He means that "zero-aggression" is all that the government needs to do to keep human nature in check--the rest will be solved by different interests competing with eachother.
It's really sad that, despite all efforts, people will forever tie embryotic stem cell research to abortion.
I don't think people choose to embrace such ideas dogmatically because it's "easier" for them (i.e. they don't have to think critically). Sadly, I think the reason is that they are taught to embrace all ideas dogmatically.
What philosophical leader (this problem goes way beyond religion) ever taught that critical thinking and reasoning must be avoided? The decision to accept one premise by faith does not mean that conclusions should be drawn by faith as well.
The Wisconsin government could theoretically shut down the local computer store, but it does not have the power to shut down out-of-state websites.
If I lived in Wisconson, I would only be even willing to discuss the matter if it only applied to online stores located in Wisconson, not online customers. If someone drives over to where I live, they pay my local and state sales taxes when they buy stuff at a shop located in my community.
You're only proving what fucking idiots Americans are. Like your brethren, you're one of the best-educated retards that history has ever produced. The best you can rationally expect now is to be the last one to turn out the lights on your shithole of a country, after the last dollar has winged its way overseas with the last globalist executive.
I would have to argue that holier-than-thou self-richeousness is the least moral religion ever. And I think that the American uber-wealthy don't adhere to any lower moral standard than any other uber-wealthy. Which was your point originally, but it seems like you're attacking Americans because they're Americans. I know plenty of Americans who do not love money.
The best you can rationally expect now is to be the last one to turn out the lights on your shithole of a country, after the last dollar has winged its way overseas with the last globalist executive.
Despite your, shall we say, colorful imagery, I definately agree with this. Americans are giving up control because they lack the moral impetus required to evaluate corporations based on their actions, not on their stock value alone.
But I just wish people would realize that this has nothing to do with being an American and everything to do with being human. What makes you or I so fundamentally different from those who have been so fundamentally corrupted by wealth?
Nothing to do with gun control, I just don't like the idea of forcing everyone to join the army in a country that uses its army for aggression, not defence.
This is why I think it's a great idea for a country like Switzerland, but terrible for the U.S.
Where there's a whip, There's a way! where there's a whip, There's a way We don't want to go to war today!
I'm going to repost something I wrote elsewhere in this thread:
If a bill went through Congress seeking to make Bittorrent illegal, would you support it, or defend Bittorrent? The argument (and it's pretty solid) is that Bittorrent has a good deal of non-infringing uses which means that making it illegal also tramples on legitimate liberty. Likewise, guns have a lot of uses that are non-harmful to people.
If you can convince pro-gunners that there are no uses of guns that should be legal, they might agree. But a lot of them like to hunt. Not to mention these things come in handy on a farm.
I think this is especially pertinent to your post, since I think that the reasons handgun control works in places like Hong Kong and Japan is because the people there don't value the recreational possibilities of a handgun like we do (in this case, target practice. But I have heard of people who have hunted with Berettas).
They have no real purpose other than shooting bullets; they weren't designed on the concept of a stick, they were designed on the concept of shooting people. Guns are fundamentally different from the other items you mentioned, which is why they're treated differently.
If a bill went through Congress seeking to make Bittorrent illegal, would you support it, or defend Bittorrent? The argument (and it's pretty solid) is that Bittorrent has a good deal of non-infringing uses which means that making it illegal also tramples on legitimate liberty. Likewise, guns have a lot of uses that are non-harmful to people.
If you can convince pro-gunners that there are no uses of guns that should be legal, they might agree. But a lot of them like to hunt. Not to mention these things come in handy on a farm.
Most European countries don't have the kind of foreign policy that the U.S. does which almost guarantees that you see combat if you're in it for more than 5-7 years.
Sounds like a confession of weak-mindedness to me.
Remember that I believe that watching nekkid women does the same thing to me that it does to any other heterosexual man. So, weak according to whom?
Your co-religionists who, like their Taliban counterparts, advocate state censorship are a reason why the only reason "Christian perspectives" are taken seriouly by the informed is for purposes of opposition research.
We can have a free country, or we can have a country run by religious crazies. We can't have both.
I don't understand your point--do you believe that the kind of censorship proposed by the legislation in question is wrong? I certainly do.
I may hold certain beliefs that you disagree with, but does that preclude us from agreeing on anything?
I can think that eating meat is bad for the body, and stop eating meat, but not want to make a law telling you that you cannot eat meat. In another case, say child pornography, I can claim that such material is bad for everyone to look at and want it to be banned.
I leave it up to you to determine which position I have taken for this kind of censorship--the position kind of hurts your claim that I am forcing anything down anyone's throat.
I know the similarities to 9/11 were really over-the-top, but at least the characters started showing signs of growth and character depth! They actually got angry, and sad, and they actually had a reason to! And that fragile little "warp 5" expirement finally stopped running around in space as invincible as the Enterprise D.
When you do that kind of crap its called child abuse and its why so many adults are in therapy.
If that's not a problem I don't know what is. Nevertheless, this is a non-issue now. We both seem to agree that censorship is wrong, and how parents choose to raise their children is their business.
I'm glad I was raised by people who live in the real world, not some crazy wacked out religious world.
And what would your solution be? Have the government regulate parenting?
children are not property. They are people. It is not up to you to tell them what they can think.
It is entirely up to the parents to imprint their impressionable young minds with good values. I wasn't raised in a Christian household--but I'm glad I was taught the value of principles by them.
If I was trying to have a reasoned discourse, and then introduced proof that i believed in things that have no proof at all, that would certainly undermine my validity as an arguer.
Right--and I have introduced no such proof, so there's not much disagreement here.
Even though I have been given personal proof in my life that compels me to believe what I do, I still am a skeptic at heart. In spite of the fact that you and I could probably not discuss Christianity without coming to a stalling point, we can probably discuss politics because both of us seem to have an areligious view of how government should work.
What censorship does, however, is hold others' minds to your standard.
Also, censorship allows a corrupt government to suppress the truth.
It is the natural right of every person to do what they want, provided they don't bother anyone.
That's another debate, but I'll agree that no one has the ability to control what you do or think, and the laws should reflect that by staying out of your business. However, I think a much better alternative to censorship is my right to come tell you that I think what you're doing to yourself is harmful and potentially fatal. And then, you can further excersize your right to ignore me, or (even better, in my opinion) disagree with me.
What does suppose mean? It sounds like you try not to laugh out loud when someone says something you disagree with.
I meant "suppose" the way mathemeticians and logicians use it. My definition of open-mindedness merely meant that we should accept that any idea is possible, until we've disproven it, and that we should treat all such ideas with equal respect.
Your assumption is wrong.
Fair enough.
My wife is a Christian. My children are Christians. My in-laws are Christians. I attended a Church of Christ for a number of years and even co-led the class for college students for two of them. Many of the people who are closest to me are Christians. But none are evangelical/fundamentalist types. I found that when I get to know people of this persuasion sufficiently well, I find hatred in their hearts and thoughts of controlling/punishing others in their minds.
Well, this shouldn't come as any big suprise, because they're human. I have all of those things in my mind as well--but I recognize that they are wrong. I'll even concede that my tone has gotten overly contemptuous in other posts I've made. You have to understand that my post basically said, "I disagree with a lot of Christians in that I don't think government censorship of media is a good thing, but the core idea of wanting to shelter your children from content that you deem harmful is not only good, but not exclusive to Christianity." I got a lot of responses along the lines of "You idiot. Why do you stupid Christians want to tell me what I can and cannot watch?" Can you see how that would be frustrating?
I would be a hypocrite if I were claiming to be perfect, but I am not making that claim.
Hypocrite. You have repeatedly refused to take people at face value. When they've expressed sentiments you disagree with, you've closed your mind and branded them Christian haters.
Again, my tone has been contemptuous in some posts--I should not have done that. I owe everyone a big apology. But I'm not trying to get everyone to believe what I believe--my position from the beginning is defending the idea of parents wanting to control what their children watch. I have not defended censorship (I have actually attacked it).
And I haven't called anyone names--merely suggested that their views are the result of strong personal biases against Christians. I still maintain that view for the majority of the posts, but have changed my view on at least one sub-thread--the one about Buddhism.
Look at how evangelical/fundamental types in the US are trying to use the law to enfore their belief system on everyone else -- atheists, agnostics, Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants. Their agenda is to make this country a theocracy safe for their precious children. These are the folks who give all Christians a bad name. It's unfair. It's more than unfair. It should kill you that these people are debasing the Word.
I am extremely upset at the Evangelical Christian movement. The entire name is a misnomer; it has nothing to do with evangelism. The entire point seems to be to convince non-believers that Christians hate them. However, my beliefs about that movement aren't the issue.
Before you castigate others for making assumptions about you based on your religious brand, you should accept the greater Christian community for what it is, including those with whom you disagree, and you should clean up your own house before you accuse others of misrepresenting the Christian faith.
You and I both have just accused others (the Evangelicals) of misrepresenting the Christian faith. However, I agree that you should take plank out of your own eye first.
Again, this could go on and on, I just want to make sure you know exactly where I stand on the issue of censorship, and why I have responded the way I did to many posts.
The standards to which I hold myself are different than the standards to which I hold others. By open-mindedness I meant at least an honest attempt at understanding other people's ideas in an unbiased fashion. I'm not even asking other people to hold their own minds to the same standards I hold mine. So, in one case I'm talking about the open exchange of ideas, in the other I'm talking about a personal decision to avoid images and content which I find destructive.
I suspect you're getting ready to hit "reply" so you can tell me that the two are actually the same. I will just go ahead and disagree with that idea here. What if I wrote, instead of this post, a big long chain of insults hurled at you. You might not care, but you certainly wouldn't read the post (after a few lines, you'd get the idea). And I wouldn't blame you--I wouldn't be trying to present you with an idea, so you wouldn't need to be "open" to it.
I fail to meet these standards constantly anyway. Not to bore you with theology, but a central tennant to Christianity is that we don't have to meet those stardards. Only try.
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He means that "zero-aggression" is all that the government needs to do to keep human nature in check--the rest will be solved by different interests competing with eachother.
It's really sad that, despite all efforts, people will forever tie embryotic stem cell research to abortion.
I don't think people choose to embrace such ideas dogmatically because it's "easier" for them (i.e. they don't have to think critically). Sadly, I think the reason is that they are taught to embrace all ideas dogmatically.
What philosophical leader (this problem goes way beyond religion) ever taught that critical thinking and reasoning must be avoided? The decision to accept one premise by faith does not mean that conclusions should be drawn by faith as well.
The Wisconsin government could theoretically shut down the local computer store, but it does not have the power to shut down out-of-state websites.
If I lived in Wisconson, I would only be even willing to discuss the matter if it only applied to online stores located in Wisconson, not online customers. If someone drives over to where I live, they pay my local and state sales taxes when they buy stuff at a shop located in my community.
You're only proving what fucking idiots Americans are. Like your brethren, you're one of the best-educated retards that history has ever produced. The best you can rationally expect now is to be the last one to turn out the lights on your shithole of a country, after the last dollar has winged its way overseas with the last globalist executive.
I would have to argue that holier-than-thou self-richeousness is the least moral religion ever. And I think that the American uber-wealthy don't adhere to any lower moral standard than any other uber-wealthy. Which was your point originally, but it seems like you're attacking Americans because they're Americans. I know plenty of Americans who do not love money.
The best you can rationally expect now is to be the last one to turn out the lights on your shithole of a country, after the last dollar has winged its way overseas with the last globalist executive.
Despite your, shall we say, colorful imagery, I definately agree with this. Americans are giving up control because they lack the moral impetus required to evaluate corporations based on their actions, not on their stock value alone.
But I just wish people would realize that this has nothing to do with being an American and everything to do with being human. What makes you or I so fundamentally different from those who have been so fundamentally corrupted by wealth?
This is why I think it's a great idea for a country like Switzerland, but terrible for the U.S.
Where there's a whip,
There's a way!
where there's a whip,
There's a way
We don't want to go to war today!
I'm going to repost something I wrote elsewhere in this thread:
I think this is especially pertinent to your post, since I think that the reasons handgun control works in places like Hong Kong and Japan is because the people there don't value the recreational possibilities of a handgun like we do (in this case, target practice. But I have heard of people who have hunted with Berettas).
They have no real purpose other than shooting bullets; they weren't designed on the concept of a stick, they were designed on the concept of shooting people. Guns are fundamentally different from the other items you mentioned, which is why they're treated differently.
If a bill went through Congress seeking to make Bittorrent illegal, would you support it, or defend Bittorrent? The argument (and it's pretty solid) is that Bittorrent has a good deal of non-infringing uses which means that making it illegal also tramples on legitimate liberty. Likewise, guns have a lot of uses that are non-harmful to people.
If you can convince pro-gunners that there are no uses of guns that should be legal, they might agree. But a lot of them like to hunt. Not to mention these things come in handy on a farm.
Most European countries don't have the kind of foreign policy that the U.S. does which almost guarantees that you see combat if you're in it for more than 5-7 years.
You should have let the parent figure that out on his own.
Sounds like a confession of weak-mindedness to me.
Remember that I believe that watching nekkid women does the same thing to me that it does to any other heterosexual man. So, weak according to whom?
Your co-religionists who, like their Taliban counterparts, advocate state censorship are a reason why the only reason "Christian perspectives" are taken seriouly by the informed is for purposes of opposition research.
We can have a free country, or we can have a country run by religious crazies. We can't have both.
I don't understand your point--do you believe that the kind of censorship proposed by the legislation in question is wrong? I certainly do.
I may hold certain beliefs that you disagree with, but does that preclude us from agreeing on anything?
Or worse, the Declaration of Independence.
I can think that eating meat is bad for the body, and stop eating meat, but not want to make a law telling you that you cannot eat meat. In another case, say child pornography, I can claim that such material is bad for everyone to look at and want it to be banned.
I leave it up to you to determine which position I have taken for this kind of censorship--the position kind of hurts your claim that I am forcing anything down anyone's throat.
These are star trek fans. Does that answer your question?
And the most frustrating thing is that they all think they're so smart...
I know the similarities to 9/11 were really over-the-top, but at least the characters started showing signs of growth and character depth! They actually got angry, and sad, and they actually had a reason to! And that fragile little "warp 5" expirement finally stopped running around in space as invincible as the Enterprise D.
When you do that kind of crap its called child abuse and its why so many adults are in therapy.
If that's not a problem I don't know what is. Nevertheless, this is a non-issue now. We both seem to agree that censorship is wrong, and how parents choose to raise their children is their business.
I'm glad I was raised by people who live in the real world, not some crazy wacked out religious world.
I wasn't either.
I apologize for underestimating you.
And I you. But you didn't quite get it all right--I wasn't raised a Christian. I was a damned good atheist for a while.
I hope you see the pun, other wise that comment will sound extremely conceited. :)
You've been condemned to my friend's list.
children are not property. They are people. It is not up to you to tell them what they can think.
It is entirely up to the parents to imprint their impressionable young minds with good values. I wasn't raised in a Christian household--but I'm glad I was taught the value of principles by them.
Good post...you're absolutely right...I'm completely exhausted from this. Thanks for being more than civil.
If I was trying to have a reasoned discourse, and then introduced proof that i believed in things that have no proof at all, that would certainly undermine my validity as an arguer.
Right--and I have introduced no such proof, so there's not much disagreement here.
Even though I have been given personal proof in my life that compels me to believe what I do, I still am a skeptic at heart. In spite of the fact that you and I could probably not discuss Christianity without coming to a stalling point, we can probably discuss politics because both of us seem to have an areligious view of how government should work.
I agree--censorship is wrong.
What censorship does, however, is hold others' minds to your standard.
Also, censorship allows a corrupt government to suppress the truth.
It is the natural right of every person to do what they want, provided they don't bother anyone.
That's another debate, but I'll agree that no one has the ability to control what you do or think, and the laws should reflect that by staying out of your business. However, I think a much better alternative to censorship is my right to come tell you that I think what you're doing to yourself is harmful and potentially fatal. And then, you can further excersize your right to ignore me, or (even better, in my opinion) disagree with me.
What does suppose mean? It sounds like you try not to laugh out loud when someone says something you disagree with.
I meant "suppose" the way mathemeticians and logicians use it. My definition of open-mindedness merely meant that we should accept that any idea is possible, until we've disproven it, and that we should treat all such ideas with equal respect.
Your assumption is wrong.
Fair enough.
My wife is a Christian. My children are Christians. My in-laws are Christians. I attended a Church of Christ for a number of years and even co-led the class for college students for two of them. Many of the people who are closest to me are Christians. But none are evangelical/fundamentalist types. I found that when I get to know people of this persuasion sufficiently well, I find hatred in their hearts and thoughts of controlling/punishing others in their minds.
Well, this shouldn't come as any big suprise, because they're human. I have all of those things in my mind as well--but I recognize that they are wrong. I'll even concede that my tone has gotten overly contemptuous in other posts I've made. You have to understand that my post basically said, "I disagree with a lot of Christians in that I don't think government censorship of media is a good thing, but the core idea of wanting to shelter your children from content that you deem harmful is not only good, but not exclusive to Christianity." I got a lot of responses along the lines of "You idiot. Why do you stupid Christians want to tell me what I can and cannot watch?" Can you see how that would be frustrating?
I would be a hypocrite if I were claiming to be perfect, but I am not making that claim.
Hypocrite. You have repeatedly refused to take people at face value. When they've expressed sentiments you disagree with, you've closed your mind and branded them Christian haters.
Again, my tone has been contemptuous in some posts--I should not have done that. I owe everyone a big apology. But I'm not trying to get everyone to believe what I believe--my position from the beginning is defending the idea of parents wanting to control what their children watch. I have not defended censorship (I have actually attacked it).
And I haven't called anyone names--merely suggested that their views are the result of strong personal biases against Christians. I still maintain that view for the majority of the posts, but have changed my view on at least one sub-thread--the one about Buddhism.
Look at how evangelical/fundamental types in the US are trying to use the law to enfore their belief system on everyone else -- atheists, agnostics, Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants. Their agenda is to make this country a theocracy safe for their precious children. These are the folks who give all Christians a bad name. It's unfair. It's more than unfair. It should kill you that these people are debasing the Word.
I am extremely upset at the Evangelical Christian movement. The entire name is a misnomer; it has nothing to do with evangelism. The entire point seems to be to convince non-believers that Christians hate them. However, my beliefs about that movement aren't the issue.
Before you castigate others for making assumptions about you based on your religious brand, you should accept the greater Christian community for what it is, including those with whom you disagree, and you should clean up your own house before you accuse others of misrepresenting the Christian faith.
You and I both have just accused others (the Evangelicals) of misrepresenting the Christian faith. However, I agree that you should take plank out of your own eye first.
Again, this could go on and on, I just want to make sure you know exactly where I stand on the issue of censorship, and why I have responded the way I did to many posts.
I'm not in favor of censorship, so I don't know why your post is directed at me.
The standards to which I hold myself are different than the standards to which I hold others. By open-mindedness I meant at least an honest attempt at understanding other people's ideas in an unbiased fashion. I'm not even asking other people to hold their own minds to the same standards I hold mine. So, in one case I'm talking about the open exchange of ideas, in the other I'm talking about a personal decision to avoid images and content which I find destructive.
I suspect you're getting ready to hit "reply" so you can tell me that the two are actually the same. I will just go ahead and disagree with that idea here. What if I wrote, instead of this post, a big long chain of insults hurled at you. You might not care, but you certainly wouldn't read the post (after a few lines, you'd get the idea). And I wouldn't blame you--I wouldn't be trying to present you with an idea, so you wouldn't need to be "open" to it.
I fail to meet these standards constantly anyway. Not to bore you with theology, but a central tennant to Christianity is that we don't have to meet those stardards. Only try.