warri0r45

If religious people can do it, then non religious people can too. It's not something I'd ever advertise myself, but whatever floats your boat.

Try Demilich, specifically the Nespithe album.

Diminishing Between Worlds (album) by Decrepit Birth Sounds good.

I'd say that you're about right. Going by recent polls and now this endorsement, Obama will probably win. If he does get in, It'll be interesting to see what he can do with the economy and the country in general. Best of luck to him (or McCain, should the unlikely happen).

Nespithe (album) by Demilich. You can download this for free from their official site.

I'm listening to Consuming Impulse too. Sounds pretty good. :thumbup:

Haha, don't feel too bad about loosing to Bangladesh, I still remember when Aus did that. It was arround the time that Jason Gillespie got 200 against them in a test match, if I remember correctly. Good thing we beat them convincingly in the recent commonwealth bank series in Darwin.

Do Catholics use medicine? Determining when someone lives or dies is exactly what you do when you take antibiotics/cancer treatments, etc.

Couldn't disagree more. :P An incredible album, front to back. Ghost of Perdition is probably one of my favourite songs of theirs. Anyway, currently listening to Unquestionable Presence by Atheist.

Who's Australia playing for the test series in Aus this year? I'll definitely be watching that. I don't have the ability to watch the current test series in India, so I'm looking forward to the one in Aus.

They're not Darwin's theories any more, Saruman. People have worked on them since the 1800's. The idea that the validity of evolution lies on the shoulders of Darwin is ludicrous, and a popular method of "invalidating" evolution for creationists. Gregor Mendel was a key figure in establishsing the science of Genetics, but there's been way more study into it than just breeding peas. Added, we don't call genetics crap if we think he was nuts. That's really irrelevant if his ideas have been supported by scientific studies thousands of times over.

Symbolic by Death (album).

No objective reason, you're right. People can make up their subjective reasons for hanging around and seeing life as worthwhile. I think it's more empowering and meaningful than it just being the will of god because he said so. When it's personal, it's true to who you are.

Harsher criminalization of child pornography will not remove the demand for it. Even if, hypothetically, all internet-based child porn is successfully removed, the audience will simply shift to another medium. The same would happen if the government was to block all internet-based "normal" porn. More importantly, such harsh criminalization will simply push the industry further "underground." This is counter-productive if our ultimate goal is to reduce the occurrence of child sexual assault. "See no evil" does not translate to it not happening. Adult-child sex will occur with or without the demand for it to be videotaped, and for the sake of identifying and helping the victims, a distributed recording (photo/video) is far more useful than no recording at all. A related question arises: Is there any benefit in criminalizing illustrations of child porn, such as drawings and 3D renders? First, it's important to get our wording right. We're not talking about criminilization with this plan (it's already a criminal offence to make/distribute child porn) - we're just talking about internet content blockers. Having said that, I think you make a good point. Ok, perhaps saying the industry dies was a bit much, but I doubt the whole industry would simply move to another medium if all child porn was successfully blocked, either. I'm sure some of the activity would die off, but when we're only talking about Australia it's really just pissing into the wind, to be honest. The best point you made, though, is with the consequences of pushing it underground. Obviously having a clear indication of who these people are and what they're doing is the best bet we have to stop them doing this. As I said before, this kind of measure isn't going to be as good as international collaboration to seek out and bring down this industry. The final question is an interesting one. As Collective brought up, legalising porn has been linked with a drop in rape rates, possibly due to people getting their "fix" before having to go out and do it for real. The same could be true (however disgusting it may seem) for fake child porn; there are people out these with these weird fetishes, and if we can help them get their "fix" before doing it for real, then that could only be a good thing to me.

worst of all is that you have to opt-out, aka it's automatically put up -.- And what's the big deal there? All you have to do is make a phone call to say "I opt-out of the additional material blocker". In Aus, to call up any Gov department, it takes a few hours to get on the line with a person -.- Is that in your own experience or do you know that for a fact? I doubt it would be that hard to set up a department to take calls for something. I've never had to ring up a government department for anything, but I seriously doubt it would take any more than a few minutes on the average day. Sorry, I can't say I'm at all worried at the prospect of ringing up the government to opt-out of something. Strategically, an opt-out is just better for some things.

worst of all is that you have to opt-out, aka it's automatically put up -.- And what's the big deal there? All you have to do is make a phone call to say "I opt-out of the additional material blocker". The is no true "opt out", only a porn enabled filter, and a porn blocked filter. You are being forced, you have no choice of using this filter or not. Ah, lets hope that the senate is not a bunch of old computer illiterates that don't understand the importance of the internet. ;) Sure, but what about your internet speed? Demon, you opt-out of the additional material filter. How is this hard to understand? If you want to argue why you don't like the blocking of illegal material then by all means do so, but don't try to mix words and tell me there's no opt-out involved in the additional material filter. As for your second point, read what you quoted again. On the final point, of course the speed issue is a worry. I suppose the question is whether internet speed should be sacrificed for the sake up getting rid of kiddie porn. Having posed that question, there's probably a much better way of doing that. I'm thinking serious international action to track down and prosecute rather than just blocking websites.

Sure, but whats to stop them from blocking those aswell? Porn is being blocked to protect children apparently. -being forced to use it -it's what the government deems to be illegal -our access to the internet being limited by the government. -(minor) slightly slower internet speed. -this is one step closer to "big brother". The point I was making is that they won't block opinionated sites, political sites or porn sites in the compulsory option - they can only block those in the "additional material" blocker, which under this system you can freely opt out from. I don't buy the argument that you're being "forced" to use the additional material blocker just because it's opt-out. Absolutely no one is forcing you to stay opted in with this system, so you'll be free to view as much political crap and porno you like. As for the blocker of illegal material (compulsory under this plan), yes, ultimately this blocks what the government deems illegal, which I may not always agree with. Having said that, I'm waiting to see what exactly they propose to block under this plan before getting outraged about it. Added, passing laws is a bit more of a process than "the government says so, and it is". Obviously it has to go through the senate, and by observing the course of political proposals over the years, that's never straightforward. As I said before, if it comes down to me being limited kiddy porn I won't mind at all, because that kind of thing is rightly illegal and shouldn't be tolerated.

Opinionated and political sites aren't illegal, and neither is porn in this country as far as I'm aware. What exactly is the problem here? That you don't want to be bothered opting out of the first option to get to the latter?

I have to add that some people so far have really overreacted, and comparing this case to what the Chinese do is pretty laughable.

I'd have to know what "illegal content" is before really giving an informed opinion, but I have a feeling that it's probably kiddy porn. In that case, it's fine by me. That stuff needs to be blocked so that there can't be an audience for it. If there's no audience, then there are no people buying it and the industry dies. As a general principle I hate governments who think they can treat people like children and make decisions to censor internet material for them (which is why I like that the opt-out for "additional material" is actually optional), but as with anything the devil is in the detail. I'm quite capable of figuring out what I do or don't want to see on the internet, and if parents are worried about what their kids see, then they can pay attention to what they're doing or get a filter themselves. As a matter of fact, the Australian government already offers them for free. They also have a link there where you can notify them of illegal content.

That sounds pretty interesting, Intriguing. I'm going to have a look in a sec and check it out. Right now I'm listening to one of the albums I picked up today - The End Complete by Obituary. Some great oldschool death metal. Their mid-tempo "breakdowns" are seriously incredible.

Winds of Creation by Decapitated The End Complete by Obituary Symbolic by Death Picked them all up today. :D

Winds of Creation by Decapitated (album). Hell yes, I picked myself up a copy and the recording quality makes it sound incredibly ballsy.

As corny as it sounds, life is what you make it. We've all got things that mean something to us in our lives. Family, friends, great memories and fun times, achievements, etc. These are the things I and many others strive for. These are the reason I have to keep on living (well, and my biological predisposition to, of course). So despite the fact we may never find what "the" point is (if there is one) we can all have our own points - our own justifications - to keep on living.

Its a text called "Issues of Faith and Morals". After reading what you said, which I partly understood, it kind of made me worry about the book, because it presents the idea of Hoyle's number as such a strong case against atheists and their belief in no God, when really, its a huge miscalculation. My instructor found it interesting that his work would be invalid, since he was a "very careful and decorated scientist" and some of his works were awarded the Noble prize. He thinks there must have been something missing or that we don't know about if he made such an obvious error. Well there's the problem. You don't get information on science from religious books, especially ones called "Issues of faith and morals". Abiogenesis has nothing to do with faith or morals.