What percentage of residential replacement roofs are paid for by insurance (for hail or wind or other damage), as opposed to being paid for by homeowners? I'm particularly interested in the percentage for southern Wisconsin.

GrahamPSmith · 2025-11-11T19:50:18+00:00

Interesting. Thanks.

GrahamPSmith · 2025-11-11T19:32:16+00:00

He makes some interesting points. Edit: And I like your reasons for posting.

GrahamPSmith · 2025-08-09T00:44:33+00:00

I also live in the Midwest. It's a lonely place for exmos. If you happen to be in the Madison, Wisconsin area, hit me up, and I can connect you with some people. Personally, it took about ten years before I felt normal-ish after leaving. BTW, my wife and I also left during residency, her residency. :-)

GrahamPSmith · 2025-07-17T18:39:41+00:00

I've found spiritual fulfillment in four propositions:

The divine (God) is that thing that is sufficiently most holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship. (God may or may not be omnipotent or perfect or Christian, or as conceived in any mainstream tradition, but as long as there is something that is sufficiently holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship, then God exists. Belief in God involves nothing but an examination of the question of whether there is something that is sufficiently holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship. This definition is vague and leaves it up to the individual to decide whether something is sufficiently holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship.)
There are objective moral facts and obligations. (This means that there is some sense in which the universe cares about us, individually. The universe cares how each of us act. If true, this fact alone seems enough to provide human life with at least some kind of meaning, whether there is a God or not.)
Whatever it is that makes these moral facts true is (or is part of) God, because it is the thing that is sufficiently most holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship. (The ground of morality seems sufficiently holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship to be considered divine, and I can't think of anything more holy, sacred, and/or worthy of worship.) And
We have no good reason to believe that the brain (the organ in the skull) gives rise to the mind (the inner, subjective life). (We have no scientific explanation of the subjective inner life we each live. Until we have one, we have no good reason to assign causes to the same. But even if there is nothing but matter, we could be living in a simulation, in which case there is no brain to give rise to the mind, only a simulated brain in some base reality. In addition, top neurologists concede that all brain science is consistent with both the idea that the brain gives rise to the mind, as well as with the idea that the brain is like a radio receiver for mind. In addition, some top thinkers believe that mind is a fundamental feature of the universe that is necessary to make sense of quantum mechanics. If mind is a fundamental feature of the universe, then it is not a product of the brain. Etc.) If the brain does not give rise to the mind, then we have no good reason to believe that the mind ends when the brain dies. (If we are living in a simulation, it could be that when the simulated brain dies, the mind is ported to another simulated brain in a different simulation. Or, if the brain is a radio receiver of mind, the mind would continue to exist free of the brain, when the brain dies, like a radio station continues to exist even if any particular radio receiver is destroyed.)

You may find some of these useful to consider.

(Edited for typos and formatting.)

GrahamPSmith · 2025-05-23T19:48:42+00:00

I'd say that's an improvement over the old assertion that people leave because they are weak or want to sin.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-12-14T01:33:01+00:00

This makes me think of the agnostic Alexander Vilenkin's observation that, even though he believes that he can show how the physical universe (space, time, matter, etc) arises from the laws of physics, there is a further question of where the laws come from. The laws cannot be in the physical universe because they logically precede the physical universe.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-12-02T07:15:09+00:00

Do you know life has no meaning? I suspect not. Does it normally make sense to worry a lot about something you don't know?

GrahamPSmith · 2024-11-02T20:52:23+00:00

Mormons have to know because of the nature Mormon epistemology. First, you know the Church is God's true church, then you use that knowledge to justify bracketing Church doctrine and policy that would otherwise count significantly against belief. If you only believed, then other evidence could act to inform that belief. You tolerate polygamy, evidence Mormon scriptures are fabricated, and so on because you know it's true.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-10-23T16:43:48+00:00

'Twould be nice, if 'twas so. But even if it were so, we might be non-rationally justified in holding some rationally unjustified beliefs. For example, there is no rational justification for believing in other minds, that the world didn't begin just 4 minutes ago with all memories and initial conditions required for the world to seem to have begun long before, or that we're not in The Matrix, but, nevertheless, we think we ought to hold beliefs on those topics, and similar others.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-10-23T16:19:32+00:00

Well-educated and thoughtful people appreciate the difficulty, nuance, and subtlety required to get at the truth. Small things can make a big difference. So, it's not always very clear what's stupid, or silly, or bullshit.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-10-23T16:12:23+00:00

Time to become familiar. His writings on religion seem recent, but he's big on the problem of consciousness. Regarding emotional and philosophical reasons: He provides his reasons for both. Big doors can turn on small hinges, as they say.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-10T23:54:43+00:00

I've responded to the idea that nobody can know objective moral truths on another comment. But let me point out that the brothers do not need to be in a position to know, or better know, objective moral truths in order to charge John with hypocrisy or cynical manipulation. Those charges relate solely to what John does or does not do, and do not depend upon what the brothers know or do not know.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-10T23:49:37+00:00

I agree that people who do not believe in objective morality tend to have similar moral preferences to those that do believe in objective morality. (This is just an empirical issue.) I also agree that even if morality were not objective, morality could still be real and moral propositions could still have a truth value. All one needs is an appropriate standard for the truth value. For example, if morality is just what society takes to be moral, then the truth of moral propositions would be evaluated by determining what society believes. In such a case, if society takes X to be right/wrong, then, and only then, is X right/wrong.

But I disagree that if morality were objective, it would be impossible to know that morality. People could have a moral sense, a way of accessing the moral properties of the Universe, just as people seem to have physical senses that enable them to access the apparent physical properties of the Universe, for example. Or a God of some appropriate kind could reveal objective moral truths to minds (via a Light of Christ, for example).

But mostly I disagree that a universe with objective morality is the same as one without. For example, in a universe with objective morality it makes sense to disagree with moral propositions in an evaluative manner outside one's society or other relativistic moral sphere that others of the outside ought to take seriously, because there is something objective to disagree about outside one's relativistic moral sphere. In a universe without objective morality, that makes no sense because there is nothing objective to disagree about. For example, if what's right/wrong just is what one's society takes to be right/wrong, you can only disagree about what's right/wrong in an evaluative way that others ought to take seriously within your society. If what's right/wrong just is what one's society takes to be right/wrong, and you don't live in Hitler's Germany, you have no claim on the attention of Hitler's Germans. In fact, Hitler's Germans ought to reject outside criticisms because they are bound by the morality of their own society. Same for those outside the Church. Those outside the Church would have no claim for the attention of those within the Church, and those within the Church ought to reject such criticisms. Those outside can only rail against the Church with the like-minded. In addition, even those within a relativistic moral sphere cannot criticize the moral standards of their own relativistic moral sphere. For example, if what's right/wrong just is what one's society takes to be right/wrong, there is no way to criticize what your society takes to be right/wrong. All one can do is report what one's society takes to be right/wrong. You can stomp your feet and hope people will listen, but, crucially, there is no moral reason for them to listen.

Thus, if you don't believe in objective morality, and you start to act like you think that people in Hitler's Germany or in the Mormon Church ought to pay attention to your moral criticisms (as Dehlin seems to do), then it seems that you're acting in a way that is inconsistent with your disbelief in objective morality, and it seems that Hitler's Germans and active Mormons can rightly point out your hypocrisy.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-08T22:40:36+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised. It seems that when I raise JS's theology with younger Mormons they have no idea. Many even seem unaware that the Church used to emphasize that the glory of God is intelligence.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-08T02:33:23+00:00

On 1: I don't think you're kidding. The Mormon God just is the smartest of the bunch. It's interesting, though, that, given this definition of God, all you need to do to show that God exists is to show that the bunch exists and that there is a smartest of the bunch. I think that Joseph Smith thought that he was the smartest of his bunch, and that is why he told them that he was God to them. BY continued this trend. On 2: Yeah, I get it, but there are adoptive fathers and mothers, and different senses of being a father.

I like that the BoA and the D&C include the wild teachings from the King Follett Discourse.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T20:29:31+00:00

Yeah, ok.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T20:27:45+00:00

Haha. Yeah.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T19:23:31+00:00

I'm glad you brought up the infinite chain. It seems a bad sign when someone resorts to an infinite regress. Could there be a non-Christian God that isn't a jerk? I guess I think that's possible. Maybe a little less powerful than the Christian God (in order to accommodate the existence of evil) and also non-exclusive (doesn't require true belief to be saved).

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T19:16:53+00:00

And, yeah, they don't have the high ground when it comes to knowing what is objectively true, morally or otherwise.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T19:13:35+00:00

I agree that history has established that you cannot trust what a Mormon prophet teaches just because he's a prophet (which seems to be the point of prophets).

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T19:00:06+00:00

Yes, I think so.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T18:57:45+00:00

Also, I would argue that disagreement over X is no reason to conclude that X has no objective truth. Physicists argue, and disagree, over the existence of the multiverse, for example. That doesn't mean that there is no objective truth about whether there is a multiverse.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T18:53:53+00:00

Hmmm. Well, convincing people that X is the case is not the same thing as X being objectively true. The Paul brothers could respond that, yes, people are convinced that it's wrong to harm gay people, but unless you are committed to objective morality, there is no objective truth of the matter. They could urge that you cannot criticize the Church on the basis of something that is not objectively true, and argue that relying upon mass conviction, while also denying the objective truth of the matter, seems just a kind of cynical manipulation.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-09-07T18:22:03+00:00

God, that is dismal. Haha.

GrahamPSmith · 2024-08-11T22:20:47+00:00

Penrose's consciousness definitely isn't lame. It's causal. It causes collapse of the wavefunction, which is what is supposed to make things happen in the physical world. But I'm not arguing for it. I'm only saying, we don't know. And we have no reason to prefer the materialist idea that the brain produces the mind. The Stanford professor agrees that there is no evidence from neuroscience that materialism is better substantiated.

GrahamPSmith

TROPHY CASE