Originally posted by Darth Executor
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“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis
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Originally posted by Darth Ovious View PostOK, fair enough. I have to say that I have been challenged here on this by a lot of people. I always thought the stoning part no longer applied but it seems like others challenge that assumption. In short I need to gain some more clarity on this."As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
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Originally posted by Darth Executor View PostThe stoning in the OT was a legal sentence. While I don't think it's mandatory for Christians to believe we still need to stone adulterers I also think it's silly to claim Jesus opposed stoning as a legal sentence on the basis of His avoiding the sanction of vigilante lynchings.
My personal view was always that it was OK in the extreme kind of environment that the Israelites lived in during Leviticus but became redundant as civilisation became more established and jail cells became an available form of punishment. I don't know I'm willing to learn more in the other thread if people wish to contribute.“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostYou're using the word 'crazy' in a different way.
I'm using it to refer to having factually false beliefs about reality, and fear-mongering based on delusions. Having a particular personal opinion about any particular social policy might be an usual opinion, but it's not crazy in that sense, as it's not something that can be factually false or true.
"He has an unusual and unpopular opinion on a social issue" is simply not an equivalent response to "these people have widespread beliefs in things that are factually false on a regular basis". Having a fairly extreme opinion on one issue (though not extreme in terms of historical human viewpoints), is simply not equivalent to being regularly delusional about reality. And that was my point: When there's an order of magnitude difference between two groups, it's false equivalency to equate them."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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Originally posted by pancreasman View PostMy apologies to Starlight, but I keep using him as an example that you can understand. His view is from the left and you can easily see his bias.
Let me be really, really, clear. I'm not making any sort of gross generalizations about conservatives vs liberals in general. That would be completely ridiculous. The worldwide differences between 'conservatives' and 'liberals' on political issues are nuanced and vary greatly by country. In Australia, for example, I wouldn't want to make any sort of generalization about conservatives or liberals whatsoever because I don't really know much about the politics there. I absolutely would never say that liberals are always right, in any country in any time period, whatever they stand for, or that conservatives are always crazy in any country in any time period. I would tend to hope that in most countries in most time periods that both conservative and liberal positions are significantly occupied by intelligent and educated people acting in good faith and with rational thought.
There is, however, quite a unique set of social and cultural circumstances in the US in the present day. The US is a quite unusual country with an unusual history and quite a significant number of different factors have combined to make the current political climate there extremely unusual. This is reflected in statistics like it having the highest rate of incarceration in the world, the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, being one of the only Western countries not to have universal healthcare, having a bigger military budget than the next 8 biggest-spending nations combined, and many many others. I find the unusual social phenomena within the US in the present day that result in these globally unusual political views and unusual political policies to be particularly interesting and I enjoy analyzing what is going on within that society to give rise to these globally unusual positions.
Usually on this site when I talk about "conservative" and "liberal" I am thinking of the present day US and the unusual social and political situation that exists there. Any generalizations I make about conservatives and liberals are US-based. They are evidence-based statements about the causes of the current globally unique socio-political situation within the US. And it is always worth bearing in mind that all generalizations have plenty of exceptions and are just statements about some general trends. But there are some very interesting social / historical / cultural / religious trends in the US that have a significant impact on their politics. The "red states" in the US by and large overlap with the historical "south", and are poorer states, with a generally lower level of educational attainment, a higher level of religious belief, a higher rate of divorce etc. The current US media is quite interestingly unbalanced, with Fox News having a particularly interesting effect, especially as it consistently gets rated the most highly trusted of the major news channels while simultaneously being repeatedly found to be the least accurate. There is quite a lot of interesting cause and effect going on which results in the US being so politically unusual on a global scale.
So... to repeat myself... I don't just go around making gross generalizations about conservatives vs liberals in general. I don't think that would be at all a sensible thing to do. On a global scale, there's almost nothing true that could be said about conservatives vs liberals in general. Any time I compare conservatives to liberals I'm doing so within the specific historical context of the present-day US (unless of course, the thread is clearly about some other context), and making some sort of generalization that I have good evidence to think is indeed generally true (ie more often true than untrue) about how the social situation within the present-day US works.Last edited by Starlight; 05-07-2015, 07:33 PM."I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
"[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein
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Originally posted by OU812 View PostAnd the problem with that is?
Euthyphro dilemma.....would like a word with you."As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
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Originally posted by seer View PostHow dare you give your kids an unfair advantage! Are all liberals this insane?
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new...-1227335151442
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...values/6437058Last edited by JimL; 05-07-2015, 09:31 PM.
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Originally posted by JimL View PostI'm liberal, and I find the idea downright ridiculous. Your problem seer is that you, like Rush Limbaugh, are in search for any stupid things that liberals might say, or do, so that you can say, "see, all liberals are horrible, dangerous, thoughtless people so that all the truly thoughtless people can chime in in agreement." I'd be willing to bet that you could not find one liberal leaning person to agree with Swift and his stupid proposal.Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
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Originally posted by JimL View PostI'm liberal, and I find the idea downright ridiculous. Your problem seer is that you, like Rush Limbaugh, are in search for any stupid things that liberals might say, or do, so that you can say, "see, all liberals are horrible, dangerous, thoughtless people so that all the truly thoughtless people can chime in in agreement." I'd be willing to bet that you could not find one liberal leaning person to agree with Swift and his stupid proposal.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10385.html
http://www.mit.edu/~shaslang/mprg/Br...eSwiftEPPG.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/12234844/Wha..._Family_ValuesAtheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by Cerebrum123 View PostThe thing is, it's the nuts like this that usually have the power/influence to enforce it. In fact, there are places where things like this are being enforced. An example I lived through would be where they kept the smarter kids out of class under the guise of "advanced classes" so that the other kids had a chance to catch up.
Then there's the fact that he thinks private schools can't be defended because of how badly they effect the imbalance, but bedtime stories are even worse according to these "philosophers". Either he's stupid and doesn't realize this(and shouldn't be a philosopher at all), or he does, but doesn't like where his own methodology leads. Although, I suppose there's an option where he does know, and just doesn't want other people to know just how far he's really willing to go."I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"
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Originally posted by Darth Ovious View PostThose with control though use it control people in an unfair manner. So large governments tend towards this.
Ok, checks and balances are something I agree with but a small government can do that. All I mean by small government is a government that doesn't pass a lot of laws to intrude into peoples freedom.
No matter what you do a small number of people will rule over the nation. Libertarianism will not result in any stable situation; the better thing to do is to have good leaders exert power to prevent evil groups from gradually taking over. A small government that doesn't 'intrude' in your freedom will only invite other groups to intrude.
Freedom is not a basic Good. I know it's hard to deprogram from a lifetime of imbibing the mythology, but to see clearly you have to.Last edited by Paprika; 05-08-2015, 07:34 AM.
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Originally posted by Paprika View PostWhich would mean that many other groups besides the small government will exert control, and often in an 'unfair manner'.
No matter what you do a small number of people will rule over the nation. Libertarianism will not result in any stable situation; the better thing to do is to have good leaders exert power to prevent evil groups from gradually taking over. A small government that doesn't 'intrude' in your freedom will only invite other groups to intrude.
Freedom is not a basic Good. I know it's hard to deprogram from a lifetime of imbibing the mythology, but to see clearly you have to.“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis
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