Pozessed

I could understand calling my statement a strawman if our corporate CEOs and our government officials here in America weren't corrupt bigets. However that is not the case. My point, deceit begets deceit. Therefore, a great many of Americas problems very well may lie in the deceit of the Santa Claus story that has been told generation after generation. As far as religion goes, those institutions are destroying themselves as people look for answers to faith in their own way instead of listening to only the people who preach in their religious sector. As soon as a person looks up an alternative to God to fill in the gap of their misunderstanding, they will probably find a plausible answer that very well may shake their faith and thus question their religion. I'd rather let religions destroy themselves in that manner instead of arguing with people about their faith. Honestly there is a huge difference between the holidays you listed and Christmas. None of them have the word Christ in their name, none of them originated from a religious sect, none of them speak of people with supernatural abilaties, etc.The only thing that these holidays have in commomn with Christmas is that they are national holidays and are celebrated traditionally. I don't think this conclusion relates to everyone, but I think it can be related to a large majority of the American population at least. You don't think kids and teenagers are going to learn this without the perversion from their parents? What is so wrong about being honest? The truth hurts, build a bridge and get over it. I agree with your first paragraph, I mean traditions are good. Yet, the fact still remains that this holiday began based on a religious sect and our government allowed itself to promote this religion. That was unconstitutional. If you notice I haven't provided any idea on how to resolve the issue because I have none, it was only a question. Your other points have no relation because they aren't based on religion. Sorry I took so long to respond. Was sick for a few days. Thank you all for your opinions and responses though. I appreciate the input.

Is there any other holiday that promotes the existence of Santa Claus? Even though atheism is secular it comes very close to being a religion, Christmas is a type of religion based on the literal definition. Christmas is more agreeably practiced by the masses (in America) than any form of Christianity. Just because we don't want to label it as a religion doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Of course these are all speculations and opinions. Please do tell how lying and deceiving a child to acquire personal gain will teach them to follow an honest moral compass?

Why Christmas of course. Many people spread false faith in this supernatural being with transcendent powers known as Santa Claus. Even if Santa has no religious context to us adults, he sure fits into the definition of religion when it comes to children.

Do you think people would possibly grow up to be less decitful if they themselves weren't deceived by the people they respected and admired when they were a child?

Isn't Christmas being a nationally recognized and respected holiday a contradiction to the first amendment? Is lying to children for benign reasons worth the distrust that the parent earns after the child learns the truth? Is it wrong to assume that a child who is not lied to by their parent is probably going to have more trust and respect for that parent? (Santa Claus, for those of you who don't understand the relevance.) At least I'm adamant enough with these thoughts to think about them when Christmas is nowhere near. Any opinions are appreciated.

April 20th is the day a number of partygoers become inhebriated on their choice of intoxicant in order to celebrate an unclarified event. Aside from those events taking place, I doubt there is anything to worry about.

Publicly viewable live video feed from police vehicles and police uniforms. If they KNOW they will be caught, they will be less likely to do it. Record all video feed to a cloud database.

Watch the video, research a little more to get a better understanding. Then click the bottom link and write to your state representative about how this topic makes you feel. http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-101 http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Governors.shtml I feel that this is a crime against our societies to allow these corporations to take advantage of their capabilaties in such a manner for mere monetary gain. I do welcome anyones opinion on this matter, I'm sorry I didn't present the issue with a little less bias.

I understand your thoughts. I am agnostic in many of much of my faith as well. I tend to lean more towards agnostic theist than agnostic atheist though. First you must define evil, which is nothing more than a word used to describe how we feel at a certain point in time.How and why we feel that way would be based off of our moral compass. We each have our own definitions of what we feel are evil and why we feel they are evil. Of course all I just said is subjective, but that is my opinion. In the matter of pedophiles, rapists, and murderers which have roamed this earth,I assume most societies would consider them to be evil people. If we as a society could live for 100 years without any rapists, murderes, or pedophiles in our communities, we would act as if they never existed at all. Therefore a God knowing that 10,000 years from now these peoples attrocaties won't be remembered, he probably equates their actions to kids rough housing in a pool. Eternal damnation does not seem like a fair justifiable sentence when it compares our lifetime to eternity. My sentiments exactly.

I agree that a right to ones own body seems to be a sham, but it is what many consider to be true. I am of the belief that we should be free to do as we please with our bodies and thus would be what I consider our right to our own body. At the same time, we are in a contract with the goverments in which we live, so at some extent a right to a persons body is needed for a government agency to understand its boundaries. I agree with your second point too. I should have been more clear with that aspect. I think public intox, and drinking while intoxicated would obvoiusly be criminal offenses. Along with the many other obvious offenses. I speculate that if the FDA approved the drugs and they were distributed in a safe manner that our the societies distributing the drugs would intercept the profits drug lords were generating. If taxed society could incorporate more drug awareness and wellness centers for individuals in need. I'm glad that you and I have some of the same perspectives. What are some of your ideas on how a society that legalizes drugs would work? I agree with your sentiment about more help for suicidal individuals. I don't want people to commit suicide. I just think that people who have been contemplating it for a long time and wish to leave as small of an impact on society as possible should have an alternative. I kind of compare my drug legalization, and suicide booth ideals to abortion. A women has a right to do with her body as she feels necessary, I think it should be equal. Granted there are many differences between abortion and the other 2 ideals, but doing drugs and committing suicide are not equal to directly harming anothers life. Interesting. I think I agree with the court on that one.

I agree, If it were proven to be something impossible it can not be probable.

I never said that because something impossible has an infinite amount of chances it becomes possible. I am stating that if something is possible and it has an infinite amount of chances it becomes probable. It seems there is a huge difference in my implication and how you have inferred it. It does seem that you think part of my ideals are impossible, may I ask which part aside from the idea of God existing is impossible to you? I don't believe we have been visited by other cosmopolitains yet, I think theyd destroy us in fear of our greed and destructive ways, or simply for domination. I don't know enough about space to determine if galaxies have too short of a life span for intelligent life to exist or not. I find it hard to believe that we are 1 in a trillion though, which is far less than the actual amount of stars and planets we can observe to my understanding. I'm not sure why we are only carbon based, I never gave that much thought.

I know I'm missing a key link here, but if pharmaceuticals are being tested by an ubias party, why do they need lobbying? Shouldn't the results from the testing be the determining factor for politicians and not anyones bank book? The fact that it's peoples heath that is at stake is probably why people are subjecting themselves to unnecessary "precautions".

Firstly, I must say that I am a callouse individual when it comes to people who don't care about themselves or life in general. Misery loves company and that's why it hates me. I am curious how this community feels about peoples right to their own body, and to which extent that right should be taken away. I myself have a strong bias on this topic and wish to elaborate my thoughts a little further. I feel as though people should have a right to do as they wish to themselves with no legal reprimand as long as they are not directly affecting another persons health with their current drug use. I see no point in keeping things illegal when there is more practical ways to do things. Nobody wants to take a hypocrit seriously, but we do it daily when we adhere to the confines of the law. I understand my ideal has many social repricussions which would include but are not limited to drug overdoses, possible crime increase, lack of informative drug awareness. I don't know how to fix any of it, I just know it should be all or nothing. I'd prefer all. I think we should have suicide booths for people who wish to commit suicide. I see no reason to put a whole society of people through the anguish of a loved one dying, nor making a crew of people clean up a crime scene and waste tax payer dollars. I'm not saying make it easy for these people, but I don't see the harm in every state having one. I'm sorry if I offended anyone in this post, please do realize that is not my goal. If you have lost a loved one due to suicide I offer my condolences to you and I sincerely hope they are in a better place.

Hello there, so far this seems like a very welcoming community and I thank you. I frequent many forums, I have been circulating only a few as of lately but I do browse many different types quite often. I enjoy what I can learn from the vast knowledge other people have to offer, and the other perspectives that are only a finger tip away. I have found forums to help in countless ways, from fixing a toilet, to defining my personal beliefs, and my current misunderstanding of politics. I hope to find this site rather enoyable, with a name that implies "discussions of observations" and a place for every topic imaginable, I think my mind will feel at home here for some time. As long as you people don't get sick of me first. I enjoy spreading sourced news. I don't like to spread to much gossip unless I'm interested in how the gossip may relate to real life events, but I'll mention if it's rumor or satire first. My favorite subects of current affairs are technology, social science, and a few other branches of science. I believe every maor conflict people have can be resolved with communication, and that communication can be considered the main source for our abundance of human technological advancement. Therefore I believe these forums along with countless others will have the potential to fix the maority of the problems our world is facing as we speak. The idea that a discussion is a building block towards social engineering should be the first thought people have when logging into a forum. I have many many ideas on things that I have no idea about. That is why I ask questions. I hope you are all as welcoming to me after reading this as you were before and thank you for taking the time to do so.

I agree with all that you say. I'd also like to mention that simply noticing we have an obvious exploit for corruption in our policy making is not going to be as effective as explaining what the mechanics behind the flaw are and how it can possibly be fixed.

I didn't make it to that page yet, yes that is a ridiulous amount compared to other industries with political interests.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?cycle=2014&ind=H04 I agree with the boldened text whole heartedly. As far as lobbying goes, it is a lot different than what it used to be, and the people whom get paid to lobby are heard more frequently than the people who aren't paid to lobby. If it were an even kiel on where politicians got their information and who they talked to instead of who has the most money, that influence would be diminished in my opinion.

Imagine being 100 and looking back as if you were 6. You probably have little to no recolection of your life then. As well, when you were 6 society was probably more forgiving of misbehaviors than they would if you were an adult. Hence why we try minors and adults differently for the same type of crimes. At 100 years old, you may or may not consider a 6 year old to be in their infancy compared to your accumulation of life experiences and their accumulation of life experiences. Presuming a God exists and life is eternal,, comparing our 100 year life span to 1000 years, we are all still infants in that relative time frame. Thus If Hell exists, and God is sending people there, he is punishing those people while they are in their infancy.

I believe that politicians probably have some of their investments in pharmaceutical companies, and therefore will have an interest in that companies growth. I also suspect that pharmaceutical companies will use that influence to persuade these politicians to make laws that unjustifiably allow there company to prohibit certain drugs as well as inhibit certain drugs. Of course little to no evidence will support these thoughts because one entity controls the legislation which defines what is illegal and the other entity would be protected by that fore-mentioned legislative entity, that does not seem to make the idea any less substantial though. Do you think pharmaceutical has too great of an influence on our judicial system and if so how can we reapair it?

I understand that my thoughts are more in the realm of science fiction. I am not trying to prove or show God to anyone. I'm not trying to find a reason for people to assume God exists. I'm just relaying a new idea I had that I have not heard anyone mention to me. I don't find it unreasonable to think about such things, maybe unnecessary to the degree of purposeful progression. Who's to say what thoughts are valid or not valid for that progression though? Again, it's not to be anything more than an idea that may or may not generate some creative thinking. Just because we are locked into this universe momentarily, does not mean other universes are locked out. We can't really determine if we are limited by physics or our intelligence to escape this universe. Statistically speaking, math is what determines a humans whole decision process, therefore a math construct is a necessary construct (for an intelligent person anyways). Well atleast we can realize there are other ways to interpret the results, that does not mean we should not realise the potential of all possibities does it? That's possible, but what would be stopping the universes from surviving if not chance? And if it is only chance that is stopping it from expanding wouldn't atleast one universe eventually survive infinately if infinity were at play? How is it not?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802821 I'm still trying to figure out why this stuff is illegal... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrVXRZY1_x0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAFu-Ihwyzg

This is just another of my random thoughts. Please bear with me. If an infinite amount of universes exists that would suggest that their are an infinite amount of beings living inside an infinite number of them, just as there would be no life in an infinite number of other universes. I come to this presumption of some universes having life and others not having life because there is an infinite number of chances for the universes to naturally have life or not have life. If infinity exists and there is other intelligent life inside these universes it is probable that one life form in another universe found a way to control how all the universes work. As long as there is a chance and there is an infinite amount of tries, the idea becomes probable. A " necessary sentient being" would be something you'd expect to hear about in a religion. In my idea a sentient being isn't necessary but only possible and therefore probable, esspecially if compard to natural human motives to obtain knowledge and power.

This is a small experiment I would like to conduct. I was told if you can give a scientist a problem, they will always have an answer. No matter how unrealistic. I am here to ask all of you to ponder a practical and realistic way to get people off of the power grid. The ideas expressed should not have any selfish or greedy intent. I would like to think that as a community of knowledgeable people a solution can be found to help all of humanity. Anyways, I am not 100% sure how this experiment should work. All that I know is that it is an experiment that could have a historical impact on our world. Collective thought is an amazing thing. I assume a good starting place would be brain storming ideas of how to generate or conserve electricity. After there is no debate about which idea for generating and conserving electricity is best, the ideas of how to make them the most sufficient will be needed. After discussing the ways to make this idea sufficiently generate and collect energy we would need to learn how everyday people can integrate it into their homes. I am hoping that this discussion will bring forth 2 things. A cheap and reliable source of energy to everyone who needs it. As well as reshaping the way we think about online socializing networks. Thank you to everyone who reads this. I appreciate any feedback, even if you think I am delusional.