Housepig

ANY "justice" system will be flawed because of one thing and one thing only: we can't erase the crime. It will always be there marked in history; cannot bring back the dead. And other thing is, human kind cannot be (as a whole) open, accepting, and loving. We're greedy, lets face it. For instance, capitalistic societies flourish much more than those that don't because of greed. It's a survival of the fittest but with rules, so to speak. Those rules come out of our good moraled minds to make it fair, but the rest, free for all. Again, the best quality of life was if people never did these things but that is not a realistic possibility. Like Zierro is saying, if we introduce harsher punishments (not necessarily capital punishment) it would lower crime. You, and everybody, must realize that actions have conquences, that every single thing we do is our responsibility. Driving drunk, you crash. Some say it's not their fault because they were drunk, but they still choose to drink away from home, which the only way to returning home is by car. People have to cross this line, dividing guility and innocent, and you can't "accidentally" cross this line. No way in hell you can. You, willingly, must cross it. Willingly you knew the damage it was going to cause. Willingly you went through without any regard to your fellow man. You willingly are making another human suffer. And by all logical means, the more damage you did the more punishment you would receive. Agreed, up untill the last sentence. The sentence, or "punishment", should depend on whether the perpetrator is a danger to society (rehabilitation), the amount of damage they caused (reperration), and the likelihood that failing to punish to punish the criminal would result on more crime (deterration). Basing punishment purely on damage caused is illogical. Essentialy you're arguing the case for reperration. Agreed, but there are more, and often more important, things to consider than the victims feelings. This isn't rational at all. Why should willingly harming people make the someone no longer a human being? We don't have to disown people to "punish" them properly. Yes, harsher punishments do lower cime, but that doesn not mean criminals should not be rehabilitated--otherwise they'll just commit more crime. As you said above, "peace and loving" may not be easily achievable, but the vast majority of people (well, around 90% now, thanks to western society) have the capacity to behave in a peaceful and loving way. There are no bad deeds, just bad consequences.

Actually, justice IS revenge. Rehabilitation wouldn't be justice, it would be help. If human kind had the big enough heart to forgive and help society's criminals we wouldn't need the judicial system. It would just be a system with doctors and psychologist who would help the minds of those guilty change. But human kind isn't like that and you're never going to change it. If Bob killed my sheep, I'm not gonna discuss with him what he could do better over lamb stew, but I'm going to go over to his farm and kill his sheep. Actualy, the vast majority of people have the capacity to be "pro-social", and humankind can be changed. Your picture of an ideal judiciary system is flawed anyway, because we would still need judges and so on even if the aim was rehabilitation, and prisons would still be necessary as part of rehabilitory process. Humankind may not be like that now, but people can be changed. The last part of your argument is frankly not an argument at all but a statement on human instinct. Just because we have revenge hard-wired into our being as an internal instinct, it doesn't mean revenge is desirable. Remember that instincts serve our genes' survival, not our happiness. And how exactly do you ethically justify that? The way I see it, no action is categorically right or wrong, and equilibrium has no value. It's all just means to an end (which is happiness). And that whole "nothing is bad or good"/"balance"/"Can good exist without evil?" things are all a bunch of crap. In a universal view, there is no law. There are no customs. It's a giant free-for-all. That much is true, take a look at the animal kingdom for instance. But if humans behaved like that, if humans went on to a survival of the fittest, we wouldn't be in the technological age of today. We needed safety first to come up with ideas and research them. If Bob wanted to take my meat, I had to protect it and guard it constantly. Other humans would take my food too or hoard up the animals so I can't hunt any. We don't have time to stop and think about new techology or ideas. We had to keep the house safe. Which is why we need some sort of "good action" view. When actuality, it's more of a mutual action. Keep to yourself, follow the golden rule and you don't have to donate to charity or work in volunteer to be "good". This provides the most happiness to all of us, where as survival of the fittest the majority of us would be dead or living in crappy conditions. So, you're saying that obeying the instinct of revenge and justice provides the best quality of life? There is no law, we do need a "golden rule" (or standard, but never mind the details); But revenge is an instinct--it is 'designed' for the survival of our genes, and whilst it may have helped humankind when we had fight to survive, that doesn't give it any value in modern society. We have outgrown instinct and should see it as something to be treated with deep suspicion and scrutiny.

I don't have the problem with the 'capital' part, but it's the 'punishment' that concerns me. Using the term 'punishment' implies that the system is based on 'justice' (i.e. petty revenge) and not on rehabilitation and reperation. In extreme cases (such as incurable sociopaths who cannot be safely contained in a detention centre and/or have a low quality of life), it's all for the greater good--as cliched and euthemesitc as that sounds. But one thing I can't stand is this notion of justice. Murderers do not deserve death because deserving anything is entirely arbitrary and meaningless anyway, and the system should be based on removing crime, not carrying out meaningless acts of retribution. I imagine capital punishment probably does serve as a deterrent, but that shouldn't be the point: if we focuss on deterring people, then we may have empty courts, but the minute the deterrent goes away, crime will shoot back up again. Deterring is a temporary solution; rehabilitation is permanent. If rehabilitation is impossible, disposal is necessary. And how exactly do you ethically justify that? The way I see it, no action is categorically right or wrong, and equilibrium has no value. It's all just means to an end (which is happiness).

True, but I think people on TIF are most familiar with Christianity seeing as I'm guessing the majority are from USA/Canada/UK, all of which are predominantly Christian countries. So it's just easier to base arguments on that particular view of God. And InsanityV2, someone somewhere will tell you that God is making each individual atom move lol :roll: That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. We need to differentiate between arguing about the supposed nature of the Christian religion and arguing about the existance of a God. I can accept the rationale behind believing in Deism, but not that behind the believe in an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient higher being dictating what we can and can't do, responding to prayer, and punishing or rewarding us for our actions--which is what Christianity teaches. That defies science, yet a convinving argument against a Deist God is much harder to produce.

I'm pretty sure they are. Death is one of the most fundamentally and universally understood occurances in the natural world... But non-sentient animals aren't actualy aware of death, just instinctively afraid of it.

Most religions don't believe you can actualy "see" God anyway--and before using that as an argument, remember that a fundamentalist could (and I think some of them actually do) say, "Show me an actual dinosuar, and then I'll believe evolution is real." If you're saying you need a picture, what if it were a hoax? If you mean you actualy want to see God...that's not going to happen; you have to use other evidence to support your beliefs.

The idea you're getting at is that essentialy, everything is opinion. Things which are percieved to be true by enough people are called 'facts' for convinience's sake. For example, it is the opinion of the vast majority of human beings that 2+2=4, but that doesn't make it true. Those who are skepticaly inclined like to describe those who belive in the paranoramal or the spiritual world as deluded, without realizing it implies some objective measure of truth--which does not and cannot exist. It's very confusing and totally impracticle for consideration in decision-making, but I think it's something we should all have at the back of our minds. To return to the question at hand, no, life does not have any worth. We are just a product of mathematics and have no purpose but that which we create for ourselves. With this worldview, I have come to the conclusion that the only universal desire for human beings is the desire to be happy--to be exposed to stimuli that produce internal chemical reactions we find enjoyable (I don't mean on a simple level but in terms of fulfillment, ectr.). So the rationale behind all action 'should' be something along the lines of "How will this effect the total happiness of all life?" But this doesn't mean happiness has any intrinsic value.

As much as I'd like to believe that - that's a crock of [cabbage]. For reasons I can't explain [because I'm horrible at explaining] - why everyone seems to think that, is a mystery to me. It's one of those "well known facts" that people repeat endlessly. Also, I've noticed that people seek to, either consciously or unconsciously, bring themselves "down" so that they can develop a complex. EDIT: Trying to make the [bleep] thumbs up work. I don't believe that either. I think they simply exploit a flaw in society, rather than actualy intending to make us ignorant. I suppose part of it them problem is society, but it's also that people naturaly prefer ignorance. Ignorance may be bliss, but so is a narcotic high. That's because people want to talk about something happy in their lives. Why would we want to completely immerse ourselves in information (or lack therof) which depresses us? I realise that we should really talk about things that affect ourselves, but the fact is that everyone's human and doesn't want to be chronically depressed. I wouldn't call that particular scandal 'happy'; I think it's deeper than that. People have little more interest in 'good' events than they do in 'bad' ones; it's not that people turn to trivia to escape depression, but that they are influenced to prefer it throughought their lives. It's a vicous circle really: the more the media idolize celebrity, the more ignorant people become; the more ignorant people are, the more the media breed ignorance by giving ingorant people what they want.

It's impossible not to notice how obsessed with celebrity our culture is. Tabloid newspapers are dominated by stories about the trivial lives of famous people, and complete ignorance of celebrity gossip is impossible without living in a monastery. And I think this is terrible. There may not seem anything wrong with this culture at first glance, but I think it is extremely damaging to society. Firstly, it breeds ignorance. The majority of people get more information about gossip than about politics or world events, making us an extremely vulnerable culture to any sort of crisis. Society could (and, to a certain extent, is) be collapsing around us, yet people wouldn't notice until it was too late; the government could gradually slide towards fascism, yet people wouldn't care, being too busy following the lives of celebrities and watching reality TV. Take the effect of Britain's Got Talent, for instance (apologies to those who haven't heard of this; I'm just using at as an example of the wider problem). The economy is at its worst (I don't know the details; correct me if I'm wrong) since the Great Depression, and the European elections are tomorrow , yet all people seem to want to talk about is Susan Boyle. It may not be intentional--most likely they are merely giving people what they want with no goal in mind but to make money--but it seems the media is effectively distracting us from the real world. Thoughts?

Just another chance for the media to snipe at the government; you have to consider these things without emotion. It's highly unlikely that a decision like this would have been made without sufficient reason, and while I sympathize with the emotional side of the affair, I don't see why a mother incapable of raising a child should be allowed to do so. Her argument that she has some kind of 'right' to do so holds no water--it's ridiculous how she makes out that the government are denying her her child out pure malice. The article happily ommited any details that may have allowed readers to come to an informed and rational judgement, prefering instead to try and provoke an emotional response.

I have a chemistry GCSE exam the week after next: 40 minutes of sorting out 'data' from 'explanations', ticking the box that relates to information about diabetes that people would need to know when deciding whether to eat fatty food (well, that was in the biology test), selecting pieces of information that provide an explanation of data about the London Congestion Charge, and a rigorous test on my ability to read labels. Revision for these tests is almost redundant; it's all about how much of a bureacrat you are. That and mindreading. Something is seriously wrong with education in this country.

The damage is taking their money You missed the point. If it's not deliberate deception for the purpose of damaging them it's not fraud. But in any case, I'll take um_bong's advice and take this definition with a huge grain of salt. Anyone who knows of a reliable source for French law relevant to the topic is welcome to take up where I left off. it's not deliberate deception, they just really wanted the money. Religions are the same everywhere, the only thing that makes Scientology different is it's young therefore: It doesn't know how to discretely take money. It is run by idiots. It makes even less sense than other religions. The difference between Scientology and other religions is the intent. Every other major religion was created with the intention of explaining the universe by people who believed in what they were saying; Scientology was created by Layafette Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and the century's greatest con-man, who has been quoted as saying, "If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion." Big difference. Scientology couldn't be more fraudulent. I certainly hope other countries follow France's actions.

Our school policy is utterly pathetic. Just to give an example, you if you caught with illegal drugs in school, you are given three warnings, and then recieve a temporary suspension. Do you they really think that anyone stupid enough to bring illegal drugs to school will care about suspension? On the subject of coursework...they're equally lax. We're given two weeks, say, to complete a piece of coursework; then three weeks later, the teacher asks if we have the work, and recieves about three-five pieces of coursework. After another couple of weeks, he starts saying that if we don't finish the work in another week, he'll make us stay behind after school to do it. This is invariably greeted by indignant cries of "That's not fair!" and "Well, I en't staying back!" I go to the second best comprehensive school in the county.

8:30-3:10. Starts 5 minutes earlier on Wednesdays for some reason. Personaly, I'd rather get up at 5am and be out by noon. I can't bear lazy mornings and I'd rather have more free time afterwards.

Despite being occasionaly hilarious, the majority are either the "your mum" jokes of the Internet, or a picture of an attractive female with a comment inviting the reader to laugh in a "manly" way and enjoy mentaly excluding those who do not immediately recieve a rush of testosterone and start yelling about it at the tops of their voices. I see it all the time in real life: if you don't gawp open-mouthed at any even moderately attractive girl's arse, your sexuality is questionable at best. Just grow up. That's not to say there aren't funny ones.