"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...
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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. ;)
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
And this: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/
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...
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.
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.
Oral sex is called oral sex for some reason. I don't see any grounds for discussion.
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oral sex | noun
- sexual contact between the mouth and the genitals or anus; fellatio, cunnilingus, or anilingus.
The idea of infinite punishment doesn't make sense. If you're going to be there forever, that's no punishment. It's not made for you to learn something with your mistakes and come out of there a better person.
I don't see any reason for it other than revenge.
In christianity, everyone that doesn't accept jesus as their lord and savior, goes to hell. Simple as that. It doesn't matter if you sinned, and what sins you committed. All that matters is the acceptance of jesus christ as your saviour.
That includes theists from non-christian religions, atheists, deists, pantheists, of all ages (including innocent children), races and nationalities. The same can be said of islam and a few other religions.
Why would a benevolent and forgiving god still want eternal revenge from more than half of the world's population?
By evil you mean not beliving in jesus as their lord and savior, not being of the same religion as you are, or for being from a different subset of yours?
Because according to many theists these people will go to hell too, and they comprise a larger percentage of the world's population than your religion alone does.
I don't know if anyone could answer this. But it may happen that we reach a limit at some point, where we don't evolve anymore (this has a name I can't remember). This has happened with ants , for example. They reached that point where they don't need to evolve anymore because the way they are assures them a quite suficient survivability, and they have been like they are now for a long long time (forgot how long).
Eventualy any species may reach that point. That would be my best (layman) guess. But I don't think we can foresee what comes next, nor when it will stop.
As a general rule you should trust whatever you think it's logical or senseful. That case in particular is very subjective to each individual and to each manner of thinking, and even to each one's habits or metabolism. You can extract something from it, though: Telling yourself you're beautiful isn't such a bad advice. I have had problems with my looks in the past (even though beeing a male), and it's not very uncommon from teenager to have the same problems I had.
However, what is there is, overall, very poor in substance. And that's the first thing you should notice without the help of anyone else. Even if poor substance doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, it usualy means it's not really apt to be considered worthy of notice.
If we do nothing, eventually the natural cycle will reverse itself, or enough humans will die out to reverse human meddling, or both.
That statement might be correct, considering it really happens. However, the consequences of this global warming are exactly about us being ruining the balancing elements in the planet. If these balancing elements vanish, then that's only possible to happen again in a very long time, way after we have all fried and been forgoten. And that is IF it ever happens again, considering we are moving towards a tipping point, if we haven't reached it yet.
You argument is a bit like saying "Oh there's a high speed train coming! Well, I'll just sit here on the tracks and wait to see if it can brake in time to not trample me."
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson put it in a rather interesting way (though in more accurate words than me): The most commonly found elements in the universe are exactly the ones we are made of. This means, it's so very easy for it to happen. And even if it was rare, in a space so huge as the universe is, rare things happen constantly somewhere, but since it's so easy to happen, most likely it does.
From: http://www.youtube.com/
It still doesn't seem you're sitting in the right side of the arguments... Well, you're sitting in the right side, but not in the right side, considering what you seem to believe, which is the left side. :)
Although, I think it matters. It's true what you say that it's all too big to see, like the needle in the hay stack, but remember two things: Life doesn't imply inteligent life, and life doesn't imply it has to be in the same environment conditions as our own. There are living beings (bacteria and stuff like that) living in very deep and hazardous places in the oceans, where the pressure doesn't allow the water to boil, but the temperatures reach 300 ºC, which would perfectly fry anyone of us humans.
Findings such as that one have broaden the search for life in other planets to more than just the "adequately conditioned planets".
But also, we can see very very far into the universe with nowadays equipment. The furthest edge we can see is around 14 billion light years away, so say the experts if I don't mistake it (forgive me if I do), and that's pretty damn far...
I'm sorry but the lack of knowledge of basic scientific principles and egocentrism is all I can find when I see people talking like that guy.
Some research on biology would enlighten you with an answer to your question. Although I think I could answer it, I'm not going to try to do it, as I'm no expert and I would probably fail to provide a consistent answer to make all his arguments collide (which I think wouldn't be too hard, because he iterates his arguments over and over, resulting in just a few poor ones).
And it's all no more than religious beliefs that so far couldn't be proven by any objective and repeatable experimentation.
Ending a war doesn't mean peace. It only means they stop shooting each other. But it doesn't necessarily mean they will love each other after that.
It's the same as with two kids ranting about something to the point they yell at each other. At some point they start fighting physicaly. And some time later, either one of them is taking a beating and the other one claims victory, or they both get tired and stop the agressions. Do they then go play football together as if nothing happened? No. They will still hate each other, at least for some time. And in that time the possibility that they may fight again is fairly high. And most likely their disagreement will never be solved. They will just hopefuly get over it over time. But even so, the existence of that unsolved disagreement may still become a reason for a fight in the future.
So, what did their fight solve? Did it bring peace between them? Nothing, and No. If their first discussion had been reasonable, they might not reach an agreement, but they might still be friends and, who knows, an agreement might come someday. But since it turned into a fight, it created hostility between them, that most likely will bring more fights. That's what war does, with the exception of isolated cases like hitler, where most countries were actualy forced into war, and when the nazis were safely contained it all ended and germany was no longer an threat, thus lost the enemy status (maybe after some time, even, but I don't know about that).
Peace is not a temporary state. Peace is a state in which humans are totaly responsible for it's continuosity. Wars never solved any issues between countries, except the liberation of opression in such countries that had it, and the destruction of dictatorships, such as hitler's (yes, without capital H, for I disagree that such a being deserves that).
All wars except those I aforementioned as exceptions have left all involved coutries with the same views as they were before, only with the added general opinion that the offending ones are a bunch of assholes. Only over time their issues were slowly softened (if you will) or even solved through other means than war, leading to the world we have today where Japan and russia and the US aren't necessarily enemies.
It all comes from political or religious interests (being economic interests in the political category in my point of view), and those are only solved by having the relevant polititions of each country discussing the matter, not by killing millions of unrelated innocents (soldiers included there) because they are losing power over petroleum interests like the US was getting into under Bush's time.
We can't sustain peace because we're too greedy and selfish and stupid to elect people that share these same adjectives. And we're too stupid to solve problems in a way that no one gets harmed. Wars don't come and go, we bring them.
A little bit of both, I'd say. But I don't really see much difference in clothing today from the clothing of yesterday to be honest. The only difference I see is the tendencies. I'm not sure where you're getting at.
In my time, over 15 years ago, I remember seeing girls in fancy dresses and mini-skirts and corsets, etc, and boys in Redleys and All-Stars shoes and some "jeans" brand I cant remember the name, and all that stuff. It was all towards fashionness and sexyness already, if that's what you mean.
It may happen that in other countries it was different, but that's something out of my knowledge. But I'm not really sure about what exactly this is about, anyway.
Actualy, mechanical and computorized techologies were one of the greatest contributions to unemployment rates. They employed more people to make the machines, but then they replaced those people with machines to make machines, and the produced machines in turn are able to replace several workers at a time in many other jobs.
Some jobs are even barely existent nowadays. Others are performed by a small group of people, or even just one person, because they use computers or automated mechanical contraptions or robots, while they used to be done with a greater number of people doing it by hand. Dangerous jobs especialy, are more and more performed by machines only. In that case it may be a good thing.
If a new machine is invented, they hire people to make the machinery to manufacture it. Then they discard those people. It's a cycle that may tend to get worse.
Just like you stated very well, life doesn't imply intelligence. It only implies a life generating environment.
The more strawberries you have in a bag for a week the larger the chances are of finding a rotten one in there. The analogy can be applied to planets and satellites. The more planets you have, the more chances of generating life. Basic statistics, one of the easiest things to understand in Mathematics.
The egocentric human will try to defy the logic of statistics, usually using insubstantial statements due to lack lack of knowledge of what the hell they're talking about (you know how a great majority of people see Math as a complicated and fearful beast with seven heads (a Hydra perhaps)), but more often than not by also not understanding how in hell life is generated (except if you tell them God did it). But their self imposed bias will only distort their own perception of the world around them, it will never change anything of how reality works.
meh... they are all hackers nowadays. With scoped rifles and auto-fire sub-machine guns and radars and overpowered nuclear bombs, and all that cheating stuff.
In the good ole days they were real men. They fought with melee weapons and bows and crossbows, and catapults and all that Man stuff. Now that was skill. :) They all went into a could of dust, fists coming in and out, and at the end of the day they would celebrate their victory with some good ole bear, or mourn their defeat with some homemade healing herbs and a kiss on the wound from the wives.
I miss these days already... :D
It ended the lives of many, ended the happiness of their families, fucked up economies, slowed down progress of societies, divided countries, and a long list of et ceteras.
Except for those, war never really solved or ended anything at all. Probably the only good thing any war has ever done was defeating Hitler. He caused the war, so it was, in a way, necessary, otherwise the world would end up in his wrong hands.
But it didn't end anything. Slavery, Fascism, Communism, and Nazism, they all still exist. Only slavery is subtle nowadays, nazism is powerless and reduced to punks with delusions of activism, communism and fascism are still a reality in some countries (russian countries, china, etc). And also, there are still some dictatorships in existence, although nothing alarming when compared to Hitler's dictatorship.
That will always depend on the dictionary you look into. Look at my post in the other column. I agree somewhat with you though, but I'd put it differently:
Whatever the case, a belief is a notion we gained because of our rationality. A dog is also capable of that, he will believe you're offering him a cookie if he rolls, if you got him used to that. Probably many levels of rationality will deliver such results. Doesn't need to be humans, just need to think enough, which inanimate object don't.
(somehow, I supported your post, but it says "disputed". Editing it said "You support this view" :S)
Note that Casper doesn't say he's Atheist in his profile. I'm an atheist and I don't feel desperate for anything of that sort. Unlike religious people that go sell their beliefs door by door and stuff like that, I'm pretty confident on my reasonings to not need to be pushing others around.
And to be honest, before I saw his profile, I was taking this debate as a religious attempt to dumb down atheists to inanimate objects, without making sense in itself.
That makes inanimate objects seem intelligent. Nice to know. But I don't like using my wishful thinking to distort the way I perceive things around me. So I will consider that as complete cow crap. I'm an atheist, by the way.
Atheism: a·the·ism
noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
- In Dictionary
If inactive objects lack the ability to believe, then they can't believe there is no god.
If they lack the ability to believe, then they should lack the ability of disbelief, so they can't have disbelief in the existence of god.
Now onto a more thoughtful way of seeing things.
Sure you could get hanged up on people writing down that atheism is a property of a person, but there is no real reason behind doing such other then familiarity.
Of course there will be people who will say that. Any person with their feet on the ground will be honest with himself and accept logics. Humans have an abstract notion of belief, just like they have an abstract notion of trust, fear, superstition, or even time (although not quite the same type).
Do inanimate objects have any of these notions? Not only none of these but they have none at all. They're just a composition of atoms with a certain form and color. And that's it. They are neither atheists nor religious.
While the tree and coal concern is valid, many groups are planting trees in place of those cut down.
One tree takes at most one day (I think I'm being too condescending) to be cut off. One planted tree takes, what, 50 years... to reach a significant size to compensate for the tree that was cut. Honestly, I'm tired of that argument.
I read the last bit of that statement though saw no statistics so I cannot dub your opinion correct or incorrect in my mind. (...) Also he did have a point that the climate does fluxuate on its own so I would say in part it is natural.We may have a hand in it yes, though not natural at all? I cannot agree with that.
Of course the climate fluctuates by itself. It's reaches it's own balance that way. I've mentioned that in my post, when I talked about the poles helping it do it. And of course that there's a fraction of it that isn't man made. But how big that fraction is? Well, taking into account that non-man-made fluctuations (I'm talking about blatant ones, like the one that's happening now, not the regular ups and downs) take thousands, if not more than millions, of years to happen, then I'd say that the natural fraction right now would be too small to even be relevant. And the ups and downs have been already studied by scientists who are more aware of the differences than we are.
Besides, like Dr. Richard Alley said, scientists spent (lost) the last 30 years trying to find a natural explanation to the climate changes, and couldn't find any.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
There's also another interesting statement from Dr. Richard Alley: "We're taking 500 million years worth of accumulated fossil fuels and put it in the air in 500 years." If that doesn't ring a bell, I don't know what will.
Maybe they could be wrong? Yes, and I'd be the first to say I'd hope they were wrong. But I can't distrust them when I look around me and I see so many results of correct scientific "math".
Mac OS Kernel is Linux's. In other words, MAC OS was created from Linux. Therefore it beats windows any day in stability (not mentioning other ways). And Linux beats windows in it too, but Linux is specific for certain tasks. Windows is only useful for the common layman who knows little of computers, whereas Linux would fail completely in their hands (actually it would be safer to say their hands would fail completely on Linux). Windows is useful for gaming because of DirectX and a few other features. But Windows is a mess of an OS from any experienced point of view.
So, your statement should've been more like:
Linux > Mac OS > Windows
Even tho Linux is more suitable for specific tasks, Mac OS wouldn't exist if Linux didn't exist in the first place. ;)
The problem with having kids participating in debates - as you can see if you happen to find post by young kids - is that they tend to "cheat" the debates by double or triple posting, inadvertently drop and raise scores, and other sorts of actions to make the result suit their liking or belief.
There's also the issue of unsubstantiated opinions, but that happens even with most adults here (and everywhere, really), so I won't even consider it relevant in this matter.
There are bad books aswell. Don't take them all as a good thing. I have bought two technical books once that were the most pretentious things I've ever seen, from which I have learned nothing else than what I had learned by myself already. I still wander why I didn't go back to the store for a refund...
But distinguishing a good book from a bad book, however, is much easier than distinguishing good internet content from bad internet content.
The Internet can be misrepresenting and incomplete in many teachings. Most of what you learn on it is gathered from tidbits here and there, and once in a while someone is going to contradict someone, and you'll be left with a hole in your theory. Of course, this can happen in books, but in books you can differentiate easily the pretentious ones from the worthwhile. A pretentious book is usually thin and not often the cheapest, while the book that was made with hard research and revising is usually thick, and doesn't always cost much more than the thin one.
But the experienced author made a better job and a greater effort at teaching the matter. I believe some authors will - due to the dedication needed to create a book that will actually be approved for publishing, and to make it sell well - try to, at least, give their best shot at making it worthy. Usualy, a good book is made by at least one serious minded proffessional.
On the Internet, the great majority of what you read is made by amateurs or enthusiasts. Creating this is easy and fast, and because it's free most people don't really tend to make sure it is 100% accurate or efficient. There's no danger of economic investment gone wrong. They don't need to sell one text page to have funds to make more pages of text. There are of course, and thankfully, some professionals, or very experienced people, that do share their knowledge, but they still may neglect certain key aspects of teaching it (intentionaly or not). But usualy an internet tutorial is made by a hobbyist, or a professional with some free time to play around.
That said, I can give you my personal example. I've tried both ways along my years of self-teaching 3D Modeling, Photoshoping, programming, and a few other things (which is what I hope to be doing to pay the bills someday), and it was only in books where I really learned with greater consistency.
The best example in my personally experience is actually in programming. I've spent so much time (3 or 4 years) learning from here and there on the Internet, always being unable to get my projects done for some reason or another. One day my neighbor (a computers technician) borrowed me a book, I studied it, and I was amazed at how many things I have neglected to learn (or they neglected to teach). And I've never needed any other book, nor the Internet (for that specific programming language).
Furthermore, if you tend to use the wikipedia a lot, I won't blame you. For the most part it seems ok. But sometimes, if you take a look at the discussions page you'll see how inconsistent some pages may be. Careful with that.
I agree. But it's not technology that is the problem at this point. It already reached that level. There are some things that stand in between that kind of technology and its practical usage, some of them are pricing and adequate facilities. Most countries, or some states in many countries, don't have adequate facilities to use certain advanced equipment. Nor do they have adequately trained personal.
But whenever some new piece of medical technology comes out, its price is overwhelming, even for a governmental institution, and even more for the humble common mortal.
Money may be the worst monster in this tale...
In truth it actually doesn't. There's too many interests keeping it from doing so.
A great example is computer hardware (it works practically the same with everything else, but in computers it seems a bit blatant sometimes), in which a company will never release their most worthwhile products until they sold out their least worthwhile products. In other words, when a great piece of hardware comes out and is considered the highest product available in the market, it still doesn't mean the manufacturer can't do better. Most likely they have already done, or at least researched, better models.
They will sell something better than what's already on sale when these sales are falling to a low profit phase, they'll make some money out of this better product, and start producing or researching an even better model with part of the income. And the cycle is vicious, as they release products in small amazing steps, instead of large astonishing ones.
They don't do this solely for marketing purposes and interests. While that is a strong (and true) reason to do it, they also actually need to do it for the survivability of the company. If a company releases the best they have and then they can't research something better while their income is actively paying their workers, then they will have nothing but bankruptcy. Not getting ahead of themselves is in the end a good survivability strategy, and a way to not have technology advance too much at a time.
Well, depends. If you are talking in existence as in "your athoms will remain somewhere in the world or even the universe" then yes, you will "dissolve" and blend with dirt and whatever else there is around you, and with time each very tiny little part that once belonged to You may come to constitute "something else" once again.
But I usualy take this assumption coming from the "life after death" concept, because it usualy comes from there, and I will never be able to conceive that idea. Thunderfoot, on youtube, made an interesting remark about that, somewhere along the lines of "living forever would be a great torture that would imply staying for all eternity, and eternity after that, and eternity after that, and eternity after that..."
Living forever would be trillions of times more annoying that taking your whole life trying to find the last number on the result of 10/3.
3.3333333333333333333333333333333333333
If that's not where you're comming from, then I'll post in the other side of the debate, and decrease the points in this post. :)
It's interesting that the biggest thing that got me in love with my girl - apart from her exceptional personality and such - was that she never made me feel restrained with most things. Of course, we all have our little things, and I respect her when she would rather have me not doing something, and she acts reciprocaly.
But, in other words, showing to not be possessive and selfish and controling made me feel much more willing to respect her in most (if not all) cases of divergence.
I think there's too much people that can't see this, or are too scared to ever risk it. We have felt this way since the beggining, it happened kind of naturaly - a great thing, in my opinion - as we didn't take it too seriously at the time, so the risk wasn't so evident to us. But then as the relashionship matured and we took it more and more seriously, it still never got obsesively serious to the point of deteriorating it.
Yup. I usualy say 'Everyone in the world likes to "wash their eyes" whenever "divine waters" are within grasp.'
The primal instincts and feelings that lead to coupling aren't exclusive, no matter how much some people would like them to be.
Not at all.
If people could think a bit more than they actualy do on a regular basis, they could perhaps realise that what you see in a strip club is nothing more than a live version of what you see in the internet (and most gfs/bfs don't mind it), and it's only another naked woman/man.
It's not like me or anyone will ever run away with the stripper aspiring to live a long lasting love, and dump the gf/bf in the process. It's not like we're going back there everynight just to see it again (in most cases, I guess). Sometimes it's a positive thing in which we get home with a huge will to just grab the second-half and do wonders. :D
I'm not very much into strip clubs, but I've been to one and my gf didn't mind it, and she's been to one in france in a trip she made with two of her gfs, and she told me she even had sex. To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with that. It was one time, it was just some stripper she'll never see again, and she was two weeks without me and she had asked me if it was ok even before she traveled. Well, I'm not expecting she's made of steel. :) Neither am I lol (And we are happy by being honest and mature with each other).
We have also been considering going together to a strip club when we travel somewhere. :D
