I hope he finds peace, comfort and grace (aka, Jesus).

How is this creepier than the teen mom shows that are on the air?

I know that In-N-Out use to put Bible verses on the bottom side of their cups and french fry containers. They still may, I haven't been to In-N-Out in awhile.

>> ^gwiz665:
^Well then, good sir, show your work. How would you show good/bad in morality? Some issues are certainly more easy than others, murder is always wrong, and such, but other issues are not something to be decided out of any kind of fear, because fear is inherently a personal, egoistical thing. I recoil from flames, because I don't want to get burned. My empathy with others (relate their responses to my own) leads me to help others away from flames as well. As soon as a subject reaches a certain complexity, fear stops (should stop) being a motivator and something else should take over, such as weighing pro/con, looking at something from different angles and so on.
I am not afraid of my government, but I am afraid of a tiger.
or is it?


You are more afraid of a tiger than your government? At least the tiger gets it over with quickly and simply.

When I speak of fear I am not talking about a lunatic paranoia (e.g. Glenn Beck). The concept of a "fearing" man does not fit well in our society's image of what a man should be. There is nothing wrong with the values of courage and bravery, but only a fool claims to live by the popular slogan "No Fear." Fear serves a purpose, but the fool regards it as nothing more than an antiquated response that should not be considered. Same can be said for pain. I remember hearing about a book that spoke on the benefits of pain (if anyone knows of this book please post it). The author spoke about a rare disorder in which individuals do not experience physical pain, and how this can cause for grave difficulties in life (e.g. a person chewing off their own tongue because they could without feeling the pain associated with it). You are completely right in stating that wise consider life by accounting for various factors at play. But without fear we are likely to miscalculate ourselves in relation to the risk associated with the item in question. For instance, Neville Chamberlain demonstrated a lack of appropriate fear for what Nazi Germany was capable of when he promoted a policy of appeasement. So all this to point out that fear is not a response that should be disregarded and labeled as being entirely useless. To do so is to throw the baby out with the bathwater and completely misunderstand the human condition.

>> ^gwiz665:
^I think you are making assumptions that are not right. "Healthy fear" does not apply to morality; you can only apply the term to something you can demonstrably show. Your fear of the stove, is because you know it's hot, and you get burned. We can easily show that this is so; not so with moral choices - how do I know that gay marriage is morally right/wrong? Fear of god, government etc. is not a good motivator in that instance.


So it is not possible to "demonstrably show" the differences from morality and immorality? You sure about that? And please tell me which government in the history of the world has not warranted some level of fear, respectful fear or hysterical fear? Any entity with such authority should be respectfully feared.

Thank you for adding another 3:09 of random, disorganized thoughts to an already noisy debate. And thank you to everyone who upholds this dribble as Socratic rational and a high watermark of intellectualism. All this consists of is a series of emphasized negative interactions strung together by his uneducated hypothesis and passed off as truth.

And just one quick comment about his argument against the concept of God-fearing. First, there is a sharp distinction between fear and paranoia. Second, there are countless examples in everyday daily life that represent how a healthy dose of fear serves us quite well. I have a healthy fear of the heat that comes from my stove top when it's on, and thanks to that fear I take appropriate caution. His misunderstanding of the benefits of fear struck me as particularly asinine.

Is the ticker story about gang rape at about 1:57 just a coincidence?

>> ^Stormsinger:
The biggest single difference between Maddow and Limbaugh is that Maddow's reports are generally well-researched and based on facts, while Limbaugh doesn't appear to even know the meaning of those words.
That said, if Maddow has a similar ability to "stir up" the liberals, I have to wonder if that says more about the difference between liberal and conservative than it does about her and Limbaugh.


I don't really understand what you are talking about when you mention the differences between liberals and conservatives as a whole. I have observed some similarities among those on both the right and the left that regularly support the respective cable news and talk radio shows: They all thrive on gaining food for the fodder in their endless attempt to emotionally respond to the headline of the day while thinking they know the whole story, but even more they think they know what is best because their talking head (Rachel, Keith, Bill O, Rush) have told them what to think.

Differences in political affiliation? Yes.
Differences in how those who religiously watch these agenda driven so called attempt at a news programs respond? No.

And there's no substantial difference between the talking heads, fox or msnbc, Rachel or Rush.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:
>> ^enoch:
i was having a great discussion with IamtheBlurr about this very subject.
i am a man of faith,but i keep my faith personal.
i have no interest in making people believe my faith is valid or justified.
i do not need peoples acceptance of my faith to validate either myself, or my faith.
and arguing about faith is just silly in my opinion,so i dont engage in debates about faith.it is an exercise in futility.
Hehe, Hows it going yo?
I watched this video just earlier and thought of you actually.
I remember when you initially wrote to me the concept of not having an interest in making people believe what you believe and I came to this thought; just something to chew on...
If proving what you believe to other people is not a priority to you, do you also not make a priority of proving it to yourself? If you do make a priority of proving your beliefs to yourself, what is the difference between yourself and others?
Just a thought.


Cats made of airport is a rather funny image.

Enoch and IAmTheBlurr, you raise some very good questions.

I actually did not find much that was disagreeable with this video. His analysis on the practice of faith in general had some validity. The whole nature of faith is that we put our trust in an object when not knowing for certain all we can know about that object. Empirically it is not perfect. But what is? When I walk down my rickety apartment stairs to take the trash out I am expressing a whole lot of faith that the old floor boards will support me and prevent me from falling two stories and breaking my leg. So far the stairs have proven (fairly) trustworthy so I continue to use them.

The video seems to be directed more so against people who make annoying claims about their religion based upon faith, and since faith is not exact their arguments are invalid and they have no right to force their religion upon others.

Fair enough.

Enoch suggests that faith can be personal, and that it does not need to be validated by others to remain significant in one's own life (Enoch, correct me if I have misinterpreted).

IamTheBlur raises a very excellent question: (I want to paraphrase, and please correct me if I phrase it poorly)If one's faith is not expressed outwardly for validation, what good is it?

I'm not going to answer for Enoch, but I will speak for myself that I believe that faith must be coupled with works. If I proclaimed to have faith in my rickety apartment stairs, yet do not walk on them, what sort of faith would that be? No substantial faith. What's worse is that if I were to proclaim faith in my rickety apartment stairs yet did not walk on them but forced my neighbor to go down them then I would be a hypocrite.

The object of faith is what ultimately is at the heart of issue. When discussing faith and religion an honest and unfortunate reality is many people put their faith in religion itself rather than any deity, meaning that many people expect salvation and justification to come from involvement in and obedience to the accepted cultus and rituals of a specific religion and not a god (ex. If I attend church every Sunday, if I abstain from premarital sex, if I tithe 10% I'll earn salvation). This is ultimately faulty because all one is doing is placing their hope in a system and certainly not any divine being.

When considering Christianity (which seemed to be highlighted in the video) an honest analysis of the teachings of Jesus Christ reveals that he too revolted against this slavish obedience to religion. The people he most disputed against, and ultimately the people who put him to death were the religious elite. Yes, today Christianity is rightly defined as a religion in a classical sense (as it includes a set of beliefs and rituals), but what makes it unique is what is known as the Gospel message, being that Jesus brought hope that far exceeds our best attempts at righteousness. In fact, I believe that it is perfect hope, and yes, this requires faith.

Faith in Jesus is to be outwardly expressed through loving others. "Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world" James 1:27. So if my faith leads me to do something along the lines of what is just stated I would guess that most people would validate my actions (unless they hated orphans and found widows to be a waste of space).

Is this faith in action done perfectly by anybody proclaiming to be a Christian (me included)? No. But what strikes me as most unfortunate is that Christianity is identified with people who "attack, condemn, or blackmail people who don't believe" (quoted from the video) more than what Jesus Christ taught.

And I still think that "cats made of airports" is pretty funny.

How can he be "damn sure" that he will outlive his children? Obviously most father's would desire to see their children live beyond them. How does this somehow invalidate the Christian understanding of an eternal God. Is the argument that only a true loving Father would euthanize himself before seeing one of his children die? What if the child dies unjustly (i.e. is ruthlessly murdered for no reason)? Would the loving father's obligation be to end his own life? Or would a loving father seek justice for his son's meaningless death? If I have misunderstood Hitchens' point here, please explain.

On the matter of the Austrian incestuous and deplorable father, I believe Hitchens' appraisal of the actual crime and situation is well put and accurate. It is nothing short of a heinous and grotesque injustice. Words fail to grasp the depravity. Hitchens' goes on to seem to suggest that Christianity would overlook the injustice of the crime, and that a Christian's response is "that's alright." I believe this reveals a grave misunderstanding by Hitchens of Christianity. Christianity takes justice very seriously, an understanding of the Biblical teaching on evil and sacrifice cannot deny that. The Bible also does not encourage inactivity to injustice. In this lifetime Christians are required to "promote justice" (Micah 6:8). I honestly cannot understand how one can criticize the Bible for taking evil of this nature (or any nature for that matter) lightly. And yet that is exactly what Hitchens appears to be doing.

Tyranny (a tyrannical God) is a logical conclusion to a perception of the Gospel message that is absent of righteousness (to make something right; to right a wrong; to seek justice).

>> ^ponceleon:
Fuck Ray Comfort and everyone who thinks like him.


Why?

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

>> ^vairetube:
we can't get legal pot, to answer the question.
also if you can't tell the difference (and there is a difference) between Olbermann and the others here... well... please dont ever get in a position of leadership.
"the knives of liberals" .. that makes no sense.
you do know.... conservative means you want to tell other people what to do, how to do it, and when.
liberal just means everyone else... and that's as far as you can pluralize


Did you just define conservatives as being people who want to tell other people what to do? And liberals as everyone else?

>> ^Razor:
<sigh> It is easy to forget, that is that there are actually simpletons out there that believe the shit that these pundits spew.
The 'sift regularly has videos of morons like Billo or Beck or Rush and I laugh at the stupidity of what they have to say. At the same time, it's scary to think there are people out there dumb enough to believe it all.



Can't this also apply to Olbermann? A person who has a daily segment titled "Worst Person In The World"

>> ^ponceleon:
Bacon renders 250,000 cheeseburgers delicious every year.
I dig that.


Brilliant comment, ponceleon! That made me laugh

-------
>> ^EDD:
>> ^dbarry3:
>> ^rougy:
Abortion renders 500,000 women dead every year.
Who would dig a thing like that?

^Complete and utter BS strawman comment, that. But I guess you'll like this one:
Marriage renders 2 000 000 women dead every year. Who would dig a thing like that?


EDD, Sorry, I don't really understand your comment. Could you clarify? Are you talking about domestic violence? If so estimates are closer to 1,300 deaths for women due to domestic violence. Not 2,000,000. (http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html)

In regards to my statement being a "BS Strawman comment" I would also appreciate further clarification. The rational behind my statement was that in 2005 there were 1.21 million abortions in the US (http://www.guttmacher.org/sections/abortion.php?scope=U.S.%20specific). If you figure half of those people were female that equals roughly 500,000 women in one year, just in the US.
-------
>> ^lesserfool:
>> ^dbarry3:
Abortion renders 500,000 women dead every year.
Who would dig a thing like that?

"Worldwide, there are 19 million unsafe abortions a year, and they kill 70,000 women (accounting for 13 percent of maternal deaths), mostly in poor countries like Tanzania where abortion is illegal, according to the World Health Organization."


Lesserfool, you're right in posting this. This is a tragic statistic and it sucks. It just does. That so many tens of thousands of women die each year from this procedure. But look at the other number stated in this fact: 19 million. That's the death of 19,000,000 that subsequently also resulted in the death of 70,000. Why do we value life that's represented by one statistic and not the other?

When does the value for life begin?