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@bmdrocks21
You’re being both charitable (in terms of not really attacking any statistic) and making a huge stretch at the same time (by saying some trite phrase is evidence of racism when nobody saying that phrase is simultaneously thinking ‘black people bad’)
You don’t have to simultaneously think it, that’s kind of the point. If the conclusion follows… (see previous post)
A lot of people hold attitudes towards individuals or groups that they are not cognizant of. Racism is probably the most prevalent example.
Honestly, this same thinking could apply to saying murderers and rapists are bad people.
No, it’s not. Murder and rape are clearly defined acts which and take into account the full circumstances of the act. Gun violence is broad term. We’re also talking about groups not individuals, so it’s a completely different dynamic.
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@Athias
Diagnosis would naturally implicate a remedy, would it not? In your submitting your allegations to this conversation's purview, what remedy, if any, do you expect to come from them?
Recognizing the black community as the victim of gun violence more so than the purveyor.
You're taking a legitimate contention, i.e. guns don't kill people, bad people who use guns violently do, and arguing that maintaining said contention is racist and primarily benefits racists (a tall order.)
Is it really?
Let’s break this down more simply;
P1: Gun violence is primarily the product of bad people
P2: The black community has the most gun violence
C: ???
Please explain how you conclude anything other than “the black community has the most bad people”.
And if you can’t, please explain how that is not a racist viewpoint.
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@Greyparrot
I'm just wondering why your start and end point is racism when steelmanning a diverse thought.
The starting point to my argument isn’t racism, that’s the conclusion. I’ve explained this in detail, you aren’t trying to understand it.
There are actually a great many diverse groups of black communities, all with different values and prejudices.
We can split groups up all day long, most people don’t. This conversation is about the group as a whole, changing the subject doesn’t advance the conversation.
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@Greyparrot
It wasn’t prevalent enough before Trump to warrant discussion on it, especially in the final days of 2022, so this sounds like a particularly disingenuous escape.
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@Greyparrot
No offense, but you are doing a shitacular job at steelmanning the side you don't like in order to "better understand"
If only there was someone intellectually honest enough here to engage with me by explaining what the “other side” believes and why my model of their views is wrong.
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@Greyparrot
Really don't understand where you are pulling this one out from. Plenty of good blacks have stopped murderous blacks in New York or Chicago.
This is kind of like the “I have a black friend” thing.
People base their opinions of groups on what they consider to be the norm within that group. Saying “men are stronger than women” for example does not conflict with acknowledging that there are plenty of women out there who are far stronger than many men.
So acknowledging that there are plenty of good black people does not conflict with one having a low opinion of black people as a group.
It’s the attitude towards the group that I’m addressing in this thread.
source something maybe that proves any group feels that way? I mean it's really easy to flip racism around with no care, but this one is really wild.
This isn’t something I read on Google which I can source for you. It’s based off of life observations and countless hours engaging in and observing in debates where these same retorts frequently come up. Have you never engaged in gun a debate? Are you not aware of the common arguments in favor of gun rights and in particular the ones I am referencing?
This really isn’t that complicated. I’m not just flipping racism around, I’ve laid out for you step by step how we get from the starting point to the end point. If this is too complicated for you feel free to inquire further so I can help you understand it.
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@Athias
If we're talking about a "national conversation" that excludes what you admit are plenty of reasons one can support the pro-gun movement, then ask, as a participant in this national conversation, as minimal as it may be, am I racist according to your judgement?
I don’t know nor do I care if you are a racist. You already acknowledged that this is a broad conversation, so why turn it back as if this has anything to do with any individual?
Or, and this is what I suspect, are you seeking an angle in which you can attempt to disqualify support for, lack of better terms, "gun rights"--i.e. alleging racism--by invoking supposed character defects that have absolutely no relevance in one's proprietary claim over guns?
No. This is about diagnosing a broad political movement in broad terms in an attempt to better understand why certain positions are as prevalent as they are within our society. It’s the same thing every political commentator engages in every time one discusses “the other side”. Nothing new or nefarious here. Recognizing a prevalence for a particular position does not negate any argument which aligns with the same cause.
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@Greyparrot
Honestly, I don't know what facts you are using to back up your opinion.
It would help if you actually listened to the words I write so you know what that opinion is.
What you are implying is that the gun violence is allowed to happen in places like Chicago and New York because racist people want blacks to kill themselves.
No. What I’m implying is that much of the political right’s opposition to gun control laws stems from an overly simplistic world view where everyone is either a good guy or a bad guy. I then explained how this world view is ultimately rooted in racism, because in order to maintain this world view one would have to accept the notion that those communities facing serious challenges with gun violence (like the black community) are ultimately filled with “bad guys”, and that this then explains the problem.
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@ILikePie5
You had a trifecta in Congress for 2 years. Why didn’t you change. Trump acknowledged this against Hillary in 2016 if you remember. Wealthy pay Democrats too
Everything with you is deflection.
The fact that democratic politicians do not fight as hard as they should to fix the problems within our tax code does not validate your position against the changes progressives are calling for.
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@Greyparrot
I didn't say that. I said the blue no matter who crowd.
Blue no matter who is a response to the nomination of Donald Trump as the republican candidate. There is no possible way the democrats could do worse than the bafflingly dangerous ignorant narcissistic manchild they were up against, so it was a common sense position. Nothing about that suggests this group is easy to fool.
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@TWS1405_2
More guns = less violence.
Right. I suppose if our goal was to reduce car accidents, we should get rid of all other forms of transportation and make sure everyone has a car. And to reduce stabbings, we should make sure everyone in America carries a knife. Makes sense.
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@Greyparrot
a random Black person in America today is 8 times more likely to pull a gun out and kill someone than a random white person according to FBI data: Keep thinking the FBI is racist for stating that fact.
I never suggested nor implied such a thing. Next time, try absorbing the point before reflexively responding to it.
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@Athias
So I'm racist?
Read the entire post, that includes the last paragraph.
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@Athias
All presidents have been shit, including George Washington and especially Abraham Lincoln, who I might remind presided over a Civil War.
So presiding over a civil war makes you a bad president?
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I’ve always found statistics in gun debates useless in the sense that we will always gravitate towards the statistics which affirm the position we already hold, and there is no shortage of convincing statistics on both sides of the gun debate. So when discussing these differences I prefer to look at this from a much simpler standpoint; if we step back, any argument using statistics to favor less gun restrictions is ultimately arguing that more guns results in less gun violence.
This argument is of course absurd on its face, or to be more diplomatic, counterintuitive. So to be charitable, I believe that most gun enthusiasts who make these arguments fail to recognize the core of their own position.
To try and steel man it; the idea is not to reduce gun violence. This is about the rights of law abiding citizens to protect themselves, and their safety should not be compromised because of those who don’t follow the law. As Wayne Lapier famously stated “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”.
I have always been amazed at both how wide spread and also how childishly simplistic this kind of thinking is. Essentially, the world is full of good guys and bad guys. That’s it. There’s no nuance here we should be concerning ourselves with. No moral dilemmas, no good guys who made bad decisions, no “bad guys” who are also themselves victims, etc.
So if one has convinced themself that gun violence is the result of bad guys with guns, then the next logical step is to accept that the places where gun violence is at its worst are the places with the most bad guys. And what do you know, it just so happens to be black neighborhoods.
Acceptance of this narrative is the very thing the “woke left” is talking about when it points out racism in America. Telling someone they are a racist does not mean accusing them of hating back people and spending their weekends at clan rallies. It’s pointing to, among other things, a mindset where one views the black community as less than to the point where a problem like gun violence could easily be accepted as “their own fault because they don’t know how to conduct themselves responsibly”.
To be clear, one can find plenty of other reasons to oppose gun control so I’m not arguing that all 2A enthusiasts are racist, but when you step back and look at the national conversation, you look at who benefits and who loses from our unwillingness to do anything about gun safety in America, and you put them together, it becomes very obvious that racism plays a big part of it. If white neighborhoods were plagued by gun violence the way black neighborhoods have been I sincerely doubt the “bad guy with a gun” narrative would resonate anywhere nearly as strong as it does.
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@YouFound_Lxam
We all know you hate Trump buddy.
Genuinely curious… If Biden proclaimed himself to be a better president than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, how would you react?
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@Greyparrot
Well, at least it's not too hard to fool the blue no matter who crowd.
Miracle and quack products have literally built an entire industry by finding its most gullible consumers on right wing networks. Advertisers are well aware of this phenomenon and cater their message with this knowledge.
But sure, it’s the blue voters who are easy to fool. Whatever reality is most comfortable, just repeat it three times and it will be so.
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@zedvictor4
I would love to understand the logic of “if person believes XYZ along with a sizable portion of the country, then they didn’t arrive at these beliefs on their own”
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@YouFound_Lxam
Therefore, could God not exist, in a dimension, that you haven't discovered yet?Answer: Yes.So, anyone who says they are an atheist, and agrees to this example, is not an atheist, but an agnostic.
This is just semantics. You can label us however you choose, doesn’t change the lack of a rational basis for your assertions.
But if you want to talk about the label, Gnosticism addresses knowledge, not belief, so it is not some middle ground between theism and atheism. I am an agnostic atheist, other combinations are valid as well.
Beyond that point, the main reason it is wrong to try and plug in a middle ground between the two is because theism encompasses all god claims, so this effectively means there is no such thing as an atheist because no person could possibly conceive of every god concept let alone form a conclusion on each one. As an atheist I can only react to the concepts of god I am exposed to, so labeling me as someone who believes there are no gods is fallacious since there are many concepts out there I’ve never even thought of let alone decided don’t exist.
I'm sorry, I didn't see your post on this. Same goes for yours though.
The more important post you missed was right before it (443)
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@YouFound_Lxam
Now I ask you this question. If I gave you a pen, and asked you to fill in how much knowledge you think you have/know in the circle, how much of the circle would you fill in?
An astronomically small percentage barely worth noting.
How could this possibly be used as proof of a God?
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@YouFound_Lxam
When you use an argument, like the singularity, to counter my argument that is called being a hypocrite, because you can't explain the beginning of it, just like you claim I can't explain the beginning of my argument.
Hypocrisy is when you apply a set of rules and/or standards to others that you do not apply to yourself.
An example of hypocrisy is saying "if you can't explain what caused X to come into existence then you cannot prove X" while also saying "I believe Y caused everything else to come into existence but I don't have to explain what caused Y because Y is special and therefore doesn't require a cause."
The reason you seem to think my argument is hypocritical is because you keep injecting you're own assertions into it.
Once again, the singularity is the starting point for the big bang model which I accept. Not because that's where all of existence began, but because that is as far back as we can go. We do not have the capability to determine what if anything caused or preceded it because the laws of physics break down at this point so we can no longer invoke its rules.
The fact that we cannot go back further than the singularity does not negate that the evidence we currently have points to a singularity.
You do not have evidence for a God. Your case largely hinges on the idea that if we can't prove where the singularity came from then that justifies asserting a God. I'm explaining to you why that argument is nonsense. That's not hypocritical, because I'm not the one who claims to have solved the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You are. And because you are claiming to have an answer to this question you are the one who needs to substantiate it. That's not being hypocritical, that's applying the burden of proof where it belongs; on the person making the claim.
You can't explain what started time, because you don't know.
You tell me this as if you're saying something different than I have said a dozen times already.
Yes, I can't explain what started time. But you say you can, therefore it is incumbent on you to explain it and make rational sense out of your explanation. If you cannot then you are free to continue holding your own beliefs privately, but if you want to tell us that you can prove the existence of a God, or even rationally justify asserting it, you don't get to pretend that our lack of an explanation warrants anyone else accepting yours. We identify logical fallacies for a reason, this is one of the most classic examples.
What do you mean, what is nothing. Nothing....is nothing.Nothing: not anything; no single thingAnd no there isn't any possible, natural intersection between it and reality, because something, cannot come from nothing,
I ask because there are different definitions for nothing. If the definition you are working with cannot have any intersection with reality then "something cannot come from nothing" is a meaningless statement right there along with "it is what it is".
If there is no possible intersection with reality then when you talk about nothing you are not talking about reality, yet this conversation is about reality, so you have departed the conversation.
Part of why I ask is also because we've already been down this road. I've already accepted as the most plausible assumption that existence is a necessary state, meaning that something was always here. So I don't know why you think invoking "something cannot come from nothing" advances the conversation. It doesn't.
unless some being, or thing that is not natural, caused it to be there. So, there is a possible intersection, but not a natural one.
If it came from a being then it didn't come from nothing.
You said yourself that there is no possible intersection between nothing and reality. If God exists then by definition he is a part of reality.
Anyone can have an explanation if we accept the idea that explanations can just be made upChristianity wasn't just made up. It is based on historical facts, and others, that we can use to prove the existence of God.
Reading a claim in a book doesn't mean the claim wasn't made up. The explanations we are talking about are not those of stories or people that lived thousands of years ago, were talking about claims of where everything came from. The bible cannot rationally qualify as evidence for that.
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@YouFound_Lxam
So how would you explain what started time?
For at least the third or fourth time now... I don't.
Why is this so difficult? Do you not understand that sometimes the best (and correct) answer is "I don't know"?
you say it is logically incoherent to assume that something cause time to exist.
Yes it is logically incoherent. That's not an opinion.
The only way around this is to presume some sort of time outside of time, but all that does is kick the can further backward, it doesn't solve the actual problem.
Again, I say something can't come from nothing.
When you say something can't come from nothing, what are you calling nothing? To put it another way, whatever nothing is, is there any possible intersection between it and reality?
If there is no possible intersection then all you're doing is providing a definition (nothing is that from which something cannot come). If that's the case then this is nothing more than a tautology, not an argument.
If nothing could have some possible intersection with reality then you are talking about something, and you would therefore need to be able to experiment somehow on it in order to claim what it can or cannot produce.
You even said before," Logically speaking, something could conceivably exist outside of the laws of physics."So, is it possible that there is a being that is able to exist outside of time?
Outside of our particular phenomenon of time, it's logically possible. Logically possible and physically possible are two different things. As far as we know, nothing can move faster than the speed of light. That's a law of the universe that we discovered, but we can very easily conceive of something moving faster, so it doesn't violate logic.
So when we ask if something is possible we need to clarify which definition we are working with.
Let me rephrase my argument. He exists out of time, as we know it.
Then you couldn't possibly know anything about it, hence this entire thing is just made up. That's the opposite of proof.
But you did bring it up as an argument. And when you use that argument, that you can't prove, to counter my argument that I can't prove, that is called being a hypocrite.
Your lack of understanding does translate to me being a hypocrite.
Nothing about my argument claims to have determined where the singularity came from. My claim, which is simply an acceptance of the scientific findings, is that the universe came out of the singularity.
You do not need to know where the cow came from to conclude that the ground beef you ate made you sick.
And as far as the argument I actually presented, yes there is proof of this, that's why the scientific community accepts it. Your claim does not have any proof, there is no hypocrisy on my part. The only hypocrisy here is your rule only your belief can be asserted without explanation.
The difference between science/Atheism and Christianity, is that we have an explanation for our existence.
Anyone can have an explanation if we accept the idea that explanations can just be made up. The difference between christians and atheists is that atheists do not accept made up definitions.
But when we get to that point where we have no further, scientific evidence, we turn to our Lord and Savior, and have faith in him.
Science is a method for learning about and understanding reality. Its limits are the limitations of human beings to attain knowledge of it.
When you say "the point where we have no further scientific evidence", you're simply saying the point in which there is no further evidence. If there is no further evidence then by definition you cannot prove what you are asserting.
You also demonstrate that you are engaging in circular logic. You can't appeal to God to prove God exists.
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@YouFound_Lxam
I think we need to take a step back and focus on the basics for a minute.
You either believe in the laws of logic or you don't.
If you don't, then you and the arguments you provide which do not follow its rules are irrational by definition. This automatically disqualifies your case from being proof of God because proof at minimum, needs to be in accordance with the laws of logic.
If you do, then when it is pointed out to you that something does not follow said laws you cannot keep advancing the point as if this is not a problem for you. It absolutely is (see previous paragraph).
The proof for God is that everything exists, therefore he exists.
This whole statement is a jumbled mess. What are you calling a god? Earlier you argued for God of the bible, but here all you're arguing is pantheism. My pencil exists, is that proof of God? How does the existence of my pencil lead to the conclusion that the bible is correct? Please define what you are talking about.
I have already provided an explanation that time had to of had a beginning.
This is no way addresses anything I argued.
First of all, no one is arguing that time did not have a beginning. Some theorize as to how it's possible that time didn't, but as far as we can tell, time itself began at the point of the big bang. So you are telling us what we're already assuming and pretending this is proof that we're wrong. That's just plain silly.
More importantly however, the whole point I just made was that the very concept of a "cause" with regards to how or why time began is logically incoherent. A cause is a product of time, it cannot therefore be applied outside of it.
I've repeated this numerous times yet you keep pretending that God somehow explains it making your belief rationally preferable. This is nonsense. Again, if you believe in the laws of logic then a logically self defeating concept needs to be abandoned. A "cause for time" is logically self defeating right there alongside a 5 sided triangle, so claiming that God somehow explains it disqualifies your argument from rational consideration.
He exists outside of time. Therefore, he is not bound to time or physics.
Logically speaking, something could conceivably exist outside of the laws of physics. I don't know how you as a physical being living in a physical universe could possibly prove such a thing, but it's logically possible.
Existing outside of time... That's another story, especially when you're talking about a being. A being by definition would need to function. Functioning is a process of occurrences acting in succession. This requires time.
Earlier I used decision making as an example. That requires one to begin in a state of being undecided and move to a state of being decided. If there's no time there could be no movement and therefore no change. Thus no being outside of time could make decisions. Is this the God you believe in? A static being that doesn't think, doesn't move, doesn't change states in any way? That essentially makes him nothing more than an eternal statue, which by the way logically defeats everything you claim he is responsible for.
I only continue to ask you what caused the singularity to come into existence, because you cannot prove how it did, using science that has proved everything else thus far.
I never claimed I could prove how the singularity came into existence. That's the difference between us, I'm not afraid to admit there are things I do not know. This is all one giant strawman you create because you cannot substantiate your beliefs so you need to pretend mine are just as intellectually invalid.
Science is not about proving the beginnings of existence, it's about following the evidence to it's logical conclusions and stopping at the point in which we have no further evidence. That's how reasoned people operate.
If you want to prove God existence you need to deal with the fact that half of what you're saying is logically incoherent. You don't get to appeal to the mystical nature of God as having abilities we can't possibly understand. If the being you believe in isn't bound by the laws of logic then your belief is by definition irrational and could not possibly be proven. It could be accepted, but that's not proof. Anything could be accepted.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Just in case this for overlooked by accident...
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@YouFound_Lxam
"BIDEN HAS PLEDGED THAT FOSSIL FUELS AND FRACKING WOULD BE "ELIMINATED" IF HE IS PRESIDENT
In July 2019, Biden Said That There Would Be No Place For Fossil Fuels And Fracking In A Biden Administration, Saying "We Would Make Sure It's Eliminated." DANA BASH: "Just to clarify, would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?" JOE BIDEN: "No, we would -- we would work it out. We would make sure it's eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either -- any fossil fuel.""
Biden has been president for two years now, is there a reason you couldn't find something he's actually doing to criticize and instead decided to dig through the old campaign archives? Are you really that desperate?
So, is your argument wrong, or you are saying that Biden yet again made a promise he cannot keep?
The previous president's signature campaign promise was that he would build the wall and have Mexico pay for it. He didn't build it and Mexico sure as hell didn't pay for it, yet I somehow missed your thread on that.
All candidates make promises there's no way they can keep. That's what happens when you have an electorate thoroughly ignorant on how our government works and instead thinks presidents are kings. Any candidate who honestly tells the voters what they wouldn't be able to accomplish because congress would never pass it wouldn't get elected.
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@oromagi
- After Trump put out a request for dirt on Hunter Biden, Russian agents showed up in Kyiv offering to sell dirt on Biden for $5 million dollars.
- After Russian agents showed up in Kyiv offering to sell dirt on Biden, Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani traveled to Kyiv and met with those same agents.
- After Donald Trump's personal lawyer met with Russian agents offering to sell dirt on Biden, Giuliani gave the FBI a hard drive with alleged dirt on Biden.
Do you have any evidence that the laptop was handed to Giuliani while he was in Kyiv? As far as I understand it's not being disputed that Hunter left his laptop in a repair shop in Delaware which is where Giuliani got it.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Do you have proof of government pressure?Why else would Twitter have government workers filtering out certain things?If it really was Twitters choice, then couldn't they just have a Twitter worker, do those things?No, because the government wanted to filter out the things that they wanted to filter.
Yet another textbook example of an argument from ignorance fallacy.
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@YouFound_Lxam
So now we have proposed that time had to of had a beginning. And the idea of a singularity, is beyond what we know and can't be proven. The very idea of a singularity breaks the laws of physics.
Can something exist that breaks the laws of physics? Yes or No?
What caused that infinitely hot and dense single point to come into existence?What caused time to start?
We've been through this already.
Cause and effect is necessarily a product of time, the very notion of what caused time is logically incoherent. Nothing could cause time to start because there would have to be time in order for the cause to operate within.
This also applies to God. Do you believe God makes decisions? If he does then by definition that would require him to begin in a state where he is undecided, and move to a state where he is decided. That movement cannot logically happen if there is no time.
And yet again you continue to ask us what caused the singularity to come into existence as if this question is a death nail to the theory while making no attempt to answer the question of what caused God to come into existence. Either it is possible for something to exist without a cause or it isn't. You don't get to just pretend the rule applies to your explanation but not to ours. That's called being a hypocrite, and it is the point where one is no longer deserving of the presumption of being a rational individual.
And if no one can answer that, then there is proof of "a" higher being of some sort.
This is the literal definition of an argument from ignorance fallacy.
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@YouFound_Lxam
But how did an existing state come into existence?I have already proved that Time had to of had a beginning.You cannot have something (even an existing state) from nothing. Something can't just exist just based off of the laws of physics and biology that we know today.
If something can't just exist then there goes your position on God.
You are wrong to base anything in this conversation on the laws of physics. Those are laws observed within the local presentation of the universe, you have no basis to apply them to anything outside of it.
I would ask that you provide the proof that time had a beginning again but that is ultimately irrelevant. Time having a beginning does not mean that anything caused it and it certainly would not inform us as to any qualities of said cause. In fact a cause for the existence of time is a logical contradiction because cause and effect requires time.
And as far as how an existing state came into existence... I just explained how this question is logically self defeating. In order for something to cause existence it has to first exist.
There is no way around this problem, including your God. If God already existed then he can't be the cause of existence. If he can cause existince without existing then you believe in a being that can defy the laws of logic, which makes your belief irrational by definition.
Well, if they really truly believe in all of this, then they have to explain how it came to be.
The only thing they have to do is explain their findings and support them with evidence. It is not the scientists job to refute your religious claims or answer all of your questions about reality.
One of the many differences between science and religion is that science requires intellectual discipline. "I don't know" is perfectly ok in science because that is what feuls us to learn more. All religion does is say "here is what sounds good to me" and pretends others are at fault for not blindly following suit.
Humanity has limitations. There are things we just don't know and probably never will. You can either accept that and deal with reality on its own terms or just make up your own. You seem to have chosen the latter.
You have to have a lot of faith to even believe that the big bang came from nothing.
This is complete nonsense, and I've already explained it to you multiple times. No one is claiming the big bang "came from nothing", that is a religious caricature invented to make the big bang sound as absurd and unsupported as religious beliefs.
Once again, the big bang theory *begins* at the point of the big bang. There is no theory on what if anything preceded it. And once again, the current model shows that time itself may have come into existence at the point of the big bang which if true, means that there is no such thing as 'before the big bang' for this would be an incoherent concept.
If you have some expertise on this and can tell me I'm wrong that's fine, enlighten me then. But please stop pretending like I haven't addressed this multiple times already.
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@YouFound_Lxam
If we haven't proven that there is an outside of what we know to be true then the thing alleged to exist there could not possibly have been proven either.Yes, but we haven't proved that there isn't either. And how would we?This is the part where you put faith in God.
Faith is not proof. If faith is what you are relying on then you are not making a rational argument suited for a debate site, you're just preaching.
If we can't prove that there is a something outside of space and time, and we can't prove that there isn't anything outside of space and time, then all that leaves us with is "I don't know". The difference between us is that you are claiming you do know, so the burden is on you to justify such a conclusion, not on anyone else to prove that nothing is there.
If there was evidence of Gods existence that was in your face, telling you it was true, then everyone would just become Christian just for the purpose of there own safety.
Satin disagrees
First of all, which scientists, and could you provide evidence for this experimentation?
Well yes, this part has nothing to do with faith. But then they need to explain how the Big bang...…well banged.
No, they don't. Their responsibility is to explain their findings. Anyone not satisfied with what questions they were able to answer is free to set up their own experiments and set out to explain whatever they wish. But not having an explanation for something is not an explanation for something else.
I am asking how did everything come to be.Something, cannot come from nothing.So even if the universe has been infinite and forever, that doesn't cover the fact that SOMETHING had to cause it to be there. And that's the question Atheist's can't answer.
No one can answer this question. The only difference between theists and atheists is that theists pretend they can.
Again, you have created a special set of rules for your belief that you do not apply to alternative explanations. Something had to cause the universe to be there, but nothing had to cause God to be there. You have no rational justification for this other than because your explanation follows the rules you made up.
If something cannot come from nothing, and there exists a something, then the only way forward is to presume something always existed. In other words, existence itself is a necessary state.
If existence is a necessary state, you no longer need a God to explain it. In fact invoking God as an explanation for it is self defeating because God cannot be the cause of existice without first existing.
So going back to the why is there something rather than nothing question, both answers are logical contradictions. In other words, the laws of logic themselves seem to break down at this point, which is why I take the position that it is ultimately an unanswerable question.
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@YouFound_Lxam
No, the government, has been telling Twitter to silence certain posts on twitter
Warning Twitter about potential foreign misinformation is not a violation of the first amendment. Twitter ultimately decided what content it would allow on it's platform and the government made no attempt to coerce Twitter in it's decision making.
That's how the first amendment is supposed to work. Why is this so difficult for you?
You keep making these claims that it never happened, yet you have yet to show me a shred of evidence that it hasn't happened.
There is no such thing as evidence of this not happening. The time to believe a claim is when evidence had been provided for it, you started this thread and provided nothing.
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@YouFound_Lxam
.......this is literally democrats.Examples:Global WarmingLGBTQ+ AgendaWomans RightsBLMetc.
False equivalences are a specialty of the political right.
Global warming isn't an invented problem, it reflects the findings of the global scientific community.
LGBTQ "agenda"? WTF?
How does "woman's rights" even make sense in this sentence?
BLM is the only halfway legitimate argument one can make, setting aside example after example after example of black people getting shot and killed by police which lead it's prominence. But that's just step 1, you forgot about the rest. The only action "the left" has proposed in order to solve the problem is to take resources from law enforcement and use them in such a way that reduces the need for law enforcement in the first place. Which if the numbers of any proposal check out would be a common sense improvement.
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@YouFound_Lxam
But then you say, well what created God. If God wasn't created, then it's a contradiction you would say.
It's not a contradiction, it's special pleading. You claim the universe needs to have been created while God doesn't, so you've created a special set of rules for your belief that you dismiss with regards to any alternative possibility. Anyone can reach any conclusion and consider it valid if this is acceptable.
The only basis one can claim for this special set of rules is to claim that the universe is bound by the laws of physics, but if you understand physics then you know these laws only apply within the universe and cannot be invoked as rules governing the "creation" of the universe. In fact the working model suggests that the laws of physics themselves came into existence at the point of the big bang.
But God exists outside of all we know to be physically proven true.
If we haven't proven that there is an outside of what we know to be true then the thing alleged to exist there could not possibly have been proven either.
Science explains the Big Bang as a single point in space, that just suddenly exploded, due to the amount of energy it held. Now some scientists will theorize the singularity as the cause of this single point in space time. But the only evidence of the singularity that we have as of right now, is the density of black holes.
You are wrong. The evidence for the big bang includes red shift, which allows us to track the distance, direction of movement, and speed of movement of light. By using red shift to track the movement of galaxies we learned that if we were to reverse it's movement and rewind the clock, every Galaxy observable would converge at a single point in space at the same time - 13.8 billion years ago to be exact.
When scientists studied what could have caused the clusters which are now galaxies to be catapulted in such a way, they concluded that there must have been an explosion and deduced the singularity which preceded it.
And then they experimented to find out if this was accurate.
The model which they came up with showed that if this did happen there would have been cosmic background radiation leftover from the intense heat that could still be observed, so they mapped out what it would have looked like and set up an experiment at the poles to see if they could measure it. And what do you know... The map they found matched precisely to what the model predicted.
None of this has anything to do with faith.
then we have to ask ourselves the same question again. Where did it all start?
Asking the question is fine, presuming the answer without valid evidence is not.
I bring this back to:When there is a creation,There has to be a creator.
You are putting the cart before the horse. Creation requires a creator by definition, so when you call something a creation you are just presuming at the outset that something created it which is the very thing you are supposed to be proving.
Here's something to think about. We know from the bible that the reason God created us was because he wanted true love. Not forced love, but true love. What if God, created this whole universe existence, and got lonely. So, the bible starts with the big bang, which was God starting back up the universe from a Singularity.
The bible is a book written by men thousands of years ago. There is very little we know because if it.
That aside, we can do "what if" thought experiments all day long. Until we have evidence to support our conclusions we're just making stuff up.
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@Greyparrot
In America, it is now considered a hate crime to obstruct sexual grooming in minors.
Classic right wing fantasy concoction at work.
Step 1: Invent a non existent problem
Step 2: Take action to solve this nonexistent problem (that just so happens to come at the expense of the rights of others)
Step 3: When the rights of others is defended, pretend that the defenders are actually fighting for the nonexistent problem to persist
Step 4: Once told you are not allowed to violate the rights of others to solve your nonexistent problem, play the victim by claiming your rights are the ones that were actually violated
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@YouFound_Lxam
The government be controlling everything. And they broke the first amendment.
This entire episode occurred while Trump was still president. So the claim as I understand it, is that the Donald Trump lead government stopped free speech which could have gotten Donald Trump re-elected. Am I missing something here?
Moreover, what exactly is this alleged first amendment violation you speak of? Are you suggesting Twitter did not ultimately decide what it was willing to allow on it's platform?
Please explain what you are alleging, because none of this makes any sense.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Ok now we take both of those claims and put them together.Time had a beginning, which is when the universe began.That is when the Big Bang happened.Now I ask all of you this.How did the "infinitely hot and dense single point" come into existence, at the beginning of time, if there was nothing there to create, that point?Answer is: There was something there to create that point, and that thing was a god, or a higher being of some sort.That is just a scratch of my evidence proving a god
This isn't evidence, it's a conclusion based on fallacious logic.
You ask how the singularity came into existence presuming that something must have created it, but you don't apply that same rule to the thing you credit for creating it. In other words, it's special pleading. The singularity follows one rule (must have a creator) while the God you say created it doesn't.
This is a very common argument from religious folks. The issue at the core of all of this is that the problem you are actually trying to solve is that if existence itself. You're invoking God as the answer to existence in order to prove God exists.
Think of it this way, let's ask ourselves the age old question; why is there something rather than nothing?
There are only two possible answers here, either something is responsible, or nothing is responsible.
Everything coming from nothing is a logical contradiction, so that rules out that possibility.
But everything coming from something is also a logical contradiction; it means the answer to why is there a something is... Something. But something cannot cause itself to exist. Another logical contraction.
Since, by definition, everything that is not nothing is a something, god is therefore a something. Thus invoking him, no matter how powerfully you define him, is still a logical contradiction.
The way theists get around this is to claim that something must therefore have always existed. This is a fairly reasonable inference. But as soon as you go down that path you've lost the argument. If we grant that something always existed the only question left is, what? There is no reason at this point to rule out the singularity as having always existed. In fact Occam's razor dictates this as our answer. We have powerful evidence there was a singularity, so there are no unnecessary assumptions there. Invoking a God comes with a plethora of assumptions, so the singularity is easily the less complex answer and therefore the most reasonable conclusion by comparison.
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@Greyparrot
I am aware of all that. Do you have a point?
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@YouFound_Lxam
I am not looking to blame Biden for the full increase of gas, but to blame him for making prices exponentially worse than they could have been.
Except that you don't seem to be able to define what "exponentially" even means.
Again, the debate isn't whether gas prices have been negatively affected by Biden's policies, everyone knows thay have, that's the cost of protecting the environment. The debate is to what extent is he responsible, or to put it more simply, whether he is to blame for the fact that we are seeing record surges. Pointing to policy X and saying "well policy X theoretically raises prices" is not an argument that he is *primarily* responsible. To make that case you'd actually need to quantify the impact of them. And no matter how many times I ask for this no one will even try, which I find very telling.
Take the keystone pipeline for example. People point to this as another example of why Biden is to blame. Yet when you actually look into the details; the pipeline wouldn't have been even finished being built yet, it transports oil not produces more of it, the amount of oil it would have transported was a drop in the bucket compared to daily US consumption, and here's the kicker... The majority of that oil was likely to be shipped overseas.
So when you start to do the math, this is practically irrelevant. But, it's one more factoid right wing propagandists can use to sell their narrative. Add a handful more of these seemingly significant but practically meaningless examples and you have a narrative that sounds great but doesn't seem to match to reality.
So either we can sit and quantify all of these examples or we can just step back and look at the big picture. COVID essentially shut down the entire global oil industry causing many refineries to go out of business. Those closures are permanent, so the ability to produce on a global scale was drastically reduced. Once we moved passed it global demand returned almost overnight but supply is no longer suited for the task. There is no Biden policy you can point to that comes anywhere close to this scale of devistation. It's not even comparable. Tack on the war in Russia and it all makes perfect sense that we'd see such increases, you don't need bad US policies to explain it.
And then there's the fact that the entire world is feeling the same pain, the explanation is pretty damn clear. It's a very simple Occam's razor test. Meanwhile your theory is that all of this global stuff is minimal compared to Biden (even though gas is a global market and the other countries are all going through the same thing) so you're essentially arguing that global gas prices are dictated by the US president. No oil expert would argue that.
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@Greyparrot
Uh, yeah genius. That’s why law enforcement carries guns including those guarding every secured facility on earth.To open fire into a crowd? OK. Thanks for your continued support for this government action (genius)
You can’t be this stupid.
Context matters. The fact that there were multiple people invading the US Capitol doesn’t give them some magical immunity to break into secured spaces and put members of Congress’s lives in danger.
If you actually watched the video, the bullet was fired at the entrance to a hallway where the rioters were literally within about 50 feet of congress as they were evacuating.
What would you have had them do? No, that’s a real question. How would you protect the lives of the members of your government if you were in charge of the Capitol grounds? With pepper spray?
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@YouFound_Lxam
True, because Trump was doing more damage to NATO than Putin could do himself.Elaborate please. I would really like to hear what you have to say about this.
NATO is an alliance between member countries based on a pledge that if one member country gets attacked the others will jump to their defense. Such an organization can only be effective if the members trust not only the current leaders of member countries, but also future leaders. Without that trust the entire alliance falls apart.
Trump has done tremendous damage to this trust. Not only did he give great reason for other member states to doubt that he would defend them, but he also managed to drag half the country into buying his ridiculous anti-NATO rhetoric. This gives NATO members very good reason to worry about the future of the alliance even if the current president is a staunch and vocal supporter.
Putin could never have accomplished this. The only way NATO would be destroyed is from within. This is perhaps the single biggest reason Putin fought so hard to get Trump elected. The other is because of Trump’s hostility towards the constitution and democracy itself. There is nothing Putin would love better than to destroy democracy around the globe. But again, he could never accomplish this on his own, he needed someone to do it from within. Trump is Putin’s dream candidate, which is the case because Putin’s ultimate goal is to destroy America and every nation like it. This should make every American who claims to be a Trump supporting patriot think, unfortunately that’s not likely.
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@YouFound_Lxam
You can’t blame Biden for high gas prices merely because he is the president, and then when prices go down claim he had nothing to do with it.Contradiction?
Take note of the bold.
If Biden being president is the only fact you need to know in order to blame high gas prices on him, then it’s the only fact you need to credit him with low gas prices.
The contradiction would be pretending that presidents are in complete control of gas prices when their up but not when their down.
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@YouFound_Lxam
So is it just coincidence that global food and gas costs skyrocketed during the same time period? Please enlighten me.Gladly.
This isn’t enlightening. Correlation =/= Causation.
Everyone knows that Biden’s policies are not as lenient towards the oil and gas industry as they would like, that doesn’t mean he is single-handedly responsible for the increases. Again, if you know anything about the oil industry you’d know it is a global market, no US President could make that kind of impact.
If you really want to make the argument that Biden’s policies are entirely or even mostly to blame you need to start by quantifying them, if you can’t do that then you are just pulling it out of your ass while ignoring the obvious factors;
“In an email to us, he acknowledged that “there is an adversarial relationship between” Biden’s administration and oil and gas companies, and that the administration “has stumbled with its messaging.” But, Kloza said, most of the surge in gasoline prices can be attributed to just three factors: the “huge global bounce back from COVID” and the closure or reconfiguration of some oil refineries in the U.S. and Canada; the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and the 2020 formation of OPEC Plus, an alliance between the 13-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and a separate group of 10 non-OPEC members, including Russia.”
Yes, global prices have been rising, but not at this rate.
Citation please
Global price rase has only had a small effect on the country.
You do know that oil is a global market right?
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@Greyparrot
Do you believe the Capitol police have the right to secure the US Capitol from invaders, including stopping said invaders from attacking members of congress as they evacuate the building for their own safety?By shooting metal bullets into them?
Uh, yeah genius. That’s why law enforcement carries guns including those guarding every secured facility on earth.
I guess it's acceptable now when it was not so much during the Kent State shootings.
There’s no way you are dumb enough to really believe these two things are the same. You are clearly trolling.
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@ILikePie5
Which specifically?
“Prices are going down because demand for oil and gas is falling as countries brace for recession, coronavirus outbreaks in China threaten major financial disruption and drivers cut back on gas-guzzling as they try to save money to cover skyrocketing mortgage payments and stock market losses.
Earlier worries that sanctions on Russian oil would create a shortage in supply and send prices soaring toward the end of the year have, for now at least, given way to ailing economies and jittery financial markets.
“We’re heading into serious recession in Europe and further economic slowdown in the U.S. as people struggle with high interest rates and worry about their personal wealth and savings,” said Ben Cahill, an energy security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Add it all up and it creates a bleak picture for oil demand. Prices are reflecting that.”
Also helping keep prices low at the moment are some key U.S. oil refineries that returned to churning out gasoline after months of being out of commission for maintenance and repairs.
But just as big a factor is the turmoil in China. As its leaders signal that new coronavirus lockdowns are imminent, touching off protests throughout the country, the expected economic fallout has turned oil traders bearish.”
Talking about the green new deal has an impact on future profits? What?Yes, it does, especially when there’s a Democratic trifecta federally.
So essentially, your argument is that the entire oil trading market is full of morons.
The green new deal isn’t even legislation, it’s a proposal for how we approach various aspects of energy and food consumption as a society. There isn’t one hard policy proposal in it, and if it came up for a vote stands no real chance of gaining majority support, mostly because of the stigma created around it by idiots who don’t even know what it is and right wing propaganda.
The idea that this is having any significant effect on gas prices is patently absurd.
Russia wouldn’t have invaded under Trump.
You have absolutely zero evidence for this assertion, and it’s just plain stupid. Trump spent 4 years licking Putin’s balls. We have no reason to believe Putin held back on anything he wanted because he was afraid of the fawning manchild.
A far better explanation is that Putin waited because he was hoping for a Trump 2020 victory where he was confident he could get Trump to pull the US out of NATO. We have every reason to believe Putin would have been optimistic about this outcome if Trump won and Putin would have clearly had an easier time under that scenario.
And supply chain would be the same or better than it was now under Trump.
Again, absolutely zero evidence of this.
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@Greyparrot
Are you even paying attention to the OP then? Cause the reversal of the policy definitely impacted the price on oil futures trading.
The point of the OP was that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t blame Biden for high gas prices merely because he is the president, and then when prices go down claim he had nothing to do with it.
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@Greyparrot
It's probably more accurate to portray Jan 6 as armed suppression. It's not the 1st time the Government fired into crowds of protesters though (and easily got away with it.)
Do you believe the Capitol police have the right to secure the US Capitol from invaders, including stopping said invaders from attacking members of congress as they evacuate the building for their own safety?
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@ILikePie5
So what brought prices down lol.
Supply and demand
Insignificant changes?? Talking about the Green New Deal, actively promoting EVs, etc all has an impact on future profits.
Talking about the green new deal has an impact on future profits? What?
Do you even know what the green new deal is?
Once again, no one is claiming his policies don’t have *an* impact. We’re talking about what that impact has been vs the impact of other factors, like the war in Russia or the global supply chain being disrupted due to COVID.
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@Greyparrot
Do you think Biden made a mistake with the policy reversal?
I don’t pay very much attention to what happens in Venezuela, so I couldn’t say one way or another.
What does this have to do with our conversation?
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@YouFound_Lxam
Well how do you know Trump was using this tactic? It's not bull, because he literally said peacefully protest.
It’s basic common sense.
You seem to have missed the part where I explained, so I’ll try again; he spent months before a single vote had ever been cast telling his supporters the election was going to be stolen, he declared victory before the votes had even been counted, he spent months following the election telling his supporters the election was in the process of being stolen, and then he invited all of his supporters to the Capitol where, despite intelligence warnings being issued to him that there was likely to be violence, held a rally telling his supporters to “fight like hell”. Then, while all of this was going on, he sat and watched in the dining room while refusing to make a single phone call or lift a finger of any kind to stop what was happening. He didn’t put out the video telling them to leave till 3 hours later after everyone, including Fox News hosts pleaded with him to tell them to stop.
This isn’t complicated. 2+2=4
No president with an IQ above room temperature would not have known that such actions would potentially result in violence. There is a reason we had been using the word “dangerous” to describe them since Election Day.
No president who didn’t want violence would have continued to hold the rally given the intelligence that there was likely to be violence.
No president who didn’t want violence would have sat watching the riots unfold for 3 hours doing nothing.
No president who didn’t want violence would have tweeted an “I told you so” message as the riots were unfolding.
No president who didn’t want violence would have tweeted that his VP betrayed him while his VP sat in the Capitol as it was being attacked.
For him to stand up there in the middle of all this and say “peacefully protest” one time does not override all of this. What Trump did is a classic strategy that no rational person should need explained to them, but Trump’s personal attorney for ten years already has. He testified at length and confirmed in multiple interviews since how Trump operates, that he always throws in lines like this as a way of telling people what he really wants from them. These are mob tactics and his attorney became very familiar with his use of them over the decade he served him. But again, this is all common sense.
So it's wrong to yell and peacefully protests?
Let me try this again. Slowly.
If you tell someone that their voice has been stolen, the remedy to fix that cannot logically be to use their voice. That is self defeating as it is a logical contradiction.
We live in a democratic society, which means that we resolve our differences through persuasion. If Trump persuaded the American people to elect him and that was stolen, we no longer live in a democratic society. If we no longer live in a democratic society, the only remedy remaining to get your way is force.
You can’t assemble people and tell them that their only means remaining is force, and then throw one line into a speech to be peaceful and expect that anyone listening too drown out the rest of the speech and take that one line seriously. Read the damn transcript of his speech. The word “peacefully” does not fit with anything else he said that day. All of his supporters that day understood this. Why don’t you?
For a guy who makes fun of Trump for making "conspiracy's" you really have a lot of your own.
I deride Trump along with any individual who engages in conspiratorial thinking, which is notorious for its high concentration of classic logical fallacies.
Do you seriously believe January 6th would have still happened?Well, yes.
Then I have a very difficult time believing you are serious. Like I said, the Trump cultists who were there that day told us that they were there because of him, so you are just making up your own reality.
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@Greyparrot
I guess Biden thought they were significant enough to reverse Biden foreign policy with Venezuela in late 2022.
Having the ability and responsibility to take some action is not the same thing as having the power to make any significant difference.
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