I don't get Buddhism

[phyllo]

John believes in immortality and salvation. He flat out points out that he does. Now, Jane can claim that she believes that John does not believe in immortality and salvation.

So, in fact, does John believe in immortality and salvation or doesn't he? Is Jane right or wrong about what she believes?

What's the point of bringing this up?

It seems to be an attempt to muddy the water by bringing up beliefs about other people's beliefs. So it's no longer what John and Jane believe about immortality and salvation (and the reason they believe it) ... it's what Jane believes about John's belief about immortality and salvation.

Why stop at Jane? What does Guido believe about Jane's belief about John's belief about immortality and salvation? What does Sarah believe about Guido's belief about Jane's belief about John's belief about immortality and salvation?

If anything, it shows the limits of demonstrations. Jane might might describe some event which appears to show that John does not believe in I&S. Is it sufficient? Is it a true account of the event? Is Jane convincing? Is she reliable? Is one or a few incidents sufficient to show anything conclusive?

Same with John believing that Trump is now president of the United States. Either he is or he is not. What could possibly be more black and white than that?

If you take a gods-eye-view then he either is or is not president. But if you take a gods-eye-view, then there either is immorality or there isn't, there either is salvation or there isn't.

The point is that humans don't have a gods-eye-view and therefore they find ways of dealing with it and one way is fuzzy or multi-state logic.

If I was in a remote region, I might not be able to demonstrate that Trump is president for any number of reasons .... I don't have access to the necessary resources, the people don't trust me, I'm not a convincing speaker, they don't understand what a president is, it's irrelevant to them, etc.

But when it comes to demonstrating that what you believe about immortality and salvation is in fact true...where is the either/or evidence for that?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Or in regard to Trump's job performance in the White House, why aren't we able to pin down the optimal or the only rational reaction?

Totally obsessed with "the optimal or the only rational".

[phyllo]

How utterly preposterous! Like if someone cannot actually demonstrate to me things that clearly can be demonstrated -- re physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, meteorology, geology, demography, the rules of logic, etc. -- it must be true only in their minds.

Okay. So you are saying that it does not need to be demonstrated to you specifically. Physics need only be demonstrated to others familiar with physics, etc.

If someone demonstrates reincarnation to a Buddhist, then is that in the category of "things that clearly can be demonstrated"?

[Karpel Tunnel]

How utterly preposterous! Like if someone cannot actually demonstrate to me things that clearly can be demonstrated -- re physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, meteorology, geology, demography, the rules of logic, etc. -- it must be true only in their minds.

Okay. So you are saying that it does not need to be demonstrated to you specifically. Physics need only be demonstrated to others familiar with physics, etc.

If someone demonstrates reincarnation to a Buddhist, then is that in the category of "things that clearly can be demonstrated"?

And, of course, there MUST be a category of being agnostic - not just in relation to the existence of a deity, but in relation to a broad category of beliefs. A Buddhist has undergone a long training program with disciplined practice. This leads to experiences and understandings. Iambiguous cannot evaluate how that expertise and different experiences might warrent conclusions in that discussion. But he can admit that there may well be a demonstration.

In his world there is 'in your mind'
or
that which can be demonstrated to all rational people.

That is binary, as we've pointed out. We are now adding that particular experiences and expertise may mean that some can be demonstrated to and others cannot. And then one MUST also recognize that others my have strong rational justification for believing things that they cannot demonstrate to some or many or even all other people.

This does not mean that Iamb must accept their testimony. Not at all. He can remain skeptical and agnostic.

But over and over he presents it precisely as you have pointed out as either

prove it to me and all other rational people
or
it is in your mind only (to give you comfort).

Which leads to him telling people it is all in their minds (and then adding in his faux proviso that it might be true for all we know).

And so he tries to spread his own problems of not wanting to do anything to learn to others. To spread his binary thinking.

That's why anytime someone challenges his statements he immediately demands that the other person demonstrate the opposite. Which is binary. If I am wrong you must be able to demonstrate to me the opposite is true. That is demonstrably illogical.

And it also allows him to never have to justify his dismissals of other people and their beliefs or his mind reading (it is a contraption to comfort you).

He is immaculate in his schema.

And when really pressed he defends all this malarchy with

people know what I am like unless they are new.

IOW i don't have to be respectful or make sense, cause people know i am not these things.

Well, then. He knows what we are like. He can ignore us also if he wants.

[phyllo]

Still, the crucial point historically is that the Europeans had in fact arrived; and while that may well have been difficult to demonstrate at the very beginning, how easily might it have been in the years that followed?

This is another gods-eye-view. Looking back into the past, you have knowledge and certainty that was not available at the time of the incident.

[Karpel Tunnel]

IAMB IS AN ASS....HERE'S WHY.

Still, the crucial point historically is that the Europeans had in fact arrived; and while that may well have been difficult to demonstrate at the very beginning, how easily might it have been in the years that followed?

This is another gods-eye-view. Looking back into the past, you have knowledge and certainty that was not available at the time of the incident.

Right he would have been telling the tribe that either Xanti can demonstrate it to all of their satisfaction in the tribe or it is 'in his head'. Two, for some tribes it might have been decades or lifetimes - like say with the Vikings on Newfoundland.

He's ignoring the fact that in that particular case there was a delay of X length, but in other cases, there might be a vastly longer delay.

I doubt he wants to deal with the rape victim example, where people can know things happened, but cannot demonstrate it.

And at what point in the delay does he think we are in RIGHT NOW.

All things that are true will be shown to all rational people to be true within.....what 10 years, 15 years.....How long is he asserting?

Well, he's not. Because he never thinks through the implications of his own assumptions. We have to point them out. As a rule. Then he counters, while never admitting or conceding a damn thing, with more assumptions. We have to keep pointing up new assumptions, since he never concedes anything, just comes with more.

He can't take one moment to take responsibility for his own arguments, to wonder over them a bit. So, he creates vast amounts of work for other people.

And then there are situations where expertise mean that other observers will not have it demonstrated for them: the example of rogue waves. Now we are dealing with very long period of time where seafaring humans enountered huge solitary waves in otherwise relatively calm seas. There was no way to demonstrate this to all rational people. And once science arose, after centuries and centuries of reporting these ANOMOLOUS but real phenomena, scientists said the seafaring humans were exaggerating, hallucinating, lying or letting the emotions get to them, because there was no justification for this in current science. Note: many scientists and others opted to avoid the parsimonious agnositic position, and said the seafareres were wrong. Later technology changed with video cameras that recorded the waves, though it was only when satellite tech got good enough and the scienstists could see the damn things that they went back to their drawing boards.

Not once did many of them consider that given the different experiences they had from the seafarers, the lack therein, they were commenting as if they knew something which they did not. They were not experts and had, like iamb, no experience.

Iamb would have been telling people for thousands of years - before we had tech to prove it - that these rogue waves were all in these people's heads. And I think in the end that makes him an asshole. Not so uncommon a kind of asshole but our primary example of it here at ILP of this kind of asshole.

Laziness. Not remembering when his 'objections' have long ago been countered. Always shifting the onus. Little dramatic playings to the gallery. Not even willing to consider his own behavior and assumptions. Denying he is saying things even when you can quote them. Expressions of incredulity, often where he should have asked for clarification, since he clearly does not understand.

It's asshole behavior.

[Ecmandu]

Karpel, Calling someone an asshole is a philosophic problem, not a rant problem. I hope this isn’t moved to rant.

[felix dakat]

In religious matters we cannot understand a thing until we have experienced it inwardly for it is in the inward experience that the connection between the psyche and the outward image or creed or dogma or doctrine or objective teaching is first revealed as a relationship.

[felix dakat]

In religious matters we cannot understand a thing until we have experienced it inwardly. It's in the inward experience that the connection between the psyche and the outward image or creed or dogma or doctrine or objective teaching is first discovered as a relationship.

[iambiguous]

Beyond true and false
Buddhist philosophy is full of contradictions. Now modern logic is learning why that might be a good thing
Graham Priest

Philosophers in the Mahayana traditions hold some things to be ineffable; but they also explain why they are ineffable, in much the way that I did. Now, you can’t explain why something is ineffable without talking about it. That’s a plain contradiction: talking of the ineffable.

Is it one thing to focus in on those things said to be beyond description, and another thing to imagine that your words do describe something you believe but you are not able to actually demonstrate it?

That depends on what you are attempting to describe and the context in which you attempt to situate it. The "soul" for example. We can imagine a part of ourselves that might be a soul if we assume the existence of a God capable of creating it. It can't be pointed to or examined, but it must exist if there is to be an explanation for a body that disintegrates at death yet attains immortality and salvation on the other side.

You might even suggest that the existence of a soul is "logical", once you assume the existence of God.

With Buddhism though all of this revolves around another set of assumptions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta

Is this an effable description of the soul? And what is their explanation for those things here that remain ineffable? How then do they account for that?

As for the parts that are not demonstrable how are not Buddhists in the same boat with Christians and all other religious denominations? Are the "contradictions" embedded in "talking about the ineffable" subsumed in the part that revolves around faith?

Only with Buddhism, all of this is that much more indescribable to many because there is no actual God to take all of your questions back to. What then? How does one wrap their head around, say, the universe itself as the transcending font? What can that possibly mean in a way that even comes close to the use of language?

Embarrassing as this predicament might appear, Nagarjuna is far from being the only one stuck in it. The great lodestar of the German Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, said that there are things one cannot experience (noumena), and that we cannot talk about such things. He also explained why this is so: our concepts apply only to things we can experience.

Got that? Okay, if you think you do, bring the philosophy here out into the world of human interactions and make the proper distinction between biological imperatives, sense perception, rational thought, experiences and reacting to those experiences out in a particular world embedded -- memetically? -- in ever evolving historical, cultural and experiential contexts.

And then tie that into whatever you construe God and religion to be insofar as an afterlife -- immortality, salvation -- is applicable to you.

Clearly, he is in the same fix as Nagarjuna. So are two of the greatest 20th-century Western philosophers. Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that many things can be shown but not said, and wrote a whole book (the Tractatus), explaining what and why. Martin Heidegger made himself famous by asking what Being is, and then spent much of the rest of his life explaining why you can’t even ask this question. Call it mysticism if you want; the label has little enough meaning. But whatever you call it, it is rife in great philosophy – Eastern and Western.

There you go...

Western or Eastern philosophy, God or No God, we all bump into the limitations that seem to be built right into the human condition in regard to making distinctions between the effable and the ineffable, the demonstrable and the leaps of faith.

[Karpel Tunnel]

In religious matters we cannot understand a thing until we have experienced it inwardly. It's in the inward experience that the connection between the psyche and the outward image or creed or dogma or doctrine or objective teaching is first discovered as a relationship.

This holds for many secular traditions if not all in one way or others. We learn by doing and what makes sense to the expert will often make no sense to the layperson and certain field of expertise words will not be understood or understood in the same way by each group. Nonexperts can literally not even see things the experts can see. And this is all within scientifically documented secular fields. And, of course, even when experiments or long tradition seem to indicate something is the truth, even in secular fields (and even in science) it can turn out to be false. Also things can be excluded on poor grounds or because experiences differ radically.

And just to be clear, I am not disagreeing, just extending. This is a not a quality of just religious and spiritual knowledge and experience.

And one needs to view knowledge, I think, as an active apprenticeship. Something one does, hands on. You can collect information through a computer screen, but that generally has little to do with real learning, even less so knowledge, and is far away from expertise and wisdom.

You have to get your hands dirty to learn things, especially important ones.

[felix dakat]

In religious matters we cannot understand a thing until we have experienced it inwardly. It's in the inward experience that the connection between the psyche and the outward image or creed or dogma or doctrine or objective teaching is first discovered as a relationship.

This holds for many secular traditions if not all in one way or others. We learn by doing and what makes sense to the expert will often make no sense to the layperson and certain field of expertise words will not be understood or understood in the same way by each group. Nonexperts can literally not even see things the experts can see. And this is all within scientifically documented secular fields. And, of course, even when experiments or long tradition seem to indicate something is the truth, even in secular fields (and even in science) it can turn out to be false. Also things can be excluded on poor grounds or because experiences differ radically.

And just to be clear, I am not disagreeing, just extending. This is a not a quality of just religious and spiritual knowledge and experience.

And one needs to view knowledge, I think, as an active apprenticeship. Something one does, hands on. You can collect information through a computer screen, but that generally has little to do with real learning, even less so knowledge, and is far away from expertise and wisdom.

You have to get your hands dirty to learn things, especially important ones.

Right. To judge a matter from the outside without as you say "getting one's hands dirty" with experimentation with it, if that's possible, is antithetical to science.

[felix dakat]

Buddhist scriptures speak of the not-self nature of all phenomena. Things to do not possess a self. Nothing in itself contains an absolute identity. This means a rejection of the principle of identity which is the basis of formal logic. According to this principle, A must be A, B must be B, and A cannot be B. The doctrine of not-self says A is not A, B is not B and A can be B.

To understand not-self, consider the concept of impermanence. Everything is impermanent. All is in a state of perpetual change. Nothing remains the same even for the shortest imaginable period of time. Since things transform themselves ceaselessly, they can’t maintain their identity for even the smallest time unit. Not being able to fix their identity things are not-self, that is, they lack an absolute identity. Not having a fixed identity A is no longer the A of the preceding moment. Hence, A is not A. Impermanence is synonymous with not-self. In time things are impermanent. In space they lack a fixed identity. This holds true for all physical phenomena and for our psyche as well.

[promethean75]

impermanence is an ontological technicality that has absolutely no existential cash value in the world. it's the kind of knowledge that would make no difference if you didn't have it. moreover, you could produce equally compelling arguments that there is permanence if you put some Eleatics on that shit.

name one thing you would do differently in life now that you believe you are impermanent and have no 'self'. i mean i agree... we aren't 'selves' in the dualistic sense of there being a soul and a body. hume put an end to that nonsense. but how much does getting this concept correct really matter in life? what if you found out you were a permanent, immortal soul that will never cease existing. maybe you'd live more recklessly. okay. but if you weren't a permanent, immortal soul, and you still lived recklessly, what would that matter if everything is impermanent anyway?

[phyllo]

Without the idea of permanence, life itself would be impossible.

Food remains food, shelter remains shelter, danger remains danger.

Not forever but for a sufficiently long time.

[felix dakat]

impermanence is an ontological technicality that has absolutely no existential cash value in the world. it's the kind of knowledge that would make no difference if you didn't have it. moreover, you could produce equally compelling arguments that there is permanence if you put some Eleatics on that shit.

name one thing you would do differently in life now that you believe you are impermanent and have no 'self'. i mean i agree... we aren't 'selves' in the dualistic sense of there being a soul and a body. hume put an end to that nonsense. but how much does getting this concept correct really matter in life? what if you found out you were a permanent, immortal soul that will never cease existing. maybe you'd live more recklessly. okay. but if you weren't a permanent, immortal soul, and you still lived recklessly, what would that matter if everything is impermanent anyway?

"Absolutely"? The principle of not-self brings to light the gap between things themselves and the concepts we have of them. Things are dynamic and alive, whereas our concepts are static. Seeing this can be quite liberating.

[felix dakat]

Without the idea of permanence, life itself would be impossible.

Food remains food, shelter remains shelter, danger remains danger.

Not forever but for a sufficiently long time.

Look at a table. Do you suppose the table itself and your concept of it are identical?

[iambiguous]

John believes in immortality and salvation. He flat out points out that he does. Now, Jane can claim that she believes that John does not believe in immortality and salvation.

So, in fact, does John believe in immortality and salvation or doesn't he? Is Jane right or wrong about what she believes?

What's the point of bringing this up?

It seems to be an attempt to muddy the water by bringing up beliefs about other people's beliefs. So it's no longer what John and Jane believe about immortality and salvation (and the reason they believe it) ... it's what Jane believes about John's belief about immortality and salvation.

I am simply making the distinction between things that can be demonstrated as in fact true and those that cannot. In fact, John does believe in immortality and salvation. In fact, Jane is wrong to say that he does not.

On the other hand, is John able to demonstrate that what he believes about immortality and salvation in his head is in fact true?

In our interactions with each other, what else is there but this fundamental distinction? Grappled with to the best of our ability out in a particular world understood in a particular way. There is what each of us as individuals believes about the coronavirus and there is what we are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

Thus, if some believe it is largely "fake news" concocted by Trump's enemies to drive him from office, are they able to provide enough evidence to substantiate the claim?

Same with John believing that Trump is now president of the United States. Either he is or he is not. What could possibly be more black and white than that?

If you take a gods-eye-view then he either is or is not president. But if you take a gods-eye-view, then there either is immorality or there isn't, there either is salvation or there isn't.

The point is that humans don't have a gods-eye-view and therefore they find ways of dealing with it and one way is fuzzy or multi-state logic.

What on earth does that have to do with establishing whether in fact Trump is president of the United States? Instead, people deal with his performance in office [re the coronavirus] based on what I construe to be their political prejudices derived from value judgments derived from the manner in which I construe human interactions here in my signature threads. And here it's not whether their logic is "fuzzy or multi-state", but the extent to which there are limits to logic in a No God world bursting at the seams with conflicting goods.

[phyllo]

Without the idea of permanence, life itself would be impossible.

Food remains food, shelter remains shelter, danger remains danger.

Not forever but for a sufficiently long time.

Look at a table. Do you suppose the table itself and your concept of it are identical?

A table is a pattern of mass that we recognize and agree to call 'table'.

The concept is loose and flexible enough that small changes don't alter a table's tableness. If you burn a wooden table, then the pattern disappears but short of complete destruction, it has permanence.

[felix dakat]

Without the idea of permanence, life itself would be impossible.

Food remains food, shelter remains shelter, danger remains danger.

Not forever but for a sufficiently long time.

Look at a table. Do you suppose the table itself and your concept of it are identical?

A table is a pattern of mass that we recognize and agree to call 'table'.

The concept is loose and flexible enough that small changes don't alter a table's tableness. If you burn a wooden table, then the pattern disappears but short of complete destruction, it has permanence.

The thing itself that more or less fits your concept of a table, is not graspable to you as it is in itself in the first place, and is not the same thing from one moment to the next. And neither are you. Eventually the table will no longer be a table and you will no longer be you. Impermanence.

[iambiguous]

How utterly preposterous! Like if someone cannot actually demonstrate to me things that clearly can be demonstrated -- re physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, meteorology, geology, demography, the rules of logic, etc. -- it must be true only in their minds.

Okay. So you are saying that it does not need to be demonstrated to you specifically. Physics need only be demonstrated to others familiar with physics, etc.

I don't know how to make the distinction any clearer. You believe something in your head about Buddhism. Historical facts. Empirical facts. Demographic facts. Personal facts with regard to your own relationship to it. You are or are not a Buddhist. You know or do not know someone who is or is not a Buddhist. Or you are not sure about it. Something, anything that can in fact be shown to all rational men and women as true rather than false.

How else could we interact with the least dysfunction if not in making this distinction? Whether in regard to Buddhism or the coronavirus. What facts can be established?

Ah, but in having established a set of facts, how about our complex and often conflicting moral and political reaction to those facts? How is true and false established here?

On this thread, in regard to enlightened behavior here and now said to reconfigure into karma there and then in the form of reincarnation and Nirvana.

If someone demonstrates reincarnation to a Buddhist, then is that in the category of "things that clearly can be demonstrated"?

Okay, but what does that have to do with my attempt here to have it demonstrated to my own satisfaction? If I hear that anyone has demonstrated the actual existence of reincarnation to anyone else at all, I'm interested. After all, I'm here because what I believe is true "in my head", is that death = the obliteration of "I" for all the rest of eternity.

That's why I am curious above as to how particular Buddhists are reacting to the coronavirus pandemic around the globe. There have already been over 7,500 deaths from it. And I am clearly in the most "at risk" group. What then would Buddhists imagine the fate of these "souls" -- my "soul" -- to be, given their own understanding of Buddhism.

How might reasonable men and women be expected to understand how the fate of one's self is intertwined with that which Buddhists believe about life after death? How does that actually even "work" sans God?

Again, with so much at stake here for the millions now at risk of exposure, isn't it a reasonable request to probe deeper into the beliefs of any religious faith?

Or, in being one of KTs "assholes", am I clearly to be excluded from these discussions?

[phyllo]

I take this small section of one of his posts :

How utterly preposterous! Like if someone cannot actually demonstrate to me things that clearly can be demonstrated -- re physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, meteorology, geology, demography, the rules of logic, etc. -- it must be true only in their minds.

I tell him what I think he is saying :

Okay. So you are saying that it does not need to be demonstrated to you specifically. Physics need only be demonstrated to others familiar with physics, etc.

Then I ask him, if my understanding of his position is correct, then does the reasoning apply to Buddhism:

If someone demonstrates reincarnation to a Buddhist, then is that in the category of "things that clearly can be demonstrated"?

Does he answer "Yes, that's right" or "No, that's not right because of some particular point"?

No, he can't do that.

[iambiguous]

I take this small section of one of his posts :

How utterly preposterous! Like if someone cannot actually demonstrate to me things that clearly can be demonstrated -- re physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, meteorology, geology, demography, the rules of logic, etc. -- it must be true only in their minds.

I tell him what I think he is saying :

Okay. So you are saying that it does not need to be demonstrated to you specifically. Physics need only be demonstrated to others familiar with physics, etc.

Then I ask him, if my understanding of his position is correct, then does the reasoning apply to Buddhism:

If someone demonstrates reincarnation to a Buddhist, then is that in the category of "things that clearly can be demonstrated"?

Does he answer "Yes, that's right" or "No, that's not right because of some particular point"?

No, he can't do that.

Note to others...

I stand by the points I raised above. And the fact that he chooses not to respond to them at all.

Or, sure, I am completely guilty of that which he accuses me of.

I'm just not sure what that is.

Sure, if, in fact, someone does demonstrate to a Buddhist that reincarnation is a real thing, then between the two of them it is clearly demonstrated.

But how in fact does that get me any closer to believing it? How does any of this get me any closer to understanding how Buddhists think and feel about the coronavirus pandemic and the extent to which what they believe reflects that which can demonstrated such that all rational and virtuous human beings are obligated to believe the same?

In regard to karma, enlightened behavior, reincarnation and Nirvana...as that relates to what over and over and over again I point out is my own interest in all this: connecting the dots between the behaviors one chooses on this side of the grave as this relates to that which one anticipates will be their fate on the other side of it.

[phyllo]

Sure, if, in fact, someone does demonstrate to a Buddhist that reincarnation is a real thing, then between the two of them it is clearly demonstrated.

Then that must also be true of physics, math, etc ... if two physicists agree on some physics problem, "then between the two of them it is clearly demonstrated".

"But how in fact does that get me any closer to believing it?"

Yet he repeatedly posts as if physics is somehow different, as if the agreement of physicists makes something a true fact and all rational people are obligated to believe it. That is his is/ought distinction, isn't it?

I could be reading something into his posts that is not there.

[iambiguous]

Sure, if, in fact, someone does demonstrate to a Buddhist that reincarnation is a real thing, then between the two of them it is clearly demonstrated.

Then that must also be true of physics, math, etc ... if two physicists agree on some physics problem, "then between the two of them it is clearly demonstrated".

"But how in fact does that get me any closer to believing it?"

Yet he repeatedly posts as if physics is somehow different, as if the agreement of physicists makes something a true fact and all rational people are obligated to believe it. That is his is/ought distinction, isn't it?

Again, I am either clearly not getting your point or you are clearly not getting how your point is irrelevant to mine. Physicists deal by and large with interactions in the either/or world. Something either is or is not in fact in sync with the laws of physics. It is only when they probe the really, really big and the really, really small that facts often give way to conjectures. Theoretical speculation predicated on the gap between what can be known by the human species having come into existence from the evolution of life on Earth, and all there is to be known going back either to God or to an understanding of existence itself.

With the coronavirus, biologists, medical specialists, doctors, nurses etc., become the equivalent of physicists insofar as collecting all that can in fact be known about this particular ominous bug.

What then do various government officials and politicians do with these facts insofar as creating public policy in any given community? What comes closest to the most rational behaviors here.

Then the part where philosophers and ethicists and practitioners of one or another religious faith react to that. The part where behaviors on this side of the grave are ultimately connected to one's fate on the other side.

The part you and others here avoid discussing at almost every opportunity. Why? Because, really, what in fact can you demonstrate as true for all rational and virtuous human beings given what you think you know is true in your head.

[phyllo]

Then the part where philosophers and ethicists and practitioners of one or another religious faith react to that. The part where behaviors on this side of the grave are ultimately connected to one's fate on the other side.

The part you and others here avoid discussing at almost every opportunity. Why? Because, really, what in fact can you demonstrate as true for all rational and virtuous human beings given what you think you know is true in your head.

Why would I discuss it when I don't think all rational people are obligated to think and act as I do.

I don't even get how such an obligation would/could work.

I understand why people steal, cheat, kill. If they do that, then they are not going to be bound by some abstract obligation.

Your demonstration would show that those things are objectively immoral but those people still have the capacity to do those things and to be called immoral. And they will do them.

What's so special about this demonstration?