The point you are missing about morality and God is the fundamental existence of good or bad/right and wrong. Without God, right and wrong would not exist, even as a concept, and much like other animals, we would just behave as we were driven to. Is it wrong that the lion kills the zebra or another lion? Usually the zebra is eaten, but many times one animal will kill another for no apparent reason, but it is not wrong because they are only acting out of instinct. They have no free will or understanding of right or wrong. The fundamental concept of right and wrong exist because of the Supreme. Without Him, everything is relative and our actions are at best driven by random electrochemical interactions in our randomly evolved brain. How atheists can even trust the ability of their brains to reason or follow logic is beyond me, considering that they believe that their brains evolved by random accident.
Regarding the New Vs Old Testament, the old testament very much describes the history of the nation of Israel, and what Jesus actually said is he came to "fulfill the law". The law specifically was the ten commandments and Deuteronomy (literally means second law in Greek), not the entire Old Testament which contains history (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Kings, etc.) books of prophecy (Ezikiel etc.), books of song (Psalms, Song of Solomon) etc.
The law was a myriad of rules that the Jews had to obey and if they broke them, they had to kill an animal to atone in their place for that transgression. In essence, the OT demands the death penalty for breaking any part of the law. Jesus came and replaced all of the rules with a simple command and he became the sacrifice and now directly offers us forgiveness, all we must do is ask. Jesus did replace the law, but before that he fulfilled it, so both are technically accurate to say. Christians today still follow the 10 commandment, but do not practice much if any of Deuteronomy. Even in the 10 commandments, Christians worship on Sunday (the first day of the week) and do not observe the Sabbath, which is technically Saturday, in violation of the 5th commandment. Christians do not restrict their diet to kosher foods (outlined in Deuteronomy) etc. So in a very real way, Jesus replaced the law of the old testament, and this is what Christians follow.
Often people are misled (or mislead others) by specific, historical commands that God gave in the Old Testament to a specific person (go here, do this, go there do that). Those commands were specific to those people and that time. In the New Testament Jesus gives his followers specific commands that hold for all Christians to this day. Again, the discussion and my central argument revolves around the theoretical implementation of the specific tennants of the religion, not the implementations that are extraneous or directly contrary to the core principles. I do not cherry pick the New Testament, and I would challenge you to find any commands to Christians in the New Testament that are counter to the core command of loving God and your neighbor as yourself.
Your reference to the Inquisition and conversion by the sword are conflating a religion with a cult (offshoots of a religion that set aside core principles) such as Catholicism. Catholicism started around 380 AD as the political religion of the Roman empire and became for centuries a very destructive cult and in the last century it may have just barely made it back into very edge of mainstream Christianity. (Note: Popularity does not denote accuracy of religious practices). For well over 1000 years, the Christian Orthodox Church (which directly descended from the 12 disciples and the early church starting around 36 AD) has viewed Catholicism as a cult. Nowhere in the teachings of Jesus or the New Testament will you find many of the practices of the Catholic church endorsed, and many teachings and actions are diametrically opposed to the core teachings of Christianity.
You are confused somewhat about Islam. Islam is both a religi
It is possible that it is just luck, but until we fully understand Cancer, which is apparently caused by everything, we can't really say what theories are right or wrong. Essentially we don't understand cancer that well or specifically what causes it. This is informative considering we spend billions of dollars every year on cancer research the globe over. It may well indicate that modern medicine has been on the wrong track with cancer, just like we have been with heart disease (remember partially hydrogenated oils? Those were supposed to be great for your heart, up until we figured out that they were causing ~80% of all heart attacks. Oops.)
I have no idea if the Hunza have the cure for cancer in their DNA or in their environment, but until we are willing to do even simple, real science (find people who are at high risk for cancer and get them to live/eat/drink like the Hunza for 20 years) then we can't discount the fact that they don't get cancer.
Not sure if you are trolling, but OK I will assume that was an honest question:
Total crime and mass shootings by crazy people are not the same thing. Fully 50% of all mass murders committed in the US were done by mentally ill in 2013, despite being only 11% of the population (excluding depression). The US rates of involuntary commitment for mentally ill people is far below that of other modern nations i.e. EU etc.
Total crime is down because of 3 strikes laws, lifetime incarceration of habitual criminals, record high gun ownership, castle doctrine laws, etc. Dead or incarcerated criminals do not commit crimes. Most crime is still committed by people because they chose to, for a myriad of reasons, not because of mental health issues.
"Trump nominated a ONE OF THE TOP NEUROSURGEONS IN THE WORLD AND A GUY WHO IS DAMN SIGHT SMARTER THAN I AM who thinks dietary supplements can cure cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development." FTFY
A: He didn't nominate him for surgeon general B: Remember Pellagra, Beriberi, Scurvy, Rickets etc? Probably not because no one in developed countries gets them because they are all easily cured by vitamins. Cancer and MS both potentially have features that behave similarly to a vitamin deficiency, but until we understand what chemical compound it is and how it works, it seems like trivializing deadly diseases, just like the diseases I mentioned above did to people who lived with those diseases before they were eliminated by vitamins.
Also, the cure for cancer is at least in part based on the Hunza mountain people who live an average of 120 plus years and do not get cancer. Ever. Their tribe likely was the real life seed of truth behind the legend of Shangri-La an earthly paradise where people live forever. Why they don't get cancer is what everyone wants to know and the jury is still out, but you can't argue with their lifespans. The problem with cancer at least in part is it appears that the diet of your entire life plays a key role in when or if you will get it, so testing a potential vitamin cure is problematic at best.
Oh sure, because there has never been a left wing nut with a gun? Try again. There are crazies of all flavors. In the US, we used to put them in sanitariums for everyone's safety, including their own. Then the bleeding heart idiots on the left (ACLU specifically) sued in 1972 to let all the poor, incarcerated nut jubs loose into society with all of their constitutional rights and we saw a massive jump in homelessness, vagrancy, assaults, and yes, shootings, all by these crazy people that had no place in our society.
Here are a few left wing nuts you may have heard of. For some reason they do wall to wall coverage of affiliation if the gunman is right wing; if they are liberal Democrats, those details are largely unreported by the MSM:
– Nidal Hasan – Ft Hood Shooter: Registered Democrat – Aaron Alexis, Navy Yard shooter – black liberal/Obama voter – Seung-Hui Cho – Virginia Tech shooter: Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff, registered Democrat. – James Holmes – the “Dark Knight”/Colorado shooter: Registered Democrat, staff worker on the Obama campaign, #Occupy guy,progressive liberal, – Amy Bishop, the rabid leftist, killed her colleagues in Alabama, Obama supporter. – Andrew J. Stack, flew plane into IRS building in Texas – Leftist Democrat – James J. Lee who was the “green activist”/ leftist took hostages at Discovery Channel – progressive liberal Democrat.
This exactly. The majority can still be wrong, and a voting system will be rife with partisan BS. There is no substitute for a good BS detector and a healthy dose of skepticism. The problem is there is no foolproof way to automate what honest journalists used to do. It will be interesting to see how many NYT or other MSM articles get flagged as mostly false.
What FB needs to do is develop an apolitical pipeline where they don't vet the articles, they vet the sources, and then put down strict sourcing and veracity rules straight out of classical journalism 101 for those sources in the pipeline. Sources that violate these rules get flagged as satire or fiction and banned from the news pipeline and lose visibility for a period of weeks or months. A small team of investigators could check into random or flagged stories and then ban as appropriate. There are tens of thousands of stories written up every day, but probably curating 1000 pipelines would satisfy 95% of the important news.
Those of us who miss the old days of the Nokia brick phone still have options. I have had a beefy case with a built in battery that gives me 2x battery life. I have been looking at small, bluetooth keyboards built into the case, so there are options, just not phones with those features.
Your statement as well as mine is speculation. Yours is based on bullshit hysteria put out by the Democratic party, mine is based on what Trump has said and done since winning. The jury is still out on the long term, but it does appear that he genuinely wants to help people (see what he just did for Carrier employees who were going to get outsourced to Mexico). He is not even the president yet and he has already saved 1000 jobs at a cost of $700/employee per year in incentives to the employer. The state will easily make that back in taxes from those employees and revenue from having the Carrier plant stay in the state.
You make my point about atheists. Without an absolute origin to morality, morality is relative. My morality and your morality may differ and there is no absolute to reference to so there is no authority to say what is right and wrong. You can appeal to majority or experts, but it is still a relative measure.
You seem misled about Christianity. The Old Testament (Genesis through Malachi) describes the history of the nation of Israel. It informs the New Testament, but it does not guide Christians. Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ (thus the name Christian) as described in the gospels in the New Testament, who as I said previously summed up God's command to man in the following statement: "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself." Christians further believe that all are sinners, Christians should be humble and thankful that they have been forgiven and becoming a Christian is a decision of the heart between you and God; it is thus not something that can be forced. The idea of freedom of conscience is first and foremost among Christian concepts regardless of what you have been misled into believing. Do not confuse examples of those who do a poor job of following the the teachings of Jesus with the religion it'self. We are talking here about what you get following each religion to it's extreme practice, examples of poor behavior in the name of a religion but directly contrary to core teachings do not count against the religion conceptually. Those examples can be found with any religion.
You could not be more poorly informed about Islam as well. Feel free to actually read the Koran (I have) or history if you want to be informed. Muslims are commanded to charity towards other Muslims (or non Muslims if it will help them convert to Islam). Infidels can be lied to, cheated in business, enslaved for profit (Muslims were responsible for enslaving ~20 million Africans from 650-1900 AD and around 2.5 million whites from the Mediterranean from 1450-1700 AD) and infidels can be taxed or beheaded for non-conversion (this has been happening since the founding of Islam, and is CURRENTLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN THE MIDDLE EAST WITH ISIS). I don't know about you, but that is a huge freaking difference to the Christian command to love everyone like you love yourself... I dare you to find 5 cases of Christians murdering people who won't convert to Christianity in the last 10 years. I can find that for Muslims in the last 10 days. Also, 25% of US Muslims in a recent study agree with violent Jihad, which blows a giant hole in the violent but small minority canard that has been floated. Islam is and always has been a violent religion. Of the 22 world conflicts actively fighting around the world, 21 of them involve Muslims on one or both sides.
Hinduisim and the karma and reincarnation thing is great in theory for people being nice to each other, but the problem is you can't have a healthy society when you believe that everything from a bug to a bull have the same value as a human life. That world view has lead to the needless suffering and starvation of millions, which is pretty horrible by most approximations of morality.
In other news Trump considers declaring twitter a national communications utility and making it a government regulated utility guided by the first amendment, and then promptly kicks all the whiny bitches currently running it out on their asses.
These twits (pun intended) on the fascist progressive left wing can't behave as civil citizens, they will very quickly learn the difference between the minimal power a megacorp has vs the hard power that the leader of the free world has.
I guess maybe you were still in diapers back then, but MS was investigated by the DOJ and subsequently sued by the DOJ:
"The company barely escaped being split up after it was ruled an unlawful monopolist in 2000 for using its stranglehold on the PC market with its Windows operating system to cripple competitors, such as Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.
A court settlement approved in 2002 and a consent decree curbing some of its practices saved Microsoft."
FB, Apple, etc. are pulling the same bullshit and so far Obama, a Democrat, has done zero about it because they are all run by big liberals.
Also, just be aware that Trump is not a conservative, he is a populist, which is significantly different in that he is specifically looking for what is best for the people rather than what is best for big business (being against TPP is one example of him being a populist). So you may very well be surprised by what he does, but because he has been such a loose cannon on the campaign trail we will literally have to wait and see what he actually does in office.
So more accurately, drugs stimulate the same reward centers of the brain that meaningful, rewarding activities like religious activities, doing well at work, being in a good, healthy relationship etc. (FTFY)
Not sure how this is news, seeing that we have known for decades that illegal drugs that are addictive do this. This is just an ass backwards stab at religion. If you want to judge religions, go for it, but judge them based on what they do, not how it makes people feel to engage in their religious activities. Some religions are rewarding because they actually objectively do good in the world.
A long time ago I boiled it down to these fundamentals. Some practitioners are better than others, but in theory this is what each religion yields if you take it to it's extreme practice:
-Hindu: we are constantly reincarnated, so let people starve while cattle eat your crops because it could be grandma
-Muslim: Muslims are superior, the whole world must be under Sharia law, convert or we will enslave you or cut your head off
-Atheist: there is no higher order, we happened by accident so my personal morality is all that matters, if our morality differs, mine takes precedent
-Buddhist: the world is suffering so even if others suffer, its OK as long as I attain peace and enlightenment
-Christian: love God and love and care for your fellow human the same as you do yourself
It is high time that a lot of these internet giants get some hard scrutiny from the justice department on anti-monopoly grounds, similar to what Microsoft got after they destroyed Netscape by bundling IE. FB is a defacto monopoly on social media, as evidenced by the failure of Google plus, my space etc. Since they are a defacto monopoly, cutting off another company's access to their API is an illegal anti-competitive move and they should get slammed hard for it.
I would love to see some federal legislation as well defining that your personal posts, pictures and other content you create on social media is inseparably yours and cannot be owned or given away to FB or anyone else. Also, a requirement to make all the information downloadable in a consistent, standard format for offline archive or transfer to another service would be helpful. The legislation this week protecting negative reviews from corporate interference was a good step. The sad fact is that the liberal internet giants like Google and FB have been humping Obama's leg for the last 8 years, where Democrats used to be watching out for individual rights, now they are just as bought and paid for by big business as Republicans, just different businesses.
It is not the fall that kills you. Once you hit terminal velocity, you don't go any faster. The sudden stop is what kills you. I remember several cases where people survived falls out of aircraft at cruising altitude. One fell into a 20' plus fresh powder snow drift (so they had 20' to decelerate) still injured, but non fatal. The other fell into a peat bog, where the peat was built up many feet after a dry season where most of the water was gone. The peat acted like a pillow, and the person survived.
Around my building are several hedges that are at least 10' tall and quite dense. My guess is this guy fell onto something like that, combined with soft ground bark top cover that slowed him enough to make it non fatal. If you jump that far and land on parking lot, the stop happens over a fraction of an inch and you are 100% dead.
To go after people for using the images that Getty/Alamy themselves pulled from the public domain, and demand payment whenever they see those images used... is FRAUD. (FTFY)
She needs to refer this case to the attorney general of her state and let them prosecute the CEO on down the executive ladder for fraud and extortion. Pretty sure this fits the legal definition, and since it is a clear pattern (Getty has been sued and won before for this same BS) they need to pursue criminal convictions of upper management.
Republicans have been for a long time calling for voter ID, voting machines to be made only in the US for US elections, and open source code that can be independently reviewed for security and accuracy, along with an online validation system that ties your voter ID to the vote, so you can log on and verify that your vote has been properly counted. It is the Democrats that are the party of criminals (8:1, look it up) the party of dead voters, the party of voter fraud, the party of illegal alien voters, the party of pay to vote (a la free booze for homeless etc.), the party of busing mental deficients to polling places, the party of basically any kind of voter fraud you can think of, and some you probably couldn't. I am not a huge fan of Trump, but his message resonated: "I am just a guy, a successful business owner, who is sick of Washington politics. They are wrecking the country and destroying the middle class. Vote for me, warts and all and I will clean house and try to get the country back to where it was in 1985."
If you are paying attention, it already seems pretty clear from his changing positions that he is not a radical guy and he can be persuaded by reasonable arguments. Democrats need to stop believing their own propaganda. The election is over. Time to sack up and judge Trump's actions.
As far as the 7% differential, in a vacuum that is absolutely meaningless and is just a bunch of butt hurt losers. If you can find counties that voted only for Trump (like the counties that voted 100% for Obama in previous elections) or that every voting machine county voted EXACTLY 7% (hint, they didn't) or other real statistical anomalies, then you can allege hacking. The real headline should read: "Butt hurt Democrats unable to find any hacking in election machines, still bitching about losing."
Wow, not sure if you are that stupid or just trolling.
First off, we are not talking ball of lava, we are talking a little warmer for a few days in the Antarctic at this point. The wildest projections for global temperatures predict a max of 5C global temperature increase (never mind that these models have been wrong and every 10 years they have to turn them down to avoid losing all credibility). Pretty sure that the northern US, Canada, Syberia etc, aren't too worried about that kind of temperature rise. Also keep in mind that the tropics aren't going to get much hotter due to the effects of evaporation, most of the rise will be seen at the poles and further latitudes.
The past is massively important to what we are currently seeing. If this global warming is due to increased solar flux/frequency shift, or a myriad of other factors not directly or indirectly caused by man, (and that argument can be made easily looking at the global temperatures over the past 500k years; hint: palm trees used to grow on Antarctica) then all the resources we pour into fighting global warming are 100% wasted. Further, if we are really in for a rough ride through non-anthropogenic (non-man-made) global warming, we would be much better off using those resources to mitigating the effects of global warming (which are primarily centered around sea level rise and weather, both of which we know how to deal with using 2-3 foot sea walls and 3D printed concrete homes designed to withstand hurricanes etc.) rather than pissing away hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars to try to prevent something that we have no power over.
So yah, your professor did a great job of teaching you what to think and never got around to teaching you how to think. Sorry you didn't have me in college, I would have at least given you a fighting chance to think critically instead of regurgitating what your echo chamber of friends and you all think.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your panic over a 4 day period that is the most ice loss since 1979... They had a couple of warm days. That is like taking the temperature in your room for a minute and freaking out that it is changing. Did you know the temperature in most rooms varies significantly over a 24h period? Well you might not if you only measured it for a couple of minutes and assumed that that would stay like that forever. You people are the literal epitome of chicken little. Google historical global temperature and look at the temperatures over the last 400,000 years and then give it a rest. All you are doing at this point is losing credibility.
Not sure what you are referring to, but feel free to watch the testimony of James Comey before congress. He basically lays out all of the facts around Hillary Clinton's criminal acts, and then ascribes a requirement to the law governing classified material (namely intent) where there is no such requirement. After laying out a very damning case, Comey says that no prosecutor would take the case. There are hundreds if not thousands of prosecutors in this country who have said they could easily get a conviction based on the evidence found by Comey.
"the parties created the pay-for-play system and the networks went along with it"
My point exactly, they are the lap dogs, not the watch dogs. If the networks didn't go along with it, it wouldn't happen. No one can blame the parties for wanting the most favorable coverage they can get, thats politics, but the networks have a responsibility to give us ALL the facts on BOTH candidates.
"reality has a liberal bias etc."
Oh really, and that's how every Obama liberal fantasy policy came up shit, real unemployment is at ~13% (the labor participation rate is down big time, and not just because of baby boomers retiring; age 20-24 participation is down 7% from 1994, 25 to 54 is down 3%) the economy is crap with just barely positive growth (compare it to Bush 43, Clinton or Regan after their respective recessions), Obamacare is doubling our monthly insurance premiums and doubling everyone's copays, ISIS is on the rise and committing genocide and millions of refugees are fleeing the middle east, we have had the slowest recovery from a recession since the great depression, record numbers of people on food stamps and welfare, the middle east is on fire and Europe is being invaded? You have to be a mental defective to stand here and tell me that reality has a liberal bias, based on the implementation of these liberal progressive ideas and how well they have worked out.
Don't blame it on Bush, Obama has had 7 years, 2 with both houses and Bush inherited a recession too (dot com bubble) followed by a massive terrorist attack, but managed to help the economy recover and chug along for 5 years afterwards. Tell me again how reality has a liberal bias, or pull your head out of the echo chamber and look at the facts.
"When they have a discussion about whether or not global warming is caused by human activity, and they have one guy who agrees, and one who disagrees, that is not balanced."
You seem confused about how balanced debate works. If anthropogenic global warming is a fact, the guy who is for global warming should be easily able to get up there and rattle off facts and quotes by experts and take apart the guy who is against global warming. The reality is that there are a lot of problems both historical and currently for global warming; with the models vs. reality, the methods and integrity of the global temperatures database, and the science is far from settled, no matter how many times liberals stomp their feet and yell that everyone who is smart (aka everyone who agrees with me) believes in it.
What you advocate is neither fair nor balanced nor the proper format for a debate. 49pro and 1 against global warming might give you a liberal orgasm, but it would neither inform the viewer on both sides of the issue, nor be fair to the opposing position. In debate, majority does not make your argument more or less valid, the facts and well reasoned positions do, regardless of how many hold any one position. Just because a position is not popular does not make it wrong, and just because a position is popular, it doesn't make it right. By your logic, we should still believe the earth is flat, because that was at one time the most popular position and the round earth theorists were the minority, so their views should be marginalized and drowned out by the majority.
Fox is the most trusted network in the country, regardless of the insults that you spray at them and their viewership (here is a clue, you are neither smarter nor more clever than their viewership; the O'reilly factor has more college grads tuning in than MSNBC or CNN). You are free to go dig up the study naming Fox most trusted and poke holes in it, or maybe just watch Fox for a while. I suspect that liberals are afraid to watch because after the first hour or two, your anger will fade and the truth laid out there will start to seep in and your liberal convictions on which you base your entire life will start to erode, leaving you with no foundation (don't worry though, that is how you become a conservative/true libertari
Nice straw man from someone who apparently never watches Fox news. The only crazy stupid here is you if that is what you believe the right believes or Fox news reports.
You need to get out of your echo chamber and actually watch Fox news for a few weeks or talk to someone who holds different world views than yours. Geez.
IANAL, but this is easy to find if you want to. Or you could watch something other than MSNBC and get real news.
18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code makes it unlawful to send or store classified information on personal/unsecured/unauthorized email
Section 1236.22 of the 2009 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements states that:
“Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.”
We now know based on other recipients that she deleted thousands of work related emails.
U.S. Code 798 – Disclosure of classified information U.S. Code 1031 — Major fraud against the United States U.S. Code 371 – Conspiracy to commit a federal offense U.S. Code 1924 – Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material U.S. Code 2071(b) — Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally of subpoenaed evidence U.S. Code 1346 — Definition of “scheme or artifice to defraud” U.S. Code 641 – Public money, property or records U.S. Code 1343 – Fraud by wire, radio or television U.S. Code 1505 – Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees U.S. Code 1519 — Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations 18 U.S. Code 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
There is probably more, but you get the idea. At the end of the day I expect that this will all come apart when the old, corrupt Loretta Lynch is out on her ass and the new attorney general appoints a special prosecutor and starts with the little fish around Clinton. Eventually enough of them will roll and she will be convicted of at least transmitting classified info on her servers and probably bribery (favors from State dept after $500k plus speaking fees to Billy), along with many counts of destruction of evidence, perjury before congress and conspiracy. And she knew exactly what she was doing. Both she and Bill are lawyers and he was the president FFS, they both knew the rules regarding classified information.
Yes and no. The left realized during the Bush Jr. admin that Snopes was effectively counteracting their propaganda which is essentially spewed verbatim by the MSM 24/7. So they worked on infiltrating it, and now the problem is that instead of following the exact facts on left wing misbehavior, they build a straw man that is more excessive than the true negative facts on an issue and then say that the straw man is mostly false, rather than sticking to the actual stories about for instance Hillary Clinton and her illegal acts, (which Comey very eloquently outlined) or the Clinton foundation (which is also the subject of an active FBI investigation) etc. That tactic, in and of it'self, reveals an unacceptable level of bias that has crept into snopes.
No, what is evil is running the federal government on a $10 trillion dollar deficit over the last 7 years that future generations will have to pay for in order to buy votes with social programs like health care, welfare and food stamps.
And to be clear, the right wants smaller, less intrusive government with minimal safety nets for those who truly have to have it. This means less taxes because the government is smaller. If that boost of 2-3% extra into the economy also increases the total economic growth rate dramatically, and therefore boosts net tax income (which happened under Regan), that's fine, but that is not the goal.
The left wants to tax everything to the max so that they can buy votes with their various failed social programs and experiments.
Slashdot Mirror
The point you are missing about morality and God is the fundamental existence of good or bad/right and wrong. Without God, right and wrong would not exist, even as a concept, and much like other animals, we would just behave as we were driven to. Is it wrong that the lion kills the zebra or another lion? Usually the zebra is eaten, but many times one animal will kill another for no apparent reason, but it is not wrong because they are only acting out of instinct. They have no free will or understanding of right or wrong. The fundamental concept of right and wrong exist because of the Supreme. Without Him, everything is relative and our actions are at best driven by random electrochemical interactions in our randomly evolved brain. How atheists can even trust the ability of their brains to reason or follow logic is beyond me, considering that they believe that their brains evolved by random accident.
Regarding the New Vs Old Testament, the old testament very much describes the history of the nation of Israel, and what Jesus actually said is he came to "fulfill the law". The law specifically was the ten commandments and Deuteronomy (literally means second law in Greek), not the entire Old Testament which contains history (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Kings, etc.) books of prophecy (Ezikiel etc.), books of song (Psalms, Song of Solomon) etc.
The law was a myriad of rules that the Jews had to obey and if they broke them, they had to kill an animal to atone in their place for that transgression. In essence, the OT demands the death penalty for breaking any part of the law. Jesus came and replaced all of the rules with a simple command and he became the sacrifice and now directly offers us forgiveness, all we must do is ask. Jesus did replace the law, but before that he fulfilled it, so both are technically accurate to say. Christians today still follow the 10 commandment, but do not practice much if any of Deuteronomy. Even in the 10 commandments, Christians worship on Sunday (the first day of the week) and do not observe the Sabbath, which is technically Saturday, in violation of the 5th commandment. Christians do not restrict their diet to kosher foods (outlined in Deuteronomy) etc. So in a very real way, Jesus replaced the law of the old testament, and this is what Christians follow.
Often people are misled (or mislead others) by specific, historical commands that God gave in the Old Testament to a specific person (go here, do this, go there do that). Those commands were specific to those people and that time. In the New Testament Jesus gives his followers specific commands that hold for all Christians to this day. Again, the discussion and my central argument revolves around the theoretical implementation of the specific tennants of the religion, not the implementations that are extraneous or directly contrary to the core principles. I do not cherry pick the New Testament, and I would challenge you to find any commands to Christians in the New Testament that are counter to the core command of loving God and your neighbor as yourself.
Your reference to the Inquisition and conversion by the sword are conflating a religion with a cult (offshoots of a religion that set aside core principles) such as Catholicism. Catholicism started around 380 AD as the political religion of the Roman empire and became for centuries a very destructive cult and in the last century it may have just barely made it back into very edge of mainstream Christianity. (Note: Popularity does not denote accuracy of religious practices). For well over 1000 years, the Christian Orthodox Church (which directly descended from the 12 disciples and the early church starting around 36 AD) has viewed Catholicism as a cult. Nowhere in the teachings of Jesus or the New Testament will you find many of the practices of the Catholic church endorsed, and many teachings and actions are diametrically opposed to the core teachings of Christianity.
You are confused somewhat about Islam. Islam is both a religi
What a really deep, reasoned argument. You are the epitome of why AC posting should be eliminated.
It is possible that it is just luck, but until we fully understand Cancer, which is apparently caused by everything, we can't really say what theories are right or wrong. Essentially we don't understand cancer that well or specifically what causes it. This is informative considering we spend billions of dollars every year on cancer research the globe over. It may well indicate that modern medicine has been on the wrong track with cancer, just like we have been with heart disease (remember partially hydrogenated oils? Those were supposed to be great for your heart, up until we figured out that they were causing ~80% of all heart attacks. Oops.)
I have no idea if the Hunza have the cure for cancer in their DNA or in their environment, but until we are willing to do even simple, real science (find people who are at high risk for cancer and get them to live/eat/drink like the Hunza for 20 years) then we can't discount the fact that they don't get cancer.
Not sure if you are trolling, but OK I will assume that was an honest question:
Total crime and mass shootings by crazy people are not the same thing. Fully 50% of all mass murders committed in the US were done by mentally ill in 2013, despite being only 11% of the population (excluding depression). The US rates of involuntary commitment for mentally ill people is far below that of other modern nations i.e. EU etc.
https://www.hsaj.org/articles/...
Total crime is down because of 3 strikes laws, lifetime incarceration of habitual criminals, record high gun ownership, castle doctrine laws, etc. Dead or incarcerated criminals do not commit crimes. Most crime is still committed by people because they chose to, for a myriad of reasons, not because of mental health issues.
http://www.cnsnews.com/comment...
"Trump nominated a ONE OF THE TOP NEUROSURGEONS IN THE WORLD AND A GUY WHO IS DAMN SIGHT SMARTER THAN I AM who thinks dietary supplements can cure cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development." FTFY
A: He didn't nominate him for surgeon general
B: Remember Pellagra, Beriberi, Scurvy, Rickets etc? Probably not because no one in developed countries gets them because they are all easily cured by vitamins. Cancer and MS both potentially have features that behave similarly to a vitamin deficiency, but until we understand what chemical compound it is and how it works, it seems like trivializing deadly diseases, just like the diseases I mentioned above did to people who lived with those diseases before they were eliminated by vitamins.
http://listverse.com/2012/03/1...
Also, the cure for cancer is at least in part based on the Hunza mountain people who live an average of 120 plus years and do not get cancer. Ever. Their tribe likely was the real life seed of truth behind the legend of Shangri-La an earthly paradise where people live forever. Why they don't get cancer is what everyone wants to know and the jury is still out, but you can't argue with their lifespans. The problem with cancer at least in part is it appears that the diet of your entire life plays a key role in when or if you will get it, so testing a potential vitamin cure is problematic at best.
http://www.shughal.com/health-...
Oh sure, because there has never been a left wing nut with a gun? Try again. There are crazies of all flavors. In the US, we used to put them in sanitariums for everyone's safety, including their own. Then the bleeding heart idiots on the left (ACLU specifically) sued in 1972 to let all the poor, incarcerated nut jubs loose into society with all of their constitutional rights and we saw a massive jump in homelessness, vagrancy, assaults, and yes, shootings, all by these crazy people that had no place in our society.
Here are a few left wing nuts you may have heard of. For some reason they do wall to wall coverage of affiliation if the gunman is right wing; if they are liberal Democrats, those details are largely unreported by the MSM:
– Nidal Hasan – Ft Hood Shooter: Registered Democrat
– Aaron Alexis, Navy Yard shooter – black liberal/Obama voter
– Seung-Hui Cho – Virginia Tech shooter: Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff, registered Democrat.
– James Holmes – the “Dark Knight”/Colorado shooter: Registered Democrat, staff worker on the Obama campaign, #Occupy guy,progressive liberal,
– Amy Bishop, the rabid leftist, killed her colleagues in Alabama, Obama supporter.
– Andrew J. Stack, flew plane into IRS building in Texas – Leftist Democrat
– James J. Lee who was the “green activist”/ leftist took hostages at Discovery Channel – progressive liberal Democrat.
This exactly. The majority can still be wrong, and a voting system will be rife with partisan BS. There is no substitute for a good BS detector and a healthy dose of skepticism. The problem is there is no foolproof way to automate what honest journalists used to do. It will be interesting to see how many NYT or other MSM articles get flagged as mostly false.
What FB needs to do is develop an apolitical pipeline where they don't vet the articles, they vet the sources, and then put down strict sourcing and veracity rules straight out of classical journalism 101 for those sources in the pipeline. Sources that violate these rules get flagged as satire or fiction and banned from the news pipeline and lose visibility for a period of weeks or months. A small team of investigators could check into random or flagged stories and then ban as appropriate. There are tens of thousands of stories written up every day, but probably curating 1000 pipelines would satisfy 95% of the important news.
Those of us who miss the old days of the Nokia brick phone still have options. I have had a beefy case with a built in battery that gives me 2x battery life. I have been looking at small, bluetooth keyboards built into the case, so there are options, just not phones with those features.
Your statement as well as mine is speculation. Yours is based on bullshit hysteria put out by the Democratic party, mine is based on what Trump has said and done since winning. The jury is still out on the long term, but it does appear that he genuinely wants to help people (see what he just did for Carrier employees who were going to get outsourced to Mexico). He is not even the president yet and he has already saved 1000 jobs at a cost of $700/employee per year in incentives to the employer. The state will easily make that back in taxes from those employees and revenue from having the Carrier plant stay in the state.
You make my point about atheists. Without an absolute origin to morality, morality is relative. My morality and your morality may differ and there is no absolute to reference to so there is no authority to say what is right and wrong. You can appeal to majority or experts, but it is still a relative measure.
You seem misled about Christianity. The Old Testament (Genesis through Malachi) describes the history of the nation of Israel. It informs the New Testament, but it does not guide Christians. Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ (thus the name Christian) as described in the gospels in the New Testament, who as I said previously summed up God's command to man in the following statement: "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself." Christians further believe that all are sinners, Christians should be humble and thankful that they have been forgiven and becoming a Christian is a decision of the heart between you and God; it is thus not something that can be forced. The idea of freedom of conscience is first and foremost among Christian concepts regardless of what you have been misled into believing. Do not confuse examples of those who do a poor job of following the the teachings of Jesus with the religion it'self. We are talking here about what you get following each religion to it's extreme practice, examples of poor behavior in the name of a religion but directly contrary to core teachings do not count against the religion conceptually. Those examples can be found with any religion.
You could not be more poorly informed about Islam as well. Feel free to actually read the Koran (I have) or history if you want to be informed. Muslims are commanded to charity towards other Muslims (or non Muslims if it will help them convert to Islam). Infidels can be lied to, cheated in business, enslaved for profit (Muslims were responsible for enslaving ~20 million Africans from 650-1900 AD and around 2.5 million whites from the Mediterranean from 1450-1700 AD) and infidels can be taxed or beheaded for non-conversion (this has been happening since the founding of Islam, and is CURRENTLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN THE MIDDLE EAST WITH ISIS). I don't know about you, but that is a huge freaking difference to the Christian command to love everyone like you love yourself... I dare you to find 5 cases of Christians murdering people who won't convert to Christianity in the last 10 years. I can find that for Muslims in the last 10 days. Also, 25% of US Muslims in a recent study agree with violent Jihad, which blows a giant hole in the violent but small minority canard that has been floated. Islam is and always has been a violent religion. Of the 22 world conflicts actively fighting around the world, 21 of them involve Muslims on one or both sides.
http://www.centerforsecuritypo...
Hinduisim and the karma and reincarnation thing is great in theory for people being nice to each other, but the problem is you can't have a healthy society when you believe that everything from a bug to a bull have the same value as a human life. That world view has lead to the needless suffering and starvation of millions, which is pretty horrible by most approximations of morality.
In other news Trump considers declaring twitter a national communications utility and making it a government regulated utility guided by the first amendment, and then promptly kicks all the whiny bitches currently running it out on their asses.
These twits (pun intended) on the fascist progressive left wing can't behave as civil citizens, they will very quickly learn the difference between the minimal power a megacorp has vs the hard power that the leader of the free world has.
I guess maybe you were still in diapers back then, but MS was investigated by the DOJ and subsequently sued by the DOJ:
"The company barely escaped being split up after it was ruled an unlawful monopolist in 2000 for using its stranglehold on the PC market with its Windows operating system to cripple competitors, such as Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.
A court settlement approved in 2002 and a consent decree curbing some of its practices saved Microsoft."
http://www.seattletimes.com/bu...
FB, Apple, etc. are pulling the same bullshit and so far Obama, a Democrat, has done zero about it because they are all run by big liberals.
Also, just be aware that Trump is not a conservative, he is a populist, which is significantly different in that he is specifically looking for what is best for the people rather than what is best for big business (being against TPP is one example of him being a populist). So you may very well be surprised by what he does, but because he has been such a loose cannon on the campaign trail we will literally have to wait and see what he actually does in office.
So more accurately, drugs stimulate the same reward centers of the brain that meaningful, rewarding activities like religious activities, doing well at work, being in a good, healthy relationship etc. (FTFY)
Not sure how this is news, seeing that we have known for decades that illegal drugs that are addictive do this. This is just an ass backwards stab at religion. If you want to judge religions, go for it, but judge them based on what they do, not how it makes people feel to engage in their religious activities. Some religions are rewarding because they actually objectively do good in the world.
A long time ago I boiled it down to these fundamentals. Some practitioners are better than others, but in theory this is what each religion yields if you take it to it's extreme practice:
-Hindu: we are constantly reincarnated, so let people starve while cattle eat your crops because it could be grandma
-Muslim: Muslims are superior, the whole world must be under Sharia law, convert or we will enslave you or cut your head off
-Atheist: there is no higher order, we happened by accident so my personal morality is all that matters, if our morality differs, mine takes precedent
-Buddhist: the world is suffering so even if others suffer, its OK as long as I attain peace and enlightenment
-Christian: love God and love and care for your fellow human the same as you do yourself
It is high time that a lot of these internet giants get some hard scrutiny from the justice department on anti-monopoly grounds, similar to what Microsoft got after they destroyed Netscape by bundling IE. FB is a defacto monopoly on social media, as evidenced by the failure of Google plus, my space etc. Since they are a defacto monopoly, cutting off another company's access to their API is an illegal anti-competitive move and they should get slammed hard for it.
I would love to see some federal legislation as well defining that your personal posts, pictures and other content you create on social media is inseparably yours and cannot be owned or given away to FB or anyone else. Also, a requirement to make all the information downloadable in a consistent, standard format for offline archive or transfer to another service would be helpful. The legislation this week protecting negative reviews from corporate interference was a good step. The sad fact is that the liberal internet giants like Google and FB have been humping Obama's leg for the last 8 years, where Democrats used to be watching out for individual rights, now they are just as bought and paid for by big business as Republicans, just different businesses.
It is not the fall that kills you. Once you hit terminal velocity, you don't go any faster. The sudden stop is what kills you. I remember several cases where people survived falls out of aircraft at cruising altitude. One fell into a 20' plus fresh powder snow drift (so they had 20' to decelerate) still injured, but non fatal. The other fell into a peat bog, where the peat was built up many feet after a dry season where most of the water was gone. The peat acted like a pillow, and the person survived.
Around my building are several hedges that are at least 10' tall and quite dense. My guess is this guy fell onto something like that, combined with soft ground bark top cover that slowed him enough to make it non fatal. If you jump that far and land on parking lot, the stop happens over a fraction of an inch and you are 100% dead.
To go after people for using the images that Getty/Alamy themselves pulled from the public domain, and demand payment whenever they see those images used... is FRAUD. (FTFY)
She needs to refer this case to the attorney general of her state and let them prosecute the CEO on down the executive ladder for fraud and extortion. Pretty sure this fits the legal definition, and since it is a clear pattern (Getty has been sued and won before for this same BS) they need to pursue criminal convictions of upper management.
Republicans have been for a long time calling for voter ID, voting machines to be made only in the US for US elections, and open source code that can be independently reviewed for security and accuracy, along with an online validation system that ties your voter ID to the vote, so you can log on and verify that your vote has been properly counted. It is the Democrats that are the party of criminals (8:1, look it up) the party of dead voters, the party of voter fraud, the party of illegal alien voters, the party of pay to vote (a la free booze for homeless etc.), the party of busing mental deficients to polling places, the party of basically any kind of voter fraud you can think of, and some you probably couldn't. I am not a huge fan of Trump, but his message resonated: "I am just a guy, a successful business owner, who is sick of Washington politics. They are wrecking the country and destroying the middle class. Vote for me, warts and all and I will clean house and try to get the country back to where it was in 1985."
If you are paying attention, it already seems pretty clear from his changing positions that he is not a radical guy and he can be persuaded by reasonable arguments. Democrats need to stop believing their own propaganda. The election is over. Time to sack up and judge Trump's actions.
As far as the 7% differential, in a vacuum that is absolutely meaningless and is just a bunch of butt hurt losers. If you can find counties that voted only for Trump (like the counties that voted 100% for Obama in previous elections) or that every voting machine county voted EXACTLY 7% (hint, they didn't) or other real statistical anomalies, then you can allege hacking. The real headline should read: "Butt hurt Democrats unable to find any hacking in election machines, still bitching about losing."
Wow, not sure if you are that stupid or just trolling.
First off, we are not talking ball of lava, we are talking a little warmer for a few days in the Antarctic at this point. The wildest projections for global temperatures predict a max of 5C global temperature increase (never mind that these models have been wrong and every 10 years they have to turn them down to avoid losing all credibility). Pretty sure that the northern US, Canada, Syberia etc, aren't too worried about that kind of temperature rise. Also keep in mind that the tropics aren't going to get much hotter due to the effects of evaporation, most of the rise will be seen at the poles and further latitudes.
The past is massively important to what we are currently seeing. If this global warming is due to increased solar flux/frequency shift, or a myriad of other factors not directly or indirectly caused by man, (and that argument can be made easily looking at the global temperatures over the past 500k years; hint: palm trees used to grow on Antarctica) then all the resources we pour into fighting global warming are 100% wasted. Further, if we are really in for a rough ride through non-anthropogenic (non-man-made) global warming, we would be much better off using those resources to mitigating the effects of global warming (which are primarily centered around sea level rise and weather, both of which we know how to deal with using 2-3 foot sea walls and 3D printed concrete homes designed to withstand hurricanes etc.) rather than pissing away hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars to try to prevent something that we have no power over.
So yah, your professor did a great job of teaching you what to think and never got around to teaching you how to think. Sorry you didn't have me in college, I would have at least given you a fighting chance to think critically instead of regurgitating what your echo chamber of friends and you all think.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your panic over a 4 day period that is the most ice loss since 1979... They had a couple of warm days. That is like taking the temperature in your room for a minute and freaking out that it is changing. Did you know the temperature in most rooms varies significantly over a 24h period? Well you might not if you only measured it for a couple of minutes and assumed that that would stay like that forever. You people are the literal epitome of chicken little. Google historical global temperature and look at the temperatures over the last 400,000 years and then give it a rest. All you are doing at this point is losing credibility.
Not sure what you are referring to, but feel free to watch the testimony of James Comey before congress. He basically lays out all of the facts around Hillary Clinton's criminal acts, and then ascribes a requirement to the law governing classified material (namely intent) where there is no such requirement. After laying out a very damning case, Comey says that no prosecutor would take the case. There are hundreds if not thousands of prosecutors in this country who have said they could easily get a conviction based on the evidence found by Comey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Some very insightful and direct facts about intent, which was the only thing keeping her out of jail according to Comey's original findings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"the parties created the pay-for-play system and the networks went along with it"
My point exactly, they are the lap dogs, not the watch dogs. If the networks didn't go along with it, it wouldn't happen. No one can blame the parties for wanting the most favorable coverage they can get, thats politics, but the networks have a responsibility to give us ALL the facts on BOTH candidates.
"reality has a liberal bias etc."
Oh really, and that's how every Obama liberal fantasy policy came up shit, real unemployment is at ~13% (the labor participation rate is down big time, and not just because of baby boomers retiring; age 20-24 participation is down 7% from 1994, 25 to 54 is down 3%) the economy is crap with just barely positive growth (compare it to Bush 43, Clinton or Regan after their respective recessions), Obamacare is doubling our monthly insurance premiums and doubling everyone's copays, ISIS is on the rise and committing genocide and millions of refugees are fleeing the middle east, we have had the slowest recovery from a recession since the great depression, record numbers of people on food stamps and welfare, the middle east is on fire and Europe is being invaded? You have to be a mental defective to stand here and tell me that reality has a liberal bias, based on the implementation of these liberal progressive ideas and how well they have worked out.
Don't blame it on Bush, Obama has had 7 years, 2 with both houses and Bush inherited a recession too (dot com bubble) followed by a massive terrorist attack, but managed to help the economy recover and chug along for 5 years afterwards. Tell me again how reality has a liberal bias, or pull your head out of the echo chamber and look at the facts.
"When they have a discussion about whether or not global warming is caused by human activity, and they have one guy who agrees, and one who disagrees, that is not balanced."
You seem confused about how balanced debate works. If anthropogenic global warming is a fact, the guy who is for global warming should be easily able to get up there and rattle off facts and quotes by experts and take apart the guy who is against global warming. The reality is that there are a lot of problems both historical and currently for global warming; with the models vs. reality, the methods and integrity of the global temperatures database, and the science is far from settled, no matter how many times liberals stomp their feet and yell that everyone who is smart (aka everyone who agrees with me) believes in it.
What you advocate is neither fair nor balanced nor the proper format for a debate. 49pro and 1 against global warming might give you a liberal orgasm, but it would neither inform the viewer on both sides of the issue, nor be fair to the opposing position. In debate, majority does not make your argument more or less valid, the facts and well reasoned positions do, regardless of how many hold any one position. Just because a position is not popular does not make it wrong, and just because a position is popular, it doesn't make it right. By your logic, we should still believe the earth is flat, because that was at one time the most popular position and the round earth theorists were the minority, so their views should be marginalized and drowned out by the majority.
Fox is the most trusted network in the country, regardless of the insults that you spray at them and their viewership (here is a clue, you are neither smarter nor more clever than their viewership; the O'reilly factor has more college grads tuning in than MSNBC or CNN). You are free to go dig up the study naming Fox most trusted and poke holes in it, or maybe just watch Fox for a while. I suspect that liberals are afraid to watch because after the first hour or two, your anger will fade and the truth laid out there will start to seep in and your liberal convictions on which you base your entire life will start to erode, leaving you with no foundation (don't worry though, that is how you become a conservative/true libertari
Nice straw man from someone who apparently never watches Fox news. The only crazy stupid here is you if that is what you believe the right believes or Fox news reports.
You need to get out of your echo chamber and actually watch Fox news for a few weeks or talk to someone who holds different world views than yours. Geez.
IANAL, but this is easy to find if you want to. Or you could watch something other than MSNBC and get real news.
18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code makes it unlawful to send or store classified information on personal/unsecured/unauthorized email
Section 1236.22 of the 2009 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements states that:
“Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.”
We now know based on other recipients that she deleted thousands of work related emails.
U.S. Code 798 – Disclosure of classified information
U.S. Code 1031 — Major fraud against the United States
U.S. Code 371 – Conspiracy to commit a federal offense
U.S. Code 1924 – Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material
U.S. Code 2071(b) — Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally of subpoenaed evidence
U.S. Code 1346 — Definition of “scheme or artifice to defraud”
U.S. Code 641 – Public money, property or records
U.S. Code 1343 – Fraud by wire, radio or television
U.S. Code 1505 – Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees
U.S. Code 1519 — Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations
18 U.S. Code 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
There is probably more, but you get the idea. At the end of the day I expect that this will all come apart when the old, corrupt Loretta Lynch is out on her ass and the new attorney general appoints a special prosecutor and starts with the little fish around Clinton. Eventually enough of them will roll and she will be convicted of at least transmitting classified info on her servers and probably bribery (favors from State dept after $500k plus speaking fees to Billy), along with many counts of destruction of evidence, perjury before congress and conspiracy. And she knew exactly what she was doing. Both she and Bill are lawyers and he was the president FFS, they both knew the rules regarding classified information.
http://ijr.com/2015/03/264655-...
http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
http://ijr.com/wildfire/2016/1...
Yes and no. The left realized during the Bush Jr. admin that Snopes was effectively counteracting their propaganda which is essentially spewed verbatim by the MSM 24/7. So they worked on infiltrating it, and now the problem is that instead of following the exact facts on left wing misbehavior, they build a straw man that is more excessive than the true negative facts on an issue and then say that the straw man is mostly false, rather than sticking to the actual stories about for instance Hillary Clinton and her illegal acts, (which Comey very eloquently outlined) or the Clinton foundation (which is also the subject of an active FBI investigation) etc. That tactic, in and of it'self, reveals an unacceptable level of bias that has crept into snopes.
No, what is evil is running the federal government on a $10 trillion dollar deficit over the last 7 years that future generations will have to pay for in order to buy votes with social programs like health care, welfare and food stamps.
And to be clear, the right wants smaller, less intrusive government with minimal safety nets for those who truly have to have it. This means less taxes because the government is smaller. If that boost of 2-3% extra into the economy also increases the total economic growth rate dramatically, and therefore boosts net tax income (which happened under Regan), that's fine, but that is not the goal.
The left wants to tax everything to the max so that they can buy votes with their various failed social programs and experiments.