Cuffy_Meigs

Hi Bushrat. I am an atheist who has read the Bible (all of it) but I know little about Mormonism. From the examples you cite, the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible (or at the very least would suggest it is incomplete). How do you square this? Is the Bible not divinely revealed and why would your god wait until 1820 (?) before revealing the 'true' nature of things? Would you claim your beliefs to be rational, as some religious people insist?

Thanks dsayers, I'll take a look at Bomb in the Brain. I think you are right about the moral confusion and it so hard to change. They see an immediate problem (eg 'the poor') which the government must 'help' and are blind to anything beyond that. Any other view is therefore dismissed as repugnant and immoral without further consideration.

I'm new so if this topic has already been done to death then apologies and please direct me to the relevant thread or podcast. When expressing concern about (particularly government) debt, the conversation tends to go as follows: ME: Man, are we in trouble... RESPONSE: Aw come on. Every country has huge debts. Don't worry there's loads of money, it's government austerity that's the problem. ME: That isn't much of an argument...crippling interest payments...stealing from the unborn etc. ...eventually... RESPONSE: Look everybody owes everybody else so it all cancels out anyway. There'll be some sort of reset and it'll all get sorted out. It's just not an issue, relax. So my question is how best to counter this in a way that people can easily grasp? I figure that if all debt is suddenly magically written off then the entire Finance industry loses its reason to exist and everything in your bank account, pension plan, stock portfolio, insurance policies etc becomes worthless. However this doesn't seem to persuade. Any thoughts as to how to convince people that there is actually a problem?

I accept that almost everybody outside of this community perceives socialism as compassionate and capitalism as nasty and brutal, partly because that is what they were taught in the education system. I am less sure that these perceptions are based on any fundamental assumptions behind the two systems. I am no Marxist scholar but my understanding is that Marx was clear that he didn't blame those he deemed exploiters but, on the contrary, felt that anybody would behave the same if put in a similar situation. So in a sense socialism was a reaction against Man's base nature. Capitalism on the other hand does not have an individual we can identify as its founder (maybe Adam Smith comes closest but it could hardly be said that he devised it) so it is harder to ascribe underlying assumptions. Sure we'd all rather be rich than poor but I think both consumers and producers have more complex motivations than greed or fear. Self-interest is a better term but regrettably in most people's minds this implies '...to the detriment of others'.

I am not sure it is the nature of Man that is the main problem but the Economics. Even if we ignore the ethical component and assume the best possible motives for everybody involved, socialism still requires that there is somebody somewhere whose ability to allocate economic resources is more responsive, more efficient and satisfies peoples' desires better than happens in a free market with millions of individuals signalling their preferences via their spending. Such an individual could only be a god. Then there is the problem of how to set prices. Marx tries - and fails - to circumvent this with his Labour Theory of Value. There are of course other motivations for liking socialism - domination, envy or a misguided sense of "justice" - but unless your motives are bad, I suggest Socialism/Marxism fails both logically and empirically.

Thanks for posting the link. It does seem that the authors had some fun, making full use of the opportunity to use the word 'bullshit' as often as possible in the article! I think people usually fall into one of three categories in their responses to bullshit. The really smart ones tend to have an immediate response of 'gosh, maybe there's something here I didn't realise..' and only dismiss it on reflection, however brief. Second there's the people who, on hearing anything that fails to accord with expectation just dismiss the person as an idiot (this applies even when it isn't bullshit). Finally there are those who assume all intellectuals are clever so it must be right in some way.

Perhaps you could invite them to do the sums themselves. Suggest they subtract everything they consider a "subsidy" from both oil companies and wind farms and then show that wind farms are the answer to providing efficient affordable energy.

This seems almost impossible for most people to understand and, if anything, it is the more intelligent in society who are the most comfortable espousing Marxism. Perhaps it requires intelligence to achieve the required levels of self-delusion. I think I heard Stef cite various figures for people murdered by Marxism ranging from 100 to 170 million and somewhere in this range seeems to match the studies I've read. In comparison, the efforts of Fascists and Nazis are made to look half-hearted. Despite this it is still oh-so-cool to don that Marxist T-shirt (try the same with the Nazi equivalent and see how long you stay out of jail!) or to lecture the young about its wonderful morality. When I point this out to such people the response is always the same - offence is immediately taken and I am of course blamed for being motivated by...racism, elitism, not caring about the disadvantaged...(line up the usual ducks).

Thanks for posting the video, I enjoyed it. in particular I thought your answer to the question about being okay to steal as long as it was majority approved or 'for the common good' was very well presented. Important as that response will probably be the knee-jerk reaction of anybody who hasn't given the matter previous consideration. Good stuff!

The one that most irritates me is "just because you read it on the internet, doesn't make it true". Repeated ad infinitum regardless of how much more supporting evidence you produce. Implication: you're a non-thinker who believes anything but I just KNOW and I shall preserve my unassailable position by not arguing with you!

Hi All, I've been dabbling with the older podcasts and some of the more recent YouTube videos for some time. I think I have gained a lot so I decided to join the forum. I am a 53 year old, married Father working as an Engineer. I was probably an anarchist all along but never realised it until now as the term is so abused. FDR has lifted my decades long confusion as to why I was neither right nor left wing but tended to agree with both from time to time. Atheism on the other hand has not been a source of doubt since I was a teenager. The freewill debates have left me baffled trying to understand what either side is saying. It hasn't altered my view that I'd love to be persuaded of its existence but I feel the onus is on its advocates to provide a credible mechanism. But perhaps I have no choice but to think that...or write this...aaaggh!