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1 point

"Some people's are by their very nature too ignorant and savage and backward to be allowed to govern themselves or form a democracy."

Funny that you said "ignorant and savage and backward" and then spoke like you came from the 17th century...

1 point

"Do you consider Aristotle to be unintelligent?"

(Non-)Argumentum ad Verecundiam?

A wise man once said "there are no authorities". The greatest minds can also be wrong/mistaken. Einstein didn't get the Theory Of Relativity right in one sitting, and in fact, it was wrong the first times, and it's still not taken to be fully correct and may be revised in a near future.

Aristotle could be wrong.

Here is a list of dictatorships that the United States has backed, for various reasons.

Non sequitur? The US also backed (backs) up extremist/terrorist groups. Does that make them ok for any reason?

"Dictatorships don't inherently come to power through bloodshed, and not everyone has effective freedom to elect their own leaders within democracies."

How exactly? Everyone has all the freedom to vote in whoever they see fit. There might be room for improvement, but whatever flaws the system has, it's not oppressing anyone regarding their freedom to voice/act on their opinion.

So... what's missing?

Also, there's no way one person can have their will imposed on everyone else without at least stepping on some people's feet a few times. So, in a way, you can't ever have a dictator without at least some figurative bloodshed.

"It's important to remember that our concept of individual rights is incredibly new within the context of human history."

Our concept of the scientific method is only 400 years old (incredibly new!). Yet it did considerably more for us in those 400 years than anything else did in the prior 9600 years of recorded history. Is there any dispute as to it being the best method of study and reasoning?

The people in other ages knew better than to live anarchically, but no better than to live in non-democratic systems. If they had thought of it, or if they had been able to make it happen, they would've.

No matter how benevolent a dictator might be, his individual opinions are imposed, thus most other individual minds will always have certain necessities being oppressed. We are not ants, we have individual agency. Ancient societies ought to be aware of that, even if they had no concept of it or if it was taboo; they might be illiterate ignorants, but not devoid of individual brains and emotions and wants and needs.

1 point

Decisions in that kind of political system are not taken by that one elected person. That's not likely to be the case in dictatorships.

In a dictatorship you might not even be able to complain about it.

That said, it's one flaw in democracy. One that should be addressed, that the people should be able to revoke their election by means of another majority voting.

Flaws don't make it worse, though. No system is perfect, and surely democracy isn't either. That does not take away from it being by all means superior to dictatorship.

1 point

Can you provide a significantly greater amount of examples of beneficial dictatorships that existed throughout history? Can you provide any, at all?

A dictatorship removes agency from individuals. Even if a dictator has a good heart that doesn't get corrupted by delusions of power, nearly ever single other individual will have certain wants and needs suppressed/repressed/oppressed.

Democracy is inherently better indeed, since it removes the enforcement of one individual's opinions over every other. It allows anyone to do as they please, and the only thing you need to enforce is that no one infringes on each others' well being.

Democracy is as fair as it can get (at least so far). Dictatorship is the antithesis.

1 point

Wrong side? :)

1 point

Is it not a rare sight to see conservatives agreeing with liberals? Or teaming up?

Again, the road to fanaticism, fundamentalism, extremism, etc, is hardly one with T-junctions where conservatives might stop to decide they'd merge ideas from both parties. That's not to say it doesn't happen. That's one way we get new religious sects, for example. But usually the derivation includes a great majority of the original ideals, and not a heterogeneous mix.

I can accept those nuances, but they're not really relevant in this regard. Even if moderate conservatives were just as likely to become extreme liberals as they might be of becoming extremist conservatives, the question I'm asking is, essentially, how likely are they to become extremists at all, and what I contend is that it only depends on the type of propaganda they are exposed to, if any.

1 point

This looks like a website where people have fun, but also where people can share what they know and perhaps learn something from each other.

You told me nothing new, insightful, useful, or funny.

1 point

"So, in that case then, would you say that abortion is murder?"

That's irrelevant.

Skaruts(195) Clarified
1 point

I think the reason planets don't affect us is more because we're too small (little mass) to be affected. I have not corroborated that, it's just what it seems to me. Flies are as close to the earth as we are and couldn't care less about its gravity, and in reality the planets gravitational pull does reach this far and does have a certain effect.

For example, the sun itself gets pulled by Jupiter, which causes it to wobble slightly. The pull from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy also reaches here and beyond.

Either way, gravity might not be the force that affects us. It's the only one of the four known forces in physics that could, but doesn't. It's up to astrologers to prove the existence of a fifth force. :)

1 point

What facts do you see for it?

If you enumerate facts, it might help to illustrate its importance.

1 point

You still have not presented anything that demonstrates that your opposition is indeed extremist (or wrong). You showed me something which you, yourself, don't think can denied, but you haven't showed anything that your opposition might have to say about it, which might be important to consider. I cannot take conclusions based on only your opinion.

I'm not a moderate. I'm not an ideologue at all. I'm simply a rational person who considers any substantiated arguments and ignores none, without committing the mistake of favoring emotions over coherent thought, evidence, facts, and objectivity. I might accept your reasoning if it had no significant ambiguity.

Still, I am not interested in that debate here (you could make one about that - might be interesting). It's going off topic and is jeopardizing this debate's scores.

1 point

I don't find anything objective in your arguments, though. All I see there is "I'm right, they're wrong and I think they're horrible people. Period".

To someone like me who doesn't act or take conclusions based on emotions, but rather on objectivity, evidence and facts, I can't be persuaded of what you're saying.

What you're talking about involves not just opinions, but biological, medical and psychological studies and considerations. There are nuances in every aspect of life, and it's only through a open minded discussion that anyone can reach a middle ground, not through hostile and resented accusations.

Regardless, your posts are a fine example of how the term "extremist" is subject to interpretation: what one moderate finds acceptable, another moderate finds extreme. It's nothing new to me, but it's displayed. That has important implications on the main topic.

1 point

You sound rather radical.

People being in favor of abortion does not equate to lack of compassion. At least not by default.

I don't know of the abortion case you're alluding to, but I'm not willing to accept that it's a reason to consider people to be extremists.

Skaruts(195) Clarified
1 point

Well, there are a few things we can take from there: Moderates are the majority, they have their petty conflicts, and, it seems to me, they keep their ideological grounds fertile for fanatics, radicals, fundamentalists and extremists to occasionally sprout.

That post, however, is one example of why I'm making this debate. It demonstrates the amount of emotion moderates deposit into their convictions, regardless of being right or wrong. Emotions and convictions are not really a great mix, as history shows us in spades.

1 point

You are conflating distinct ideologies, though. I'm going under the premise that liberalism, conservatism, for example, are different scales altogether, as they are distinct ideologies, and I'm taking the moderates, fanatics, radicals, fundamentalists, extremists, all as different stages in the same scale.

It wouldn't be fair to conflate them since moderates on one scale are not likely to become anything else from another. A moderate liberal is not likely to become a radical conservative by virtue of liberal principles, nor is a moderate islamist likely to become a fundamentalist christian by virtue of islamist principles.

1 point

I'm 35. Way past the point of "not knowing now". I've been twenty once, and indeed we still know little at twenty, let alone what constitutes a good lover.... And honestly, we know little the rest of our lives, and we spend them constantly learning from constant mistakes, constantly finding ourselves in situations to which we don't know how to overcome, and we are perpetually growing up.

A close friend of mine lost her virginity at 33. She had to take the morning after pill because, of course, she had no clue what she was doing, and that condoms do sometimes break. She also told me that first time was not really that great because her hymen was burning and she couldn't focus on the whole thing. Only after a week or so she told me it was starting to feel really good. At that point she was starting to know herself and her partner, sexually. I don't think I need to go into any more details.

The first time sex is not at all better than the times in which you have had enough sex to know how to push the experience higher. Things are better as experience allows for improvement. The first time can be good if you're not high on your expectations. Psychology 101 tells us expectations ruin lots of experiences.

A lot goes against your conviction that premarital sex can cause divorce. That is not only a non sequitur, it's also flatly wrong. Divorce is often caused by conflicts that originated in sexual dissatisfaction, which happens more likely among people with little sexual experience and/or a sexual life with limitations imposed by prejudice, which eventually becomes monotone.

Besides that, knowing your partner before committing to something you take as seriously as marriage, includes knowing him sexually. Some people are indeed sexually incompatible, and cannot adapt to each other, thus why people don't enjoy all sexual relationships they have.

People who are open minded are not prevented from improving by experience and getting better at it and expanding it and having fun with it, thus cultivating the sexual part of their marriage/relationship, which is one of the most important ones. Of course, the most important part is communication, which can help solve/mitigate many of the problems in other parts.

1 point

Your two first paragraphs agree with the important notion that I mentioned: anyone can become blinded and go to extremes. You successfully illustrated the alarmingly short distance one needs to travel to get there, given enough emotional incentive.

Your post does, however, neglect to keep that in mind henceforward. It is a big deal, in fact, that it can be that easy, and it can be disastrous even if extremist are a minority (they always are), given that most moderates have already accepted to climb the few first steps of the same ideological ladder.

The term "extremist" only denounces someone who took actions that we perceive as extreme. Maybe the day before they seemed rather reasonable, even if deeply emotional in their convictions. Many moderates are just as emotional in their convictions. Some are even fanatical.

1 point

Yes moderate do tend to be more open minded, but not necessarily, and maybe not even that often. At least regarding topics for which they are ideologically or emotionally attached to, in which case they will often resort to their favored ideologies and/or emotions for decision making (I am referring to not only politics, but also every other type of ideologies).

However, you didn't give an unambiguous reason to accept that moderates and extremists are absolutely different. Simple disagreement and segregation doesn't make people different, just makes them potential opponents regarding a specific subject, and only for the time being.

More often than not, the more noticeable opponents are not fundamentally different (compare the far left and the far right, or any two opposing middle eastern extremist groups).

It still seems to me that moderates and extremists of a given ideology, are merely points in the same scale that do not seem to come close - but are not set in stone.

1 point

The names merely specify the difference in their actions, as I mentioned. Moderates may not draw swords, but they still populate the same figurative ship of those who do, and are just as unwilling to betray it.

That doesn't sound like opposites, but as variations of the same thing, like points in the same scale.

The amount of discrepancy in that variation seems largely up to subjective interpretation, and depending on where in the scale you are, the change in perspective may be significant. Moderates don't all share the same point in that scale. They do not all agree on what is and isn't extreme.

1 point

Only to find out you still know nothing at that age? I've been 20, and so have many of my friends. Responsibility doesn't come magically with age. It comes with experience.

A friend of mine who lost her virginity at 33, had to take the morning-after-pill, because, indeed, she knew nothing of what she thought she knew, and condoms do break sometimes.

1 point

According to biologists, sexual organs are ready at around 12 (since the day you wake up wet). That means you're good to go, and the reality is that that's as good an age as any.

The only caveat is that if your parents haven't been good parents and at that age you're not already informed and aware about what your body can do and how it's done safely, then you're taking the risk of doing something stupid. But the fact is, you'll do it either way if the hunger strikes, so your parent better have done their homework.

Most of my friends started having sex at twelve, thirteen and fourteen. Life with that is as normal as any. Sex is not a scary hydra, it doesn't give nightmares to kids, and it's not more dangerous than them crossing roads on their own.

No amount of imposed subjective rhetoric is able to refute biology and the reality of our nature, and the kids' needs.

1 point

Well, the human body is in fact a sex object, whether you like it or not. The negativity you see in the concept of objectification is mere subjective prejudice on your part.

That it leads to rape is a non sequitur.

1 point

Well, if your kids don't understand that it happens for the sake of fantasy... well then your kids are dumb and/or your parenting is questionable.

I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Even an eight year old would understand that...

Besides, the plumber's readiness is mild nonsense compared to what we can find in cartoons. The fact that kids laugh at them means they get the jokes. ;)

So many people underestimate children's intelligence these days...

1 point

What about them? No one said they couldn't do it.

I find flat chests hotter. I'd love to see them do it. :)

1 point

Why not?

The people going would be happier, I would be happier, everyone would be happier.

Of course, prudes wouldn't be happier, but fuck them, no one called them to watch.

Win/win.

2 points

No matter how hard anyone believes whatever they believe, and no matter how many people agree with it, reality will not budge.

Reality is, in the most absolute form, undeniable, irrefutable and indestructible. No deniable, refutable and destructible fantasy can ever prevail in such a clash.

1 point

Everyone and their mothers would be properly taught how to think coherently since elementary school, rather than being only the scientists that learn that in universities.

That would mitigate most of the world's problems...

1 point

Better late than never. Fuck sake, we can't be soft hearted and amicable towards populations that aren't willing to reciprocate.

The latest years have been proving us that the people who are in charge don't necessarily have a higher IQ than any common mortal.

Skaruts(195) Clarified
1 point

Why would you want to join an ideology when ideologies are what have been causing most of the conflicts the world has seen through history and in modern times?

Emotional reasoning is what feeds ideologies. Just because you agree with a thing or three is no good reason to side with any ideology. Ever.

Stay rational rather than emotional. ;)

1 point

That's quite the non sequitur...

I'm not a feminist and I support abortion to the fullest that is within reason and safety for the woman.

1 point

Actually, women CAN do any of that. If they don't do it, it's because they chose not to. There's nothing to stop them.

If they don't do it because they are afraid of WORDS! then it's still their own choice.

A woman who acts the way she wants despite WORDS is the woman who's praiseworthy, not the one who cowers behind the pity of others. Brave people do more to change the world than cowards.

History was never made by cowards.

1 point

Yes, but that has nothing to do with inequality, and that's just one cherry picked "problem" in YOUR society. There are many of the same sort of "problems" that affect women and men in that same way, and you're just choosing to focus on one that, seemingly, favors your convictions (confirmation bias).

That women in muslim countries had that sort of problem be the worse of them, they'd be doing really well. Women in western societies are doing that well.

The attitude to have towards that kind of thing is to make people see their hypocrisy, not to become a hypocrite yourself.

A woman who laughs and calls herself a slut before anyone else can do it, is a brave and praiseworthy woman who's doing a ton more to lead the world out of that mentality than the people who incite snow-flake mentality onto women in general.

Do not celebrate weakness. Take the weak and make them stronger.

1 point

I'd hire a full-time harem! That would leave me with 99.999% of the 100 million to feed the poor with.

1 point

If it was naturally cruel, it would've been extinct a long, long time ago. If you put ten cruel people in an island and wait, they will self destruct.

Humans are naturally competitive and survivalists. Both traits that made us prevail the ages and the eras, but also traits that sometimes, in modern culture, are expressed in what many perceive as forms of cruelty. But there are ways in which you can observe the natural tendency to be kind to each other. Kids tend to be troublesome, but mostly due to what they learn with their friends, or due to rebellion towards authoritative parenting.

Unkind people are not the majority, they're just more noticeable since they're usually damaging, loud, etc. Kind people tend to gang up on the unkind and prevail, as happened in the two world wars we know, and in many lesser conflicts in history.

1 point

An intelligent and open minded Wiccan might be able to point out things that both sides were neglecting to consider. Same happens with an atheist on a religious debate. Leaving people out just because they don't share your opinion or your opposer's opinion is not very intelectualy healthy thing to do. One might vote "neither" and still might or might not have interesting things to add to the argument anyway.

I don't believe you can make a third category now, but I believe you can do it when creating a debate. Some time ago people could create their own categories. Don't know what happened to that...

Skaruts(195) Clarified
1 point

It's just a philosophy, not my religion.

Many people try to disqualify buddhism as a religion using that reasoning, however is fails to take in consideration that buddhism has many of the properties that qualify religions, in which believing in a deity is not mandatory. I can't judge your position towards satanism from what you said, but just wanted to underline that.

As you said later on, people follow buddha, but buddha is not a supernatural deity, and still, yes, budhism is qualified as a religion, as it, again, has many of the same properties that qualify something as a religion.

Still, you don't need to identify as anything in particular in order to absorb its good practices. My mother, just like some examples you gave, wasn't a buddhist and could never be confused as one, even despite that she adopted many of their ideologies to her life. That doesn't make someone a religious person, and for that reason I find it hard to believe that your choice to identify as a satanist is justified (though, again, I don't know up to which point you are into it).

I don't believe I him or any of their supernatural

You see, this kind of contradicts your avatar and your name, through which one gets a first impression on where you stand.

Some satanists are jus angsty teens that do so

True, and very ridiculous at that too.

I don't know what statement you're referring to..

I meant my previous statement.

Well only if they are serving a supernatural purpose. Like if someone prays to Satan or invokes a demon then that is a religious practice because you have to believe in the theism to conduct it.

Exactly. Most of what I see is exactly that. Further on you refer to something else as mainstream satanism, but at least where I live this is the mainstream satanism, even if it's not very mainstream on the big picture. And it's mostly what I was refering to in my first response.

I may be ill informed if there's a more serious minded and benevolent or socially and individually beneficial version of satanism. But this kind of satanism is what I refer to as a sub-set of christianity, where most of them don't even realise the contradictions they fall into (some not believing in god yet hating it, some not noticing they believe the same things just with a different attitude towards them, etc). Some of them don't even know what gehenna was except from what they read in Cradle of Filth music lyrics (one of my favorite bands. :) Ironicaly.)

1 point

You should have created a neutral category. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in either satan or god, and I have to downvote my own comments to be sure to not contribute to any of the sides, since I don't believe any of them has any more meaning than the other.

1 point

You still believe in a religious mythological character if you're a satanist. And you probably still believe in god if you feel the need to be at the side of something opposite to it.

I'm not a satanist, I'm an atheist, and that's because I don't believe in things that aren't evidently true. Satan is just as included in that statement as god is. And satanist rituals, practices and worshipings, are enough to classify satanism as a form of religion (more often than not, at least in europe and in the US, some sort of sub-set of christianity).

And like it or not, satan is an invention that blossomed from religious (leaders) beliefs as a way to instill fear on people thinking about desobeying their doctrine.

3 points

The devil is but a part of religions, you know? Your religion tells you about the prophets, about christ, and also about satan. Or is it not true that it tells you if you don't worship mohamed you will end up with satan? Whether you like it or not, satan is but something that belongs to religious beliefs, as a way to induce people to obey their religion. What you hate is just a part of what you love.

Satanism is included in what I consider as "religious beliefs" (more often than not, it's but a rebel sub-set of christianity), since their conduct has many of the properties that classifies a religion.

1 point

We're on the same boat. But I'm curious about what astrologers and believers in astrology think about this.

Skaruts(195) Clarified
0 points

Satan is a part of christianity. In fact, lucifer and hell had nothing to do with the common depiction we give it nowadays, of some kind of monster with a goatie (and many many others) and a (supposedly) underground cave full of fire that you may get into in the afterlife. Hell was, in their time, (as depicted in the bible, if I'm not mistaken) a dump where they dumped the dead bodies of those not worthy of jesus' love and such things. Lucifer was who ran the dump or something.

Hell was not something of the afterlife nor supernatural, but something very real (assuming the stories in the bible and christianity are historicaly real), although, the reasons why they dumped the bodies there had influence from supernatural beliefs.

I can't remember all the details so take all I just described as just as a rather close approximation to what it was (my best attempt from the top of my head now).

But the point is, satan is part of christianity. Most satanists don't even think about that, I guess. Most christians don't either. It could be argued that satanism is but a sub-set of christianity as well. A rather fanatic/fundamentalist rebel/revolted subset of it. Either way, Satan, in it's current depictions and in mythological depictions, is just as imaginary as god.

EDIT: That dump was Gehenna.

1 point

Energy is not the movement of atoms. Electrons and protons have energy in them, and empty space (without particles, without radiation, without matter of any kind) still has energy that can create matter, and still has weight.

Go on youtube and look for a video called A Universe from Nothing by the astrophysicist Laurence Krauss. He's much better at explaining this than I'd ever be.

2 points

Existence of matter only proves matter exists. I don't understand how people can infer anything else from that and fail to detect their fallacy.

1 point

Scince doesn't prove things. Science disproves things. It's only in math that you can prove things, not in science.

Still, if science disproves the existence of souls (which pretty much does already by default, since there's no evidence for it), many people still need to have a personal imaginary friend to make them feel safe.

1 point

Neither. They're both deluded positions.

Where is that neutral button again?

1 point

I read a book called "The Seventh Seal" by the portuguese author and reporter "José Rodrigues dos Santos", in which the character learns about how the hebrew numerology was used in the time the bible was written and before that to convert words into numbers for varied reasons.

I don't remember the details, but he pointed out that the name Neron had the value of 666 and the name Jesus 888. The fact that 888 was a higher number symbolized how the people who calculated it considered Jesus to be above the emperour Nero (which isn't surprising considering they were christians).

As a conclusion, from the character in the book, Neron Kaiser was the true anti-christ.

I couldn't really do the same math myself, mostly because there's multiple variations of numerologies and, if I recall correctly, of hebrew too, and, being a complete layman at hebrew I couldn't find the correct data to evaluate. However, it seems to make sense, as the emperour Nero was probably the biggest threat for christ and for the christians.

EDIT: Actualy, I just found this: http://ostrakinos.wordpress.com/2006/06/ 06/neron-kaiser-the-calculated-beast/

And this: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/mp666.html

But none of them points towards sources of hebrew alphabets or something that could bring us to do the math for ourselves... which is annoying...

1 point

The way they are doing it, no. Not at all.

There's one big difference between teaching myths that shouldn't be taken serious, considering the evidence against them, in a separate classroom, and teaching myths and stating them as facts, in a science classroom, and that they should be taken seriously over any evidence against them.

I wouldn't have a problem with teaching it in the former sense. This is not what's being done in certain countries, and I'm totally against that. Religion has no place in science classrooms.

1 point

By all means, yes. Only retrograd conservatives and religious magoos think otherwise.

Of course, parents should educate their kids in a way that they could have at least an idea of what they're getting into. But sex WILL be a part of their teen age, whether parents want it or not.

And it's only healthy for them. Both physically and mentally healthy. Sex and relationships are part of what makes a boy become a man and a girl become a woman. It's part of our nature and it's part of our growth experiences that makes us feel whole.


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