I'm a better judge of the abuse I suffered as a child than you are.

Maybe you're not aware of the meaning of the word "harm"?

Maybe so, but you don't seem to be a better judge of what generalizations follow from it.

There's little nuance in the blanket belief that we're completely better off without religion. Life, more often than not, is very nuanced.

It's not necessarily that you're wrong chillrob, although you may be. It's more that your approach suggests you haven't fully considered why some people hold opposing beliefs.

Most people hold their religious beliefs simply because they were taught by their parents, never seriously questioning them.

Some Christians like Aaron are very good at coming up with plausible sounding reasons for his current beliefs. But I would still wager that he was taught Christianity as a child. And I suspect that if he had been taught a different religion as a child, he would now just as fervently argue those other beliefs.

From the dictionary in the link you provided-
Harm: physical or mental damage: INJURY.

From the same dictionary-
Injury: an act that damages or hurts.

What am I missing?

Charity. There is a distinction between the corporal punishment that causes physical damage and corporal punishment that merely causes pain. This is something approximating the line between the spanking that is legal in most of the US and the child abuse that is not legal.

Addressing who the arguments come from is more important than addressing the arguments?

If you're born an atheist and you argue for atheism, it invalidates your arguments?

Do you disagree that the church does a lot of good in helping the poor and downtrodden?

You asked about my consideration of why people hold religious beliefs, so I answered that.

Some churches do help the poor in some ways, but I think on balance religious organizations do more to keep people poor and downtrodden.

I said that you haven't fully considered why some people hold opposing beliefs.

You've considered it seemingly to the extent that you believe there's no good reason for holding religious beliefs.
On balance?

How does one determine where this balance is? How do churches keep people poor and downtrodden?

I have considered many claimed reasons for people's religious beliefs. I had a lot of time to do that in the 13 years of religious schooling I suffered through.

One example is the Catholic Church forbidding birth control and encouraging people to have many children.

If poor people, on average, reproduce more...would you primarily put this down to religiosity and the influence of religion on the use of birth control? Or could other factors be equally or more involved?

What other examples do you have?

Charity is reserved for intellectually honest arguments. Saying that something does not cause harm acts to persuade the listener by smuggling in the idea that is does not have a hurtful or negative effect.

You wanted to go over definitions. We did that. And now, when we find that those definitions don't suit your case, you want to sweep it under the rug and paint me as if I'm uncharitable. If you want to change the basis for your argument that's fine. No need for the noise.

Your belief that we should allow spanking on the basis that it does not cause harm has shifted to the belief that we should allow spanking because it does not cause functional or debilitating bodily damage.

Well we have to restrict the use of this word "damage" to the physical body as there is a plethora of evidence suggesting psychological damage is incurred in the act.

We can talk about those deletarious effects and the fact that the majority of experts and institutions which specialize in these matters stand against corporeal punishment. But c'mon, that's old hat.

The real issue here is that you are advocating for the use of violence to inflict pain and suffering as a mechanism for control over defenseless, often I'll equipped, parties. Great way to teach children by example how to use violence to get their way. And then you wonder why so many grow up to be violent.

I was kind of with you but then you tack on this preachy presumptuous paragraph.

Being OK with spanking is not the same as advocating for the use of violence. Not even close. This kind of catastrophizing is in the psychological manual for the practice of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, labelled as - an irrational cognition. One of many irrational cognitions that we all tend have, but particularly people struggling with mental health. And please don't mistake me. I don't intend to imply that's the case here. Just noting an interesting observation.

You can imply whatever you want. I'm not a big fan of skirting around points like a passive aggressive girlfriend. I prefer to just come right out with it. So I will say that I believe you've said this as a retaliatory measure for when I picked apart your issue involving freedom.

Anyway you cut it spanking is violence. You are striking someone else's body with the intention of inflicting pain.

I have no special reason to believe you specifically have mental health issues. Nor that that's something worthy of shame. We all catastrophize and have irrational cognitions. Didn't feel it fair for you to preach down on someone whose likely never advocated for violence in their life.

Well technically I suppose you could be correct. As long as the argument is that saying people should be "allowed x" is not considered advocating.

And if spanking is violence, then bruising is a disability.

Wat? No. This is apples and oranges.

You won't be arrested for assault if you spank another (unwilling) adult?

Aside from the many men spanking many unwilling women (and getting away with it), the equivalence of spanking to violence is about as loose as a pile of leaves on a windy day tied together by a string.

Actually, here is my original claim:

So no shifting here or sweeping definitions under the rug, you just didn't read my post closely. You implied that my statement was nonsensical because I distinguished between spanking that causes physical harm and spanking which doesn't. I pointed out that the dictionary defines "harm" as "to damage or injure." So yes, I am claiming that not all forms of spanking physically damage or injure the person being punished. Is it your view that this is not only false, but nonsensical?

For instance, imagine a BDSM couple. Do you think them agreeing to a rule where spanking is allowed, but physically damaging or injuring the other party is not allowed is dumb since such a rule doesn't make sense?

Indeed we do since that is literally what I said.
No, the real issue here is that you aren't being charitable and so consistently misinterpret and misrepresent my statements. Believing that x should be legal is not the same thing as advocating for x. This should be obvious from the context, where I am advocating for the position that even though chillrob thinks parents shouldn't raise their children to be religious, that he should not agree to the government prohibiting parents from raising their children to be religious.

Pointing out that you specified to "physical harm" does not make your statement any more valid. Because to "physically harm" is to physically hurt by definition. To injure is to hurt. That was what you were attempting to sweep under the rug. Its nonsensical to say spanking does not cause harm, whether physical or otherwise. And like I said, the misuse of the word "harm" in your original statement serves to persuade in a sneaky fashion.

I don't think that is dumb. That makes sense. But you are using this example to draw distinction between types of physical harm.

I don't think you are intending to sneak this in, but I want it to be clear that drawing distinction between types of physical harm is the scope of this example and should not be considered analogous to spanking children. Unlike a person in a BDSM scenario, children do not consent to being struck or having pain inflicted upon them.



Maybe you are not advocating. If you look a couple posts up you will find that I've already conceded that as a possibility. The definition of advocating is "to publicly recommend or support". It's debatable whether you are supporting spanking by saying that it should be allowed or merely expressing a sort of indifference.

If we were having this discussion in private I would grant you more charity. I just do not want people misconstruing what you've said as a valid case for spanking. Not everyone will automatically parse out your original statement and then make their decision on the issue without being influenced by the minimization of the effects of spanking by the misuse of the word "harm".

Fwiw I think you are one of the most thoughtful and charitable posters on here and I do not think you intentionally framed your original statement in a dishonest fashion.

I generally try to avoid arguments about word meaning, so I'll just say that the way I use the words "harm" or "damage or injure" or even "hurt" in some contexts, is not just "cause pain," but something more substantial. If I spoke with a doctor, I would distinguish between feeling pain and being injured or in some way damaged. While I'll acknowledge this is a fuzzy distinction, this distinction is also used in law to regulate corporal punishment. Since the question chillrob asked me was specifically what extent of corporal punishment I think the state should allow, I'll also maintain that regardless of whether my language was exact, the meaning was relatively clear. Furthermore, by specifying physical harm, I'm was explicitly not including the psychological damage that might result from parents spanking their children. But I'll let this drop, don't have anything more interesting to say about this.

Yeah, I wouldn't describe spanking someone in BDSM as physically harming them. I would say they are causing them pain, but not harming them. Exercise can also sometimes be painful, but it also doesn't harm the person undergoing it.

That's fine. I agree that children do not consent to being physically punished and so you cannot justify corporal punishment on those grounds. Parental rights are a tricky subject for liberals imo.

Actually, beyond just indifference, I can strongly oppose x while still thinking it should be legal, eg I think hate speech should be legal, but I strongly oppose hate speech on moral grounds. This is a common result of liberal attitudes about the limits of state power and the primacy of human freedom.

Okay.
Cheers, but "dishonest" does, as I use it, imply some kind of intention to deceive. For example, the difference between lying and saying something false, or being dishonest about p or just being wrong about p, has to do with the intentions of the person involved imo.

Right. Arguing over definitions and frivolous tactical detail often detracts from the arguments concerning the original issue. It distracts people from the truth. We can end that now if you will and I will make another thread in SMP about intellectual honesty.

Your orginal position seems to be that adults should be allowed to inflict pain on children as a means of control. Is this accurate?

My position is that adults should not be allowed to inflict pain on children as a means of control. I think Adults who strike children should be treated the same as those who strike other adults.