mike90

Well in the US at least Id say the nonvoters are split between the type of moron who is so lazy and uninformed its probably a good thng they're not voting, and people like myself who realize its the same dishonest crook in the pocket of lobbyists and big business no matter who you pick.

26,M I see a lot of people here arguing out of idealism, not realism. Realistically there are already too many bad parents doing the bare minimum in raising their children. Too many people out there with a total lack of direction because no one ever gave a damn about them. While you can't argue that a baby born into poverty or a life of mistreatment will definately have a poor life because of it, you have to admit it raises the chances. Any child thats a product of a rape( or even is simply unwanted) is going to have a higher chance of being raised impoverished, being resented, not having adequate mentorship to make something out of themselves, being the black sheep of the family and etc etc. Even if you could make every woman carry every unwanted pregnancy to term, your then just left with a mass of unwanted children being born. adoption isn't a cure all either.Many end up growing up in foster care, which seems to increase the risk of suffering physical or sexual abuse. Life in and of itself is not intrinsically of value IMO. It's the quality of that life. So if your going to crusade for unwanted to children to be brought into the world, remember that someone has to take care of these children after you forget about them. And you cant argue that every living thing would want to be living. I've known people that were raised /treated so badly by family that they say they wish their parents had aborted them.

I think the issue is not so much that they want them to suffer no punishment at all, but that they were initially trying to charge the kids with attempted murder.

The thing you have to realize bascule is that in a lot of cases the adults reading Harry potter books aren't missing out on any of your great literature, simply because they have no interest in reading that type of book. Indeed a lot of these people if not reading Harry potter would be reading something like Dean Koontz. I haven't read any of the books on your list of great works, and have no intention of doing so. (also not a harry potter fan btw) What you are failing to accept I think is a large portion of the population does not read for their intellect, they read purely for entertainment. I would like to learn something new or be made to see something in a different light every time I read, but ultimately I do it for entertainment, and I'm not going to force myself to slog through something like shakespeare simply because its "brainier" then what I currently read. Personally 9 out of 10 times I try to force myself to read a " great work" I'll get maybe 40 pages into it before I decide to stop punishing myself. Honestly I think it is a good thing if you can get people to read anything, as it might get them started as a regular reader. Hell I've met people that have only read one book in there entire lives, which I find mind boggling. Wether or not its a permanent trend, If it takes Harry potter to get a 30 year old to go to the library I dont see how its a bad thing

There was an episode of Law and ortder SVU several years ago dealing with a company that made porn with 18-20 year old girls then digitally altered the images to look like children. On the show what eventually happened was it tempted a pedophile too much and was a factor in him raping , and then inadvertently murdering a little girl. Granted this was only a tv show, but it raised many good points. I don't beileve that we as a society should be trying fulfill the fantasies of disturbed people in any way, wether that be through fake snuff films or fake kiddie porn. What your going to end up doing is legitimizing sick behavior and giving ammunition to organizations like the child love movement or whatever its called. Personally i beileve we should treat sexual abusers with bullets. I don't think that most people that stick up for these people in one way or another understand how likely reoffending is, and that 9/10 times sexual abuse pretty much ruins the persons life permanently

Wormwood... 1) Im not saying I have the solution to the problem, merely pointing out the inequity. 2) I know white people are discriminated against too, all races can be depending on the area your living in. And I agree racism is no reason to just give up on your life or to act irrationally, that just feeds the problem so it can go on for eternity. Believe me I wish the black community would stop going out of its way to embarass itself. 3) Profiling IS racism if your only pulling over people based on their race. And yes there are plenty of black cops out there, that doesn't mean a lot of cops aren't racist. |Honestly I don't see where one is rerlated top the other. 4) I don't personally blame slavery for anything, and I hate when black people try to act as if they somehow are suffering because of it. The only reason I brought slavery up is to make the point that its a link in a chain . From slavery to sharecropping to menial labor to perennial second class citizens. Sure after the act in 1968 that began to change more, but you have to think of the massive number of people growing up until and during that time that ended up being raised in projects and ghettos. That's not an environment that a large percentage of people go on from to have fantastic successful lives. 5) Sure a lot of those people are old. But do you really think none of them raised children to beileve the same things they do? If idiotic beliefs died with the parents we wouldn't have seen near continuous war over stuff like religion the last couple millenia. 6) Sure there are lots of black folks in prisons. That doesn't make it ok to assume every black person is a crime waiting to happen. And it shouldn't make it ok to pull over or harass people just based on their skin color if their not doing anything remotely suspicious. 7) Employers hire immigrants because they know they will work for next to no money and under horrible conditions usually. If its well known that certain races can be easily exploited and taken advantage of how is that not racism? their race is exactly why their being treated the way they are. And I never said employers do equate to white 8) Never said it should help you, just shouldn't make your life an actively crappier experience. 9) Nice one. When exactly did I ever say I agree with affirmative action? For your information I'm totally against the concept. I'd like to think the quality of the work I do is enough to keep me employed, not my skin color P.S. This'll be my final post here, so I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who took the time to answer questions that I had and make me feel welcome here, it was much appreciated.

Paranoia: Yay a swarm of strawman arguments, but then again I should have expected it. First off I never ever said it's only unfair on black people or that every white person has it easy. Don't try to put those words in my mouth for me. What I AM saying is if you break it down along racial lines it's clearly not equal. You have one race holding the majority of power, influence, and wealth in a a verry racially diverse country. That's not being bitter or angry or racist, that's noticing the obvious Your " long hair" argument is asinine. I've heard this argument many times before, please dear god dont get offended, but this is an argument I only ever hear from white people. Becuase the average white person has no idea what dealing with racism is like, they tend to assume everyone else is being over dramatic about it. ( which to be fair does happen in the media way too much) The main problem with your argument is if someone discriminates against you overr you hair/clothing style/ etc , at least you could change whatever that was if you didn't like the treatment. I can't change my skin color. And not to get all my people, as I generally hate it when black people do this, but just because the racism isn't right in front of your face doesn't mean its not going on. I've had a nightstick pulled on me by a security guard for no reason, had a gun pulled on me by a cop for no reason, had friends of mine get beat up by cops and pulled over by cops for no reason. As for your last couple of smart ass lines, you know what? You have no right to judge me. You DON'T KNOW me. I've worked hard my entire life to try to make the best life for myself that I can. I never asked anyone for any handout or tried to pin my problems on anyone else. You don't want to see whats plain in front of your face? Let me break it down for you. I brought up slavery because its all a chain, exploitation of minorities never went anywhere it's just convenient for white people to let themselves believe that. Yes we were dragged over here to be slaves, then given freedom that wasn't even freedom. And black people had to fight and struggle to finally win "equal rights" with the civil rights act in '68. But heres the thing people seem to forget so quickly: It wasn't given to us we had to fight for it. Think about that fact. Only 40 years ago such a LARGE PERCENTAGE of the populace was so clearly racist we had to pass a law forcing people to treat blacks equally, and that law was passed amongst rioting and beatings and a lot of bloodshed in general. That is how dead opposed so many people were. And were supposed to beileve that since they changed the laws all these people just magically changed their minds? Yeah.... No what people do now is the PC route, they keep their racism subtle. Do you know I literally cannot walk into one upscale store in my area without being followed by sales clerks or security? And I get a little extra special attention from local cops, especially if I happen to be hanging out with black friends. Also I think its worth mentioning that up until maybe a generation ago most minorities were shunted off into most of the menial low paying work in the country.( A lot are still there, and you might be surprised how many employers violate about every labor law when it comes to immigrants, because they know they will accept just about any treatment to keep a job) Which helped lead to generations growing up in poverty in the projects which is still having repercussions today. Sure all of these things can happen to anyone of any race, but being a minority or immigrant clearly does not help you. I'm not sure how thats even debatable by a reasonably observant person. Haezed: No its really not helping the black community dweling on all of this, I wish they would really just let it go a little. But theres a line between blaming everyone else for everything that goes wrong in your life and acknowledging that its not an equal playing field just because we would like it to be. The language " white people" isn't intended to offend, but in this case yes it is an issue of white people being racist towards other races trying to assimilate into America.That has been the case with every race that has immigrated over here, having to live through the hazing period to be accepted as "real americans" . Its well documented in history that this has happened, so I don't feel its offensive, I really wouldn't know how else to put it. Slavery is not a justification for any irrational behavior. Neither is racism. But what is truly frustrating is this mindset of... Im sorry to say it.. but this mindset of the average white person that slavery and racism occurred duyring this " dark age" of American culture, and everything is just great and equal now. Which the average minority could tell you isn't true at all. Im sorry if people don't like to hear it. but there is sitll plenty of very blatant racism going on every day

Now I'm not defending people like Sharpton for a moment, but this comment bugs me a bit. I've heard similar comments from white people before, and it's not a matter of us " letting ourselves be offended" as it were. It's the fact that as long as blacks have been in this country we've been exploited and every attempt has been made to marginalize us in society. The same thing could be said for many other minorities, but then again many other minorities didn't have to first deal with their people being dragged over here as slave labor, and then having to fight for hundreds of years to get to equal status. The reason there are no words to have an equal effect on whites is simple: white people are and always have been the main power base of America. It's a lot easier to take insults in stride when your race controls nearly everything in the country including the vast majority of the wealth and political power. Racial slurs will trigger an automatic, instinctive, and imo not undeserved rage in the average black person not found in most other races. Despite the happy rainbow picture painted we are still a long way off from enjoying equal status to whites.Just because they stopped calling us n*****s and let us use the same restrooms doesn't mean we are treated as equals or given an equal oppurtunity to succeed. Thats just more American urban legend like this "American Dream" thats supposed to exist here too. In summary yes we are more hostile and and sensitive but it's NOT because of some "inferiority complex". It's because as a people were just a bit tired of getting screwed over. It always boggles my mind that 40 years ago we were still actively being held down in society and somehow the majority of white people seem to think everything must be cool now and that the entire situation has reversed itself in a mere 40 years. White people forced blacks and many other minorities into lives of poverty and strife for a long time out of greed, and ity going to take a lot longer then 40 years for us to be on equal standing. There are many families living in poverty today because bigotry put them there.

A bit too much deference is given to certain resident experts, to the point where they are allowed to borderline troll at times due to their contributions in other areas of the site

I think its safe to say the conversation has moved beyond just aspects of religious idealogies being harmful, but rather the strict adherence to any belief/opinion/point of view to the point that it does not allow for another to have a contradictory point of view without them being bad/wrong/evil and in need of some sort of enforced "correction". To me this then means the ultimate problem lies with human nature itself, or at least some negative aspects of it. This makes the solution a lot more complex. But to try to keep it in context to the original point of the thread, religious idealogies specifically: I do see some signs of a shift, at least in America, as younger members of strictly conservative religions begin to question total adherence to concepts that don't seem to apply socially anymore, and the need to take in the overall theme of religion more then try to interpret everything literally. Perhaps the problem is the isolationism inherent in countries where religous intolerance is so prevalent, maybe if there was a gradual input of other cultural beliefs and ways of thinking over time it could help. How this could be accomplished the way things are now, I am not sure

And of course the things you post aren't your opinion, they are absolute fact. And of everything everyone else has been posting is fact too. None of it was opinions:rolleyes:

1) Australia is not the only place on the planet. Just because not every possible effect of global warming is happening theredoes not mean it is not happening on the planet period. 2) Yes you are good with numbers, thus making you good with statistics we get it. That in no way means you know how to interpret those statistics correctly. The very fact that you relate every claim to australia as if its indicative of the entire rest of the world alone shows you do not have enough knowledge of the subject matter to do so. 3) Bascule is entirely correct in saying that you have in no way proven anything so far, and you dodge every question with either " go read my blog" or just your own opinion, which doesn't seem based on anything factual or any knowledge of the subject on an even basic level. 4) One more time just to be clear, its Global Warming, not Australia Warming and as Edtharan mentioned, its more to do with weather abnormalities in general then just the temperature.

That sounds a lot like me. I've searched the internet off and on for years to see if theres anybody out there that has thought out a solution that sounds practical. I've met some great people , but I haven't found what I'm looking for. I try to tell myself there is still hope for improvement in human relations, but all the information I've gathered so far tells me that it indeed might just be wishful thinking on my part. Im an optimist be nature and Id like to think mankinds better nature will eventually win out, by I don't see any signs of humankind moving any closer in that direction.

Well I may give it a chance sometime just to be open minded, but its hard to imagine the clear ( and overly emotional) bias in that article not pervading the rest of the book. His comments in the article made it pretty clear he considers religious people to be irrational and of subpar intelligence, hardly the opening to a great debate.

Well its tough on matters like this because what I beileve is tied to my own "religious" beliefs. I basically see the widespread growth of human empathy as the only chance mankind has to attain world peace. I think only when we can understand how others feel because we too can feel exactly how they feel will we reach peace. I also beileve in the idea of a global shared consciousness, but I think were a long way from that. On a practical level however, without empathy I find it hard to imagine things changing for the better. Also certain dictatorships have placed heavy restriction on media and internet access to their people as a means to help them maintain power Id love to imagine humanity banding together and celebrating our differences rather then fighting over them, as they are what make our different cultures unique. But I find that unlikely without superb leadership ( lacking so far with no visible sings of improvement IMO its actually getting worse) or a massive boom in the empathic population

I wasn't trying to imply that a person should conform their morality to suit others. Its more the point at which a person feels compelled to force others to follow their views, whatever they may be, that I take issue with. Your second statement is actually basically how I feel about the matter

Anytime you can rationally take two different idealogies and contrast the differences I think that's a good thing, but the problem then becomes how do you accomplish this with something as divisive as religious beliefs? Simply teaching people all the different styles of belief sounds good ( to me anyway) in theory, but then you run into the problem that our tolerance isn't the issue, its how rigidly a certain type of person will stick to the dogma inherent in their particular religion. Again I am lost as to how you can reconcile a multitude of belief systems that have it built in that any other belief system is wrong/evil, or have anything written that even hints at that. Again it's down to that stubborn human tendency no matter what the topic to insist that your answer is the only right answer.

Someone on here put a link in a thread to a website with some excerpts from Sam Harrises book. The guy sounds pretty much like an egotistical jerk. He starts right off by implying that anyone that beileves in God in the modern age is basically a drooling unrealistic moron. I was pretty underwhelmed.

I honestly don't know the real reasons why we went to war. It could be as you said part of some ingenious plan, but of course with our government Id be more inclined to beileve the latter option. And yeah you hit the nail on the head of where most of my anger is directed at. Im beyond tired of our countries leadership using a tired recycled mix of patriotism, propaganda, and evangelism ( We actually elected by a majority a man asinine enough to say things like " God is in the white house"? Some days I can't quite credit it) But far more than Im pissed off at the politicians for using such tired ploys, I'm tired of the American Sheeple soaking up everything our government tells us as if its beyond questioning. A lot of Americans really seem to beileve our government is concerned with our welfare, and not the narrow interests of their friends and the people that purchased them

Paranoia: I'm not trying to say America is less moral then other countries, or that every nation on earth isn't looking out for number one. I simply disagree with this mode of thinking and its America I'm taking to task for it because thats where I live. And its more the blatant hypocrisy then anything else I wanted to point out, the smarmy condescending worldview that we are somehow always without blame, which I was attempting to take on in points 6 and 7. Also you may note earlier in this thread I said I was for america preventing hostile nations from obtaining nuclear technology, with force if necessary. I am a pacifist by nature but I'm not naive enough to think you can solve every problem with talking As for who we smack around, well there have been many numerous incidents throughout history that are well documented. I haven't read up on my History in a looooong time ( although I've always found the topic to be incredibly interesting) so I dont have anything off the top of my head to offer up. Again I also don't think we are any worse then any other country in this regard, I simply resent this attitude we seem to have that we are so noble, and that America doesn't have any blood on its collective hands. Its true our previous policy with the middle east wasn't a success either, but I dont find what were doing now to be a good alternative. Force only works when your willing to kill everyone, or enough people to make them back down. We obviously are not going to kill all of them, and as tightly wound up as they are in their madness I don't think anything short of that will make them stop. Dalek: The G. I. joe comment was a reference to the way the general public seems to view it. But life is not a cartoon and international politics are not generally black and white with heroes and villains, and as stated earlier I resent the idea that we are " stalwart defenders of justice around the globe". In short as I have been repeatedly trying to say to you, the motivation for our actions is What I ultimately find important, not the results. Doing a good thing( if thats what we did in Iraq even is) for a bad reason is still wrong. And as to why I think the motives were other then what we were told? Simple. our government lies to us to justify what they do on a regular basis and I didn't hear anything from them to justify going to war, and most of their reasoning for going to war ( like the WMDs for example) has since been refuted. In short its just my opinion of the situation given the information I have, which is exactly what everyone else has been doing, so I don't think I need any evidence as its just my opinion im representing, not absolute fact. I might also note that even If I am right and the government is covering something up, there would be no way for me to prove it as they would be.... covering it up. Is it really a stretch though given our governments history of dishonesty that they could have lied to us? And if you think so what is your reasoning for this?

Again I think the point was just because it did not work out in a way that America could profit from the war does not mean that was not the intention. And I see no fundamental difference between the concept " Jihad Jihad we must kill the infidels" and " We must hunt down and kill all these religious extremists". Two wrongs do not make a right. We are going to have to find other solutions then violence as simply killing people is only going to perpetuate the problem 1) Its impossible to kill all of them, there will always be more left and they will be twice as angry. 2) Using violence as our preferred method of solving the problem makes us no better or more moral then they are 3) People seem to forget that our country spends a lot of time meddling in the affairs of the rest of the world, providing arms, training and fincancial aid. This aid historically has been dependent on which side the government thought would benefit them the most by being in power, not on any measuring stick of morality. Our meddling has gotten a lot of people in other countries killed or aided in them being oppressed. Behaving as if there is no possible reason for any other countries to be angry at us is what perpetuates the problems in the first place. No the response of religious extremists is not rational, but we should not pretend as if America is entirely innocent. 4) America is NOT the worlds police force. We are no better, no more moral, then anybody else. Our very history of using our superior power to smack around anyone that disagrees with us is why we are in this situation to begin with, doing more of that is not going to help 5) This is not an episode of G. I. Joe and America is not the " good guys". 6) The reason it is so easy for our government to get away with as much as it does is simply because a lot of people have no idea how many shady schemes our government is involved in worldwide, again we are not the " good guys" We are simply trying to look out for number one like everyone else, and this concept of america as some noble crusader taking on the injustice of the world sickens me because we ourselves are no more just then anyone else. And when we do stamp out corruption somewhere, it is generally for our own motivations directly attributable to us gaining something out of it, not the noble motives out government force feeds us. 7) Morality again does not fit as a valid reason for our actions throughout history. Iraq is an evil regime that we must topple, But China, Africa, Korea, Iran, and etc etc etc are just peachy? Our governments reasoning is in no way morally consistent. We pick confrontations that are to our advantage, and avoid those that are not. Much like every other country in the world The main difference is WE then later on attach various satisfying moral reasons that justify our actions. If we cared so deeply for human rights we wouldnt be in bed with brutal regimes around the world.

Dr Dalek: First off I wasn't making fun merely noticed the reference and found it funny Yes Saddam Hussein was a Bad Person but you can't justify war on that alone. Motivation is important too. Think of it like this, If you shoot a man to steal his wallet and he just happens to be a mass murderer, you are still in the wrong because of why you shot him. Basically the ends do not justify the means. When I say panic I mean in the population in general. I don't know about where you live, but around here everyone was terrified in the wake of 9/11. And every time our government would announce were attacking somewhere else the general attitude was " well if our government is telling us these are the evil bastards that are responsible for 9/11 then lets blow em up. Scared people are easily controlled people, and I still beileve our government used that to their advantage folloowing 9/11, and they still continue to get away with just about anything as long as they claim its for " the war on terror" Nothing I have read recently leads me to beileve anything has changed even minutely for the better in China. They are merely starting to realize if they are going to get along with the rest of the world they have to try a tiny biy harder to hide how barbaric they are towards there people. As to why I beileve we really went to war? Most likely for monetary gain, to try to attain more control over the area, and because our leadership seems to think we are the Police Force To The Globe. I don't think it quite worked out the way they intended for it to

Herme I really don't think you mean any harm, but you should be careful how you word things. Having a faith in God is just that... faith. Faith by definition does not require proof and as has been stated many times before there is no scientific way to prove or disprove God, so theres not really any "evidence" to begin with. Your church did not work for you and thats fine. If thats the case you may be happier without it, to each their own. But remember theres no discernible difference between attacking someone for beileving in God or attacking them for not beileving in God. You did not like someone dictacting to you how to live your life. See where I'm going with this?

Well the conversation doesn't really seem to be about religion per se so I'm unsure if the Mods are unhappy about this? People have largely been civil and the thread has remained open so I assumed it was alright to continue the discussion? I have no wish to offend anybody

Hm well now I am unsure also. where did you get the information you supplied in the OP Imm? Id like to look into it more and see if theres some solid information.