powder

I think this kid gives a really good speech about being a vegie:

I prefer the word 'voluntaryist' (volunteerist?) to anarchy because of the negative misrepresentation given to the word in the main stream. how does anarcho-communism work?

excellent Kevin,... eeexxxcellent

Good for you Joel. One of my regrets in life is not stepping up to intervene on behalf of my nephew when his crazy mother assaulted him in front of us. It wasn't just a 'disciplinary reprimand' type of 'correction' slap either. He was about 3 and she attacked him and tossed him about and struck him a few times. I just looked on in shock and horror. We lost touch with him for many years and when he reappeared as an adult I was able to speak to him about his childhood and apologize for not intervening on his behalf. He no longer has a relationship with her but he really is messed up.

I don't know if I would call it a myth but I would say that the idea is misguided at best. theft, rape, assault, are immoral, period. acknowledging and understanding this is to end it completely and instantaneously, not gradually or incrementally. When this is understood by a larger majority, how to curbing the violence will no longer be an issue. Like dsayers says, any other reason for eliminating violence is just a lucky guess and will not be sustainable, history bears this out.

No I don't think I was being disingenuous. You were the one saying the derogatory things without backing them up and now you are claiming that you doing so would be too much for you to handle. nevertheless, like I said in previous posts I have been studying religion, spiritual traditions and their history for years but I will not be the one to engage you in an intellectual debate regarding the existence of god. I have no interest in that topic. I am interested in virtue and morality and religion fails that test, and that is easy to prove. I'll take a peak at the other thread you mention though.

welcome to the forum jibningas. Have you read the whole thread? If you want to argue for the existence of something you must provide evidence, and as you know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Also, making personal attacks about the level of intellectual discourse you observe without pointing them out and explaining why they are erroneous and saying things like "this line of reasoning was shown to be invalid... shown to to wrong" and the like without actually showing how that is so,... well, I think you know that lacks intellectual integrity. you're off to a good start I think.

dsayers, I think Robert responded to your challenge above.

Well said, I totally agree Patrick. I am not engaging him for his benefit.

sorry, you are not addressing what I am saying. No one is blaming Christ's teachings (revelation notwithstanding) but he is guilty by association and so are you. some of us may be aware of hidden motives behind the violence in the middle east but you cannot deny that the 'Christian right' makes it possible for the military industrial complex to engage in this stuff because their support and sanction of it is based on biblical teaching - so yes we can blame Christianity. you can define Christianity any way you like and ignore all those who call themselves Christians and cheer on the mayhem in the middle east but you are still complicit by association. and you did not answer my question about the book of revelation and Jesus' second coming.

religion, in particular Christianity in this case, has been, and still is the motivation for the murder and subjugation of millions. Like I said in an earlier post, people do evil things because they are convinced they are fighting evil, thanks to religion and the state. "Also why would anyone do the moral thing without a God?" Really? People, with the exceptions of psychopaths, are good because they naturally want to be. Is God the only thing keeping you from murdering and raping and stealing? OK, from the bottom up then, as you say. Just because you have no explanation for an experience does not mean that it is God. People have attributed many things to God that have since been explained by science. In the example you give of the fairground ride we know that the massive flood of 'fight or flight' hormones released by this activity and the subsequent hormonal 'high' are the reason why we feel this way, and because we understand it, we can duplicate the response. I have had lots of moving experiences that I cannot explain, I don't automatically attribute them to a deity. You can say that the mafia does good things, 'protects' people and supports its favorite charity or whatever, and choose to ignore that they kill people and shake them down, but if you are supporting and advocating for their ways by association, then your claim of being virtuous is not to be taken seriously. If I want to be virtuous, I must distance myself from people who are willing to use scripture (Old Testament, Revelation) to justify the horrors that are associated with it. Otherwise I lack intellectual and moral integrity, regardless of my personal experience of God.

what do you mean by 'proof' concerning the old testament? you also claim to embrace first principles and philosophy. why does it matter if the stories are historically provable or not? - it is simple to prove that they are morally corrupt; by using philosophy and first principles of course. there is much of value in the new testament and the words attributed the Jesus, but much that goes against first principles, and the NAP in John, Matthew, Luke, etc. What do you have to say about the words attributed to Jesus in Revelation?

yes

wow, wish I hadn't wasted those 4 minutes reading that. I think that would be an important critique for Stef address, it really is one of the last line of defense arguments left for the intellectual statists.

"He says he is a fictional character invented by followers of Christianity to create a figure to worship." I would challenge this statement. I too have studied much on the history of religion over the years and I think that it was the creation of the Roman Empire to coral the masses with a funky new mind control scheme. It was not a new game for the oligarchs, even back then. Joesphus worked for the Flavian Caesar's and had a lot to do with the founding of the new religion.

those are interesting topics Edward. I like the stuff on Telsa, and you should check out Joeseph Atwill's work on Shakspeare. He claims that Shaky was actually as Jewish woman. I know I made this comment regarding the 'truth about Gaza' video but the problem I have with focusing on all this stuff, and I have spent many hours looking at lots of it, is that it is stories, not philosophy, and stories require information and information is always subject to interpretation, revision, missing or new evidence (Shakespeare example is a good one) - virtue, the NAP, evil, are all philosophically objective and much easier to prove. The conspiracy, alternative news media is packed full of compelling stories that give us a different perspective on people and events. Besides, there are some major hitters like Infowars, RT, David Icke, etc that already work that angle. As soon as you tackle the 'real' or 'hidden' stories behind events like Sandy Hook, 911, the Rothchilds, etc, you get people focused on accuracy rather than truth. I think it is best to stick to first principles and use stories to illustrate them, and no one does it better than Stef.

Why ask priests and pastors or athiests whether or not they think God exists? what do you think they will say? Why does it matter? Being inquisitive is very good. asking the right questions, also, really good. Morality matters. Religion, 'faith', and the gods of religions, have done a poor job of curbing evil in the world.

some of your posts show that you are not making the proper distinction between the NAP and UPB. when making an argument you must first establish that your definitions match that of the people your are discussing them with. Yagami is trying to explain universal principles and you keep arguing from effect and ignoring or misunderstanding the word 'universal' in UPB.

Wow Shane, definitions indeed,... that is one big ass heap of tangled words there and I am not prepared to unpack those assertions or try to make sense of it,... so I guess my answer would have to be, uh, no. Uh, wait,... yes I do, I think.

I have spent a lot of time around christians, do you not agree with the commonly taught doctrine that Jesus is somehow a manifestation of God, represents or is God incarnate so to speak? God's behavior, esp in the old testament, and his sadistic plan to send Jesus to be tortured and murdered to pay for our transgressions, meets your ethical standards does it? how about Jesus's planned second return and the mayhem that goes with that according to modern christian doctrine, is that story to be dismissed as well? not feelin' the love. "love your enemies"? again, love, like forgiveness, is an involuntary response to virtue, what this prescribes is really scary indeed. I have never agreed with the quote that says, "all that is required for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing". I think it is more like: "all that is required for evil to prosper is for good people to be fooled into thinking it is somehow virtuous" religious indoctrination, which was a justification for slavery and the slaughter of millions to this day, has been very good at doing that.

corbyco, I am not even sure what it means to 'believe' in forgiveness but I do agree with what Stef has to say about it, and yes, I think you are misrepresenting his position on forgiveness. My understanding is that forgiveness is an involuntary response to virtue. You can find ways to talk yourself into to feeling certain ways I am sure but that does not fit into my idea of a good way to manage relationships. I grew up with religious indoctrination and have spent many years studying and researching religion and spiritual traditions and esp the history of them. I actually like to debate the kinds of things you propose in your last post, esp stuff like 'saved by grace' but I don't think you will get much traction with that stuff here. I have the same problem with religions like christianity that I have with the state: problems are solved with violence. Yes, including the Jesus salvation story; I don't think the euphemism 'saved by grace' makes it any less horrifying. His heinous 'return' scenario as proposed by modern christian doctrine is unspeakable in its violence and suffering and so I cannot in good conscience support, advocate, or be tolerant (respectful if you will) of any organization that stands behind such ideas. I am curious about your statement about being open minded and interested to see how that will play out. I Hope it will be rewarding for you.

beliefs or faith based ideas are not due any respect, people are, if they earn it.

the NAP is already universal, so there is no quagmire to get stuck in, and it is not OK to hit any of the people in those different categories.

that is an absolute bummer Phuein. I can totally sympathize with that and I would get the heck outta there if I were in your place. Still, you can't change the definition of the NAP to suit your case. You could start a thread to discuss your problem, how it relates to philosophy? well,...

josh is doing a great job of explaining this stuff and I agree with all of his assertions, seems pretty straight forward to me. labmath, we request and negotiate for compensation all the time in day to day living with family, friends, workmates and neighbors. people who do not honor these simple dispute resolution systems are just ostracized from normal beneficial social and economic interactions, this works very well and people do it all the time. do you think you should be able to force people at gun point to make good on simple property damage claims? what kind of relationships do you have with people in your life? I already have a pretty good idea from previous posts about Phuein's life situation.