Belief in authority is a religion

[screwtape]

Your reply is a [wiki]Red_herring[/wiki] with a side order of [wiki]Appeal_to_consequences[/wiki]

It's not.  If you cannot answer Azdgari's point here, then you are asking for a special exception for your beloved ideas and applying a different standard to everyone else.  You know.  Kind of like the way religious people do for god.  They say, "Sumthin' can't come from nuthin'!"  And when we ask, what about god? they reply, "Oh, well, that's different..."[1]

You gab on about rights and property as if you have established either exist.   You haven't.  Yet they seem to be critical to your main argument.  And you have been asked several times to provide some foundation for them.  You still haven't. 

So your handwaving dismissal of Azdgari's post looks a lot like someone trying to dodge an inconvenient argument.

1.	Since you like to wiki fallacies, it is called [wiki]special pleading[/wiki].

[Nam]

So let me address it by the numbers.
1. You assert that my points and I are "irrelevant".
2. If you find my points and myself "irrelevant" then you simply don't have to read them.
3. In order to not read them, all you have to do is block me.
4. I gave YOU the exact link to take you where you need to go on YOUR profile page to block me.
5. And you call me "idiot".


Bwa ha ha.

OH, and by the way... nobody but you can see your ignore list if they click that link... Only you can.
So you just ASS U ME d something there you know nothing about.

Why would I put you on my ignore list? eh! Is on my ignore because he talks like a 10 year old, and I assume he actually is one, and there are enough adult children on here (me included) and reading an actual child, which I assume he is, would get me to answer his pithy comments in a highly derogatory manner. Junebug's on there because I just don't like her. You're obviously not a child though you act like one, and I neither like nor dislike you seeing how irrelevant I find you.

To your last point: irrelevant: I do not need to know every nook and cranny of this website to participate in discussions on it so if I assume incorrectly, doesn't bother me.

However, you assume a lot about one subject and expect us to find it relevant. Like I said: it isn't and neither are you...but that doesn't mean I do not like arguing about it.

-Nam

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

Your reply is a [wiki]Red_herring[/wiki] with a side order of [wiki]Appeal_to_consequences[/wiki]

Instead of just asserting things like this, perhaps you should explain how his reply was a red herring and an appeal to consequences.  Think of it this way; what seems obvious to you can be totally unclear to other people.  I have myself had a number of situations on this site where someone misunderstood me or I misunderstood them based on things that seemed obvious but weren't.  If you explain the reasoning behind it, it eliminates at least one possible source for misunderstanding.

Since I am denied 1 on 1 debate with a spokesperson chosen by y'all, I am under no compulsion to address things other than the issue of Whence comes authority?

And since the subject line is Belief in authority is a religion...

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

Your reply is a [wiki]Red_herring[/wiki] with a side order of [wiki]Appeal_to_consequences[/wiki]

It's not.  If you cannot answer Azdgari's point here, then you are asking for a special exception for your beloved ideas and applying a different standard to everyone else.  You know.  Kind of like the way religious people do for god.  They say, "Sumthin' can't come from nuthin'!"  And when we ask, what about god? they reply, "Oh, well, that's different..."[1]

You gab on about rights and property as if you have established either exist.   You haven't.  Yet they seem to be critical to your main argument.  And you have been asked several times to provide some foundation for them.  You still haven't. 

So your handwaving dismissal of Azdgari's post looks a lot like someone trying to dodge an inconvenient argument.

1.	Since you like to wiki fallacies, it is called [wiki]special pleading[/wiki].

I'm sure you believe that.

[Azdgari]

I'm sure you believe that.

Keep avoiding whatever points might be damaging to the religious belief in property rights, HED.

It's not a red herring.  It's pointing out your special pleading.

[Backspace]

Indeed.  I've been following this thread on-and-off since the beginning; both direct factual answers and links to historical and current legal bases for governmental authority have been provided. If not ignored outright by HED, he otherwise responds with a wall of consistently repeating circular rebuttals, denials, and continuing proof he has deep emotional issues with authority. 

Sometimes one needs to recognize a brick wall for what it is and move on.

[Graybeard]

Habenae Est Dominatus,

The problem you have, is in the title, “Belief in authority is a religion”, but it is far better put as. “Religion is a belief in authority.”

Simply put, you are saying that religion is a belief that there is a final authority to which many irrationally subscribe.

We agree.

However, the belief in the authority of government is not the same. Whereas all gods are myths and thus obedience to them is foolishness, the government is real and its deeds are reported hourly. For our taxes, we get what none of us could individually afford.

You accepted your parents as authority, and then your teachers and in adult life you recognised hundreds of “authority figures”. Humans are like that, they are tribal and social mammals who, for convenience accept order.

By choosing a government, the citizens give their approval to a new god and agree to be governed by their choice but also agree to keep an eye on the government/god for a few years. Citizens do not mind this state of affairs.

How often do you hear, “Oh, I got fed up of Yahweh he was useless at healing amputees, at the last election I voted for, and now worship, Poseidon.”?

There are those of us here who can live normal lives without gods, but there are none here (and I include you) who can live a “normal” life without a government. (At least not without massive inconvenience and a high chance of death.)

The citizens have another, similar fiction: money. Money is essentially worthless. A dollar note costs far less than a dollar to produce and everyone knows it. We agree to agree and the system works. We have a medium of exchange; a convenience. This token has confidence behind it, therefore it works.

A government has confidence behind it and therefore it works. The strange thing is that Yahweh has confidence behind him and he doesn’t work, but the blind masses, the sheep, the indoctrinated continue to make ridiculous excuses for him and still give him their confidence.

That I why I suggest “Religion is a belief in authority.” as a better title, because, as you now see, “Belief in authority is a religion” is false, and should be “Belief in an agreed authority is a necessary convenience for social mammals.”

[screwtape]

Since I am denied 1 on 1 debate with a spokesperson chosen by y'all, I am under no compulsion to address things other than the issue of Whence comes authority?

You are under no compulsion to do anything here.  But if you want to make your arguments about authority, you must make it on a foundation.  And part of that foundation is rights and property.  If you wish to leave your argument grounded on nothing, that is up to you.

And since the subject line is Belief in authority is a religion...

That has long ago been dismissed as a misnomer.

[One Above All]

Habenae Est Dominatus, I'm waiting for your reply on my smite. Where do you live, and at what time- no, scratch that. Just tell me where you live, and I'll go get MY things from your- sorry, MY house and kick you out of it for trespassing. That is, unless you can PROVE that they are, in fact, YOUR things, and that you don't simply believe blindly that they belong to you. You may ask "Well, if they're not mine, why are they yours?". A very good question. First you PROVE why they are OBJECTIVELY yours, and we'll go from there.

[jaimehlers]

Since I am denied 1 on 1 debate with a spokesperson chosen by y'all,

Nobody denied you anything.  I saw no post in the Debate Challenge thread stating that you could not issue a debate challenge.  What you should be saying is that nobody took you up on it.  So don't try to use it as an excuse to dodge answering stuff.

I am under no compulsion to address things other than the issue of Whence comes authority?

Even if someone had taken you up on your debate challenge, you would still be under no 'compulsion' to address anything.  So don't act as if that would have changed anything.

And since the subject line is Belief in authority is a religion...

What amazes me is that you apparently didn't realize that you were attempting to exercise a nonexistent authority in asserting that Azdgari's post was a red herring and an appeal to consequences.  Why should we take your word for it when all you did was make an unsupported claim about his post?  I know what both a red herring and an appeal to consequences are; I am quite conversant with logical fallacies since theists seem quite fond of using them, and in my opinion Azdgari's post was neither of the fallacies you claimed it was.

A red herring is something that is irrelevant to the discussion, yet his point about property was very cogent to it.  How do you establish that something is your property if there is no legal framework with which to establish that you actually own it?  The fact that it is in your possession in no way establishes that it is your property.  Indeed, without that legal framework, all we are left with is your claim to ownership, which is based on...wait for it....authority.  Specifically, authority you claim to have in declaring that something is your property.  Yet it is authority you do not have, because you cannot make anyone believe you, and you cannot force them to accept what you say.

An appeal to consequences is a claim that a proposition is true or false based on its consequences (if desirable, true, if undesirable, false).  Yet I saw nothing like that in Azdgari's post.  He simply asked what makes something your property and how you identify it as yours without a legal framework to establish that it is.  Neither of those appeals to any consequences, nor does his follow-up statement that your belief in property was as much a religion as others' belief in authority.

Unless you elaborate further and show how his post was a red herring and an appeal to consequences, there is no way I can accept your statement that it was.  That's because your statement is nothing more than an assertion based on authority you don't have, the authority to arbitrarily declare that something is a logical fallacy.

[jdawg70]

If not ignored outright by HED, he otherwise responds with a wall of consistently repeating circular rebuttals, denials, and continuing proof he has deep emotional issues with authority. 

And the Latin.  Don't forget the Latin.  Makes his retorts more meaningful or something.

[One Above All]

If not ignored outright by HED, he otherwise responds with a wall of consistently repeating circular rebuttals, denials, and continuing proof he has deep emotional issues with authority. 

And the Latin.  Don't forget the Latin.  Makes his retorts more meaningful or something.

Someone who does not respect Latin does not deserve to use it.

[Nam]

Speechless, huh? I have that effect on people.



-Nam

[screwtape]

And the Latin.  Don't forget the Latin.  Makes his retorts more meaningful or something.

Oh crap, that was Latin?  I thought he was a Harry Potter fan and those were spells...  "Wingardium leviosa!"  Makes people levitate.  "Expelliarmus!" Makes people drop their wands.  "Habenae est dominatus!"  Makes people annoyed and roll their eyes.

Just kidding.  I occasionally use Latin too, though much more sparingly.  it makes my posts "pop". I'm considering switching to Egyptian hieroglyphs.  I figure if using a dead language adds authority, then using a dead alphabet is even more authoritative. 

[One Above All]

I'm considering switching to Egyptian hieroglyphs.  I figure if using a dead language adds authority, then using a dead alphabet is even more authoritative. 

Forum software does not support non-Latin characters. Trust me; I've tried. Doesn't even support some (most?) mathematical symbols.

[screwtape]

I'll have to link to images...

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

This is something I realized just now, and it's another flaw in HED's argument.  He's basing his whole 101, 102, 103, 104, etc, on certain rights specified in the Declaration of Independence, and his argument depends on other people accepting that he has those rights.  But on who's authority do those rights exist?  Thomas Jefferson and the other authors certainly don't have the authority to declare that those rights exist if HED is correct.  More to the point, those rights are illusory; they can be violated at any time and for any reason.  There's no magical forcefield that protects someone from having their life taken away, no magical lockpick that allows them to retain their liberty, and so on.  Meaning, those aren't actually rights, unless you accept the authority of Thomas Jefferson et al to establish that they are.

It's more than a little bit ridiculous for him to claim that nobody has any authority over him when he's accepting the authority of someone else to declare that he has certain rights in the first place.  So which is it, HED?  Did Thomas Jefferson and the other writers of the Declaration have the authority to declare that those rights exist, or didn't they?

Do you understand what natural law is? Survival of the fittest...

So for sake of argument, let us presume only you and I are in the world and I want your shirt (or your skin) and I also want 20% of the apples you have in that sack over your shoulder. And let us presume that you and I are equal in ability.

Do you have a right to keep your skin? Do you have a right to keep your apples?
Don't bother to answer, I have some more questions.

Do you have a right to resist my attempt to take your skin?
Do you have a right to resist my attempt to take 20% of your apples?

How about if the roles are reversed and you are after my stuff?

Are you going to argue that we are not equal of right?


In observing the demand for me to prove that rights exist, a few posters have suggested since there is no supernatural device to keep me from dying, then I don't have a right to life. The above questions are therefore probative of this argument.

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

This bit:

101. Admit or Deny that you were not born my king, my superior, nor my sovereign, you were not born with a higher rank than I.

102. Admit or Deny that therefore, you DO NOT have authority to command me by your mere birth.

103. Admit or Deny that if this is true for you, it is true for every other human being born on the planet.

104. Admit or Deny that if no one has a rank higher than mine, then no one has authority to command me.

Birth rank does not equal rank. HAE is pulling a type of equivocation here.

No, HAE is not "pulling a type of equivocation here". Birth rank does not equal authority. Jaimehlers has made that point for me. To jaimehlers' credit, he is diligently attempting to prove authority by another path. Without authority there is no rank and without rank there is no authority.

Did you have a point to put forth or are you going to just continue taking pot shots at me?

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

You're still focused on rank.  Why?  By now you know how stupid that is, so why keep with it?

Without rank there is no authority. And without authority there is no rank.

Chicken or Egg?

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

wrong button.

[Habenae Est Dominatus]

This tidbit gets a post all to itself.

If you don't like their rules, you don't have to go there.  If you go there anyway, you can't break their rules and then complain about how you never consented to their rules when they come to punish you for it.  You consented simply by going there, whether you were aware of the rules or not.

Emphasis mine.

Let's get technical:
The State that thinks it owns me says a speeding citation is a civil matter.

So you be the judge: Is this civil matter a tort or a contract dispute?

This is where you answer as a judge would:

____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

[Azdgari]

You're still focused on rank.  Why?  By now you know how stupid that is, so why keep with it?

Without rank there is no authority. And without authority there is no rank.

Chicken or Egg?

Assertions without evidence.  Your own religious dogma, according to your own standards.

[shnozzola]

So you be the judge: Is this civil matter a tort or a contract dispute?

I looked up the tort/contract choice in wiki:

Contracts
Main article:
The choice of law rules for contracts are more complicated than the law affecting other obligations because they depend on the express or implied intentions of the parties and their personal circumstances. For example, questions as to whether a contract is valid may depend on the capacity of the parties to enter into a contract. This could be decided by reference to the lex domicilii, lex patriae or habitual residence of the parties, or for policy reasons, by reference to the lex loci contractus (where the contract was made). But, if the contract was made electronically, where the contract was actually made must first be decided either by the lex fori or the putative proper law depending on the forum rules. There may also be problems if the parties selected the place where the contract was made in the hope of evading the operation of some mandatory provisions in another relevant law.

On the other hand, deciding matters relating to performance will usually depend on the lex loci solutionis. Another unique characteristic of contracts is that the parties can decide which law should apply for most purposes, and memorialize that decision into the contract itself (see forum selection clause and choice of law clause) – although not every jurisdiction will enforce such provisions. For the harmonising provisions on contractual obligations in EU law, see the Rome Convention (contract).

The Rome I Regulation constrains the choice of law for special types of contracts. With a view to the weaker parties, such as consumers, employees and insurants, special choice of law rules are laid down by articles 5-8. The most important rules for companies, mostly closing contracts with consumers, are listed in Art. 6. Art. 6 (I) defines the consumer contract as a contract where the consumer acts as a private person whereas the businessman acts for his commercial purpose. This articles also says that in absence of an explicit choice of law, a protected consumer contract is governed by the law of the consumer's habitual residence. In Art. 6 (II) the involved parties are given the possibility of a free choice of law. But the choice of law is legally void, if the consumer protection is limited by this choice. [1]

Tort
Main article:
The presumptive rule for tort is that the proper law applies. This is the law that has the greatest relevance to the issues involved. In public policy terms, this is likely to be the law of the place where the key elements of the "wrong" were performed or occurred (the lex loci delicti commissi).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_of_law

So it seems for a speeding ticket tort process would rule most times.  As I read it, (being the furthest thing from a lawyer and with little interest in lawsuits) the complications of the contract choice is what people would use to fight a speeding ticket - is the law valid, is the speedometer working, is the speed measurement tool working, on and on.  Am I understanding that correctly?

So, HED, do you have many unpaid speeding tickets?  Have you been in court fighting and winning against speeding tickets?  Do you always refuse to go the speed limit?  If society agrees 15 mph is a good speed around elementary school buildings (thus a law), but Joe Shmoe think 115 mph around the school is his birthright.......

Does the argument against government, or the argument for government help humanity last longer?

[jaimehlers]

Do you understand what natural law is? Survival of the fittest...

It's apparent that you don't understand what a natural law actually is, otherwise you wouldn't have tried to use it as a counterexample.  A natural law is a scientific term; it describes something that has been invariably observed in the natural world.  For example, the three laws of thermodynamics are descriptions of the way thermodynamic systems act, but they in no way refer to what humans think of as laws.  The law of gravity works the same way - it describes the force of attraction between two masses.  In any case, survival of the fittest is a misnomer; what matters in biology is whether an organism survives long enough to reproduce, not how fit it is or isn't.  As you can hopefully see now, this is totally irrelevant to the question of authority.

So for sake of argument, let us presume only you and I are in the world and I want your shirt (or your skin) and I also want 20% of the apples you have in that sack over your shoulder. And let us presume that you and I are equal in ability.

Do you have a right to keep your skin? Do you have a right to keep your apples?
Don't bother to answer, I have some more questions.

Do you have a right to resist my attempt to take your skin?
Do you have a right to resist my attempt to take 20% of your apples?

How about if the roles are reversed and you are after my stuff?

How are any of those rights?  Who established them?  Where are they stated?

Does an animal being hunted for food have a right to defend itself?  Does an animal hunting for food have a right to kill its prey so it can eat and thus survive?  Rights are a purely human invention, and they only exist if people agree that they do.

Are you going to argue that we are not equal of right?

Are you going to explain where those equal rights came from, and who established them to be equal, if it was not the very people who's actions you state have no hold over you?  If their actions have no hold over you, then you cannot claim the fruits of those actions for your own.  The rights that you hold so dearly only came about because of the people who acted to establish them.

In observing the demand for me to prove that rights exist, a few posters have suggested since there is no supernatural device to keep me from dying, then I don't have a right to life. The above questions are therefore probative of this argument.

Your questions presuppose that rights have some sort of independent existence in the first place.  However, rights are actually dependent on the agreement of people who have the capacity to enforce them.  Every right you have today came about because of people in the past who acted to establish those rights through blood, sweat, and tears.  If you are going to say that the actions of those in the past have no hold on you, then you lose any claim on the rights that those people established through their actions.

[screwtape]

Do you have a right...
Do you have a right ...
Do you have a right ...

Are you going to argue that we are not equal of right?

What is this "right" you keep talking about?  So much of your argument hinges on it.  Yet you resist every request to establish that it exists or what it is.

I could not find the hieroglyphs for that.  Nor a respectable Latin translator.

[Graybeard]

This tidbit gets a post all to itself.

If you don't like their rules, you don't have to go there.  If you go there anyway, you can't break their rules and then complain about how you never consented to their rules when they come to punish you for it.  You consented simply by going there, whether you were aware of the rules or not.

Emphasis mine.

Let's get technical:
The State that thinks it owns me says a speeding citation is a civil matter.

So you be the judge: Is this civil matter a tort or a contract dispute?

This is where you answer as a judge would:

Your ignorance of the law has led you to give a false dichotomy.

It is as if you had gone on to a piece of your neighbour's unused land and there grown your own crops. Your neighbour may decide to sue you for trespass and, possibly, conversion.

Civil law is described as actions between two (or more) legal entities. The body issuing the ticket is one, you are the other.

What's your problem, do you really want to be doing 60 in a 30 limit? Should not somebody take responsibility for overseeing safety?

[Azdgari]

Do you have a right...
Do you have a right ...
Do you have a right ...

Are you going to argue that we are not equal of right?

What is this "right" you keep talking about?  So much of your argument hinges on it.  Yet you resist every request to establish that it exists or what it is.

I could not find the hieroglyphs for that.  Nor a respectable Latin translator.

Attempts to get him to do so always result in some kind of poison-the-well or ad-hominem fallacy:  If you question his assumption about rights in the argument, then clearly you're morally inferior in some way.

Even when such questioning isn't meant to cast doubt on rights, but to shine light on another pertinent point.  Which is of course why he's so unwilling to let his assumptions be examined.

[Hatter23]

This bit:

101. Admit or Deny that you were not born my king, my superior, nor my sovereign, you were not born with a higher rank than I.

102. Admit or Deny that therefore, you DO NOT have authority to command me by your mere birth.

103. Admit or Deny that if this is true for you, it is true for every other human being born on the planet.

104. Admit or Deny that if no one has a rank higher than mine, then no one has authority to command me.

Birth rank does not equal rank. HAE is pulling a type of equivocation here.

No, HAE is not "pulling a type of equivocation here". Birth rank does not equal authority. Jaimehlers has made that point for me. To jaimehlers' credit, he is diligently attempting to prove authority by another path. Without authority there is no rank and without rank there is no authority.

Did you have a point to put forth or are you going to just continue taking pot shots at me?

Yes I have a point...read the above...you are pulling an equivocation. End. If birth right does not equal authority...then your construction as quoted is a non sequitur.

And yes, I am going to continue to make pot shots at you, because you are a big target with a secular equivalent to a religion calling anyone who disagrees with you as religion. Because you use hidden assumption, circular arguments, non sequiturs, equivocations, ignoring the counter evidence, false dichotomies, ad homs, poison the well to try to illustrate your point which does not coincide with reality in any way.