Sorry, but crawling out for help is not "brave".

Bravery is putting yourself at risk to help other people. Putting yourself through pain in order to survive is mere survival instinct. Most times, bravery is the opposite of survival instinct. People who run up to burning cars to help the occupants out are brave. Soldiers who storm machine gun nests are brave.

That word has been so watered down by the contemporary American need for "heroes" it's becoming meaningless.

I think Republicans have a disconnect on the word "Build" when they talk about Building an Economy. You build from the ground up. You don't build an attic, then put up walls, then floors, and finish with a solid foundation. It starts with that solid foundation. In an economy like ours that rely on people spending, you need people to be able to spend. That means the people at the low end that do more spending than those on the top (per dollar earned anyhow), need to be the ones having disposable income. If they spend 100% or more of their income on living essentials, they can't spend to move the economy. When they finally do spend, then the retailer can hire more people (at least until automation starts taking over low end jobs, which is frighteningly soon), which means more people with income to spend, which feeds into the cycle. Eventually transportation starts picking up, which feeds more money into the economy. Eventually production has to keep up. By punishing those at the bottom, is shooting oneself in the foot. Half the people who work for Walmart qualify for food stamps, though Walmart makes enough to pay everyone a living wage, give them benefits, and still be profitable, but the people conservatives (Christians yet, who Jesus said to help the needy and the poor, and how the rich were going to hell) are mad at, are the poor people working there, rather than the rich owners/operators for not paying living wages. So conservatives seek to punish those workers by taking away something that allows them to spend money on things that actually move the economy forward. 3 people buying a $25k Chevy will do far more for the economy than that rich ass hole who just put $70lk on a Mercedes or Lexus. Their collection of TVs, video game systems and the like, do far more for the economy than that rich guy's super high def, ultra large screen TV. It's such a fucked up world in conservative land... I'm still at a loss how I used to be a part of it.

It gets to what @enoch was talking about above. There are some really good business owners, then there are the winny bitches who say they can't pay living wages... One of the jobs I worked at, complained in a letter to all of us that if Obama won (first time around) he'd have to fire over 350 people if he put his tax plans in place. Come that February, Obama isn't even in office yet, and he fires 350+ people. Then tells the rest of us that the company couldn't afford to give us raises... of course the company at the same time, went out and purchases a private jet for him, and then he purchased a second mansion in the local, Jack Nicklaus, signature golf course gated community... and he already owned the second largest mansion there. But oh, the conservatives are so support him over his employees, and think poorly of his employees for needing help living day to day, and praise him for his business acumen. The problem with conservatives is they LOVE greed. Love it. They worship it more than they do the Christ they say they serve. They just don't want their money going to help others, they give plenty at their church, they give time at the soup kitchen, but God forbid that their taxes help those working for the asshole business owners who chose greed over their employees. Pay your employees living wages, and no, you won't have it on easy street like Enoch's nephew, but I can guarantee you that his son is the far better human... and that's not to say the nephew doesn't give, he very well may, but he chose to take that money for himself than to pay his employees well. It doesn't matter if he gives tons of it away, it was ill gotten, how much could it have helped his employees had he let them keep more of their labor? Sadly, that nephew seems to be the vast majority of businesses in the US.

*promote

Very, very good explanation of the wall and the oppression in Berlin after WWII. I've been pondering recently why the German people, and specifically Berlin, are such world-leading bastions of liberal and progressive ideas and this is part of the reason.

The German people know what it is like to be both the oppressor and the acutely oppressed, so they seek to reduce that suffering wherever it is found, helping other nations' citizens seeking solace from the horrors of war.

It also highlights the folly of walls, and those who would seek to build them.

You got that right.

Thanks for helping others to see this.

I love Bill, but I will be happy when this election is over and I don't have to listen to any more of this sanctimonious crap about how not voting for Hillary is a vote for Trump.
Sometimes evil is loud and in your face like Trump, both publicly and in private I suspect Trump is pretty evil, or at least an Olympic class asshole.
Hillary on the other hand is I suspect basically good and is sincere in her desire to help others, but she is still bound by our corrupt political system. She still accepts money from Wall Street and big business and they will expect something in return for those millions. Namely watered down regulation and legislation, and a tax code with more holes than a sieve.
They're paying to continue the status quo, and the status quo for the rest of us means stagnant wages and housing, healthcare and education costs at a rate that would leave the Voyager 1 probe in the dust.

ha, knowing a little bit about what self-care is actually about... none of this makes any sense. It's more about doing things that are 'good' for you, like eating/sleeping well, working out and volunteering your time to help others (with the end-goal of having respect for yourself). This video seems to confuse it with gross self-indulgence (which is usually things that are bad for you and thus not self-care.) research/comprehension fail.

"Doing these things as a prelude to proselytizing means they aren't altruistic..."

Altruism isn't the right word. When people help others to their hurt, that is called agape love, a word the Christian community has owned for 2000 years. You're right of course, that more than a few churches out there are always trying to figure out how to get more members, more money etc. But that isn't all the churches, or even nearly so. For instance the churches in this community dont care who goes where; they all work together and no one is taking the credit for it. This is just one counter example to the broad brush strokes you're painting here.

I think you need a little more nuance here too, newtboy; for instance, would you say it is wrong for atheists to do good deeds in the name of atheism? Or, for the red cross to air commercials showing their accomplishments so they could raise more money to expand their mission in the world?

"And yet, here you are calling attention to yourself (and them), so you proved your statement wrong by stating it publicly. Oops! ;-)"

I didn't mention what I do newtboy, but I have no problem calling attention to the righteous who glorify God through their lives.

"Churches are for profit institutions.."

The church according to the bible is a non-profit organization. Whether churches in America reflect that or not is another question entirely. I know for my church, and almost any other church, you can request to see how the church spends its money year by year. None of the churches I have dealings with are making "profits"

"Once again I would ask, why do you question your god's clear wish that I (and others) not believe in him..."

Jesus Christ died for our sins, yours and mine. God already demonstrated His love for us while we were sinners, now the only question is, will you reciprocate? The insanity of the question posed to Stephan Fry, ie what would you say to God, is exposed by the answer "How dare you!" by Stephan. It seems that people believe God is a man who needs to explain Himself, who has something to hide. Yet, Stephan and every other human being have a lot to hide; the brutal and ugly truth of how we have all lived our lives here.

It's easy for a man to say to people who know nothing about him that he will shake his fist at God when they meet. Yet, what will he do when all of his lawless deeds are exposed and the secrets he has kept from everyone are brought to light? All the fight will go out of him immediately, this I guarantee you. Yet, this in itself is still ridiculous, considering that even merely being in Gods presence is enough to make the most hardened sinner fall to his knees and weep uncontrollably. But people won't be weeping because God loves them on that day, they will be weeping and gnashing their teeth after being confronted by the fact that they have missed the boat for eternity.

"Shirley.."

My name isn't Sherlock..

"Doing 100 good deeds and one incredibly evil deed makes one evil. No church in history has ever reached that level of goodness. Churches are evil. I hope that clears things up."

I'm glad you understand what I have been trying to explain to the sift for years; a relative goodness is no goodness at all. If you set fire to someones home, and then built 27 orphanages, would people call you good? Why is it then that people think that all of our good deeds should cause God to forgive us for a single sin? This is the reason Jesus died for us, because we can't earn Gods forgiveness and our good deeds can't erase our bad ones. Could you ever go to court and say "your honor, although I commited this crime I have done over 1000 hours of community service in my lifetime, so please dismiss the case; will that ever happen? That wouldn't be justice, and if God threw out our case without true justice, He wouldn't be a just judge.

What would I say about churches who have done evil? These are institutions; the true church is the body of Christ, of which every born again believer is a member of. That is what is happening in my community, is that no one cares about the institution of the church; they are just being the church. The reward is simply this, to serve God honorably by living a sacrificial life predicated on sacrificial love.

This is all fine and dandy, and kudos to people who take time to help others, but in my experiences......cops can still go fuck themselves. Not to worry though lantern53, I've never dealt with you in uniform, as far as I know. I bet you're the bee's knees. I can't judge you there. Maybe I'll even polish up your badge for ya one day. Press your uniform. Tune up the ol' squad car. I just hope someone makes a video of it, and it's posted here. So we can all hold hands and sing kumbaya, while the siftbot joyfully sheds a single unifying tear.

Makes perfect sense.

Spend billions of dollars helping other countries. Socialism. Something America seems violently allergic to within it's own country (just think of the social wrongs 100 bn dollars could right, right?)

Sorry, the "story" that the US is in any other country to protect it is just out and out bullshit. The US sets up bases wherever it goes just like England set up colony's when the famed claim "The sun never sets on the British Empire" was made... Because having a thumb in every pie allows it to flex it's might in subtle (or not so subtle) ways at the drop of a hat.

Remember, this is the same country that threatened multiple foreign economies with the GFC, causing destabilisation and hardship world wide. Sound like world leaders to you?

I love American's, they are awesome people and visiting your country never disappoints me at just how wonderful almost all the people I meet are. But America is a different kettle of fish. Perhaps one day Americans will finally decide to take back their country and make it like the propaganda says it is (greatest country in the world).

I'm not saying religion may or may not have had an influence on him or anyone else throughout his/their lives.

What I am saying is that It sure had no influence on reality and the way that device works. It also didn't give him the knowledge or education necessary to know how to make that. In fact, quite the opposite. If he had TRULY, DEEPLY believed the bible (for example), he wouldn't even have tried. He would've simply tried to pray the blindness away, and believe that god would take care of things. And if it didn't... hey it's god's will. God works in mysterious ways right? Let's just wait to die and be carried to heaven.

But fortunately, at least from my perspective, most people (unlike religious extremists) don't actually believe. Not really. They WANT to believe. They believe they want to believe. But it goes no further than that. It's an act of fear of the unknown, grasping at anything that gives them hope that they won't simply go back into nothingness when we die.

Now, contrary to what you may think, I'm not "hating on people". I'm hating on religion. That is true. But I know how to keep that separate from the people. Shit, if I hated people because of that I would hate most of my family, they're pretty much all catholic.

You're saying science doesn't do anything by itself. You're right. It's not an object or a machine. It's a method. And thanks to it, great things have been achieved. Unlike religion. That's my point. You don't actually DO anything with religion except fill every possible void of knowledge with bullshit, expecting it to stick, even when it flies in the face of actual reality.

You said: "Meanwhile, religious people built much of what you enjoy today which utilises the scientific method as a starting point."

Just because they're religious doesn't mean religion had anything to do with it. What did, was the void of knowledge they felt, even though religion claimed the absolute truth; and the need for better lives, even though religion claimed to be the only way for a perfect life.

People didn't achieve anything with religion. If anything they noticed just how much void of knowledge there was that needed to be filled, and not with the answer: "god did it!".

You're religious I'm guessing... you didn't go into this field to try and help people because you're religious. You went to it because you're probably a good person who wants to help others, and also help advance mankind. None of that has anything to do with religion.

edit: sorry, long text

Hey! No fair rewriting it after I upvote you!

Your imagination steers you wrong again, many people identify themselves as atheist....
Demographics of atheism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A 2012 poll on the demographics of atheism by Gallup International, featuring over 50,000 respondents worldwide, recorded that 13% of those interviewed said they were "convinced atheists".
A 2007 Barna group poll found that about 20 million people say they are atheist, have no religious faith, or are agnostic, with 5 million of that number claiming to be atheists. The study also found that "[t]hey tend to be more educated, more affluent and more likely to be male and unmarried than those with active faith" and that "only 6 percent of people over 60 have no faith in God, and one in four adults ages 18 to 22 describe themselves as having no faith."
'Good' is good because harming others for personal gain is antithetical to civil society, while helping others selflessly is of great benefit to society.

Give me back my vote!

@shinyblurry

"When we stand before God, everything will be in the open. There will be no secrets; you'll be exposed as the person you really are and not the person you present to other people. "

So, does that mean that even though we're Atheists and god should hate us, that he'll let us in anyway because even though we didn't believe he existed, we still actually lived our lives without forsaking others? you know. Without actually protesting and harassing others for fanatical beliefs, and helping others because we felt that humanity as a whole needed to improve rather than for fear of consequences if we don't?

Sounds like we Atheists have less to fear about judgement day than you do.

I think she is getting over it by making this video. I think this video might be intended as a way of helping other women who have been wronged in a similar manner take back some element of control.

As for the definition of first world problem, I'd say it was taking enough offense over a video on the internet that you feel the need to belittle her experience by comparing it to the problems of others.

Boo hoo, somebody posted a video about how they are coping with the theft of naked pictures. I'll helpfully put their plight into perspective, hear me whine, #imadouchebag.

Should you stop posting thoughtless noise? YES!!!

You "claimed" the guy not answering questions is being an asshole. I explained why his actions, while rude in normal society, are not rude but prudent.
You posited a theory about the cop's motives (edit: in wording that sounds as if you were stating facts, not a theory). I explained how his actions proved his ulterior motives, not that your theory was impossible because cops never help others. I understood the point of view well enough to see he would not have continued if he were actually "just helping" once he saw no help was needed or wanted, you missed that.
You got rude and called me a lonely paranoid newt constantly spouting bullshit! Hmmmm......

I'm all for exploring differing theories about how a scenario went down.
I'm not for being insulting to the person that points out that your theory doesn't hold up to scrutiny instead of either realizing the theory was wrong in the first place, or delineating why it's not wrong. THAT'S just ridiculous! ;-)

True, but maybe the guy - after seeing it - gave his permission to help other people understand the nature of irrational behaviour.