In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On May 14 2016 02:50 NukeD wrote: What about the fact average peace loving muslim still believes that homosexuals should be punished, that leaving islam should be punished, that mocking alah should be punished, that women should dress more "appropriatelly"?
Also, there was this interesting comparison in Nobel winners across all religions. Apparently only like 4 muslims won a Nobel prize out of lets say 800 total, where Jews alone won something like 90+ While being the smallest of the group and islam has over a billion people. What is interesting is that during history islam was the place to go for science, especially math, after all we do use arab numbers among other things. Then around 13th century they had one ruler impose islam fundamentalism as law, replacing science with Quraan, and to this day islam has not recovered from that. I have watched that in a video where a guy explains in detail what happened exactly, but i am unable to find it now. Will try further.
I just realised how low quallity my post is, but i swear that video was top notch!
On May 14 2016 02:57 Plansix wrote: Hence why I referred to them as low grade intellects, because their continued inability to understand that the debate they are having is both surface level and puerile shows a lack of self awareness.
And this is where you should refer us to some higher grade intellects rather than coming off as you've already parsed through what these 'low grade intellects' have said and dismissed them because they weren't up to snuff.
On May 14 2016 01:27 Plansix wrote: Did you really just advocate for deporting people who fail the loyalty test? Is this like when the Irish came over and people said they were loyal to the Pope and not America?
Technically all catholics *should* be more loyal to the pope than America. By definition.
That's not how Catholicism works, you're repeating an old myth
I mean, I know a lot of Catholics who are like that, and in fact most of the most devout ones I know are loyal to the Catholic church before their nation of origin.
I meant that the Pope has no authority to tell Catholics to actively act against the state. He can say abortion is wrong but he can't say you shouldn't pay taxes because your state allows abortion. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s".
But we're talking about Loyalty, not national laws.
He can point to scripture to suggest that Abortion is wrong (he technically can't "say" that abortion is wrong since he's not God and hence he does not make the rules), which means Catholics can choose to perform an abortion, or abstain from performing abortions (as this is the the act in question of being sinful or not), but the Pope cannot extend his extrapolations outside of the direct actions itself.
ie Paying Taxes is not a sin, so that's okay.
Now he can make the argument (assuming he makes proper citations in from both the scripture and the literature of the scripture) that extensions of an action that leads to committed sins is also a sin--and then to make the argument that that would mean paying taxes that support abortion is sinful, but that would also contradict the catholic definitions of sins (which is hinged with intent, wanting to do it is as much or worse than the actually doing it) meaning that if you're forced to pay taxes (because its the law) and those taxes go to abortions, its only a sin if you wanted the abortions to happen or wanted to support abortions.
Christianity and Sin is a very complex animal and is rarely if ever the simple perform action A, get punishment B.
I guess we agree. I just wanted to clarify that the Pope has no power over Catholics in secular matters. People from non-Catholic countries often seem to think that Catholics are obliged to do whatever the Pope commands.
On May 14 2016 01:27 Plansix wrote: Did you really just advocate for deporting people who fail the loyalty test? Is this like when the Irish came over and people said they were loyal to the Pope and not America?
Technically all catholics *should* be more loyal to the pope than America. By definition.
That's not how Catholicism works, you're repeating an old myth
I mean, I know a lot of Catholics who are like that, and in fact most of the most devout ones I know are loyal to the Catholic church before their nation of origin.
I meant that the Pope has no authority to tell Catholics to actively act against the state. He can say abortion is wrong but he can't say you shouldn't pay taxes because your state allows abortion. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s".
But we're talking about Loyalty, not national laws.
He can point to scripture to suggest that Abortion is wrong (he technically can't "say" that abortion is wrong since he's not God and hence he does not make the rules), which means Catholics can choose to perform an abortion, or abstain from performing abortions (as this is the the act in question of being sinful or not), but the Pope cannot extend his extrapolations outside of the direct actions itself.
ie Paying Taxes is not a sin, so that's okay.
Now he can make the argument (assuming he makes proper citations in from both the scripture and the literature of the scripture) that extensions of an action that leads to committed sins is also a sin--and then to make the argument that that would mean paying taxes that support abortion is sinful, but that would also contradict the catholic definitions of sins (which is hinged with intent, wanting to do it is as much or worse than the actually doing it) meaning that if you're forced to pay taxes (because its the law) and those taxes go to abortions, its only a sin if you wanted the abortions to happen or wanted to support abortions.
Christianity and Sin is a very complex animal and is rarely if ever the simple perform action A, get punishment B.
I guess we agree. I just wanted to clarify that the Pope has no power over Catholics in secular matters. People from non-Catholic countries often seem to think that Catholics are obliged to do whatever the Pope commands.
True, although if the Pope can convince Catholics that secular matters are actually related to religion, then he might have some pull.
After watching a good amount of election coverage from comedy news shows, it seems that Samantha Bee is by far the best and closest to Jon Stewart in writing quality and Wilmore/Noah are both garbage. Oliver's show isn't funny but has good info.
On May 14 2016 01:26 xDaunt wrote: I absolutely love the extent to which leftists go out of their way to jump on any grenade that is lobbed at the religion of Islam, but they'll the very first to shit all over Christianity at every opportunity. The hypocrisy is beautiful. What makes it even funnier is that Islam is indisputably less compatible with --- and in many cases, diametrically opposed to --- much of what leftists hold most dear.
As usual, you misrepresent what other posters stand for and then rail about their supposed hypocrisy. There is nothing hypocritical about being critical of both bigoted ideas (wherever they come from, including religious doctrines) and the discrimination of individuals/groups on the basis of religious affiliation (since you somehow managed to miss that posters were criticizing anti-Muslims rhetoric). There's nothing hypocritical or contradictory in opposing both the retrograde ideas that can be found within given religious doctrines (whether those doctrines are found within Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other religion) and hate speech against the followers of a faith.
What is hypocritical, however, is dishonestly deriding "leftists" any chance you get while pretending that you are against the "dishonest belittling of those with opposing points of view". Now that is hypocritical.
On May 14 2016 02:57 Plansix wrote: May of the often cited atheists are highly credentialed in their fields of study and have done quality work in those fields. But diminish the impact of their accomplishments by attempt to engage in what they, I assume, see as a worldwide academic debate on the subject of religion. And the people they debate are folks that are willing to engage with that. But most religious discussions moved beyond “does god exists” as a point of debate or discussion centuries ago because all the points have already been made.
Hence why I referred to them as low grade intellects, because their continued inability to understand that the debate they are having is both surface level and puerile shows a lack of self awareness.
The fact that there are people who are willing to engage with them, who seem to represent some fairly popular views in politics and in the media (i.e. that religion is not to blame, only US foreign policy which is the sole source of evil in the world), shows that this is still an unsettled matter that needs to continue to be debated at least in the public sphere.
Many academics in the field of microbiology are probably well past accepting evolutionary theory. I'm sure they have extremely nuanced and advanced arguments about how such a theory should be modified at smaller scales. This doesn't somehow invalidate the importance of advocating evolutionary theory in schools across the US (or elsewhere) in which there is still an effort to present intelligent design as an equally likely, competitive theory to evolution. Which is why we still need people like Dawkins advocating for these things, and why we still need to have debates on the general plausibility of arguments for the existence of God. Like it or not, these are still important issues in the public sphere and you can't just ignore millions of people and pretend that the ivory tower intellectuals are the only ones that matter.
None of their activities imply anything about their intelligence levels, all it implies is that they are currently forced to deal with people who still have some outdated beliefs. You can't get any implication about their willingness to provide more nuanced arguments from this; I'm sure they would like to if they could, but they are clearly encountering a lot of resistance at the "surface level", meaning that going to a deeper level isn't possible or meaningful if people aren't willing to understand the more fundamental facts.
For what its worth I should also point out that there are many academics in institutions like Harvard that support Harris' ideas on Islam, and the need for a reformation of sorts (not the Christain Reformation). These aren't just minor views from your favourite punching bag atheists, they are generally well-received in academia, but you don't hear about it very often because it isn't a catchy news story.
one of my favourite "My fellow Americans Its Time To Panic" speeches was teh Ronald Reagan 1964 classic: "A Time For Choosing"
Disclaimer: although i'm trashing this mentality ... Barry Goldwater the man.. was a great man. I wish Canada had something like the Goldwater Institute.
On May 14 2016 03:47 GreenHorizons wrote: So are Trump supporters buying Trump's claim he doesn't know about this John Miller/Baron?
It'd probably be more accurate to state that they don't care. There's a mountain of bullshit that someone has to overlook to support Trump. This isn't going to make any difference.
On May 14 2016 03:47 GreenHorizons wrote: So are Trump supporters buying Trump's claim he doesn't know about this John Miller/Baron?
It'd probably be more accurate to state that they don't care. There's a mountain of bullshit that someone has to overlook to support Trump. This isn't going to make any difference.
I can understand don't care, as you mentioned, there's a mountains of crap that would disqualify any candidate other than Trump that his supporters don't seem to care about.
I'm wondering who he's trying to lie to on this? His supporters don't care and everyone else knows it's him.
On May 14 2016 02:40 Yoav wrote: Half your citizens are likened often to cattle. They are your property, they are not free to make all of their own choices and have domain over themselves. The Quran clearly keeps sending mixed messages on almost any issue. But the general theme is at least that, "as men, we know what's better for you than you do".
Lots of Muslims interpret that way. Many do not. Who are you to say your exegesis is more accurate than theirs?
If an Islam where honor killings occur in families, rape victims are punished for adultery, women can't leave the house alone, a man can beat his wife, child marriage, girls can't go to school, can't choose their husbands, can't work, can't be seen uncovered, weren't an accurate interpretation of the religion, don't you think the focus should be on ending it?
On May 14 2016 02:40 Yoav wrote: The first video was taken in Norway. And I have hundreds of other damning videos in Europe. Doing the math that means tens of thousands of Muslims in the west take their religion very seriously, think that it supersedes that of the state they are in.
Sure, and I could take damning videos of idiot Christians or Atheists around the world too. It's been done before. But there's not a damn thing wrong with taking your religion seriously. Even more seriously than the state. I pray I should have the strength of character to go with my faith if I ever found it and my country in irreconcilable conflict.
In context, you don't think there's something wrong with taking your religion seriously even when your interpretation of it advocates stoning, like the Norwegian video? The whole point of having countries is so we can live together and have a civilization.
On May 14 2016 02:40 Yoav wrote: Some Muslims hold views I do disagree with, of course. But as a Christian I am bound to take Muslims seriously on the basis of the views each of them holds personally as an individual and not to reduce them to some amorphous class of people.
You can treat people as individuals and still treat a religion as a religion, there's no cognitive dissonance.
On May 14 2016 03:17 zulu_nation8 wrote: After watching a good amount of election coverage from comedy news shows, it seems that Samantha Bee is by far the best and closest to Jon Stewart in writing quality and Wilmore/Noah are both garbage. Oliver's show isn't funny but has good info.
Yeah Sam Bee is pretty good. Noah isn't bad but Jon's shoes are too big too fill. Wilmore is cringey. Not of a fan of Oliver's format, but it's not bad.
Donald Trump on Thursday night lashed out at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, arguing that Bezos bought the Washington Post to gain political power and keep Trump from cracking down on Amazon as president.
"Every hour we’re getting calls from reporters from The Washington Post asking ridiculous questions and I will tell you, this is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos, who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with murder tax-wise. He’s using the Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed," Trump said when Fox News' Sean Hannity asked about a comment from Bob Woodward that the Post had assigned 20 reporters to cover Trump.
"He’s worried about me," Trump added. "He thinks I would go after him for antitrust because he’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much."
Trump said that Bezos bought the Washington Post "for practically nothing and he’s using that as a tool for political power against me and against other people and I’ll tell you what, we can’t let him get away with it."
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that Bezos wants to make sure that Trump doesn't win office.
"The whole system is rigged," Trump told Hannity. "He’s using The Washington Post, which is peanuts, he’s using that for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust."
Martin Baron, the Washington Post's executive editor, on Friday morning denied that the newsroom takes direction from Bezos.
That didn’t take long. I wonder if he will go after the New York Times or the Globe next. Prove me with preferential coverage that I want or I will us my office to attack the people who own your paper.
The GOP will whine about the liberal press, but they don’t go this far.
The West Wing did a joke about moving the press briefing room out of the White House for laughs. I have no doubt that Trump would just close it down and only provide access when he approved of it.
On May 14 2016 01:27 Plansix wrote: Did you really just advocate for deporting people who fail the loyalty test? Is this like when the Irish came over and people said they were loyal to the Pope and not America?
Technically all catholics *should* be more loyal to the pope than America. By definition.
That's not how Catholicism works, you're repeating an old myth
I mean, I know a lot of Catholics who are like that, and in fact most of the most devout ones I know are loyal to the Catholic church before their nation of origin.
I meant that the Pope has no authority to tell Catholics to actively act against the state. He can say abortion is wrong but he can't say you shouldn't pay taxes because your state allows abortion. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s".
But we're talking about Loyalty, not national laws.
He can point to scripture to suggest that Abortion is wrong (he technically can't "say" that abortion is wrong since he's not God and hence he does not make the rules), which means Catholics can choose to perform an abortion, or abstain from performing abortions (as this is the the act in question of being sinful or not), but the Pope cannot extend his extrapolations outside of the direct actions itself.
ie Paying Taxes is not a sin, so that's okay.
Now he can make the argument (assuming he makes proper citations in from both the scripture and the literature of the scripture) that extensions of an action that leads to committed sins is also a sin--and then to make the argument that that would mean paying taxes that support abortion is sinful, but that would also contradict the catholic definitions of sins (which is hinged with intent, wanting to do it is as much or worse than the actually doing it) meaning that if you're forced to pay taxes (because its the law) and those taxes go to abortions, its only a sin if you wanted the abortions to happen or wanted to support abortions.
Christianity and Sin is a very complex animal and is rarely if ever the simple perform action A, get punishment B.
actually he can and does. abortion is a mortal sin that severs your connection to god and puts you directly in danger of going to hell for eternity. read up on your catechism.
EPT
