mike90

To gib: so how do we create these social institutions with the entire world already as polarized as it is? to Phi: But it does it not become a problem that we have to fix when it causes so much worldwide strife? the problem isn't the obstacle it presents to you or I, but rather the obstacle it presents in countries where people still die by the millions because of it. and when I say " it" I absolutely do NOT mean religion exclusively but rather intolerance of any kind.

Life Sucks is just kinda where I live right now. Im not the worlds happiest guy and stuff like this happening all the time doesn't help. But im working on constructive solutions and trying to be optimistic. I think it'll be easy to keep an eye on the money since i'll be living at my parents the whole time and i'll feel somewhat accountable to spend responsibly seeing as they're helping me out so I can improve my life.

Sigh. Just great. I spoke too soon I guess. This is precisely what we did NOT need. The link is to a site with a highly anti-religion bias. Pretty condescending and heavy handed stuff. Just for what its worth, being an atheist and basically saying people who beileve in God are idiots is every bit as offensive as being religious and going up to someone and saying " Do you beileve in god? No? You know your going to burn in hell right? Perhaps the problem is just people in general. No matter what the ideology or system of beilef there will be a small segment of people that are so arrogant, heavy handed, and a little too sure they are the ones who are always right to let anyone else have their own opinion. So the question really is how can we teach tolerance to all people? It seems like humankind will always find a reason to hate anyone thats even a little different. Race, sexual preference, income level, religion, it doesn't matter humans will always find a way to disagree and fight about something So heres the question: is there any workable way to fix this human flaw or are we pretty much doomed to endless warfare because of it?

I agree. These incidents all seem to have happened in areas controlled by brutal regimes without respect for basic human rights. So in essence the real problem is that there are still so many places on earth where the government gets away with treating everyone like that, not just scientists. Although its certainly a good idea for doctors and scientists to not travel to those areas.

My mother leapt into action and went out and bought me one of those Club type bars you brace in your sliding glass door. Hopefully that will be enough for the short term. My mom's offered to let me move back home temporarily and live rent free so I can save money and move to a better apartment and it looks like thats what Im gonna do. I figure in 6 months I should be able to save close to $10,000 dollars without bills to pay. So maybe it'll all work out better in the long run. Im pretty sure it was one of my neighbors kids that did it, so I just might get lucky with the pawnshops but I do see it as a long shot.

But this is not always the case Woelen. I myself am an atheist but I have nothing against religion and I fully support everyones right to beileve in whatever they choose. I don't think its religion itself anyone has an issue with, rather how religion is misused and taken out of context and the resulting problems. It is of course your right to not be a part of this discussion if it's too personal a topic or you have no interest, but I for one would be interested in what you have to say. From what I've seen so far people are being careful to keep their posts to the topic at hand and to be civil. The misuse of religion to the detriment of people is important to atheists, agnostics, and theists. Any possible solution to the problem will have to come from all sides as well.

If its true it would be an incredibly exciting advance, but I'd be expecting to be hearing about it by now. Anyone more research capable then myself care to look into it? My method usually involves google or wiki

Yeah I mentioned to the cop that I never go out that door so I don't know how it could have been unlocked and then he told me what you just posted. Wish I had known it prior lol

That was the idea as pawn shops usually ask for your identification. If I can track my stuff down I report it to the cops then they get the info from the pawn shop and track the person down at their home, which would undoubtably be somewhere in my apartment complex =P

I don't think the concept itself of religion is bad at all. I think the problem is that some people take it far to literally, and the source material was created hundreds or in some cases thousands of years ago so its insane to think that everything written would apply to today's society. And I think most people intelligent people wether or not they beileve in god would agree the text itself came from people. And people used it to explain things they were unsure/afraid of at that particular time. Thus leading to problems due to issues like: passages relating to men being superior to women, having a divine mission to kill people of a certain ethnicity or who beileve in a religion other then yours, certain sexual practices being evil ( which is STILL screwing over gay people even in a modernized country like america just to show the influence) and etc etc other nutty things. If more people could be rational and take their particular holy book as a guideline on how to behave and separate the good out from the bad then we wouldn't have the problems we have right now. There certainly seems to be a correlation to education as well, as it seems to be a more widespread problem in poor and poorly educated countries. im not sure if theres anything that can be done about the fanatics. There seems to be no way to reason with them as they are so close minded due to trying to define there entire world by taking one incredibly old book out of context. And I dont beileve in voilence as a solution either, so I'm really stuck as to how to solve the problem. As its a built in part of every faith to bring your children up with it as well, there seems to be no way to stop the problem from continuing indefinately

Yeah the I called the cops and when they came over to talk to me and survey the damage they advised checking the pawn shops as well, probably going to go hit them all tommorow

Wait Lawful Evil was that a D&D reference? I don't agree with the idea that we went to " fight terrorism" and so we might as well bag Hussein while were at it. The government just threw out WMD, terrorists, and how big, bad, and scary Hussein was to whip Americans into a panic. Since most americans are so sheeplike anymore, a lot of people still assume the reasons our government gives us for doing things is the actual reason, despite the long history of our government lying to us and manipulating us. And pinning it on him being a bad leader and evil human being doesn't really work either. Its nice that we took an evil tyrant out of commission, but that definately wasn't the governments reason for doing it. If they truly cared about human rights they would have more to say about countries like korea, africa, mexico, etc and etc and etc. There are evil regimes beating people down all over the world, and America is fine with leaving them alone. We also trade and have good foreign relations with a lot of countries that treat their people horribly. China immediately comes to mind.

I think he mainly meant don't rely on the textbook as the main form of teaching the subject. most textbooks I've ever read are dry and boring and do nothing to make the subject interesting to the reader if it wasn't previously. IMO that makes it hard for the student to muster up enough interest to take the subject seriously sometimes if thats the only source of information theyre getting.

That is horrible, maybe we could get a letter writing campaign to P&G started on here? It certainly seems like a worthy cause, would anyone object to having Iams address posted here for that purpose?

It was pretty obvious they mainly grabbed the closest stuff of value. What they DIDN'T take was amazing, which is why I'm not totally freaking out. They didn't take this pc or the other one sitting about 5 feet from the door they came in either, or my tv or dvd player which are sitting in the living room.

So Im walking home from work and I'm in a good mood,(rare) even singin along to the songs on my mp3 player on the way. Then I get home, open the front door, and right away I see my sliding glass door is open. After frantically checking the apartment to make sure there wasn't still anybody inside I checked out the damage. My ps2 is gone, my DVD rack is empty. And worst of all, the cd wallet I keep all my games and movies in is gone too, bringing the total damage up to probably a couple thousand dollars. And to top it off im about 99% sure it was someone from my apartment complex, so now I feel totally paranoid about getting robbed again. And no there is no point to this thread other then that Im really pissed off and upset and just needed to vent.

Really interesting post lance. Those numbers actually seem about even with how I view humanity. The problem seems to be situations when that 10% grabs control and is able to persuade that other 40% which normally isn't dangerous on their own into doing stupid things. A global police force sounds like a great idea, but something that might be hard to form in the current political climate. Also hopefully they would use only properly trained military personnel, but I could see private secuirty firms getting involved. And with the repuation they have right now that wouldn't be good

My two cents,first of all its understandable but IMO a mistake to beileve that you can reason with everybody. It is not possible to reason with terrorists and religious fanatics that beileve they are on some holy mission to exterminate this or that group of people. Its hard to talk with people while they are shooting at you or bombing you. I fully support preventing nutty regimes from obtaining nukes. With force if necessary. As Paranoia has tried to point out the basic drive throughout human history was to be the biggest baddest nation. Humans have a built in competitive urge to dominate, enslave, or destroy other cultures they find inferior or offensive. Are we really idealistic enough to beileve fascist regimes that have built in religious or cultural beilefs that promote violence against anyone who disagrees with them can be trusted with weapons of that magnitude? It would be nice to beileve that most people are decent at heart and every problem can be solved with diplomacy, but thousands of years of human history prove otherwise. As far as the war in Iraq and current American foreign policy goes, honestly the mess our government and especially our president made of the whole situation make me ashamed to be an American. i beileved and continue to beileve that all the talk about terrorists and WMD's was just a smokescreen for our government to start a war for political reasons they normally would have had a hard time justifying. In short i think they played on American fear and the rather pathetic sheep like mentality the average american has anymore to justify it. But then again it wouldnt be yhe first time our government threw us into a war we didn't want

Just a wee bit harsh mokele, just a wee bit. Is such a, well tantrum is the only fitting word that comes to mind, especially one filled with such seeming anger and all the profanity really necessary? Yeah abolishing marriage is impossible at this point most likely, but what harm does merely discussing the topic do? Especially on a DEBATE forum. And we would never get anywhere if our answer to things is " its pointless to discuss it because its impossible to change". Challenging the status quo is the only way anyhing can change,

Seems like they could handle that perfectly fine without marriage being necessary though. And there would be no prolonged divorce to F up the whole family when they decide to part ways. Im not sure if wether or not they are married would affect who got custody, but I don't see why it would. I think we should keep the option of some sort of civil ceremony open, but nothing legally binding about it.

Im not trying to box the issue, I just assumed we were talking about gay marriage, as that was the original topic. Personally I dont think we should have marriages at all, but since we clearly do, I don't see a fair reason why that should be allowed for straight people and not for gay people and how this is anything but biased. If someone has a logical reason as to why that is I am more then willing to hear it out.

But the point I was making is that the only thing seperating it from a standard marriage is the gender involved. The issue is not how it relates to every other type of relationship, but how it relates to a heterosexual marriage. If you want to argue over why heterosexuals should not be allowed marriage rights over the same issues that would be one thing. But so far everything that you have said could be used to critique heterosexual marriage as well. The issue is why they are not allowed to have a right heterosexuals can enjoy simply because they are not heterosexuals. Wether we should have the standard marriage benefits that already exist would be a seperate matter entirely

How exactly can you compare this situation to roomates or casual relationships? These are people that are in serious relationships and merely want the same rights and benefits that a heterosexual would be able to have in the same circumstances. If its not simply a prejudicial bias against gays simply for being different, then what other valid reason would there be for people to oppose this? How is it NOT then discriminatory?

Their are plenty of male authors writing books mainly for a female audience in the U.S.

Ok that was throwing me off too as I was thinking to myself hey i thought Pangloss was a guy. If i misinterpreted what you were trying to say then it was unintentional, it just seemed to be a jab at a certain part of the population to me. And when you are IN that part of the population this could perhaps be seen as insulting.