All men are not created / did not come into existence equal. Intelligence, genetic risk factors for disease, appearance, etc are all examples of inequalities in the creation or existence of man.
As it's a political document, and not a medical text that it should discuss genetics, I think it's supposed to mean "equal in deserved political importance" -- thus differentiating itself from the monarchies that make some people be born in places of greater political status than others.
What about access to resource / opportunity. Also family circumstance / environment / status. All men are not born / created equal.
LessWrong doesn't have as many theists as it does Americans.
I found that hysterical for some reason.
I giggled quite a bit at that statement too.
How does that square with interpretations being right or wrong? Is that not possible?
Questions of right and wrong are an entirely different arguement. In this case it is not a question of the idea being right or wrong. Its the beleif in the idea while ommiting the obvious flaws. I wouldn't try to argue that anyone writing on this site would use this idea in this way.
What do you think of "gods love is unconditional". No-one seems to have commented on this.
What is wrong with your example sentences? They are not arguments, there is no logic to be flawed. Sure, they can be interpreted to refer to factually wrong conjectures, namely that all men at some early point in their live are literally identical and that there is a god with associated bunch of problematic properties.
But this is not necessarily or even often so. For one, these sentences easily lend themselves to non-problematic interpretations: (1) says that all men are similar in significant ways, or that the commonalities are more important than differences, or that they start with the same machinery and may or may not develop it in different ways; while (2) simply means that life and human condition is good and death and non-existence is bad.
Finally, you've got to look at how these are actually used in speech. I'm beginning to see your point here, these sentences are often used as universal rebuttals, or refer to some vague moral maxims which are hard to argue against, they fulfill several patterns, trapping thought and leaving impression of closure where there is none. Is this why you react to them so badly? Do they simply trigger facepalm response without you actually struggling against bad logic?
It is in the use of an idea that the facepalm response occurs. Argueing for the concept of meritocracy for example by using the idea all men are created equal. I believe many feel people fail or succeed based on their efforts without consideration for other factors such as those outlined above and probably the most impotant factor LUCK.
The problem is that it's wrong. All men are not created / did not come into existence equal. Intelligence, genetic risk factors for disease, appearance, etc are all examples of inequalities in the creation or existence of man. It is clear from the text that 'equal' means more than 'equally endowed with unalienable rights'. There are interpretations that are more correct, sure, but these interpretations aren't the natural interpretation of that piece of text, and it's perfectly reasonable to kinesthetically react to that natural interpretation.
I don't know if I agree with his assessment, but I immediately thought back to David Stove's "worst argument in the world" aka "The Gem".
Is it the worst argument in the world because it cannot be refuted or argued against? Maybe the one-sided argument is the way we define a bad argument.
I think the first one is politically useful if it's interpreted as something like "no one is automatically dispensable".
"Interpretation" creates/is rationality or logic.
"All men are created equal"
"God's love is unconditional"
I feel the pain in my head. I think its because I genuinely want to understand why they truly believe what they are saying while not seeing the clear contradictions, but try as I might I just cannot. I have found that I feel the same way when a contradiction betweeen a belief and action within myself occurs. For example I believe nothing really matters, but every decision and action I take obviously contradicts this belief.
The pain has a name. Confusion. With awareness that such ideas impact the world and yourself it combines with sadness, pity, anger, frustration or a combination of all of them. Maybe this is the pain you feel in the stomach. Zen uses koans to take confusion to a heighten level in order to show an individual that all thought is equally confused depending on your perspective. The truth is there is nothing solid or certain just a feeling (that is created/invented) that there is. Belief, thought, action, feeling have little to do with reality. People have a limitless ability to rationalize just about anything and make the most absurd ideas true for themselves. The corners you feel are all pinned down are coners you or people collectively have created for yourself. Different corners, different conclusions, different logic. How you react to ideas, whether fast or not, is based upon the corners your logic uses (and so is in a sense kinethetic) and how they are set up over a lifetime is as individual as fingerprints.
Huh? You're going to have to explain how increasing the tax (on the wealthy) would lead to increased product prices. They might try to recoup their losses. (Or they might decide it's not worth working as hard for less reward -- this is the usual assumption in Economics) But what's the mechanism that leads from that to raised prices? There is an optimal price to set to maximize profit. Raising prices past that point isn't going to increase profits, because the volume sold will be lower.
I guess I was thinking of necessities like food, water, electricity, medicine etc which the lack of is causinG the preventable premature deaths . Passing the costs of production on to consumers (including increases in tax) in order to maintain or grow profit margins is at the heart of our economic reality.
'Not worth working as hard for less reward" is the reason for the lottery for the top 10% of earners. Most of these kind of individuals would have the belief that this would be a lottery they would not win and therefore continue to work as they would. An increase for all the top 10% (tax) would only modify their behaviour and at least some proportion of the cost would enievitably be passed on to all consumers.
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A relative once told me they believed in god because;
"If god exists and I believe I go to heaven, If god exists and I don't believe I suffer for eternity in hell, if god does not exist then It does not matter if I believe. The logical and sensible thing to do therefore is to believe in god."
This is truly someones logic. When confronted with what happens to a person who has not been told to believe the reply was "I'm sure god will take that into account". When asked what happens to people of different faiths and beliefs "all thats important is that they believe in god". When asked what happens to people if they have no concience and commit unspeakable acts "as long as they believe in god they will be alright".
The fear of eternal suffering can create some strange logic.