Anyway, I'll hijack this thread to talk about my own information about where the 'personality' is during a clinical death experience. I don't think it 'is' anywhere. It's like asking where windows is when your computer is off. Going through a coma or medical death is like rebooting the part of your brain that generates your personality. If you read about Hindu and Buddhist meditation, and also the experience of serious hallucinogen users, they talk about an experience called 'ego death'. It's where you still perceive everything you normally would, except there is no "I". The subjective perspective completely evaporates. You see yourself as objectively as you would the person sitting next to you, not attached to your desires or fears. Even though you can still perceive your own thoughts and internal body states, you still don't have the sensation of an "I" or a soul who is experiencing it. Your sense of ownership, or things belonging to 'you', including your own body and thoughts, just is gone. It's called the 'unseen seer' in Hinduism, or the invisible eyeball by the transcendentalist Americans of the 1800s.
There is a part of our brain that generates this sense of self, the "I", and it can get shut down just like any other part of the brain, through bodily trauma, meditation, or drugs.
But that's not consistent with what people report in NDEs. They don't typically say there was no "I". As you apparently embrace the materialist view, how can you compare rebooting a computer to the brain shutting down in a NDE, where the brain is doing nothing, but people come back with memories of having done something? The apt analogy given the materialist view, would be that you reboot the computer, and when it boots, notepad is open with a story typed into it, that was never typed in (at least while the computer was in the ON state).
Owning up to guilt is characteristic of meat-eaters, is it? No, never having seriously reflected on the harm done to animals is characteristic of meat-eaters, in a society where it is the norm to eat meat. Reflecting deeply on these issues and concluding that a behavioural change is necessary to minimise suffering is characteristic of vegetarians and vegans, in a society where a conscious decision is required in order not to eat meat.
LOL! If vegivegans were capable of reflecting deeply and concluding that behavioral change was necessary to minimize suffering, they would collectively figure out that they should take all their inane proselytizing and shove it up their collective asses. They would furthermore stand downwind of the rest of us.
justify your thousand kills on the basis of it.
"Justify kills"? "Justify kills"???? How about you justifying removing yourself from the food chain? Herbivores have a natural obligation to be prey of another species. How convenient that your ancestors hunted just long enough to rid your island of man-eating megafauna, so that you can now sit around eating beans and grains in safety stinking up the atmosphere with your greenhouse-inducing methane emissions, being perfectly useless to the rest of the ecosystem... At least until foxes and other former "murder victims" multiply to the point where you can no longer out-compete them for resources.
No, freezing your head isn't the answer. A rocket will do a better job. If you accelerate at 1 g in some direction for 4 years, turn around and accelerate the other way for 8 years, then turn around again to decelerate for 4 more years, ending back at earth, about 4,000 years will have passed on earth during your 16 years. If you have more time to spend, you can travel 200,000 years if you make it a 24 year trip. Of course it would suck if you made the trip, and the only think left on the planet was a smoldering ember. Also, by even 4,000 years we will almost certainly be back in another ice age, and there will probably be a resulting global war for fresh water and a whole lot of slowly rotting corpses. It would also suck if you made the trip and it turned out that Einstein was full of it, and it didn't work. I think I'll just stay here and tinker with my computer and then die like a sensible person.
But he is a senator who got into office campaigning on the Sanctity of Marriage. He'd be just a senator if he hadn't gotten all excited about a constitutional amendment to "protect" some idealized version of marriage that never actually existed.
Marriage being between one man and one woman is some "idealized version of marriage that never actually existed"? Other than humanity's protracted foray into polygamy, that has always been the definition of marriage.
I think that where we disagree is that I see the humor in the fact that the group of people who scream and cry loudly about the sanctity of marriage, traditional morals, and how we need a government that will uphold the morals of the Christian majority seems to be full of people who aren't doing a particularly good job of living their lives that way.
There will obviously be such people in any group. I disagree if you're saying that on average those who advocate laws that acknowledge the sanctity of marriage do a worse job of living up to those ideals than the population as a whole. If that's not it, you just find it funny to find examples, then have a laugh at me too -- my heart is not very pure, yet I believe very strongly in the ideal of purity. And I believe in forming society in such a way that nurtures and protects purity in its young people. And if one day I somehow lost all restraint and cheated on my wife, I would still believe in those things... as funny as that would be.
Here's an example quote, which I pulled directly from Vitter's own campaign web site:
Vitter Statement on Protecting the Sanctity of Marriage
"This is a real outrage. The Hollywood left is redefining the most basic institution in human history, and our two U.S. Senators won't do anything about it.
We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts's values. I am the only Senate Candidate to coauthor the Federal Marriage Amendment; the only one fighting for its passage. I am the only candidate proposing changes to the senate rules to stop liberal obstructionists from preventing an up or down vote on issues like this, judges, energy, and on and on." stated David Vitter.
Campaigning on "THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE" and then hiring a hooker once he gets to DC, that's why he deserves the new asshole he's getting torn. Of course, the whole Vitter situation is completely unrelated to Stevens and his corruption charge.
That's my point -- this lies outside the definition of "hypocrisy". Defending laws that acknowledge the sanctity of marriage is a good thing. Not honoring that sanctity in his private life is a bad thing. His private failings (assuming the claims of them are true) don't make his legislative cause any less legitimate, and don't mean he is insincere about it. And it doesn't mean he deserves any worse than the rest of the adulterers in Washington. Given the choice I'd rather someone with good ideals but who hasn't always lived up to them, than someone without good ideals.
Vitter was not one of those people. He is one of those people who says things like "You're an asshole if you ___" trumpeting moral fitness and calling for people who have had affairs to step down from office. If you campaign on the "I'm moral and the other guy isn't" platform, I have zero pity for you. Don't call for somebody's resignation when he does it and then call yourself forgiven and keep on rolling when you do it. There's no "My family deserves privacy but his family doesn't" in non-hypocrite-land.
As far as I can tell, the only thing Vitter ever said along those lines was, "I think Livingston's stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess." That's hardly the equivalent of "people who have affairs are not moral enough to hold office." It's not even the equivalent of "Clinton SHOULD resign." If he had said (as maybe some in office did, I don't know) "Clinton must resign because he had an affair," then I would agree that it would be hypocrisy if they didn't resign in the same situation.
So you see nothing wrong with being the standard bearer for "family values" and the "sanctity of marriage" and cheating on your wife? You don't see anything particularly hypocritical about wanting Clinton to resign over an extramarital affair but doing the usual "I've been forgiven, so stay out of my family's business" tap dance when he's caught having one? Look, I don't care how screwed up the guy's personal life is when evaluating him as a leader, but I'm going to POINT AND LAUGH at the blatant hypocrisy of these holier-than-thou assholes and the hot water it gets them in. Admittedly, it's not as funny as Ted Haggard, but it's still a hoot.
1) He's not "the standard bearer," he's just a senator. 2) I see something wrong with cheating on one's wife, whether one is "the standard bearer" or not. 3) Everyone knew Clinton was an adulterer going in. People wanted him kicked out of office for perjury and abuse of executive privelidge.
No connection between "family values" and "sanctity of marriage" and cheating on your wife with a hooker? Please. I bet my wife would have something to say about that if I tried the argument.
Of course there's a connection between adultery and the sanctity of marriage. As far as the sanctity of marriage goes, he's apparently a bad husband but a good senator. You apparently don't care what kind of husband a senator is, but if they try to protect the sanctity of marriage as a senator, but fail to protect it as a husband, you will "point and laugh." That's your prerogative, but I don't believe it makes for any kind of argument against the validity of upholding those ideals in the first place.
People do crazy things when they are afraid. Turning a large protesting crowd into a terrified mob could potentially cause more casualties than it would prevent.
Erm, I think the reverse is true. I think the main reason people in mobs do crazy and harmful things is because they feel invulnerable when acting as part of the larger body.
Everyone seems to be hopping on the "but fear is useful!" bandwagon - but I'm not sure it is. Fear, the emotion, is an instinctive reaction to danger, whether that danger is real or simply perceived. I don't see that it's necessarily bad to replace the gut response with a rational response.
That is, I doubt the drug will remove awareness of danger, simply the emotional reaction to it. While supersoldiers leap to every SF fan's mind, imagine what this could do for everyone who's got any kind of irrational fear. Fear of flying, fear of public speaking, fear of talking to girls, the whole list of phobias. Even in situations where fear is justified - wartime combatants, for example - I don't know that fear is helpful in comparison to the ability to rationally assess threats.
I see two immediate cases for the usefulness of fear. 1) For those not smart enough to replace fear with careful thought -- like the mediocre swimmer who would go out for a swim except that the 10ft waves inspire fear in him; 2) For those who gain greater mastery of their minds by overcoming their fear, and thus acting deliberately regardless of fear's impulses -- like the highly-trained soldier, rescue worker, etc., who operates on firmly established principles, regardless of fear. The work of overcoming fear trains one to be able to overcome other instincts, desires or appetites in favor of reason or principle as well. It's similar to the practice (used in every religion I can think of) of fasting, which trains one to choose deliberate action over bodily appetite for food. In short, it is these frailties of the body which give us the opportunity to strengthen our minds, and become something more than animals.
What is "innate fear"? I would suggest that in fact, no such thing exists. Instead, virtually all fear is learned. Even the amorphous entity called "fear of the unknown" is simply a result of having spent time on Planet Earth and correctly learned that the unknown can kill you.
I make this claim based on my having raised two daughters. As infants and toddlers, they have no fear whatsoever: just endless simian curiosity. This is why parents have to child-proof the house, since no 18-month old yet has a fear of electrical outlets nor running ovens. These are things that a child must be taught to fear.
Similarly, now that they're teenagers, they have to be taught to fear things that are inherently unsafe -- in some ways, it's worse now than it was when they were toddlers. As an experienced adult, I know that hanging out at the mall with no purpose other than to be with your teenaged friends is an inherently dangerous idea...
In general I agree, but you might recall that babies have an innate fear of loud noises, especially when combined with sudden movements. I'd also suggest that people, once they are capable of contemplating it, have an innate fear of death -- although many people "unlearn" that fear.
(In any group of teenagers, take the IQ of the smartest one and divide by the number of teenagers present, and you'll have a rough idea of the collective intelligence of the group; divide this number by five, and you get a rough idea of the collective judgement).
I'm going to hang on to this formula for future reference. The oldest of my four daughters is 12.
This drug will likely be useless to me but will find its way to the black market in short order for those who want to take tests without being nervous or engage in dangerous behaviour, both of which are learned fears.
I can't imagine anyone using it for dangerous behavior. The fear is half the fun of dangerous behavior.
So if it makes you happy, you can blame the ACLU or a handful of atheists for taking Christianity out of the schools, but it was the nutjob minority within the Christian population that made that possible. Similarly, it's the nutjobs in the Islamic community that is making life so complicated for so many people. Personal faith is never the issue, and "being Christian" was never under attack. No one cares if you have a personal relationship with Jesus, or with Allah or anyone else.
When you are being prersecuted by a branch of government that is not answerable to the people, it makes no difference how large the majority his who favors your side. It doesn't do you any good unless or until you take to arms.
Regardless of whether or not the "nutjob Christians" somehow made it possible, the fact that a town would be prevented by the Courts (with the help of the ACLU), in clear contradiction to the 1st amendment, from putting a manger display in the town square on Christmas, while facing no such restriction from placing any other kind of display in the same place, illustrates that Christianity is an ideology persecuted by a powerful minority in control of the judicial branch of government, with no legal recourse for the People to do anything about it.
Generally speaking I'm with you, but I don't think the GOP is going to come crashing down. What I'm really praying for is a schism, where the religious right casts out the libertarian non-believers.
I really do think this split is inevitable, I just can't tell if it is going to happen by 2012 or 2020.
Ah, yes. Part of the world-view that believes that as soon as we leave Iraq, all the mujahadeen will apologize and go home, and Al Qaeda will disband.
I think we could have a respectable debate between three parties, where O'Bama and Paul have a intelligent discourse, and ignore the rantings of Brownback.
I can see it now. "And Sen. Obama, what's your view on constitutional constructionism vis. the 9th and 10th amendments?" "Hope. Hopitty-hope-hope-hope. And I'm the only one not afraid to say it. Carbon-neutral hope to save the planet. Vote your hopes, not your fears. George Bush only votes his fears, but I'll be a president of ALL the people. Amen, and God bless America, because I'm very religious. Thank you."
OTOH, regulation of morals is overstepping the proper bounds of government. (Fuck you, Christian Right.)
As it is apparently your express fantasy to rape Christian conservatives, I suppose it is understandable you think it is "overstepping the proper bounds of government" to outlaw things such as rape.
Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw on the way in this morning: 'Annoy a conserative, help somebody'.
A liberal helping someone would not annoy a conservative, only shock him. Conservatives help people. (For example they give far more to charity than liberals, both in absolute amount, and as a percentage of income.) Liberals vote for legislators with grand-sounding ideas of how they will force everyone else help people.
Actually, what the neocons mean when they say "smaller government" is "those stupid poor people deserve to die because they're poor, why should we help them avoid it".
And what liberals mean when they say "compassion" and "hope" is "non-whites are too dumb to make a living and support themselves, so give us $10,000 so we can hire 9 dumb people for $1,000 each to figure out how to give your other $1,000 to some other dumb person. Then we will all soon be living in nirvana, and there will be no war."
What matters is not really his personal life, but that he was a hypocrite. On one hand he visited prostitutes and on the other, he championed the cause of many "family"-oriented laws. It shows him as a basically dishonest person, and that's what bothers people (including me).
Nonsense. That's like saying that people who advocate morality are hypocrites unless they themselves are perfect. If he believed that prostitution was a good thing, but tried to outlaw it anyway, he would be a hypocrite. If he thought it was a bad thing, and tried to outlaw it anyway, but succumbed to it anyway, he would not be a hypocrite. But he probably never expressed an opinion on prostitution, as it's not really the subject of federal law. The idea that someone is a hypocrite because they hire a prostitute while simultaneously being against prenatal murder and homosexual marriage is convoluted at best.
The human mind is fortunately so divided that it can contemplate the ideal and the true before it itself embodies those things.
If the mob stopped spouting their own specious dogma, showing their own Newtonian-based cognitive dissonance and actually RTFA:
"Eric Adelberger and his team at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, have run a series of experiments using a twisting pendulum to measure the short-range strength of gravity, and they have already ruled out extra dimensions larger than a 0.1 millimetre. They are planning a new experiment to probe shorter distances still."
That folks, is science in action. Don't make me go through the checks and balances between experiment and theory.
It stops being science when critical thinking and the scientific process are overruled by non-scientific reasons.
As interested as I am to learn about how Bush lied about the extra dimensions to hide the oil he's stealing from Iraq, I have to insist that the fact that String Theorists have actually performed an experiment (!) does not make their theory "scientific". If I have a theory that green aliens are living on the surface of my desk, and a perform a visual scan and don't see any, then I have similarly experimentally ruled out the possibility that these aliens are larger than 0.01 millimeters or so. The fact that I did an experiment doesn't somehow validify my original theory.
I personally have nothing against intuitive intellectual pursuits. But those who claim to adhere to the religion of empiricism, and then embrace an intuitive theory such as String Theory or its offspring, are hypocrites.
Currently tagged as "crackpot", which is odd as this sounds like String theory - which may be incorrect, or may not be science, but is surely NOT crackpot. You don't get people with enormous pulsating brains like Ed Witten devoting his career to crackpottery.
As a case in counterpoint, Newton devoted at least as much of his research to alchemy as he did to the "non-crackpot" sciences.
The only way to reduce the demand is to eliminate all humans. We are driven by basic desires.
Animals are all driven by basic desires. Humans are driven by what they choose to be driven by, basic desires being one possible choice.
One of these desires is to ensure that we are genetically related to the children that we spend our resources in rearing.
Really? Maybe you've heard of this new fad called adoption, where people, often people fully capable of biological reproduction, spend tens of thousands of dollars for the right to spend raise children they are NOT genetically related to. Who are these freaks of nature, and why are there so many of them? Come to think of it, in every animal species I think of, such as horses and various apes and monkeys, knowing adoption of others' offspring is commonplace. I'm thinking there is no such basic desire.
Prior to contraception, the best way to achieve that was to impregnate a woman as soon as she is capable of being impregnated. Sooner is wasted energy (from a biological perspective, because she won't end up pregnant), and later runs the risk that someone else (the alpha male perhaps; we are tribal/herd-like still) has previously impregnated her and #2 will be rearing #1's child, not his own.
There was never such a need in pre-contraception historical societies, as the penalty for adultery in the vast majority of such societies was death.
The problem with the above factual analysis is that women reach biologically reproductive age much sooner than the law allows them to be sexually active.
The problem with the analysis is that it's not factual. The basis seems to be that you think it's normal for adult males to be sexually attracted to 11 and 12-year-old girls. Fortunately, it is far from normal.
we are imprisoning people because they possess evidence that a crime was committed. They had nothing to do with the crime. Again, this scares me because it can be abused so easily.
Er, if possessing X is outlawed, then the possession of X is a crime. The argument that no possession laws should exist because it's easier to frame people for possession crimes than for other crimes would a) require evidence that, in general, the modus operandi of the police department is to frame innocent people for crimes, b) require us to make enormous changes in our legal system to be consistent, such as disqualifying physical evidence altogether and only relying on the testimony of witnesses, and getting rid of all laws that are similarly easy to frame, and c) imply that we as a people are not good enough to form any sort of non dysfunctional society anyway, regardless of the laws.
Personally, I believe that moral degenerates, such as rapists, child abusers, and consumers of child pornography, should be executed -- not out of any kind of vengeance, but as the way to prevent those compulsions from being inherited and spread throughout society in future generations. Fortunately for liberals, as I am U.S. citizen, my opinion on the subject is irrelevant, since the Supreme Court wisely judged that only they can decide this issue, and they decided that no child-rapists or other rapists, only a specified subset of murderers can ever be executed in the U.S.
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But that's not consistent with what people report in NDEs. They don't typically say there was no "I". As you apparently embrace the materialist view, how can you compare rebooting a computer to the brain shutting down in a NDE, where the brain is doing nothing, but people come back with memories of having done something? The apt analogy given the materialist view, would be that you reboot the computer, and when it boots, notepad is open with a story typed into it, that was never typed in (at least while the computer was in the ON state).
LOL! If vegivegans were capable of reflecting deeply and concluding that behavioral change was necessary to minimize suffering, they would collectively figure out that they should take all their inane proselytizing and shove it up their collective asses. They would furthermore stand downwind of the rest of us.
"Justify kills"? "Justify kills"???? How about you justifying removing yourself from the food chain? Herbivores have a natural obligation to be prey of another species. How convenient that your ancestors hunted just long enough to rid your island of man-eating megafauna, so that you can now sit around eating beans and grains in safety stinking up the atmosphere with your greenhouse-inducing methane emissions, being perfectly useless to the rest of the ecosystem... At least until foxes and other former "murder victims" multiply to the point where you can no longer out-compete them for resources.
No, freezing your head isn't the answer. A rocket will do a better job. If you accelerate at 1 g in some direction for 4 years, turn around and accelerate the other way for 8 years, then turn around again to decelerate for 4 more years, ending back at earth, about 4,000 years will have passed on earth during your 16 years. If you have more time to spend, you can travel 200,000 years if you make it a 24 year trip. Of course it would suck if you made the trip, and the only think left on the planet was a smoldering ember. Also, by even 4,000 years we will almost certainly be back in another ice age, and there will probably be a resulting global war for fresh water and a whole lot of slowly rotting corpses. It would also suck if you made the trip and it turned out that Einstein was full of it, and it didn't work. I think I'll just stay here and tinker with my computer and then die like a sensible person.
Amen, brother.
Marriage being between one man and one woman is some "idealized version of marriage that never actually existed"? Other than humanity's protracted foray into polygamy, that has always been the definition of marriage.
There will obviously be such people in any group. I disagree if you're saying that on average those who advocate laws that acknowledge the sanctity of marriage do a worse job of living up to those ideals than the population as a whole. If that's not it, you just find it funny to find examples, then have a laugh at me too -- my heart is not very pure, yet I believe very strongly in the ideal of purity. And I believe in forming society in such a way that nurtures and protects purity in its young people. And if one day I somehow lost all restraint and cheated on my wife, I would still believe in those things... as funny as that would be.
I agree with the premise, but you seem to be suggesting that no one who's ever hired a prostitute can possibly be trying to live a moral life.
That's my point -- this lies outside the definition of "hypocrisy". Defending laws that acknowledge the sanctity of marriage is a good thing. Not honoring that sanctity in his private life is a bad thing. His private failings (assuming the claims of them are true) don't make his legislative cause any less legitimate, and don't mean he is insincere about it. And it doesn't mean he deserves any worse than the rest of the adulterers in Washington. Given the choice I'd rather someone with good ideals but who hasn't always lived up to them, than someone without good ideals.
Clearly, when it comes to how we regulate our actions, fear plays a more essential role in some than others.
To bad you don't know how two proof-read.
As far as I can tell, the only thing Vitter ever said along those lines was, "I think Livingston's stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess." That's hardly the equivalent of "people who have affairs are not moral enough to hold office." It's not even the equivalent of "Clinton SHOULD resign." If he had said (as maybe some in office did, I don't know) "Clinton must resign because he had an affair," then I would agree that it would be hypocrisy if they didn't resign in the same situation.
1) He's not "the standard bearer," he's just a senator. 2) I see something wrong with cheating on one's wife, whether one is "the standard bearer" or not. 3) Everyone knew Clinton was an adulterer going in. People wanted him kicked out of office for perjury and abuse of executive privelidge.
Of course there's a connection between adultery and the sanctity of marriage. As far as the sanctity of marriage goes, he's apparently a bad husband but a good senator. You apparently don't care what kind of husband a senator is, but if they try to protect the sanctity of marriage as a senator, but fail to protect it as a husband, you will "point and laugh." That's your prerogative, but I don't believe it makes for any kind of argument against the validity of upholding those ideals in the first place.
...about the best-allayed fears of mice and men?
Erm, I think the reverse is true. I think the main reason people in mobs do crazy and harmful things is because they feel invulnerable when acting as part of the larger body.
I see two immediate cases for the usefulness of fear. 1) For those not smart enough to replace fear with careful thought -- like the mediocre swimmer who would go out for a swim except that the 10ft waves inspire fear in him; 2) For those who gain greater mastery of their minds by overcoming their fear, and thus acting deliberately regardless of fear's impulses -- like the highly-trained soldier, rescue worker, etc., who operates on firmly established principles, regardless of fear. The work of overcoming fear trains one to be able to overcome other instincts, desires or appetites in favor of reason or principle as well. It's similar to the practice (used in every religion I can think of) of fasting, which trains one to choose deliberate action over bodily appetite for food. In short, it is these frailties of the body which give us the opportunity to strengthen our minds, and become something more than animals.
In general I agree, but you might recall that babies have an innate fear of loud noises, especially when combined with sudden movements. I'd also suggest that people, once they are capable of contemplating it, have an innate fear of death -- although many people "unlearn" that fear.
I'm going to hang on to this formula for future reference. The oldest of my four daughters is 12.
I can't imagine anyone using it for dangerous behavior. The fear is half the fun of dangerous behavior.
When you are being prersecuted by a branch of government that is not answerable to the people, it makes no difference how large the majority his who favors your side. It doesn't do you any good unless or until you take to arms.
Regardless of whether or not the "nutjob Christians" somehow made it possible, the fact that a town would be prevented by the Courts (with the help of the ACLU), in clear contradiction to the 1st amendment, from putting a manger display in the town square on Christmas, while facing no such restriction from placing any other kind of display in the same place, illustrates that Christianity is an ideology persecuted by a powerful minority in control of the judicial branch of government, with no legal recourse for the People to do anything about it.
Ah, yes. Part of the world-view that believes that as soon as we leave Iraq, all the mujahadeen will apologize and go home, and Al Qaeda will disband.
I can see it now. "And Sen. Obama, what's your view on constitutional constructionism vis. the 9th and 10th amendments?" "Hope. Hopitty-hope-hope-hope. And I'm the only one not afraid to say it. Carbon-neutral hope to save the planet. Vote your hopes, not your fears. George Bush only votes his fears, but I'll be a president of ALL the people. Amen, and God bless America, because I'm very religious. Thank you."
As it is apparently your express fantasy to rape Christian conservatives, I suppose it is understandable you think it is "overstepping the proper bounds of government" to outlaw things such as rape.
A liberal helping someone would not annoy a conservative, only shock him. Conservatives help people. (For example they give far more to charity than liberals, both in absolute amount, and as a percentage of income.) Liberals vote for legislators with grand-sounding ideas of how they will force everyone else help people.
And what liberals mean when they say "compassion" and "hope" is "non-whites are too dumb to make a living and support themselves, so give us $10,000 so we can hire 9 dumb people for $1,000 each to figure out how to give your other $1,000 to some other dumb person. Then we will all soon be living in nirvana, and there will be no war."
Nonsense. That's like saying that people who advocate morality are hypocrites unless they themselves are perfect. If he believed that prostitution was a good thing, but tried to outlaw it anyway, he would be a hypocrite. If he thought it was a bad thing, and tried to outlaw it anyway, but succumbed to it anyway, he would not be a hypocrite. But he probably never expressed an opinion on prostitution, as it's not really the subject of federal law. The idea that someone is a hypocrite because they hire a prostitute while simultaneously being against prenatal murder and homosexual marriage is convoluted at best.
The human mind is fortunately so divided that it can contemplate the ideal and the true before it itself embodies those things.
As interested as I am to learn about how Bush lied about the extra dimensions to hide the oil he's stealing from Iraq, I have to insist that the fact that String Theorists have actually performed an experiment (!) does not make their theory "scientific". If I have a theory that green aliens are living on the surface of my desk, and a perform a visual scan and don't see any, then I have similarly experimentally ruled out the possibility that these aliens are larger than 0.01 millimeters or so. The fact that I did an experiment doesn't somehow validify my original theory.
I personally have nothing against intuitive intellectual pursuits. But those who claim to adhere to the religion of empiricism, and then embrace an intuitive theory such as String Theory or its offspring, are hypocrites.
Erm, sorry if this is a stupid question, but if their squares are 1, what makes them imaginary?
As a case in counterpoint, Newton devoted at least as much of his research to alchemy as he did to the "non-crackpot" sciences.
Animals are all driven by basic desires. Humans are driven by what they choose to be driven by, basic desires being one possible choice.
Really? Maybe you've heard of this new fad called adoption, where people, often people fully capable of biological reproduction, spend tens of thousands of dollars for the right to spend raise children they are NOT genetically related to. Who are these freaks of nature, and why are there so many of them? Come to think of it, in every animal species I think of, such as horses and various apes and monkeys, knowing adoption of others' offspring is commonplace. I'm thinking there is no such basic desire.
There was never such a need in pre-contraception historical societies, as the penalty for adultery in the vast majority of such societies was death.
The problem with the analysis is that it's not factual. The basis seems to be that you think it's normal for adult males to be sexually attracted to 11 and 12-year-old girls. Fortunately, it is far from normal.
Er, if possessing X is outlawed, then the possession of X is a crime. The argument that no possession laws should exist because it's easier to frame people for possession crimes than for other crimes would a) require evidence that, in general, the modus operandi of the police department is to frame innocent people for crimes, b) require us to make enormous changes in our legal system to be consistent, such as disqualifying physical evidence altogether and only relying on the testimony of witnesses, and getting rid of all laws that are similarly easy to frame, and c) imply that we as a people are not good enough to form any sort of non dysfunctional society anyway, regardless of the laws.
Personally, I believe that moral degenerates, such as rapists, child abusers, and consumers of child pornography, should be executed -- not out of any kind of vengeance, but as the way to prevent those compulsions from being inherited and spread throughout society in future generations. Fortunately for liberals, as I am U.S. citizen, my opinion on the subject is irrelevant, since the Supreme Court wisely judged that only they can decide this issue, and they decided that no child-rapists or other rapists, only a specified subset of murderers can ever be executed in the U.S.