At 5/6/07 12:06 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 5/5/07 11:22 PM, SomeNick wrote: Thats maybe because tons of Christians hate themselves, thus maximizing the effect of whoever is against Christianity.

We don't hate ourselves, we hate those who blindly preach tolerance of all religions and creeds yet can't seem to tolerate a middle class white male praying in public, or putting up a manger scene at Christmas, or even wishing people "Merry Christmas."

Ok lets start, blindly preach tolerance yet dont tolerate christians (i assume, though i know some white middle class male taoists) those are incompatiable statements of course. I all gather you likely refer to either islamic terrorist groups (not just fundamentalists, cause you probably dont mind christian fundamentalists and that would be hypocracy) Do you mean to say that liberals are all cool with people who murder other people based on religion only if they are islamic? I dont see in what manner that is true, unless refering to the PLO/Hamas, which is something of a unique case similar to northern ireland (but way worse in modernity, and modernity only, as ireland saw many many mass murders in its past).

I havent ever heard of any problems with white middle class males praying in public. Now in public events there are two things to consider; audience and free association.

http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/18/where-
is-atheism-when-bad-things-happen/
You find far more assholes whose toleration of others is somewhat limited. Theocrats abound.

Also..what of merry christmas, lets get something straight...stores decided that the greeting policy would be happy holidays, as not all of thier customers are christians and it is a season of holidays. (happy holidys may also imply christmas and the new year) But considering many religious zealots walk around with a nightstick shoved way up thier asses they take offense to that phrase. They then impose a boycott on business that choose to use that phrase...and you cite that circumstance.

At 5/5/07 11:45 PM, sandxl wrote: - One of the reasons the US invaded Iraq was for the oil. ANYONE who isn't ignorant will know this.

Equivocation, and Strawman. If all our government wanted was oil, I'm pretty sure they could have taken the 418 BILLION DOLLARS they've spent on the war thus far and gotten oil legally for decades to come, without firing a single shot.

Though I agree that sandxl's statement in atleast a partial falsehood (it could be seen as true if it implies that the US is seeking to establish Iraq as an oil exporter to the U.S., which it would have certainly not been after restrictions were taken off; it would have traded with Germany, France and Russia primarily, thus raising the Euro compared to the Dollar, etc.)

I dont see how its an equivocation
Equivocation
all lemons are yellow
your car is a lemon
therefore your car is yellow

equivocation is using two words with different meanings or inflections in an argument and implying they have the same meaning and inflection.

At 5/6/07 12:00 AM, HighlyIllogical wrote: Does the statement: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." ring a bell?

Yes, but not the way it's interpretted today. Wasn't it originally written to prevent the government from establishing a nationalized religion of which all residents had to become a member thereof or risk being fined, put in prison, or deported? You know, that way people could be free to practice whatever religion they wanted to practice, wherever they wanted to practice it?

Yes, thats precisely how it had been interpreted. Do you understand what involuntary school prayer constitutes? Though I think a nativity scene set up by public officials as a government building isnt a big deal, I understand the reasons against that too less intrusive but still under that same understanding of refraining from creating a national religion.

Some things that still need to be worked on.

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/256589.htm

go to the middle of the page for public case law pertaining to custody hearings. Take a wild guess how a parents lack of religious belief or commitment fairs them when in front of "impartial" Christian "judges."

Also there is the pervasive idea that finding jesus or being a good christian should get you off from hard time. Though I dont have case law to back it up, I have been a law clerk for four years; for offenses such as DUI manslaughter, child neglict/abuse, divorce proceedings (of course),

By no means am I one to get worked up about someones religion, or even their propensity to bother me on account of my lack of religion should they find out I merely wright it off as personal ignorance (they think they are doing something moral) thereby I dont worry about people such as yourself who are ignorant; however, to merit intellectual respect you may wish to change your claims in light of contradicting evidence.

Jeremy is a asshole, simply put. He doesnt sound very bright either. And at the end of the day a good person beats the smart one thats an ass.

yay for jose trying to point some random ass news agency complaining about a lack of diversity in the white house as "all liberals do is complain about us and our superiour and non-questionable decisions" silly jose.

Well we must all reflect on jesus and see what he would do...weed and shrooms for all!!!

anyways, i think we should be allowed "drugs" after a certain age just like other drugs, and watch our behaviour for illegal actions beyond drug use.

On the note i think i need to try acid atleast once.

Women are the majority, go figure. They shouldnt bitch about it much though, its not terribly important, we just need to make sure a good minority candidate isnt passed over for a middle-aged white christian male, it might be possible that they are over-represented in government...maybe its just my imagination though.

They can be tolerated I suppose, but they are still shitty poeple whow I wouldnt allow myself to befriend

At 7/26/05 11:53 PM, BeFell wrote:

Our public educatation system spends a great deal of time pushing tolerence and acceptence. There are however lifestyles that should not be tolerated due to their negative impact on society such as drug use and deviant sexual behavior with minors. It seems there are people who are too stupid to tell the difference between behavior that does or doesn't affect others so whatever dumbass behavior they engage in they automatically cry out intolerence when members of society attempt to protect themselves.

I agree that deviant sexual behaviour with minors is wrong. We have consenting laws for a reason, rape according to state statutes is a good thing...moving on. We do have lots of stupid people in America. I dont think drug users cry about intolerance. Its different between the states and cities you go to. Anti-Jewish, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Catholic, Anti-Protestant, Anti-Atheist, Anti-Black, and on and on...exist everywhere. Every day i approach the conclusion that the average american is just too fucking dumb to deal with living in a mixed society.

Oh bullshit, do you think tv shows like "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye" could have survived a decade ago? If you don't think things have gotten significally better for black people then you must not watch too much MTV.

I guess you dont drive through Balitimore? MTV is fucking fake life. Fuck man, TV...thats not life.

At 7/27/05 12:03 AM, NothingSpecial wrote:

You are a liberal theres no way in hell you are republican because you do not believe in anything the republicans believe.

You dont have the smallest fucking clue what your political party is based on. Sadly people like you are ruining what the party used to stand for.

At 7/26/05 11:56 PM, NothingSpecial wrote: In public places yes they do. They do not have the right to come into your home and video tape you but they do have the right to put camera on streets n such.

They have the "right" to? Not so much, they are us so we can do as we please. I personally would like to have a few video cameras in public places while still allowing for safety and discouraging crime.

Tolerance is bad. Becuase Tolerance is the virtue of believe in NOTHING! If everything is tolerated then what do you believe in.

2: a disposition to allow freedom of choice and behavior [syn: permissiveness] [ant: unpermissiveness] 3: the act of tolerating something 4: willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others [ant: intolerance] 5: a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits [syn: allowance, leeway, margin]

The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others

so your argument is that if you allow other people freedom of belief and action then you believe in nothing? Thats rather silly. Then again you could mean that its bad for a society to not have everyone hold the exact same beliefs.

Taxes will rise becuase of the medical bills of the homosexuals. You know whats the most common problem between the homosexuals? Gay Bowel Syndrome. Its something that attacks you intestinal tract. And while our doctors helping these people, taxes will go up to help pay the doctors.. The disease thing for sex ed? Wtf? Sure I can learn about viruses but that doesn't help me from being protected from them. Wear a condom .. oh thats great advice. It protects you from some but not all. Abstinance hahah ya right. With porn being the biggest problem in America right now? I highley doubt people will stay abstinant.

Whats with all this gibberish? Honestly.

2: a disposition to allow freedom of choice and behavior [syn: permissiveness] [ant: unpermissiveness] 3: the act of tolerating something 4: willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others [ant: intolerance] 5: a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits [syn: allowance, leeway, margin]

The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others

I think i just wasted 2 minutes

well its due to the ignorance of the protestants imo. A major difference is catholics pray to saints, i dont know of any protestants that do. The bigest reason non-catholic christians represent us is they were the major landholders at the start of our country. Mostly consisting of ex-englishman. These days most christains are too closed minded to vote for a non-christian despite the fact that a large number of thier leaders today are secretely atheists. *snickers* sadly thier pretence of religion is followed through and they legislate to keep the noisy self-victimizing christain groups pacifed. Its a mad world kids.

At 7/26/05 02:35 PM, TREG155 wrote:
Oh, goody. Another "Christianity is being repressed!" argument. Do I dare dream of a land where... Christianity is unoppressed? I dream that one day, we shall even have a Christian President!

Or, maybe, 50 of them in a row.

yeah let him name some none christians in any representative governemental positions. Damn man, they are so bad they didnt want jfk because he was a catholic.

At 7/25/05 07:42 PM, BeFell wrote: You think our country has less tolerence today then it did in the past? You're a fucking moron. Now go watch some "Will and Grace" reruns.

Too harsh, especially when we reflect on the ability for our country to educate people we should think there would be some tolerance.

But I do agree that there is more now than before...just not much more.

Jack Daniels + coca cola = god night sleep

and for anyone that remembers me, ello again.

At 7/26/05 07:36 PM, NumaHater666 wrote: I think we all know what's wrong with abstinence: Masturbation starts to chafe after about the fifth or sixth time in a day.

oh i know, so..you busy?

At 12/10/04 11:55 AM, ArtistJ wrote:

the fact that gay marrige is even outlawed is such an insult.

yeah it is quite sad for such an advanced nation technologically to be so retarded in fostering social tolerance.

by "real" i was merely implying a fallacy used by christians to justify past actions by saying they werent real christians. Its the no real scotsman fallacy. Like if i say no real atheist can do wrong, well A is an atheist and they commited murder Then id say they arent a real atheist. its a common tactic to pretend their religion isnt really linked to agressive warfare.

At 12/2/04 06:07 PM, Proteas wrote:
I miss the days of the old west, where a person who was convicted of serious crimes was taken out and hanged the next morning. The only cost to the government was supplies and labor for building a gallows... now we spend millions of taxpayer dollars on housing and appeals for these convicted criminals while they sit back and enjoy a life without responsibilities.

yeah its also nice to keep with the assumed guilty until sitting through an arranged trial. I prefer not letting innocent people die as much as possible.

At 12/10/04 10:15 AM, Rooster349 wrote:

Christians make up the majority. There Moslems and Jews combined than all the rest of the religions (excluding Agnostics/atheism), and most (all moslems, some jews) would no doubt agrere with us.

Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%, other 10%, none 10% (2002 est.)

When mormons were polygamizing in Nevada, the US government signed a bill outlawing it. Same deal. Marriage isn't between a man and a woman and another woman and...., it's between one man and one woman. The US government has protected marriage from alternate definitions before and it will eventually do it again.

first off i think it should have been allowed. But i can see how it would make the civil unions complicated. You know this reminds me are you against civil unions as in benefits for a couple that is homosexual?

At 12/7/04 03:24 AM, FAB0L0US wrote:
You still havent told me where they would have magically found more oil AND more refineries to fuel these new fighters.

Anc actually, I would rather have bombers than fighters. I would want just enough fighters to cover bombers because fighters can really do little except control air. Bombers are the reason you own the air. To pound the shit out of rallying yards and industry and bridges and stuff.

id rather use v-2's also if they won stalingrad it would have opened up the caucus to use. personally i would have concentrated either more or less on britain and won over the soviets quickly or set up a line to prevent them from advancing until britian submitted. Also a huge difference would have been made if he didnt have to kill everyone. They fight back harder that way also if you kill your own people they cant be drafted. Though i admit the slave labor was effective. He could have used enemy troops as slave labor. Hitler was to evil a guy to win it seems. Slightly less evil would have brought a much different outcome.

At 12/10/04 03:12 AM, MarkArandjus wrote:

He would cause WW2 wich is responsible for the invention of nuclear energy,decoding devices such as the enigma(that would later develop in to the modern day PC) and imagine if we wouldn't find out that nacism was bad back then.

well umm we would easily have had all those things anyway since enigma was around before ww2. Nuclear energy was already being researched, not that its a good thing in most respects. proper disposal is lacking sometimes.

At 12/4/04 03:22 PM, Wolf- wrote:
When I said I wanted to fix his mistakes I mean such things as the defeat at Stalingrad, which pretty much cost Hitler the war, and all of the other minor details that led to his defeat.

you mean basically you want to shoot herman goering in the face? cause im pretty sure that would solve most of the problems. btw do you even know how to fix stalingrad? I doubt it.

At 12/10/04 02:59 AM, MarkArandjus wrote:
You also have to realise that many of the things in the bible are mearly simbolic and have never happened.
Or have they?

it might be more appropriate to have god as an after the fact justification for actions against people like the hittites. Genocide gets hard to justify unless god told you to do it :)

At 12/10/04 05:51 AM, ShadowsFall wrote:
What makes me sick is first you guys side with the terrorist then next you choose to belittle actions that needed to be done in the second world war. I will say this about a world war- Ive said this before in a previous topic- In a world war because of the scale of the fighting extreme measures must be taken in order for one side to win. My Grandad fought in that war, yours probably did too- have a little respect will you.

so you think that nuking japan was the only possible action that could have been taken short of invasion? Well it was the only action we could take to show off nuclear capabilities to the russians...is that what you mean?

My grandfather fought in the war as well, i dont think it dishonors what he and millions of others did around the world by saying nuking 2 cities is a disturbing and wrong thing to do. I mean do you think something as shameful as the japanese internment was something to not criticize. Should we not criticize anything in war as long as we win? Winners still commit war crimes, just usually they arent prosecuted.

How do you feel on using depleted uranium shells and bullets in Iraq. Is that justifyable as well. Oh its a desert who cares if its rendered as unihabitable as chernobyl. We won damnit! people died, our people, and thats what matters it seems.

At 12/10/04 12:06 AM, beefums wrote:
I am pretty sure not as many people as you think have left because of Bush. Some of the most avid liberals who stated they were going to leave still have no plans of moving.

i wonder how many people said they wanted to leave regardless of who got elected because they just didnt like living in america?

At 12/10/04 12:00 AM, BarferPro wrote:
If there is a God, fuck that bitchass motherfucker. Why should I conform to his commands and rules? The only person who rules me is myself... and my girlfriend. So I say, fuck it.

well the only reason to conform to his commands is if he were right. As its said god would use reason to create what is moral. When what a religions image of a possible creator is an immoral one by reasons account then it is incoherent to say it exists as a perfect being and not something worthy of worship. Unfortunately for most theists...

In the end it all comes down to this: I'll go to hell if I don't. Which is a control system based on fear.

yeah you dont find that sort of thing stressed in things that are legitimate.

Fuck God.

maybe, or god could be pretty decent. Just thats not how most people percieve him. He was imagined to reinforce a cultures distorted view of the world and make it seem absolutely correct since its from a perfect being.

poxpower you shouldnt get so worked up.

remember

"Philosophical Theology is like intellectual tennis without a net"
Ronald de Sousa

its going to be tough to come to an agreement with someone that misuses logic.

At 12/9/04 09:50 PM, Thelonius wrote:

It is impossible to argue with someone who is ignorant, like you. But that is okay, because it makes you happy, right?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976 Food for thought.

umm thats nice. Someone changed thier mind to deism because they dont see any good way of a big bang happening without some creator. Not neccesarily a perfect one mind you

also i like this quote "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,"

Intelligent design is a decent enough theory but i dont see it making much of a difference. Unless this god can interfere with quantum relationships to influence the randomness to produce some end result, namely man. I think theists are a bit to humanistic sometimes, they tend to worship humanity and put it upon this pedestal above everything else thats possible. The simple first cause then nothing is a simple shoulder shrug for most people.

Also you say that certain parts are methaphoric why not the rest. It could be one huge metaphor with no heaven or hell (they could be internal guilt and praise or social guilt and praise, etc.) Ah i dont want to go on about it though, to late i guess anyway im off to study.

At 12/2/04 07:33 PM, spanishfli wrote: Death penalty for minors,

well they have no way of changing the laws and they dont vote for people who put the death penalty in effect so no.
And on that noone should be given it anyway unless in rare cases (like they want to die :) )

Right to consent,

should be 18 for contracts and very close but with some flexibility for relationships of kids in that age (unless they are born the same day one will be 18 first) statuatory rape should only go to those deserving and it should be a decent difference. Also none of the 16 - 15 and you go to jail like they have in florida (it was used as an extra punishment for older men having sex with 15 and below but it was abuse, as all laws in florida are. Horribly, horribly abused.)

Freedom of Expression in public schools,

depends on what you express, its a school to learn you have to be there and its not a public forum. They should be fairly lenient with statements on clothing. And also enforce some kinds of rules to keep them from indecent exposure charges.

drinking age

should be 18 since you are then an adult. Unless age of consent is raised then this should be lowered.

driving age

this is rather unimportant and should pretty much stay as is, unless there are important statistics to justify otherwise.

At 12/9/04 07:48 PM, The_Darklands wrote: umm is it just me or do other people think that was true in some sense before reading anything like that. I mean i though the industrial war industry

industrial war complex (or something like that) and i forgot to mention elitist straussians like paul wolfowitz (sp.P

umm is it just me or do other people think that was true in some sense before reading anything like that. I mean i though the industrial war industry was a pretty obvious thing. Maybe im just naturally crazy, it doesnt take prompting for me. Now i dont think of it a neccesarily well organized group but...still existing and possibly assasinating.

also the matrix is very useful as a thought experiment to philosophy. Mainly in the free will debate and philosophy of mind (AI)