Who Were the Sea Peoples?

At mass Sunday my priest gave a sermon on the general theme of "my kingdom is not of this world." His general point was very sound, but he got confused with an example he gave, one that got me thinking about rules. He had been in a faith group at university, one that got involved in intramural sports. His friends were planning out their next basketball game, and talked turned to who would give intentional fouls at the end of the game if they were need. At this, my priest took umbrage: "We're Christians: we shouldn't be breaking the rules in order to win!" His friends said, "You don't understand basketball," and ignored him. For him, this intentional fouling appeared to be a form of cheating, of "breaking the rules." But that is not right. And why it isn't right helps to clarify the differences between rules that declare certain actions impermissible and rules that allow actions but set a penalty for taking the action. S...

Jonathan Finegold claims : "Thus, saber-toothed cats adopted evolutionary social rules, just like humans do." No: the cats just behaved the way they behaved. They could not have "adopted" a rule, because they lack the means (language) necessary to even formulate a rule. That cat behavior was somewhat consistent, however, and due to that consistency, the theorist can abstract a rule (since he does have language at his disposal). Understanding this is a crucial part of avoiding the great rationalist error, which is believing that reality is only comprehensible through abstractions. For more on this topic, see this paper .

I just read the above claim in a paper. It is false, not based on "my ideology" as opposed to "your ideology," but demonstrably false on a scientific basis. (By science here I mean "rational enquiry into some realm of reality.") To understand why this is so, let us consider someone who says "the essence of private property is the open use of coercion." "Whoa," you may think, "how can anyone claim this? Private property is about my legitimate authority to control what is mine!'' But what about someone who disagrees with me about my legitimate authority over some property? For instance, I presently own ten acres in the Poconos. But suppose some Lenape Indians show up and say, "This was our ancestors' land: we are going to establish a village here." And they then begin constructing a village on "my" land. Well, I now have two choices: I can abandon my property claim, or I can use coercion to forc...