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i would pass a balanced budget amendment of some kind and just keep the debt under control. the historical debt to GDP ratio is around 40%. that's a good number to shoot for. it's worked in the past, it can work now.
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@drafterman
so you think NDEs are just people hallucinating consistently themed afterlife stories when they die? what a stupid belief system you have
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these studies are not a surprise. if ya have any doubts that trump supporters are imbeciles, just try talking to em.
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there's three points about trump supporters for those who are paying attention to the threads on this stuff... they have less education, they are less informed, and they have lower mental aptitude.
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@bmdrocks21
there must be an article limit per month or something. i didn't have a problem accessing it. but the main point is that they found a way to determine how informed a sample study was about government and in general. then they looked at which of those people were trump supporters and saw they were more prone to being low information voters.
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also you say it's just my opinion that consciousness is apart from the material world. it's possible i'm wrong. but you have to admit that that's what it looks like, don't you? it's similar to those 'are humans just advanced robots' threads. obivously, it looks like we're more than just advanced biological robots. to say otherwise is just stupid.
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i dont like scrolling down to get to religions and politics for example. i dont see a good enough reason not to make them at the top of the list of forums.
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@drafterman
where did the big bang come from? any answer an atheist would give relies on faith and isn't based on the preponderance of the evidence. the preponderance of the evidence is that the universe came from something else. cause and effect.
if there is evidence that there was once no life, then that's all the more reason to say it takes faith to think life came from non life. at least if there was a continual chain of life back to the big bang that we observed, we could say life was something that is part of existence. as it is now, there was non life then there was life. faith required to say how that happened without god.
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Richard Dawkins stated that “Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”However, even naturalistic worldviews also take some things on faith.For the purposes of this discussion, we will define a miracle as an event which occurs outside of the natural order and cannot be repeated or explained by the scientific process.
Consider the following four miracles which must be accepted by the atheist in spite of scientific evidence to the contrary:
- Getting Something from Nothing. There has never been an observed example where something was created from nothing. No person would attempt to build something without materials, and there is no theory outside Big Bang cosmology which reaches this conclusion without ridicule from the scientific community
- Getting Life from Non-Life. Even if naturalistic causes could have created the universe, it would still be necessary for non-living material to become living. This is also an unproven (and impossible) feat which must be accepted when denying the existence of God.
- Getting Order from Chaos. Personal observation tells us that all things tend towards disorder, not order. Left to themselves buildings crumble, gardens are taken over by weeds, and living material decays. If unguided natural causes produced the universe (from nothing) and produced life (from non-life) these processes would necessarily go against observed scientific principles in order to produce the complexity, beauty, and order that we observe in the world around us.
- Getting the Immaterial from Physical Matter. If nothing was able to produce everything, non-life was able to produce life, and chaos was able to produce order the atheistic worldview would still encounter an insurmountable obstacle. No matter how organized, it is impossible for physical material to produce the immaterial realities of human consciousness. Our morality, beliefs, desires and preferences all exist outside of mere physical matter.
Each of these examples go against the natural order and could be labeled as miracles. Naturalistic worldviews such as atheism, evolution, and neo-Darwinism regard this evidence for God with what Dawkins would certainly consider an unscientific approach: each item must be taken on faith.
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this article describes the research that establishes the claim
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I find this troubling, because it suggests that those with disabilities (‘defective in appearance’) should be excluded. Which is just outright offensive.
What worries me is that people are spending an awful lot of time doing complicated somersaults to try to get round the thorny issues and still claim that Scripture is ‘perfectly true.’ Though he’s speaking tongue in cheek, Frank does make sure he nails his colours to the mast before he plays Devil’s Advocate in the interview:I hereby solemnly declare before God, angels, and mortals that I believe in the Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, the 66 books of what we call “the Bible” or “biblical canon.” I believe that they are fully inspired, true, and reliable.You only need to look on the ‘statements of belief‘ on any (US) church website to see similar things written, which boil down to: Don’t worry, there’s nothing to see here! We’re good guys – just like you! So breath easy now!
As I commented on Frank’s post: my fear is that people are expending energy convincing others that they believe that Scripture is inerrant, that hell is for unbelievers, that crushed testicles are no good in church, not because they truly believe it, but because they cannot countenance the flak that would come their way, and the exclusion they would experience if they admitted what they were really thinking. In other words, getting back to Deuteronomy, they don’t want their balls broken, because that means being thrown out.
The result of this: the defence of Truth has perpetrated a lot of lies. A lot of bluff. And that just seems wrong somehow.
[I think this has been one of the differences between UK and US emerging churches. In the US, communities seem more keen to be seen to be kosher, to still be holding orthodox views on the central tenets in order that they can be accepted. Whereas in the UK I think people have been a bit more free to deconstruct things more radically, though that’s just my own perception.]
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SCIENTOLOGY IS THE ONE TRUE RELIGION AND ALL NON-BELIEVERS WILL BURN
lolcat
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"“If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the LORD." deuteronomy 23
does that also mean said person can't enter heaven too?
plus i dont understand the wisdom in this teaching?
please, teach me what i am missing here
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@Mopac
what do you make out of the fact the bible says God told moses some food was unclean, but told peter that the food was clean?
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@Dr.Franklin
yes. it was a bunch of non sequitur. illogical.
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@Dr.Franklin
the Acts verse is clear that God told peter that food is clean, unlike the old testament said. how does what you posted contradict that? do you even understand what you are arguing with your copy and paste?
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@Mopac
is pork still unclean or is it clean now? why or why not? do you consider there to be a contradiction in the bible here?
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i should probably wait till a more coherent opponent argues here
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@Dr.Franklin
or, do you still consider pork to be unclean? do you consider jesus' death such that it's not longer unclean, or do you just eat unclean food anyway?
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@Dr.Franklin
that text u cited looks like a bunch of wiggling around the fact that the food was once unclean but somehow now they are clean.
and, can you succinctly make an argument to me without pasting? it's too convoluted to follow, but of what i can make out, like i said, it's a bunch of coping out.
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@Dr.Franklin
leviticus 11:1 God lists the unclean food. then in Acts 10:15 it says not to call food unclean when God made them clean.
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so God told his people in the old testament that there are unclean foods. then in the new testament he said there are no unclean foods because God made them clean. as far as i can see, this is a contradiction.
some people say the food was considered unclean because it was unsanitary or something. but how does Jesus dying change that it's unsanitary?
why does Jesus dying suddenly make some food clean when it wasn't before?
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@HistoryBuff
i would say you are basing your position on a political bias, and it is more a matter of emotion to say all information has financial value than to generally presume that it doesn't. but that reasonable people can come to different conclusions..... and any other approach than that, is irrational.
yes, you are being irrational in thinking only you can possibly be right here.
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@HistoryBuff
i didn't say no information has financial value. but intellectual property only has value because we passed laws that said they do. the presumption should be that information has no financial value unless the market says so or we find a way to make it so. the only reason information on biden has financial value, is because you, historybuff, asserts that it does.
you dont have much wiggle room in your approach. so you think there is no room for interpretation here? you think the justice department irrationally is siding with trump? you think if this were put in front of a jury, that the only valid or reasonable conclusion they could draw is your position? if you were a judge, you would over ride the jury if they didn't do as you wished?
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@HistoryBuff
the thing of value has to be of financial value, according to the law. getting information, on it's face doesn't have financial value. it's possible to say that it does, but it's not the most straightforward interpretation of the situation. also, anything could be said to have financial value. so you are basically arguing that a candidate cannot ask for anything at all from a foreign national that helps his campaign. .
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@HistoryBuff
the thing of value has to be of financial value, according to the law. getting information, on it's face doesn't have financial value. it's possible to say that it does, but it's not the most straightforward interpretation of the situation. also, anything could be said to have financial value. so you are basically arguing that a candidate cannot ask for anything at all from a foreign national that helps his campaign. .
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so trump specifically asked ukraine to cooperate with the attorney general? isn't that trump's job, to further the agenda of the justice department?
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@HistoryBuff
so if you admit it isn't far fetched for trump to do what it did, but you just think it's illegal. would you agree that this isn't a 'high crime' per the threshold of impeachment?
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i take one thing i said back. i think withholding aid money on condition of ukraine investigating is corrupt. i dont think it's illegal, or if it is, it insn't serious enough to warrant impeachment.
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i think this will back fire on the democrats. the average joe will eventually see the lack of substance here, getting trump on trumped up charges. the democrats deserve to have it blow up in their face, i just dont want it to mean that trump wins again. if the democrats can't get past this and focus on the issues, though, trump just might win.
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@HistoryBuff
so if biden asked ukraine to investigate trump's wrong doing, biden would be guilty of a crime?
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@HistoryBuff
dont you think you're making something out of nothing? he asked someone to investigate wrongdoing. how is this a big deal?
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the things trump did are not that serious. it's questionable whether what he did was even corrupt, let alone illegal. biden may have did some bad things related to ukraine, so trump asked them to investigate. what's the big deal? the usa and ukraine has a treaty where they are suppose to cooperate in investigations if they are willing and able. trump is the leader so it's not far fetched to ask them to look into it. per crimes, it's a stretch, and a gray area at best for democrats. so far all i can see is people say he sought something of value illegally per campaign finance laws, and other people say he was bribing ukraine by dangling aid money in front of them. if it doesn't look like a duck or quack like one, why should we say these are legal violations? and even if they were, they aren't that far fetched or unreasonable on trump's part. more like if they were illegal, democrats are unreasonably playing 'gotcha' in getting him on any far out thing they can.
how is what trump did such a big deal?
how is what trump did such a big deal?
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foreigners probably should fear coming here to visit more than going to most other places, because our murder rate is so high
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@Greyparrot
i dont disagree necessarily. i'm just saying we would do better by improving the gun situation, and doing so doesn't make us into communists or whatever.
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@Greyparrot
our gun situation is one thing that makes america worse than other countries. look at all the statistics. it's not an either or situation where if we improve the problems we become communist china.
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@Greyparrot
once you guys can come up with a coherent argument against all that solid gun control science i just posted, let me know
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-where there is more gun control, there is less murder. this is the scientific consensus, as shown with the literature review. being a literature review makes this a lot more informing than just being a single study; we see the consensus forming. also included is a link to a poll of scientists but a literature review itself makes the claims even stronger.
-where there are more guns, there is more murder, across geographic regions from localities and larger. this is also a lot more informing because it a literature review of lots of studies. what's more, people are shown not to kill with other weopons instead of guns, as is often argued, because if they did there would be no correlation here.
-women are five times more likely to be killed if their significant other has a gun. this is a practical point in illustration of the guns v murders correlation. same in individual lives as general trends
-you are more likely to be murdered if you have a gun, as well as those close to you
-States with more gun control have fewer mass shootings
-only around two hundred and fifty killings are done in the name of self defense per year. people like to pretend defense is such a huge thing, but the odds of being murdered is is closer to forty times higher. the odds of being shot and not necessarily killed are upwards of four hundred times higher.
-we have half the worlds guns in the usa but a small percent of the worlds population
-Police are more likely to kill unjustifiably in low gun control and high gun areas due to their increased fear, and police are more likely to be shot themselves in those areas.
-we have half the worlds guns in the usa but a small percent of the worlds population
-Police are more likely to kill unjustifiably in low gun control and high gun areas due to their increased fear, and police are more likely to be shot themselves in those areas.
-Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the United States' gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher.
-High school kids in the USA are eighty two times more likely to be shot than the same kids in other developed countries.
-states with more gun control have fewer youth who die from guns
https://abc30.com/5396718/?ex_cid=TA_KFSN_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5d2d172f8e73cc000164c229&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2T40EdBsGdPZk_VCL8Bi5RDJsNtpF2Ud9NIYiB74njS72zrcqudw1idWY
https://abc30.com/5396718/?ex_cid=TA_KFSN_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5d2d172f8e73cc000164c229&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2T40EdBsGdPZk_VCL8Bi5RDJsNtpF2Ud9NIYiB74njS72zrcqudw1idWY
-it is claimed that most murders are gang related, but this looks to be factually incorrect in the link. even if higher numbers floating around on the internet are true, our murder problem still there if you take out the gang murders from consideration. the numbers here can be arrived at with basic math.
-this really isn't just a mental health problem. we don't have more people with mental health problems than other countries.... just more people with guns. the study controls for mental health factors v other factors.
-we dont have more crime than the rest of the world, just a lot more people getting shot and killed. you aren't more likely to be mugged here, for instance, but you are more likely to be mugged and shot in the process. again a gun problem. showing it's not just deviants being deviants as some suggest but an emphasis on the gun problem.
-You can tell this is a gun problem, not just a bad person problem as the gun lobby says, also by comparing non-gun homicides of similar countries as the USA, and then adding guns to the mix: non-gun homicides are slightly on the higher side but within normal range, while gun homicides go wildly higher. If this was a bad person problem at its core, there would be a wildly higher amount of non-gun homicides as well, but that's not the case. Included is an article describing this phenomenon and a link with a picture.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/71n1u2/gunnongun_homicide_rates_in_oecd_countries_for/
-people like to say assault rifles are not that dangerous, because there are only a few hundred murders with them per year out of only around ten or so thousand of gun murders. the thing is though, the percent chance an assault rifle will be used to kill someone is significantly higher than the chance other guns will be used to kill someone.
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@billbatard
here is an overview of some gun control science and policy ideas that you might appreciate
guneducationalinformation.weebly.com
such as.
-we dont have more crime than the rest of the world, just a lot more people getting shot and killed. you aren't more likely to be mugged here, for instance, but you are more likely to be mugged and shot in the process. again a gun problem. showing it's not just deviants being deviants as some suggest but an emphasis on the gun problem.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
you have no reason to think the study had bad methodology. if they had truly randomized groups, then a difference in the death rate wouldn't be just coincidence. you especially have no room to talk since you haven't seen the study.
you are incorrect in how you characterize the gun situation. over the last few decades, the amount of people owning guns has gone down, while the rate of murder has also gone down. i would think the amount of gun control has gone up, as you said.
so basically, you had no basis to talk about anything that you did..... you were just pulling shit out of your ass
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
your first sentence is indecipherable.
it would be easy to measure the likelihood of women dying with guns present. look at a group of women who were attacked when the partner had a gun, then look at a group when there was no gun. what are the death rate differences?
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@crossed
at first i thought you were just joking, i didn't think someone could seriously be arguing something so stupid
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
women are five times more likely to die in domestic violence if her partner has a gun. i dont know all those questions you asked, but it's common sense to think if some people dont have a gun when they go off, there is less likely for a death to occur. that's what all the gun control evidence suggests. plus you are getting too hung up on this example. think of any altercation with a gun, then think of it without a gun. common sense here.
plus you didn't answer the question of why it matters that some people who are intent on getting a gun will get one, when there's all the people who won't. is your point just that gun control isn't as effective as people would like? if so, so what? gun control is still effective, if you at all believe in science.
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is your only point that gun control isn't as effective as people would like?
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
i dont know if most people try legal first then illegal or which way it works. but some people who are denied a gun legally won't get one illegally. when they dont have a gun and go off on their wife, she might survive when she otherwise wouldn't.
why does it matter if people who are persistent will get a gun, when there's all those people who won't get one because of gun control, thus saving lives?
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
so do you think one hundred percent of people who are denied a gun through gun control will run out and get one illegally?
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@Imabench
i can see using the ninth amendment to protect gun rights. but if that's the case, it's much more open for legislative and judicial interpretation what specifically should be someone's rights. it's not based on the second amendment. that whole line of argument in this thread about the second amendment protecting the right to self defense and such, was pathetic.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
i agree we have the right to live. and that means self defense. and that means a gun, generally. but that doesn't mean it was meant to be included in the second amendment, if you look at the situation as a whole, and you have not shown one iota of evidence that i'm wrong. all you have is a cockamamie possible interpretation that overly relies on the word 'keep' in the amendment, but ignores all the rest of the amendment and the historical context.
i dont know what you mean i haven't shown all the court cases wrong. you've shown none that prove your point. the long tradition of the court before heller just a few years ago, was that the amendment only protected militia rights. even the conservatives on the court back in Reagan's day thought the same thing.
i dont know why it's relevant that i show someone being charged for using a gun in self defense.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
i'm not left with just a technicality, if that's what you think. there's no evidence outside the text the founders meant to protect anything other than a milita. if they meant to protect self defense or hunting or any of that, they would have mentioned it. plus, it is pretty strong that the only times 'bear arms' was used, was for the militia. i'm looking at the whole picture here. you just have a bunch of disjointed and irrelevant factoids.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
the court cases you cited only show that congress was limited from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. the case doesn't say what it means to keep and bear arms, and doesn't show it protects the right to self defense with a gun, or anything like that. also, that case allowed states to regulate arms as they saw fit. if it wasn't a right then, why should states be restricted now?
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