I doubt that we should prevent assisted dying

I understand that there is a finality to helping someone end their life. But it is a safe bet that an individual that reaches the decision to meet the end of their life on their own terms would have spent plenty of heart wrenching moments wrestling with the situation.
  What about the conservative movement gives people the confidence to say that assisted suicide is so wrong? How could you campaign against the possibility of helping a fellow human find as graceful and end as might be afforded them?
There is a very well thought out treatment of the question here. And there is mention of an earlier discussion in the article, well worth a read.

on explanations

Science (or skeptically and carefully looking at he world) can offer some pretty strange explanations. explanations of mysteries. explanations that we can understand.

religion (or believing shit because you want to) and dogma (or believing shit because someone else wants you to)  offer some pretty strange explanations. explanations that we really don't understand.

I doubt that most people really want to walk around operating on ideas that they really don't understand.

Doubt that you know that much about your enemies

  This story about the persecution of Yazidis is a little bit more interesting than your typical article about one group killing members of another group over land or religion.
   In this case the one doing the killing is doing it for what they think the other side thinks.
 While I can grant someone that there are reasons for misunderstanding, ( after half a dozen websites glanced through I cannot figure out if it is Yazidi or Yazidis) to act on such a misunderstanding for a few hundred years seems to be bad form.
 The point that is being misunderstood is ISIS thinks that Yazidis worship the devil. If the character in question is the devil we will leave for a moment. The character has a name , Melek Taus and in the creation story that the Yazidis ( or is Yazidi the plural?) believe he was an angel that was thrown in a hell type place not over pride but because he only loved god and wouldn't bow to man. But this story is older than the creation story that involves a snake that was sometimes called Satan. In the Yazidis story this particular angel was able to redeem himself like most religions command, encourage, or point to.
  So he is not the devil, they don't worship him and they are getting killed for worshipping the devil.

   just think what a little bit of doubt could do.

Is There Proof That God Exists?

"That said, multiple arguments have been advanced as evidence of God’s existence.5 None of them will represent convincing proof to every skeptic. However, when taken together, they merit careful reflection. "







all that sounds quite a bit like the folks on social media that post some quote or statement that says oh... "The school shooting was government plot" and then say "makes ya wonder"


Is There Proof That God Exists?

I doubt that the same way of looking at the Gaza Strip is a good idea

I am not sure that I can put together any helpful thoughts on this situation. I am fairly sure I am not qualified to do so. The fact that I would question what Israel is doing would prove to many that I am ignorant of the fact that God has a plan for the middle east.

   That is the part that bothers me. Folks have decided, or accept that it is decided for them that there is a divine plan for the land and part of that plan is that the world will end based on things that go on in that land.

 Well until the world ends I hope we can find a way to help human beings live better and peacefully in whatever part of the globe they live in.

  Here is somebody's thoughts on this that is more articulate than I.



Brian Eno on the Israel-Gaza crisis: How can you justify images such as this? - Comment - Voices - The Independent

Doubting that the answers matter

Disclaimer* I don't like opening a conversation with a disclaimer, but I am here. The disclaimer is I am not going to dismiss Christian thinkers and apologists in this post. Just the answers they give at times.



 The following link is to an article that discusses the 50 questions posed by RE Pucket, questions that Christians can't answer. Turns out Christians are happy to answer them. But the answers are of the type that beg the question, and various other fallacies.

  While I may not think that all 50 of these questions are worth of a lot of thought, the general theme is something that I think is important. Is there or is there not a god is an important question. The morality of supreme beings if they exist and the morality of humans is an important question. But if the answers that are given spend too much time in another dimension they lose usefulness in this dimension, the dimension where the questions are asked.





Answering "Top 50 Questions Christians Can't Answer" (16 through 20) - Baltimore Christianity | Examiner.com

"Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them" - Peter Ustinov

Well said Sir Peter.

Do you doubt that Zeus exists?

In the article  here Gary Gutting does something really cool. He gives you the chance to defend the belief that Zeus exists, in an intellectually honest way, against some reasonable objections. The subtle trick is you may or may not realize you have defended your own belief in your own god the same way.
   The really interesting thing is you are fairly certain that Zeus does not in fact exist, but you have successfully defended the possibility. Do you feel that you have successfully defended your own belief? Are others fairly certain that you are wrong?

Doubt that science plays a role in objecting to medical coverage

There is no shortage of conversation surrounding SCOTUS and Hobby Lobby and I will not spend much of my cyber energy on either of those two institutions or corporations or persons. It seems reasonable to me to think that the important topic in all of this is womens health. How it ends up being in the decision making hands of employers, religious as they may be, is difficult for me understand.
    The claim is that Hobby Lobby, being a religious something, does not pay for abortion. If it really is that simple it seems simple enough to read the following quote from this article and see that even if they wanted to avoid such, the items they refuse to cover are not such.

""There is no confusion in the scientific community regarding the mechanisms behind each contraceptive option and the medical community is in agreement that none of them equate to abortion," says Gupta. She adds that making women pay for their own contraception limits their options to less effective methods that ultimately yield more unwanted pregnancies and abortions."

   Clearly there are some things that are unclear to Hobby Lobby which makes me all the more doubtful that they need to be able to refuse to pay for legal medical procedures, treatments, or medications.

I doubt this is any stronger than Kalam

Seems to me that if the very thing you may be arguing against is doubt one of the weakest arguments may be "I know it and you don't". There may be a bit more sophistication in the way that Wartick lays it out but a straightforward articulation of his argument offers little more that personal experience.

   There may be more to this that meets the eye but if anyone sees anything other than the author stacking up more unprovable evidence and calling it more evidence, please let me know.



Move Over, Kalam, Here is the best argument for theism | J.W. Wartick -'Always Have a Reason'

Do they have no doubt religion would make it better?

They didn't ask or didn't make clear what religion folks had in mind as they responded to this Gallup Poll. But the results seem to show that 3/4 of Americans think that more religion would have a positive effect. I haven't figured out the best way to work doubt into this blogpost but I would like to propose the obvious thought experiment. Ignore for now which brand of religion each of the respondents had in mind, we know that 75% of this country is not of one particular faith. Do these people of various faiths think that any and all of the various other faiths would really help the country move in the direction of "better". "Better
" here being defined inside each religions worldview. I would like to know if we just take the 1/4th and give them all the faith of one specific religion, would everyone in the other 3/4ths be satisfied. I doubt it.

Can't take the doubt away

There is plenty of writing and thinking going on regarding truth. Rightly so, truth is important and there to be discovered which is something we might look at in another post or podcast. But the in the public discourse something as concrete as truth seems to get fairly fluid as it is tossed around by one thinker here or there. Truth for one person it is said may not be the truth for another. Frankly that seems to be talking more about opinions than truth most of the time but it does hinder discussion from time to time.
  But doubt I feel is something that cannot be taken away. You cannot define the things that I spend time doubting. That doubt is all mine. Your doubt is all yours and you should hang on to it. Doubt can at times help you find your way in the world, dare I say, better than some truth. Truth will be presented to you by many different people for many different reasons and the best way to know what do with that truth is with DOUBT.