
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RightBehind
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« on: May 19, 2016, 10:11:13 PM »

Let's say you wake up tomorrow and thete is definitive, concrete evidence that no God exists. How do you feel? How do you live your life? What changes, if anything?
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2016, 05:53:35 AM »

First off, define "God". What exactly is your absurd hypothetical disproving?
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afleitch
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« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2016, 07:24:54 AM »

First off, define "God". What exactly is your absurd hypothetical disproving?

That's not what he asked. He asked if god was disproved what would your reaction be?
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Mopsus
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« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2016, 08:37:05 AM »

I suspect that most people's response would be, "Reject the proof".
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NeverAgain
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« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2016, 09:34:47 AM »

Already happened. No one cares, because faith triumphs proof. A person's ability to believe is more powerful than their ability to understand or comprehend. IMO.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2016, 09:44:45 AM »

First off, define "God". What exactly is your absurd hypothetical disproving?

That's not what he asked. He asked if god was disproved what would your reaction be?

He asked about God, not god. My reaction would vary considerably if he meant YHWH specifically, any generic anthropomorphic deity, any sentient personification of the Divine, or a complete disproval of any non-physical existence. Any proof beyond discovering the origin of a specific deity was definitively not as its adherents believe would likely require a complete reshaping of the current scientific consensus on cosmology and physics to achieve, which I just don't see happening, which is why this hypothetical is absurd. Science doesn't need to fundamentally reshape itself to answer any of the questions it has concerning those subjects, just better data.
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RightBehind
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« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2016, 11:09:14 AM »

First off, define "God". What exactly is your absurd hypothetical disproving?

That's not what he asked. He asked if god was disproved what would your reaction be?

He asked about God, not god. My reaction would vary considerably if he meant YHWH specifically, any generic anthropomorphic deity, any sentient personification of the Divine, or a complete disproval of any non-physical existence. Any proof beyond discovering the origin of a specific deity was definitively not as its adherents believe would likely require a complete reshaping of the current scientific consensus on cosmology and physics to achieve, which I just don't see happening, which is why this hypothetical is absurd. Science doesn't need to fundamentally reshape itself to answer any of the questions it has concerning those subjects, just better data.

I asked how people would feel and how they'd live their lives if somehow there was 100% concrete evidence there was no higher power and no afterlife.
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RFayette
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« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2016, 02:17:40 PM »

Already happened. No one cares, because faith triumphs proof. A person's ability to believe is more powerful than their ability to understand or comprehend. IMO.

Explain how the existence of God has been "disproved."  It's impossible to prove his existence one way or another.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2016, 03:01:48 PM »

Probably begin asking what "the proof" is everyone talks about.

After that, I'd probably take over the world in a maniacal rage.

- Cheesy
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DemPGH
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« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2016, 07:59:42 PM »

I'm really not sure what disproof would even be in our current state of evolution. The sought-after "grand unifying theory"?

I am, and have been, under the impression that there is solid, very reasonable doubt, so "proof" of there being no supreme being would not affect me or change my behavior, outlook, etc., since I proceed from the view that supreme deities have no interest in what happens on Earth in the first place, or in the physical world, in the cosmos, etc., until I have reason to believe that they do-- if they exist.

Now, religion is something else. Religion is a human invention, and hardly a constructive one.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2016, 08:58:13 PM »

I asked how people would feel and how they'd live their lives if somehow there was 100% concrete evidence there was no higher power and no afterlife.

An impossible question for anyone to answer for reasons that should be fairly obvious. However. Why do you think this question is one worth asking? Now that is an interesting question.
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afleitch
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« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2016, 04:09:43 AM »

God was disproved for me. And here I am. I think unless my income source depended on it most people would adjust.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #12 on: May 21, 2016, 09:05:23 AM »

Stupid question, a far better question would be the reverse. What would you do if he (or some other deity) were completely and utterly proved

But I'll humor ya' since I have nothing else going on in my life anyway: I'd waste myself drinking for a bit, and then I'd move on.

The same answer applies if the Greek, Norse, or Celtic Gods were proven to be the ones in place of God.

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Mopsus
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« Reply #13 on: May 21, 2016, 10:26:21 AM »

I asked how people would feel and how they'd live their lives if somehow there was 100% concrete evidence there was no higher power and no afterlife.

An impossible question for anyone to answer for reasons that should be fairly obvious. However. Why do you think this question is one worth asking? Now that is an interesting question.

Presumably, he wants people to think about how much of their worldview really stands on their beliefs about God.
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Alcon
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« Reply #14 on: May 21, 2016, 03:32:51 PM »
« Edited: May 21, 2016, 03:45:03 PM by Alcon »

It's hard for me to answer this question (even as an atheist) because it's hard for me to imagine a world in which it made sense for a metaphysical claim to be totally disproved.  I think the way God's existence was disproved would matter a lot to thinking in general.

Stupid question, a far better question would be the reverse. What would you do if he (or some other deity) were completely and utterly proved

Why is one question stupid and one "far better"?  They seem to be getting at similar things to me -- how people would deal with massive shake-ups in their worldview.  Honestly, asking this of theists sounds like a more interesting question, because most atheists are agnostic, and it seems more of a leap to go from belief to disbelief, because you often lose a lot of dogmas, communities, and structure that agnostic types don't really lose if they go from non-belief to belief.  (Not that it can't be a big deal for agnostics too, but again, you said the question was "stupid" and that asking about the opposite question would be "far better.")

An impossible question for anyone to answer for reasons that should be fairly obvious. However. Why do you think this question is one worth asking? Now that is an interesting question.

That's not obvious to me.  Please explain.  Like I said above, the means by which a metaphysical claim could be disproven -- and how they'd affect our thinking on other issues -- seem potentially relevant to me, because they might change relevant aspects of reality/logic/etc.  But even if you ignore that question, and accept the premise without worrying about how the premise is possible, there are plenty of things (belief in received truths, among others) that can be addressed without necessarily knowing how the premise is possible -- you just assume all else is equal, besides gaining that knowledge.  It's no more impossible to work with this premise than others that would require some unknown factor to make them logically possible ("what if the Earth were made of Jell-O?!").  

Hell, IIRC you have argued in the past that faith is reasonable outside of logic, and now you're arguing that this is unanswerable, presumably because the premise it rests on is logically untenable/dubious.  So how can you now reject considering a premise based on the logical difficulty of accepting the premise?  IIRC, you've expressed support in believing a premise regardless of the logical difficulty of accepting that premise.

Also, there are plenty of interesting answers to this: whether they would even accept the proof if it seemed logically sound to them; how they'd deal with the loss of moral guidance; what they would feel about the loss of moral enforcement; how the loss of belief in the afterlife would affect them, philosophically and emotionally; how they'd deal with the loss of a perceived loving relationship; how it would make them question their thinking/perceiving process in general.  Really, none of those questions sound interesting to you?
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #15 on: May 21, 2016, 07:07:08 PM »

That's not obvious to me.  Please explain.

God must exist beyond that which is objectively verifiable else God is not God.

Or, rather, the only conception of God that might be technically objectively provable/disprovable would be a particularly boring and pedantic Deistic conception (which I would not recognise as 'God' in any case) and, frankly, don't we all have better things to be worrying about that that?

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But a) stupid and b) ultimately masturbatory and therefore not honest and therefore, from one point of view, impossible to truly answer.

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If a question can't be answered honestly (this one can't) then it's a useless question and is probably only being asked for rhetorical purposes. Or at least that's my suspicion.
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Alcon
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« Reply #16 on: May 22, 2016, 12:14:17 AM »
« Edited: May 22, 2016, 03:48:11 AM by Alcon »

God must exist beyond that which is objectively verifiable else God is not God.

So, you're effectively making the argument that I just rebutted.  Please explain why you disagree with the rebuttal.

Or, rather, the only conception of God that might be technically objectively provable/disprovable would be a particularly boring and pedantic Deistic conception (which I would not recognise as 'God' in any case) and, frankly, don't we all have better things to be worrying about that that?

It's kind of aggravating to deal with something that starts as a really specific statement, and then becomes incredibly vague.  I'm not a dumb guy, and I have no idea what you're talking about, or why people "pedantic" or "boring" would make an argument invalid.  [This is especially ironic considering that esoteric allusions your audience is unlikely to recognize, are arguably kinda "masturbatory."]

But a) stupid and b) ultimately masturbatory and therefore not honest and therefore, from one point of view, impossible to truly answer.

How is it stupid to accept the plausibility of a premise and then to answer the (interesting) possibilities that would follow?  Are you arguing against engaging counterfactuals?  By "masturbatory," do you mean "excessively self-absorbed or self-indulgent" (huh? how?) or do you mean, like, pointless but gratifying?  In which case...cool, so?

If a question can't be answered honestly (this one can't) then it's a useless question and is probably only being asked for rhetorical purposes. Or at least that's my suspicion.

You totally ignored both my main rebuttal of my argument, and my challenge to your consistency, and just repeated your position.  And then you attacked the intention of the question-asker, which has absolutely nothing to do with the merit of the argument/question.  Do you get this defensive about other counterfactuals, or only ones that relate to a personal sacred cow like religion?
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afleitch
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« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2016, 02:11:26 AM »

There's a serious amount of 'not wanting to answer' dressed up as wank in this thread.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #18 on: May 22, 2016, 07:33:30 AM »

First off, define "God". What exactly is your absurd hypothetical disproving?

That's not what he asked. He asked if god was disproved what would your reaction be?

He asked about God, not god. My reaction would vary considerably if he meant YHWH specifically, any generic anthropomorphic deity, any sentient personification of the Divine, or a complete disproval of any non-physical existence. Any proof beyond discovering the origin of a specific deity was definitively not as its adherents believe would likely require a complete reshaping of the current scientific consensus on cosmology and physics to achieve, which I just don't see happening, which is why this hypothetical is absurd. Science doesn't need to fundamentally reshape itself to answer any of the questions it has concerning those subjects, just better data.

I asked how people would feel and how they'd live their lives if somehow there was 100% concrete evidence there was no higher power and no afterlife.

Now that's a specific question. Still an absurd hypothetical in my opinion since it requires looking for a change in non-theological topics that no one feels the need to look for at present.

I can't say that my life would change all that much. While I do have a strong belief in the existence of the Divine and an afterlife, their non-existence would not affect the system of ethics I live by. There are all too many consequences in this life from engaging in evil for the lack of any possible effect in the next to alter my behavior. The main effect on me would be indirect from how religious institutions react to the proof.
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ingemann
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« Reply #19 on: May 22, 2016, 07:38:12 AM »

The only way a metaphysical concept can be disproven, would be to prove other metaphysical concepts real. So how I would react would depend on what which would be in the place of God.

There's a significant difference between the alternative metaphysic being for example Dharmic or Lovecraftian in nature. And my reaction would be quite different between those two.
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Alcon
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« Reply #20 on: May 22, 2016, 12:57:42 PM »
« Edited: May 22, 2016, 01:07:27 PM by Alcon »

The only way a metaphysical concept can be disproven, would be to prove other metaphysical concepts real. So how I would react would depend on what which would be in the place of God.

There's a significant difference between the alternative metaphysic being for example Dharmic or Lovecraftian in nature. And my reaction would be quite different between those two.

Again, I think there are answers to this question that are not dependent on what the alternative metaphysics are.  You can even define the alternative metaphysics as "we are somehow certain there is not God."  Why not, if only just for a thought experiment?  

Using metaphysical uncertainty as a reason to avoid answering is especially weird since I assume most of the adamant non-answerers in this thread manage to operate on the premise that God certainly does exist, so either they can accept a premise regardless of understanding the metaphysics behind it, or they believe they are certain about metaphysical truth currently for some reason.  Either way, they accept a metaphysical premise (or some premise) that leads them to believing certitude is justified.  And if they can accept a premise, I don't see why they can't engage a theoretical.

This is seriously silly.
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bore
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« Reply #21 on: May 22, 2016, 01:08:31 PM »
« Edited: May 22, 2016, 01:12:40 PM by bore »

Nah, there's no doubt that this is a stupid question (which doesn't mean it's not fun to debate and think about but it does mean we won't get anything serious out of it), and to try and pretend that it's actually got us religious people quaking in out boots is silly.

The reason that it doesn't make sense is that the conventional, orthodox belief right across (most) different faiths is that God is Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, Why Anything At All Exists, He's not some person who is basically like us but also has some pretty neat superpowers. What this means for proof and disproof is that you can't just find him by looking throughout the universe and taking some readings, He isn't holed up in a flat in Croydon. He is not simply one more thing in the universe, if you had a list of all the things that are, you wouldn't add God to that list as a separate entity. This means that you can only prove God doesn't or does exist by a logical argument, and in a logical argument  you make some assumptions, then you show what these logically imply and you keep on doing this until you reach a conclusion. But of course those assumptions are just that, assumptions. They might be right and they might be wrong, but we can never, fully, know which one they are.

Of course this is all quite arcane. Whether such a proof or disproof that is comprehensible to humans is not really important to this question, because plenty of things exist but are inconceivable to us and plenty of things that can't exist are conceivable. The real problem with this question is it's like all counter-factuals. The dead body of Jesus of Nazareth being found tomorrow in a grave in palestine is just as silly a counter factual despite being unarguably possible and definitely conceivable.

The thing is, the only honest answer to any variation of "What if I'm wrong?"is "I don't know". We all think we're right, and all of our interactions with the world are shaped by these underlying beliefs. If one of these beliefs is proven wrong then our interactions with the world will have to change, but these are so foundational that we just can't predict what these changes will be.

I think one thing which is helpful to keep in mind whenever having debates about religious belief in general and whether we should hold them is to compare them to political beliefs.  Because so many (but not all) popular arguments against religious belief in the abstract work just as well against political beliefs in the abstract, but no one ever mentions it, and in fact the proposers of the arguments would be horrified with those conclusions. Ask yourself, then, if your politics were disproved, how would you react, and then you might see why the question in the OP isn't really helpful.
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Alcon
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« Reply #22 on: May 22, 2016, 01:09:45 PM »

Now that's a specific question. Still an absurd hypothetical in my opinion since it requires looking for a change in non-theological topics that no one feels the need to look for at present.

what?  What topics, and why is it "absurd" to engage a hypothetical that requires looking for a change in those topics because no one "feels the need" to look for such a change at present?

I can't say that my life would change all that much. While I do have a strong belief in the existence of the Divine and an afterlife, their non-existence would not affect the system of ethics I live by. There are all too many consequences in this life from engaging in evil for the lack of any possible effect in the next to alter my behavior. The main effect on me would be indirect from how religious institutions react to the proof.

Thank you!  See, that's the point of this hypothetical.
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Alcon
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« Reply #23 on: May 22, 2016, 02:12:04 PM »
« Edited: May 22, 2016, 02:15:40 PM by Alcon »

Nah, there's no doubt that this is a stupid question (which doesn't mean it's not fun to debate and think about but it does mean we won't get anything serious out of it), and to try and pretend that it's actually got us religious people quaking in out boots is silly.

The reason that it doesn't make sense is that the conventional, orthodox belief right across (most) different faiths is that God is Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, Why Anything At All Exists, He's not some person who is basically like us but also has some pretty neat superpowers. What this means for proof and disproof is that you can't just find him by looking throughout the universe and taking some readings, He isn't holed up in a flat in Croydon. He is not simply one more thing in the universe, if you had a list of all the things that are, you wouldn't add God to that list as a separate entity. This means that you can only prove God doesn't or does exist by a logical argument, and in a logical argument  you make some assumptions, then you show what these logically imply and you keep on doing this until you reach a conclusion. But of course those assumptions are just that, assumptions. They might be right and they might be wrong, but we can never, fully, know which one they are.

Your main argument, which is reasonable, is that God is not knowable based on empirical observation.  I'm not sure if you're arguing for certitude-via-faith or belief-in-absence-of-certitude, but it doesn't really matter.  The thing is, though, that the majority of Christians (at least in the polling I've seen) do, in fact, express certitude.  You might (rightly) argue that these Christians may believe in certitude-via-faith.  But if you believe in certitude-of-faith, and believe that's reasonable (I don't), how is any leap to attribute (via certitude-of-faith) metaphysical meaning to something concrete?  It's not really that hard to imagine a religion that has faith in the metaphysical significance of a concrete thing or observation.  That's why I reject calling this question "stupid," even if adding the "concrete" part was an unnecessary distraction; it's not inherently inconsistent with the thinking/belief system of most theists.

Of course this is all quite arcane. Whether such a proof or disproof that is comprehensible to humans is not really important to this question, because plenty of things exist but are inconceivable to us and plenty of things that can't exist are conceivable. The real problem with this question is it's like all counter-factuals. The dead body of Jesus of Nazareth being found tomorrow in a grave in palestine is just as silly a counter factual despite being unarguably possible and definitely conceivable.

The thing is, the only honest answer to any variation of "What if I'm wrong?"is "I don't know". We all think we're right, and all of our interactions with the world are shaped by these underlying beliefs. If one of these beliefs is proven wrong then our interactions with the world will have to change, but these are so foundational that we just can't predict what these changes will be.

I think one thing which is helpful to keep in mind whenever having debates about religious belief in general and whether we should hold them is to compare them to political beliefs.  Because so many (but not all) popular arguments against religious belief in the abstract work just as well against political beliefs in the abstract, but no one ever mentions it, and in fact the proposers of the arguments would be horrified with those conclusions. Ask yourself, then, if your politics were disproved, how would you react, and then you might see why the question in the OP isn't really helpful.

See, that's the weird thing: why are you so confident you're right and that your beliefs won't change?  Have you not been presented with reasonable counterarguments by reasonable people with different, reasonable intuitions?  If people's disagreement is not a function of unreasonableness, or stupidity, how can you not have a degree of uncertainty about whether your beliefs are wrong?  How is it so hard to imagine a world in which your intuitions change enough to agree with other reasonable people with different intuitions?

I have had people present arguments that challenged my fundamental beliefs.  A few of those arguments have been more consistent and reasonable than those I had -- so I changed my beliefs.  I don't know how this hasn't happened to anyone who has ever been a dumb teenager.  There are some fundamental value propositions I have (that, all else being equal, suffering should be avoided; that, all else being equal, autonomy is good).  Those would be hard to change, mostly because they're based on assumptions so loose I wouldn't even call them "assumptions" (why not let people live the life they prefer?  It's what I would want.)  But those aren't really good analogues to religious belief, which actually asserts a truth about reality, which is presumably based in more contestable logic and is believed "true."

tl;dr: I don't see the idea of changing your mind on a fundamental belief fantastical, and I don't see how it's so hard to think through, conceptually or emotionally.  If you allow it to be that difficult, doesn't that risk making it incredibly difficult to change your mind about fundamental beliefs even when doing so is reasonable?
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #24 on: May 22, 2016, 02:34:04 PM »

So, you're effectively making the argument that I just rebutted.  Please explain why you disagree with the rebuttal.

Which rebuttal is this?

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Which part is vague?

I don't know whether boring pedantry is automatically invalid, but who honestly has the time for it?

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Let's not shift things too much. It was the question I labeled as stupid. I'd argue that any philosophical question that can't be addressed honestly is kind of stupid. I suppose I'm using 'stupid' to mean 'pointless and unproductive' rather than 'lacking in intelligence', but that's not unusual in this context. No one else has to agree, but that's my settled view.

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Quite possibly. You can't know how you'd react to most hypotheticals which does make them problematic from the honesty perspective (which is important). The idea that we have control over our feelings is risible.

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I'm not sure if I am being defensive.
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