Is the statement that there is no objective truth objectively true? If so, there is some objective truth, and the statement is false. Like I said, it’s a self-defeating claim.

Your claim doesn’t have anything to do with my original point other than semantic sports over whether the sun is a head. Philosophy and theology also don’t determine reality. We can only discover it through these means, the same way we can discover reality through science. The simple fact is that some philosophical, theological, and scientific hypotheses are closer to reality than others. The only way to dispute that would be to argue there is no objective truth, which is a self-defeating claim.

Again, OP is making a meaningless argument.

First, what is your point?

Second, does the sun fit any of the following definitions:

• biological head
• robotic head
• head of an organization
• spiritual head
• head of a tool
• match head
• the head command
• document head(er)
• the headless horseman’s head If so, can you explain how with direct evidence or argumentation rather than simply “we can’t say for sure that it doesn’t”? Again, that argument would make it eligible to fit any and all possible definitions.

Third, if it doesn’t fit any of the above definitions, can you explain which definition of head that it does, what that definition is, and why it’s relevant?

Science only determines whether data is consistent with a given model. Nothing more, nothing less.

This isn’t a meaningful distinction. A claim that the sun is an angry head would assert that it fits the model of a head. This is something we can test scientifically. If the data regarding the sun isn’t consistent with the model of a head, then the claim that it’s a head has been disproved. At minimum, we can prove that the data is inconsistent with the model and give significant evidence against the claim.

So far, the only counterargument to this is “we can’t know for sure that it isn’t the head of an unknown non-biological sentient being.” If this was a substantial argument in favor of the claim, then it would stand to reason that the sun could be considered anything, like a planet from another universe, the eye of a mortal human named Bob, a USB-C cable for a bottle of hand sanitizer, and more.

I’m not sure what your point is, or why you’re so adamant that the sun may, in fact, be the head of a non-biological sentient being. This has nothing to do with my point that OP’s argument isn’t convincing because it holds equal relevance to other fields.

You’re the one who started arguing that a head may not necessarily be part of a biological being, which was irrelevant to my point. I’m not sure why you’re so concerned about nuclear sentience to begin with, quite frankly. I was just enjoying the conversation. I raised the conjectural angry solar head to demonstrate a claim that can be disproved scientifically to show that some religions have a stronger basis in reality. The sun doesn’t have the properties of a sentient head, so such a claim is false. What is your point, and how does it relate to mine?

A definition is not an assumption, it’s a description of something which has certain known properties. If something else fulfills similar functions to a living being, but it isn’t a biological entity, then, by the biological definition, it isn’t alive. I’m not sure what your issue is here. It’s not like we’re ever going to run out of definitions. Are you arguing in favor of animism?

My claim is that carbon and hydrogen are distinct substances with particular properties and definitions. There is no “one true substance.”

“Life” is a defined term, a biological function. Non-biological objects are, by definition, not living. This isn’t an assumption, it’s a definition. Again, you’re essentially arguing that hydrogen atoms are also carbon atoms.

You’re making the argument that it is, or could be, a sentient, angry head. No evidence or arguments for that position, other than “well we can’t say it isn’t” have been presented. A head is a defined object, and there’s no reason to modify the definition of “head” to include the sun. Your argument doesn’t make much more sense than “a hydrogen atom may be a carbon atom, your assumption that it isn’t is precarious.”

Occam’s razor is indeed for simpler arguments rather than article strictly for truth. But from my experience as an engineer, generally the fewer assumptions you make when coming to a conclusion, the closer to the truth you’ll actually be.

You’re piling on assumptions like crazy, which makes for a logically weak position. All other things being equal, the claim that relies on the fewest assumptions is more likely to be true. Given the increasingly outlandish assumptions at play, it makes more sense to believe that the sun is not a sentient head glowing with rage.

We know what a head is. It’s a part of a biological creature. In the absence of some convincing evidence or argumentation otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to assume it’s a head.

Not all religions have an equal basis in reality. If you have a religion that claims the sun is literally a divine, disembodied head that’s so mad it’s glowing, we can empirically disprove that. That’s just not what stars are. If you have one that correctly states what the sun is, that means the second religion has a better basis in reality than the first.

We can also know things logically or philosophically, but can’t debate them scientifically. That’s often how we come to moral conclusions - we can’t strictly base how we should behave off of evolutionary advantages, for example.

This argument is only as compelling as “There are over 5,000 explanations for what the sun is. But don’t worry, only yours is correct.” Or “There are over 5,000 ideologies believed in by humanity. But don’t worry, only yours is correct.”

This is literal, actual election fraud. There’s no other way to explain this. How can you justify this in a way other than “the other side is bad and we need to beat them by any means necessary”?

Edit: Here’s an article source.

If the problem is churches taking too much money from people, how is taxing them going to change that? Won’t that just encourage them to take more?

People are downvoting this like it’s gonna change the election results.

It’s like they took all the wrong lessons from their parents who made them eat their vegetables and yelled at them for dressing inappropriately. And the “Bible-thumping fire-and-brimstone preachers.” And Vance’s silly “childless cat ladies” comment.

If they were pushed away by zealotry, what makes them think it would appeal to anyone else?

Yes, it does apply, because the entirety of what I’ve posted below was classified as “misinformation” and thus removed under pressure from the government. That is censorship. The Supreme Court found you cannot be forced to not publish information from a source the government doesn’t like. The scope of the censorship was specific to social media - again, this information was deleted by Facebook under pressure from the government.

Simply because the government believes the benefits outweigh the risks does not mean people shouldn’t be informed of the risks; that would be censorship, which was what the government did to Facebook and Twitter.

My point there was to point out the efficacy claims were not as straightforward as the media claimed; government didn’t like that truth, so it was censored.

You’re splitting hairs on the remaining points. The point is that the link between surgical masks and the spread of diseases was not what the media claimed. The government didn’t want that to be known, and thus it was removed from social media.

I’m not sure if you’re willfully misinterpreting and downplaying my statements, but the lengths you’ll go to defend censorship and pointless imprisonment are startling. A society should function on the basis of doing good so that good may come, not doing bad so that good may come. I don’t see what’s so controversial about that. I’m only producing information that’s been published already. You’re the one defending what would rightly be called government overreach while refusing to explain what the distinction between is and fascism is.

Again, your arguments could be used to justify Trump removing pro-trans and pro-immigration information from social media. I don’t want anyone to have that power.

I don’t know why you’re accepting a boot on your neck. The Supreme Court is clear that the government cannot regulate the speech of an organization simply because they don’t like the content. If you would like to give the government the right to determine what is and isn’t true and thus permissible on social media, that would mean Trump could rightly censor whatever claims/information he wanted - say, trans rights promotion, immigration assistance, and the like.

Also, here’s some information about what was being censored:

• The link between vaccines and thrombosis
• The vaccines were not as effective as they were stated by the media - in fact, despite this article’s hair-splitting, you can still find a number of sites claiming this.
• Surgical masks aren’t particularly effective at stopping infections, at least partly due to poor use of them. If you give something to the general public and they cannot use it effectively, it is not an effective tool.
• Another source on the masks matter.

I’m glad we’re clear that you think the ends justify the means.

So it’s okay to force private companies to remove it if the government says it’s false?

I’m not sure why you’re insisting on not actually reading the document but alright:

On March 14, 2021, Mr. Flaherty emailed a Facebook executive (whose name we’ve redacted as a courtesy) with the subject line “You are hiding the ball” and a link to a Washington Post article about Facebook’s own research into “the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy,” as the paper put it. “I think there is a misunderstanding,” the executive wrote back. “I don’t think this is a misunderstanding,” Mr. Flaherty replied. “We are gravely concerned that your service is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy—period. . . . We want to know that you’re trying, we want to know how we can help, and we want to know that you’re not playing a shell game. . . . This would all be a lot easier if you would just be straight with us.”

Emphasis mine is the government explaining the need for, and the demanding, censorship.

Next paragraph:

On March 21, after failing to placate Mr. Flaherty, the Facebook executive sent an email detailing the company’s planned policy changes. They included “removing vaccine misinformation” and “reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable misinformation.” Facebook characterized this material as “often-true content” that “can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking.” Facebook pledged to “remove these Groups, Pages, and Accounts when they are disproportionately promoting this sensationalized content.”

This paragraph details how Facebook, under pressure from the government, agreed to remove information. That is, the government censored information. If you’d like to argue that a private individual being coerced into deleting something isn’t censorship, then perhaps you’d say the same about a newspaper being forced to not run a story about a government killing?

And for the sake of getting further context, let’s look at the next few paragraphs:

In that exchange, Mr. Flaherty demanded to know what Facebook was doing to “limit the spread of viral content” on WhatsApp, a private message app, especially “given its reach in immigrant communities and communities of color.” The company responded three weeks later with a lengthy list of promises.

Further explaining government demands for censorship.

On April 9, Mr. Flaherty asked “what actions and changes you’re making to ensure . . . you’re not making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse.” He faulted the company for insufficient zeal in earlier efforts to control political speech: “In the electoral context, you tested and deployed an algorithmic shift that promoted quality news and information about the election. . . . You only did this, however, after an election that you helped increase skepticism in, and an insurrection which was plotted, in large part, by your platform. And then you turned it back off. I want some assurances, based in data, that you are not doing the same thing again here.” The executive’s response: “Understood.”

The government, again, demands censorship.

On April 23, Mr. Flaherty sent the executive an internal memo that he claimed had been circulating in the White House. It asserts that “Facebook plays a major role in the spread of COVID vaccine misinformation” and accuses the company of, among other things, “failure to monitor events hosting anti-vaccine and COVID disinformation” and “directing attention to COVID-skeptics/anti-vaccine ‘trusted’ messengers.

More pressure from the government.

On May 10, the executive sent Mr. Flaherty a list of steps Facebook had taken “to increase vaccine acceptance.” Mr. Flaherty scoffed, “Hard to take any of this seriously when you’re actively promoting anti-vaccine pages in search,” and linked to an NBC reporter’s tweet. The executive wrote back: “Thanks Rob—both of the accounts featured in this tweet have been removed from Instagram entirely for breaking our policies.”

And this is a very clear example of censorship happening.

I think you get the idea. If you’d like to dispute what the article says, why don’t you read it yourself?