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Well, the part of your position that I responded to was when you said "I see absolutely no reason for any non military personel to own any semi or automatic weapon." I most certainly did not say that "reasonable, sensible gun laws may have prevented this" was irrelevant.

No, my analogy was perfect as both opinions were the same thing; irrelevant. Because it is off-topic in this thread.

My comparison was that you had an opinion and I had an opinion, neither of which are germane to the Rittenhouse trial or the laws that decided the case. Thanks for the clarification as that is not what you said when I posted my comment. You said "A God fearing nation... deserve what they get." Perhaps you can understand why I misunderstood you.

As I said conservatives generally control the legislatures, so that is not going to happen any time soon. Of course it is. And to millions of others, on both sides of the debate. And I see no reason for anyone to ever need to eat Vegemite again. I'm afraid neither one of our opinions is going to do much to change things. Well, that's a bit harsh. I certainly don't think I deserve to be shot while in school or a movie theater, and neither do the people who voted in the conservatives. I also think people who do illegal drugs don't "deserve" to overdose, and women who gravitate toward 'bad boys' don't "deserve" to get abused on occasion. And certainly Australia, who abused their indigenous peoples, don't deserve a deadly response from said peoples.

Yep. Exactly.

Then you should have said that, instead of saying your "not understanding" had to do with "the debate about the legalities and letter of the law". As far as why carrying guns at any demonstration is not in violation of any law, it is because the Second Amendment is a right within our constitution, and as such it trumps laws that would infringe on that right. Unless the Supreme Court changes their mind on that issue or the constitution changes, that is the way it is here. As far as why "any country can not see the crazy results in your constitution, that allows ownership of any semi or automatic weapon period, and the general laxity in your laws with any Tom Dick or Harry, being able to own a firearm for some fabricated reason involving 'self defence".", it is because just like you did here, people tend to argue that point with emotion rather than reason. And finally, as to why "in the US with so many mass killings/massacres, that your democratic party, and non redneck Republicans, cannot stand up to your NRA and tell them its time for reasonable gun laws.", it is because conservatives generally control the legislatures and the courts.

I think it was the correct judgement, and feel that it is more important to show integrity within our legal system than to slap the living shit out of some pissant who so desperately needs it. I'm also confident that we will take no action to create a more sensible and safe environment due to the slavish worship of the Second Amendment. Yes, that is why I said "being "wrong" has no criminal consequences."

It is because in the US, as well as your country and probably others, being "wrong" has no criminal consequences. You must violate the legalities and letter of the law to be held accountable.

It doesn't. Please leave now so that we don't accidentally corrupt you.

Give me a break. Citation please.

It's your post man.You said it. I quoted it. You quoted it yourself. I think this thread has run its course for me.

You are either moving the goalposts or are unaware of what you originally said.

This part. Right here. Please provide this evidence you mention. Why did your dog attack your neighbor if not for the fact they were ignorant of who the person in the parka was?

Which is because they are understand them. It's two sides of the same coin, and you are saying your side is valid and my side is not. That's what I keep saying; it is not scary if they understand, it is scary if they don't. I can't understand why you keep telling me my side of the coin is wrong, followed by why your side of the same coin is the correct.

No, but you did suggest there was evidence, which is what I took exception to, which you have not provided, nor have you retracted the statement.

Simply put, because you have no choice. If you are afraid, you are afraid. I can't say "I'm about to be eaten by a wolf but why worry about it because that is the way things are?" Fine. It's what is lurking in the dark. Either way they are afraid. Fine. It's possibly a home invader or escaped convict. Either way they are afraid. Because they understand distant sirens and airplanes. It is the things they don't understand (like what is hiding in the dark, or if the sound is really a home invader or escaped convict) that cause the fear. Was that a constraint we were following? Either way it is fear of things not understood. Citation? My dog is afraid of thunder, my cat is afraid of the things that I'm unable to sense, my chickens are afraid of geese flying overhead, and just today I scared the hell out of one of my alpacas when I wore a bright red jacket for the first time.

Cool! Can you list that evidence here for me? Of course lack of evidence for a deity is not the same thing as evidence for no deity. A minor point but one I find many with the title we shall not call you fall into. 😀 I've never much cared for this argument. It sound too similar to the theist who says "since you can't know for certain that no god exists, why not believe in him just to be safe?" Neither the scientist nor the theist makes a good case (or any case for that matter) for why you should accept their side. In neither case is it reasonable to expect that someone can change what they believe in simply as a matter of convenience. Beliefs don't change like that. I don't know why they wouldn't have been. Certainly people today are afraid of the unexplained cause of natural phenomena. Kids are afraid of the dark. Adults are afraid of the unexplained sounds of a house settling. Many are afraid of the hereafter. Early men would have many more unexplained natural phenomenon than we do.

The universe since the beginning of the Big Bang is roughly 13.7 billion years old and thus nothing we see can have occurred more 13.7 billion years ago. Since the universe is expanding, the light we see from distant galaxies was emitted when the galaxies were closer to us than they are now. That is, light that has been traveling toward us for 10 billion years may have originated in a galaxy that is now 40 billion light years distant from us. The universe is believed to be roughly 93 billion light years in diameter although we can only observe things that are up to 46 billion light years away. The reason we cannot see objects further than 46 billion light years is because objects beyond that distance are receding from us at a rate greater than the speed of light (c). Since we are receding from those objects faster than light can travel, any signal coming from them will never catch up to us. The amount of time the light takes to get to us represents how "out of date" an image is. If light from earth traveled 10 billion years to a distant star, they will see us as we were 10 billion years ago, although by then we will be much further away than 10 billion light years.

And I thought you were commenting on my journey to atheism post but I can see now you were not. My apologies. I'll switch over to the broader discussion as I'm really enjoying this. Unfortunately I'll be gone for a couple of days but I'll be back!

Because people prefer to know how the universe began over not knowing how the universe began. A god answers that question, the BB does not. I have no idea. Are you debating me or have you begun to debate someone who is not participating in this thread? That has nothing to do with kicking the can down the road. It applies to theists exactly the same way it applies to science. Saying god existed forever is no different than saying the universe existed forever. Yes. Clearly I didn't demand it. I'm an atheist, remember? Please name the contradictions and conceptual errors "my" god has. Given that all he did was push the start button then go on vacation I'm curious as to what those could be. No one said that and therefore I did not believe anyone. It came out of my own mind as I was trying to reason through whether or not god existed. Do you never have and discard ideas as you are thinking through things? WTF?!?! I don't care. I simply crave knowledge.

Same goes for nature as a preference over the supernatural. If there is no supernatural, what made nature? You are just kicking the can down the road, and it still doesn't get you an answer. "We don't know" applies to naturalists just as much as it applies to supernaturalists. There are also people who claim to know absolutely that there is no god. Well, you are a better person than me. The existence of the laws of physics that allow a hot dense mass of energy to turn into something complex enough to become self aware still fills me with awe. For there to be no reason behind this seems hard to believe, although believing in a deity is certainly no lesser stretch. It was not an easy choice for me and given the amount of theism in this world seems to indicate it is a difficult choice for many others. A comparison of creation stories has no bearing on what I do or don't believe. Why would I give a rat's ass what some prehistoric, scientifically illiterate people think about talking bushes and islands being created by an angry deity throwing giant stones? It took much more than a "superficial" effort to put me over the edge. To this day I would not be surprised and would laugh heartily if I ultimately found that a god did exist. "The jokes on me!" An indifferent creator is an answer to how we got here. An indifferent long-ago explosion doesn't even attempt to explain the origin of the universe, only its evolution after it was already here. The difference is huge.

I was not talking about humans, I was talking about everything. The universe. There is no evidence that says the origin of the universe (if it even had an origin) was natural vs supernatural. It was the fact that ANYTHING existed that gave me pause on my path to atheism. Similar to the deist positions of many of America's founding fathers; the idea that a god existed, created the universe, but then basically stepped aside and just watched things unfold. No interaction with humans. A reasonable person could argue this type of god explains the universe as well as any non-god based explanation, since it doesn't contradict any observations. I agree. Anything far enough beyond understanding will seem magical. Or perhaps supernatural... Especially when so much was not understood, and people had not yet arrived at the concept of "well, we eventually explained all these other things, so there is a good chance we'll be able to explain THIS eventually too".

As I transitioned from theist to atheist the last hurdle I had to overcome was the simple fact of existence. I began jettisoning the pageantry and hypocrisy of organized religion starting when I was about eight years old. (No surprise my teachers through 12 years of Catholic school found me to be a real PITA.) But the fact that anything existed at all was a real roadblock for me when it came to the final step over to the dark side. I imagine if I had never been exposed to religion or gods at all, I would have invented the idea myself to possibly explain how things came to be. It is easy to recognize all the rules and stories are nonsense, but how we got here seems to me a more fundamental question. At that point it is kind of binary; was it natural or supernatural? Given the lack of any evidence one way or the other it is not surprising that many people chose supernatural, even if only for that most basic question. I think that is a reason why so many people choose "none" when it comes to identifying their beliefs or religious affiliation, rather than choosing "atheist". They may think Christianity is ridiculous but are not ready to give up on 'god' completely.

Haha. Don't you know?

How would we know unless they told us?