'Freedom' of speech

[mrswdk]

There are terrorists that engage in a variety of violent activities that do it for some reason other than religion. The basque terrorists and the IRA come to mind

Other examples would be the Baader-Meinhof group, the Unabomber and the Uyghur groups who carry out attacks on mainland China. I've heard of Western animal rights activists engaging in terrorism as well.

[Endgame422]

Sorry, I'm not a Jew, nor do I esteem Paul's writings as anything other than Roman revisionism of Christianity.

And you didn't say a book, you referred specifically to Jesus. As you are suggesting he is promoting hate crimes, you could be sued for libel and for making false accusations.

Your first statement makes me wonder, since you recognize that modern christianity and essentially all its practices are heavily influenced by roman revisionism, how can you be a believer?

This is something i have discussed a little with some of the christians i actually know and thus far i hane yet to get an explanation.

Gimme a crack at it. I recognize the influences you speak of and probably many more. Firstly, does that mean automatically the results or the messages passed down are bad? Or that the Romans, for one, did it with bad intentions to harm mankind? Perhaps one aspect was intended to address a real ill of humanity? I grant many were likely focused on making ruled subjects more docile, but what about the other way around.

I agree with you that roman revisionist practices were certainly not all bad. An arguement could be made that this revisionism is at least partially responsible for the long lasting popularity of christianity(even if it was originally to suit the political needs of the roman empire/heirarchy)
My point here though is not to bash Christianity by equating it to something negative, overall it has done plenty of good and bad things and labeling it as either seems incorrect.
My point is if the true word of god came to man 2000 years ago,by today, it would be so twisted and corrupted by human influence that it would lose at least part of its meaning.
Both of you whom ive addressed about this so far regularly point to goverment/institutions being corrupt and having far too much influence over public opinion.
Now just imagine this during the collapse of classical civilization,when essentially the whole world was falling apart and you can see how much power prominent members of church had.
And what happens when someone gets that kind of power? I think we all can agree it usually does not end well for the people under that power.
So back to the crux of my point here if you recognize that many human influences have a part in christianity, then how can you take it for the truth?
I explored Christianity myself and came to this obstacle which i could not overcome.
Even just think of your last trip to church,did your pastor/minister not interpret the scripture for you?
Of course you have your own opinion and interpretations but that just goes to show that even today, Christianity is evolving(ok too easy there sorry) and is turning further and further away from its origin(god).
Thanks guys for laying out your beliefs for the sake of discussion here i know thats not always easy.

[Metsfanmax]

I didn't engage you to object to your lack of belief, I engaged you to address your objectionable attitude (i.e. your saying that you think less of people if they are religious and then equating following a world religion to a belief in garden fairies or the Loch Ness monster). I don't see what you think puts you in a position to judge other people.

I would prefer to live in a world where people who believe in fairy tales are not taken seriously for that belief. I hope you would concur.

Assuming that you can substantiate this claim with more than just a selection of anecdotes, what you are talking about is not the existence of religion itself but the practices of (some) religious institutions. And just as governments, enterprises, lobby groups, unions, employers and one's extended family can have a negative effect on an individual's life, so too can religious institutions. Give anyone power over someone else and it increases the numbers of ways in which their behavior could adversely affect the other person. I don't see why you get to use that as evidence that religion itself is bad.

Religion is especially dangerous because it actually asks you to submit your own free will to that of another higher power. You give away your own decision-making power. We do this too in the case of government. But the difference is that government is at least in principle a self-correcting system run by rational agents. If the government does something bad, we can change it by electing new representatives and changing the law. Religion is immutable, because its principles are based on a book written a long time ago that is generally believed to be the work of a higher power. So we cannot limit the power of the institution like we can in business or in government, because step one in joining the institution is signing away all your decision-making power on whether the institution is just or not.

So it is not some eerie coincidence that it is generally religions that have engaged in large-scale warfare to eliminate non-believers. It says right in their holy books that this type of activity is justified.

No, we clearly cannot. Obviously there are some people who will use the justification of religion to commit violent acts. You said that religion is a worldview; I don't think it's a worldview. I don't think someone views the world a certain way because of their religion

What does your religion mean to you?

Yes, I think people will comit violent acts, even suicidal acts, in the name of something other than religion. There are terrorists that engage in a variety of violent activities that do it for some reason other than religion.

Yes, but this is not an answer to the argument I am actually making. There are terrorists who do commit very violent actions in the name of their belief, but given the very large number of reasons one can be angry in this world, there are systematically far too many cases of religion being the reason compared to random chance. If someone blows up a bomb that kills innocent people somewhere, you can bet a fair sum of money that religion was the primary cause of the action. It is possible that this was not the case, but unlikely. This means that religion does have the effect of convincing people to kill innocent people. The argument that religion does not cause every terrorist action ever is both a very weak argument and simultaneously an admission that this point is correct.

If you look at the people who commit "terrorist" actions in the name of a particular belief, like the Unabomber, the Basque folks, or the Baader-Meinhof folks, there's generally a pattern: for example, targeting influential government or industry leaders that are associated with a particular political cause or belief. I do not condone these murderous actions. These people believe in something so fanatically that they will kill others (even innocent people in their own system, like when the Unabomber bombed that plane) to achieve their ends. This is the hallmark of the religious approach as well. What we should take away from this isn't that religion should be given a free pass here. Rather, it is that religion is an example (though a very prominent one) of belief systems where people believe in something so ideologically that it changes their core worldview to the point where other beliefs (such as the belief that murder of innocents is bad) take a backseat. So I oppose these other folks too precisely because their ideology pulls them so strongly that they cannot have rational discussion with people to achieve compromise. Instead, they feel compelled to show that their enemies are wrong, and that they must die if they do not change their ways.

[betiko]

Goes back to protected species. Free speech is fine, along as you don't mention - ......., .........., .........,

You can't exclude some topics from conversation and pretend that you have free speech. When it comes to the difference between flaming and baiting. Commentary and opinion are one thing. Saying something is something. Can be libel, countries with both free press and strong libel laws have less faux outrage and more constructive and brave discussion.

yup, if there are limits, then it's cant truly be Freedom. Others may go ahead and say limits are needed, and that's fine so long as they don't do so in the name of Freedom or still claim to be Free. That's why i like it plain and simple, for all to understand, nothing tricky to be litigated about what a certain word may or may not mean. '...Shall NOT be infringed, period'

if you take the concept of freedom so litteraly; then there should be no laws nor law enforcers. no society lives in full freedom, not even true hippies with a feather sticking out of their ass as unique posession. You can be fully free only if you live like a hermite. Living in society strips you from doing exactly what you want t any time.

We have removed from our freedom of speech the fact of "revising" the fact that the hollocaust existed. Dieudonné is in the movance of those revisionists and promotes the idea that jews are all scumbags that made up all that stuff so we can feel sorry for them and let them do all they want in israel. Call that a french jew conspiracy if you want.
Why should we allow people to spread dangerous ideas that negate tangible facts?

I hear ya. But if it's not free, then it isn't. I understand literal 100% Freedom is virtually impossible. I meant to go a little further in the last post, that really what it all comes down to are varying degrees of Freedom. More Free or Less Free, usually always moving along one with or the other on the scale of Freedom. i understand the 'total Freedom' thing as it relates to 'well that means you can kill whoever you want' but certainly Freedom has to be understood, it's so long as it doesn't interfere with anyone's else's Freedom. And like you said, in the city you can't really escape it, especially with technology.

Wherever we are on the scale of Freedom, I will be pushing from that point to the next point to be more Free. That's really about all we can do.

I'm fine with stripping a few "freedoms" as far as I judge it justified. The problem is that it's a subjective concept. The vast majority of the french society judges ok the type of jokes that charlie hebdo does. And not ok the ones dieudonné does. What I didn't say previously is that Dieudonné tried to become a candidate for the 2002 presidential elections. he brings negationists on stage. I know there is a big part of trolling, which is actually quite funny. I really wouldn't mind him saying everything he says if I knew he wasn't really in favour of that shit and he was just provocating. the thing is that he has a political dimension that he uses through humour and to promote his quite extremist ideas. Since I'm against all sort of extremism (except for humour... but in his case he ges beyond humour as I was explaining) I really don't care if he gets his mouth shut.

[betiko]

There are terrorists that engage in a variety of violent activities that do it for some reason other than religion. The basque terrorists and the IRA come to mind

Other examples would be the Baader-Meinhof group, the Unabomber and the Uyghur groups who carry out attacks on mainland China. I've heard of Western animal rights activists engaging in terrorism as well.

yest, ETA for the basques, and we share them with the spanish (although they are much more active in the spanish part of the basque country).
But the corsicans of the FLNC are pretty bad ass here too. C4 everywhere (whoever doesn't pay their "tax" gets his house blown off), murdering governors and shit.

[Phatscotty]

Sorry, I'm not a Jew, nor do I esteem Paul's writings as anything other than Roman revisionism of Christianity.

And you didn't say a book, you referred specifically to Jesus. As you are suggesting he is promoting hate crimes, you could be sued for libel and for making false accusations.

Your first statement makes me wonder, since you recognize that modern christianity and essentially all its practices are heavily influenced by roman revisionism, how can you be a believer?

This is something i have discussed a little with some of the christians i actually know and thus far i hane yet to get an explanation.

Gimme a crack at it. I recognize the influences you speak of and probably many more. Firstly, does that mean automatically the results or the messages passed down are bad? Or that the Romans, for one, did it with bad intentions to harm mankind? Perhaps one aspect was intended to address a real ill of humanity? I grant many were likely focused on making ruled subjects more docile, but what about the other way around.

I agree with you that roman revisionist practices were certainly not all bad. An arguement could be made that this revisionism is at least partially responsible for the long lasting popularity of christianity(even if it was originally to suit the political needs of the roman empire/heirarchy)
My point here though is not to bash Christianity by equating it to something negative, overall it has done plenty of good and bad things and labeling it as either seems incorrect.
My point is if the true word of god came to man 2000 years ago,by today, it would be so twisted and corrupted by human influence that it would lose at least part of its meaning.
Both of you whom ive addressed about this so far regularly point to goverment/institutions being corrupt and having far too much influence over public opinion.
Now just imagine this during the collapse of classical civilization,when essentially the whole world was falling apart and you can see how much power prominent members of church had.
And what happens when someone gets that kind of power? I think we all can agree it usually does not end well for the people under that power.
So back to the crux of my point here if you recognize that many human influences have a part in christianity, then how can you take it for the truth?
I explored Christianity myself and came to this obstacle which i could not overcome.
Even just think of your last trip to church,did your pastor/minister not interpret the scripture for you?
Of course you have your own opinion and interpretations but that just goes to show that even today, Christianity is evolving(ok too easy there sorry) and is turning further and further away from its origin(god).
Thanks guys for laying out your beliefs for the sake of discussion here i know thats not always easy.

Loving your perspective mate! No context complaints over here!

So what is the crux of your crux, that 'christianity', how can I and others take it as 'truth'? Well....truth isn't really the word i would use to describe what I believe. I don't put any stock, as far as the Bible goes, as to what is true or what is not, if that is exactly how it happened or not, I actually don't care. But, are the 10 commandments true? In the sense that God actually said them....I could never really know, it would come to faith. But are the 10 commandments true in a sense hey help keep order and prevent chaos and offer structure and base in general? Sure, I would say that is true.

I see religion as a thread of history dealing with humanity, for all it's vice and virtue. Some things have changed about humans post-industrial age, many things have not. I get why one might say 'well, the stuff about shellfish isn't true anymore' I say, okay, great. Back then humans didn't know why not to eat them other than the results were usually bad, and now we know how to eat them and have the blessings of microwave ovens and thermometers et al, so I get that something humans couldn't answer before and why it was a big deal then, and why it's not a big deal now. And I'm totally fine with that, that is exactly the way i would expect a book/tradition of this kind of specific history to be kept. I'm not so much in the details as I am about the tenets. Forgiveness, thankfulness, a higher power, the way we deal with sin and the relation to the main story how all our sins were paid for, it makes sense to anyone who can't make sense any other way. Moral law/Commandments, redemption, salvation, family, and personal accountability. I don't say they are perfect, nor could I know what is perfect, but I would say they are satisfactory for me and the issues I have dealt with in my life so far, knowing full well there are many more issues I may or may not have to encounter later on.

In general, I don't think of it as true or false at all. to me the books are stories that have stood the test of time. Sometimes I can gain foresight, many times wisdom, to see how others dealt with forgiving, to read stories about people/groups/nations who disregard the concept of a soul and where might makes right can lead, power structures and coping skills, just reading others struggles (could be any book) has an interesting way of putting other things into perspective. I'm no bible thumper, and I do not attend Church regularly, but I think I understand why some people need it at all times and all people need it at some time. No doubt as the list of mysteries and 'science can't explain it yets' grows smaller humanity grows more bold and in many ways less grateful/thankful and I think that's a big thing missing in society today as it seems the human condition goes when one problem is fixed, another will always arise and the real issues are within ourselves and our complaints/frustrations are many times not even made in the right direction and or for the right reasons

[Phatscotty]

There was a scene in the show 'Deadwood' that rung so true. Basically, there was a dinner table with 2 men and one of their wives, and the men were unbelievably angry about something....so angry they didn't even want to look at anyone or say a single word about anything. As they looked over their food, all they could do was frown and huff n puff and facepalm etc....after a long and angry silence, the wife said firmly 'shall we give thanks for this bounty of food that lies before us?'

Everybody immediately took a step back, remember just how fortunate they were to have enough food back then (1880's?) and that in the larger context, their humungous problems were not really so big, and that they had a roof over their head, food to eat, and love for each other. You could see them totally deflate, and then humble themselves in a prayer of thanks. It gave me the warm n fuzzies

[_sabotage_]

I think that there is some confusion, I'll start with that.

The Romans started Christianity. They were in Israel and saw the determination with which the Israelis resisted idols and Roman Gods. They learned of some of the Jewish history and saw there historical resistance. This process took years as the Romans considered themselves to be exceptional, but as the resistance held, they decided there was something in it. At the time, you had the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes. While the Sadducees and Pharisees were old, established, deeply entrenched and too culture specific, the relatively new teachings of the Essenes were more malleable and still in development.

The first step was to rewrite the life of the Essenes great leader, and tie it to Rome. This provides a relatively clean slate, maintains the heritage of the religion (to a certain extent), provides opportunity to submit to Rome, maintains the basis of Israel's resistance (a single God) and offered the opportunity to gear the new religion to a broad and diverse audience.

For the Jews who had different opinions on rebelling against Rome and who were then losing and facing defeat, it was a chance to tie themselves to Rome eternally.

The Romans got their propagandists, the stoics, to rework some texts which probably resembled the Gospel of Thomas. What is telling is what left out. They left out female equality. They used acts to show the need for a central authority. They used Paul for specific doctrine that was easier to change than the gospels and left the sanctity of Jesus intact.

This provided Rome with a new more effective means of conquering (or subjected folks to tax) and converting folks to Rome, under the guise of Christianity: without having to use the money to service any of the needs. Now instead of threat of force, they have threat of eternity.

Why knowing this do I still choose to follow Jesus? We need to get our moral code from somewhere, and if we ignore all interpretation of Jesus and access the censored works, we have a decent code to live by.

[Phatscotty]

Goes back to protected species. Free speech is fine, along as you don't mention - ......., .........., .........,

You can't exclude some topics from conversation and pretend that you have free speech. When it comes to the difference between flaming and baiting. Commentary and opinion are one thing. Saying something is something. Can be libel, countries with both free press and strong libel laws have less faux outrage and more constructive and brave discussion.

yup, if there are limits, then it's cant truly be Freedom. Others may go ahead and say limits are needed, and that's fine so long as they don't do so in the name of Freedom or still claim to be Free. That's why i like it plain and simple, for all to understand, nothing tricky to be litigated about what a certain word may or may not mean. '...Shall NOT be infringed, period'

if you take the concept of freedom so litteraly; then there should be no laws nor law enforcers. no society lives in full freedom, not even true hippies with a feather sticking out of their ass as unique posession. You can be fully free only if you live like a hermite. Living in society strips you from doing exactly what you want t any time.

We have removed from our freedom of speech the fact of "revising" the fact that the hollocaust existed. Dieudonné is in the movance of those revisionists and promotes the idea that jews are all scumbags that made up all that stuff so we can feel sorry for them and let them do all they want in israel. Call that a french jew conspiracy if you want.
Why should we allow people to spread dangerous ideas that negate tangible facts?

I hear ya. But if it's not free, then it isn't. I understand literal 100% Freedom is virtually impossible. I meant to go a little further in the last post, that really what it all comes down to are varying degrees of Freedom. More Free or Less Free, usually always moving along one with or the other on the scale of Freedom. i understand the 'total Freedom' thing as it relates to 'well that means you can kill whoever you want' but certainly Freedom has to be understood, it's so long as it doesn't interfere with anyone's else's Freedom. And like you said, in the city you can't really escape it, especially with technology.

Wherever we are on the scale of Freedom, I will be pushing from that point to the next point to be more Free. That's really about all we can do.

I'm fine with stripping a few "freedoms" as far as I judge it justified. The problem is that it's a subjective concept. The vast majority of the french society judges ok the type of jokes that charlie hebdo does. And not ok the ones dieudonné does. What I didn't say previously is that Dieudonné tried to become a candidate for the 2002 presidential elections. he brings negationists on stage. I know there is a big part of trolling, which is actually quite funny. I really wouldn't mind him saying everything he says if I knew he wasn't really in favour of that shit and he was just provocating. the thing is that he has a political dimension that he uses through humour and to promote his quite extremist ideas. Since I'm against all sort of extremism (except for humour... but in his case he ges beyond humour as I was explaining) I really don't care if he gets his mouth shut.

and that's fine mate, speak out for whatever you believe in! I understand exactly what you are saying. Our government today is so jacked, I wouldn't trust them with a can of soup. Sure, they can print money to send to whoever one might owe and seemingly 'take care of things' but they don't even literally have that money to send, they just tack it onto the debt, Give me limitless credit cards, I could do that too, anyone could. my opinion and understanding on the issue, as it relates to me here in USA, ban one thing, that leads to 2 things, leads to 3 things. 'well if this is banned, why is this okay?' 4 things.... special rights n privileges, divisions, denials for one but acceptance for another with the exact same problems.... The only way it can work is if it's the same for everyone and everyone can be just as much free. Many things one may worry about in that scenario, I say common sense will deal with, and perhaps an ass kicking will have to deal with a few who are arrogant or ignorant.

My country had this challenge early on with the Aliens n Seditions act. in that nobody could recruit Americans to fight in France, in public, amongst many other things. Thankfully that did not last too long and has gone down as a negative thing which set good precedent imo for the next century or so. It was messed up though, in that the people Democratically voted for it, and everybody wanted it so much nobody stood up for the 'ultimate' Freedom of Speech. I think Jefferson might have resigned during that time, loudly criticizing it trampled the people's rights. Difficult decisions arise, and they are dealt with when they come around. Hopefully we can remain guided by our values n principles and our Constitution, to err to Freedom as much as possible.

I know America is by no means a bastion of Free speech any longer, things have slipped so badly now we have a patriot act that never sunsets, the NDAA act which curbs more Freedoms, FISA courts that can 'grant' search warrants after a search has already been executed, I could go on and on but I won't leave out the racial aspect, in that one person of a certain race can say a word and nobody will blink, another person with a different skin color can be thrown out of business and become the most hated person in the country. I know there are other aspects at play, but speech is for sure, and that's where this all brings me to in my conclusion.

It's my people who are failing to remain vigilant, failing to stand up for themselves when they feel like they should, but end up taking it in the hoo-ha because of all the hassle built around it and figure it's just best to not lose workday's pay. Failing to stand up for our Freedoms, as I've heard say directly to me recently 'yeah, but those are Christians...the crusades, therefore, who really cares?' and freedom of religion has turned into Freedom from religion, Freedom of speech is turning into Freedom from speech.

I won't even post the gay dancer here for fear the guy is so nude that I would be breaking forum rules, willingly refraining from speaking/showing what I want to show because of certain problems, but I can also tell you exactly how to get to where I would be bringing everyone. Go to youtube and type in 'Crazy Guy Dancing on a Train Naked WTF???' you'll see this guy singing 'sexy and I know it' basically 99% naked, rubbing his butt n genitals on other people, right in front of what appears to be a 5 year old child. Message, this scene is perfectly okay. nobody said a word.

Another person on the same subway happened to mention the Bible or Jesus Christ or something, and people basically tried to throw him off the train, proclaiming their freedom from religion was being violated, and that freedom of speech did not apply in this certain case since it was religion, and they were on a 'public' train... the clip i showed here at the time displayed how it almost came to violence. message, Christianity/Bible is not okay. this last bit about the subway isn't totally pertinent to the convo, but just an example to show how far this has gone.

This is probably the rosiest clip that doesn't show how far it went but you'' get the gist

[AndyDufresne]

Text

--Andy

[thegreekdog]

What does your religion mean to you?

Tough question. Many of the religious tenets I adhere to are ones that you probably also adhere to (e.g. being kind to others). I regularly donate time and money to causes championed by the local branch of my religion. I try to be tolerant and kind to everyone. I feel better after attending church. My religion guides many of my day-to-day interactions (whether I am acting consciously for religious reasons or not). It has an influence, in some cases a bigger influence than in others, on my worldview. It is not, however, my worldview and it does not have a greater than 50% influence over any particular area of my life (other than what I do on Sunday mornings). The church leadership would likely say this is not acceptable and that Catholicism should influence at 100% (or close to it), everything I do. While that may be the ideal, that is certainly not the reality and I would propose that of the hundreds of Catholics I know personally, not a one of them would cite religion as influencing their own worldviews by anything approaching 100%. That includes priests that I know.

Yes, but this is not an answer to the argument I am actually making. There are terrorists who do commit very violent actions in the name of their belief, but given the very large number of reasons one can be angry in this world, there are systematically far too many cases of religion being the reason compared to random chance. If someone blows up a bomb that kills innocent people somewhere, you can bet a fair sum of money that religion was the primary cause of the action. It is possible that this was not the case, but unlikely. This means that religion does have the effect of convincing people to kill innocent people. The argument that religion does not cause every terrorist action ever is both a very weak argument and simultaneously an admission that this point is correct.

If you look at the people who commit "terrorist" actions in the name of a particular belief, like the Unabomber, the Basque folks, or the Baader-Meinhof folks, there's generally a pattern: for example, targeting influential government or industry leaders that are associated with a particular political cause or belief. I do not condone these murderous actions. These people believe in something so fanatically that they will kill others (even innocent people in their own system, like when the Unabomber bombed that plane) to achieve their ends. This is the hallmark of the religious approach as well. What we should take away from this isn't that religion should be given a free pass here. Rather, it is that religion is an example (though a very prominent one) of belief systems where people believe in something so ideologically that it changes their core worldview to the point where other beliefs (such as the belief that murder of innocents is bad) take a backseat. So I oppose these other folks too precisely because their ideology pulls them so strongly that they cannot have rational discussion with people to achieve compromise. Instead, they feel compelled to show that their enemies are wrong, and that they must die if they do not change their ways.

Okay, but I'm not saying religion does not cause every terrorist act. That's just a point I'm making that terrorist acts are committed for a variety of reasons. My point is that if one looks at a terrorist act that was apparently justified by religious belief, one can see other, non-religious reasons for the terrorist act. For example, I can see non-religious reasons for Islamic terrorists to carry out terrorist acts while using religion as a justification. As I indicated previously, Osama bin Laden would have said he organized terrorist activities because he didn't like that "the west" was involved in the middle east. While bin Laden's worldview (and, in fact, religion) says that murdering innocents is bad, he is able to justify murdering innocents for what he believes is a greater cause (getting the west out of his homeland) and then can use his religion as a justification. I would posit the same argument for Christians and the gays. I think most Christians that don't like gays don't like them because it's anathema to their culture and the society that they live in. I think they use the Bible as justification for their hatred; not as the reason for their hatred. Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but that's what I think. And I think I'm right because we've seen it before. Slavery was justified by somone as being righteous because it was in the Bible, but those same people didn't want to see a world without slavery because of their views of society (or because they actually economically benefitted from slavery). Racism against blacks in the United States is not driven by religion (simply because there doesn't seem to be a justification for it in Christianity), but people are racist because they won't embrace a changing society or culture.

As I indicated above, I donate money and time to causes championed by my local church. Am I doing that only because my religion tells me to do that? I would answer I'm doing it for other reasons as much, or more, than I'm doing it for religious reasons. I'm doing it because it does help people. I'm doing it because it makes me feel better about myself. I'm doing it because I can tell people that I did it.

So I think religion is a justification many people use for certain bad acts (and good acts), but it's really a cover for something else (whether economic benefit, social comfortability, power, whatever). And there are other justifications for bad acts (and good acts). Nationalism comes to mind for me. I think you can point to a large number of people who use nationalism to justify bad acts, but is their motivation "the US is great!" or is their motivation something else? I think it's something else. And I can usually find that something else if I have a specific act or person. And my point is that without religion, the same bad acts would still be committed because the other perceived benefit would still exist. Without Christianity, anti-gay people in the US would still point to something to justify their hatred... it just wouldn't be the Bible. Which brings me to my overall point - if we don't understand or try to solve for the actual reason behind hatred or terrorist acts, and merely attack the justification, we won't solve the problem. If the problem is "Christians hate the gays" and we attack Christianity, we're not going to solve the problem; we're either going to end up nowhere or make the Christians pissed off (see, e.g. Phatscotty). If the problem is "Muslims hate non-Muslims" and we attack Muslims, we're not going to solve the problem and we're going to make them even more pissed at us. And maybe people don't care whether Christians are pissed off, and that's fine, but I'd prefer to solve the problem than to pretend to solve the problem by attacking the perceived justification rather than the root cause.

[Endgame422]

Ok i feel like your right and your wrong.
Christianity was like a little fringe thing for some hundreds of years (time of jesus roughly somewhere in the 30s of the new era-constantine the great around 300) where rome was pretty rough on them.
I mean, the idea if cruxification was originally a roman punishment for blasphemy against their complicated deity system.
And if memory serves that exactly why they killed jesus(hence starting Christianity).

And i feel like your moral code should not have to come from somewhere external. We all know whats right and wrong(for ourselves anyway) and we all know we have a choice.
Now people of course ignore these things all the time. This is exactly where guilt comes from,which is another complex topic that we are skipping for now, but it just seems like people who take the time to have very in depth discussions and form multi faceted informed opinions(wether i agree or not) wouldnt just lump themselves in with a group of people whom have all this baggage and social implications and extra guilt.
It just seems so strange to label yourself as this or that,christian or jew or muslim or whatever.
I am exactly myself.
I have the power of choice and i have my own moral compass admittedly influenced by a number of things beyond my explanation as well as the ideas of philosophers,religious people and spiritualists and then shaped by my experiences in this life.
And when its all said and done i will always be responsible for my actions to myself.

[muy_thaiguy]

Meh. You're a greenie (in more ways than 1 now).

[Endgame422]

Meh. You're a greenie (in more ways than 1 now).

Im afraid i missed this. I mean i know your calling me a stoner(true enough) but how is my viewpoint greenie?

[_sabotage_]

The story of Jesus was published in four sections.

You had the works of Josephus. You had the letters of the stoics using the likeness of Josephus as Paul. And you had the works of the stoics in the learning from the Torah, the works of the temple having been seized. And you have the stoics rewriting of Essene's knowledge with a superhero they named Jesus.

Or another way of saying this is the Romans captured a loot from the temple the likes of which they had never captured before. They captured the best known means of propaganda. Josephus claims to be a Pharisee and descendent of a great priest, who early showed great wisdom and was consulted by elders from a young age. He then studied with the Essenes for several years.

What "history" records is him predicting the emperor's emperorship. He gets named after the emperor and comes back to Rome with the thing that gave the Jews their cohesion. He is supposedly an expert at it according to himself and the Romans see it as an important asset. Were there Christians in Rome at this time? Well, we know there were Jews in Rome and we knew that Jews were in part Essenes and if the Essenes were the early Christians, then there were Christians.

Now with Josephus and the temple works, and an idea of the power they could wield, Vespasian put Josephus to work. Part of that work entailed robbing the Essenes of their theology and laying claim to the authority over it. They sure as shit didn't want people mimicking the Essenes. They also didn't want their Jesus to be tainted by the Essenes who had been framed for setting Rome on fire. Not yet.

But there is no question about it, Jesus is Essene. A guy who studied the Dead Sea scrolls forever, wrote a book about Jesus being a mushroom. I haven't read it, but I would like to. Mushrooms have been around for 300,000,000 years. They are quite interesting. Mushrooms use enzymes to break down matter. Sounds boring. But mushrooms send out advanced parties to do recon, follow best path of nutrient availability to 99.9% efficiency, create enzymes specific to the nutrient including breaking down rocks and hydrocarbons. They can coat pollutants in the soil, protecting the plants from them. They also farm. They spread nutrients and medication among plants as needed to generate they greatest amount of life from the available resources.

Magic mushrooms are only found near people, they are not found in the wild. Research shows that while high on magic mushrooms, new neurological paths open up, more brain activity is seen, with more links. New areas may be explored from more directions being processed by more areas at the same time.

Now the getting high on shrooms didn't create Jesus. In many places around the world, religious practices have involved the consumption of magic mushrooms, and other drugs. But here what you had were a group of men with stoic reasoning, but were not held back by the illogical Roman gods, and shunned all worldly goods. They are known to have used cannabis. Now throw in a guy with above average intelligence and wisdom.

Now wouldn't you rather be getting your moral compass from that guy, then making it up as you go. Wouldn't you rather W is getting his moral guidance from him rather than Cheney, or making it up as he goes? (I can't even imagine who Jesus is in W's mind)

Rome definitely sliced and diced the Essenes. They stole from them and then got rid of them. But in doing so, they could only dress it up. It's still there.

I don't believe in an Essene type of existence. I believe in a modern, better understood Essene type of existence. And I sure as shit don't want you taking your moral code as you go when a million dollars is on one end of the scale and humanity is on the other.

I keep Met's words as my sig to remind me that we don't need a new morality, that we make up as we go.

[Endgame422]

The sagely advice of an ancient group may indeed be useful or valuable to guide your morality but its not so simple. The belief that the teachings of jesus are the end all be of morality just narrows your POV.
The world is not black and white. This is the problem with mets statement in your signature as well.
He puts it plain as day that he values the rule of law above all else.He thinks that an intellectual society that obeys the rule of law is whats best for him and likely for humanity.
Your telling me you value the teaching of jesus as whats best for you and im sure you would agree that they would be good for the world. Same deal as mets.
Obviously those are both watered down versions of your respective opinions but thats jist of it.
Your points are similiar in nature though varied in form.
You both seem to think there is a particular way thats right or true or scientifically feasible and that everyone else is wrong.
You guys are both firmly grounded in your beliefs and are not trying to change that but my make your adventure version of morality will likely hold up as well an average religious persons would at the end of a million dollars.
Plenty of corruption and greed amongst those follow the words of ancient prophecies(umm indulgences lol)
So i dont see much for value in that comparison.
oh and points for appealing to something you already know my opinion of with the cannabis/mushroom bit lol.
The more i talk to you the more confused i become.
Are you just the top troll?

Oh and betiko of course theres security its just funny how they portrayed the photos and everything to make it look like just a casual meeting of world leaders.
You know, out sightseeing in paris in a group of 100.

[_sabotage_]

Sorry, wasn't even thinking about the leaf when I brought it up.

Me and Mets are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Mets believes he can say that small farmers are inefficient, and should be denied the right of growing food.

He believes that he can dictate morality at his whim and enforce such policies on others.

I believe the exact opposite. I believe that no one has the right to dictate policies over others. I think we should encourage and help small farmers.

Mets believes we are overpopulated and should guide (prevent) reproduction (on those he selects), I believe the more the merrier and through intelligence and innovation we will make room.

Mets advocates for more taxes, I advocate for the dissolution of federal government.

Mets demands the end of competition, I suggest the start of beneficial competition while eliminating necessity.

I don't suggest we enforce the elimination on people who don't want it, or give it to those that do for nothing. I think the key is to minimizing the total work, Mets, well who really knows what he thinks.

[Metsfanmax]

Me and Mets are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Mets believes he can say that small farmers are inefficient, and should be denied the right of growing food.

Small farmers may be inefficient, but I don't believe they should be denied the right to grow food.

Mets believes we are overpopulated and should guide (prevent) reproduction (on those he selects), I believe the more the merrier and through intelligence and innovation we will make room.

I don't believe we are overpopulated. I generally agree that we are underpopulated and that with more people we'll have more technological breakthroughs.

Mets demands the end of competition, I suggest the start of beneficial competition while eliminating necessity.

I don't demand the end of competition, I think capitalism is a good system for example. I just think we need to backstop it with a guarantee that the worst-off are still OK.

[Endgame422]

Most of those points i agree with you on but that only serves to further my confusion and general frustration because your demonstrating that your not just a lunatic.

But where you see a spectrum i see a coin.

I must admit that i figured neither you or Mets(hi mets!) would much appreciate this comparison much but the similarities between you two are striking to me.
You both seem to think that you have it all figured out and that the other of you is essentially foolish and certainly wrong.
You both know the other wont be swayed and yet thread after thread i see you guys going at it.
Most people can't even be bothered to consider how they feel about many of the subjects discussed here while the both of you research with the point of discussion at a later point.
Its actually fairly entertaining to watch.

[Metsfanmax]

Most of those points i agree with you on but that only serves to further my confusion and general frustration because your demonstrating that your not just a lunatic.

But where you see a spectrum i see a coin.

I must admit that i figured neither you or Mets(hi mets!) would much appreciate this comparison much but the similarities between you two are striking to me.
You both seem to think that you have it all figured out and that the other of you is essentially foolish and certainly wrong.
You both know the other wont be swayed and yet thread after thread i see you guys going at it.
Most people can't even be bothered to consider how they feel about many of the subjects discussed here while the both of you research with the point of discussion at a later point.
Its actually fairly entertaining to watch.

I don't think sabotage is foolish and certainly wrong on everything. Just on some things.

[Endgame422]

I don't think sabotage is foolish and certainly wrong on everything. Just on some things.

BREAKTHROUGH!!

[_sabotage_]

Mets is no fool.

I can see his point. No doubt there are signs waved about saying Jesus hates gays. But equally there are some gay assholes.

I certainly worry about how religion is used in its wide degrees of display. But I don't think science has proven any more moral in some of its outcomes; it hasn't intended to.

Someone said all of mans troubles stem from not being able to sit contentedly alone in a room. I think this is wrong: they stem from not being able to let someone else sit alone contentedly.

[mrswdk]

I didn't engage you to object to your lack of belief, I engaged you to address your objectionable attitude (i.e. your saying that you think less of people if they are religious and then equating following a world religion to a belief in garden fairies or the Loch Ness monster). I don't see what you think puts you in a position to judge other people.

I would prefer to live in a world where people who believe in fairy tales are not taken seriously for that belief. I hope you would concur.

You ask that we take you seriously when you argue in favor of animal emancipation. You could offer religious people the same courtesy.

Religion is especially dangerous because it actually asks you to submit your own free will to that of another higher power. You give away your own decision-making power. We do this too in the case of government. But the difference is that government is at least in principle a self-correcting system run by rational agents. If the government does something bad, we can change it by electing new representatives and changing the law. Religion is immutable, because its principles are based on a book written a long time ago that is generally believed to be the work of a higher power. So we cannot limit the power of the institution like we can in business or in government, because step one in joining the institution is signing away all your decision-making power on whether the institution is just or not.

Religious institutions change and evolve too, ya know.

So it is not some eerie coincidence that it is generally religions that have engaged in large-scale warfare to eliminate non-believers. It says right in their holy books that this type of activity is justified.

Ignoring the enormous logical leap you just made (religious institutions are not accountable therefore war), most warfare – both historically and presently - has had nothing to do with religion.

Sure, if you add the condition ‘wars to eliminate non-believers’ then obviously all of those wars will have been conducted in the name of religion, but that’s like saying ‘all the biggest wars fought by the Portuguese Empire were started by Portuguese people’ and then using that as proof that Portuguese people are especially bloody thirsty warmongers.

[Metsfanmax]

You ask that we take you seriously

I do not care if you take me seriously, you can think I'm a clown for all I care. I ask you to take the animals seriously, and stop using your dislike of me as an excuse to avoid consideration of that.

when you argue in favor of animal emancipation.

That is something we could do if we choose to; the disagreement is one over moral systems, which are purely human constructions. Religious beliefs are claims about the factual nature of the physical universe, and each religion that I am familiar with has crucial claims that are factually incorrect.

You could offer religious people the same courtesy.

The courtesy I expect is for people to call me out if they think I am wrong. I am returning that courtesy.

Religious institutions change and evolve too, ya know.

They change in response to changing cultural norms so that they can remain relevant; they rarely take the lead in changing society for the better. It is not like the Pope said "let there be condoms" and suddenly everyone started having sex; he just looked at something everyone was doing anyway and said "you know what, go for it." Same idea for the female bishops.

So it is not some eerie coincidence that it is generally religions that have engaged in large-scale warfare to eliminate non-believers. It says right in their holy books that this type of activity is justified.

Ignoring the enormous logical leap you just made (religious institutions are not accountable therefore war)

I said right there that their holy books specifically say that non-believers and those who worship false idols should be killed. It's not a leap, it's something the books actually say. And it's something that many Muslims today are currently living by.

[mrswdk]

You ask that we take you seriously

I do not care if you take me seriously, you can think I'm a clown for all I care. I ask you to take the animals seriously, and stop using your dislike of me as an excuse to avoid consideration of that.

Taking you seriously would be a prerequisite to listening to what you are saying and treating animals differently as a result.

And who said I never considered your views? I considered them and I rejected them. I don't think you have come up with any reason for me to treat animals any differently to the way I do.

You could offer religious people the same courtesy.

The courtesy I expect is for people to call me out if they think I am wrong. I am returning that courtesy.

Along with comments about how you look down on them and equate their beliefs to a belief in the existence of the Loch Ness monster.

Religious institutions change and evolve too, ya know.

They change in response to changing cultural norms so that they can remain relevant; they rarely take the lead in changing society

You say that as if governments are any different.

So it is not some eerie coincidence that it is generally religions that have engaged in large-scale warfare to eliminate non-believers. It says right in their holy books that this type of activity is justified.

Ignoring the enormous logical leap you just made (religious institutions are not accountable therefore war)

I said right there that their holy books specifically say that non-believers and those who worship false idols should be killed. It's not a leap, it's something the books actually say. And it's something that many Muslims today are currently living by.

And the vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus etc. do not go around trying to kill people who do not follow their religion.