vincenthan2009

By nature, since science and religion occupy different domains, they are not inherently in conflict. The problem only lies in certain religions that seek to overstep their boundaries.

Science is concerned with nature and its principles; religion is concerned with the supernatural or what is beyond nature. Science instructs us on the laws of planets, galaxies, atoms, and molecules; religion fantasizes on God, angels, heaven, and hell. Since inherently, these two institutions take care of difference domains of knowledge, I assert that there is no inherent conflict between them. Hence, I agree with the Stephen J. Gould's notion of Non-overlapping magesteria.

However, we do need to acknowledge that certain religions seek to overstep their boundaries; this is when problems occur. Certain religions go so far as to make claims about nature, which would usurp the position of science. The best illustration of this may be the evolution vs. creationism culture war that has been raging for centuries: the hard work of scientists, their incredible work from laboratories, their theories and knowledge had to be challenged merely because of several sentences of some ancient book.

The core tenets of Christianity include the trinitarian God, the birth and death of Jesus Christ, the salvation brought forth by his death, and the Day of Judgment. All of these are concerned with supernatural elements. However, Christianity also has certain elements that interfere with nature: for example, as I mentioned earlier, the creationism claim, and also other issues very pertinent with society, such as its views on homosexuality.

This, however, is only true for certain religions. For religion as a general category, it has no inherent conflict with science. As long as both take care of their own domains and don't overstep each other, they can have a friendly relationship.

Despite the disputes between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China and the lack of universal international recognition, Taiwan's government has proven to have been a sustainable and mature democracy.

That Taiwanese nationalism is a very recent development requires no need to dispute: before the Chinese Civil War, the geographical region of Taiwan has been firmly within Qing Dynasty's hands. The shared culture, language, and history between mainland China and Taiwan certainly makes a separate Taiwan a concept difficult to accept.

Despite these realities, however, one cannot deny that one of the major parties in Taiwan, the Kuomingtang, spearheaded the Xinhai Revolution, which was responsible for the end of a dynastic China and the rapid transition of China into a modern country. The Kuomingtang was and is an internationally recognized legitimate party and its founding precedes that of the Chinese Communist Party. Hence, in terms of national origins, the Republic of China deserves to claim to be a legitimately founded nation.

Furthermore, the government of Taiwan nowadays has proven to be one of the most mature and sustainable democracies in the world. Taiwan consistently ranks one of the best countries in Asia in terms of civil liberties and democracy. Despite its territorial disputes with Mainland China, its territorial integrity over the Taiwan peninsula is undisputed and universally recognized. All of these are ingredients towards a legitimate sovereign nation.

Whether the findings of science are objectively true is indeed disputable and still uncertain, yet compared with all other institutions or human activities in general, science is certainly the most objective and its object of inquiry is objective.

It is true that science has its limitations. The most brilliant scientists still struggle with understanding what exactly happened before the Big Bang or what caused abiogenesis. The existing laws of science are likewise not entirely perfect or objective. Just several centuries ago Newton's Classical Mechanics was revered as the absolute truth, yet its flaws were soon discovered and it was superseded by Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Even nowadays, we still do not know how to reconcile the two aforementioned theory, and the String-theory that is proposed to reconcile them is widely criticized and debunked.

The frontier of science is indeed teemed with uncertainty, yet the territory over which science has its firm grip is so certain that it can be considered objective. For example, the Big Bang theory, which is concerned with how the universe came into existence, is nowadays a universally accepted cosmological model since it supported by overwhelming amount of evidence. It is of scientific consensus nowadays that the universe came into existing 13.8 billion years ago, and this discovery is considered objective. Kepler's laws of planetary motion are likewise objective since every single planet's orbits obey Kepler's mathematical formulation. These theories that are repeatedly confirmed by evidence and observation leave no room for doubt, and can therefore be effectively considered objective.

The object of inquiry alone of science is objective truth and the objective principles of the universe. On many aspects, we may have not yet arrived at these objective truths yet, yet on many other grounds we have already. Hence, science certainly can be objective.

Given the objectivity and impartiality of natural science, scientific researches by principle should not be suppressed, even if they may prove to be contrary to certain principles in society.

The merits and value of natural science are universally acknowledged. In antiquity, science is considered to be an integral part of philosophy ("natural philosophy" in Aristotle's own words) and various philosophers, until the scientific revolution in the 16-17th century, claimed to be scientists. Science alone has guided the footsteps of mankind's history and the enterprise represents the prowess of our intellect and our thirst for knowledge.

Since science is concerned with the objective principles of reality, its findings and conclusions cannot be compromised. Given the rigorous process of its reasoning, science does not admit of any error and every theory from science can objectively model reality.

Social equality, or other similar moral principles, are merely social constructs. They are, indeed, well-intentioned and they do serve the purpose of regulating order and promoting happiness in society. However, are people's feelings and happiness more important than objective and fundamental principles of nature? Can social constructs that we invented for ourselves override the gift of the universe?

The truth can never be suppressed for the sake of some arbitrary societal construct.

Democracy is not necessarily the best form of government, especially for countries whose people are not familiar with political participation or who are still struggling with poverty or illiteracy.

Plato, one of the most prominent ancient Greek philosophers, is known for his opposition to democracy. In his Republic, Plato makes it clear that not everyone deserves to rule. In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato writes that while most people think they see the truth and are inside the cave, only very few have actually seen the Sun and the absolute truth, and only they have the right to become kind philosopher kings. This certainly would have been surprising given how Athens is known for being one of the oldest democracies in the whole world.

To hand the helm of the country to the people is a bold decision. If the people are literate, well-educated, learned, and informed, this may be the best decision a country may make. However, this is not necessarily the case. Many countries are authoritarian not because the rulers are greedy, but because handing power to the people would prove to be disastrous as the people are inexperienced in political deliberation.

A dictatorship or absolute monarchy is not necessarily immoral, given that the ruler at helm is wise, virtuous, and capable. On the other hand, giving the power to the uneducated would simply become mob rule. Factions and disintegrating interests among people will tear the country apart. James Madison, in his Federalist No. 10, writes that "it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction." Democracy fails to provide a unifying force if the people cannot unite.

Democracy is indeed a revolutionary and noble idea, yet it must acknowledge its flaws.

It is a faulty generalization to say that racism is "everywhere" since racism nowadays is no longer an institutionalized issue and is instead a personal issue.

Opinions with absolute words like "everywhere", "always", "everything" naturally demand care and prudent consideration, especially those that deal with issues that affect society or people's lives as a whole.

In his renowned Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King famously wrote that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". This may be the reason why people feel justified when they claim that racism is "everywhere": one or two incidents of racism are sufficient to conjure our worry for racism as a whole in the entire country.

Yet is that still the case? In Martin Luther King's time, racism is not merely a matter of personal character flaw; it is also a matter of national legislation and large scale societal issue. One African-American child hit by higher pressure water hose may indeed raise concerns over another child suffering injustice.

Nowadays, with decades of effort and awareness-raising, racism is no longer an institutional issue as there are myriads of governmental laws and societal policies that explicitly condemn and forbid racism. Hence, racism is reduced to a personal issue. In this situation, to claim that racism is "everywhere" is unfounded and unjustified.

Even if the entire world can be united under one government, conflict among political factions remains inevitable as differences in race, religion, culture, language, and political interests cannot be removed.

"A house divided by itself cannot stand." Lincoln's words proved to be prophetic as, two years after those words were uttered, the United States of America were splintered into two halves, ushering in one of the most deadliest conflicts in American history. It did not matter that the North and South both spoke English, believed in the same religion, and pledged themselves to the same constitution. Disagreements over one single institution were able dominate the scene of politics for a decade and ultimately break the country into two.

Government is a political institution; its power and scope do not extent to individual's beliefs, culture, religion, or language. Even if multiple ethnicities or multiples interests are ruled under one government, conflict is still inevitable. History has borne so much witness to this: be it the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the Pashtun-Hazara conflict in Afghanistan, or Hindu-Sikh conflict in India, we can all see how one single government is unable to preempt internal conflict.

The weakness of a global government — the extreme diversity of the people over which it rules —, therefore, does not compensate for the only strength it seems to possess — centralization and strong military. Even if such a country is totalitarian and of a 1984 style, the individual's mind is still too great for a cowardly peace to remain.

The "state of nature", as delineated in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, has been long consigned in the ashes of history ever since the Neolithic Revolution about 12,000 years ago.

Hobbes' conception of a Bellum omnium contra omnes, in whose the life of man is "nasty, brutish, and short", is a hypothesis on the pre-societal state of mankind. The most defining character of this state of nature is "every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body. (Ch 14) and that "nothing in unjust." (Ch 13)

These characteristics of society have long been abolished ever since the dawn of civilization. Sumer, the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia that emerged around 4500 BCE, already has the most primitive form of law. The Code of Ur-Nammu, for example, explicitly outlaws murder and prescribes capital punishment for all murders. (https://www.worldhistory.org/Ur-Nammu/) Given the advent of agriculture and emergence of art, craft, and pottery, property laws were also enforced. Hence, the state of nature that Hobbes delineated is no longer relevant for more than six thousand years.

Furthermore, the quality of human life has also been shown to improve since the neolithic revolution. With the abandonment of hunting-gathering and the application of agriculture, humans were able to domesticate livestock and thereby gaining immunity to germs (https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/neolithic-revolution). Jared Diamond, in his Guns, Germs, and Steel, argues that the rise of food production also led to complex writing system and the advent of new technology. Although the neolithic revolution did not significantly improve the average life expectancy in the beginning, the complex society it enabled eventually led to a much better life for humans.

Hence, Hobbes' description of the pre-societal state of nature is extremely obsolete and hypothetical.

It is very pleasing to see how the overwhelming response towards this opinion is strong agreement, but it is also necessary to clarify the scope of "rights" in this context. Human rights are, indeed, universal and everyone is entitled to it. However, we must note that not all rights are universal and are situational, in which case it would not be equally important to everyone. For example, the right to abortion is more important for a pregnant woman than to a man; the right to strike is more important for a worker than for a student.

Capitalism as an economic system is by no means unethical since competition and private ownership of the means of production do not necessarily harm workers.

The definition of capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production, thereby allowing competition, free market, property rights, and capital accumulation.

The most common objection against capitalism is that, without regulation from the government, workers can easily be exploited. To counter this, it is necessary to acknowledge that in a capitalistic economy, a worker's entry into the workforce is purely voluntary and his wage is determined by the free market. It is true that a worker himself has no control over his wage or the product of his labor, but even so his wage is not arbitrarily determined: it is still determined by the supply-demand in the factor market. Therefore, the charge that this characteristic of capitalism is immoral makes the faulty assumption that workers are arbitrarily exploited, when they are merely working for the free market.

For example, suppose worker A works at Starbucks and worker B works at Peet's Coffee. Starbucks has been more popular than Peet's Coffee so A receives more wage than B, even if they both work hard equally. Is this immoral? That the free market, instead of the worker themselves, determines the wage is completely natural and by no means unethical: if your labor produces products that are more popular, you receive more wage. What is wrong with that?

Voluntary exchange is a central characteristic of capitalism. It ensures that one's product of labor has an objective basis of value evaluation. How do I know how much my labor is worth? Just trade it with someone else and see if they want it more than they wish to keep their money. From a utilitarian perspective, this is by no means immoral since both the buyer and seller are benefited by the exchange and are happier.

To properly address this opinion, it is necessary to have a clearer definition on what it means to "need" and the nature of "God". By need, does it mean a physical or physiological necessity, or a spiritual and inward desire? By God, does it refer to the specific, anthropomorphic creator God in Abrahamic religions, or a non-specfied, deistic supreme being? A vague opinion like this demands specification.

Criminal law has the purpose of prohibiting, deterring, and punishing actions that endanger the well-being and order of society. Therefore, the practice of incest, which is scientifically proven to genetically debilitate the offspring, naturally falls within the scope of criminal law.

Law is based upon precedence. Hence, any questions that involve legal issues naturally invoke a reexamination of existing institutions and cases.

In the United States, criminal law is not only concerned with major felonies (like murder or rape), but also any action that potentially endangers the state of society (like driving under the influence). A crime is defined as the concurrence of a guilty mind (mens rea) and a guilty action (actus reus). (from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/criminal_law)

From a medical point of view, the adverse health effects of incest is already a well-established scientific fact. Not only is incest a universal cultural taboo, but also it is a matter of scientific consensus (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6839266/) It may bring forth various forms of genetic mutation, such as a deformed jaw or fused limbs (https://www.ranker.com/list/genetic-mutations-from-inbreeding/laura-allan). The debilitating effects of this practice on society are therefore self-evident.

Given the harmful nature of the act and its adverse impact on society, and since it occurs as a concurrence of both intention and action, there is no reason why it is not under the scope of criminal law. If it is not deemed a felony, at least it must be a misdeamanor.

The degree to which religion, or, in general, spirituality, is "organized" has no correlation with how connected it is with the Sacred. Whether it is a large church with a highly organized ecclesiastical system or a small family prayer meeting, both have equal distance with the Sacred.

Nobody, I suppose, may look upon St. Peter's Basilica, or any corner of the Vatican City, without awe over its luxurious and elaborate architectural style. The blend of Christian and humanist, Renaissance elements certainly is striking to the eye. The human elements of the Roman Catholic Church may naturally make us wonder whether organized religion has lost touch with the sacred. Can't a small Friday prayer meeting group accomplish the same goal? Can't a group of nondenominational Christians gathering together in prayer celebrate their faith equally as well?

Whether it is a Catholic attending mass at a large cathedral or a protestant singing worship songs at his own house, do they not have the same goal in mind — to connect with the Sacred? Does the secular architecture of that cathedral diminish the faith of the Catholic?

Same for other religions: be it muslims on an elaborate pilgrimage to Mecca or a sufi muslim performing Dhikr, are they not equally pious in their devotion to Allah?

Whether faith is in touch with the Sacred is not dependent on the degree to which that faith is organized, but the hearts of the believer.

From an epistemological point of view, we cannot assert anything supernatural with certainty. Therefore, the "will" is this question renders it difficult to agree with.

The definition of knowledge accompanied with certainty has always been a central problem in the field of epistemology, the branch in philosophy that deals with knowledge. Despite this controversy, philosophers do have several general agreements on the properties of knowledge. One property of knowledge is that is cannot be mere "true belief"; at its bare minimum, knowledge must be "justified true belief", and this alone may still not be sufficient. (See the Gettier problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem)

In other words, even, even, if we truly reunite with our loved ones after we die, that does not mean that right now we can assert that we will with certainty. We need to look if there is any possible justification behind this statement.

There are two most prominent schools of epistemology, rationalism and empiricism. The former believes that reason is the source of knowledge, while the latter believes that experience takes that role. The question to be asked is, can our reunion with our loved ones be justified by either reason or experience?

Reason should be easily ruled out first. There is no way by which we can arrive at the proposition "we will reunite with our loved ones" with existing principles or axioms, in the same manner as we are doing math. How about experience? Does any of our sensory faculties reveal to us the truth of this proposition? I do not believe so.

Since there is no possible way to justify (or even falsify) such a proposition, this statement is not within the bounds of epistemological certainty. Therefore, we can only assert no.

Children and adolescents are overly protected, especially in the domain of criminal law.

• The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits the execution of juvenile offenders (https://www.aclu.org/other/juveniles-and-death-penalty). Not only is the capital punishment strongly opposed on adolescents and children on an international level, but also it is considered unconstitutional by our Supreme Court. In Roper v. Simmons, the execution of any person under the age of 18 is deemed unconstitutional.
• Capital punishment aside, certain countries completely exempt children from any criminal responsibilities. For example, in China, any person under the age of 12 do not have to serve any sentence, no matter how heinous their crime is. In the United States, confinement for juvenile crime results in jail time if and only if they are the most serious felonies (like murder and rape) (https://www.wklaw.com/juvenile-crime/13-punishments-for-juvenile-offenders)

Religion may or may not be spirituality, depending on the mode of practice of the adherents.

Sam Harris once compared the term "religion" to "sports" — they both are extremely broad umbrella terms that, because of the large variety of things that fall under them, lose their meaning; one must look beneath those terms in order to gain a better understanding. Both badminton and thai boxing are sports, yet getting hurt in the latter is much easier than the former. Likewise, both Islam and Jainism are religions, yet they have drastically different outlooks on life.

Hence, asking whether or not religion is similar with spirituality is like asking whether or not sports are dangerous. Some sports are dangerous; some are safe. It just depends on the sport itself, and how the athlete carries out the sport.

Is Islam spirituality? A Sufi muslim is very spiritual: sufism is the ascetic spiritual dimension of Islam. A Sufi muslim seeks to bring himself to God by returning to fitra, the purest form of himself. (https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1983/fitrah/) On the other hand, a Wahhabist, jihadist muslim is certainly not spiritual.

Is Christianity spirituality? A group of nondenominational protestants coming together in prayer may be considered spiritual. An ecumenical council that seeks to bridge division among denominations may be spiritual. Crusades and Inquisition, on the other hand, are certainly not spiritual. Selling indulgences is not spiritual.

Hence, for this question, I take the neutral side — religion may or may not be spirituality.

Although religions may share general principles of characteristics, individual religions are too different from one another to the extent that a commonality among all religion is not feasible to find.

There is no scholarly consensus on the definition of a religion; what is widely accepted, however, is that religions are a spiritual practice that ordains a certain metaphysical worldview, mode of ethical thinking that is predicated on some version of theism (or deism).

Despite these common characteristics, individual religions are simply too different from one another, to the extent that it is impossible to find one single detail on which every single religion agree. Some examples may be:

• The nature of God: the monotheism/polytheism dichotomy alone is sufficient to rule out the notion that all religions have the same principle on God. Even if we stick to one side, individual religions still present drastically different views on God. For example, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all strictly monotheistic religions. However, the Christian notion of trinity is rejected by the other two and is, perhaps, unique to every religion in the world. The God in Judaism is much more anthropomorphic than that of Islam. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush)
• Ethics: even on matters of moral judgments, religions still cannot agree on every single point. For example, Islam considers worshipping polytheistic gods to be the greatest and unforgivable sin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirk_(Islam)), yet Christianity considers blasphemy against the holy spirit to be unforgivable. Islam and Christianity celebrates proselytism, while Judaism forbids it.
• Eschatology: eschatology refers to a religion's views on the end of the world. Even on this topic, no religions can completely agree on everything. For example, Islam sees the increase in polytheism as a sign that the Day of Judgment is coming, while Christianity and Judaism do not.

All in all, religions are too different from one another on every detail to the extent that we cannot find a similarity among all of them concerning any specific aspect.

Assuming that the "God" at question is the monotheistic God depicted in Abrahamic religions, God certainly is not love.

If in the sixth chapter of the first book of the Torah or of the Old Testament Bible, God already finds it necessary to commit mass genocide by creating a huge flood to wipe out nearly all of humanity, we may hesitate to claim that the God, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, may symbolize love of any form. Not to mention smaller ordinances like Abraham being commanded to kill his son, large ethnic cleansing by the Hebrews towards the Canaanites may further cast doubt on whether God is love.

"But that is merely the Old Testament Bible", some will cry, most likely from Christians. "That is before Christ came down to Earth to save us!" Does that mean that God himself has transformed from hate to love? That does not seem to be the case when homophobia is explicitly ordained in Paul's epistles or when the destruction of everything — all the happiness that mankind loves — is welcomed with a cheerful tone in the Book of Revelation.

Now that we have discussed Judaism and Christianity, we can now discuss Islam. "All-merciful" is one of the ninety-nine most exalted names for Allah, yet this mercy does not seem to extend to polytheists who are deemed to commit an unforgivable sin. I need not mention other Quranic verses that explicitly ordain violence against kafirs (infidels).

One way or another, Abrahamic monotheistic religions are the most exclusive and intolerant: to say that God is love would be hardly agreeable.

Politicians are not obligated to keep their religious views private since doing so is not a necessary condition to uphold the principle of separation between church and state.

Anti-Catholic concerns swept over our country when, charismatic and handsome though he is, President John F. Kennedy was elected as the President of the United States. He did not keep his religious views private: he openly asserted his Catholic faith (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600), which was not in contradiction with his upholding of the principle of a secular government. His proclamation of his religious views did not interfere with his performance as a president, and, until today, he continues to be widely hailed as one of the best presidents in our history.

The lesson that we can derive from this valuable experience in our history is that one's personal religious identity does not necessarily clash with the principle of the separation between church and state. Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson did not hesitate to support the Civil Rights Movement by citing Judeo-Christian influences, yet he still was a distinguished liberal and left-leaning president who did not interfere with the country's secular values.

A very common joke I hear online is the comparison between religion and a penis: "it is good to have one, but not good to show in public". There may be some truth in this statement, yet many renowned politicians did not hesitate to show theirs in public, to no harm at all.

By the principles of scientific reasoning, we cannot be certain about whether this metaphysical claim is true.

First, we must notice that the question did not assert any religion with which the "God" at question is affiliated. So it arbitrarily may be the God of Christianity, the God of Judaism, the God of Islam, the God of Sikhism, the Gods of Hinduism. Even more so, it may also be the God of deism — the belief in a supreme being who does not actively involve himself with the universe. It may be a God that, perhaps, humanity has never imagined of or who has never revealed himself to mankind yet.

What is the significance of this? The God at question may be beyond all of the beliefs and human conceptions that we are aware of. From an epistemological point of view, this metaphysical claim is not falsifiable, and therefore not subject to human enquiry. No experiments we can perform in any laboratory, no research published in any scientific journal can shed light on the truth value of such a statement.

Science has its limits — physicists still struggle with discovering what is before the Big Bang (https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/what-was-before-the-big-bang-everything-you-need-to-know/). Physicists still do not know how to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. So, as for now, how the universe came into existence is still a matter of scientific enquiry. Perhaps, God is behind the process; perhaps, not so. There is no way, at least now, by which we can verify this claim that is not falsifiable.

Hence, for this question, I can only take the agnostic point of view and assert that we do not know.

Borders are the most powerful expression of sovereignty, since they are the manifestation of a country's history and denote the territorial integrity of a country.

Alsace and Lorraine were not that large: together, they constituted only roughly 2% of the land of France. Nevertheless, the loss of these two provinces in the Franco-Prussian War was a sufficient reason of grief that triggered World War I. The nationalistic sentiment attached to merely 5,597 miles squared of land sufficed to trigger one of the largest rivalries and enmities on the land of Europe. That borders are important to a country, from this example, is evident to anyone's eyes. (hhttps://www.wikiwand.com/en/Alsace-Lorraine)

When I used to be a history nerd in my sophomore year of high school, I loved to watch one of those videos on YouTube that are entitled "history of XXX, every year", the content of which is usually a map with different colors denoting the borders of different countries or civilizations. Often, the comments below these videos mock how a tiny change in color requires the death of thousands.

This brings me to my first point: borders alone are testaments of a country's history. Be it violent conquest or peaceful expansion, the change of a country's territory is always an integral part of a country's very history and tradition. The annexation of Texas alone required a war; the acquisition of Alaska was politically contentious enough that one of the greatest politicians could be considered committing "folly" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase). Borders are the sum of a country's experiences and dealings with others.

The Maginot Line demarcating France and Germany was not only a powerful source of defense in WWII; they came to symbolize the very integrity of France and were emblematic of the territorial principles that that country does not tolerate others to trespass upon. The borders between India and Pakistan were not only witness to the trials and tribulations of the Partition of India but also expressions of sovereignty central to the conflict between these two nations.

That borders are important is a truth immediate to every person's eye.

St. Paul was not the founder of Christianity, in the same way as the followers of Confucius were not the founders of Confucianism.

That St. Paul played an important role in early Christianity is, I believe, of both historical and religious consensus: Paul was the author of many epistles in the New Testament Bible, was responsible for the spread the gospel and establishment of many church in Anatolia and Europe. However, does that mean that he is the founder of Christianity?

The followers of Confucius, not Confucius himself, composed The Analects and spread Confucianism to every corner in China. The followers of Muhammad, not Muhammad himself, composed the Hadiths and conquered Arabia, Persia, North Africa, and even Spain. The descendants of Abraham, not Abraham himself, composed the Tanakh, created the United Monarchy, and built the Second Temple. Does that mean that Confucius is not the founder of Confucianism, Muhammad not the founder of Islam, Abraham not the founder of Judaism?

Paul did spread the gospel and built churches, yet the original idea and fundamental principles of Christianity did not come from him, but from Jesus of Nazareth. Paul converted to Christianity only several years after the crucifixion of Jesus, before which he was active in persecuting Christians. Hence, to claim that Paul is the founder of Christianity is like claiming Constantine, the Roman Emperor, is its founder.

We may be witnessing a reversal or regression, but those are not to be mistaken with the collapse of a country. As waves have ebb and flow, countries, society, and civilization have zenith and nadir as well.

The current state of the United States is indeed one of great concern — the inadequate response to the covid pandemic, the intractable polarization of political parties and ideologies, the rising societal tensions of race and wealth inequality. To boast that the country possesses its former glory is to be blind to the grim realities in which we find ourselves.

However, is this necessarily a complete collapse? Is this by any means an inevitable and fatal "fall"? We may have contemplated the same question in 1929, when a decade of economic prosperity instantly gave way to poverty and mass unemployment; or in 1975, when our defeat in the Vietnam War tarnished our international renown and created a great setback in the Cold War; or in 2008, when we entered a recession and our war in Iraq turned in a seemingly hopeless direction.

To say that our current plight is comparatively worse is debatable; to say that it is an inevitable fall from which we will never recover is not only pessimistic by attitude, but also ignorant by history and experience, and unjustified by principle and reason.

Not to impugn the merits of Kantian deontology, the utilitarian solution is more practical than that of the deontological perspective.

The Trolly Problem is remarkable since it presents a unique scenario in which the two major normative ethical theories — utilitarianism and deontology — are pitted diametrically against one another. Utilitarianism, which contends that that which maximizes utility and happiness for the most, would naturally offer the solution of pulling the lever; deontology, which contends that every person is the end of moral deliberation and we all must abide by the categorical imperative, would require us to standby idly.

Since two different theories — not necessarily mutually exclusive by principle — give two completely different answers, one must compare and debate the merits of these two normative ethical models.

Suppose the number is not five people on the original railway track, but ten, twenty, or even a hundred. No matter how many lives are at stake, deontology would, without mercy, mandate omission in the scenario, on the grounds that the life of the one person on the other track cannot be used as a means. I appreciate the nobleness that deontological ethics assign to human life, but we must recognize that, on a practical level, sometimes one's personal benefits, including life, must be sacrificed for a higher good. Suppose it is one thousand people on the original track: would anyone accept the outcome that one thousand people perish merely for the survival of one person?

Kant does prescribe that all men should be treated as members in the kingdom of ends, and that actions are moral to the extent that they treat individuals as ends of moral deliberation. A question to be asked in this scenario is: is inaction not an "action"? Is inaction not subject to moral supervision or the categorical imperative? Suppose I see a person drowning in a lake and I turn my eye away. I did not commit any action that violate the categorical imperative, yet my inaction shows clear disregard to the sanctity of human life. Hence, we must be aware that both actions and inactions are, regardless of which normative ethical theory we use, under the same moral supervision.

Returning to the original topic: Kant would argue that the action of pulling the lever will use a person as a means. Yet, is not the inaction of not pulling the lever the same? Watching five people (or even more, arbitrarily more) perish for the sake of the life of one person is likewise tolerating five people's lives perishing for the sake of one person. Hence, even if we do not consider the utilitarian perspective, not pulling the lever still cannot be justified.

The decision to pull the lever is certainly not perfect, and we certainly do not hope that such a tragic scenario comes in real life. Yet it is the only alternative we have.

Trump certainly is not the worst president in the history of the United States in that his presidency did not cause our country to politically tear apart as James Buchanan did, nor did he vehemently oppose African American civil rights as Andrew Johnson did.

It is of popular consensus among historians that James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson were the worst presidents in the history of the United States, since the former failed in curbing sectionalism and the growing conflict between north and south in slavery, and the latter caused great setback to African American civil rights during Reconstruction.

In order to counter the claim that Trump is not the worst, we simply need to show that Trump was better than these two presidents in our history.

One way or another, Trump was bad — he ignored and underplayed the covid pandemic, incited an insurgency in the Capitol. However, his domestic policy did not completely alienate a race or tear our country apart. His tax reforms may be controversial, yet there still are claims that they were beneficial in the long run. His foreign policy was not the best, yet it was effective at curbing terrorism and defeating ISIS.

Therefore, one way or another, Trump cannot be claimed to be the worst president in our history.

All authority should be questioned to the extent that doubt and questioning are impetus for scientific and intellectual progress. However, certain authorities have already substantiated themselves as scientific facts so questioning them is no longer meaningful.

It is true that doubt has been the very engine of intellectual progress — Galileo questioned Aristotelian physics by demonstrating that the gravitational acceleration is independent of mass; Copernicus questioned the age-old belief of geocentrism by proving that the Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around. Questioning and doubt on Newtonian classical physics led to the two most significant theories upon which modern physics is built: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The history of science alone is one of constant renewal, challenging, progress, and change.

The same may be said for other disciplines of knowledge. Historiography used to designate the Medieval Age as the "dark ages", yet this label has been abandoned as historians begin to discover that the Medieval Age is in fact a period characterized by great intellectual, cultural, and scientific burgeoning. The challenge of religious authority likewise led us to great thinkers during the Enlightenment. Questioning is a virtue — it symbolizes our curiosity and our willingness to learn more.

However, one must note that not all authority deserves to be challenged, especially certain overwhelmingly well-substantiated facts or principles of reasoning. For example, axioms in mathematics are universally accepted; nobody doubts Peano's axioms about natural numbers or Euclid's axioms about geometry. These fundamental principles are the very basis of mathematics as a whole, so it is, at this point, pointless to challenge. Certainly scientific facts likewise enjoy the same status: they are so well-grounded that they are universally accepted as facts. No chemist doubts the atomic theory, nor any biologist the theory of evolution. These are foundational theories.

Despite the gruesome image it often conjures, nuclear energy has proven to be one of the safest and most sustainable sources of energy for the world.

The images of the two largest nuclear disasters in the world — Chernobyl and Fukushima — continue to haunt humanity. Conceivably, its reputation is nowhere near that of innocent windmills or solar panels, yet, from a statistical perspective, nuclear energy has proven to be greatly efficient and has benefited humanity ever since its cultivation.

The most convincing statistics for the safety of nuclear energy may be from Our World in Data, which stated that the death rate from energy production of nuclear power is around 0.07 deaths per terawatt-hour, compared with 32.72 of brown coal and 18.45 of oil. The only reason why nuclear power often gives us a fearsome image is similar to that of commercial aviation, which, for the vast majority of time, is safe, but whenever one incident occurs, the media extensively covers it.

The efficiency of nuclear energy is also well testified. The International Energy Agency, in a report published in 2018, stated that nuclear power produced 10% of the total world energy throughout the world, exceeding that from wind, solar, and oil. Most European countries rely largely on nuclear power, with France deriving 70.6% of its national energy from this one source of energy. Hence, nuclear power certainly has proven its merits around the globe.

No matter what the definition of "right" is or which normative ethical model we use, killing a human being who poses great threat to the security of society is justified.

To demonstrate my argument, it is necessary for me to approach this topic from the two most common normative ethical theories: deontological ethics and utilitarianism.

Deontological ethics states that, under whatever circumstances or regardless of the consequences of an action, we must always abide by the categorical imperative — a set of moral imperatives that must be obeyed at all time. Among the many imperatives is to not kill a person. However, another element in the Kantian morality is what defines a "person". In his A Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes that a person is a being capable of reason, possesses free will, and abides by the categorical imperative. In other words, if a person does not abide by morality, he is no longer seen as a "person" in Kant's eyes, so killing him would be justified. Hence, even though Kant's deotology emphasizes duty and obligation, this does not mean infinite and unlimited toleration to an evil person.

It is easier to argue from a utilitarian perspective. In chapter five of Mill's Utilitarianism, he writes that the utilitarian ethical model is perfectly compatible with justice. If a person's wicked behavior undermines society's utility — and all other means cannot stop him from continuing —, then killing him would be justified since it is the choice that maximizes utility.

Now that we have justified the act of killing from two prominent normative ethical theories, we can now look at the question from a more practical perspective. China is the country that practices capital punishment in a magnitude that surpasses the sum of all other countries, yet China's criminal law is still very conservative about the use of capital punishment. Capital punishment is only considered if the criminal's conduct extremely endangers the security of society and if the highest court approves. Combining these two information together, one can see that capital punishment is indeed an unfortunate necessity.

Besides a legal angle, we can also look from the angle of war and diplomacy. During President Obama's presidency, Osama bin Laden was assassinated in a military assault. Is it justified? Killing the most wanted person who perpetrated the greatest act of terrorism in human history is indeed justified and brings forth a sense of justice.

Hence, from both a theoretical and practical angle, I believe that killing human beings can be justified.

For this question, I put neutral since the wording of the question is vague and requires more clarification as to what exactly does "thing" refer to.

Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, writes that falsifiability is the criterion that determines whether a proposition is subject to scientific enquiry. In other words, as long as a proposition has a valid logical disproof, then that proposition is within the scope of scientific enquiry. A very common example is the proposition "all swans are white". While it is impossible to prove this statement using induction (since even if I give you one million white swans, there might still be an undiscovered black swan), the statement itself is falsifiable (if I find ONE black swan, then the statement is false).

To explain why I put neutral, I will give two perspectives to illustrate both sides.

Applying this principle of science, everything within observable nature certainly belongs to science. For example, to falsify Newton's gravitation, the statement "an apply flies towards the sky" would do. To falsify Copernicus' heliocentrism, the statement "the Sun orbits the Earth" would do. To falsify the atomic theory, the statement "substance can be divided infinitely times" would do. All of these falsifying statements are logically possible and possible to be observed, so, by definition, all topics in nature are indeed within science's reach.

However, a problem occurs when the "thing" referred to is not within nature. A common example given is the statement "this angel has large wings". To falsify this statement, one must prove that "all angels have large wings", which is not possible, since angels (as claimed by religions) are supernatural and we cannot possibly observe them.

Hence, whether this opinion is right or wrong depends on how we define "thing".

Justice is the most important requirement for society in that justice is the strongest and most morally convincing force that maintains the social relationships that, in their aggregate, define the very essence of society.

Although there is no scholarly consensus on the definition of society, most sociologists agree that society entails a persistent and constant interactions from individual to individual, and the sum of all of these interactions and rapport contribute to what we deem a society. In other words, for society to continue to operate, these interactions must be guarded for and must be conducted in such a way such that individuals are willing to stay in the society.

Thomas Hobbes, in his work Leviathan, posited his famous notion of "a war of all against all", which he believes to the natural, pre-societal state of humanity. He writes that "To this warre of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust." This serves a good example of a society without justice: without justice — no reward for virtue, no punishment for wrongdoings — there will be no deterrence for individuals to undermine his own and others' social interactions. In order for society to preserve its order and its persistent social interactions, there must be a system that punishes those who seek to undermine the existing social interactions.

David Hume further augments on this claim. In his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, he writes that in a society characterized by neither great abundance not extreme poverty, "justice derives its usefulness to the public: And hence alone arises its merit and moral obligation." Both Hume and Hobbes agree that justice is a cornerstone to society for the same reason: justice is vital in ensuring that social interactions contribute to the good of mankind and that good social interactions are preserved and bad social interactions punished.

In his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, David Hume writes that moral deliberations originate from our sentiments and inclination towards utility. In other words, morality comes from our sense of pleasure and pain, which are the most fundamental human psychological faculties. One way or another, right and wrong are merely expressions of emotion or sentiment and are a way by which we express our sympathy, compassion, and respect for life and the well-being and happiness of life.

We know that, say, killing is wrong, because empathy and feelings within our brain instruct us that we would not want to experience the horror of being killed. We know that kindness is right because kindness directly produces happiness, helpfulness, and utility for others. Morality, therefore, is a human faculty and a capability from our own brain and psychology.

Statistically, there is no correlation between religiosity and moral standards. Many secular and non-religious countries can have very low crime rates (like Japan), while many deeply religious countries can have high crime rates (like many countries in South America). Given the psychological basis of morality and the real world statistics, that religion is irrelevant in ethical considerations is evident to every pair of eyes.