meol

Deep down, I think it boils down to atomic interactions and chemical reactions in the brain, all emotions, memories and feelings. It is mechanical and purposeless, at the bottom. But understanding that it might boil down to that shouldn't make you stop thinking it can have beauty when you put all together. As Dennett would put it: Yes, we have a "soul", it's just mechanical. But it does all the things a soul is supposed to do. I'm no philosopher, but I'd put logic separately. It seems to me logic is already a part of the universe, and we humans merely incorporated it to our system, just as we do with physical laws. But, at the end of the day, even if atheism made every life purposeless, and emotions inane, I'm afraid reality doesn't really care whether you like that or not, now does it?

Is Kirite burning up? by Yasunoria Mitsuda.

:unsure: Right. Moving on from the "1=0" argument. I'll try to explain why I am an atheist, on the spirit of the OP. I started to reject my religion when I realised there was no strict difference between what I believed and what the Hindus/ancient Greeks/Pastafarians believe, even though I quickly eschewed their religion as mythology and superstition. Then, there's the concept of religions as natural phenomena (huge memes, more or less), which honestly makes more sense to me than the plethora of contradicting religions and their divine revelations. It also explains why there are such massive cop-outs like "mysteries of the faith". Then there are a lot of inconsistencies in the concept of a soul, and I know of no religion that doesn't have the concept of a soul in some way of another. A lot of Then, it's easy to see that religion is not necessary for moral, and that religion is often a tool for evil, even today -would there be anti-homosexuality bills/laws in Uganda and Iran without pious Christians and Shiites? Of course, saying religion is inherently evil is a very hurried assumption, but it certainly doesn't make for more moral societies either.

You what?! I am out of here. :(

You can't deny that when guns legally purchased in the US help feed drug violence in Mexico, maybe allowing someone that was rejected from the army and whose mental health was questioned by a college to buy a semi-automatic with extended cartridges is a little ridiculous. Less legal guns also mean less illegal guns; smuggling will be there, but trafficking is harder than buying legally. And it makes sense that not everyone that has ever used a gun aggressively would have done it if they had to go into the black market to get it.

As with drugs, banning them completely isn't the answer. But maybe you shouldn't be able to buy extended cartridges from Walmart. (yes, that was an exaggeration)

Ugh. The 1928 law on firearms relaxed gun restrictions put in place after the Treaty of Versailles. "Within a decade, Germany had gone from a brutal firearms seizure policy which, in times of unrest, entailed selective yet immediate execution for mere possession of a firearm, to a modern, comprehensive gun control law." In order to comply to the demands of the winners of WWI, the Weimar Government had to reduce the number of guns going around, even with civilians. Gun Control did not put Hitler in power. The Nazi law of 1938 actually had as goal "to ease the defence of the German people" (german), and it made it easier for (non-jews/blacks, etc.) to get guns. But as you said, it was probably too late by then for the armed saviours to come. Hitler won the elections democratically, and he got his powers following the constitution (yes, constitutions can be imperfect!). If the terrible Gun Control laws were all that stopped the Communists from saving the day, maybe they wouldn't have attempted a coup against a legitimate leader, either. But you know very well that both Nazis and Communists already had weapons.

It might not look pretty as a reference for a paper, but should still help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYia02Dk8Nc (7 minutes in)

As I said in the last thread, there is something big you are missing, Zierro. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, that's true, but causation always implies correlation. Right now, it seems you are just using the phrase "correlation != causation" as a way to avoid the fact that statistics might be disproving your claims. If it was true that Death Penalty was a deterrent then you would necessarily have to see an inverse correlation between executions and crimes/violent crimes. If there is no such correlation, or if it happens just in few isolated cases, then you can safely say that the causation (death penalty causes less crime) is invalid. And that seems to be the case.

I am afraid you will need to use a better level of English in the forums if you want people to understand what you are saying. Locking this to avoid more spam. Send me a message if you have any questions.

And yet... your actions betray you. If you truely believed what you say, then I can not imagine you actually caring enough about the question to answer it. That's the problem with Nihilism. It's so, so easy to say the words, but nobody ever actually behaves as though they believe the words coming out of their mouths. That is the real test of an ideal: will people actually act as though it were true? [hide=My immediate thought:] [/hide] Not believing in a soul doesn't mean I can't feel curious about the nature of things, or passionate about other humans and our condition. Besides, even if people "would never act as though it were true" does not make the idea false by itself.

As an example, Imageshack doesn't delete images as long as they are seen at least once a year, or at all if you are registered. You should be fine using a large host.

Yeah, I think you had mentioned it before. I guess it might take a couple of nice experiences for you to "heal" in that sense. Good luck. :thumbup: As for me, I can't wait to go back to Uni. There's this cute guy that's been catching my attention, and he might be interested. Or it might just be wishful thinking. Anyway I need to find out.

9/10

I haven't had to buy a single textbook for more than a year using the Uni library and the State library, and if I needed to, I still could use the City library for 15 a year or so. :unsure:

And this is why I keep saying homosexuals shoot themselves in the foot. Working for any organization, except maybe for a brothel, being homosexual has nothing to do with the work criteria. Claiming to be gay in such an event seems unnecessary and, really, self-inflicting damage. http://vimeo.com/15860116 - Dan Choi tells about him and "Martha". It's about not having to lie, not having to worry thinking that you can get discharged for a slip up, and the fact that the policy was inherently discriminatory.

Finished A Clockwork Orange (by Anthony Burgess) a while ago, and enjoyed it a lot. It's nice to read a dystopian novel focusing on the characters for a change. And now for something completely different, I read How to See Yourself As You Really Are by Tenzin Gyatso. Let's see how this goes.

"Use misleading quotes, everything from Tea Party" I petition all parents of the world to kick their pale-skinned teenaged sons and or daughters out of their basements, and force them to get a real job. The quickest way to stamp out this nonsense is to make them get a real job. "Misleading tags"*. You see, it's funny because you were the one that used a misleading quote. And considering the documents are already out, I really can't see how encouraging people to get informed or raising awareness is nonsense by pale-skinned teenagers that deserve to get kicked by their parents. Care to explain that?

Exactly! There comes a point where government decides that the a morality must be instituted for the good of society and thus the collective rights of society supersede those of the individual. The issue here is that opponents of homosexual marriage feel that the morality must be instituted for the good of society. The pro- gay marriage do not. That's as simple as it is. Proponents of gay marriage do not see it as wrong, but think the morality shouldn't be instituted for the rest of society. They think that giving gays that degree of freedom is actually morally right, and feel that morality should be instituted - rights are only infringed if the prohibition stands. Assuming you actually aren't a noncognitivist.

It does atheism no favour if you misrepresent Christian or Catholic beliefs like that. Catholics are different from some Protestant sects since they don't think the Bible or the new testament is the only source of knowledge necessary for salvation. That's how they reconcile outdated laws they don't follow with some other laws, be it out of tradition or enlightenment. That's how the Pope can issue moral commands, and why holy tradition is important for them. Not that I agree with that at all, by all means point out the flaws in their logic. Just don't oversimplify their position, and maybe they'll be so kind and reciprocate in the future.

Hope thats a good O.O and not a bad one :/ It's a good one alright. ... I think. (He knows it's a good "O.O!" he's just being modest) And i knew it was a good "O.O!". I just was being subtle.

Hope thats a good O.O and not a bad one :/ It's a good one alright. ... I think.

There's no such thing as too much Carl Sagan.

It depends on a couple of factors, like how much they are left on and what's the price for kWh with your provider. Then, if you really were changing 60W bulbs for 60W bulbs, you wouldn't be saving any money. Most probably they are "equivalent" to 60W, you'd need to know what their actual power is. [Edit] Nick beat me to it.

First, I have an honest question. You say they need to know it's wrong for it to be a sin. So it's okay if it's not clear for them why it could harm somebody or otherwise be evil? "They condemn themselves" sounds a lot like shifting the blame. But you are explaining it from your point of view -you are assuming we already know Christianity is right. To an outsider, it looks very differently: "We have decided this behaviour is immoral because it goes against our ethics. Now, let's see, what would an all-loving God give as a punishment for this? What would they deserve? Eternal damnation." Am I explaining myself? And when I meant "without chance of redemption", I meant after death. Even after an eternity of suffering, God doesn't pardon offenders or lets them go on parole, as far as I understand your doctrine. There seems to be more mercy on the American justice system -there are even chances of rehabilitation!. I hate to bring these topics back up, and maybe I'll sound like a broken record, so please forgive. But slavery and the the Inquisition, do they go in the first group of things that won't ever, ever change, no matter what, or were the stances changed "to keep teaching relevant", just because Emancipation hadn't been an issue in the 1700's, or Freedom of Speech in the Middle Ages? The point is, either your morals are eternal, or they are not.