Authorized OPAR

[RationalBiker]

I do not think these statements are accurate.

I do.

I have never said that it is impossible for facts of reality to affect individuals differently depending on the situation that each man finds himself

You most certainly did in the Coke versus Pepsi example. You refused to accept that the physical sensations of one person's taste buds could factually dictate an objective value of one drink over the other.

No human being, for example, can live without breathing air

Yes they can, contextually speaking, for a limited period of time.

no person can live after being beheaded in a car wreck;

You may be right on this one.

and smoking cigarettes is unhealthy period—no matter how much you enjoy smoking them.

Aside from being factually questionable, this statement is a strawman. The question isn't one of a person ignoring that there may be health risks with smoking, it's does the benefit derived from smoking outweigh the risks. If you levy the charge that the choice was subjective, the burden is on you to demonstrate factually that the benefits derived do not in fact outweigh the risks.

I am saying that you can’t wipe these facts out of existence by simply thinking about them from your own personal perspective.

Well, you are not alone here because no one else has said that either.

I can think that I am improving the quality of my life, and I can have used objective facts of reality to come to this conclusion, but if in fact the quality of my life is diminished by my actions then it was my thinking that was wrong, not the facts of reality.

So what does this prove? You can also think you are improving the quality of your life based on objective facts of reality and be 100% spot on. Just because a person can be wrong doesn't mean they are wrong.

[KendallJ]

And you think my argument is weakly presented? I've made my presentation, now you are making an accusation that you should be able to defend.

It was defended, by myself and a whole bunch of others, both in this and the "difficult to live by" thread. All you did was ignore the defense, and dredge up the original statement that you made early on in the thread.

So, yes, I would count that as weakly presented.

I'm not going answer it, yet again.