tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70216517778696387322024-02-18T23:22:33.142-06:00The Foxhole AtheistSurgeon General's Warning: This Blog might cause you to rethink your world view. Do not attempt while pregnant, nursing or operating heavy machinery. This author is in support of atheism, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, human rights and common sense. Read at own Risk!SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-82432060195292417552010-10-18T13:54:00.001-05:002010-12-12T23:44:02.999-06:00Sexual Orientation?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3hjAqzgCqdY6S0jWScsMIiPdRH0I0tKVX8jSTxqB-t_DfJy0UvnK975vdKlVKteOBtQKhBPD7bRfS-CSLkhGrNloZ8vsAQw3Yu_cMhQdXaazQoSi2Rll37zltI_g_MzSjcwZG9IQv5eO/s1600/SEXUALITY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3hjAqzgCqdY6S0jWScsMIiPdRH0I0tKVX8jSTxqB-t_DfJy0UvnK975vdKlVKteOBtQKhBPD7bRfS-CSLkhGrNloZ8vsAQw3Yu_cMhQdXaazQoSi2Rll37zltI_g_MzSjcwZG9IQv5eO/s320/SEXUALITY.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In today's society there seems to only be three types of sexual orientation... Straight, Bisexual and Gay. And sure, those are the major variables or place-setters. But I think that we can get more technical and precise than that, at least we should in order to allow these terms to better fit today's average Straight, Bisexual or Gay person. Here's my take on the issue...<br />
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Most of the population of the world probably exists somewhere in the gray area, the bisexual area. Not too many people are completely straight or completely gay. Also, not too many people exist entirely in the very middle. They're spread out mostly between the axis and the poles. Here's the descriptions of the main types of sexualities and their estimated corresponding world population percentages.<br />
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A.) STRAIGHT (5%): You're super straight. You couldn't even imagine yourself being with a member of the same sex. It doesn't mean you dislike homosexuals, but simply couldn't do it yourself.<br />
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B.) STRAIGHT-ISH (25%): You're mostly straight but you do like some members of the opposite sex. It depends on who they are and the circumstances of the situation. However, you mostly just do it for fun. You could certainly never see yourself being in a relationship with someone of the same sex. It's just good clean fun.<br />
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C.) BISEXUAL-LIKE (20%): You're bisexual and you're fine with admitting it. You're likely to be with a member of the same sex, perhaps even in a serious relationship. Although an actual gay relationship is less common, you still find yourself mostly attracted to members of the opposite sex. <br />
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D.) BISEXUAL (5%): You're bisexual and you admit it openly. You're equally likely to be with a member of the same sex as you are to be with someone of the opposite sex. Not just when it comes to sex, but also relationships. You've had an equal amount of gay relationships as you have had straight relationships.<br />
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E.) BISEXUAL-ISH (20%): You're bisexual, but you're mostly attracted to members of the same sex. You're still likely to date a member of the opposite sex, but you tend to lean towards those of your own gender. You've certainly had more relationships with the same sex than you have with the opposite.<br />
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F.) GAY-ISH (20%): You're mostly gay, but you still dabble with members of the opposite sex too. While the majority of your experiences are with members of the same sex, the opposite sex is fun and enjoyable too. You certainly can't see yourself dating members of the opposite sex seriously, but they're still fun.<br />
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G.) GAY (5%): You're super fucking gay! You couldn't possibly see yourself being with a member of the opposite sex. You don't hate them, you just couldn't do it. It's the furthest thing from your mind.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com43tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-5571717816677823442010-10-17T06:58:00.001-05:002010-10-18T11:01:54.102-05:00Why Do We War?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHpi9WCuIegis1Elo5ckHXP0Ss097JXUWYaO2oYAyxvZ_BcjXBZvfzy2Acequ60ZtnHF2hdkq9jUzAGq2oB9f1NdeExOuf1kcWtvzIAyF1-zbHZyjmvKIddpwQsb6oUEHi4aE5JfODtQv/s1600/landing_at_war_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHpi9WCuIegis1Elo5ckHXP0Ss097JXUWYaO2oYAyxvZ_BcjXBZvfzy2Acequ60ZtnHF2hdkq9jUzAGq2oB9f1NdeExOuf1kcWtvzIAyF1-zbHZyjmvKIddpwQsb6oUEHi4aE5JfODtQv/s200/landing_at_war_03.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Why do we war? What good has it ever brought us? All it ever does is cause more suffering and destruction. Where would we be today if mankind never fought a single war, if we were peaceful and passive towards one another, and found a balance within our ecosystem in which we did not over consume our planet's resources? Where would we be?... Fucking nowhere good, that's where.<br />
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Despite the popular opinion to the contrary, war has social benefits. That is, if the goal of society is to advance. By "advance" I mean to discover new truths about reality, to expand our understanding of the universe through science, and to one day colonize the galaxy to the best of our ability. Social advancement through science, the one thing the human race has been exceedingly good at. If we assume this is the goal of society, then we're on the right track not despite our wars but often because of them.<br />
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What causes war? I postulate that there are only three basic causes of human conflict... Resources, Pride and Ideology. The most common conflict catalyst is resources. Often it's disguised as another catalyst, but only because leaders use the second two (pride and ideology) to rally their troops. So when you look at the 9 o'clock news you see wars being fought over pride and religion, but you don't notice the battle for resources waging behind the scenes. If we did away with ignorant human delusions, such as religion and nationalism, we would still have resources to worry about. Sure, getting rid of nationalism and religion would solve two of our biggest problems, but resource fighting is a big issue. We could push science to the limit to produce better more efficient fuels, plant more efficient and productive genetically altered crops, and even clean our air and water. But what would this mean? Would the human race finally find a balance between its population growth and its resource consumption? Not at all. It would help, but the human race expands at a rate relative to it's available resources, and then some. We're always making babies one step faster than we can make the food to feed the babies. It's unfortunate, but true. <br />
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If you increase the amount of cabbage growth in a rabbit preserve, you should expect to see well fed rabbits... for a while. Then you should expect to see more rabbits, and more and more... Soon you have too many rabbits and none of them are well fed. Species population growth always attempts to exceed resource limitations. There's a reason for this.<br />
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Without population growth, eventually a species is engulfed by another species. Grow or die. Every species will always over exceed its resource limitations in an attempt to push it's productivity to the max. Evolution and nature has no compassion for the starving, sick and dying. They will push a species to the breaking point each time. If a small portion of the excess population of a species starves due to a lack of food, then so be it. But at least those who survive are stronger because they're proven themselves by fighting for the food that does exist, and the species as a whole is at its highest possible population.<br />
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Many people think we can control our growth. That we can reason our way around this and become harmonious with our resource limitations. First of all, this concept assumes we can get everyone on the same page. Even without religion and nationalism, I'm sure everyone would act separate from what is in the group's best interest as a whole. Second, to force people to get in rhythm with their resource consumption we would need to enforce government regulations on pregnancy and parenthood. This is a touchy area for many people who propose the "No War" concept. But these two concepts seem to come hand and hand eventually. No matter how much the anti-war hippies would disagree.<br />
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Is it possible to end human war by relieving population pressure through resource consumption, and in doing so, do away with the evils of war? In this case, through constructing a legal code under which population is limited to resources? No, any breed which stops its own reproduction gets crowded out by breeds which expand.<br />
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Let's assume that the human race manages to balance birth and death, resources and consumption, and as a result becomes peaceful. What happens next? Soon (in the not so distant future) a new lifeform appears and kills off this breed which doesn't want to war anymore, and the universe forgets us without compassion. Either we fight, compete and spread, or "they" spread and eventually wipe us out. <br />
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Civilizations, human or otherwise, do not become advanced through peace and balancing resources. When they balance appropriately they simply find their niche and stick to it. To evolve to fit your ecosystem and survive, you compete with other species within that ecosystem. To evolve to advance and thrive, you compete within your own species. Constant evolutionary competition, promoting the smarter genes, not the stronger ones.<br />
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If we never fought a war, we would have never gotten beyond a tepee and rock tools, if that. We never would have devised of logic, never came up with the scientific method, never landed on the moon, never harnessed the atom, and never ever colonize the galaxy. Perhaps, to some of you, that is okay so long as we don't kill each other. To me, it's unacceptable. The goal of human civilization, or any intelligent civilization, is to advance. We're all animals in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense animals fight to survive while humans fight to thrive.<br />
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"But does Man have any right to spread through the universe? Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics - you name it - is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is - not what do gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be. The universe will let us know - later - whether or not Man has any right to expand through it." -Robert Heinlein<br />
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Let us not forget what war does for us. It supports many of the personal traits we respect most in our society... Bravery, courage, personal strength, etc... The things that we value most in society, the psychological traits that push us and motivate us to greater things.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-13955723034090723892010-09-11T02:32:00.004-05:002010-09-11T02:35:00.637-05:00Top 50 Award Winning Atheist Blogs!<a href="http://www.onlineschools.org/top_atheism/"><img src="http://www.onlineschools.org/top_atheism/images/Badges/circlebadge2.png" alt="Top Atheism Blog" border="0" /></a>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-14953554293582773242010-09-09T23:35:00.000-05:002010-09-09T23:35:18.029-05:001st Amendment Rights and a Right Wing Nutjob<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZ1c-lzAcxs6ujiPyA_DeVmyfIjRgPGbhhyphenhypheni8c3AaAVNcdiLuLgDcDmMRfnrf8nKaQxS22pESTOBla1OB1blTJjO3lkDC0hN7UnpAc3HaCWxQov4j_rq8ehMlkCIzc4BQ91sFP0a3A21F/s1600/image6845284.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZ1c-lzAcxs6ujiPyA_DeVmyfIjRgPGbhhyphenhypheni8c3AaAVNcdiLuLgDcDmMRfnrf8nKaQxS22pESTOBla1OB1blTJjO3lkDC0hN7UnpAc3HaCWxQov4j_rq8ehMlkCIzc4BQ91sFP0a3A21F/s200/image6845284.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>So, if you've been living under a rock for the last month I'll fill you in. There's a crazy Baptist pastor in Florida who wants to burn the Islamic Holy Quran because he believes it to be a "book of the devil"... Also, Lindsay Lohan is still a slut.<br />
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First and foremost, let me say this, burning the Quran or any other book from any other religion is protected free speech under the First Amendment. Nothing should hinder your right to burn a book of any sort.<br />
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Here's the first catch... There's a difference between your right to do something and your ability to do something. In order to burn anything with miscellaneous inks you must have a permit. It's merely a safety permit, meant to do nothing more than alert the police and fire department of the event and ensure the patrons know what's expected of them safety wise. <br />
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That brings us to catch number two... The pastor says he doesn't care if Americans, specifically American soldiers overseas, are inured or killed by Islamic fundamentalists due to his Quran burning event. He says he absolves himself of all responsibility, and he's right. We cannot blame him for the crimes other people commit. However, we can blame him for provoking people to commit crimes. This is what he seems not to understand. It's unfortunate that Islamic extremists are not known for their accuracy. Otherwise they'd simply kill the pastor and his congregation. But they won't do that. They'll just kill dozens of US soldiers and bomb some American embassies.<br />
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Which brings us to catch number three... It's interesting that the most understanding group in this situation are the American Muslim leaders. The same sort of leaders who the pastor swears are Satan worshipers. Ironic? I think so.<br />
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Catch number four, anyone?... Finally the local authorities have revoked his permit to hold the event. Why? Not because he doesn't have a right to burn books. But because his event indirectly threatens the safety of his congregation and American citizens overseas. I think that's a good enough reason to revoke a safety permit. So now if the pastor burns a single book the police can arrest him on spot. Will that assuage the Islamic fundamentalists? Probably not, but it's something.<br />
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Finally, catch number five... The pastor has just agreed that he will not be burning the Qurans anymore because he struck a deal with Islamic leaders to move the NYC WTC mosque to a further location. I wonder, if they're basically Satan worshipers, doesn't this constitute a deal with the Devil? But the Islamic leaders say no such agreement was ever made. What does this mean? The pastor is lying! He wants to shift attention and blame onto the Muslims so that he doesn't look so bad. He can get upset and rant and rave all over TV about how they reneged on the deal. I guess it's okay to lie so long as it's a lie for Jesus, right?SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-57445032297633363572010-09-08T18:37:00.004-05:002010-09-08T19:06:51.949-05:00What is Torture?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9Wu1R2KhIz9vgg0JVtfAMJWEOIimzQFj5y91YPKQJXPV8SXfb2ZaF3mqOJLVo1-uAxMXBbnxiP7uavOfCa6FcDmszXeT-J2g7A-9-KTM4qq0ImLTJC4b8tm0duDvoGCAWtCS8gUWxSIE/s1600/watertortureDM_468x404.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9Wu1R2KhIz9vgg0JVtfAMJWEOIimzQFj5y91YPKQJXPV8SXfb2ZaF3mqOJLVo1-uAxMXBbnxiP7uavOfCa6FcDmszXeT-J2g7A-9-KTM4qq0ImLTJC4b8tm0duDvoGCAWtCS8gUWxSIE/s200/watertortureDM_468x404.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>First of all, let me apologize for my absence. And for those of you who are thinking "I don't care" you're lying. Of course you do. You are reading this aren't you? Exactly, so shut up.<br />
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There's been some recent discussion over the use of water-boarding by US interrogators overseas. Is water-boarding torture? Should the US allow its interrogators to torture prisoners? How do we answer these questions? Well I'm going to try.<br />
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A music group known as "The Black Eyed Peas" have come out against America's sponsorship of torture over seas, as well as the wars in general. They've even gone so far as to say that America, and more specifically the CIA, are terrorist groups in their own right.<br />
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First, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If you wanted to learn something about human rights, warfare, torture and political wartime policy, would you ask a pop star? Of course not. Some people might ask... "But Sarge, don't they have a right to their own opinions?"... They have a right to freedom of speech, which means you're allowed to speak your mind. But simply because they have a right to have an opinion does not make their opinion logical, valid or even worth listening to, and don't call me "Sarge!" It certainly doesn't make them experts on the situation. So please, stop listening to all the people from Hollywood when it comes to your political positions.<br />
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Second, their statement that the CIA is a terrorist organization would only be true if you assume that the definition of terrorist is anyone who inflicts terror. Sure, you can say that's the definition simply because the word "terror" is in the word "terrorist" but that doesn't make it so. There are people who are terrified by clowns. Does this make a clown a terrorist? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Perhaps you're saying to yourself that the difference is that any terror a clown might cause is unintentional, where as the terror brought on by Al Queda is deliberate. (For the record, I sincerely believe that some clowns intend to inflict deliberate terror in the hearts of your children) In that case, is Wes Craven a terrorist? He obviously intends to inflict terror upon you. Should he count? Of course not. Perhaps the threat of physical harm along with inflicted terror is what makes someone a terrorist. In that case, isn't every violent criminal in the world a terrorist? Isn't every soldier who's ever lived a terrorist? Of course not, that's too broad brush. But maybe that's the point? Maybe the use of the term "terrorist" has become far too broad brush, and we need to stop using it whenever we want to make a half-assed point. It's like the word "know"... You probably shouldn't use it too often.<br />
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Third, terrorist groups do not have official addresses. They do not have expensive custom stationary. They do not have hotlines. <br />
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Now, back to torture! How do we define what IS and what IS NOT torture? People have been trying to make distinctions all over this issue, and none of them seem very good. Some say torture is only something that inflicts harm and could potentially end your life. But we all know people can and have died from water-boarding, so that point is complete crap. Some say torture is anything that scares you or mentally, physically or emotionally scars you. In that case we're back to considering everything to be torture and no one is innocent anymore. So that argument is crap too. In order to call something torture we need to be able to logically identify it from what we know is not torture. Some people are probably saying that we don't need to make a clear cut distinction, that we know it when we see it, or some crap like that. Why would you not want a clear cut distinction? We require logical distinctions in all other areas we deem important. Why would you not want this to be a logical discussion? Perhaps you believe a logical distinction cannot be made, in which case you're dead fucking wrong. I've found one, and it's a pretty good one so far. If you think you can find a crack in its armor, please let me know. I enjoy a little healthy debate and I'd like to know where I've gone wrong. Perhaps I saw the logical distinction because I've been in the Army, been overseas, seen war and seen suffering. Perhaps that sort of "dip into Hell itself" is what is required to rule on such matters? Who knows, but here it is...<br />
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If you are willing to try it out in order to better decide whether or not something is torture, then it's not torture. No one ever volunteered to have bamboo chutes jammed under their finger nails. No one ever volunteered to have their legs broken with canes and then twisted on wires. (Medieval Torture Act) No one ever volunteered to have their thighs wrapped in tourniquets and then watch as animals devoured their lower halves. (Torture Method in Philippines) But would you volunteer to be water-boarded to see how it is? Assuming you have no major health concerns and you're not a complete pussy, sure you would. People have volunteered to try it, namely Christopher Hitchens. (I'm sincerely hoping he fully recovers from his cancer) So is water-boarding torture? Not in any official sense. Sure, you might try it out and say it's torture. But that doesn't mean shit to me. We're looking for an objective definition of torture, not some subjective circumstantial bullshit. I come home from a long day of work and say it was torture, and in many ways I was being sincere. But is it torture? Not at all.<br />
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Now for the main course... Regardless of whether or not water-boarding is torture, should the US sponsor torture when dealing with it's own prisoners of war? For this I have a two part answer. Why? Because anyone who's been in real combat would know that there's two sides to this coin. I'll explain...<br />
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We can all agree that I could come up with some hypothetical situation in which torture can be justified, with the exception of the complete pacifist pussies who never agree to anything violent in a desperate and futile attempt to seem more civilized than the rest of us. So in that situation is the use of torture justified? Sure it was. But whenever you hear someone make one of these hypotheticals you begin to notice two things in common with them all. All of them are extreme and all of them have the torture occurring on some unofficial basis. That's the key to the two part answer. Torture can be justified in extreme situations, but never on any official level. Especially for a nation like the United States which exists in support of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. As a squad leader in combat, I could justify the use of torture to obtain information from a POW in an extreme situation, but it wouldn't be on any official level. I'd be performing this act on my own, with volunteers and without the written or expressed consent of my commanders or any official policy. This isn't the US performing this act, it's me. I've spoken out against the use of torture on official level many many times in the past, even while I was still in the Army. But one on one, it can be justified so long as the circumstances are extreme and dire.<br />
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Some people like to say that torture is unreliable, and that the prisoner will tell you anything to get you to stop, even going so far as to tell you lies. Sure, they will do that. But only if they don't know anything. We all know that witness testimony in court is extremely unreliable, but we still use it. Why? Because it serves it's purpose in rare moments. There's actually an art to torture, believe it or not. You never tell the prisoner everything you know about a given subject. If you know the enemy is attacking one of your many bases on Saturday, you do not tell him you know it's on Saturday. You just tell him you know they're planning a huge attack and you want to know when and where. Then if he tells you it's at base Charlie on Monday, you know he's lying to you. Also, you have to know who you're torturing. If he doesn't have any useful information you'll know this fairly late. You'll catch him lying to you late in the game to make you stop hurting him. But if he does know something you'll catch him lying to you very early in the game to prevent the torture from happening all together, mainly because he fears he might tell you the truth if he allows it to begin. Sometimes people say the prisoner will refrain from telling you anything true because he knows you'll simply kill him as soon as he's no longer necessary. In some cases, probably most cases today, this is true. But there was a time when this was not the case. If I were captured by Nazis in WWII and tortured for information, depending on the gravity of the information, I would be willing to believe they are most likely going to keep me alive, and probably even begin treating me relatively nicely. If the torture were occurring on an unofficial level, such as the way I explained above where it could be reasonably justified, then the prisoner should know that when it's over he will be killed. So how do you get him to talk? You have to make death preferable to life. You'll have to make him want to die, which sounds awful, but it's the reality of the situation. And we all know reality is not required to be comforting to you or anyone else.<br />
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Have I ever tortured anyone? Not unless you consider farting in my hand and holding it over my friend's nose to be torture. (For the record, no he did not wish for death afterwards) So how do I know these things? Psychology is different on the battlefield than it is in Hollywood.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-31180589249581688902010-08-19T18:08:00.006-05:002010-08-20T00:32:38.050-05:00Recommended Private School Awareness Contract The government requires the signage of this public awareness contract before any child can legally attend any private school based on religious notions. Please, read the following lines carefully and initial each before signing.<br />
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___It has been explained to me that the school I wish for my child to attend has views and opinions that are in conflict with demonstrable reality.<br />
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___I understand that my child's ability to attend this institution is directly based on their mutual agreement with one or more of the following characteristics the institution reveres: Religion, Race, Politics, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Human Rights, Civil Rights, Ethics, Morals and Subjective Rationalization.<br />
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___I understand that my child's ability to attend this institution based on the previously mentioned qualifications is vastly different from the secular public school system set up by my government using my acquired taxes where there is no and can be none of the previous qualifications.<br />
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___I understand that my child's ability to attend this school is based on my ability to pay or my child's ability to achieve and maintain a scholarship, which is vastly different from the secular public school system set in place by my government in which no payment is necessary and all children are welcome regardless of race, language, ethnicity, gender or religious preference.<br />
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___I understand that my child will be required to delegate their opinions to those of the school, and that my values and opinions as a parent will not take priority over those of the school for as long as my child attends this institution.<br />
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___I understand that the very existence of this religious institution is owed to the secular government which the school may consider to be inferior, even though it has chosen to recognize the people's right to belief, regardless of evidence. <br />
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___I understand that as a private institution this school is foremost a machine of profit, vastly different from the secular public school system which has been designed as a machine of results. And that the subjects studied at this school may be in part or in whole based on ideas and opinions of a subjective or conceptual nature, unlike the secular public schools which base their studies on demonstrable evidence and historical facts.<br />
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Student's Full Name:_________________________ Date:___________<br />
Parent's Full Name:__________________________________________<br />
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Signature:____________________________________SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-56972086241798106552010-08-13T19:43:00.000-05:002010-08-13T19:43:37.527-05:00School Yard Religious Hatred<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQV5fHgHbFfHGdTsr-_YQajAqEbI3gTZ_l3_T2rQMdLv7u47H6n-GnAo1QrUSV7Kj0GLVQRD3PIzZvmRRNVzhLHJzTMWJRgkOS4-J_3WZoL-28IoHTK03FeyX_7mUHJMtKjjo5rMVfGFQ/s1600/bully.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQV5fHgHbFfHGdTsr-_YQajAqEbI3gTZ_l3_T2rQMdLv7u47H6n-GnAo1QrUSV7Kj0GLVQRD3PIzZvmRRNVzhLHJzTMWJRgkOS4-J_3WZoL-28IoHTK03FeyX_7mUHJMtKjjo5rMVfGFQ/s200/bully.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>This is the full transcript of an email I received from a young fundamental Christian after he read one of my rebuttals to Christian logic and dogma...<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Would love to catch you walking down my street scum! <br />
Me:<br />
Would love to catch you high on crystal meth in a crappy motel with a male prostitute like your fellow God-fearing Christian pastor Ted Haggard.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Fuck you cunt, I would love to kick you to fuck!<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
Kick me to Fuck?... How old are you kid? Like 15?... You do know your Jesus powers don't mean shit in the real world, right? Your faith doesn't give you special powers... And it obviously doesn't make you smarter, because you can neither make a good rebuttal against my argument, or even properly understand it... But sending messages with toothless threats, you can do that, can't you... that's all your Jesus is for, allowing you to be quick to anger.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Ay cunt I live in Chicago too ya dumb cunt, I'll find ya, I am 15 so what?<br />
Don't mean shit, if I catch ya, I'm gonna batter you to fuck punk. <br />
Me:<br />
Chicago? Really? Cool... Also, I was guessing you were 15. Good guess, huh!... Well maybe you didn't notice my picture. It's not really bright to try to pick a fight with a man who kills people for a living. Two reasons... I'm obviously much more likely to win, and I'm willing to take it to a limit you're not. It would be like trying to play touch football against an actual NFL linebacker who's allowed to tackle you... You'll lose, badly.<br />
<br />
I recommend you take a minute to stop being angry and start fucking thinking. There are a thousand different reasons to believe in God, but none of them are any good. They're all horrible reasons. And even if you don't care how incredibly horrible the reasons are, the reasons aren't even synonymous with your religion. They're horrible reasons synonymous with all religion! So your religion is not only stupid, it's not even specially stupid! It's not even uniquely stupid! It's just regular stupid... Learn a bit about logic, debate and reason. Then maybe you'll be more likely to think before deciding to send messages to complete strangers so you can act like a big tough eagle scout.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Cunt you wouldn't last 5 minutes in the ring with me, I've been boxing since I was 14, I'd whipe the floor with you eyes shut.<br />
I did see your picture, that's why I messaged you, murdering scum!<br />
<br />
Seriously, tell us where ya live so I can come round and kick you about, there is a good reason to beileve in God.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
Boxing for one year? Wow, you're practically next in line for a shot at the title!... Seriously kid, I try not to make a point of kicking the ass of little boys who can't even legally vote. The only advantage you have is that the cops couldn't try you as an adult.<br />
<br />
Your God is probably the biggest piece of shit lie I've ever heard in my entire life. I should know, I used to believe it myself. You're 15, you're a kid! You've got your whole life ahead of you!... There's no need to end it early by testing me. In fact, if you think there is a good reason to believe in your God, then research it. Figure out an argument and get back to me. I can either kick your ass physically or intellectually. It doesn't matter to me. <br />
Ricky:<br />
You couldn't kick my ass physically at all, I'm 5 ft 7 and a boxer, I'd ruin you!<br />
You can't beat me at the Bible, the Bible is the truth, there is nothing that can disprove the Bible, because it's the word of God!<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
5'7"... Really? Wow, so by the time your puberty ends you should be almost 6 feet tall?... Congrats, but I'll still be looking down on you. Both intellectually and literally. <br />
<br />
Your Bible is way too convoluted to be the word of any God who is not drunk, retarded or stricken with extreme alzheimers. It's probably the most ridiculous book I've ever read. And I've read it 3 times in 2 different languages in 3 different denominational versions!<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Lies!! Seriously, tell me where you're at, I would love to meet you and watch you run!<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
The Bible is nowhere near perfect! Even if it didn't contradict itself, it still doesn't have any cup holders! Why doesn't it recline? Can it do my taxes? Does it cook a pork roast in 30 minutes? Nope, it can't do any of that. Apparently, at your house, the only thing the Bible is good for is filling a spot on your book shelf that would otherwise remain empty. It's obvious you've never actually read the Bible from front to back. Otherwise, you'd be an atheist too.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Lies!! There are NO contradictions in the Bible.<br />
Seriously, where you at punk?<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
No contradictions?... They have three different versions of the resurrection story, and none of them can come to agreement on how Jesus rose from the dead, when he rose from the dead, who was there to see it, where he went afterwards, or if it even happened at all... That's what we call a "contradiction" in my line of work... well, not just my line of work, ANY LINE OF WORK!!!<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
No contradictions, just misunderstandings.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
If there are misunderstandings, then it's not perfect. How does God misunderstand the story of his own son, who is also him? You just contradicted yourself.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
No, you misunderstood me. There are no contradictions in the Bible, just people with misunderstandings.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
Then the Bible still isn't perfect because there are contradictions in the Bible caused by people's misunderstandings.<br />
<br />
Ricky: <br />
The Bible is perfect people aren't. There are NO contradictions, only people misunderstanding it.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
No, that's people misunderstanding the story and writing it into the Bible wrong. That means the people who wrote the Bible were the ones who misunderstood, which is suspicious since God was supposed to be the one guiding them. So that all adds up to contradictions in the Bible.<br />
<br />
Do you even know what a contradiction is? Because what you've basically been saying for the past 3 messages is "There are no contradictions in the Bible, just people writing contradictions into the Bible!"<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
No, you're misunderstanding me.<br />
What I'm saying, is there are NO contradictions in the Bible, the only "contradictions" in there, are those made up by people who read it and misunderstand it.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
You just said there are no contradictions in the Bible, but there are contradictions in the Bible and they're caused by people... That in itself is a contradiction... Do you know what a contradiction is? I don't think you do.<br />
<br />
When the Bible says in one book "Jesus rose physically on the third day" and then in the next book it says "Jesus' spirit rose on the second day and his body stayed behind" and then says in the third book that "Jesus never rose from the dead" that's not a misunderstanding. I didn't read it wrong. I read the book as it was written, but it told me 3 different things. They can't all be true, and there's no way to make them all true in their own special way. So the only conclusion is that they're most likely all wrong.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
No, I said "contradictions", you see the marks I put in? Meaning they're not real contradictions, they're just what people think are contradictions because they are reading wrong.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
I just explained why it's impossible to read that part wrong. It's just not possible! There are most certainly contradictions in your Bible. Some of them might be issues with the writing being cryptic, some of it might be the reading. But there is vast majority of the contradictions that are simply contradictions.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Lies!! There are many mistranslations! You're blind! I will find you.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
There aren't mistranslations of the Bible... there are just a thousand different translations. Did you know that? Your Bible has been edited, rewritten and translated over 1,000 times since it's origin.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
There are mistranslations. The original had been translated incorrectly, as we see in Isaiah.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
If you believe it's been translated incorrectly, then it's not perfect. Stop contradicting yourself.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
I'm not, I havn't contradicted myself, you've misunderstood me, I proved that.<br />
The Bible, is perfect, the new editions of the Bible are not.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
The new editions are all we have. So you assume the original Bible was perfect? But you don't know, do you. You just think it was. For all you know it could have been almost just as fucked up as the modern versions. You're making claims you can't prove and you keep contradicting yourself. You don't know how to argue! You haven't got even a basic understanding of logic! How does it feel to be completely fucking retarded? <br />
<br />
I'm going to give you the link to my blog so you can read up a bit and do some fucking research for once. There's an email address on the top of the page, so feel free to send me an email if you want to continue your futile attack... www.foxholeatheistblog.blogspot.com <br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Ay I'm 15, don't call me retarded.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
Whatever Retard.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Ay why you gotta pick on me? I'm a kid, stop being so mean, unless you really wanna get battered?<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
Stop being such a complete and utter pussy unless you want to get called a retard, okay retard.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Ay stop being a cunt. You're lucky I don't know where you are.<br />
<br />
Me:<br />
You're lucky you don't know where I am, otherwise I could call you a pussy for never showing up.<br />
<br />
Ricky:<br />
Ay tell me and I'll prove you wrong, but you won't cause you're scared of getting your ass handed to you.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-25561649832309811212010-08-10T22:52:00.000-05:002010-08-10T22:52:59.926-05:00Stem Cells: Contrasting Positive & Negative Claims<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSXRyF_irXoP5uqcXWHPMoD8wKbZ8j9PGeDElL8i9VQMZ02OfaVH_TWFKq45ZzQc_lzjTKJP4xDZ2b29-GNrueC9AJs20AoI9GjTynHwk0bnb2pfmWLDzHQ9FbahMLH88e9vKF9ELEGL4f/s1600/stem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSXRyF_irXoP5uqcXWHPMoD8wKbZ8j9PGeDElL8i9VQMZ02OfaVH_TWFKq45ZzQc_lzjTKJP4xDZ2b29-GNrueC9AJs20AoI9GjTynHwk0bnb2pfmWLDzHQ9FbahMLH88e9vKF9ELEGL4f/s200/stem.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Today I received and email from a fellow atheist and veteran. He had been having a debate with his conservative father on the social and scientific merits of abortion and stem cell research. He asked me to read the debate, mainly the last dozen posts, and get back to him. His father had him questioning his position on stem cell research. <br />
<a name='more'></a>There was far too much to read, but I read the main points. My friend made a mistake that I see many atheists and skeptics making, I've even made it. The difference between a positive claim and a negative claim is hard to see at times. Not only that, but there are times when a skeptic must make a positive claim that negates the theistic claims. This is the transcript of our conversation...<br />
<br />
<b>Jon:</b><br />
<b>take a look at the conversation between my Dad and I towards the end, the last 10 posts. he actually has me rethinking some of my stem cell stances, let me know what you think. [Link intentionally omitted]</b><br />
<br />
My Response:<br />
In my opinion, you both make mistakes. That's a good reason to change your stance, but I wouldn't adopt his stance. Your father makes good points against your position. He called your position "illogical"... I would refer to it as "unreasonable" since you are definitely making an attempt to be as logical as possible, I just think you're going about it the wrong way. Percentages, time tables, heart beats... who cares!<br />
<br />
Where life begins is irrelevant. To the Christians, it's the only thing that is relevant. So that's the argument they grip to. The problem is a moral one. Moral problems are about minimizing suffering. To the Christian, the suffering of babies take priority. To the secularists, the suffering of sick individuals takes priority. The question is not "Where does life begin?"... the question is "Which variable should receive priority?"... <br />
<br />
We are faced with two variables, the babies (as Christians define them) and the sick and dying. How do we distinguish between the two? What are their similarities and differences? How do we determine priority?<br />
<br />
Here's the argument I make...<br />
<br />
The reverence some people have for stem cells is that they believe they are babies, human beings deserving of equal rights and protection under the law. They effectively use the same exact argument for stem cells that they do for abortion. Some people try to spend their time defining what is and is not a baby, where life begins, and when the embryo has rights. That's a bad way to go about it. Instead, just point out the obvious... The sick and dying people the secularists want to help are most certainly people, humans with equal rights, deserving protection under the law, etc... Whether or not you believe the stem cells are people, or have the potential to become people, is still up for debate. Leave that debate to the scientists and doctors, the ones more suited for the argument. As long as the debate is still on going between the "It's a baby" and the "It's not a baby" sides, then the priority lands directly on the shoulders of the sick and dying patients. Perhaps, one day the baby debate will end and the theists will win. If that occurs then we can have the priority debate again and judge the sick and dying against the embryos accordingly. But the fact remains that the secularists have a variable on their side that is without question undeniably human. The theists have a variable on their side that is in question. It's like having a hearing in court and the prosecution came without their notes. They're entirely unprepared and have no case. That doesn't mean there's not a case to have, but if there is, they don't have it. Simple mistrial, the defense is allowed to return to business as usual. Which in this case is using stem cells of all sorts to treat patients.<br />
<br />
Your dad is a smart dude. He knows how to twist your words just right to make you doubt your own position. In this case, I think it worked in your favor. Your position was a bit uneven. But remember, the claim here is from the theist/conservative perspective. They claim stem cells have the right not to be used in treatment and research. If you doubt their claim, then you have the negative position. It's not your responsibility to state a case for your position so long as your position remains one of negative skepticism. When you begin making claims about when and where life begins, you're making a positive claim and you must argue it. Stay away from that argument, you're not a neuroscientist. Simply hold the negative position.<br />
<br />
There are times when the skeptic must argue a positive position. For instance, when a theist tries to refute evolution. They argue in favor of Creationism/ID and the atheist/biologist argues in favor of Evolution and Abiogenesis. Sometimes it is necessary to make evolutionary claims to refute their nonsense creationism claims. And when we do that we make a positive claim, one that must be supported. Luckily, there have been a million biologists before us that have done all the hard work, and continue to do it. We have the information to support the claim, we need only understand it. However, in the "Where Does Life Begin" debate, we do not. Luckily, we don't make claims without evidence. Therefore, we must maintain the negative position. Let the scientists and doctors debate where life begins, if at all. We will stand our ground and hold the line. <br />
<b>Jon:</b><br />
<b>He also asserts that adult stem cell research is more promising than embryonic stem cell research, thoughts? </b><br />
<br />
My Response:<br />
That's a debate for the doctors. The REAL doctors. However, the argument about which is more promising is a funny one. It turns out that adult stem cells might have more potential than those from embryos. However, the embryonic stem cells are easier to obtain, easier to manipulate, cheaper to harvest, and currently more useful. There was once a time when metal products rivaled wooden products. Back when we were changing up our weapons from wooden clubs to metal spears. However, the metal products weren't promising until we could properly manipulate metal and create a sufficient supply of products with sufficient durability. Even when we learned that metal was more promising, it wasn't more practical till later. Same might go for adult stem cells. Till adult stem cells are more practical, embryonic stem cells are the industry standard.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-62201461215715976462010-08-08T04:54:00.000-05:002010-08-08T04:54:49.833-05:00The Danger of Achieving Higher Education Before Gaining Simple Logic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzRPew6ZtqRE4QwUnbZHBBtmuIzx2nrarPWJcJLTAIhzoRwdKZMiF_RYS7rDLHsylJ7WIP7OLRVdLN1_TxsApTbCJtiX0mUkQI9Us9LarNrYgvBhp-PEHQ9DfonIyDGScNPLBjO524YV1/s1600/dumbass-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzRPew6ZtqRE4QwUnbZHBBtmuIzx2nrarPWJcJLTAIhzoRwdKZMiF_RYS7rDLHsylJ7WIP7OLRVdLN1_TxsApTbCJtiX0mUkQI9Us9LarNrYgvBhp-PEHQ9DfonIyDGScNPLBjO524YV1/s200/dumbass-logo.jpg" width="164" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The First Rule of Logic:</b> <b>The Argument from Higher Education-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message">Your education means little to nothing. Education is information. Without the ability to employ proper logic to process the information you are still illogical and unintelligent. Higher education means nothing, it does not trump all those with lower educations and if you invoke your education as an argument<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show"> you lose automatically, that's why it's a logical fallacy.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show"><a name='more'></a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">(The following is the complete transcript of an online debate I recently had on Facebook. If you would be so kind, please read the transcript's entirety and let me know who you think won, who is the more logical, and what do you think of my opponent. My posts are in bold, those of my opponent are in normal font, while those of third parties are in italics...)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">Facebook Status August 08, 2010:</span></span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">Alexander M Haile (author) </span></span></span><span class="UIStory_Message">is watching the South Park episode "The Return of Chef" where Matt and Trey make fun of Scientology for the one millionth time.</span></b><br />
<br />
You know, when I think about it, I can count on one hand the # of agnostic individuals I've met through the years. Its not as rampant nor ubiquitous as one my think. Its actually quite esoteric 2ndary to its impracticality. Have a great res<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">t of your weekend, AMH! (referring to a coversation we had earlier of the use of the title "agnostic" and it's illogical implications)</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span><br />
<b>One hand? How many people do you know? I can count them if you gave me an abacus.</b><br />
<br />
ahahha! I probably know more than you... how old are you? The difference between you and I is within your quest for spiritual reflection from the masses. I just don't care what others think...<br />
<br />
<b>Spiritual reflection?... I care what others think because what they believe informs their actions, actions which have dire consequences within the society I live in. We all live in the same reality, whether we like it or not, and within this reality we are bound by simple rules. Trying to pretend you live in a different reality is divisive and dangerous. The best way to deal with reality is on reality's terms.</b><br />
<br />
Ok, all you've achieved is awareness of what they think. It stops there. What do you plan to do with this information?<br />
<br />
<b>If I can't change them, and I have changes many, then the least I can do is learn what it is they believe in order to help myself predict their actions and dodge the inevitable consequences. I've brought a few people from religious delusion and back to reality. Even if through my entire life I only deconvert one person, it's worth it.</b><br />
<br />
Ok. Cool. I'm not interested in putting effort towards that, but you go nutz! ahahah! Don't be let down when they turn on you and do their own thing without your guidance... (sarcasm) I dig your plight, but I see it as a loosing battle... plus, I don't care what others think. I know my place in life.. Rock On, AMH!<br />
<br />
<b>So you're an apatheist. Regardless of personal belief you find no reason to care what others believe or why. That's fine for some, but it is necessary to see the merit in debating against illogical ideas. If we simply allowed illogical ideas where would we be? For every hundred atheists/agnostics who are apathetic towards the grand debate between logic and illogic, there must be at least one who is willing to join the debate.</b><br />
<br />
Look, I don't judge you, but if you want to get nasty, pack a lunch. You can't change anyone, nor should try. Live and let live. Don't ever label me again.<br />
<br />
<b>Can't change anyone? I've changed. I deconverted my roommate a few years back. Dan Barker was a fundamentalist Christian minister until he gave up religion. People do change, often. Whether or not they are listening and receptive to reason is the key. Saying people don't change is possibly the dumbest thing anyone could ever claim. Sure, some genetic or non-deliberate mental aspects of a person might not be able to change, but people's concepts change. Their beliefs change.</b><br />
<br />
Fuck it. You're a fanatic. I have no respect for fanatics. Go obscess about something important...<br />
<br />
<b>So you just don't like labels? You prefer to be one of those liberal people who claim they're unable to be labeled? Too bad, we all fit into labels. I lack belief in a God, I'm an atheist. Sam Harris lacks belief in a God, he's an atheist. Though he prefers the title of Bright, he's still an atheist whether likes it or not.</b><br />
<br />
I just don't care... You cannot win this debate with me...<br />
<br />
<b>I'm not fanatic about anything, unless it's possible to be fanatic about logic and reality, in which case I am a fanatic. I'm fanatic about logic, and where I don't see it I point it out. You're a new-age liberal thinker with stupid illogic<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">al unrealistic ideas which you only possess because you think it makes you unique and special. You're not. You're just another illogical person who has customized his illogical ideas to make himself feel comfortable in a world he can't understand since he's too apathetic and stupid to try to understand it.</span></b> <b>I don't have to win if you're not going to fight back... I'll simply walk up to your hill and plant my flag without any resistance. You're so illogical that you don't even see how you're not really deciding not to argue, you're unable to argue. You don't know how.</b><br />
<br />
You are transferring your insecurity which stems from an illequipped solidarity onto others in search of something that I can't provide. You have know idea who I am; from this, you've unconsciously constructed a veil of hypocrisy - that which you're aimlessly arguing against. Don't you see the oxymoron within the context? You're not as smart as you think , but you are more tenacious than most. Be nice..or fuck off<br />
<br />
<i>Karleigh:</i><br />
<i>"Be nice..or fuck off" Says the guy commenting on someone else's status. Delete him if you don't like what he says?</i><br />
<br />
I'm not that obstinate, Karleigh. Plus, this has nothing to do with you. Address me, not the situation...<br />
<br />
<b>You use a lot of smart sounding words, but they don't stick. I used "stupid" and "illogical" which could easily stick given what I know of you from our discussions here on Facebook. So I may not know who you are, but I know enough to make t<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">hose claims. You're using "illequipped solidarity" and "unconsciously constructing a veil of hypocrisy" which don't make sense together and are far too reaching for what you know of me given that we've only talked on Facebook. You're trying to use buzz words to make your argument rather than actually making an argument. Also, the word is "subconsciously" since "unconsciously" would mean I'm doing something either in my sleep or dead, which isn't possible. There is no Oxymoron in this context, there's only a moron. One who likes to use big words to attack a person he doesn't know, but brushes off attacks on himself by claiming his attacker doesn't know him. I don't have to be nice. I have no moral, legal, ethical or social obligation to compliment your fragile sensibilities.</span></b> <b>Karleigh... this has everything to do with you, assuming you agree with one side or the other... feel free to jump in with me, or against me, if you feel like it. My page is your page.</b><br />
<br />
Cause and effect - "ill... " is the cause; "uncons.." is the effect. This is psychology 101... No, I meant unconsciously... Your dreams have a big impact on your psyche...You attacked me, Alexander... review the posts and you will see. <br />
<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">Cool. We don't see eye to eye. move on</span><br />
<br />
<i>It's Facebook, Eric. Nothing is private. Everyone comes on here knowing that they are giving up their right to privacy. Plus, I actually was directly addressing you and not commenting on your conversation with Alex. Oh, and thanks Alex! Sam<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">e to you, but my page is pretty boring haha.</span></i><br />
<br />
Ok, what is your take on the subject, Karleigh? Rather than your unwarranted appraisal of my response.. I see, now, that Alexander needs a buddy to handle me... interesting...<br />
<br />
<b>Wait?... I attacked you?... I posted about watching South Park, and you came on to discuss how there are so few agnostics, refuting one of my claims... you attacked me, although I wouldn't really use the word "attacked"... I prefer "engaged<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">"... So now my dreams make me who I am? The last dream I had I was sitting in the living room and my roommate's girlfriend was arguing with him in their room and he came out and we went to Paris (I hate Paris)... what does that have to do with my opinions? You don't really believe in dream interpretation, do you?</span></b><br />
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<i>I don't have a take. I just noticed that you were telling someone to fuck off on their own page. I thought it was funny. Oh, and Alex can handle himself just fine, definitely doesn't need me! :)</i><br />
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<b>Eric... I welcomed her to join your side too, but your side just lacks the sort of logic Karleigh likes, I assume. Karleigh... thanks. I think I can handle a new-age liberal apatheist spiritual free thinker who believes in dream interpretation.</b><br />
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<i>"Apatheist" is the best term ever haha. Dream interpretation? Eek. Logical black hole there.</i><br />
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"Apatheist" - that's an attack.. I was simply reflecting. You were trying to convert me into something in which I was already taking part. So, that had to be an attack. When I warned you against the nastiness, you continued, and so I had t<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">o offer my candor... Be well. </span><br />
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<b>I usually won't use the term apatheist, since it doesn't distinguish between an apathetic atheist or an apathetic theist. Although, theists are rarely apathetic about their beliefs, and too many atheists are apathetic.</b><br />
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Can you label me without utilizing neologisms.?. go grab your dictionary..<br />
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<b>You yourself said that you didn't care what people thought or believed, that people couldn't change, that it didn't matter to you. That's an apatheist. Simply because you fit a label doesn't mean someone's trying to attack you. Get over it hippie, labels aren't bullets. No one is trying to pin your down to a label but yourself. It's not my fault you fit the definition.</b> <b>Can you say anything in favor of your beliefs and opinions without resorting to big words and hippie logic?</b><br />
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I concur with your latest arguement.<br />
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<i>Cool.</i><br />
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<b>I don't care if you label me so long as the label fits. If I think it doesn't fit, we can debate it. If it doesn't properly fit and yet there's no good label to take its place, then we can come up with one. I'm not afraid of being labeled. I'm afraid of being illogical.</b><br />
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Those words aren't mine. They are yours, as well. I love how you judge my eloquence. it speaks volumes<br />
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<b>I don't mind eloquence. I mind smug assertions taped onto words in contexts that make no sense. You remind me of the anti-evolutionists, who can't support their own claims with logic so they decide to attack evolution instead. Your position<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show"> is so illogical you've learned not to support it in debate because you can't, so instead you just attack your opponent and try to claim that somehow he/she is unable to understand because of some inherent misunderstanding or misconception. I understand your words, I just don't understand the way in which you're using them. You've already invoked my damned dreams, as though they have something to do with this. Where else will you go?</span></b><br />
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You're unable to understand because you need a dictionary and years of education to keep up with me and your words... duh? You said it. I've achieved more awards and stature from my written discourse than you could ever comprehend. I know you don't understand. So, stop arguing something you don't understand. Your definition of logic is unfounded and without merit. You need to go back to school if you want to toe the line with the big boys...<br />
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<i>If I may interject, can I ask what "kaleidoscopic" political views are?</i><br />
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look it up, Karleigh... a splintered view with a spectrum of colors... so the source is not solidly reflected upon...<br />
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<b>My definition of logic? Sorry, I didn't define logic. It's not my creation. It has rules, ones that are older than either of us. There is no such thing as personal logic. Your kung-fu is not better than my kung-fu... Who the fuck cares abou<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">t your awards and stature? I debate theologians on a daily basis. People with what they consider to be legitimate college degrees, I make them look like children. You're an apatheist, where they hell do you get your debate practice from? You said yourself you don't care! I don't give a fuck about your education, it means nothing without logic skills, of which you have none. Invoking one's education and awards is an argument from authority and merit, it's one of the most common logical fallacies. But you seem not to know that, since you just invoked your own. Good job, trying to say that my personal definition of logic is unfounded and without merit when there's no such thing as personal definitions of logic and merit has no place in logic. You're obviously unaware of what logic is... </span>Like a kaleidoscope... the child's play thing.</b><br />
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You're an idiot, Alexander. Where do you think logic exists? Not in your mind, obviously. education... can you spell that?<br />
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<i>As a feminist, I also take issue with the phrase "big boys". </i><br />
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ok, Karleigh, that was transparent.<br />
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<b>Education doesn't breed logic. You fail again. If education was the key to logic then smart college grads wouldn't make such stupid fucking decisions. </b><br />
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<i>My built-in sarcasm detector is broken.</i><br />
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<b>You're obviously confusing logic with education. Education is information, which is useless without logic. They're two separate things. I don't care how much education you have, you are illogical. All the information in the world couldn't make your dumbass intelligent.</b><br />
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No, you've failed miserably.. The only reason you have a forum is because you have a disbelief in the written Bible...or anyother analogous form of religion... grab your dictionary.<br />
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<i>What does that have to do with anything? </i><br />
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<b>I can't wait to post this conversation to my blog and my notes. Someone who thinks their education is actual logic! Wow!... Priceless! Education is information, logic is how we process the information. Imagine a computer with a whole lot of <span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">memory filled with very useful information, but it has no processing ability. What do we call that? It's a hard drive, not a real computer. It holds information but cannot process it to make the information practically useful. That's your brain. Logic and education are two separate things.</span></b><br />
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The only reason Karleigh is still engaged is because I'm damned good-lookin' and I'm well spoken.. ahahha!<br />
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<b>You keep saying "grab your dictionary" or "look it up" but we understand the definitions of the words you're using, we just don't see how they make and point within the context you use them. We have a vocabulary, Eric. We just don't see what the fuck you're trying to say. But that's the problem with being illogical, everything you say is based on unstandardized subjective bullshit.</b><br />
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<i>I actually haven't found any definitions of "kaleidoscopic political views" yet either, if you could point me to a particular site?</i><br />
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Yeah, Alex...you're futile approach convert others into something I believe in is your first strike... the fact that you have a limited education is your 2nd strike... the fact that you are questioning someone's education only proves that you have none and have decreed yourself the authority on transparency... Great job! go to my profile, Karleigh.. If not, try this.. see if you can connect the definition of Kaliedoscopic within politics... I know, its a stretch to connect the dots.<br />
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<i>Questioning someone's education proves you have none? I'm the polite one out of Alex and I, but I have to ask what planet you're from.</i><br />
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<b>I didn't question your education, I only pointed out that it's ultimately irrelevant in this situation. It's sad that we have someone with higher education but no logic skills thinking he has better opinions on a subject than someone with m<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">oderate education and higher logic skills when the person has already admitted he doesn't care and doesn't deal in these issues. You're out of your element and still you think your irrelevant education gives you some special claim to the debate that trumps anything anyone else says! That's very egotistical of you.</span></b><br />
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I love the factions. two against one.<br />
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<i>I'm not an idiot, you don't need to patronise me. I can connect your stupid dots, I was just looking for a page that would give me specifics. You obviously can't provide it. Is it something you made up?</i><br />
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<b>The kaleidoscope thing was merely metaphor.</b><br />
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Ok... rule # 1 in logic. We must all stick to the same postulates. You don't understand my choice of words b/c you're without education... so, it goes... you cannot understand my logic...<br />
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<b>He can't offer any specifics because he doesn't have any ability to process the information he has. He's illogical, he only holds information long enough to spit it out at people and then think less of them because they don't have the same information already. Sorry Eric, we couldn't all go to a hippie liberal college.</b><br />
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<i>I thought so. None of the pages I found even had the words next to each other. You could have just said that Eric, but you wanted to make me feel like an idiot apparently. Bad luck on that one.</i><br />
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You should try to spell words correctly, as well.<br />
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<b>Rule #1 in logic is your education is irrelevant. Stop invoking your own education as though it gives you free reign to dismiss everyone else but yourself.</b><br />
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<i>What word have I misspelled?</i><br />
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You have no arguement against education, Alex.<br />
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<b>I didn't say education was crap, I'm not attacking it. It's simply irrelevant in a debate. Have you ever seen two people get on stage to debate a topic and they just whip out their degrees and compare them till they decide who is more educated and then everyone just delegates to his opinions? Nope.</b><br />
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Well, I've been enrolled in 8 colleges in 3 states. I have a well rounded education... You should, too. No, Alex, but I noticed you couldn't keep up with my eloquence...<br />
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<i>You've been ENROLLED? How impressive. If you'd graduated, it would be even more impressive.</i><br />
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<b>I already explained why I didn't like your eloquence. The words you use mean nothing if when put together they don't make sense.</b><br />
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They don't make sense to you, but the rest of the world, save you and Karleigh, are acting like a couple of adolescents in the throes of achieving some sort of independence... from who, I'm unsure... good luck, kiddos.<br />
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<i>Maybe you're just used to people thinking you sound smart and awesome, Eric. But I have to admit, your very first comment was a mystery to me, as was its relevance to Alex's status.</i><br />
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sorry - are not acting like a couple of.. that's an addedum to the aforementioned comment... go grab your lexicon<br />
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<b>The rest of the world they make sense to? That's funny, I thought it wouldn't make sense to anyone unless they had an education equal to or greater than yours, since education is the deciding factor in logic, right? You're the most dangerous type of illogical person alive... the sort of person who thinks his illgoc is logic simply because a professor told him it was.</b><br />
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Yes! Finally! you get it! Logic is predicated on education! Especially within this venue! All we have are words.. I'm much better than you two..<br />
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<b>Eric is very smug. That's one of the problems with higher education, you begin to think less of everyone without one. You forget that education is only the means to gaining information, not becoming truly intelligent. He actually thinks he can dismiss people's opinions simply because they haven't been to college like he has. I was being sarcastic, Eric. Logic is not dependent upon education, that's the first major rule of logic. I've already explained this. You cannot possibly be this dense?</b><br />
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<i>Apparently your sarcasm detector is broken too, Eric. Are you some sort of troll?</i><br />
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I think the world of you and Karleigh... I just don't care about your appraisal of me...and this bothers you..<br />
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<b>I wish I could be a hippie liberal apathetic free thinking new-age moron too... then I could be free to agree or disagree with anyone I want simply based on whether or not the things they speak are synonymous with my own personal subjective opinions on personal truth. What freedom you must have to be able to make shit up as you go.</b><br />
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<i>There is quite a gulf between "knowledge" and "intelligence". There is also more than one kind of intelligence. </i><br />
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I wish you could have an objective view of your shitty attitude... who kicked your ass? You have issues. Later.<br />
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<i>Why should you give a shit about me? You don't know me at all haha. Certainly I don't particularly care for you.</i><br />
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Say it again, Alex... the hippie thing.. you'll be dreaming about it tonight and hating me tomorrow...<br />
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<b>Subjective view of my shitty attitude?... I don't give a shit about most things subjective, because I'm logical and logic deals in the objective.</b><br />
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objective! can you read? You guys are a joke<br />
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<b>Eric, I implore you, please go read a book on logic. You're a danger to yourself and anyone who delegates their opinions to you.</b><br />
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You're a tool that I'm gonna expose to all my friends. Good luck. Thanks for the threesome, though. ...idiots.<br />
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<i>Sure, just lump us together. Another logical fallacy.</i><br />
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<b>He doesn't really know what those are.</b><br />
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<i>Oh right. And assuming your "exposing" Alex will have actually have an effect on him is so sad but funny. You've got a really high opinion of yourself.</i><br />
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<b>He'll probably bring people to my blog and make me more famous.</b><br />
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I'm setting up charges of libelous conduct against you two... who's the logical one? its too late... no going back. I've printed everything out. BTW, I'm a Rock Star with nothing but time and $.<br />
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<b>Libelous?... It's not libel if we have an opinion of you based on conversations we have recorded and documented. It's not against the rules to call you a moron... so you're the illogical one.</b><br />
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No, you've defamed my name plenty within this post, and I warned you against it...<br />
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<i>Yep... ok well. I'm going out tonight (live music yayyy) and this was a reasonable way to pass the time until I had to leave (soon), so have fun with that Eric, and don't forget that it's enrolling in college that makes you special!</i><br />
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Grab an attorney on your way out, Karleigh! ahahha!<br />
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<b>There's no rule against defaming you for something which we can prove occurred. You really think there's a rule against calling you a moron?</b><br />
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This is where education plays a part, Alex.<br />
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<b>Facebook libel suit? Wow... that's very funny.</b><br />
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No, its real.<br />
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<i>Can everyone see this? Anyone who cares to weigh in... try your luck.</i><br />
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No one else is stupid to get into this..You're toast...guess what? I win!<br />
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<b>Well if you want to sue me I might as well say everything I want to...<br />
You're a new-age liberal moron who thinks his higher education makes him not only smarter but also more special than his fellow human beings. Your willful ignorance and e<span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">xuberant smugness make you a danger to yourself and those close to you. You're a fool of the highest regard. Also, to think you can claim libel for something that occurred on my own page which you willfully acted upon is ridiculous. You're a major tool and you can't even see it. Fuck you, Eric, you stupid self centered fuck.</span></b>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-56304085616213667092010-08-06T00:50:00.001-05:002010-08-06T16:37:16.760-05:00Alcoholism is NOT a disease!... My thoughts...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQHrmSktrWXUUNXACPNlbtghiapYfNU1TuN9h52zLR_14UIUks0yJ9R9IPVQtih6TTFSPNfN3xOSckfHZ41scr8364kb0PnydsOrjsgJfA4plKxEiYX8_xhw_fMC0PwdicY9bSQ7ph43D5/s1600/alcoholism%2520%2528moto%2529%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQHrmSktrWXUUNXACPNlbtghiapYfNU1TuN9h52zLR_14UIUks0yJ9R9IPVQtih6TTFSPNfN3xOSckfHZ41scr8364kb0PnydsOrjsgJfA4plKxEiYX8_xhw_fMC0PwdicY9bSQ7ph43D5/s200/alcoholism%2520%2528moto%2529%5B1%5D.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>By scientific definition any behavior is not a disease. And saying alcoholism is a disease is misrepresenting a vast amount of the people afflicted with alcoholism, since only a small population of alcoholics have a genetic predisposition to addictive personalities. If we consider alcoholism a disease then we must begin to consider homicide a disease too.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Only a small portion of those who have an addiction to alcohol have it because of a genetic predisposition to addictive personality. Addictive personality can be a disease, a genetic one. But alcoholism is only one of a million ways it c<span class="text_exposed_show">an manifest, therefore alcoholism is a form of the manifestation of a disease sometimes, it's not a disease itself. And still only about 20% of alcoholics have a genetic predisposition.<br />
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Just as only about 20% of murderers have a genetic predisposition to homicidal violence, but we don't consider homicide to be a disease. We consider the genetic markers which lead to some murders to be a form of disease, not murder itself.</span><br />
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Also, the only people who ever consider alcoholism to be a disease or either alcoholics who learned everything they know about alcoholism from a 12-step program, or people with friends or family who are alcoholics who learned everything they know about alcoholism from their friends/family who in turn learned everything they know about alcoholism from the 12-step program... The concept that alcoholism is a disease is derived from the 12-step alcoholism treatments, not from alcoholism related science.<br />
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Every male on my dad's side of the family is an alcoholic on one level or another. I'm not. I've never had a problem with alcohol. This leads me to believe it's not a genetic predisposition to addictive personality within my family. But even if it was, alcoholism isn't their disease. APD (addictive personality disorder) is their disease. Alcoholism is just their addiction of choice, it's the way their APD manifests itself.<br />
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If we are to consider alcoholics to be stricken with a disease, then we must consider those who color code their closets alphabetically to be stricken with a disease as well. Because even though some forms of OCD are a disease, and some for<span class="text_exposed_show">ms of genetically predisposed addictions are diseases, we must now consider their manifestations to be diseases too. Simply to make the alcoholics happy... from now on, if you're afraid of water it's now a disease. Who cares that only a small portion of people who are afraid of water actually have rabies, we must consider the manifestations and symptoms to be diseases as well. Who cares if we misrepresent those who are simply afraid of water for non-genetic reasons, we must make the alcoholics happy.</span><br />
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It's time people learn a bit of science and apply it to their lives and the things they say. It's time we stop considering the rare symptoms of a disease to be a disease within themselves. 20% of alcoholics have APD to which they have chose<span class="text_exposed_show">n to apply towards alcoholism rather than food or heroine. And about 5% of people with a fear of water have rabies. But we do not consider fear of water to be a disease. The symptoms of a disease are not diseases in their own right, especially not when a vast majority of those people with that affliction do not have the genetic/disease form of the affliction. 80% of alcoholics simply like alcohol and took it too far. It's chemical, not biological. </span>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-56999013938091141882010-07-30T03:09:00.000-05:002010-07-30T03:09:48.391-05:00UPDATESorry I've been away for so long. I've been getting settled into my new home in Chicago, Illinois. If you're in Chicago send me an email sometime. Maybe we'll grab some beers. Also, the blog might be adding a weekly scheduled audio podcast soon. Let me know what you'd all like to hear in a Foxhole Atheist Podcast... news, emails, etc... any ideas?SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-36549610608654843152010-07-30T03:07:00.002-05:002010-07-30T03:18:53.856-05:00What Would You Do? Mormon Polygamist Pedophilia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc2r4tWhPOU5IHBgB3LBSpV2cN_wb9n6vGrRVikhb4xf5YP9cjURMRU8EhFJhXwvrKoxDNyaD5zJq4JgskEISOGI257QcvqLsjkgN2cRjqV6zrgOaHxRzwOlyCQeWa-hT_90TspsqdlloE/s1600/mormum2AP1504_468x315.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc2r4tWhPOU5IHBgB3LBSpV2cN_wb9n6vGrRVikhb4xf5YP9cjURMRU8EhFJhXwvrKoxDNyaD5zJq4JgskEISOGI257QcvqLsjkgN2cRjqV6zrgOaHxRzwOlyCQeWa-hT_90TspsqdlloE/s200/mormum2AP1504_468x315.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>If you haven't been watching NBC's new show "What Would You Do?" you've been missing out. This last Tuesday they did an episode showcasing a scenario between a old Mormon man and his new child bride. <br />
<a name='more'></a>I give NBC a lot of props for this one, not only because of the touchy religious subject, but also because it didn't even attempt to touch upon the religious freedoms discussion, and rightfully so. I've said it before and I'll say it again... religious freedom is about protecting everyone's right to believe what they want no matter how ridiculous. It's not about protecting everyone's right to conduct themselves however they want simply because they happen to have a religious qualifier. <br />
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The scenario went something like this... imagine you're in a Utah. If you live in Utah, fine. If not, imagine you got held over on a flight or something, don't interrupt. You're at a nice restaurant and your dinner is going quite well so far. There's a Mormon family sitting at a large table in the center of the restaurant. One man approximately 65 years old, two women around 30-40 years old, and a young girl approximately 15 years old. You assume that the 40 year old woman must be his wife, while the youngest girl must be his daughter. The other?... his sister in law? Who cares, she's not important... Half way through your dinner you notice the young girl looking really sad. The other women at the table seem to be giving her the stink eye. She looks around the restaurant with a sad face and begins to cry. The women at the table whisper to her to stop it, but they're just loud enough for you to hear. She begins to cry harder and she says "I'm too young to be a wife, I'm only 15!"... this she says loud enough for everyone to hear. The man at the table grabs her hand and says to her in a very forceful voice, "I will teach you to be subordinate. You will obey me, I am your husband now. This is your family." The girl looks scared, and she is obviously in need of help. What would you do?...<br />
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Here's what I loved most about this scenario... Out of maybe 100 people in the restaurant who saw the actors play out this scenario over and over, only 7 brave souls spoke up to help the girl. Why is that good? It appeared as though the actors only replayed this scene about 7 times. So 100% of the time someone came forward to help the 15 year old girl married against her will to an old pedophile. Sure, not everyone spoke up, but the will to act doesn't come easy. I'm just glad that in a public arena where this act took place, there was at least one good person willing to speak out in defense of the girl. At times like these I get a sense that humanity may be headed in the right direction. Fifty years ago no one would have said a thing, and some people might even think the girl to be out of line. Not today... Everyone was upset at this scene. And at least one person acted in the girl's favor. And remember, this was Utah. The motherland of Mormonism. If we can react with this sort of empathy in Utah, imagine what Mormonism has in stake for it elsewhere?... We already came after them in Texas.<br />
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Finally, I'd like to cover the issue of polygamy. I do not have a problem with polygamy for the same reason I don't have a problem with people who have 3-somes with their significant other/s. It's their right as adults, they can do as they wish. My only issue with polygamy comes from Mormon Polygamy. Forcing young girls into marriages with older pedophile men is not only immoral and unethical, but it's exactly the sort of thing we condemn people for. If I forced a young girl to live in my home and sleep with me, I'm a pedophile rapist. If I'm Mormon, I'm just a groom and she's just my bride. Mormon Polygamy is the greatest example of the sort of default respect that religion receives in today's society. Sure, very few people actually support the concept of Mormon Polygamy. But how many of us speak out against it in public? Unless a little girl is being forced into a marriage with an older man in the same restaurant we happen to be eating in, we don't tend to care much.<br />
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Speak out! Open your mouth! For every outspoken atheist/liberal agnostic theist in the world there is 100 religious crimes being committed. We need more outspoken men and women who are logically minded. Perhaps not simply atheists, we need agnostic theists too. Someone on the other side of the fence who can work to clean house. Please, watch the show. I've linked it below... And speak up.<br />
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http://www.hulu.com/watch/167122/what-would-you-do-tue-jul-27-2010SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-25362980258404733702010-06-28T18:47:00.000-05:002010-06-28T18:47:56.370-05:00Don't Make Fun of Jesus!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGOC9UZV5ja4JGev1dz1cVrijVmc_1n5v0UmgQbonIVme9TakSAydzRnUMMlrctLuoevNcOiGIS8vWFt_ttjNAFvcnS_rXgpc4i7p8BH5GSbDi2Pt97SlpFhEmoAgXx_oxSr4MVggg-Yl/s1600/37358_1477956465529_1132285021_1375822_632049_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGOC9UZV5ja4JGev1dz1cVrijVmc_1n5v0UmgQbonIVme9TakSAydzRnUMMlrctLuoevNcOiGIS8vWFt_ttjNAFvcnS_rXgpc4i7p8BH5GSbDi2Pt97SlpFhEmoAgXx_oxSr4MVggg-Yl/s200/37358_1477956465529_1132285021_1375822_632049_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Today I posted a picture on my Facebook page. It sparked two separate situations. First I learned that my girlfriend was deleted by a few of her friends for the very fact that the picture existed. It was quite clear to anyone with half a brain that she did not post the picture, but that someone else had. I guess when it comes to personal offense it doesn't matter if you aim your aggression in the right direction, so long as you can still feel vindicated in the end.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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The second situation is a private message I received from the friend of a friend. I have posted it below...<br />
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<b>Christian: </b>ur mesed up dude<br />
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<b>Me:</b> How's that?<br />
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<b>Christian:</b> u pic about jesus.. i respect ur belifs but not wen u make them public<br />
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<b>Me:</b> Oh, so you respect my beliefs so long as I don't speak about them? Well that's funny because you're Catholic (according to your profile) and if anyone is outspoken about their personal beliefs it's the Vatican. So maybe you should shut up too? The fact of the matter is this... Religious freedom means we all have the right to believe what we want. Not because it's true or smart to believe in some things, but because it's impossible to enforce beliefs. No one can make you believe something, they can only force you to conform to it's rules. Religious freedom also means that we all have the right to express our views openly and publicly, no matter who doesn't agree with them. You don't agree with me because you think Jesus died for you sins. I don't agree with you because I think you're a delusional moron. You can wave your cross in public all you want, and I can post pictures making fun of your savior all day long. Who is allowed to speak in public about their beliefs is not what should be discussed. What should be discussed is whose beliefs are more likely true, and whose beliefs reflect reality best. In that case, I win. You lose. So you can keep on believing in the invisible man in the sky who loves you unconditionally; unless you're gay, Muslim, atheist, a blasphemer, cum on the floor, work on Sunday, and any other number of unforgivable sins... Me, I'm going to keep exercising my freedom to make your religious beliefs look as stupid as they sound.<br />
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It's obvious I didn't give him an inch to work with. I wanted to squash this conversation quickly. I'm tired of people coming to me and telling me how offended they are at anything I say. I do not care. Offense is something you take. It's not something that can be given. If you dislike something, argue against it. If you can't argue against it, take a breather and reconsider your beliefs. That's what a smart person does. They don't continue to persist in delusions.<br />
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When are we going to admit that it's not just the Muslims who come after you when you post pictures of the prophet. When you post negative pictures about Jesus, the Christians will come after you just the same. I've received death threats before. I'm not scared of them, but I would be willing to bet that if they truly had the chance, there are some Christians who would actually end my life to make themselves feel vindicated. It's happened before to many other people. Why not? Christians, even the modern ones, have as much blood on their hands in the name of God as do the Muslims in the name of Allah.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-46114849480839578832010-06-23T05:02:00.001-05:002010-06-23T05:37:40.967-05:00The Rational Reponse to Faith Based Reasoning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCVktB3jIbV3M9AFWVhYjVTo34k0F50HTpI0OeLee1NV2F_e2AgZFKWGQbX-dxNsVWmbjS2Fc_cCMxNAhUGRGyb7rAkPqhzwi7VCM3W4eVJRcIuyNwxpbD474m-JWh4l9ybs4txfldiHC/s1600/faith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCVktB3jIbV3M9AFWVhYjVTo34k0F50HTpI0OeLee1NV2F_e2AgZFKWGQbX-dxNsVWmbjS2Fc_cCMxNAhUGRGyb7rAkPqhzwi7VCM3W4eVJRcIuyNwxpbD474m-JWh4l9ybs4txfldiHC/s200/faith.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message">You only believe something because you think it's true, and you only think it's true because you think somewhere there is good reason to believe it. But as soon as all the reasons are dissected and shown to be nothing more than half truths and whole lies, you decide to resort to the "I have faith" argument. I call bull<span class="text_exposed_show">shit.<a name='more'></a></span></span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">You weren't originally convinced your religion was true simply because of faith. Someone you trusted told you it was true for numerous reasons. Reasons you chose not to investigate. All this time you thought you knew the obvious reasons your beliefs were true, and now you're faced with discovering that they were all lies or misconceptions. You don't have faith in something you cannot support. You're just scared of losing the one thing in your life you thought was a sure bet. You're scared of losing the afterlife you've been told is the only thing that makes this imperfect life worth living. You're afraid of losing the kind father figure in the sky who you thought loved you unconditionally. You're losing your Santa again, and this time it hurts much much worse.</span></span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">When you were born, you did not automatically believe based on faith. You did not know anything about religion or God. Your parents had not yet taught you their beliefs. And when they finally got around to teaching you, it wasn't automatic faith that convinced you that your God exists, or that the religion or your parents is true. There was a set of reasons they gave you for believing. Perhaps they read Bible stories to you. Obviously not straight out of the Bible. Most adults cannot even understand the Bible's terminology and grammar, to say nothing of a child. They read you Bible stories for kids that painted God's actions in a relatively good light. They gave you pieces of the belief system's history, told you these pieces were true, and that if these historical events were true then the whole religion based on them must be true as well. This isn't poor reasoning, because if the events surrounding the Bible's account of history were true, then you'd be well justified to believe in the God of the Bible as well. The problem is that it does represent a serious lack of proper logic. Your final conclusion that God must exist is based on an assumption that these stories are true. Proper logical conclusions are based on demonstrable or provable facts, rather than assumed preconceptions. Of course if every part of the Bible's account of itself were true, then the Bible's God must be real as well. But what if the Bible's account of history was not true? If your parents had read you the Bible stories rewritten for children, and upon completion, instead of telling you these tales were true they told you the tales were ridiculously false, you'd be much less likely to believe them when they said that the God these tales were based upon actually exists. </span></span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">90% of the stories in the Bible never happened. Some of the people and places are often real, but that means nothing without evidence to support the claims made by the Bible. The Titanic was a real ship and the captain was really named Edward Smith, but this does nothing to prove the existence of the characters Jack and Rose from the movie "Titanic" and no one would assume these characters actually existed. So why come to such a conclusion about the Bible? Simple... No one ever told their kids the characters Jack and Rose were real, but countless parents tell their children half truths and whole lies about the claims made by the Bible. I suppose they feel no guilt in doing this to their children, because often people assume that if they believe something is true then it must be, and if they are incapable of accurately supporting the claim, it's okay, because someone else who is brighter then they are is able to. Who cares if mom and dad can't argue for Jesus, because where they fail their pastor would surely succeed... Wrong. Not just wrong, but extremely dead fucking wrong. If you as an individual cannot personally give justifiable logical reasons to hold a position, then your position is invalid. Even if your position is true, it remains invalid for as long as you are unable or unwilling to support it with reason and logic. Because even if it is true; if you cannot properly support it and accurately represent it in debate; what you have shown us all is that you have no problem accepting things that you do not understand on any level. This means you are a fool of the most basic sense of the word. So gullible you cannot tell the true things from the false things because nothing you know is backed by any reason whatsoever. </span></span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">Dear parents, please do not teach you kids anything you cannot logically support yourself. Do not teach anything as certain. Do not teach your children that they do not need to understand something in order to believe it. If you do, you will only be perpetuating a horrible intellectual nightmare. Your children will eventually sway from the path you set for them and make up their own mind about things. When they do you should want them to do so for the right reasons and come to terms with reality far better than you have. You should not want them to sway from your path because they found you taught them things you only thought were true, and that in their eyes they may love you, but they think you're a fool.</span></span></span></h3>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-35913300650212580612010-06-19T21:47:00.000-05:002010-06-19T21:47:22.241-05:00Political Philosophy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCwElZJ4DQ6bxVHwD8-wmIaBu4cswxcLj_YSlJlIZPySUUCbUgKwE-IztB0ZkPelXws7QUlu601ZVsuKDbMyth3zyds7oi146bpu8J7_qZ0KCHT9B8_ywLeNLUGJpAOioWlVHQz9jizuKU/s1600/002-0725214300-Political-Philosophy-General.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCwElZJ4DQ6bxVHwD8-wmIaBu4cswxcLj_YSlJlIZPySUUCbUgKwE-IztB0ZkPelXws7QUlu601ZVsuKDbMyth3zyds7oi146bpu8J7_qZ0KCHT9B8_ywLeNLUGJpAOioWlVHQz9jizuKU/s200/002-0725214300-Political-Philosophy-General.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The systems of Communism and America's democracy lack a balance of both responsibility and authority.<br />
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In basic forms of Communism, everyone has responsibility, but no one has authority. In practice, it's actually that the majority has responsibilities, but all the authority rests in the hands of those who in relation to their subjects, have no <span class="text_exposed_hide"><span class="text_exposed_link"></span></span><span class="text_exposed_show">responsibility. Or at least they feel no responsibility.<a name='more'></a>Democracy, in the sense that America practices it, is also imbalanced. It gives everyone authority by allowing everyone to have a vote, but does not require any citizen to prove he/she is responsible enough to wield it.<br />
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We began this millennium with an idea referred to as the "divine rights of kings" because we believed that one man, or one type of man, had both the right to authority and the sense of responsibility to wield it effectively. We were dead wrong. When there is a good king seated in the throne, that system works perfectly. A "King Aurthur" of sorts. The argument against this system is that you can never ensure that the king has a good sense of responsibility, and even if he does the supply of reserve "King Aurthur" types is extremely limited. There was only ever one that we know of.<br />
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Modern civilization is based on the "divine rights of man" meaning that men have inherent rights to govern themselves. In some ways this is true, and in another it is dead wrong. To say that mankind should govern itself through popular vote is fine. Who has the right to vote is another question entirely. We know there are many people out there who do not care to vote and have no opinion on politics whatsoever. As long as no one kicks down their door they're fine. These people are the sheep of our civilization. They cannot care for themselves on a large scale because their apathy towards our governing system is too great. Then there are those who care about politics, who care about the national agenda and where it will lead us. In this category, you have two subcategories. Those who are sincere patriots, and those who are liars. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">How do you separate the sincere patriots, who are willing to put the good of the nation before their own self, and the Liars who put their own good, politically or financially, in front of the nation's good? What separates them? Simple... one has a balanced sense of authority and responsibility. The other has only authority. How do we test this? How do we weed the sheep from the sheep-dogs, and the sheep-dogs from the mutts? What is the best test for a man's resolve and selflessness? When we discover that, we will know what standard we should set for the future civilization's governing system. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">I have a few ideas, but they seem to be extremely unpopular for modern hippies and those who care only about their inherent rights. Their sovereignty is always important to them until you ask them what they would do to maintain it. People who think they have rights that should be recognized by all, rather than earned and maintained by themselves, are extremely dangerous when wielding a ballot. And in my opinion, a ballot is much more dangerous than the gun they choose not to wield.</span>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-47072627834444069382010-06-18T16:57:00.002-05:002010-06-18T17:00:51.463-05:00Animal Rights: Letter to an Ethical Vegan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmDp7lzF4ThaMuYWLeNHKa4gHojQGS82fNt-zH0N9w55p73CnZacNS5IZwgaEnedQs9iOJKAerSrgrMSYPrHfZJXjbnNyeIQwgIjvjuMsj4OlaXNorDNY3Z9p4t6EmFkjjIXWBPre-Hoq/s1600/Motivator+-+Animal+Rights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmDp7lzF4ThaMuYWLeNHKa4gHojQGS82fNt-zH0N9w55p73CnZacNS5IZwgaEnedQs9iOJKAerSrgrMSYPrHfZJXjbnNyeIQwgIjvjuMsj4OlaXNorDNY3Z9p4t6EmFkjjIXWBPre-Hoq/s200/Motivator+-+Animal+Rights.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>There's not enough consistency in the moral vegan/vegetarian argument for animal rights. One minute it's that every living animals has inherent rights, but then it's that we understand rights and have a moral obligation to them, but if a lion eats me it's justified because he didn't understand and has no obligation to consider my inherent right to<span class="text_exposed_hide"> </span><span class="text_exposed_show">life.</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">To me it's simple... Why don't you give a 2 year old the right to vote? Because a 2 year old can't comprehend what the voting process is all about. He cannot yet wield that authority with responsibility. In the case of an animal, it cannot understand the right to vote at any age. Understanding your rights is a prerequisite to having them. If a grown man kills another person because he is mentally incapable of understanding other people's rights to life, we put him in jail. Taking away his rights so that he cannot do harm again. If we already know a lion does not have the mental capability to understand my right to life, why should we let it out of the zoo? <br />
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Any organism can understand the need to survive, what we refer to as the right to life. But it's not a right. By calling it a right to life we evoke far too many misunderstandings in far too many arguments, apart from animal rights. What right to life does a man lost in the desert have? The desert sun will kill him and dry his corpse to dust with no regard to his right to live. What right to life does a man have who swims with the sharks? Do we arrest the shark who eats him? No, of course not. Organisms have an instinctual need to survive, not a right to live. The only reason we have laws among ourselves is to control ourselves, to limit chaos. The founding fathers (namely Jefferson) referred to the inalienable rights; the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I'm sad to say he was wrong. He came close, but missed to obvious truth. Perhaps with a knowledge of evolutionary biology (to come many years later) he would have done better. No organism has the right to life, as I explained before. Neither does it have the right to liberty and happiness. These might seem like rights at times, but they are far from inalienable. Your liberty can be taken from you with either the signing of a bill, the lock of a jail cell, or the point of a sword. Your liberty is not a right, it's a condition that must be maintained by you if you wish to have it. Likewise, the pursuit of happiness is not a right, but a condition. As long as your heart beats and your brain thinks you will be able to pursue happiness. It's a universal condition that cannot be changed until you die. But nothing between Heaven and Earth can ensure that you ever reach happiness. These are not inalienable rights, there are no inherent rights to any organism. <br />
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We devised the concept of rights because we evolved brains able to conceive of such a concept. But they do not actually exist. They are conceptual by nature. Appealing to them for the good of an animal who cannot comprehend them is laughable. You would be better off trying to argue for the right of a new born baby to drive or carry a firearm. At least then you could convince me that the baby will one day be able to comprehend the authority he wields. With animals, you cannot. Until a cow evolves the ability to both understand rights and speak for them, I will eat cows and so will any other meat eater who enjoys the taste of beef.<br />
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Also, I notice how often your vegan/vegetarian/etc. friends on your page say things like "Don't worry about Alex, one day he'll see, one day they will all understand"... Sounds a lot like End Times doctrine speech to me. The theistic idea that since they are obviously right that there is no need to make a credible argument. Anyone who does not believe as them will soon learn they were wrong. That's why science dislikes certainty. No one can be certain of anything to that magnitude, and to pretend that you do not have to make a logical argument in favor of your beliefs simply because you believe it, that's dangerous lunacy. How many of your friends are vegans/vegetarians because they like the diet? How many because they just can't stomach meat? How many because they feel a moral obligation to not eat living animals? How many of them because they are mentally ill and have devised a strict duality of life to non-life? The same duality exists in theistic mental illnesses, I would not be surprised to find that such mental illness exists in vegans with such a duality in their moral code.</span>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-3695409631079746582010-06-05T02:17:00.005-05:002010-06-05T04:44:37.142-05:00Discussion with an Acupuncture Supporter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqw9HyWtO75fN7CnciOXE4KK9x0XtVZO2QaI2CCyDqsEGUy__cvsdUQO3DyZY92bz1P7LVeHvfw7uAJdN5dIknZUc57ikX2pmeU8EYY1Pefjicc4VO4LVL7Jd37PiObZUTxzPdhEAhX7d6/s1600/acupuncture_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqw9HyWtO75fN7CnciOXE4KK9x0XtVZO2QaI2CCyDqsEGUy__cvsdUQO3DyZY92bz1P7LVeHvfw7uAJdN5dIknZUc57ikX2pmeU8EYY1Pefjicc4VO4LVL7Jd37PiObZUTxzPdhEAhX7d6/s200/acupuncture_0.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Me:<br />
Acupuncture is only a Placebo.<br />
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<b>Him:</b><br />
<b>Its not placebo...acupuncture works by triggering responses in the nervous system. For example, the use of acupuncture as a pain reliever involves affecting key nerve junctions that trigger the release of endorphins. The notion that all Eastern medicine and homeopathy is "placebo" or "faith based" is an errant one.</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a name='more'></a><b></b><br />
Me:<br />
Says your acupuncturist?... Until it can be shown to have demonstrable benefits while under controlled scientific testing using the proper scientific method, performed by scientists other than acupuncturists (who are too invested to be objective) then it's just "Crap"<br />
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<b>Him:</b><br />
<b>And scientists paid by pharmaceutical companies *aren't* too invested to be objective? And drugs that have more "side effects" than they treat aren't "Crap"? What I know comes from an understanding of neurology and nutrition, not on "whatever the acupuncturist says". Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it faith based dogma.</b><br />
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Me:<br />
Oh no! Here comes the "Big Pharma" conspiracy that's out to get the little man and his ancient eastern medicine!... Even if you don't trust the other scientists, it's still obvious that any internal studies done by acupuncturists are extremely flawed. They do not follow the scientific method and they fudge their results. Sure, normal scientists fudge their results too, but the rest of the scientific community finds out by doing their own tests and then disputes the rogue scientist. In acupuncture, they don't retest and check the other guy's findings. They just accept them and quote them anytime someone questions their methods. Then when you point out the obvious flaws they quote some regular scientist who fudged his results, which I just explained, and that still doesn't make them right. It only makes them just as bad.<br />
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Also, I never said it was faith based dogma. Aaron <b>[an earlier commenter]</b> said it was a placebo effect, which in real tests, that's all it is shown to be. The placebo effect is not "faith based"... It's just wishful thinking of a desperate subconscious. the sort of neurology that acupuncture is based on is the same sort of neurology that Chiropractic medicine is based on. It's crap. Too many acupuncture and chiropractic universities have to establish their own neurology department so that they don't have to require their students to go to a real neurology professor, who would dispute their crap science and philosophy. I know, there's Parker Chiropractic University here in Dallas, and they have acupuncture and neurology sub-studies. The main Dallas medical center ( group of over 200 medical professionals, hospitals and care centers) wouldn't let them open their university within range of the medical center because it would appear as though Chiropractic medicine and acupuncture were legitimate sciences. They had to open their university on the shitty property across the highway.<br />
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I dated a student from the Chiropractic university a while back. She was 3 weeks from graduating and moving to Mexico to open a clinic for the poor. (Sounds well intentioned) But when I questioned her on her science it turned out she knew less about science than me, and my medical training only came from the US Army! I'm trained in infectious diseases, diagnostics, trauma, battlefield surgery and all the goodies! But I still understood science better than the girl who had been training non-stop for seven years! She'd been in Chiropractic/Acupuncture college longer than I had been in the Army, and medical training was only a secondary directive for me! Yet I still schooled her!<br />
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Tell me why acupuncture shows reasonable benefits equal to that of a placebo in all tests, even those tests where the acupuncture procedure was done by a janitor? Turns out people feel better no matter where you stick the needle, or toothpick. (which is all they'd allow the janitor to use) It doesn't matter where the needle goes! It doesn't matter what the needle has on it! It doesn't matter whether it's a needle at all! And it doesn't matter whether it's an acupuncture professional or a janitor.<br />
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Acupuncture is a fancy eastern philosophy with no scientific use other than psychological studies on what makes people think they're better when they're not.<br />
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<b>Him:</b><br />
<b>Its obvious you have very strong opinions. Seeing as I have neither the obligation nor the desire to correct your arrogantly ignorant assumptions about things which you falsely feel to hold so firmly within your "superior" grasp, I hereby leave you to your blissful state of ignorance. Good day.</b><br />
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Me:<br />
Who's being arrogant? How do you know I'm false? These are not issues for "strong opinions" they are issues for facts. Where are yours? If you have them, then show them. If you assume that my strong opinions make me unable to reason then you're wrong. I'm open to having my mind changed, but it's going to take much more than asserting that I'm <span class="text_exposed_show">arrogant. It's going to take some facts. So you can leave and that will only prove you are either unwilling to support the things you feel strong about, or unable. And given that there is no evidence to support acupuncture, then we'll have to conclude that you are unable. And then leaving is just a form of willful ignorance on your part. Sounds a lot like the theistic argument of... "I'm leaving because you just don't understand."</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show"><i>PS: If any further messages come from "HIM" I will be sure to post those as well. So be sure to check in. </i></span>SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-40568716520629877702010-05-28T02:32:00.000-05:002010-05-28T02:32:20.624-05:00Apologies Over My AbsenceI have been sick and my computer has been infected with annoying spyware. Just as soon as I get a virus, so does my computer! Typical... Anyhow, I'm back and the spyware is almost dead. Let me know if you see any strange posts from me, since they may not be from me. I've got new blog ideas, and I'm working on them as we speak to supply you all with your foxhole atheist fix.<br />
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Sincerely,<br />
Sgt.HaileSgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-71897231814969169132010-05-08T17:34:00.002-05:002010-05-08T17:41:47.398-05:00Theologians are Atheists in Theistic Clothing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RHLNhQH-OBRQvLY-62asvJ18Jr3llEvqasScVkoPBGbMA1xlWaYj8nERgXkZDm6B88AHB9G3K-Cf9UmhAdcFywX2plHS-ZyEjq9p6HwZSxsBwPmRRdIZtvqczT-TGkw5fQxWsGR5FC2m/s1600/professor-jones1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RHLNhQH-OBRQvLY-62asvJ18Jr3llEvqasScVkoPBGbMA1xlWaYj8nERgXkZDm6B88AHB9G3K-Cf9UmhAdcFywX2plHS-ZyEjq9p6HwZSxsBwPmRRdIZtvqczT-TGkw5fQxWsGR5FC2m/s200/professor-jones1.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>There's a huge difference between a theologian and an apologist. An apologist is someone who believes in a specific God and tries to argue for the existence of their God by giving reasons for belief. They fail because there is no justified reason to believe. Where as the theologian is a former apologist who figured out that there is no justified reason to believe, so they stray into this obscure language so that their belief cannot be properly singled out.<br />
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A theologian dismisses all arguments against theism as "too simple" and they profess that they are so much more intelligent than both the atheists and the apologists. To them, God is a concept that is transcendent and mysterious. They dismiss the counter apologetics and claims made by Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris because they say that the atheists aren't arguing against any God people really believe in. They're dead wrong. I've been in the pews, I've been in the debates, I've talked to the average theist. The average theist does believe in a real God. They do not believe in a vague transcendent concept. The God atheists argue against is the God that the majority of the world believes in. Just because the theologians know that God can't exist doesn't mean that God isn't the one people believe in.<br />
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The theologian argues for a possibility of a concept of a possible vague transcendent mysterious higher power. And depending on how you define those terms and how you word the argument, I too might believe in the possibility of a possibility of a concept of a vague higher power. But the point is that there's no reason to believe it. It defies logic, reason and everything we know about the universe. Theologians still hold the burden of proof, even thought they deny it. They cannot meet that standard of evidence, and they don't even try. They just sit on their soap box and point condescending fingers at both atheists and apologists alike, all the while pretending to be so much more intelligent than everyone else. At least the apologist believes in a God that might be testable. The theologian professes belief in a higher power concept that is purely impossible.<br />
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Theologians refer to themselves as Christians, speak about God like they're agnostic theists, and then live their lives like they're Fraiser Crane from TV. Listen, if you're a theologian and you're reading this, then this is for you...<br />
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You're an atheist. You know that the God people believe in is impossible. You know enough about those religions to know they're false. That's why you ditched them and made up this vague obscure transcendent being. But you don't believe in him either. You can't. You know you made this crap up and you know it's ridiculous and illogical. You know you can't ever meet the burden of proof and that you'll never be able to accurately define this concept. You don't believe in the God you profess to believe in. No one believes in that God. That God is a cop out for people who have given up trying. You're atheists who can't admit it because you like to pretend to be smart and you enjoy maintaining your theistic support groups. Give up. I see through your guise of smart-assed theism.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-38677563726311221392010-04-27T21:41:00.000-05:002010-04-27T21:41:38.188-05:00What is Socialism? And how does this apply to Health Care?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBe2zYi7UphmIcKcgvWIQ3-D4BI0CrR6zrRdFfc0Rq-pZWirltwcC_SwEhJkaXXvdL-FrfroYO-bwRvzIoJl2p8AfHXCUld4tK5KtVw7v4pOHfNh1IdoMP0ZZjax88B-EqY9eDzQuWGc7E/s1600/soviet.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBe2zYi7UphmIcKcgvWIQ3-D4BI0CrR6zrRdFfc0Rq-pZWirltwcC_SwEhJkaXXvdL-FrfroYO-bwRvzIoJl2p8AfHXCUld4tK5KtVw7v4pOHfNh1IdoMP0ZZjax88B-EqY9eDzQuWGc7E/s200/soviet.png" width="125" /></a></div>Socialism isn't a true government system. It's a political concept that the government should play an active role in the welfare of its people. A concept that most governments apply on one level or another. The issue is how much control should it have in these systems, and therefore, how much control should it have over its people. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Communism takes socialism to an extreme, and it results in a slow economy and weak populace. Democracy is the best initial system for the populace, but socialism is still applied. Even in modern America, socialism is at the core. We have socialized police departments, fire departments, etc... The government and taxpayer's money take an active role in the welfare of the community. Adding a new system to the mix, as long as it's for the betterment of society, does not make the nation "socialist"... It makes it more responsible for the people, and accountable to the people.<br />
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In all high population nations, government systems need to be used in combination with another system. It would be impossible to have a true democracy in a nation with a population of hundreds of millions. Also, to protect the minority within a democracy, you need some safeguard to keep the majority from voting the minority into slavery, or something. Because America had such a large and isolated population from the beginning, we are a Representative Constitutional Democracy. We utilize socialized programs for the welfare of the people. Adopting one more socialized program would not make us a socialist nation. We already have many programs that are socialized and we're still not socialist. It's almost impossible for a government not to have any socialized programs. Without a socialized program of some sort, people would have no reason to pay taxes. <br />
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Socialized regulation on industry is acceptable to maintain a fair environment for businesses. Also, in any industry that should be working for the welfare of the people, such as health care, the government should impose regulations to insure the industry's intentions remain with the people, and not the profits. Any industry that deals with the welfare of the people should be run by the government or regulated by the government. A privately run industry seeks profit, and when you're intentions need to be with the people, profits get in the way. A health care system should be worried about the patients, and at best, it should break even at the end of each fiscal year. It should have little or no motivation to increase its profit margin. We do not tax necessities because of this concept. The government sees a serious ethical issue with applying taxes to products and services the people need to survive. Yet, some politicians see no problem with reducing regulation that imposes the same ethical standards on corporations!... This cannot be allowed.<br />
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Some political parties like to talk about "reducing regulations" on corporations. But this is an indirect lie. It is important to understand how the law making process works. You can never truly reduce regulations. You can only add new regulations that say there's no need to enforce the old regulation. It's called the "Amendment Process" and it's at all levels of the legislative branches in the US. "Reducing Regulation" in the health care industry does not allow for better medicine or better care. It frees the executives of these corporations to increase profits and focus on the market environment, not the patients. If they were truly interested in the patients, they wouldn't be millionaires.<br />
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It is important to remember that Obama, nor any other president, can write bills for law. Even if they could, they could never make America anything other than a Representative Constitutional Democracy. It would take a bill that would disregard the "inalienable" Bill or Rights, and that's not possible. That's why their called "Inalienable"... Get it?<br />
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It is said that the democratic party is the party of bad ideas, and the republican party is the party of no ideas. This is said because the definition of "liberal" in politics means someone who brings up new ideas. Not all new ideas are good ideas, but at least they're trying to fix a broken situation. The definition of "conservative" is someone who attempts to keep things as they are, or revert back to a previous way of doing things. The legislation proposed by the current republican party reflects this. They are either trying to stop new legislation, or they're trying to pass bills that would take America back to the old way of doing things. This would be fine if the system was better before, or if it wasn't broken now. But in health care, and many other situations, the system clearly is broken. Anything would be good at this point, anything but what we were doing before Obama. The republicans like to say they're against "BIG government" which is nothing more than a hypocritical scare tactic. They're the ones who want legislation to restrict your individual freedoms. They want all the liberty for their way of life, and none for those ways that differ from theirs. Gays can't marry, can't serve, can't adopt, etc... Atheists can't adopt, can't run for office, etc... Women can't vote, can't choose to have an abortion, etc... These are the old ways. They didn't work back then, they won't work now. But they suit the republican party's lifestyle. They make laws to revert us back to old ways because they live by old ways, and they assume you do too, or that you should.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-42986241653150432132010-04-25T00:39:00.001-05:002010-04-25T00:47:14.411-05:00Quick Stories: Death by Bear?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0z83KYl7uLo8MppYnh6elntPTvdELUUVG9osHf2c6_lhgY5-dt2IO7z1c8JNGZEojTuYxQpEj5UJn4ljQXPpgUq-xmoTJZ8vBCscRbIZ8US9W2O-VKkL36A__UWVeyfa8C1_MLxea1Rez/s1600/she-bears-murderous_god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0z83KYl7uLo8MppYnh6elntPTvdELUUVG9osHf2c6_lhgY5-dt2IO7z1c8JNGZEojTuYxQpEj5UJn4ljQXPpgUq-xmoTJZ8vBCscRbIZ8US9W2O-VKkL36A__UWVeyfa8C1_MLxea1Rez/s200/she-bears-murderous_god.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>Basically, the prophet Elisha ran into a large group of kids. The kids laughed at Elisha and mocked him for being bald. I guess that wasn't common in those times? Elisha cursed them in the name of God, and then of course God couldn't let a member of his click get picked on by some kids so he did what any mob boss would do to discipline young kids... He sends two female bears after the children. The bears rip the kids to shreds and eat them. How many kids were there?... 42 to be exact, at least by the Bible's account. This story can be found in Second Kinds chapter 2.<br />
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The issue I have with this story is not that it's horrific, though it is. Thankfully, it never happened. There is no God to send she-bears after kids, this is a stupid story. My problem exists in the fact that so many Christians paint their God as a man of love and compassion. They make bold claims about his perfection and his omni-benevolence. However, they make many claims about him being all sorts of "omni" characteristics. And most of those characteristics contradict one another. Let's just take the omni-benevolent one for now...<br />
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What is kind and loving about sending bears to rip apart 42 children for mocking an old man? Sure, what the kids did was insensitive, but that's what kids do. And I wouldn't expect kids who lived thousands of years ago to be any more kind than children today. Couldn't the God who created the entire universe be able to show the kids they were wrong without having them killed? Couldn't he just soften their hearts to Elisha's condition the same way he hardened the Egyptian pharaoh's heart when Moses asked him to release his people? Couldn't he just send down an angel to explain the situation to the kids, to explain the importance of Elisha to the Lord, and therefore, the respect that Elisha was due?... I'm not going to claim that any of these actions I suggest would be "easier" for the Lord, since he's an all powerful being, and therefore any action no matter how taxing it would seem would be equal to any other action no matter how relaxed. So the question isn't about which response would have been easier for an all powerful being, but which response would have been representative of an omni-benevolent being?<br />
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How can Christians claim their God is the acme of love and kindness when it's quite clear that he is not? Some Christians would say that since God is perfect, anything he does, no matter how evil it may seem to us, would be good. But isn't that just a huge excuse to keep from critically examining the facts!?!?... Perfection is both futile and relative. No one can be perfect, it's just an unreachable goal. And perfect is relative to the situation at hand. Given the situation of the mocking children, isn't there a plethora of alternate responses you can think of that in relation to having bears kill them, would seem quite perfect?<br />
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No matter how you rule, it is quite obvious, that this story and many like it, are not read to you in church for a reason.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-83022481570114848282010-04-22T19:32:00.001-05:002010-04-22T20:11:35.498-05:00Counter-Criticism to the Catholic Child Rape Epidemic?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2cG0XRwubBmh_2cjr_glb7ZsSgy8uZxGCHBuos3soCLvvf_-TS2cb_LmrV6HpC1fRMDT1qE8VMhyphenhyphenXBGLGiWpruspC76_ji1DLRbiCvNJ-AmU3kZvaSFfDt3wY2_0_-YdF2gIq_EiZ39hr/s1600/certified_pseudo_intellectual_button-p145480561282079927tmn2_210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2cG0XRwubBmh_2cjr_glb7ZsSgy8uZxGCHBuos3soCLvvf_-TS2cb_LmrV6HpC1fRMDT1qE8VMhyphenhyphenXBGLGiWpruspC76_ji1DLRbiCvNJ-AmU3kZvaSFfDt3wY2_0_-YdF2gIq_EiZ39hr/s200/certified_pseudo_intellectual_button-p145480561282079927tmn2_210.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>On Facebook I am friends with a, what I would call, fundamental Christian apologetic amateur theologian with an intellectual superiority complex. For the sake of this post, we will refer to him as "Charlie"... I was going to say we could call him "The Smartest Moron"<b> </b>but I know I'd get pseudo-intellectual hate mail from him. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Recently, I posted a link to a story about a Catholic priest in Canada who received an 8-year prison sentence for 18 separate charges of sexual abuse to children. Let's just call it what it really is, "Child Rape"... There are a number of crimes you can get more than 8-year confinement for. For instance..."Possession of narcotics with the intent to sell"... Why is that worse than 18 counts of child rape? Charlie seems to think that I was wrong to point the finger at Christianity for this... Which I didn't. I pointed a finger at the Catholic church. Here's the link and the following discussion with Charlie...<br />
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<a href="http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Former%20priest%20sentenced%20eight%20years%20abuse/2472810/story.html">Priest gets 8-years for 18 counts of Child Rape!</a><br />
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<b>Charlie: </b><br />
<i>"Let's see.... 0.00001% of all Christians have abused children, and you therefore paint all religious institutions with the same brush? Your logic, once again, is unassailable. Does your default respect towards the welfare of children apply to all children, or just to those whom you define, based on some arbitrary standard (such as age or size), as children?"</i><br />
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<b>My Rational Response:</b><br />
Exactly where did I say that "all religious institutions are child molesters?"... Charles, I'm not attacking religion here. Stop with the paranoia. I'm attacking a bad ruling that only puts children in danger. I think we can both agree that it's important to safeguard children from predators, right? A person who assaults a child, sexually or <span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">otherwise, deserve a much stricter sentence than this priest received. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">However, the pious Catholic public seems not too care too much about the obvious issue with an overwhelming number of child rapists in the Church. Of course, not all theists are child rapists. Not all priests, either. But when you notice a disturbing trend within a religious organization, or any organization, you must take action to bring justice to the offenders for the sake of the victims. And, if there's a noticeable trend, then the organization should take action to aid the authorities in prosecution of the offenders and commit to an investigation to find out why they have such a horrible trend occurring within their group. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">The Catholic church does not do this. They protect pedophile priests while paying off possible whistle blowers. Then in the cases where they are caught red handed, they call upon a special respect barrier to be erected to protect them from criticism. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">If they weren't a religious organization, they would be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Imagine if this horrible trend were to be present in McDonald's restaurants... Imagine if McDonald's employees seemed to be raping children world wide on a noticeably higher statistical basis than the average public. Imagine if McDonald's was known to be safeguarding these employees while dismissing the victims... Would you complain about McDonald's being criticized, investigated, prosecuted and eventually dismantled?... I would hope not. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Charles, stop allowing religion a double standard. If your God and his followers truly are the acme of truth and morality, as the Bible suggests, then they should have nothing to fear from inquiry. </span><br />
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In response to Charles' statistic that only "...0.00001% of all Christians have abused Children"... I must point out that only 0.0000000001% of all atheists have ever committed political crimes against humanity and genocide... But that doesn't stop him from arguing that Stalin was an atheist and he should be used as a logical reference for atheism.<br />
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When non-consensual sex is the issue, age isn't much of a qualifier. Would the situation be that much different if it were priests raping adults?... Also, it's not an arbitrary standard. My standard for what is or is not a "child" is not the deciding factor. The standard is the legal standard. Are they 18 or older? If not, then they're a <span class="text_exposed_hide"></span><span class="text_exposed_show">child. That's a stupid question in the end. Charles knew what my standard was. He's just trying to bring doubt to my reasoning process. But in the case of age, it's not my reasoning process, it's the law's. </span><br />
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Utilizing Charles' logic, we should be upset that anyone would point a finger at McDonald's for the crimes committed by their employees and by the organization as a whole. We should not see the obvious big picture, just assume pedophilia, like shit, just happens.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-81993111367194298372010-04-22T19:09:00.001-05:002010-04-22T22:10:11.647-05:00The Origins of Evolutionary Criticism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgST2R8vcLJu5w5nWbMyznoc8rVxVjqhSSvvYL6-r7l6CItdQt_iSqpPayCOgqPg1CbffnqUT43U7IsfVlKnKnZr9ylZRZ2SVhyphenhyphen9pBo7KoxpwiD-N8_I3Al6C8lb-7syCHxYFr43Qaa4Yxd/s1600/evolution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgST2R8vcLJu5w5nWbMyznoc8rVxVjqhSSvvYL6-r7l6CItdQt_iSqpPayCOgqPg1CbffnqUT43U7IsfVlKnKnZr9ylZRZ2SVhyphenhyphen9pBo7KoxpwiD-N8_I3Al6C8lb-7syCHxYFr43Qaa4Yxd/s200/evolution.jpg" width="145" /></a></div>Since its introduction into the public view, evolutionary science has come under harsh criticism from many fronts. Originally, this was perfectly acceptable. All new theories and scientific disciplines come under fire. Not because they are naturally untrue, but because they must pass a trial by intellectual fire in order to be accepted. The first objections to evolution were based on three fronts...<br />
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The lack of overwhelming physical evidence, the lack of proper understanding of the explanation, and opposing religious orthodox ideals. The first objection is to be expected since evidence doesn't just fall into your lap. You have to go out and find it. The second is one that within the scientific community will eventually dissolve itself away, and then through proper science education, will dissolve itself within the public sector as well. The third front of objection will always exist for as long as orthodox religion exists.<br />
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For as long as there have been thinking men with new ideas, there have been simple men who are certain of their silly ideas. As long as the simple men are allowed to have power, the thinking man is in danger. Conservatism means to restrict new ideas. Liberalism means to allow them. Though not all new ideas are true or beneficial, liberalism is the only way a society can grow and prosper.<br />
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Orthodox religion thrives on conservatism the same way a cactus thrives in the desert. In a place void of progress, something flourishes. The current modern criticism to evolution still comes from religion in the form of the "Intelligent Design" movement. Intelligent Design (ID) is nothing more than religious "Creationism" wearing a mask of science. It pretends to be scientific while utilizing no scientific methodology. It begins with a preconceived conclusion that there is a God and that he played a part in the formation of the universe, the origin of life and the functioning of life on Earth. Then it seeks to find any evidence to support this concept, regardless of logical fallacies and unreasonable assumptions.<br />
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Real science does not begin with a conclusion. It begins with an effect that can be easily observed that requires an explanation. The only reason scientists create a hypothesis is because it allows them to narrow down their field of search by applying knowledge gained in past experiments. It does not search for any evidence that seems to support the theory, it searches for any evidence, whether it supports or disputes the hypothesis. Even evidence that refutes the hypothesis is useful and can bring a scientist closer to a real answer.<br />
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ID supporters do not spend much time explaining their evidence in favor of ID, but spend time trying to show evidence or reasoning against evolution. As though proving evolution were false automatically proves that ID/Creationism must be true. This false dichotomy stems from a mental barrier set up by religion that makes people assume that without a logical explanation they are perfectly justified in making something up. The argument from ignorance; one of the most common logical fallacies of any unintelligent concept.<br />
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The rare arguments in favor of ID do not come with their own physical evidence or experiments. They exist only in the faulty reasoning and desperate rationalization of the ID supporter. They take evidence found by evolutionary scientists and attempt to reinterpret the findings of proper science. They make appeals to the beauty of an organism as proof that it must have been imagined and created by a higher being. They shine a spot light on organisms that seem to only be able to exist as they currently are, stating that it must have been created "as is" or it would not have survived. This reasoning completely disregards any understanding of evolution. It's much like arguing that a fish cannot swim without a fin, therefore it must have always had fins or it would not have survived to now. I do not have fins, and I can swim. I have survived till now. If an organism was subject to environmental pressures that suggested a fin would be preferable, then the addition of a fin could lessen the organism's burden. The organism's local species would then develop a fin long before the need for a fin became mandatory for survival.<br />
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An actual scientific criticism of evolutionary science would explain why evolution does not properly explain observations in nature. However, the common criticisms of evolution are not based on actual science. The origin of evolutionary criticism is based on the fact that evolution is an explanation that doesn't include a God. Evolution does not say God doesn't exist, it has nothing to say about religion. But the religious are upset that their old explanation which was based on God, is being replaced by a better explanation that does not require a God. It does not disprove God, but simply does not depend on one. So theists say it must be wrong, it must go.<br />
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To those theists who disagree with evolutionary science, unlike your fragile sense of self, not everything in the world needs to depend on a belief in God in order to function. Some things (I'd argue everything) works just fine without a God's interaction, and that is an observable fact. Your God does not control every atom. Evolution, like most of the universe and most independent people, is self sustainable. Your preconceived conclusions mean nothing in the face of observable facts, proper logic and proven methodology.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-89562542346914000372010-04-21T00:23:00.000-05:002010-04-21T00:23:46.578-05:00Public Service Announcement: Traumatic Brain Injuries and the MilitaryMilitary men and women are continually involved situations where risk of injury is high. One silent war wound that can often go unnoticed is a <a href="http://www.traumaticbraininjury.com/">traumatic brain injury (TBI)</a>. A TBI damages the brain that can often cause life-altering wounds, which can result in changes in personality, behavior, and even the brain functions of the victim. Some of these conditions are not just life-altering, but can be life threatening and are often partnered with rehabilitation from special care facilities like <a href="http://www.aboutus.org/CareMeridian.com">CareMeridian Nursing Home</a>.<br />
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According to the <a href="http://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/vhi/traumatic_brain_injury.pdf">veteran's health initiative</a>, active male members of the military were hospitalized due to TBI related injuries at a rate of 231 per 100,000. The rate for female members of the military was 150 per 100,000. Based on these statistics over 4,000 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year for traumatic brain injuries. Some are as mild as a concussion, while others can be severe and have life altering effects. <br />
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The best way to prevent TBI is through awareness. Recognizing and responding to the symptoms of a TBI can often aid in the preventing further damage caused by the injury. Dizziness, headaches, changes in personality or sleep patterns, and memory loss are clear signs of TBI. Unfortunately these symptoms can sometimes be ignored or discarded as minor pains during times of conflict and even once the solider returns home. This sets up a dangerous precedent for a war wound that may never heal, so it is vital that serviceman and their families are aware of TBI, so that they can recognize and help treat it if symptoms are presentSgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7021651777869638732.post-37288665709128158932010-04-18T04:08:00.000-05:002010-04-18T04:08:08.878-05:00Moral Judgment: Evolved or Divine?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTcoAcZ8RN33rJyuk3U3T5NhVvKzhw6BHlSL4TQxTqaX5w5S29AT3qZZP8-km5K70UaH8zrXFdEcGlBncjMcjW2XVGwtbWouQq9T2OnBWaOTqKOW9wuDzR48q0Ra4PAmg3BAfWRmtbYnxk/s1600/morality.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTcoAcZ8RN33rJyuk3U3T5NhVvKzhw6BHlSL4TQxTqaX5w5S29AT3qZZP8-km5K70UaH8zrXFdEcGlBncjMcjW2XVGwtbWouQq9T2OnBWaOTqKOW9wuDzR48q0Ra4PAmg3BAfWRmtbYnxk/s200/morality.jpg" width="189" /></a></div>The ability to tell right from wrong, good from evil, and the proper from the improper is what we refer to as “Moral Judgment.” It’s how we decide what actions should be illegal, what rights should be protected and how we should interact with others around us in our daily lives. As individuals, we exercise our moral judgment every time we speak or act in order to act in terms that are not offensive, obscene or misunderstood. <br />
<a name='more'></a>When we exercise our judgment we’re basically saying, “I know this to be right in light of the known alternatives.” But the big question is this... "Where do our morals come from?" Are they instinctual? Are they are gifts from a higher power? Are they just learned behaviors based on our life experiences? First of all, I’d like to start by discrediting the most absurd of these moral origin theories…<br />
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<b>"God gave us our moral laws!"</b><br />
Some believe that morality is a gift from God. That God has given mankind a basic understanding of morality as based on his laws. (For example, the Ten Commandments, dissected in the earlier post) For it says in the Bible, “God hath written his laws in the heart of every man"… This passage is used as an excuse for God sending people to hell who have never had the option of knowing his scripture. Of course, how can God damn people to eternal hellfire if they were never given a chance to hear the word of God? Well, he wrote his laws in the heart of every man so that no man will have an excuse come judgment day. <br />
This idea is an obvious contradiction to the popular Christian belief. Most Christians believe that the only way to heaven is through the son of God, their lord and savior, Jesus Christ. So, if someone in a far away land who never had the option to hear the word of God were to die and go before God for judgment, they could, according to this passage, be qualified for entry into Heaven simply for following the morals God has written in their hearts. But because they didn’t know Christ as their lord and savior then they would be damned to hell. So God apparently wrote his laws into our hearts, but forgot to write knowledge of Jesus into them as well, so we're still all going to burn by default. Perhaps this is another internal Bible contradiction? In that case, which passage is the higher ranking passage? Which is the more important qualifier? Do I simply follow God’s morals or do I still need to recognize Jesus? Contradictions in the Bible happen often and believers simply dismiss them. (Often by saying the passage is just metaphor. Must be nice to be able to dismiss contradictions in your belief system by claiming metaphors every time something doesn‘t make sense.) <br />
That leads me to my next point against the morality of God. Believers like to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they wish to follow. Sure, “Thou shalt not murder” seems like a great rule for life. (Even though the original text says "kill" and not "murder" which is quite ambiguous.) But on the other hand, “Thou shalt marry away thy daughter to her rapist for twenty gold pieces because she is soiled” doesn’t seem too unreasonable as a moral rule either. But actually, God doesn't include that into his morals. In fact, he includes the exact opposite passage. According to God, it's perfectly fine to marry your daughter to the man who raped her because she's used goods. Luckily, modern Christians are more moral than their God would want, and they don't do this anymore. And I'm glad they don't. Sure, they're making unjustified double standards so they can say "A" and do "B" but I don’t want people to follow the other 600+ moral laws passed down by God as found in the Bible. 99% of the laws from God found in the Bible are disgusting and terrifying! But if you believe that God gave you morality, but you pick and choose which laws to follow and which to dismiss, then obviously you have a better moral compass than your God.<br />
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You don’t stone your children despite God telling you it's okay, because you know it’s wrong! Your God is not benevolent. He is a mean, twisted and spiteful imaginary figure. (Sort of like Darth Vader.) Some people will even go so far as to say that if God says something is right, then it is, no matter how inhumane it may seem to us. That’s the same sort of defense crazed mothers use after killing their kids. “God told me to do it, and anything God says must be right!?!” Wrong. Though, hypothetically, if God did exist, and he did tell you to kill your kids, I would not be surprised. The God found in the Bible is an evil, egotistical and power hungry asshole who is well known for commissioning the murder of infants, even the unborn. <br />
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<b>"What does science/philosophy/culture have to say about the issue of morality?"</b><br />
The truth about morality and good judgment is found in the experiences an individual has in his or her life. When a child is very young their mind begins to develop its sense of right and wrong by watching its parents and seeing how they react to the things they do. They begin to relate their feelings to others and see how their interaction with their family changes the overall mood of the situation. Children as young as ten months old can develop a sense of empathy. This is one of the most noticeable early developments of social interaction and moral judgment. Psychologists have been studying the steps a normal human moral development. These are the steps they have discovered…<br />
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<b>Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Phase-</b><br />
In this early stage a child refers right or wrong to whether or not a punishment follows. If you ask a little child why something is wrong they might tell you because you’d be punished if you do it. The higher reasoning of right and wrong is not fully developed yet. Their ability to understand why something is wrong is limited. All they know is doing certain actions leads towards punishment.<br />
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<b>Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange Phase-</b><br />
In this stage a child begins to understand the concept of fairness. This is the part of a child’s life where he or she will begin to act out. They refer right and wrong to whether or not the situation is fair. If mommy, daddy, brother, sister or friends can do it, then so should I, and if not, then why not? They’re beginning to study exactly how rules are made and how they effect the people around them. But here is also where strong feelings of jealousy begin. If his big brother got some ice cream then why can’t he?<br />
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<b>Stage 3: Conventional Morality Phase-</b><br />
This stage of moral development is based on motives. The child’s brain develops the ability to weigh motives against actions. Sort of like, “Do the ends justify the means?” (For example, if you stole food then that is wrong, but if you did it because you were starving then it’s okay.) Expect a lot of experimentation during this phase. The means of committing a crime have a lot to do with whether or not punishment should be inflicted.<br />
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<b>Stage 4: Law and Order Phase-</b><br />
For the first time in the child’s life, his or her concern is with society as a whole. The single element has been replaced with a need to see justice done for the betterment of the community. They do away with most of their “justified means” and practice a balanced society based thinking process. (For example, Joe may have stolen food cause he was starving and that’s too bad, but if we allow stealing now with Joe then we will have to allow anyone to steal for the same reason. Joe probably should be punished for the good of society, but we should also keep in mind his situation.) Most moral development for the average human stops here. <br />
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<b>Stage 5: Post Conventional Morality Phase-</b><br />
In this phase the idea of individual rights comes into play. The situation is a lot like phase four but this time the child understands that despite what the law says and what others may think there are certain things which should be protected as basic human rights. (For example, right to free speech and the right to religious freedom.) The child also understands that any change to the rules must abide by these rights and follow process.<br />
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<b>Stage 6: Universal Principals Phase-</b><br />
This is where supreme justice is obtained. The subject now understands that the rights of the individual are protected despite the rights of the majority. Democratic processes do not have the ability to remove the rights of others. (For example, the majority cannot vote to enslave the minority.) Democracy does not rule over human rights. From here, the democratic process is seen as a means to decide actions and support for causes, but not as a method of deciding right or wrong, truth from fiction.SgtHailehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255551610277063922noreply@blogger.com0