stutefish

Reply to How To Know if You Are Living In A Totalitarian Dictatorship in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

Speaking of kiling people in other countries.... Albania went Communist, and then promptly closed its borders and cut off all contact with the outside world for the duration of the Cold War. Even other communist states had difficulty interacting with Albania. Albania did no warmongering at all, in spite of being a textbook ETD North Korea hasn't invaded any othe rcountries, or killed a lot of non-Koreans outside its borders, since i

Reply to How To Know if You Are Living In A Totalitarian Dictatorship in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

Deference , A free society will always have tension between liberty and security. Any society where citizens are free to debate the proper balance between the two is not an Evil Totalitarian Dictatorship. The fact that you are here, now, telling me about the worrying trend towards less liberty in the name of more security, is your most powerful argument that freedom is still alive and well for us. But there is nothing morally

Reply to QUESTIONS CERTAIN JUSERS COULDNT ANSWER in Misc JoeUser Forums

The first two questions are more or less unanswerable. If the best smarty men the world has produced in three thousand years have been unable to eliminate the need for faith in spiritual matters, JoeUser isn't going to close that gap anytime soon. Sorry, guys. I don't mean any offense, and I applaud your valiant efforts, but that's just the way it is. But the third question is trivial to answer. If there is a God of some kind, who by its very being defines Good and Evil, then anyone

How To Know if You Are Living In A Totalitarian Dictatorship in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

There's been a lot of speculation about Evil Totalitarian Dictatorships lately. I thought I'd cut through all the uncertainty and hype, and clear up a few things. There are two very simple rules, for figuring out if you live in an Evil Totalitarian Dictatorship. Rule 1: The only people who say you're not living in an Evil Totalita

Reply to Want to feel better? Blame Bush for -fill in blank- in Politics JoeUser Forums

Usually, when I try to blame Bush for something, somebody else insists it's not really his fault. Take the current surge of freedom-desiring hot chicks in Lebanon right now. I totally wanted to blame Bush, but apparently he had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, a lot of these same people do blame Bush for the death of Yasser Arafat. What gets me is, they say it like it's a bad thin

Reply to The War On Terror is Like an Episode of Scooby-Doo in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Okay, Rightwinger. You can be Fred. I was always partial to Wilma, myself. NJ, the way I remember it, Shaggy and Scoob were never the ones who pulled the mask off the monster.

Reply to Does Jesus Christ have more of a beef with Bin Laden or Bush in Politics JoeUser Forums

thatoneguyinslc says The problem with religion begins when you put the word "organized" in front of it! But a good religion benefits us all by being an organized religion. For one thing, organization helps to prevent bad ideas and false doctrines from creeping into the good religion. Likewise, a bad religion threatens us all by being organized. E.g., National Socialism: it wasn't bad because it was organized,

Reply to What's Wrong With The Ten Commandments, Anyway? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

Wow, dude. The Christians you know (all one of them) have it all figured out, but the Christians I know (hundreds of them) are all stupid and wrong? That every thoughtful analysis of Christianity from Paul to Augustine to Chesterton to Lewis to Schaeffer to Guinness to Stott was produced by someone who didn't actually read the Bible? That (you imply) clever atheists have figured out all the problems with Christianity, but in

Reply to An open letter to supporters of the Iraq war in Politics JoeUser Forums

Sure, we can agree that the Italian agent who died was a hero. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, though. If the Italians screwed up, then this entire horrible tragedy can be rightly blamed on them. Sure, it wouldn't ruin their relationship with the U.S. (and I don't think that the American screwup you suspect would have the devastating results, international relations-wise, that you predict), but it would present a very diffe

Reply to What's Wrong With The Ten Commandments, Anyway? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

AJ , I know hundreds of Christians, and none of them dismiss the Bible as outdated drivel. Does that mean I win the argument? In other news, I'm not calling you a monster for not being true to the Christian God. I'm calling you a monster for not seeing the value being true to your own God (or Fundamental Principle, or whatever your highest ideal happens to be). Unless, of course, you do see the value of being true to your beli

Reply to An open letter to supporters of the Iraq war in Politics JoeUser Forums

AJCrowley says: You don't believe that the account of US soldiers firing upon Italians could possibly be correct? The big difference between the stories here is that the Italians have no reason whatsoever to lie, the US have every reason. AJ, this makes no sense. The Americans only have reason to lie, if they made mistakes. If they made no mistakes, then they have every reason to tell the truth.

Reply to What's Wrong With The Ten Commandments, Anyway? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

AJCrowley makes some interesting points: Hmm...you're absolutely right, what kind of monster would be offended by their government endorsing that they worship "the one and only true god"? AJ, the Judeo-Christian God commands Judeo-Christian believers to be true to the God they claim to believe in. It's a commandment against hypocrisy and towards a more honest and committed relationship to one's highest ideals.

Reply to The War On Terror is Like an Episode of Scooby-Doo in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Look, Crowley , trolling is one thing. But go get your own classic cartoon metaphors, instead of trying to rip off mine. Stop wasting our time, and tell us how the U.N. is like Baby Huey or something.

Reply to Does Jesus Christ have more of a beef with Bin Laden or Bush in Politics JoeUser Forums

Myrrander says: Jesus isn't real. Bush and bin Laden are. Let's take care of the real problems without inventing magical fairy tales to deal with them. Franco frames the issue in terms of Jesus, so I replied to him in terms of Jesus. I don't think Franco did this to debate what kind of earthly justice each of these men each deserve. I think he meant to imply that Christians are hypocrites, by their own d

Reply to The War On Terror is Like an Episode of Scooby-Doo in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Gotta finish my workday, first, Ted. After that, I'm all about the Scooby Snacks. Awww yeah.

The War On Terror is Like an Episode of Scooby-Doo in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

American foreign policy is like the Mystery Machine. Conservatives get to drive, because like Fred, Daphne, and Wilma, they're the ones who have it together enough to operate a motor vehicle. Liberals, like Shaggy and the Scoob, tag along, dreaming their sweet dreams of a better world they will never attain, and meanwhile constantly complaining abo

Reply to An open letter to supporters of the Iraq war in Politics JoeUser Forums

What I find amazing about the WMD issue is that the same people who have no trouble seeing improbably vast and sophisticated conspiracies in our own government seem totally incapable of admitting the possibility that Saddam Hussein could have maybe--just maybe!--perpetrated such a simple conspiracy as moving his WMDs some time between when he knew the U.S. was going to invade and the time the U.S. finally lost patience with U.N. delaying tactics. <

Reply to Does Jesus Christ have more of a beef with Bin Laden or Bush in Politics JoeUser Forums

Reiki-House asks: Who do you guys think is worse? And be honest. A person who does bad things and is public in his bad doings? Or a person who does bad things while telling a lot of people nowhere near events that he's doing something pure and honest and to take his word for it? Honestly? The man who does evil in secret, for all sorts of practical reasons. But, wow, Reiki! Steal bases much? Bush is only as ev

Reply to An open letter to supporters of the Iraq war in Politics JoeUser Forums

It is impossible to explain and fully convey how much the white man's racism has it's tentacles around our most basic so-called 'truisms' we take for granted every day. And yet Reiki-House's racism is trivial to prove, by comparison. Next up: Nice thread by the way but it's still not 200% logical because the hawks out there won't even budge at 100% logical. True enough, but perhaps instead of "hawks" w

Reply to Does Jesus Christ have more of a beef with Bin Laden or Bush in Politics JoeUser Forums

Heh. And here I thought you were just a latin nerd, buu. This whole line of argument is kind of pointless, anyway. The answer to the question "who most needs Jesus' forgiveness?" is clearly given in the Christian scriptures: everybody is equally in need total forgiveness. This is a corollary to the question "who most deserve God's justice?". The answer: everybody is

Reply to An open letter to supporters of the Iraq war in Politics JoeUser Forums

There's blood on everybody's hands. None of us are perfect. The greatest undertakings of our age (or any age) are marred by mistakes and malfeasance brought about by human weakness. Once we understand that all human endeavors start out on equal footing, and all are doomed to at least partial falure, the propriety of celebrating what limited successes we do achieve, while continuing to oppose extensive evil and foolish failure, becomes obviou

Reply to Does Jesus Christ have more of a beef with Bin Laden or Bush in Politics JoeUser Forums

Franco Mazzaro asks: Can anyone out there effectively pardon Bush¡¦s hypocrisy? The answer is yes: Jesus can effectively pardon Bush's hypocrisy. And all his other sins, both heinous and trivial. Bin Laden's too, should he care to avail himself of the service. That said, Jesus doesn't have a beef with either of these men. Rather, his sole purpose is to erase their beef with him, and restore them both (and al

Reply to An open letter to supporters of the Iraq war in Politics JoeUser Forums

So many counter-arguments, so little time. I'll briefly touch on just two of them: Most recently is the various Bush fans claiming responsibility for Syria leaving Lebanon. The USA certainly had a hand in it, but this is something the Lebanese have been working on for over a decade, the US hardly deserves credit for being the sole precipitator of this change. Actually, we agree on this one. The USA certainly did have a h

Reply to What's Wrong With The Ten Commandments, Anyway? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

latour999 is trolling, but brings up an interesting point. As it turns out, the two of us agree that the Commandments themselves are good, but that humanity's flawed application of them (and often rejection of them) has led to immense suffering. But why do I get the strong impression that latour would try to solve this problem by removing the true wisdom of the Commandments from our public life altogether? Isn't that a bit l

Reply to What's Wrong With The Ten Commandments, Anyway? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

Kingbee said: those who call for displaying the 10 commandments on publicly owned property or on the walls of publicly owned facilities are too quick to dismiss the significant problems resulting from ignoring the wisdom of separating church from state. But he omits any argument linking the display of the Ten Commandments with "significant problems" of any kind. Instead, he presents a very well-formatted table s