Monday, February 12, 2007

What would you do in my shoes?

Some militant unbelievers resort to the suffering of children as their trump card in the argument from evil. The objection goes something like this: “If you were in a position to intervene in order to prevent a child from suffering, what would you do? If you would intervene, and God would not, then what does this say about God? Put another way, if you were God, what would you do in the same situation?”

There are several issues to sort out here.

1.The unbeliever is appealing to our instinctual protectiveness regarding the young.

Remember, though, that according to naturalistic evolution, we have been programmed to feel this way about children (especially our own) by a mindless, amoral process.

It’s no different than the way a crocodile feels about her young—assuming that a crocodile has any feelings. She’s just as protective of her young as any human mother—maybe more so (in the age of abortion).

And, from a secular standpoint, the fate of a human child has no more objective moral significance than the fate of a newly-hatched crocodile.

We can’t help feeling protective about our young, but unlike the crocodile, we are aware of our evolutionary programming, and we are therefore aware of the fact that our parental instincts are the product of a mindless, amoral process.

Hence, the militant unbeliever is bilking the moral and emotional resonance of a spectacle which, if he’s true to his own beliefs, is a genetic illusion. Our genes have tricked us into feeling this way to perpetuate the species. But, of course, there’s no moral imperative to perpetuate the species. Natural selection is a blind, indifferent watchmaker.

2.Why do unbelievers raise an objection that is inconsistent with their worldview? For a couple of reasons:

i) Some of them are simply unscrupulous. Their hatred of God is such that they will use any club to bash the Christian faith, even if they regard the argument as intellectually disreputable.

ii) Deep down, the unbeliever is conflicted. Deep down, he does believe in moral absolutes. He cannot escape the fact that he is living in God’s universe. So he constantly reverts to a moralistic position that is out of whack with his official creed.

It’s too tiring to play a role 24/7. You tend to forget the role from time to time and slip back into the real man behind the mask. You don’t have the energy to maintain your stage persona day and night, week after week.

3.The argument that if I were you, what would I do in your situation can quickly degenerate into a very unethical appeal.

For example, there’s a reason why we don’t think it’s a good idea for a judge to be related to the accused. If he’s related to the accused, he’s tempted to give his relative special treatment.

The judge is no longer impartial. He has a conflict of interest. That’s why a judge ought to recuse himself in such cases.

4.Suppose we were to use the atheistic argument in a judicial case. Your son shoots my son. Neither father is in a position to exact justice. I feel differently about my son than your son, and vice versa.

This is why such case should be turned over to a second party who has no personal investment in the outcome.

Now, suppose the atheist were to say, “ If it were your son, and if you were the judge, what would you do?”

Well, it’s quite possible, in this situation, that my personal feelings would, indeed, affect my judgment.

And it would also make a difference which father was the judge. The father of the shooter might be very lenient, while the father of the victim might be very harsh.

Is this an argument for why the judge should identify with the next-of-kin? No, to the contrary, this is an argument for why the judge should be a disinterested party.

5.Take another case. Suppose my brother is a junkie. The duty of a policeman, if he catches my brother in the act, is to arrest him. Is it also my duty to turn him in to the authorities? Not necessarily.

There are times when a family member does have a moral obligation to the common good. But maybe my brother’s addiction is mainly self-destructive, or harmful to his immediate family.

My concern is for my brother’s welfare, while the lawmaker’s concern is for the social welfare. What he’s doing is wrong. But it’s a family matter.

Suppose we were to ask the policemen, “What would you do if he were your brother?”

Once again, in a situation like that the policeman might try to cover for his own brother. But should that be public policy? Do we think that policemen should make exceptions for their own next-of-kin, and if they do so, that they should exempt everyone else’s next-of-kin as well? The result would be the complete abrogation of law-and-order.

6. Or, to take one more example, supposed I’m driving along and I see a car on the side of the road. I pull over and it turns out that Sophia Loren is in driver’s seat. Her car has broken down and she needs a lift.

Where she wants me to take her is way out of the way. But because she’s Sophia Loren, I’ll do a favor for her that I wouldn’t necessary do for just anyone.

Is that unfair? Maybe. Do I care? No.

Suppose an atheist were to ask, “If you were God, would you do her any special favors?”

Well, if I were God, I wouldn’t feel the same way about her. She wouldn’t have the same effect on me. Indeed, she wouldn’t have any effect on me. The face, the figure, the charisma would make no impact on God. The fact that she could charm just about anything out of the average man doesn’t mean she either could or should be able to charm anything out of God.

7.The unbeliever is attempting to trap the believer into a dilemma: “If you wouldn’t do what God did, then you’re a hypocrite!”

Yet, as we’ve seen, this pressure tactic is poised on the unethical assumption that that everyone has the same social role, that every has the same obligations to everyone else; that if I wouldn’t invariably do what you would in the same situation, then I’m a hypocrite.

But our duties are not interchangeable. Everyone should not always do the same thing in the same situation. Even if the circumstances are identical, the social obligations may vary.

A policeman or a judge does not have the same responsibilities as the family of the accused.

This doesn’t address every aspect of the question. But it does address the facile assumption that I either would or should do whatever God would do if I were God, or God were in my situation.

For there are many counterexamples wherein that superficially plausible appeal breaks down, and becomes a license for moral anarchy.

23 comments:

  1. Brilliant post.

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  2. Great article! Someone ought to tell Dan Barker about it.

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  3. Another thing to point out is the assumption that if man behaves differently than God in any given situation, it is GOD who is wrong instead of man.

    Loftus (and others who offer this argument) assume that man is the standard by which behavior ought to be judged.

    But if we take the Christian view that men are evil while God is good, then the fact that man acts differently than God merely proves man is evil.

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  4. That's much better than my non-strawman christianity.

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  5. I agree with you steve. Yet we are certain that your insight is for the elect's sake; The great "intellect" (sarcasm) of the evolutionist is depraved and blind. 7 wise men cannot give them an answer. I have watched countless COPS shows and the arrested souls rarely admit their error or culpability despite the blatant evidence and logic present.

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  6. None of your cases are analogous, Steve. None of them. I think you said it all earlier, though, in answer to my question: "Would you be a good person if you knowingly created a world on the back of just one tortured child, especially if you didn't need to do so? Answer me and don't lie."

    My question is about whether YOU would do so based upon what YOU believe, and I asked you to answer the question and don't lie.

    Here's what Steve said:

    Based on what I believe, yes.

    This is convoluted ethics and intuitively wrong, but you'd rather believe in a historically conditioned set of purportedly inspired documents that were canonized long after they were written in which there is obvious evidence they were re-written from the perspective of the brand of Christianity that dominated at the time of canonization, and as interpreted within the Calvinistic tradition. You choose to believe this over what is intuitively obvious. Personally I have chosen to go with what is obvious.

    There's nothing else to say. You are blinded, and I can't show you to see it differently. But I can ask another question: "what if that child was your daughter?"

    Answer me and don't lie.

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  7. John, Steve didn't only build his case on analogies. You have yet to deal with this statement (and I deny you have dealt with his analogies):

    Steve said:
    "Remember, though, that according to naturalistic evolution, we have been programmed to feel this way about children (especially our own) by a mindless, amoral process.

    It’s no different than the way a crocodile feels about her young—assuming that a crocodile has any feelings. She’s just as protective of her young as any human mother—maybe more so (in the age of abortion).

    And, from a secular standpoint, the fate of a human child has no more objective moral significance than the fate of a newly-hatched crocodile.

    We can’t help feeling protective about our young, but unlike the crocodile, we are aware of our evolutionary programming, and we are therefore aware of the fact that our parental instincts are the product of a mindless, amoral process.

    Hence, the militant unbeliever is bilking the moral and emotional resonance of a spectacle which, if he’s true to his own beliefs, is a genetic illusion. Our genes have tricked us into feeling this way to perpetuate the species. But, of course, there’s no moral imperative to perpetuate the species. Natural selection is a blind, indifferent watchmaker."

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  8. Now, suppose the atheist were to say, “ If it were your son, and if you were the judge, what would you do?”

    But I can ask another question: "what if that child was your daughter?"

    None of your cases are analogous, Steve. None of them.

    Loftus is insane. Totally insane.

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  9. "Remember, though, that according to naturalistic evolution, we have been programmed to feel this way about children (especially our own) by a mindless, amoral process."

    Small point, but I think you mean "non-moral."

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  10. I'm SHOCKED!

    More assertions by Loftus with no arguments to back them up.

    This is what is particularly frustrating in speaking with the man who claims to be an ethics professor. He can't offer anything beyond: "This is...intuitively wrong."

    Hmm...I suppose that settles it then. From now on, the only truth is that which Loftus intuitively feels is true....

    No wait. That gives Loftus too much credit. I'm going to say "good" is what *I* intuitively declare it to be. You don't have access to my intuitions; so I'll just claim that it is good for me to take all of Loftus's money.

    Loftus may think it's intuitively wrong for me to do so; but I don't. As a result, Loftus's intuitive morality boils down, yet again, to Might Makes Right.

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  11. I instinctually want to eat food whenever I am hungry.

    Assuming that God doesn't exist and that my instinct to eat is a result of bioloigcal programming, is sustenance then considered an "illusion"?

    Is my need for food an illusion? Or is my value of food an illusion? Maybe both?

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  12. The problem of evil is easy to resolve: a non-existent god can do nothing about the evil that exists in the world. See, problem solved!

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  13. Loftus is insane. Totally insane.

    WOW! We are that far apart, eh? I suspect it is more a reflection on you than on me, although I don't think someone who disagrees with me is insane. None of us who can communicate here is insane.

    What I mean is that educated people realize that intelligent people will disagree on such matters. As James Sire writes, we live in different intellectual universes, and it's all about seeing things differently, as I've described so many times.

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  14. "Loftus is insane. Totally insane."

    When they run out of arguments, they reach for insults. This usually doesn't take very long for Christians.

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  15. Hey Thibodeau,

    Loftus said this: "You are blinded, and I can't show you to see it differently."

    Thibodeau said this: "When they run out of arguments, they reach for insults. This usually doesn't take very long for Christians."

    My response: So, either John Loftus is a Christian, or you're a hypocrit. Which is it?

    ~Anonymous

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  16. "So, either John Loftus is a Christian, or you're a hypocrit."

    How would this show that I am a "hypocrit"?

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  17. "When they run out of arguments, they reach for insults"

    Actually I started my post with an argument. Calvin Dude gave an argument. The other anonymous gave an argument.

    However, in the eyes of a God-hating unbeliever, only the 'insult' is visible.

    "The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark"

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  18. So where do you show that I am a "hypocrit"?

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  19. Aaron Kinney said...
    "I instinctually want to eat food whenever I am hungry.

    Assuming that God doesn't exist and that my instinct to eat is a result of bioloigcal [sic] programming, is sustenance then considered an "illusion"?

    Is my need for food an illusion? Or is my value of food an illusion? Maybe both?"

    The answer to your question, based on your own atheistic worldview, actually depends on who you ask.

    If you are making a first person value judgment about the necessity of food for yourself - no doubt you will respond that the necessity of food for yourself doesn't feel illusory, and you would likely appeal to the fact that your continued existence depends upon your continued access to food.

    Simply put - you value food for yourself pretty highly - and hence you don't think that your value of food is illusory - you'd probably assert it's necessary.

    However, the true illusory nature of your belief in the supposed value of that judgment becomes evident if & when you attempt to universalize your feelings about the value of food for yourself.

    If your atheistic worldview is in fact correct, I see no reason to make a third-party judgment about the value of food for you that coincides with your own first-person judgment on the matter.

    So you'll die without it.

    So what?

    In what way does that establish the value or necessity of your belief beyond yourself? In fact, you may be competing with me for food, in which case, I would argue that the value of food you've asserted for yourself runs contrary to the value of food I've asserted for myself.

    So, in reality, your personal belief in the necessity of food for yourself appears to me to be just as illusory as any norm of moral conduct you might suggest as an atheist.

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  20. "So where do you show that I am a "hypocrit"? "

    So where do you show :"When Christians run out of arguments, they reach for insults. This usually doesn't take very long"?

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  21. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    “I have never met a Christian who does not lie for his religious beliefs. And I've known a lot of Christians over the years. It is all lies. Neither Steve Hays nor David Wood are capable of resisting their need to lie for their religion, and their religion would not be able to survive without it.”

    Several issues:

    1.This is a typical, drive-by allegation from an unbeliever who peddles unsubstantiated assertions in lieu of evidence.

    2.But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the charge is correct. From a secular standpoint, who cares? The liar and the straight arrow share a common oblivion. The morgue makes no distinction between an honest cadaver and a dishonest cadaver.

    Unbelievers like this anonymous commenter act as if there is some stigma or shame which should attach to the charge that Christians are liars.

    But, from a secular standpoint, this allegation, even if true, is toothless. It has no moral bite. In atheism, there are no moral absolutes. In a godless universe, it doesn’t matter who said what or who did what.

    As I’ve said many times before, and will continue to say, atheism loses by losing the argument, and atheism loses by winning the argument. It loses either way. So atheism is a nonstarter, a dead-end, a blind alley.

    Unbelievers like this anonymous commenter unwittingly bear witness to the truth of the very thing them vehemently deny. Due to common grace, they continue to leach off the blood supply of a Christian worldview.

    JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:

    “None of your cases are analogous, Steve. None of them.”

    He *says* it, but he doesn’t *show* it. A tendentious denial in lieu of a counterargument.

    Continuing:

    ***QUOTE***

    I think you said it all earlier, though, in answer to my question: "Would you be a good person if you knowingly created a world on the back of just one tortured child, especially if you didn't need to do so? Answer me and don't lie."

    My question is about whether YOU would do so based upon what YOU believe, and I asked you to answer the question and don't lie.

    Here's what Steve said:

    “Based on what I believe, yes.”

    This is convoluted ethics and intuitively wrong.

    ***END-QUOTE***

    As usual, Loftus is unable to follow his own argument.

    1.When he asked me what I would do based on what I believe (his own words, verbatim), and I answered him in exactly the same way he chose to frame the question, he then says my answer is “convoluted.”

    Far from being “convoluted,” this is a direct answer to the question. I answered the question in the way he chose to pose the question. You can’t get any more direct and less convoluted than that.

    If he doesn’t like the answer, then he should recast the question. It was his question, not mine.

    2.How is it “convoluted ethics” to say that I would act in accordance with how I believe?

    When belief and behavior are directly correlated, that is not convoluted. Just the opposite.

    3.”Intuitively wrong” on whose grounds? Mine or his?

    Remember, he was asking me what I would do given *my* belief-system. So is he saying that my answer is intuitively wrong according to my belief-system? How does that follow? Where is his argument?

    4.Or is he speaking for himself? But, remember, Loftus is on record as saying that nothing is intrinsically wrong.

    So even if something were intuitively wrong (according to him), it wouldn’t be intrinsically wrong (according to him). Rather, our intuition would be wrong.

    “But you'd rather believe in a historically conditioned set of purportedly inspired documents that were canonized long after they were written in which there is obvious evidence they were re-written from the perspective of the brand of Christianity that dominated at the time of canonization, and as interpreted within the Calvinistic tradition.”

    A string of unsupported claims. To take just one example, what evidence is there that books of the Bible were rewritten from the perspective of the subapostolic church? Is this an allusion to Bart Ehrman? But even Ehrman, when you read the fine print, is far more modest in his actual claims—not to mention the many devastating reviews of his work.

    “You choose to believe this over what is intuitively obvious.”

    Notice that he’s shifting gears from what I believe to what he believes. What *he* takes to be “intuitively obvious.”

    That was not the original question. Indeed, that’s the antithesis of the original question. He is now appealing to his own standards. But what do his own standards amount to? By his own admission, he’s a moral relativist.

    “Personally I have chosen to go with what is obvious.”

    Notice, once again, a question-begging appeal to “what is obvious.”

    “There's nothing else to say.”

    Actually, there’s quite a lot more to say, beginning with a reasoned argument for what is “intuitively obvious.”

    What is obviously obvious to him is obviously not so obvious to me.

    “You are blinded, and I can't show you to see it differently.”

    This is beside the point. He isn’t simply talking to me. This is a public forum. Why doesn’t he make a case for the benefit of the lurkers at T-blog? Maybe because he has no case to make.

    “ But I can ask another question: ‘what if that child was your daughter?’ Answer me and don't lie.”

    This is beside the point. What I *might* do is logically irrelevant to what I *should* do, and what *I* should do is logically irrelevant to what the *Lord* should do.

    Suppose I’m smitten by the proverbial femme fatale. I might do all sorts of unscrupulous things for her because my judgment is clouded by my infatuation.

    AARON KINNEY SAID:

    “I instinctually want to eat food whenever I am hungry. Assuming that God doesn't exist and that my instinct to eat is a result of bioloigcal programming, is sustenance then considered an ‘illusion’? Is my need for food an illusion? Or is my value of food an illusion? Maybe both?”

    1.To begin with, the argument he’s attempting to attack didn’t originate with me. It’s Darwinian philosophers like Michael Ruse who claim that evolutionary psychology fosters an illusory belief in objective norms.

    I happen to agree with him. But Aaron’s beef is really with his fellow Darwinians, not with me.

    2.According to the original argument, the contention is not that our moral intuitions are illusory in the sense that we don’t have moral intuitions. That’s not the claim. That’s not the apparent discrepancy. It’s not that we seem to have moral intuitions when, in fact, we have no moral intuitions.

    Rather, the claim is that our moral intuitions are illusory in the sense that while we have them, they don’t correspond to an objective state of affairs. There are no moral facts or moral norms.

    Instead, natural selection has conditioned us to believe in moral norms because that confers a survival advantage. For example, altruism is beneficial to the survival of the species.

    But human beings have evolved to the point where we can reflect on our evolutionary conditioning. We are aware of our genetic programming. So although we can’t help what we feel, we know that what we feel isn’t true.

    That’s the Darwinian argument.

    3.Aaron’s analogy is equivocal in other respects as well. Food is tangible in a way that moral norms are not. Eating or starving has tangible consequences in a way that moral norms do not.

    AARON KINNEY SAID:

    “Jeez, Steve, I think you missed the boat on this one. A perfect being would not ‘want’ anything, for to want implies a need; a lack of something. And a being with a need is not perfect. Why does a perfect being ‘want’ anything? Why does a perfect being ‘desire’ anything unless there is some imperfection that they want to correct?”

    “Jeez, Aaron, I think you missed the boat on this one. You fail to distinguish between a being who wants something for himself, and a being who wants something for another. Since, where his creatures are concerned (which is the point at issue), God doesn’t want anything for his own benefit, but only for the benefit of certain creatures, he desire does not imply a personal need on his part.

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  22. AARON KINNEY SAID:

    “I instinctually want to eat food whenever I am hungry. Assuming that God doesn't exist and that my instinct to eat is a result of bioloigcal programming, is sustenance then considered an ‘illusion’? Is my need for food an illusion? Or is my value of food an illusion? Maybe both?”

    1.To begin with, the argument he’s attempting to attack didn’t originate with me. It’s Darwinian philosophers like Michael Ruse who claim that evolutionary psychology fosters an illusory belief in objective norms.

    I happen to agree with him. But Aaron’s beef is really with his fellow Darwinians, not with me.

    +++
    No one expects you to answer for the musings of, say, Paul Owen. Why should an atheist do the same for Ruse?
    +++

    2.According to the original argument, the contention is not that our moral intuitions are illusory in the sense that we don’t have moral intuitions. That’s not the claim. That’s not the apparent discrepancy. It’s not that we seem to have moral intuitions when, in fact, we have no moral intuitions.

    Rather, the claim is that our moral intuitions are illusory in the sense that while we have them, they don’t correspond to an objective state of affairs. There are no moral facts or moral norms.

    +++
    The inclination to protect my children is as much an “objective” inclination for me as it is for you. Theists do not have monopoly on that term just by “baptizing” it in the hopelessly vague notion of universality.
    +++

    Instead, natural selection has conditioned us to believe in moral norms because that confers a survival advantage. For example, altruism is beneficial to the survival of the species.

    But human beings have evolved to the point where we can reflect on our evolutionary conditioning. We are aware of our genetic programming. So although we can’t help what we feel, we know that what we feel isn’t true.

    +++
    What do you mean it isn’t true? It is just as true to the atheist as to the theist. Truth is not the sole purview of the theist; truth to the theist is merely that which is underwritten by the Creator. But, it is question begging to assign meaning to that which is so underwritten, when the only path to that assignment is to assume it in the first place.
    +++

    That’s the Darwinian argument.

    3.Aaron’s analogy is equivocal in other respects as well. Food is tangible in a way that moral norms are not. Eating or starving has tangible consequences in a way that moral norms do not.

    +++
    I totally disagree. My desire for moral norms that protect my children is tangible in the extreme. I’d much rather starve than see my kids suffer (as would you). Moral norms provide the clearly tangible consequence of protecting those I love the most. That is worth far more than a full belly, and I don’t need the metaphysics of universality to bring me to that conclusion any more than a theist does (whether he admits it or not).
    +++

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  23. Anonymous said...

    "No one expects you to answer for the musings of, say, Paul Owen. Why should an atheist do the same for Ruse?"

    Poor analogy on a couple of grounds:

    1.I respond to Owen on a regular basis.

    2.It all depends on whether someone has a good argument or bad argument.

    If Owen ever offered a cogent argument for his position, then I'd have to reconsider my own position.

    Unbelievers are intellectually responsible for the logical implications of their position.

    So, yes, you, and Kinney, and other like-minded individuals are responsible for coming to terms with the argument of a fellow unbeliever like Ruse.

    "The inclination to protect my children is as much an “objective” inclination for me as it is for you. "

    Which completely misses the point of what I said, even though I spelled out the distinction in my post.

    The question at issue is not whether you have an objective inclination. The question, rather, is whether your inclination corresponds to an objective moral obligation.

    Try to address yourself to what was actually written.

    "What do you mean it isn’t true? It is just as true to the atheist as to the theist."

    That's an assertion, not a counterargument. You have yet to engage the argument. A denial is not a counterargument.

    "Truth is not the sole purview of the theist."

    Logically speaking, truth *is* the sole purview of the theist.

    Evolutionary psychology undercuts rationality. You need to bone up on the standard literature. You don't seem to know your own side of the argument.

    "I totally disagree. My desire for moral norms that protect my children is tangible in the extreme."

    You lack a basic grasp of words and concepts. To begin with, I didn't say your "desire" was intangible, now did I?

    You substitute your words for mine, then attack a position you've imputed to me of your own making. Try to observe a bit more mental discipline.

    Are moral norms tangible? What's the texture of a moral norm? How much does it weigh? Is a moral norm red or blue? Does it sound more like a bugle or a cello?

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