OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[Boron]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Boron:
a source is poverty .
the islam is a 700-800 year younger religion than the catholic one .
so you could say history repeats sometimes.

Well, given the level of destructiveness of today's technology, this planet, and we humans, cannot afford to wait another 500-600 years until Muslims mellow out, become civilized, and abandon the path of the sword. A martyr-wannabe with a gene-tailored virus, who cares not who or how many die with him, is the most scary thing imaginable. And it's all too possible. Forget stolen nukes or home-grown ones. They can, at most, kill a few million. Some psychopath, funded by Saudi oil money, with the help of any of the many ex-Soviet unemployed bioweapons scientists, could end all human life. And unlike nukes, there's no technology that can be invented to detect such a thing at a port/airport. Hell, they could release the doomsday bug in their own country and let their own people, totally unknowing civilians, spread it around the world.

Cheery thought, eh?

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very scary "visions" .
i carry them on how they could be too :
lets assume terrorists spread a very virulent disease as you described .
if it breaks out quite quick then perhaps the leaders of the countries of the world like bush , putin and so on will hide in sterile bunkers and nuke whole afrika , middle east and other "terrorist" countries .
perhaps a few of the leaders in the bunkers though survive because they didn't get infected yet or find a remedy .
but earth will be unlivable anyways for the next some thousand years because of the nukes .

a very scary variation too i think

[Boron]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Boron,


If you eliminate greed, vengeance, and true poverty, then you remove the excuses used for religious intolerance. But you have to get rid of all three. Curing poverty is not enough. Though it would take care of 99% of the problem, probably making the rest manageable.

EDIT: typo

yeah i had that in mind too . i think we need to add discrimination and grudge and fear .

it is a vicious circle :

poverty and discrimination of whole social classes / whole nations result first in 2 things . the lower class is jealous on the upper class and begins to hate them . the upper class begins to fear the lower class .
soon it escalates and they start to violate each other . if that point has been reached and continued for some years it is hard to ever stop it .
each group claims to only take vengeance for what the others started .

unfortunately i think it can't be overcome because the human nature at least of the great majority is egoistic and greedy .
some are quite moderate some not ( these become often the richest capitalists ) ,but the tendency to greedy and egoistic behaviour is in every human .

it seems though that men have this behaviour in a more dangerous / stronger form than women averagely . at least less women are willing to go to the next step to satisfy their greed and start wars .

if human nature wouldn't be egoistic the pure / idealistic communism marx and engels had in mind would work and most likely be the best type of government . but so far history has proven that human nature isn't ripe for communism or any similiar form of government where the aim is to provide everybody the best possible life .

perhaps it changes once we have a common enemy : aliens .
but i doubt if that is a preferable solution

[daesthai]

Wow! Go to bed for a few hours and look at the firestorm that ensues!

I didn't mean to spark a debate of the correctness or validity of Catholicism, I merely pointed out that I thought it was silly of Kerry to say he was Catholic in a seeming attempt to garner the Catholic vote when he also states that he does not share some of the basic beliefs/values of Catholicism.

I'm not skilled enough in apologetics to try to tackle all of the questions/issues presented in this thread, but I can clarify a couple of issues where I feel something is incorrect...

Cheezeninja & Boron - I appreciate your views. Everyone knows religion is a hot-button topic, and the Posts here show how vehementaly people feel.

Cheezeninja - In the end it just gets right down to the bones of the abortion issue wherein Anti-Abortion people think you are killing a baby and should be stopped, and Pro-Choice people think you are destroying a zygote with the genetic complexity of a snail and feel the Anti-Abortion people are attempting to take away one of their rights.

I agree with your point here that it comes down to how certain information is viewed - is it a baby or is it a zygote? Is Kerry refraining from forcing his beliefs, or is he a hypocrit? It comes down to point of view. Because of this, I think its very rare that someone will change their position on the subject just because someone else talks with or tries to persuade them. The decision and veiwpoint come about because of experiences and values, not because of words and explinations.

Cheezeninja - Not being a catholic myself i dont know if divinity is attributed to the pope or not, so that entire argument might be moot.

The point is, indeed, moot. Not because the pope is given a divine status, but because, in matters of church doctrine, he is considered infallable. Regardless of whether someone ELSE agrees with that or not, it is the teaching of the Catholic church.

Cheezeninja - Catholisism was around way before abortion and already had all of its beliefs and rules defined and categorized. With the advent of abortion they had to go to a non-divine, humanly selected person to make the call (the pope), and its entirely possible he made the wrong call

I understand your point here, but as you also stated later in your post, "In the end it just gets right down to the bones of the abortion issue wherein Anti-Abortion people think you are killing a baby and should be stopped". If that is the case, and in the Catholic view it is, then that is murder. Which was addressed directly in the Ten Commandments.

Boron - so even the catholic church recognizes severe mistakes and corrects them even if only slowly . so if they change it themselfes it is good or what..and it is the best proof that the catholic church + the pope aren't inerrant as they always claim .
ihmo the catholic church is just hypocritical.

If you notice my statement earlier in this post, the Pope is considered infallable in maters of doctrine. Even the Pope is not granted authority to change doctrine - only to interperet it. Practices can be altered (as in Vatican II), Liturgy can be changed, but the doctrine and beliefs are consistant.

Boron - furthermore there is nothing in the bible that justifes the catholic worship of saints .
one of the 10 commandmends says you should have no other gods beside me .
but in the catholic church the worship for especially maria is more important than for jesus .

This statement is frequently made, and is just as frequently incorrect. Saints are by no means placed on a godly level, nor are they worshiped. They are elevated as role-models and examples of faithfulness. There is nothing wrong with asking others to pray with and for us, and that is what Catholics ask of the Saints - to pray for them. Their lives are used as examples of how to live a Catholic life and how to act/react in given situation. They are not given their own divinty, nor are they given the authority or powers of God. The same is true about Mary. Your statement that she has become more important than Jesus is an exaggeration to say the least. Just as the Saints have an elevated status, so does Mary. Even the scripture refers to her as "Blessed above all women". Does she hold a revered status? yes! Is she given the power and authority of God, himself? absolutely not.

Boron - the claiming of the catholic church that it is the one and only true belief is just offending to me

You are misinterpreting my quote. Whether or not the Catholic church believes it is the only faith is a matter of debate. But the quote "I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church" does not negate other beliefs. The quote (which interestingly enough appears in both the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds - both of which are part of the Lutheran liturgy as well) is making a statement about how the church defines and recognizes itself. Note that "catholic" is not capitalized here (I think in a previous post, out of habit, I capitalized it, which is incorrect.) This refers not to catholic as in the believe system, but rather the word "catholic" as it is derived from the greek word meaning universal. It basically states that only one catholic (universal) church is recognized, and it is granted its holiness and sanctity in the fact that the leadership is decended through the unbroken and successive line of the apostles, and thus retains its original beliefs(doctrine-wise). In effect, in terms of Christian faiths, the Catholic church views itself as the church, and all other Christian belief systems as sects, since they historically broke off from the Catholic church and branched off from there.

Boron - the main problem with the catholic church i have is that they are the most "aggressive" big world religion

Could you please clarify what you mean here by aggressive? If you mean that the Catholic church is very vocal in it's opinions and is trying to constantly increase its influence, that's one thing - I would have to say you have a valid point. But if you're equating aggressiveness to violence and forcing itself on someone, I would have to disagree, and I think most of the news coming from the middle east would support me.

[ July 28, 2004, 20:53: Message edited by: daesthai ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I wasn't aware that the proper way to judge whether something was good was to ignore every single instance where that thing fails.

I'm the one ignoring every instance where it fails? You seem to be doing that yourself. Every person who leaves the country to seek treatment represents a failure of the health care system. Yet you'd ignore this when claiming your system is better.

I won't deny that some people do this. I will still ask to see that the number of people who do this is statistically significant.

That depends on how you define statistically significant. After all, people who are rich is a small slice of the population already, and smaller still is the population of rich people who are sufficiently sick to do this. They also don't exactly fill out a form indicating they're doing it.

But so what really? When it comes down to it you pay less than if you weren't paying for everyone else's problems, and all of society benefits as a whole.

Err....if I wasn't paying for everyone else's problems, I'd pay less for healthcare. Far less for healthcare. Like, say, zilch. Because I'm not sick. I get to keep my money. Funny how that works. And I see no evidence to suggest that society benefits as a whole: These people are not contagious, and what they have isn't going to affect me, or anyone else. I fully support the idea that a publicly-funded program against infectious diseases is a good one. I don't believe that publicly-funded healthcare in general is, as there are an awful lot of really frivolous treatments that get funded at your expense.

Yes, because people don't bother to work hard when that means that they will make more money.

They wouldn't have to try as hard. After all, they don't have to worry about saving money for if they get sick. They can just be totally useless slackers and expect somebody else to pay for them. I'm not saying everyone does this, but it's obvious that the people who end up becoming sick as a result, and couldn't have afforded to pay, are.

I suppose that you also support the privatization of police forces, since only people that require them should have to pay for them.

Not at all: The police arguably provide a public service that is beneficial to all. Everyone benefits from them, mostly, unless you happen to be a criminal. I say "arguably", because many times, it's not really clear that they're actually providing this effectively, as they're overburdened with meaningless, frivolous things. However, the theory remains sound, even if present implementation is lacking in many areas. This doesn't mean I don't think people shouldn't take care of themselves, though. We have the second amendment for a reason, insofar as certain politicians keep trying to hamstring it, something which is apparently sadly lacking in Canada and leaves you at the mercy of killers, rapists, robbers, and other hoodlums.

Yep. The standard "people who fail are always lazy" fallacy of false causes.

Oh, not at all. I don't believe people who fail are always lazy. Everyone has their own cause for failure, which can be summarized as consisting of some combination of apathy, incompetence, stupidity, and laziness. If you bothered to apply yourself and didn't just give up and whine when the going got though, you would succeed, or die trying. Either way, you have dealt with your personal problems personally, the way it should be.

[ July 28, 2004, 18:23: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Arryn]

Norfy, I'm surprised you haven't made the Darwinian argument against the social safety net of universal healthcare: the weak, the lazy, and the inept die off, preferably before they breed, and the gene pool gets cleansed. Or were you working up to this?

[Skolem]

Originally posted by Arryn:
[qb] just look at bin laden . but the muslim faith is in general more tolerant bin laden is only a sect which isn't even tolerated by the muslim leaders while the catholic church seems to me much more fanatic and they tolerate , even support extreme and almost violent catholic sects .Can you name an "extreme" Catholic sect that exists *today*? (And cite examples of what makes them "extreme" and "almost violent".)

I can G.W. B. and his follower!!!!!!!!!

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Skolem:
I can G.W. B. and his follower!!!!!!!!!

Wrong. Bush isn't Catholic, though he is pretty extreme.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I'm the one ignoring every instance where it fails? You seem to be doing that yourself. Every person who leaves the country to seek treatment represents a failure of the health care system. Yet you'd ignore this when claiming your system is better.

No, I'm not ignoring it. The aggregate health statistics of the population show that in general people are healthier in Canada. Nobody here has been able to show that these statistics are significantly altered by those wealthy people that might go to the U.S. for treatment.
There is no need to ignore large segments of the population to arrive at this. You, on the other hand, would like to simply ignore the part of your population that can't afford health care. That's called biased sampling, and you can be used to get such useless results as showing that there are no people living below the poverty line by refusing to count people that live below the poverty line.

That depends on how you define statistically significant.

Statistically significant means that the number of such cases is large enough that it has a noticeable effect on the health of the general population.

I don't believe that publicly-funded healthcare in general is, as there are an awful lot of really frivolous treatments that get funded at your expense.

Why don't you name some frivolous treatments then.

Not at all: The police arguably provide a public service that is beneficial to all. Everyone benefits from them, mostly, unless you happen to be a criminal.

And everyone benefits from a healthy population. A population with healthier people is a population that can be more productive.

We have the second amendment for a reason, insofar as certain politicians keep trying to hamstring it, something which is apparently sadly lacking in Canada and leaves you at the mercy of killers, rapists, robbers, and other hoodlums.

Oh good grief. Keep on spreading that FUD Norfleet. I know that you are incredibly paranoid, but the violent crime rate is lower in Canada than the U.S.

Oh, not at all. I don't believe people who fail are always lazy. Everyone has their own cause for failure, which can be summarized as consisting of some combination of apathy, incompetence, stupidity, and laziness.

You might want to avoid contradicting yourself when you write something.

[ July 28, 2004, 19:33: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]

[Stormbinder]

Wow. You are gone for less than a day, and there are 3 new full pages of flames on several none-related topics. Ok, here we go...

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
And you're a moron with all the logical skills of a rather stupid rock. An argument made without supporting evidence is one that can be ignored, as it contains no useful information.

LOL. Well said. It looks like I need to reclarify my collection of rocks into 2 new categories of smart and stupid. Sounds like facinating project. Do you think you can give me a hand with it Graeme?

[ July 28, 2004, 19:56: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I suppose that next you'll tell me that Zaire has a great health care system since the richest people there can afford to go to the U.S. for their treatment.

That assertion makes no sense, because obviously, Zaire does not have a great health care system if people there are leaving the country to seek their health care. Nobody goes *TO* Zaire to get treatment.

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You have missed the Graeme's point completely. He was saying that any healthcare system that gives most benefit only to the rich people is not a good one. The question what exactly they need to do to rip these benefits is irrelivent for the topic of this discussion.