Sunday open thread
Busy with family.
Throwing out a couple discussion topics:
* What good is an “opposition” party that wants to elect its own worst opponents? Related: Where is Sarah Palin?
* Rush shreds the RAAAAAAACIST card. Related: First newspaper retracts fake RAAAACIST Rush quotes.
* Out: Dissent is patriotic! In: Fox News Channel’s dissenting anchors are unpatriotic!
* ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief: “The more I spoke about Obama and the Democrats part in the ACORN scandal, the more I drifted away from the ACORN 8. I never thought that their mission was bad, but ACORN’s subversive nature is rooted in pay for play politics and if one is to clean house, it has to be across the board. I was proud when Marcel appeared on Glenn Beck but often dismayed at the picture she painted of ACORN. Yes, the members are great people, but they do not need an ACORN to help them. Local based initiatives run by people in their own communities seem to do more to really help the poor. As more ACORN corruption was exposed, it became evident that reform was really not an option, it was a band aid on the Titanic. By breaking free of someone else’s agenda and doing the right thing, I was able to take this story to another level by doing research and exposing even more corruption.”
Talk amongst yourselves!
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Name me one Geemore adherent that has ever claimed that Geemore is benevolent.
I’m quite positive that you can’t.
Let me get this straight. You know that morality is completely subjective, yet you dare to impose your sense of morality on others (even non-humans)? How can this be? Shameless chutzpah. You make me want to vomit.
And who determines what’s absurd? You? We’ve already established that you’re not intelligent enough.
You better switch tactics here.
Your previous statements gave all the foundation my statement needed.
The power worshipper will always consider those in defiance stupid.
corkie:
Sure, Geemore worshipers the world over claim their deity is evil, malnevolent, and the source of unjust rules. The opposite is true, they claim morality is grounded in Geemore and those without Geemore have no “moral compass.”
Yes, silly me thinking that it’s acceptable to try and reason out a rational moral code based on the idea of respect for life and other humans. It’s much better to just claim Geemore says so and take all the z and x typing nonsense as a package deal.
I could swallow all your other tripe in the past as it was merely ignorant or pendantic rather than just evil. This is too much. I can’t believe you are actually defending the idea of hell.
None of my previous statements have given you anything.
Your stupidity has been determined on an exclusively secular basis. Deal with it.
We were using YOUR analogy. Are you going to now try and make the case that the rule “don’t type ‘z’ and ‘x’ in the same sentence” is not absurd? It is, and the idea that disobeying such a command means you deserve to be tortured FOREVER is vile, hateful, evil and stupid.
Of course, Geemore works in mysterious ways, I am just a mere mortal how could I understand? What arrogant nonsense! Shameless chutzpah, indeed.
You’ve ruined your credibility with your knee jerk desire to pile on the assumptions.
You can’t know anything about Geemore that I didn’t give you. It’s interesting that you aggressively make assumptions in an attempt to make Geemore vile. Sticking strictly to what you know about Geemore, you’re unable to find fault.
Are you claiming that reespect for human life is a valid moral code?
That’s a joke. You assumed away MY analogy.
Why did you use the word deserve?
Try to be as smart as you think you are, Good Will.
Let’s see ….. you are too dense to understand how telling people I deserve to be tortured for eternity is insulting and threatening to me.
And you are calling me stupid.
Corkie, you are as funny as the Norwegians.
corkie:
Why don’t we just do away with the stupid analogy then? The idea of infinite punishment merely for not belonging to the “correct” religion is stupid, vile, evil, and hateful.
Yes, and it’s not a terribly radical idea, in fact, I am willing to bet you share it, along with many other people. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb here and say, this might be a common idea among rational, thinking, human beings no matter what religion or non-religion they come from.
Most religious people (certainly those here) believe that their deity is just, fair, and doles out deserved punishments. Are you claiming that is not so?
PS. BTW my claim that respect for human life is a valid moral code is based on nothing. It is drawn out of thin air. That is exactly the same place religious morality come from; they just give a name to the nothing. At least my POV is honest and based in reality, well that and I don’t have ideas about infinite punishment for not giving the correct name to the nothing.
That’s right
Fine, but it wasn’t an analogy. I was isolating punishment and morals deliberately. But your arrogance compelled you to make incorrect assumptions about a belief that you know nothing about.
So it’s valid to base something on nothing?
Please tell me why your POV is honest and what reality it’s based in?
corkie:
Not so fast. I’m not going to let you switch topics.
Roland summed it up perfectly:
How is that wrong? That is exactly what many Christians on this website will claim. That Roland and I deserve infinite punishment. Meanwhile, their punishment for disobeying commands like “don’t hurt anyone” can be mitigated simply by accepting their savior and being “sorry” about whatever wrong they did.
We would be fools if this belief didn’t cause us concern.
You worship power, but apparently you are too stupid to realize that is what you do when you justify the torture of the weak by the strong because the weak does what the strong made them to do.
You are so afraid of addressing the issue you insult me instead. So in addition to being a worshipper of power, and being stupid, you are also a moral and intellectual coward …… but, then again, those things do all tend to go together in a package like you.
I can see why Zero loathes you Christians.
…this is to say nothing of that fact of the countless examples where religious folks (of all sorts) actually did hurt someone. If it’s not this concept of a person being deserving of infinite punishment (and thus being infinitely wrong), what is it?
The concept is monstrously unjust and you are vile for attempting to defend it.
Roland:
Good Morning, I hope you enjoy your day, because afterall, the creator of the universe is going to toss you into a furnance for trillions of years (1000 times more than the age of the universe) after you die and that’s not even a fraction of the start.
Roland:
My wife calls herself a Christian and actually we have been looking for a more local church lately. It’s the fundamentalists I loathe. The light-hearted ones that don’t have such concepts like hell (or no one goes to hell) I can get along with for the most part.
I agree. I should know better than to post a comment before my first cup of coffee. Christians can be cool.
I’m afraid this thread is dead, Zero. Just us here beating a dumb horse. Time to move on.
Don’t be pathetic. I’m not switching topics. You are. This hypothetical was in my original response to you.
I isolated two factors which you seem overly sensitive to, but you can’t get past that. You keep jumping back to those.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume that without those two factors, you have no beef.
I should have remembered not to engage someone whose zealousness clouds their thinking.
It’s a joke that you keep retyping the same flawed argument (which I have challenged) over and over and over without any attempt to justify it.
Name one example of me justifying the torture of the weak.
You’re a poor debater – even for someone with you obvious intellectual shortcomings.
“It’s like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy doll. I expect you have a little string on your chest, you know, that I pull out and have to snap back. Except I wouldn’t pull it out and snap it back – you would. Agh! Agh! Agh! Agh!” Power, power, power, torture, torture, torture.
So it’s valid to base something on nothing?
Please tell me why your POV is honest and what reality it’s based in?
corkie:
You are an idiot.
It’s not simply two factors. There is a third and it is the belief that the punishment is just. This has been said repeatedly.
zeroangel,
Until you justify your own morals system, it’s completely pathetic for you to attack another.
How do you not understand that?
I won’t ask Roland this. Since he doesn’t really understand these concepts he’ll just read this, pull his string, and start spouting…..power, power, power, torture, torture, torture, vile, vile, vile….
Corkie:
It’s called an axiom and as I said before, ideas about mutual concern for fellow human beings and respect for life are rather good starting places.
It is honest because it doesn’t assume unfalsifiable deities and claim moral objectivity based on them. The reality it’s based in is the one we both occupy that we can use our 5 senses to explore.
corkie:
That sword basically cuts the same for everyone. You need an axiom to start with, this goes for more or less all things. At least I openly admit this instead of trying to invent a make-believe, all-powerful, invisible friend to prop up my moral code.
Reread my post. Punishment is one of the two factors I isolated!
Suddenly punishment becomes a third factor????
I don’t think you’re stupid, but zealousness clouds clear thinking.
You didn’t isolate the fact that it is considered a just punishment.
An axiom? Puleeze!
It’s not an axiom. It’s not universal. It’s a simply human.
Pathetic. Why should human beings have mutual concern? Why shouldn’t human beings have the same moral code as most animals – survival even at the expense of other animals. Why don’t humans eat other humans? Why shouldn’t humans be able to exploit other humans for their own gain?
You are so conditioned by customs and social norms that you can’t dig deep and cough up a decent explanation (justification) for your base of moral code.
Besides, you already admitted that;
So just admit (again) that your moral code is based on nothing.
If it’s not a punishment, then it’s not a just punishment.
I didn’t say it was punishment. Not every consequence is a punishment.
Is the tide “punished” because of the moon’s actions? By the way, you are completely unable to explain what pulls the tide in and out since you don’t know what causes the force of gravity. Admit that it’s a consequence that you don’t understand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom
Then call it simply human. Do we honestly have to quibble over definitions again?
Why shouldn’t humans have mutual concern? Furthermore, many animals have similar social structures (though not nearly as “advanced”).
There is no explanation. It simply is, it is the result of evolution.
That said, do you agree that infinite punishment is unjust, yes or no?
corkie:
Since the tides are not thinking entities the word make no sense.
Not this nonsense again. So what?
Weak, and you know it’s weak. Reality is everywhere. You’ve cherry picked a portion of reality and used it to base a moral code.
Mutual respect for human life is a random human concept with questionable roots. It’s arbitrary, and you should stop defending it.
corkie:
So the idea of mutual respect for other human beings is not something worthy of defending?
Exactly.
OK. Fine. You have some unexplainable moral code based on mutual concern for human life.
Which you happen to share (I hope). It is “explained” as the result of evolution. It is random and arbitrary, but to abandon it would be vile and evil in so much as those words can mean anything at all.
You’re much smarter than Roland. You might be able to figure out the so what on your own.
If not, then just remember that you witness unexplainable consequences in nature on a regular basis.
Ha ha. What a joke. You think it’s vile and evil to abandon something random and arbitrary!
…and you don’t? What would you say? That it is not random and arbitrary? How so? Or are you saying that it’s not vile and evil? Or something else?
Do you agree that infinite punishment is unjust, yes or no?
Would you think it’s bad if I didn’t have a respect human life?
Roland thinks I’m evil and vile because he thinks I share a moral code with Christians.
Would you seriously think that I’m evil and vile because I don’t share a moral code that you admit is completely random and arbitrary?
Well, since the concepts of evil and vile are also random and arbitrary, sure, why not? In so far as words mean anything at all, yes.
Do you not respect human life?
Do you agree that infinite punishment is unjust, yes or no?
We haven’t even established my moral code yet. It’s premature to expect determinations of what is and isn’t just.
You’re learning.
corkie:
Don’t patronize me, I never claimed otherwise. In any case, it does no good to pretend that an invisible deity solves this issue.
Then, enlighten us.
I never claimed otherwise.
corkie:
When you are ready you can tell us how you address the issue of arbitrary morality and then answer for us whether or not you think infinite punishment is just or unjust.
Why should I?
If I share a moral code with Christians then Roland will assign the random and arbitrary concepts of evil and vile to me.
If I don’t have respect for human life, then you will assign the random and arbitrary concepts of evil and vile to me.
Gee, it kinda seems to me that I’ll be considered evil and vile by an atheist unless I claim a moral code based on random and arbitrary concepts that humans have developed via evolution.
Seems pretty judgmental to me. I really don’t want to be judged by you two.
Actually, I have a feeling that a moral code based simply on respect for human life wouldn’t be good enough for you.
corkie:
OK, I’ll just consider you a fence sitter who refuses to articulate his position then.
Fence sitting on the issue of infinite punishment is not someplace you want to be. It doesn’t look so good to those people that our society randomly and arbitrarily considers “sane.” After all, it seems rather “cruel and unusual.”
In case you are so stupid you did not notice, the whole argument here is about your defense of the fundamentalist conception of Hell. You know … torture for eternity for any poor schmuck who gets God’s name wrong.
You’ve got a mental problem, Corkie. You are too far gone for it to just be stupidity. Get help.
Roland:
He just enjoys playing this game. I suspect he knows exactly what he is doing which is why he refuses to answer key questions.
Oh, spare me the drama.
Dude, you haven’t understood the argument here for the past 30 or 40 comments.
Don’t bother trying to catch up now.
zeroangel, why should I care about someone’s random and arbitrary beliefs about your after-life?
To answer your question, I do believe that they should respect your life, but I pretty much give them free reign to fail to respect your after-life. Why should I care if they think that your after-life will be spent gnashing your teeth as long as they respect your life?
Exactly, Zero. And the game he’s playing is a word game, not an idea game.
Corkie, I haven’t ‘caught up’ because I am not interested in your derailment of the original argument.
You now appear to have no interest in defending the fundamentalist concept of Hell.
Fine. In that case we have no argument other than about just how much of a clueless jerk you are, but I’ll leave that to Zero to discuss with you.
You’re not smart enough to understand the idea being formed by the words.
The flaw in that statement has been expained to you. You are all mouth and no brain.
corkie:
For reasons spelled out several times now, they do not always respect my life. If they believe that I am infinately “wrong” or “evil” and worthy of inifinite punishment then it isn’t an unfounded fear that they may decide to rectify my evilness in some fashion.
Who is they? Certainly not those I described.
Weak, weak, weak. Figure out who they is and get back to me.
corkie:
They would be those that would act on the idea that I am infinitely evil. The others (those that would not act on the idea because the feelings about respect for my life are stronger) merely serve to reinforce the idea about me being infinitely evil to those that would act.
OK. Yeah, sure. Be afraid of that group.
What subset is this?
And I’m forced to assume that you give a free pass to those that believe that your after-life will be spent in some mythical bad place but have no compulsion to “act on the idea.”
corkie:
It’s been described.
No, they do not get a free pass because they foster an idea that would cause the former group to act. They are complacent in incitement.
Maybe we should simply agree that:
1. you’re justified in your contempt for those that would act on the idea that you are infinitely evil;
2. are justified in your resentment of those that harbor such desires yet only restrict themselves because of their respect for your life; and
3. have no beef for those that that have no inclination to act on the idea.
Paranoid.
Btw, what should the punishment be for groups #1 and #2?
corkie:
How are the people in number 2 and 3 different? How are the #3′s not guilty of incitement?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Shelton
corkie:
No punishment, I don’t advocate thought crime and building a case for incitement is not cut and dry in a legal sense. However, they do deserve to be ridiculed.
Puleeze. Incitement? Not only is it weak – it’s not even true.
Someone can’t be guilty of inciting something that they don’t advocate. Even the courts have determined this.
If you organize a peaceful march through town, then you’re not guilty of incitement simply because a few people became violent.
One what planet is ridicule not punishment??????????????????
If I organize a peaceful march to say that “Jews are infinitely evil and worthy of infinite punishment simply for being Jews” there’s nothing wrong with that in a legal sense, that doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t mean that I have zero responsibility for any violence. I am not using the word “incitement” in a legal sense and you know it.
Quit playing your word games. If you are going to call ridicule punishment than you have to agree that claiming I am infinately evil (some form of ridicule) is also a punishment.
You already do consider it punishment.
Your ridicule is hypocritical.
corkie:
Yes, forgive me for being intolerant of the intolerant. Silly ‘ole hyporcrit I am, thinking that it’s wrong to punish someone for picking the wrong deity whether it be by ridicule or otherwise.
If I organize a peaceful march to say that Walmart should provide better health care, then there’s nothing wrong with that in a legal sense. Do I have zero responsibility for any violence?
There is a world of difference between such a march and a march that says “Walmart is infinitely evil for not providing better health care.”
Congratulations.
Substitute moral basis for deity and you just made my point. Thanks. I’m done.
corkie:
Yes, crazy me for picking an arbitrary moral code and seeking to defend it as superior. Nevermind the fact that you likely (by virtue of being an American) agree with my code in a general sense. I guess the difference between you and I is, I will take a stand and you won’t.
BTW, a deity is no substitute for a moral code, this is especially true in the case where two people have more or less identical moral codes but the deity differs.
No. The difference is that you’re ok being a hypocrite and I’m not.
As mentioned, you are confusing a moral basis with a deity.
Corkie:
Is it OK to punish someone for having the wrong deity?
Is it OK to punish someone for having the wrong moral basis?
They are seperate questions because there could exist a case where two people have more or less identical moral codes and different deities.
It absolutely is a substitute. A random and arbitrary chosen deity is a basis for the chooser’s moral code.
…and what about the case where the code is identical but the deity has a different name (or perhaps there is no deity at all).
Who cares about the random and arbitrary deity if the resulting code is identical?
Group A’s code is do not “punish” another human in any fashion except those that don’t worship X. Non-X worshippers are infinitely evil and at least deserve ridicule.
Group B’s code is identical except the deity is named Y.
Add together. I wonder what will happen?
…then add the one’s that just say, “Hey guys, this is crazy, both X and Y are unfalsifiable and there’s no evidence of either, it’s likely they don’t exist.”
What then?
Does it matter if the deity is X or Y?
zeroangel, I appreciate the great debate. You, unlike Roland, are smart enough to engage deep philosophical concepts. However, I’m running out for a few meetings. I’ll have limited access via my mobile.
OK, I got to go to lunch. We can call it for today.
What you have been engaging in is nothing but sophomoric coffeehouse babble. You wouldn’t know a serious philosophical concept if it burned you at the stake.
Roland, it’s over your head.
You do realize that is what all sophomoric coffeehouse ‘philosophers’ say about their critics? It’s cliche, even.
Go back and read your ‘deep’ work, Corkie, since you’re so proud of it. You sound like a pompous twit.
Ha ha. You’re not a critic!
Grasping a presented philosophy is a prerequisite to criticism.
corkie:
I think Roland grasps what you have done in this thread.
You seem to try to break down an argument to it’s barest component parts to make a pure logic (in a nearly mathematical sense) argument.
I have a feeling that if a person were to assert the 2 + 2 = 4 you would call them wrong and stupid and then go on to say they hadn’t established that they were using real numbers under ordinary addition (that is, as opposed to some undefined set of elements under an undefined operation represented by ‘+’).
Why do you do this?
Sure they did. It’s a real number in the absence of i or j. And + is certainly a defined operation.
Why are you being silly?
And Roland didn’t grasp it.