You are aware that under this assumption, that the people who love god have also been made by god, right? And that they only love him because they're predestined to, right? And you are aware of how incredibly sad that is, yes? That he wages wars with his own toys, making good and evil simply so he can watch them. There's no patience in all of this. It's just a show. The god you believe in is arrogant, materialistic, and sinister.
If all of our fates are predestined, and there is a heaven and a hell, and god is omnipotent and all-knowing, as well as our creator, then that means that there are people who will lead evil lives and go to hell to suffer for eternity. This also means that these people have no chance of redemption because the course of their life has already been fated. Now, before you say, "Well they can turn to Jesus." No. They can't. Their lives are predetermined.
Now, if we're subject to predestination, and god is all knowing and omnipotent, this means that he could stop that any time he wants. But he won't. That means that the only reason there are people in hell is because god allows the cycle to continue. That makes him a bigger villain than the devil.
'course. I don't really believe in predestination. I couldn't live with myself if I thought everything I did was already slated out.
Free will means that we're free to choose what we are and who we are going to be. It means we can choose to do good things. And it also means that we're held absolutely for the things we're responsible for.
Hey, I don't like it. But it's either that or anarchy. Seriously. You need to understand that the government takes away rights and freedoms so they can protect people from eachother. Every form of government does this. Every single one. The minute you form a government, however basic it is, you're taking away some right or freedom of the people inside. Governments have to balance personal freedoms with stability. They just have to.
I'm trying to get you to understand that.
I took an entry level psych class, and even with that base an understanding, I can tell you right now that mothers are not only good, but they're vital to the development of any child. Bad mothers, however, should be flogged. You can't really umbrella all mothers under a unifying adjective like 'good' or 'bad,' though. Mothers are individuals and individuals have individual characteristics.
It stands to reason that tribes of early man that could create reasons for the unknown could communicate more effectively. They didn't have the science to reason out why the sky goes black sometimes, or why its filled with mysterious lights. And. More importantly, nobody really knew why people live and people die. Everyone faces existential depression at some point in their life. People who could explain these things away easiest and fastest and reason out purposes for themselves and others probably got along better. I'd honestly be surprised if an alien race came to visit us and didn't have some sort of history involving religions.
Firstly, contentment is poison. Being satisfied with what you have, or feeling content leads to complacency. Restlessness. Hunger. Desire. It's only human to want more, and I think searching for truth and understanding are very noble causes. Whether or not you agree with the truths of others is another matter entirely, though. A lot of atheists alienate themselves from the idea of religion so aggressively that when they look back on it, they can't possibly comprehend why individuals believe in anything that they'd consider so outlandish. Sure. They know, but knowing and understanding are two separate things entirely. And y'know, so are understanding and respecting.
There's more atheists online than theists, though, because the way the world is trending, the future is in the godless folk. Scary, I know. But we're trying to create goodness without godliness, to prove that humanity has the capacity for good, righteous things without having to have an omnipotent shepherd or a guiding hand telling us where to go anymore.
To you, Thewayitis, just consider it an adolescent desire to prove one's maturity.
Still, shame on you. Contentment is for cowards, dullards, and retirement. I'm always going to want to know and experience more. Well. Until I keel over. I'm pretty sure the wanting's going to end then. Some way or another.
Well alright. Let me be a little more fair: In a perfect world, you'd be given the choice to enter into the social contract with your government. But. Now days, it's more or less forced on the individual.
As for smokin' weed and the invasion of our privacy, though. Those are definitely casualties of political corruption. If our government still had a pure intent, rest assured, neither of these issues would be.
Allow me to introduce you to the social contract. Whether you like it or not, the governing body above you takes rights and freedoms away from you. Some of these freedoms, we live better without. Like the freedom to murder, for instance. Creating an ideal government that doesn't just work on paper is tricky -- finding the line between suffocating personal rights and freedoms and creating a stable economy as well as a safe place for the people it protects is something that we should be striving to do. Should is the key word since y'know, these days, the government seems to have gone rogue. In my humble opinion, anyways.
Absolutely. Then again, when I started debating on this website, I had yet to finish highschool, and I do believe that there was a time after I joined where I was arrested for skipping said school. Then forced to pay a ridiculous fine. And y'know, spend time in a juvenile detention hall anyways. They uh. They don't actually let you quit school here. I found that out the fun way.
Anyways, yeah. I've learned a lot since I first came to this terrible, terrible place. Not... from this place. But you know what I mean.
They can. They certainly can, but I wouldn't appreciate it very much. My point is, I don't like that I should have my choices limited because other people can't control themselves. Energy drinks can be dangerous, yes. When you drink too many of them in a short amount of time. Most people with a brain are aware that if you drink too many things that are loaded with quick energy boosters, that you're going to get wasted.
BUT
Not everyone who consumes energy drinks guzzles them down by the truckload. Why should I have to suffer for the folly of fools? Answer me that.
At the cost of freedom, we can reduce these things, yes. But I don't like paying the freedom of choice because some people don't know when to quit. The people who are getting hurt over these energy drinks are people who are making lots of bad choices to begin with. If they can't regulate their own consumption, they deserve what they get.
We might as well ban good food, too. Logically, if you want to prevent people from hurting themselves, you ban anything that can be harmful. But then life'd be so boring. I think it's up to the individual to make smart and responsible choices. The government should never have to step in and say, "Hey dude. You can't drink those. If you drink too many, bad things happen." I mean, it does already, but honestly, it shouldn't have to.
Yes, and the penalties for not always having a full stock of icecream should be severe and bizarre. We're talking being dragged out into the street and beaten ruthlessly by a peculiar man in a strikingly eerie icecream-cone mascot costume.
Smoke weed 'erryday. Nyurr. Right anyways. I need you all to know that too much of anything is a bad thing, and that smoking ganja does have some negative side effects if you do it enough. The only ones I can personally be sure of is what prolonged and consistent usage'll do to your lungs though; Like tobacco, weed has tar in it, and inhaling the direct smoke from anything won't just fill your lungs with tar; it also brings carcinogens along with it. Carcinogens are categorized as anything that'll give you cancer. Hilariously, the natural THC in weed has been known to help cancer patients keep their condition at bay.
But that's just the thing. Too many fatty foods'll make you fat. Too much alcohol will fuck up your liver, and you can die from exhaustion if you exercise too much.
I think weed should be legal because it has the capacity to be just about as harmful as all of the other harmful and legal drugs we have out there.(Less so than cigarettes and other tobacco, but only because holy shit the things they mix into cigarettes.) If I had my way, alcohol'd be banned, too. If only because alcohol tends to make people violent and weed tends to make people mellow.
Also. Marijuana should be regulated the fuck out of, and the punishments for selling without a license or to minors should be severe and merciless. That'll help dissuade people from dealing under the table in a heartbeat.
Aye. I honestly think there are some beautiful works of graffiti out there, but when you use someone else's property as a canvass, you should be prepared to face consequences if you're caught. And again, you can get permits for these kinds of things.
Your ad hominem and inability to detect humor(I thought maybe the 'ererer' might tip any reader off, but I was very and sorely mistaken) is fairly amusing. And Sauh, just so you're aware. We have plenty of money invested in our military and stockpiles and stockpiles of nuclear missiles. I'm certain our military is in a good position.
Of course you would. That's why graffiti isn't legal. If you're starting an emerging business, and someone tags the side of your building with the symbol of their gang or something crude or rude, why should you have to suffer it on your property?
It infuriates me that there's so many homeless people in one of the most powerful nations in the world, that our education system is steadily slipping, and also that sometimes when I get out of bed, I step on something pointy.
Honestly, though, America needs to stop putting so much money into military exploits and more money into research for the future and real education reform. (Because our education system is awful and getting more and more awfullererer.)
Participation in the UN is voluntary. Well. Kind of like when the Italian mob tells you it's voluntary, but if a heavy hitter like the USA decided to bow out and tell the UN to sit and spin, they couldn't really do much about it besides grumble at us bloody Americans.
Right. Anyways. If technology weren't advancing at a fairly surprising rate these days and information warfare becoming increasingly more important and easy, I'd say the UN isn't exactly a good thing, but honestly, there needs to be a platform where nations can get together and talk shit out as well as help each other out and decide what's best for everyone. It's not a perfect system, but I think it does more good than harm. And if it does more good, than bad, then it's not bad.
If tech continues to go the way it is, globalization is inevitable. Although it'd be p.cool if we got moon and mars colonies going, too. Pretty soon, we'll have space-nazis.
Oh boy. Actual effort. Well. Alright. Let's set aside the idea of global unity for a second and go to a place that everyone loves -- ye olden days. The thirteen colonies, right? Originally after all of that messy business with the British, the thirteen colonies were a pretty loose republic without an entirely centralized government. This is what happened: Each state set up their own currency and had conflicting and clashing laws and nobody knew what currency was worth what in one state and so forth. It was kind of a mess. So a stronger central government was formed along with a centralized banking system and a more unified currency. The result didn't really change how things were ran so much; each state got to keep a form of individuality despite being part of a larger entity. The colonies were unified.
Alright! Now, let's go back to our idea of global unification. And let's go towards the U.N. here, which is, right now, an assembly of free nations who get together to discuss a bunch of issues of all different kinds from the annoying to the downright unsavory. They vote on things, right? Like a y'know, democracy, only for governments. But uh. Just so you're aware, citizens of the USA don't actually vote on anything directly except amendments to the constitution. Everything else, including our votes for the president, are kind of filtered through the electoral college and the house and the senate.
So. Let's say we do want to have a stronger, unified and global government. Like, say, our original thirteen colonies decided on. There's a chance that it could become corrupted and grow into a dictatorship. But. That's a chance. Chance is the key word there. It didn't exactly happen with the colonies. The mechanics do change on a larger scale, but I sincerely doubt they change so much that dictatorship becomes inevitable.
If you want to go further though, I can explain what the social contract people enter into is and then proceed to blather on about giving up rights and freedoms and such.
I think pretty much everything can lead to an authoritarian dictatorship. Like. Someone sticking their fingers in the wrong jar of peanutbutter, for instance. I don't particularly think working towards a global government means that'll happen. It's certainly a likely outcome, though.
I don't think you should intentionally hunt down sexual encounters. It's something that's glorified a lot in some circles and frowned upon a lot in others. But uh, honestly it's something that can come along fairly naturally. I mean, if you really want to sate a curiosity, go for it. But if you lust after the act too much, there are problems that come along with it. A lot of 'em.
I don't think this is as black-and-white an issue as the debate poster makes it out to be, though. I'm on this side because I don't condone wanton sex, nor do I think it's essential.
No I do not. A human fetus is a human's fetus, but it isn't a human being. Yet. And before you try to give me the whole catch-twenty two there, I should remind you that the word 'human' can be used as an adjective, which can describe something that exhibits human-like qualities or is of a human. But that's like saying love is a human being because love is a human quality. Or... something. Fuck I'm tired.
Regulate it and make it a healthier, safer industry plus jack up the charges for hooking illegally? What's not to like? I mean, I don't exactly like prostitution, but it's been around for a long, long time and it is definitely not going away.
You wouldn't happen to be a vegan, would you? Just as an aside. I'm probably trying to pick a fight. Anyways, I don't really hold a few growing cells with much sanctity, but in matters of the soul, I have a fairly firm belief that things that don't have a consciousness yet don't have 'em. And before that point, it's not a deplorable act of murder so much as it is getting rid of an inconvenience. Afterwards, though, the lines get a little sketchier, don't they?
But no. A fetus is not a human being. A fetus is a fetus. That's like... I dunno. Calling a lego brick a lego-man. That's silly. The lego brick is obviously a lego brick.
But see, there are rights and wrongs. Very relative rights and wrongs. But there are. I'm not a personal believer in absolutes either, but again, in this case, your original argument is invalid because it is not answering the question.
If you didn't see much worth in debating the original question, you shouldn't have bothered to respond to it.
For the record, everything'll kill you if you're exposed to enough of it. That being said, I don't think shisha is as harmful as cigarettes. Well, most varieties, anyways.
Shisha is usually raw, unaltered tobacco that doesn't contain most of those nasty, harmful additives. And also molasses. Cigarettes, for the most part,(You can find natural tobacco cigarettes and even ones without filters) are infamous for being stuffed to the brim with all kinds of chemicals that are dangerous and even deadly on their own. Plus, they burn hotter, and tend to be more readily accessible.
Also as someone who owns a hookah and uses it casually, I can say personally, I've never felt compelled to smoke, nor have I had any terrible side-effects from being deprived of nicotine. To be fair, though, it's not an every night thing for me. Or even an every week thing. I just do it when I feel like it.
But yes. It's harmful and I acknowledge that. So is alcohol, and I'm a casual drinker, too. Moderation and etc.
Well I don't think everything exists. But maybe I'm crazy. Actually probably that. Also just because things exist doesn't mean they were created. And also, just because everything was created, doesn't mean there is a creator. And also again, just because there's a creator doesn't mean the creator is intelligent, let alone omnipotent, omnipresent, etc.
It's like. You see a guy on the street eating a banana and you go:
1) There is a guy eating a banana.
2) It was purchased.
3) There must be a banana stand nearby.
Seems logical enough, but what if the dude has a banana tree or something like that? Or hey, what if he got it from a supermarket and there -isn't- a banana stand nearby?
I know, I know, comparing gods to bananas. Still.
The cool thing about a snowsuit is that they're generally pretty bright colored, right? And bright colors kind of reflect the sun's rays. And while you'd be hot as fuck in a snowsuit, the snowsuit's designed to help keep your body at your body temperature. The insulation can block out the heat as much as it can the cold. It certainly won't be comfortable, but it's survivable.
Nonsense! Imagination is definitely more important than knowledge. See, you can obtain knowledge easily enough, but imagination takes time n' practice. It's all very simple stuff. Imagination leads to inventive application of knowledge. Knowledge without imagination doesn't get you very far, but imagination without knowledge leads to knowledge and progress. Very simple stuff.
Well if you call a retarded person retarded, it's more or less stating the obvious, and that's always insulting, but if you call someone who isn't retarded a retard, then you are simply telling them that they are acting far below their mental capabilities. And that they should be ashamed of themselves.
Acting like you know anything is fairly dumb. Most people can't even figure out themselves, let alone the answer to -everything-
On that though, I'm not saying I think any religion is correct. They're more than likely not. S'big universe and all that. What makes our mudball so special?
Why not? I'm not an advocate of pedophilia, which is a totally different topic, but if teenagers want to do the deed, let them.
The sooner and less awkwardly you educate them, the better. Sex should be regarded as a natural and intimate thing, as opposed to disgusting or vile, and safe-sex practices deserve to be taught rather than suppressed.
Because then? Then, when people are subject to the consequences of improper practice, you can call them morons. Well. You can already, but there's not nearly enough impact.
There's no telling what's behind the veil until you look behind the veil. Simple as that to me, really.
Do I think making pretty narrow claims about what -is- behind the metaphorical veil is a good thing? Nope. Science tends to figure things out better and more accurately than fairy-tales.
Unless you guys still believe that Zeus is the source of thunder and that maggots spontaneously spawn in rotten meat just 'cuz.
Honestly. Has anyone ever pointed that out? A lot of the notions we had about the world 'back then' have been disputed and proven wrong. Does anyone here still believe the world is flat?
Are you noticing a trend? We are good at getting shit wrong until someone comes along to put in the actual work to make it right by proving it right.
See, ideas with little to no evidence that are ancient are usually pretty fucking wrong. So religion is stupid because it's audacious.
Right. I'm rambling. I only come here late at night apparently.
A working communism would be much, much better than a working capitalism. People working together to build a better society, and feed each-other, and build each-other shelter? Plus a government based around facilitating and streamlining this? Tsk. How does that sound bad? The problem is, you still have to kill that killer instinct for greed, and that's never going to happen. Poor communism~ It's not flawed. We are.
