ThePyg's Waterfall
I used to say that I wished that John Lennon was still alive so that I can shoot him myself.
Now, I don't hate John Lennon, but in all honesty... who cares? This is why I love talking shit about the man, because his fans are a bunch of faggots. Cee Lo Green replaces hippie lyrics with equally hippie lyrics and all of a sudden he's a monster!
John Lennon said the shit he said most of his remaining years because The Beatles all took a shit load of acid. Most hippies did. Acid makes everything way different, and until you take that shit for years in heavy doses, stop thinking that YOU would know what John Lennon would have wanted, or that he's even an inspiration to you.
And anything he said that wasn't acid inspired was just Marxist inspired, so give the credit to Marx, not Lennon. (lulz)
True, I feel, however, that just because one pretends to believe in something for the sake of survival doesn't mean our actual beliefs have changed.
In the USSR, it was prohibited to worship Christ, but people did it anyway. There were underground churches.
Agnosticism is more of a philosophy than a belief system, in my experience.
If I really got into the nitty gritty, it's logical to be Agnostic because Agnostics comply with Quantum Mechanics (nothing can be certain).
But do I believe in God, spirits or the afterlife? No. So I am an Atheist.
In reality, that makes perfect sense (funny, that satire is less ridiculous than the actual situation). I didn't watch the video because it wouldn't load, but I read the caption. There should be less restrictions on vices that big daddy government hates so much.
Although, less restrictions on drug use has actually shown to decrease drug use (Portugal). That is with treatment replacing punishment, HOWEVER, the treatment isn't necessary. People just shoot up heroin in the streets... yet, there is less drug addiction after decriminalizing drugs.
so wait, this is a terrible idea. More people would live as a result of the War on Drugs ending 8o
I do apologize, Secular Humanism is a philosophy/religion, Secular Progressives are just usually Secular Humanists.
But yeah, those who think that bigger government is actually necessary and also happen to believe that religion should be completely out of government.
I love how much you pissed off Gary and then, in the end, he told someone "i'm not angry". lol, the tool.
And then Xaeon says "I haven't chosen a side" but, for some reason, is against Israel. If you are against someone, you have chosen a side.
I, on the other hand, have not chosen a side, so I believe that America shall help neither Israel nor Palestine. It is THEIR fight, not ours.
Terrorists use violence. We can't just take it up the ass and hope to develop a fool-proof strategy that will make everyone convert without having to raise a gun.
In the real world, we are going to have to kill some people. I am against war and believe we could have done way better with special ops, but unfortunately, we're at war and people have to deal with it.
But "non-violence" is fuckin' retarded at this point. Bring our troops home and send in spec ops, but that will still require some violence.
The only reasonable argument is that, yes, America fucked up in the past when it was trying to be all moral authority and shit, and helping establish the state of Israel. But that is, in no way, a good argument for what we need to do RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW about terrorism.
fuckin' morons.
I find myself reaching more for the insults lately. Probably because I'm losing faith in some debators.
I'm sure that the Secular Humanists are already on their way to trying to spread their ideals unto others (including Atheism). This is why they want a secular government to control education. This is why they want a secular government to control everything (and are opposed to privatization). The belief behind Secular Humanism is that:
1. Government must have power over the evil men (because evil, for some reason, still exists)
2. Government must be "secular" (aka, atheist).
This, of course, means that atheism must be the standard.
But do not worry, my friends. There is another branch of Atheism that is growing. It is quite different from Secular Humanists. They are still secular, but believe that most things should be left to the people. If you believe in shit like Jesus, you will have so many opportunities to continue that belief without fear of breaking some law or code.
Classical Liberals, Libertarians, Individualists and Objectivists are concerned with Post-Theistic ideals (no longer worrying about the fact that Theism exist).
I did not make a leap of faith in order to deny a belief in a deity.
When others tell me that God exists, I merely decide that unless they have compelling arguments, I'm not going to believe in such a thing. That is not faith... that is basic reasoning.
I will say, however, that the interest of whether we can actually conclude if God exists or not (and in what form) is solved through Philosophy. And while there are many philosophical arguments out there, you will never be able to truly understand your faith or reasoning unless you argue from your own mind (and not just quote Epicurus or Aristotle).
For your first point, I wasn't trying to say that Democrats of the past are the exact same thing as Democrats of the present. Not only would that be inaccurate, but it's also impossible. As the world changes, policy changes. What I was pointing out is that Classical Liberalism wasn't a platform for either Republicans or Democrats. Republicans of the past would tend to get the favor of business since Republicans passed legislation in favor of individual responsibility as opposed to favoring unions (made up of white people). Now, Republicans weren't fully classical liberal (as they aren't these days either) because of their support of tariffs. They made the mistake in favoring a sort of corporatism instead of Capitalism. But, this is how Capitalism died (in the name of Capitalism, ironically).
As for civil rights, you're talking about how voters shifted their party support. What I'm talking about is the legislative position, which civil rights was not a Democratic policy.
I see a lot of mention of Classical Liberalism, and I think it's important to point out that the ideals of Classical Liberalism were not Democratic. They were an ideology. Just how Republicans, today, do not support Classical Liberalism.
Lincoln and the Republicans had trouble with unions (unions hating Republicans? no way!!!) because of their belief that business should be allowed to hire immigrants and blacks who were willing to work for much less. Now, if one's argument is that immigration policy among Republicans has changed, I would agree, but unfortunately for the folks on the other side, they decided to go about a different route :(
So anyway, why do Democrats all of a sudden support civil rights? Well, because of LBJ. That's about it. It wasn't a Democratic policy (especially since LBJ worked with Republicans to get civil rights legislation passed in the first place). But what did this result in? Blacks supporting Democrats. So what do Democrats do to maintain that support? Keep blacks dependent on government and the Democrats.
This is what is happening now. The Democrats actually managed to bring back slavery. Good work.
There is no such thing as actual justice. The fact is, the Israel vs. Palestine situation is a fucked up situation that should be handled by the parties involved. This means NOT the United States. We've done enough shit around the world, let's just stop giving free weapons to them.
I was really excited when I first heard about this. Ended up being in a long ass debate with two friends (who are liberals) on Facebook.
The whole point of the Libertarian Islands is to take away force. So forcing someone to live there is counter to the idea.
I think that if this project works out, overtime it will end up having a decent population. Of course, many people do not support something like this, but I believe that to be a natural selection. Those who support Libertarianism will make this place greatly efficient. If we have a bunch of Liberals (asking for entitlements) and Conservatives (questioning the morality) we'll end up having a big bureaucratic mess. At least since it will be privately owned that turds won't really be able to take away the liberties of the citizens.
I think a better thing to say would be that war has helped stopped imperial countries of certain ideologies from continuing their imperialism.
The Third Reich was a danger towards Europe and Hitler and the SS were monsters. While it's possible that we could have stopped the Third Reich in some other way, War seems to have worked.
As for Communist take over, we focused more on giving aid to countries that were threatened by Communism. The Vietnam and Korean War wasn't our war, exactly, it was theirs. American interest was to keep the Communist from getting strong, and i'm not too sure if the Cold War and this whole macho man thing vs. the commies was the right thing to do, but never-the-less, the USSR has fallen, but I would attribute that more to American competition with the Soviets. We had a better economy and they could not keep up.
As for slavery, the Civil War did not really end slavery. In fact, the war started because of Federal failures to keep up with the Great Compromise. Slavery eventually dissolved after the war, and it is somewhat the attributed to the victory of the North, but the cost in lives may not have been worth it. After all, it wasn't victory that ended slavery, it was legislation.
War, to me, is not always necessary, but thinking up alternatives isn't always that easy. What we should do, instead of being a bunch of assholes who point the finger, is look to past and see what we could have done better and apply that to the future.
The science is nice and all, and the fact that Yahoo (not known for its bias :3) published it is nice and all, but all of this is just speculation.
It doesn't disprove global warming, it just shows that we do not know everything about global warming.
There are three sides to this debate (even though I have still not seen an organized debate on the matter...):
1. Believers - People who believe that global warming is a major issue and is man-made and could possibly be stopped by man if we enact enough legislation (that happens to serve certain corporate interests, and harm others)
2. Non-believers - People who believe that there is no global warming or believe that climate change is an inevitable force that has been occurring for millions of years. They support the other lobby, which is against legislation that could hurt some corporate interests but help others.
3. The skeptics - People who, after looking at the science that has been presented, have concluded that there is no conclusion. Global Warming MAY be happening at an alarming rate, and it MAY be mostly man's fault, but there has not been enough hard evidence to show that legislation will cure this man-made catastrophe or if it truly is man-made. There is possible corporate interests since skeptics, at this time, are against legislation, but the problem skeptics, as opposed to non-believers, is that they can be convinced by presentation of hard evidence (as opposed to mainstream, juicy evidence that says "carbon dioxide, in the air, causes a greenhouse effect and then the earth gets hotter and then florida drowns in 20 years"... you know, that stuff they've been telling us since we were 10 years old.
The thing about art is that every once in a while you will get a result of a true artist. Tattoos, while awesome, have become something too common and cliche. I don't mind them on someone, and they still look pretty cool. Don't get me wrong, if you have a tattoo that is similar to most other tattoos, I'll still probably like them (as long as they're not gay, like a favorite quote or something, you fuckin' hipsters).
But in order for me to see something as true art, it has to break boundaries. It has to make people go "holy shit, that's amazing". And a tattoo of a bunch of flowers or w/e, while very well done and pretty, aren't going to do that. Like I said, I like to see tattoos (don't have any myself, but that's because I don't want to spend 80 bucks to look like everyone else; if I was offered a really cool one for free, or paid to advertise something, I'd consider it). But most of the tattoos you see these days aren't special or amazing.
But I like these tattoos. They look like neato abstract paintings instead of just a mess.
People who don't get it simply... don't get it.
Marriage is about being with someone who you love and share many common interests with. It's NOT about sex. Sex is a physical act that feels really good and is really fun. Sure, with someone you love can make it special, but that doesn't mean that you'd have to just have sex with that person forever. If a couple chooses to fuck around, it's because they enjoy sex for the pleasure and not just for the love. Loving is sex is good and all, but that doesn't alter sex in general.
But like I said, those who don't get it just don't get it. And they probably never will. They've grown up with a certain mentality and it would be really hard to convince them that there are people out there who are just as happy or even happier doing things completely different them.
This study is a bit confusing towards me. They say that a happy, smiling man is found least sexually attractive... and then goes on to say that a woman wants a man who is successful. well, a happy, smiling man would mean that he's currently successful and proud of his life, correct? If you are brooding, you are not successful.
Now, I feel that there should be better ways to explain this study. I am not saying that a smiling man is not less attractive... I'm just saying that smiling man are happy because they are successful. Plus, this study is based on online photos, another problem since pictures are different from real life. In pictures, the scene/hipster look is far more popular just because that is the culture of the internet (refer to tumblr/facebook). Hell, even my current profile picture on Facebook is a hipsterish look. That's because I know that bitches love it. But chicks like a guy who is smiling IRL since it portrays confidence. Now, smiling the entire time is just creepy, and in profile pictures that's a freeze frame of a smile... which can be creepy. Plus, it's very generic to have a picture of yourself smiling..."say cheese". It's more trendy to show yourself with a very rigid, strong look saying "i don't give a fuck because i'm the shit". But if you don't smile the entire time IRL, you kind of look like a buzz-kill. Girls, in general (let's forget about scene chicks) want a guy who looks fun and confident. Sure, they want a guy who has a dark past, but that's an entirely different game.
Global Warming, to me, is more like a conspiracy theory than a religion. Now, I'm not saying that climate change doesn't happen; it's been happening since Earth was formed. There is record of it happening before industry has happened.
Global Warming becomes a conspiracy theory when people take some scientific fact, like how carbon emissions can have a greenhouse effect or how certain chemicals can damage the ozone layer, and decide to use that as a CONCLUSION that man is CAUSING global warming. Conspiracy theories do just that. They take some facts about something and then decide to make a conclusion off of those facts without actually directly connecting those facts to how exactly that conclusion could be possible. Conspiracy theories are pseudo-science. Religion is something different.
But yeah, I see what you're trying to say.
Some believe in the Big Bang... others believe it's just a theory...
As for physics... some believe in physics... others believe that it's all speculative. As well, physics itself describes the nature of only what is observable. We know that physics is most likely the answer because we found evidence of it. But if Newton never did his mathematics, scientists might still be behind and may NOT believe that physics describes any kind of the nature of the universe. But our support in physics only came from research and evidence.
The belief, if you can call it a belief, is in knowledge. Merely learning what we can. This is not a religion.
As for Buddhism, it's a collection of philosophies from some fat guy. He believed in some kinds of religious type qualities (like karma and darma, which have no evidence to support it), but even Buddha said, in describing his beliefs in either a deity or creator of the universe, is that "it is what it is". He did not claim that there really is an answer, but whatever it is, that's what it is. So it's not that much of a religion, just a philosophy.
I go by the FIRST one:
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
atheists do not believe in anything UNLESS significant evidence is presented. They do not have a belief for the cause, nature and purpose of the universe... if there is any cause or purpose, science will lead to that answer. if not, science will take us a different path.
