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At 2/14/11 06:17 PM, Imperator wrote:

At 2/14/11 06:04 PM, Gario wrote: No, by definition there is not a single Catholic that is separate from the Church.

Well, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches consider themselves "catholic" in the sense of in synch with apostolic succession. But if by Catholic and Church you mean Latin Rite....well, actually, you still have Eastern Catholic Churches.

So no, there are exceptions, they're just relatively small and unknown.

Ah, complications and equivocations (not on your end, either - you make a good point). You understand that Roman Catholics and Orthodox members define the word 'Catholic' differently, right? Those that follow the Church claim that you must be in communion with the head of the Church in order to be 'Catholic', for particular theological reasons, while the Orthodox churches claim that it is only Apostolic Succession that makes the church 'Catholic'. Same word, different meanings.

It becomes an issue of who you're asking, at this point - any Catholic that's in communion with the Roman Catholic Church would say that while the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Church are indeed apostolic, they are not Catholic. Is that childish? Yeah, it is. Since it's the most commonly applied definition, though, I tend to approach it from a Roman Catholic definition, which actually does exclude those sects as being 'Catholic'.

'No True Scotsman'? Perhaps. It's not my flaw, though - I'm just repeating what others have defined it as. Blame the Church for that one :P

At 2/14/11 02:22 PM, aviewaskewed wrote:
Catholicism is still a sect of Christianity. You cannot separate a Catholic from a Christian. It still fits under the umbrella. It's a dishonest distinction. You're basically arguing a "No True Scotsman" right there.

Um, no I'm not - a 'True Scotsman' fallacy means that I'm changing the definition of something as one fulfills the criteria. Christians do not need to be Catholics (even though Catholics need to be Christians, by definition), and thus they do not need to follow the Magisterium. All Catholics are Christians (so they all believe in God and in the Bible), but not all Christians are Catholics (not all Christians follow the Church, which is what you're claiming). To say they're one and the same is simply incorrect.

Or, in a basic logical chart, this is the problem you're claiming...

If 'Catholic', then 'Christian'
'Christian', therefore 'Catholic'

That's called 'Affirming the Consequent', and it's a fallacy in logic.

That's not a small number of Christians, either - that's more than half of the Christians on the planet that want to stay as far away from the church as possible.

Bully for them. It doesn't change the fact that church doctrine of ALL faiths, and religious persuasions has had massive power, and continues to have massive power (The Vatican is a an independent state remember) in the world today. I'm talking about demonstrable reality here. Stop ignoring it, or being ignorant of it, or worse, being fucking deceptive about it. Remember that commandment that prohibits that? Just saying.

I never ignored any of that, nor am I being deceptive. You're applying something that many Christians would take some serious offense to. I'm saying you should specify that you're talking about Catholics, if you're going to go that route, because you're straying heavily from what many other Christians swear to.

Perhaps it doesn't change your argument too much (more than enough fuel from the Bible alone, I'm sure), but you are overgeneralizing with that statement, whether you like it or not.

No, I'm really not. The Catholic Church is a CHRISTIAN organization. It uses the same damn Bible as most other Christian sects. Just because there are a whole range of sects that disagree with much of their doctrine, just because many Catholics don't agree with their church does not change the fact that Catholics are Christians, you can't separate them.

No, by definition there is not a single Catholic that is separate from the Church. If you're not a part of the Church then by definition you are not a Catholic. There are Christians that are not a part of the church, and are therefore not Catholics, at all, which would make them very separate entities.

:Or maybe we should start talking about other hateful organizations too? How about the West Boro Baptists? Which really brings me to the other thing that's pissing me off about this current line of conversation. We're only talking about violence. Violence is not the only thing religion can be a culprit for, or the only harm it does. How about the hate and ignorance a lot of it spreads, promotes, or just tacitly accepts? Would anyone like to talk about that too?

I'd love to, but I suspect I know exactly where that would lead. It's a boring and tired argument, really, but if you want to then go for it.

Don't forget about the Spanish Inquisition and the excommunication of Galileo for claiming the world was round - those are classic examples of the church being overbearing and vicious (he was pardoned in 1994, by the way, lol). The church has fucked up before. I'm sure somehow it continues to make mistakes today. So for the sake of argument, if the church (and for shits and giggles, the Bible, as well - why not?) was to fix up everything that makes it violent/nasty would that make it acceptable, or would it be irredeemable, for some reason?

If it could fix these things, move forward, and stop promoting and advocating the things I hold against it? Sure, I'd be one of the first people saying "Hey, they've done bad, but I see real and positive action to clean up their act and we should applaud that".

Pending on what you hold against it (I have not been keeping up with this thread, so I don't know), the Church does try to take proactive steps to fix it's fuck ups, whenever possible. Because of the dissemination of power, though, they do not have control over everything in their church (whether the fuck up is the Pope, the bishops, or any number of laypeople that work for it), so while one group can be fixing one thing, another group is fucking it up. The Church is really in a state, right now, and it sucks. I admit, there is terrible corruption in the Church, but it might not mean the same thing to me as it does to you (again, that's all pending on what you hold against it).

To deny that it hasn't ever successfully modernized their religion to support the times, though, is to deny that they had such events such as the Counter Reformation, the Councel of Trent, the First & Second Vatican, along with other reformations, where they actually question everything in their doctrine so that they can fix their fuck ups as much as possible. Hell, for the Second Vatican they invited theologians from all around the world, from all the different Catholic and Christian sects, Jewish theologians, Islamic followers, Buhdists, Agnostics... they did what they could to get the input of all sorts of different religions for their doctrine.

Whether or not that's enough effort to fix any problems with the Church, I can't say. They do change their doctrine, though, in an attempt that it'll be better in the end.

:Also please stop basically insulting a guy you don't know online just because I disagree with a corrupt organization. Because I think if you have to even ask that question then the assumption is I'm a loud mouth, religion hating asshole that could never ever admit to anything positive if they were to do it, or positive they currently do. It's demonstrably false if you read my posts, and I just don't like people insulting (or even seeming) to insult my character when they don't really know much about it. I imagine you feel much the same.

No I don't feel the same, actually. If you had asked me the same question I'd simply answer and think nothing of it (or possibly wonder where the question was leading me). The 'assumption' is that I can't have an assumption about a guy that I don't know on the internet - to be honest, there's a good deal of people that have said "No, because of the corruption in the past we can't ever possibly trust that they would ever stay out of our affairs" (or the like), which is a different answer that I would've responded to very differently. It's an opinion that bases itself on observation of the past, and it's still a valid (and very different) response to my question. I've seen enough people on this forum that may well give this answer, so I do need to ask, unfortunately.

I normally stay out of this thread, for the most part, so I don't have too much to base my opinion of you by (other than this page). I apologize that my statement insulted you, it was honestly ignorance, not malice.

At 2/14/11 01:45 AM, aviewaskewed wrote:
But it's not just the text. You people seriously need to stop acting like we're all retarded and ignorant of the fact that religion is also THE CHURCH who have INTERPRETED the text for their own ends forever.

If you're going to go that route then be sure to change it from 'Christians' to 'Catholics'. That's one of the defining features of a Catholic, and for the reasons you're listing many Christians actually hate being associated with the Magisterium. In the case of other Christians it actually is just the text, or at least that's something they strive for very much (Sola Scriptura - that's the meaning of that phrase).

That's not a small number of Christians, either - that's more than half of the Christians on the planet that want to stay as far away from the church as possible.

Perhaps it doesn't change your argument too much (more than enough fuel from the Bible alone, I'm sure), but you are overgeneralizing with that statement, whether you like it or not.

:Even after people gained the ability to read the Church was still telling people "what the text really means" for their own ends. I'm not talking text now so much(though the text is certainly violent and has passages that compel people to violence) but I'm mostly talking about things like The Crusades were you have the representatives of a religion specifically TELLING people to go kill and be violent.

Don't forget about the Spanish Inquisition and the excommunication of Galileo for claiming the world was round - those are classic examples of the church being overbearing and vicious (he was pardoned in 1994, by the way, lol). The church has fucked up before. I'm sure somehow it continues to make mistakes today. So for the sake of argument, if the church (and for shits and giggles, the Bible, as well - why not?) was to fix up everything that makes it violent/nasty would that make it acceptable, or would it be irredeemable, for some reason?

Cymbal is exactly right. If the track is giving you trouble it's probably best to chop up the track and line it up on a phrase-by-phrase (or beat-by-beat, whatever it may be) case. It takes a little work, but sometimes an acapella track is timed in such a way that the computer just can't quite match it, such as, say, 145.36 bpm, or something (this often happens with, say, a live performance, or something non-electronic).

I had to do this with one of my own tracks here, so I know what you're talking about. Slice up the soundfile at the silences between words/phrases and sync them up manually.

You might be exporting your 'recordings' incorrectly, then - from the sound of it, you might not be recording, in the normal sense, but playing into your computer using your instrument as an input device (which would allow you to create MIDIs). If you're getting a MIDI when you save the track then most likely you're exporting the sequence that you input using your instrument. Try going into the 'Export Audio' option in your DAW (whatever it may be - it's an option on all of them) and try to get a WAV out of it. That format can easily be transfered to an Mp3.

I hope this helps .

They're often used as an alternative to 'V', changing the '2' into a '#2' so it leads to '3' better. In minor the '#2' is an enharmonic to '3', so it can be used as an anticipation. Romantic music often used the harsh tone of the augmented chord to add some spice.

In highly chromatic music they're great for modulating to remote areas. Because the augmented chord is often used as a dominant, and because it is a triad that has the same space between all of it's notes, one can reinterpret the chord so it becomes a dominant to a key that's either a major 3rd above or below the original key it heads into.

That's how it's traditionally used as an actual chord, anyway.

Also, it's used in the beginning of this awesome track (in the arpeggios). When used like this, it's just a neighbor above the major triad. It's still awesome, though.

I found downloading Audacity or Bonk, then downloading the lame.dll codec will solve pretty much all your wav-to-mp3 problems. Not to mention that Audacity is just a great program to have in general if you record anything, but I digress.

/thread

Pico, Sailor Moon and Sega? WTF?

I know you're curious.

Thanks for the reply. I understand that it's primarily a flash portal, and I know I could get experience if I voted on flash (for some reason, I only ever feel like voting on three at a time, though, which doesn't do me any good... my fault and problem, I know :P). I was just wondering if this has been brought up (which according to your post it has).

Thanks for answering my question :)

• 
  Dante's Inferno w/ Mario by JonBro

  Click to view.

  Type

  Movie

  Rated

  Ages 13+

Is that it?

The experience system only applies to those that rate and comment on flash entries.

On a flash portal I understand that would be the priority, but it seems a bit of a waste to come onto the portal and vote/rate Audio and Art submissions when you have nothing to show for it, in the end. It seems like a problem for a minority of users on here that should be addressed - people whom are very experienced voting for audio/art should get some voter's credit for it, since they contribute quite a bit of their own time to do so, much like those that contribute to the flash portal. I'm not suggesting overhauling the whole portal system to have different leveling/experience for each type of submission (although that probably would be ideal, it just doesn't seem too practical for the programmers of this site), but it would seem to make sense to give experience for those votes and comments. Is there any plan to incorporate the Audio and Art voting into the NG exp. system at any point in the future?

Has this been brought up or addressed to/by Tom or Wade Fulp, at any point in time? A basic search didn't bring anything up, for me, so I wouldn't know.

Cute. That doesn't affect my stance, though - why should I actively fight for/against something that doesn't affect my life in the least? Not that it matters right now, considering it's all repealed and such.

At 12/24/10 09:26 PM, Yorik wrote:
How could either system ever be considered fair to gays? They are exactly the same shit, you are still being excluded from the military for being gay, you just get kicked out at different times and they aren't doggedly LOOKING for you.

That's like saying "DADT is fair because it applies to EVERYONE and nobody needs to be talking about their sexuality with others whether gay or strait." This is fucking retarded and the reason should be obvious but I am going to spell it out anyway; they are still obviously discriminating against gays because gays are the only ones getting kicked out for their sexuality. That's like saying an organization is open to and respects all religions but you can only work with them if you don't tell them you are not jewish.

Ah, did I ever say it was fair? You misunderstand me - I said it was a motion made in their favor, at the time. DADT was not great, but it was a step in the right direction, at the time. Of course it was still discrimination, and of course it was not the best solution ever (which is why I agreed with the dissolve of DADT, in the first place). You're looking at it anachronistically, which is skewing the point I was making. At the time, it was either gays simply don't serve in the military at all or gays can serve if they're not open about it (at that time, it was obvious that the military was not going to let them serve openly). Neither option was great, but DADT was the lesser of two evils.

It seems that people are ready to move on, now, so there isn't any real need for the archaic DADT system anymore, and that's a good thing simply because it disposes of the de jure discrimination (obviously the de facto discrimination will still exist, but there's nothing that can be done about that, right now).

:You guys can sit back twist and warp my every last word and talk shit about me to your hearts content, I don't care. At the end of the day, DADT was ultimately your fault. Yours, all the other proponents of it, and all the people who (like me) complicitly stood off to the side and didn't because we never had the gall to stand up and actually say it was a bad policy and take up the cause against it while it was still on the books. 13,000 people have us all to thank for being branded criminals by our government.

I'm not twisting your words (actually, for the most part I agree with your points). However, don't mistake 'bravery' and 'gall' with 'simply not giving a shit'. The only parties concerned were homosexuals and the military (and anti-gay protesters, because they want to limit homosexuals as much as humanly possible). That is why you and I didn't fight for anyone's rights, here - why the hell should I when I don't care about it, and no one that I know cares about it, either (not even the gays I know, since they weren't interested in anything the military was doing)? We'll go as far as to say 'Good job, America!', when it's all said and done, but it ultimately has very little affect on us so why would we fight for it?

I'm just gathering what people are saying, here. So far I gather that some people think it's totally uncool that DADT was in place because it discriminated against gays, even though it was actually a compromise in their favor, in the first place (before that, you'd be blocked out of the army after officers and such asked about your preferences). I agree that it isn't necessary anymore, but I find it strange that people consider it such a nasty, evil, discriminating piece of legislation when it was anything but, at the time. It's just dated, now.

I also caught that gays... against the repeal? First, link sources, 'cause I think that was a bullshit claim. Second, if they are against it, why in the hell would they be? If they liked the whole DADT thing then they can personally keep practicing it, themselves - there's no need for them to go shouting their sexual preferences if they feel it'll affect them negatively. Repealing the law would affect them in no way, shape or form, if they didn't want it to affect them. If homosexuals are forced to reveal their sexual preference to anyone that asks due to the repeal then we'd have some problems, but to my understanding that this is not the case.

Then there's the argument that the gays that broke DADT deserved the punishment for breaking the law (or that their actions were somehow honorable, in some weird fashion). What was there to gain by being open about your homosexuality in a profession that told you not to be? I can understand why they'd want to repeal the law in time (as has been done), but how does that make homosexuals revealing their sexual preference when they signed a contract that they wouldn't honorable, at all? If they cared about being in the military and serving their country more than anything else, then they were given the opportunity. If they blew it by openly practicing while in the army then that implies that they really didn't prioritize their country above all other things, after all. Why are people arguing that their actions were at all honorable, post hoc?

But after all this, yeah, I see no reason why DADT should exist, right now. Homosexuality is becoming less controversial to people in this country, so why keep the dated law in place?

At 12/24/10 05:14 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote:

At 12/24/10 04:52 PM, Gario wrote: I'm a little late on the discussion, but a quick question - when and why the hell would being an atheist matter to anyone when it comes to military service?

It's the same argument used for banning gays: "unit cohesion". I've heard stories about ahteist service members being pressured into partaking in prayer sessions, lest they be bullied and ostracized by the rest of the group. Trust me, there are people out there who'd favor banning atheists from serving in the military because of this prejudice against non-believers.

I'll take your word on it, but it's still hard for me to believe. I can't see those stories in particular being true (considering that such pressuring is not allowed in most federally funded organizations, like public schools, for example), but I can see people fighting to ban atheists. It's not how the law is or ever was set up, though - it just sounded like it was at one point in time, the way Poxpower presented it.

At 12/19/10 06:12 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 12/19/10 05:14 AM, Jedi-Master wrote: They think it'll harm military cohesion and readiness in any role for the most part.

I'm guessing this is the same argument they could have used/ have used for:
- keeping women out
- keeping black people out
- keeping atheists out

I'm a little late on the discussion, but a quick question - when and why the hell would being an atheist matter to anyone when it comes to military service? I have the same question about the whole 'gay' and 'colored' thing, too (women actually do provide a bit of a problem for men on the battlefield due to overprotective action toward them... but that's beside the point), but I absolutely cannot see why religious preference should affect military personal in a country that's supposed to be religiously neutral.

Well, gays can now serve. I personally don't see why they should've been restricted, at all - more people willing to serve the country's military? Sounds good to me.

At 12/11/10 11:47 PM, ZeroGravity wrote: As of late, i've been learning more about evolution, so that i'm at least educated about it.

I was thinking about how exactly homosexuality fits into all that. I mean, my understanding is that you should try to reproduce and pass on your genes, but...when you're gay, you can't, obviously. So how do evolutionists justify homosexuality?

I've suddenly made this a legitimate (if somewhat easy to answer and somewhat boring) question with no (well, very little, since there's still a need to be 'justified') religious implication. If you don't want people to flame your beliefs, then don't start the post with your beliefs, especially when you know that the responding party will likely be against your beliefs.

That's just suicide.

At 11/18/10 07:00 AM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 11/18/10 01:30 AM, Gario wrote:

Since you agree that the fetus is a human, this contradiction is actually something I'm not responsible for answering - I don't know why pro-choice people act illogically, nor should I care.

You assume that they're acting illogically when there's no contradiction at all. It's merely a matter of priorities. I think a dog is more similar to a person than a fetus, you don't. I believe that it's a good idea to confer more rights upon beings that can experience pain, pleasure than on beings that can't you don't. You believe in some kind of Platonic ideal of person-hood, I don't. Deciding that person-hood begins at birth is nothing more than a social convention, but so is person-hood. I simply believe that the benefits of saying that a person's life begins at birth rather than conception is better for society, those I care about, and myself.

Right, right, I got that. I understand the argument up to this point - no need to repeat it all, there.

The burden of proof is on your table

If I recall correctly, you were saying that humans inherently held that the right to life of all members of their species were more important than personal rights to autonomy, or the rights of animals. I'm still waiting for evidence of that. I don't care if you find it illogical that some people value the lives of animals more than they value the lives of fetuses, I'm asking you to explain how this is possible if your example is true. If you can't explain it, than stop claiming it.

Evidence? Oh boy, that's something I can't provide. I can provide empirical observation and show that humans tend to be more protective of other humans than of other non-human animals, but that's it. What, you thought I had deductive 'proof' of this phenomena? Nope, it's inductive - feel free to attack it at will.

Beware, though, that if you don't agree with it your basically saying that people as a collective whole care as much if not more for non-humans than for humans, which doesn't sound correct. I can't (or, more accurately, won't) argue against your argument, but I probably won't agree with you, either.

I also remember you saying for some reason that because of the fact that humans naturally treated members of their species as people, regardless of whether they had been born or not(still waiting on proof of that), that it was somehow morally "right" that we protected fetuses. I'd still like to hear your reasoning behind that.

You're taking my statement too far. First, I never said people universally treated anyone or anything as a 'person'. I said that the fetus is considered 'human' (which you agreed with, if I recall). I then said that there is a tendency for people to treat humans as 'persons', due to the sole fact that they share a common species. Not everyone shares the idea of how far this should be taken, though.

Second, I purposely avoided morality altogether, so you're misreading my posts if you think I'm claiming that it's morally 'right' to do anything. You're likely mixing up Wolvenbear's posts with mine.

Don't do that, please.

I find a dog to be closer to a person than a fetus, simple enough. I find a chimpanzee or a dolphin to be closer to a person than a dog. I use intelligence, ability to communicate and reason, and ability to hold preferences(among many of things) as the criteria to judge person-hood by, you're free to choose your own of course...

... Well, frankly that's where your argument has it's flaws. The problem is that humanity doesn't reach a level that is uniquely 'human' until the person reaches an age of close to two years. By definition of intelligence, most pigs are considerably more intelligent that an infant, so by that logic the pig should have more rights than a human infant (which is not functionally true). In terms of communication the honey bee is far more advanced in open language than a very young child that cannot use syntax (yet they don't have rights, either). Hell, nearly all animals can feel pain, but that doesn't give them any sort of right to personhood (for those people that feel that the abortion should only be allowed as long as there isn't any pain involved). Most animals hold preferences (since, for the most part that develops through basic classical or operant conditioning, and all animals are susceptible to that), and chimps, dogs and dolphins have shown a great deal of reasoning behind their decisions (Humans aren't at their level until well after birth).

The problem with your position is that the things you look for mean nothing on their own. The only way you can attribute any sort of ability/reasoning marker to personhood and 'rights' and NOT include animals that we butcher for our own satisfaction is to make that mark later in the human's life. If you really want me to back this up, take it one point at a time. I'm not going to go through every single point in a single sitting, since that would take too much of my time (I have other things to do than argue, y'know).

but stop believing in silly things like that your position is any more logical than mine, or that as a human, I have to necessarily see the life of a fetus as equivalent to the life of an adult.

What's the point of an argument if I immediately sided with your position? You're trying to take the fun out of this, you big sourpuss.

at least continue to attack my own reasoning behind why humans have 'natural' rights

You have an open invitation to explain why you believe such a thing, please enlighten me.

I already... fine. A quick explanation.

Humans are given rights because of their association to their own species - it is beneficial to give people more rights than an animal since giving animals equal rights restricts people from exploiting them for their own gain.

This is well beyond the thread, though (as you pointed out, whether or not the fetus is human isn't even the argument, which I now acknowledge). The question is actually why I would consider the fetus a 'person' worthy of rights. My reasoning for this (which I discussed earlier, before the General-Public/Bacch debate) is simply because using any other method to define personhood makes very little sense (as explained above). I don't think it's really been explained properly why beginning personhood rights at the fetus is a bad thing (all I hear so far is the clamoring of pro-choice people saying it's TERRIBLE... then failing to provide any sound reasoning behind it).

Except a lot of people don't. Since you don't get this, this is why you're flailing at the air here. A plurality of Americans are pro-Choice. Almost half of those that are pro-life feel that they have no right to force their rights on others. Which means, they believe they have no right to protect one human from another.

You're a silly person, Wolvenbear - you realize what you're claiming, right? You're saying that pro-choice people would rather save a drowning dog/cat/non-human of your choice than a drowning human, or at the very least have a ambiguity problem when trying to chose. That's simply ridiculous - of course people will save another human over a non-human, if all other factors are equal.

Besides, those 'pro-life' people that claim it's not their right to force rights on others are actually not listed as 'pro-life'. That's called 'pro-choice', by definition.

However, feel free to keep trying. I won't be the prick you were and tell you you're useless.

As to why I'm calling you 'useless', you're throwing the Bible at a bunch of atheists (and even misquoting it, for good measure). Why are you even bothering with that? All that's going to do is make Christians look stupid (for committing the Psychologists fallacy repeatedly) and make all pro-lifers look like they have to be Christian (which they don't). So again, if you don't have anything to contribute that doesn't make Christians and pro-lifers (and therefore, me, by association to both) look like belligerent morons then stop posting.

Thank you for your consideration.

At 11/17/10 02:53 AM, The-General-Public wrote:
Doesn't the fact that the majority of Americans support Roe v Wade being upheld contradict that statement? A fetus is unquestionably biologically human, but it doesn't have the same rights as an adult, or even an infant, why?

I think that a fetus is human, I just don't think it's a person.

Touche - I forgot that there was a differentiation between the two in that trial. My bad.

I actually answered your question earlier, though - the infant has those rights by simple virtue that they are human (and I discussed why in some more detail in my earlier post), which leads us to your skeptical opinion...

And it's also one that I'm skeptical of, as I doubt that there has never existed a person who was pro-choice and a vegetarian, or pro-choice and kept and cared for a pet.

Since you agree that the fetus is a human, this contradiction is actually something I'm not responsible for answering - I don't know why pro-choice people act illogically, nor should I care. The burden of proof is on your table, at this point, and providing an illogical point and implying that 'pro-choice people hafta have SOME reason behind this' isn't going to fly, either. I have no requirement to accept that the pro-choice position is a rational one to hold, at this point (much like you have no obligation to think that the pro-choice position is rational, either), so how does this implication help you?

Explain why this situation exists, for me, or (more likely) at least continue to attack my own reasoning behind why humans have 'natural' rights - otherwise it simply solidifies the fact that the pro-choice position makes little sense.

At 11/17/10 02:32 AM, FatherTime89 wrote: Ok so there's a news story. Guy gets molested by a priest as a kid. 30 years later he beats the shit out of the priest (who is now an old man). One guy was trying to argue that this would qualify as a hate crime and thus we should get rid of hate crimes.

How was it a hate crime?

Because the guy obviously attacked the priest because he hated him.

Obviously *pfft*.

At 11/17/10 01:34 AM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 11/17/10 01:12 AM, Gario wrote: Because it's human, and humanity tends to value human life over the lives of other non-human creatures not because of any inherent ability that the humans possess, but by the simple virtue that they are the same species. It is contrary to the progression of our own species to withhold respect for one's own species, speaking from a Darwinian point of view, so it makes no sense as a species to place equal respect for a non-human.

I'm going to hijack this for a moment, since we're in some agreement, to make the point: with the possible exception of 'progressing our own species,' none of that answer regards a normative 'why.' It discusses more a matter of motivation, rather than justification. And if 'progression of our own species' is a moral imperative, it is to some extent circular, or otherwise begs the question again, "why?"

Why do we care more for something that is human over something that is non-human? Who knows, but you can easily observe that most humans place humans above non-humans, in terms of priority. Perhaps it's for religious reasons, for some. For others, maybe the familiarity a human being provides is much greater than a non-human does, so the person sympathizes with him/her. Whatever the reason, I can't say, but it's easy to show that people care for humans simply by virtue of the fact that they are human.

That's not the normative statement that I was looking for.

It's an answer so we can change the flow of the discussion. I guess it isn't the normal answer, but whatever.

And it's also one that I'm skeptical of, as I doubt that there has never existed a person who was pro-choice and a vegetarian, or pro-choice and kept and cared for a pet.

Aha, here is the very point you're missing - the pro-choice movement (at least, everyone that's posted on here + anyone that I've seen so far, except possibly Bacchanalian) goes as far as to redefine what is considered human so that aborting the fetus isn't seen as 'killing a human', anymore. Thus there is no conflict with the pro-choice person committing an abortion and being a vegetarian/pet-lover/PETA worker, at the same time. That's why there's so much focus on whether the fetus is a human or not, when it comes to these debates.

Indeed, if a pro-lifer convinced the pro-choice person that the fetus was a human life then suddenly what you've posted there becomes a very real problem, doesn't it? At best, it'll create a great deal of cognitive dissonance with the pro-choice person...

I invert it. No exceptions. It's just what I grew up on with Apple II flight simulators, so I never could get used to the whole 'up = up' thing.

Wolvenbear, your posts are not helping anyone. Stop it.

Reading the shit that's taken a good 3 pages, I want to look at the whole question that started it all...

At 11/10/10 08:55 PM, The-General-Public wrote: So why does a human fetus deserve more care than another living creature?

Because it's human, and humanity tends to value human life over the lives of other non-human creatures not because of any inherent ability that the humans possess, but by the simple virtue that they are the same species. It is contrary to the progression of our own species to withhold respect for one's own species, speaking from a Darwinian point of view, so it makes no sense as a species to place equal respect for a non-human.

There, I said what you wanted us to say, now move on with your freakin' argument. Geez, talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

Oh, a straight pride shirt, eh?

I think it would've been fine except for the whole 'PUT ALL GAYS TO DEATH!' line in there (stop creating euphemisms, people - that's what the shirt said, if they're directly quoting Leviticus). I think the schools were trying to protect the idiot students that wore that shirt by restricting it - kids don't know any better, at that age.

At 11/16/10 04:28 PM, lolomfgisuck wrote: If he's so smart... why doesn't he just run for office and win the election like everyone else?

Speak intelligently about the issues and come up with intelligent solutions to them and you'll probably win. If he can't do that, he doesn't deserve to run the country regardless of how high he ranks on an IQ test.

If I were that smart I certainly wouldn't want to be the President. That'd take too much time away from anything that I really wanted to do. Let someone else deal with the politics involved, there.

Oh boy, here's where the argument gets good, eh?

At 11/15/10 04:02 AM, chairmankem wrote:

At 11/15/10 02:37 AM, Gario wrote: The guy is the world's smartest guy around, so how is it pretentious for me to believe that he should have the ability to rise above personal problems?

Because genius or not, people are still human.

Does the term 'non sequitur' mean anything to you?

Let's try this again...

At 11/15/10 02:37 AM, Gario wrote: The guy is the world's smartest guy around, so how is it pretentious for me to believe that he should have the ability to rise above personal problems? Other people have done it before (other less-smart people, by the way), so why can't I hold him to at least that standard?

At 11/14/10 11:54 PM, chairmankem wrote: Of course I wouldn't. I would only vote for people who are without sin and perfect in every single way.

Wait, how could you possibly expect...

Oh ho ho, I see what you did thar.

A lot of good presidents had problems with alcohol, scandal, etc., so I don't see why I wouldn't vote for a president that I agree with otherwise.

Why was this such a huge deal? Seriously, stop with the insane speculation - there's more than enough of that as it is. When do you guys get tired of making shit up, if you don't have an answer to something?

At 11/14/10 10:02 PM, chairmankem wrote:

At 11/13/10 10:39 PM, Gario wrote: He hated it because of a bad experience. Instead of getting over that experience, though, he decided to forget all about it and go into bouncing, then he continues to get angry over how bouncing isn't the greatest job for him.

Bad experience? More like several bad experiences and a rather terrible life overall. It's rather pretentious to tell someone who had an abusive stepfather and a terrible childhood to "get over it." And so what if he complains about bouncing? A job is a job and it's something that he can do, it doesn't really matter if he complains about it or not.

Yeah, his step-father has nothing to do with college. Negligent high school, maybe, but not his step-father, and that wasn't an 'extreme, life changing' experience, either. A poor high school experience and a single bad college run and he's hiding in the hills. I don't even care that he doesn't want to go, either - more power to him. I simply don't see why he has to complain about how he's relatively worthless because he has a job that doesn't fit his intelligence and he has the faculties to change that, if he wanted to.

Perhaps you're missing the point. The guy is the world's smartest guy around, so how is it pretentious for me to believe that he should have the ability to rise above personal problems? Other people have done it before (other less-smart people, by the way), so why can't I hold him to at least that standard? Stop appealing to emotion and answer why I can't hold the supposed 'smartest man on earth' to a higher standard that normal.

At 11/14/10 01:42 AM, poxpower wrote: It's like if I said "ok we haven't proven that penis size is related to being good at basketball, but it's my opinion that it is. Think about it, ants can't even lift a ball. Cats can punt it around. Monkeys can grab it and throw it. White people can play but they're not the best. Black people are the top players!.

That's pretty much exactly the level of what he said.
As if I would let that shit go.

His argument is exactly like you said (lol basketball penis), and I agree that it was a terrible argument, but whether by lucky guess or actual knowledge, as far as humans go head size is correlated with 'intelligence' (IQ, in this case), with an r factor of 0.3. Just sayin', for everyone claiming that it's completely false, it's actually proven to be true, so there isn't really room for guessing, here.