Where else are the thieves going to get the revenue to pay off the debt they created while stealing money, life force, labor, lives, family, etc. from the cattle??

RC Cattle Drive has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.

Hardcore. Looks like an Aussie cattle dog, smarter than hell herding breed, great for ranches.

@alcom

I hear you shinyblurry, but I feel that your argument meanders back to the original appeal to authority that most believers resort to when justifying their positions. I also find that the related video links provided by TheGenk provide a valid refutation of the idea that God is The One who put values of good and evil inside each of us.

There is always an appeal to authority, either to God or to men. There are either objective moral values which are imposed by God, or morality is relative and determined by men. If morality is relative then there is no good or evil, and what is considered good today may be evil tomorrow. If it isn't absolutely wrong to murder indiscriminately, for instance, then if enough people agreed that it was right, it would be. Yet, this does not cohere with reality because we all know that murdering indiscriminately is absolutely wrong. The true test of a worldview is its coherence to reality and atheism is incoherent with our experience, whereas Christian theism describes it perfectly.

If you feel the videos provide a valid refutation, could you articulate the argument that they are using so we can discuss them here?

In my mind, Zacharias' incoherence with the atheist's ability to love and live morally is influenced by his own understanding of the source of moral truth. Because he defines the origin of pure love as Jesus' sacrifice on behalf of mankind, it is unfathomable to him that love could be found as a result of human survival/selection based of traits of cooperation, peace and mutual benefits of our social structure. His logic is therefore coloured and his mind is closed to certain ideas and possibilities.

The idea of agape love is a Christian idea, and agape love is unconditional love. You do not get agape love out of natural selection because it is sacrificial and sacrificing your well being or your life has a very negative impact on your chance to survive and pass on your genes. However, Christ provided the perfect example of agape love by sacrificing His life not only for His friends and family, but for people who hate and despise Him. In the natural sense, since Jesus failed to pass on His genes His traits should be selected out of the gene pool. Christ demonstrated a higher love that transcends the worldly idea of love. Often when the world speaks of love, it is speaking of eros love, which is love based on physical attraction, or philial love, which is brotherly love. The world knows very little of agape love outside of Christ. Christ taught agape love as the universal duty of men towards God:

Luke 6:27 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
Luke 6:28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Luke 6:29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
Luke 6:30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
Luke 6:31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
Luke 6:32 "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
Luke 6:33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
Luke 6:34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Luke 6:36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Indeed, moral foundations can and must change with the times. As our understanding of empathy, personal freedoms and the greater good of mankind develops with our societal and cultural evolution, so too must our standards of morality. This is most evident when concepts such as slavery and revenge (an eye for an eye) are seen as commonplace and acceptable throughout old scripture where modern society has evolved a greater understanding of the need for equality and basic human rights and policing and corrections as a measure of deterrence and rehabilitation for those individuals that stray from the path of greatest utility.

This is why slavery is no more, why racism is in decline and why eventually gay rights and green thought will be universal and our struggle to stifle the rights of gays and exploit the planet's resources to the point of our own self-extinction simply will be seen by future historians as sheer ignorance. Leviticus still pops up when people try to brand gays as deviant, even though most it is itself incoherent by today's standards. Remember that "defecating within the camp was unacceptable lest God step in it while walking in the evening." Well, today we just call that sewage management.

Some people, like Richard Dawkins, see infanticide as being the greatest utility. Some believe that to save the planet around 70 percent of the population must be exterminated. Green thought is to value the health of the planet above individual lives; to basically say that human lives are expendable to preserve the collective. This is why abortion is not questionable to many who hold these ideals; because human life isn't that valuable to them. I see many who have green thoughts contrast human beings to cattle or cockroaches. Utility is an insufficient moral standard because it is in the eye of the beholder.

In regards to the Levitical laws, those were given to the Jews and not the world, and for that time and place. God made a covenant with the Jewish people which they agreed to follow. The covenant God made with the world through Christ is different than the Mosaic law, and it makes those older laws irrelevant. If you would like to understand why God would give laws regarding slavery, or homosexuality, I can elucidate further.

In regards to your paraphrasing of Deuteronomy 23:13-14, this is really a classic example of how the scripture can be made to look like it is saying one thing, when it is actually saying something completely different. Did you read this scripture? It does not say that:

Deuteronomy 23:13 And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.

Deuteronomy 23:14 Because the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Gods home on Earth was in the tabernacle, and because God dwelled with His people, He exorted them to keep the camp holy out of reverence for Him.

The rules that God gave for cleanliness were 2500 years ahead of their time:

"In the Bible greater stress was placed upon prevention of disease than was given to the treatment of bodily ailments, and in this no race of people, before or since, has left us such a wealth of LAWS RELATIVE TO HYGIENE AND SANITATION as the Hebrews. These important laws, coming down through the ages, are still used to a marked degree in every country in the world sufficiently enlightened to observe them. One has but to read the book of Leviticus carefully and thoughtfully to conclude that the admonitions of Moses contained therein are, in fact, the groundwork of most of today's sanitary laws. As one closes the book, he must, regardless of his spiritual leanings, feel that the wisdom therein expressed regarding the rules to protect health are superior to any which then existed in the world and that to this day they have been little improved upon" (Magic, Myth and Medicine, Atkinson, p. 20). Dr. D. T. Atkinson

What's interesting about that is that Moses was trained in the knowledge of the Egyptians, the most advanced civilization in the world at that time. Yet you will not find even a shred of it in the bible. Their understanding of medicine at that time led to them doing things like rubbing feces into wounds; ie, it was completely primitive in comparison to the commands that God gave to Moses about cleanliness. Moses didn't know about germs but God did.

Paedophilia will never emerge as acceptable because it violates our basic understanding of human rights and the acceptable age of sexual consent. I know this is a common warning about the "slippery slope of a Godless definition of morality," but it's really a red herring. Do you honestly think society would someday deem that it carries a benefit to society? I just can't see it happening.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_Ancient_Greece

There's a Jimmy Kimmel video floating around where he talks about the british kid who sold his app to yahoo for $30,000,000. He then goes out and asks a load of teenagers what their greatest achievement is. They give various inane responses as you would expect and Kimmel says he no longer has faith in the kids as the future of the nation.

Kids like this turn all that on it's head.

The kid who sold his app, well great. He's loaded but he hasn't really made a difference. Richard Turere will have a major effect on the lives of thousands of his countrymen. He will have saved the lives of the villagers, their cattle and the endangered lions. Now that's a major lifetime achievement and he's only thirteen. He had virtually no resources and won't have had much if any formal education and yet he's made a real difference.

Kids like this are the real future of not only their town or nation but the world. Imagine what a kid like this could do with the resources available to the typical western teen.

I couldn't answer whether cattle rustling is still big business, but your question reminded me of this Stan Rogers song:

http://youtu.be/eZt_Kcoi3Ck

Cattle rustling is alive and well-Nowadays it's not such the hangin' offense that it was 150 yrs ago but it may as well be-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/texas-man-gets-99-years-f_n_936841.html
*promote the Bar THC ranch!!

Putting someone in prison isn't harsh enough. There should be a zero tolerance policy with automatic death penalty, which would need to be carried out efficiently. No more prisoners sitting on death row for years. No more ridiculously expensive lethal injections. If someone commits a crime and there's sufficient evidence of their guilt, they are killed quickly (broken neck, slit throat, cattle spike into the head, etc) and cremated. Boom, no more overpopulated prisons and no more wasted taxpayer money on feeding and sheltering criminals who will likely break the law again as soon as they are released.

Enforcing the law is always the trickiest part, since we don't have constant surveillance of every citizen. Therefore, in the absence of surveillance, we have to rely on fear. There's a reason why people don't think twice about speeding, jaywalking or littering. Not only are they very unlikely to get caught, the penalty when they do get caught is negligible. If you gave the death penalty for the above crimes, I guarantee people would think twice before committing them.

As for Norway, they certainly do have a comfortable prison system. If I were to go on a shooting rampage, I would definitely do it in Norway because their prisons don't seem that bad. In fact, their prisons are probably nicer than the living conditions of most criminals. The point of punishment is to deter people from breaking the law in the first place, not make them happier and less likely to do so after the fact.

The tension between steward and subdue...

Well, let's put it this way, in 50 years time when the sea comes and subdues most of the coastal land, when we run out of oil and our air is choked and toxic, when we face the real possibility of eating bugs instead of beef (insects have a much higher protein ratio for investment then cattle do) or pan-global starvation, you might want to think about which of the two is more important if you can pull your head out of your self righteous ass...

The bible talks about the sins of the father, well the lack of environmental concern these days is a sin and it will be visited upon our children.

If I didn't know better, it almost looks like the world is dreadfully underpopulated...

Or rather, the world is overpopulated by SimCity raised "master global planners" and underpopulated by sovereign farming families.

Check out Joel Salatin. He's been doing this stuff for generations. He cycles livestock grazing in much the same way. But not just cattle, he brings in chickens, rabbits, etc on the same land different days of the week.

I make no alogies for saying that was one of the most absurd, idiotic, and downright stupid logical jumps i have ever seen. Because obviously between incarcerating people like cattle, in shitty conditions, under constant threat from others, with a constant contact with violence; and giving criminals tickets to disneyland, and stern talks to; there' absolutely NO middle ground. Good one. Keep practicing....

I did this throughout my whole childhood. Started in the late 70s, before we had the metal chutes, so the adults would have to rope them and wrestle them down like old-school cowboys. I had to watch this just to see if anythings changed. Looked like he had an electric iron, which is new to me (we still used fire last time I did it), and the one, most gruesome thing the video didn't cover was what you did when you got a male calf.
Interesting though. How antiquated of a practice is this anyhow? It was originally used to identify your cattle so no one stole them, but does that still happen??

Hehehe, they said "paradigm shift"....Dream-On, too many cattle-peeps using their brains for verbal masturbation and ineffectual inaction....Not in my lifetime without some catastrophic or otherwise, world-unifying event.

The Fed and the World Bank can only fuck the world because of the illusory stranglehold they have on the cattle-We believe their paper to be of value and that the system works. Hard to rally behind a rout of criminals in their palaces when food and fuel isn't available just like it's hard for a majority of citizens to mount a physical campaign on Washington for a protest.....logistics.

These measures to add incrementally, additional features, capacities, etc. to existing laws??? To avoid accusations of a totalitarian crackdown, you know the routine and those who would that the United States be gun-free zone have plenty of time and money and the fucking media in their pocket.

Get me started on the privilege of driving? I daily see morons who, if the required tests for a driving license sane, would be riding a fucking unicycle to work. This includes you dumb-asses who stay on your fucking cell the bulk of the time you spend in your vehicle. I live in a city with over 6 million people, 150 square miles in the county, and everyone owns a car. Fucking nightmare of imbeciles on the road DAILY, plenty of whom should not be allowed to carry a loaded, 2-3 ton killing machine.

What was it Al Pacino said in "Heat??"....You get killed walking your doggy!"

Real simple for me: Hire police and create soldiers out of unhinged fucks who have control and power issues and give THEM guns?? Until my saliva can be used to melt steel or some unifying event turns the world into an idyllic wonderland of brotherly love, Guns. Explosives. Pointy fucking sticks. To protect ourselves from defective assholes and should the need ever arise, we'll make our decision then.

The world becomes increasingly more chaotic and non-linear by the hour...embrace it. We live in one of the most incredible times in human history and the planet my children inherit will be unrecognizable very soon and all change is quite a good thing.

"which is exactly what criminals want." -Thank You. The criminals who enact knee-jerk legislation on-cue, after such a n event. The test-pattern for how far the real criminals can go to disarm the people they view as subjects, cattle, worker-bees. The criminals were elected by imbeciles.