Sigh. For a moment (when you edited your first reply to something less childish and insulting) I thought you didn't want to come off as a closet misogynist with the rhetoric of an angry tweenager... guess I was wrong.


>> ^Yogi:

>> ^hpqp:
@Yogi
Yes, technically a "whore" is "a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money;" but also "a prostitute or promiscuous woman: often a term of abuse" (Collins Engl. dictionary; the part in bold comes up in practically all the online dictionaries google presents when searching "whore dictionary definition", and the Oxford Dictionary classes this word as "derogatory").

But this is not about definitions, it's about use, and your reactionary response seems to betray the fact that you know this full well (which is perhaps why you chose to truncate the M&W definition of "whore").
Your comment that I originally responded to contained truth, and would have probably received a lot more upvotes if it hadn't been for the first phrase. My response, in any case, was not meant as a personal attack, but simply a "heads up" to the negative connotation that term carries.

Fuck Off.

>> ^hpqp:

@Yogi
Yes, technically a "whore" is "a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money;" but also "a prostitute or promiscuous woman: often a term of abuse" (Collins Engl. dictionary; the part in bold comes up in practically all the online dictionaries google presents when searching "whore dictionary definition", and the Oxford Dictionary classes this word as "derogatory").

But this is not about definitions, it's about use, and your reactionary response seems to betray the fact that you know this full well (which is perhaps why you chose to truncate the M&W definition of "whore").
Your comment that I originally responded to contained truth, and would have probably received a lot more upvotes if it hadn't been for the first phrase. My response, in any case, was not meant as a personal attack, but simply a "heads up" to the negative connotation that term carries.


Fuck Off.

@Yogi

Yes, technically a "whore" is "a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money;" but also "a prostitute or promiscuous woman: often a term of abuse" (Collins Engl. dictionary; the part in bold comes up in practically all the online dictionaries google presents when searching "whore dictionary definition", and the Oxford Dictionary classes this word as "derogatory").


But this is not about definitions, it's about use, and your reactionary response seems to betray the fact that you know this full well (which is perhaps why you chose to truncate the M&W definition of "whore").

Your comment that I originally responded to contained truth, and would have probably received a lot more upvotes if it hadn't been for the first phrase. My response, in any case, was not meant as a personal attack, but simply a "heads up" to the negative connotation that term carries.

Hilarity ensued.



(read the comments)

@hpqp

Thanks for the heads-up about the post. And thanks for clearly detailing your position on the matter. If I may, I’d like to explain my opinion on the topic.

Is it wrong to “criticize Islam?” In a civilized society that values free speech, clearly the answer is no. But free speech is a two-way street. If it is acceptable to criticize Islam, then clearly it is just as acceptable that such criticism be open to criticism in return. In short, just because a person thinks their opinion on a particular matter is correct doesn’t make it so. And if a person can’t handle someone disagreeing with their opinion… well we all know the adage about people who live in glass houses.

My major objection to people like Sam Harris is not that I believe religion or in particular Islam is some off-limit topic of criticism. No. My major objection to Sam Harris is that rather than criticize Islam he instead tries to inspire fear of it—and, by association, Muslims as well (i.e. No one lies awake at night worrying about the Amish—but those Muslims on the other hand…). Many of his arguments seem to be based on fear, misunderstanding, exaggeration, oversimplification, and in of some cases apparent intentional misrepresentation of not only Islam but other religions such as Jainism as well. They often lack any sort of evidence (i.e. Islam is the religion causing the greatest amount of suffering in the world) yet we are expected to swallow their truth without doubt. And when someone raises these criticisms of his supposed criticism? Rather than actually defend his claims and provide solid evidence in support of them he instead insinuates we’re just too “liberal”—too culturally relativistic— to see the danger that he sees.

Sam Harris is free to criticize Islam. In fact, I’m eagerly looking forward to the day when he actually starts doing so (in the dictionary sense of the term). In the meantime, I dismiss his arguments as both unsupported and intended to intentionally stir up both fear and prejudice against Islam and its followers.

Next, I’d like to address the issue of Islamophobia—prejudice against, hatred, or fear of Islam and Muslims. Islamophobia doesn’t exist? I think the 200,000 Muslims killed and 50,000 Muslim women raped during the Bosnian Genocide would disagree with that statement. So would Iranian-American Zohreh Assemik, who was sliced with a boxcutter, kicked, had her hand smashed with a hammer, and had anti-Muslim slurs written on the mirrors of her nail and facial salon. So would pretty much anyone who played Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide in which you get to kill not only terrorists but Muslim civilians as well.

Frankly, @hpqp, I’m surprised. All of our conversations on the Sift have been reasonable, if a bit passionate at times. I think you would be just as shocked if I were to suddenly proclaim there is no such thing as Antisemitism as I was to read your statement in this thread. Islamophobia (as defined above) is quite real. No, claims of Islamophobia should not be used to shut down criticism of Islam (any more than claims of Antisemitism should be used to squelch criticism of Israeli policies). But that’s a far cry from claiming Islamophobia doesn’t exist, isn’t it?

You seem like a reasonable guy. I know you’ve tried your best to explain it to me but I still don’t understand why you believe so strongly that Islam itself—and not particular interpretations of Islam—are such a threat. So let's do something different. I’ve asked you this before, but you didn’t reply, so I’ll ask you again—what do you/Harris hope to achieve with all of this vitriol? What’s the goal? What do you hope to see happen? What’s the endgame? I ask these questions because I think the answers will really help me see where you are coming from and to understand your point of view.

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.

At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.

Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.

It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.

I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.

When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.

Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.

At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.

For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.

Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.

What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked *exactly* like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.

It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.

Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.

So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.

I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.

So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.

So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..



>> ^TheSluiceGate:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Well, according to the dictionary:
dict.org
Atheism \A"the ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.
merriam-webster.com
Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
dictionary.reference.com
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.

The problem here, as MaxWilder suggested, is that arguing about what the word atheist means is just semantics. We could both quote dictionaries until the cows come home, but it would make no difference to the central argument. It's for reasons like this that other new terms such as "rationalist" or "humanist" are being coined all the time as a way of distancing traditional atheism from the word atheist itself. I realise now that me trying to clarify the manner in which many people commonly define their lack of a belief in a god is actually quite pointless. I'm even going to disregard that you didn't respond to the reason why it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. This thread needs to be brought down to brass tacks.
Let's simplify the central point here, the central point of both the video you posted, and of all the arguments in this thread: Can you give one reason why you , shinyblurry, personally believe that there is a god? Just your one best argument for a god's existence.
For my part, and in the interest of fairness, I will tell you briefly how I arrived at being an atheist. (You can comment on this separately if you wish, but please, not before addressing the above question!)
I was about 13 years old when, as a child brought up a catholic and attending weekly mass, I began to question the morality of the god described in the bible. I looked at the atrocities he committed and asked myself what I would think of a real flesh and blood person alive today who behaved in the manner of the actions attributed to him in the bible, and whether or not this person would be worthy of the praise and admiration heaped upon him. This central idea led to an increased questioning of all the aspects of the religion I had been brought up in, and an awareness that although there were many great ideas and philosophical truths in catholic teachings, there was no conclusive proof either in the bible, or in the world in general, for the existence of a supernatural god of any kind.
So if you, shinyblurry, were recording a video in the style of the one that you have posted, what would you be saying on camera was the one central reason for your belief?

>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, according to the dictionary:
dict.org
Atheism \A"the ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.
merriam-webster.com
Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
dictionary.reference.com
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.


The problem here, as MaxWilder suggested, is that arguing about what the word atheist means is just semantics. We could both quote dictionaries until the cows come home, but it would make no difference to the central argument. It's for reasons like this that other new terms such as "rationalist" or "humanist" are being coined all the time as a way of distancing traditional atheism from the word atheist itself. I realise now that me trying to clarify the manner in which many people commonly define their lack of a belief in a god is actually quite pointless. I'm even going to disregard that you didn't respond to the reason why it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. This thread needs to be brought down to brass tacks.

Let's simplify the central point here, the central point of both the video you posted, and of all the arguments in this thread: Can you give one reason why *you*, shinyblurry, personally believe that there is a god? Just your *one* best argument for a god's existence.

For my part, and in the interest of fairness, I will tell you briefly how I arrived at being an atheist. (You can comment on this separately if you wish, but please, not before addressing the above question!)

I was about 13 years old when, as a child brought up a catholic and attending weekly mass, I began to question the morality of the god described in the bible. I looked at the atrocities he committed and asked myself what I would think of a real flesh and blood person alive today who behaved in the manner of the actions attributed to him in the bible, and whether or not this person would be worthy of the praise and admiration heaped upon him. This central idea led to an increased questioning of all the aspects of the religion I had been brought up in, and an awareness that although there were many great ideas and philosophical truths in catholic teachings, there was no conclusive proof either in the bible, or in the world in general, for the existence of a supernatural god of any kind.

So if you, shinyblurry, were recording a video in the style of the one that you have posted, what would *you* be saying on camera was the one central reason for your belief?

Well, according to the dictionary:

dict.org

Atheism \A"the*ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.

merriam-webster.com

Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity

a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA

dictionary.reference.com

–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.
>> ^TheSluiceGate:
>> ^shinyblurry:
<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/video/God-does-exist-Testimony-from-an-ex-atheist?loadcomm=1#comment-1200441'>^criticalthud</a>:<br />@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry</A><BR>Actually, atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. Look it up in a dictionary sometime. A lack of belief, ie, you don't know, would be agnosticism. An atheist is saying he does know there isn't a God, which is a leap of faith, considering there is no evidence to the contrary.
Personally, I think it takes more faith to be an atheist. If you ever feel like challenging your beliefs, which is what anyone who is seeking the truth should do
Good point shinyblurry, but....
Atheism is not a statement of a claim that there is no god - it is the rejection of the proposition made by theists that they believe there is a god. Atheism does not assume any positive claim of the non-existence of a god. A statement like this requires proof, and proving a negative statement is impossible ( http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=You_can%27t_prove_a_negative ) which is why the statement "I am 100% sure there is no God" is just as irrational as a 100% belief in a god.
Dawkins put this well on his "belief scale" which (quoting from another site) goes something like as follows:
1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
3. Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.
4. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.
5. Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.
Dawkins describes himself as a 6.999999 as he knows that being a 7 on this scale would be just as illogical and rational as being a 1.
It doesn't take any faith to be an atheist. Let me explain like this: A theist makes a claim that god exists and that they have proof. They present the proof to an atheist. The atheist takes on board the claim, does research of their own, tests the proposition being made by the theist (presuming it is possible to do so - and logically if it cannot be tested, it cannot be presented as evidence!), and comes to a conclusion of whether or not they believe the claim being made as to the existence of a god. If they reject the claim they remain atheist. If not, they become a theist. There is no faith required in being an atheist.
This video doesn't really offer any proof, as it is one man's personal, untestable, experience.
Therefore I remain atheist.

It's irritating that you don't know a goddamn thing.. and that that doesn't bother you in the slightest.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberty

Who owns the planet? No one.
From what source do you derive all your private property? The fucking planet.

See how this works. No you don't.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Private property rights = liberty.
communism works if you're a member of a primitive hunter-gatherer tribe.
In every other form of society it fails.

(A small addition that has a lot to do with the last part of the original Blog Post.)

The one I posted directly above has some small changes for easier reading. I still need to do a little idea storming at the end as I'm VERY unsure whether the forces at play would still hold the Universe together.

It's more likely that the "big rip" will win out, even over the weak and strong nuclear forces (which is a lot of energy considering that it just did it to the UNIVERSE! heh...

I also need to see, particularly under what conditions the Universe might start to be "swayed" by quantum fluctuations, the same you see at the beginning of the big bang, that had a lot to do with how matter and other non-baryonic (that 's the official way of saying, matter that isn't like the stuff we know: like Dark Matter) matter set up (when you look at the cosmic background radiation (CBR) map, the "hot vs. cold") topography wise; it's why the Universe isn't a smooth uniform (or symmetric) balanced energy place; which you would expect from a perfect explosion like the Big Bang, but the CBR shows that the explosion was far from being smooth and quite the opposite.

It's what gives us our galaxies and also where they're at. The question besides how gravity is related to the quantum mechanics realm; as we have NO theory (with a few hypotheses that almost all have to do with string theory: strings of energy in different "dimensional" configurations; like one dimension, two dimension (planer), etc..."; these little strings vibrate, kind of like a standing wave and intercede and connect into our dimension: think of a plane with limited dimensions on the x & y, then imagine a line intersecting in two spots--one coming "up" the other going "down", but the second connection BARELY hits the plane.

On our end we see a photon that appears to act like a particle and wave in whichever situation it's facing.Normally it may only act like a wave the first spot, but since the energy of this photon is a gamma ray (increased energy) it caused the string to vibrate more forcefully. Thus, connecting it to our "planer" observable space-time. But, when the energy decreases, the photon's string is pulled back and all of a sudden it only displays one of the two characteristics. Baryonic matter works the same way in String Theory, but requires VERY hard math to solve the discrepancies (one of the reasons some people hate it as it isn't a so called "elegant solution"; everything we've seen so far, while hard to grasp initially--tends to, "so far", work out to be very easy solutions).

However, string theory has described many things we have found out in the particle world very well. Another idea (which is more elegant and to me, the presence of "e" in it is very, intriguing) is E8 Symmetry. It's also a mathematical solution, so don't expect too much straight forward dialogue in it's definition. However, remember that Euler's number/The "Natural" number, "e", is related to a great many things already present in everyday life and the formation of almost everything from: you neural pathways, your circulatory system, clouds, trees/plants, sea shells, galaxies, fractals, and much much more...

What I need to know his how baryonic matter would react given a scenario were everything is ripped apart. Specifically, it's quantum mechanical reactions. Does it go into a "quantum critical state" (a fancy way of saying "pseudo"-superposition), as in this state it would still behave in a quantum mechanical way according to superposition. This leads to the last question. If it does enter superposition, is it possible that it may become "uncoupled, disassociated, or dis-entangled" from other matter, even non-baryonic matter like dark matter.

Anyway, just a bit more for what I wrote. More of me, thinking aloud, as I've read a lot about entanglement and superposition, but in this scenario I'd mot likely need an expert to think about it and give me an answer. Math will most likely be useless till we have some hard information on it; right now it's just pure observation. Then you may be able to commit yourself to some math that would show (or at least predict) what most likely would occur.

Another long ponderment! I'm keeping that word so screw you Merriam-Webster!

Might want to check my link again. It cites the Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Edition 1989. So yes, it is in Oxford. darkrowan's link addresses this as well.

>> ^lucky760:

>> ^blankfist:
Does anything rhyme with elbow?

Hell no. Bilbo is the closest I could find, but not a full rhyme obviously.
>> ^darkrowan:
Sporange

Jargon doesn't count.
>> ^gwiz665:
"Door hinge" would like a word.

Not even close, though it might depend on your accent.
>> ^Skeeve:
"Chilver"

Not in Oxford so it must not be a real word. (Oxford has more credibility than the wiktionary.)
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Whore binge?

Bingo! <insert Charlie Sheen joke here>

>> ^blankfist:

Does anything rhyme with elbow?


Hell no. Bilbo is the closest I could find, but not a full rhyme obviously.

>> ^darkrowan:

Sporange


Jargon doesn't count.

>> ^gwiz665:

"Door hinge" would like a word.


Not even close, though it might depend on your accent.

>> ^Skeeve:

"Chilver"


Not in Oxford so it must not be a real word. (Oxford has more credibility than the wiktionary.)

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Whore binge?


Bingo! <insert Charlie Sheen joke here>

Throughout human history every society has had their own definition of marriage. In many, even our own western civilization in the past, women were considered property and expected to obey their husbands much like slaves. The relics of this are still in the traditional vows. Women couldn't vote, and couldn't own property. But that changed over time. Women were recognized as equals, and society changed the definition of marriage accordingly.

Furthermore, gay marriage is already happening and has been happening for some time. Many churches will perform gay marriages even in states where they are not legally recognized. It's already happened. The definition is changed. GET OVER IT.

The only fight left is this pathetic vestige of religious homophobia.

@bcglorf - You are correct in your assertion that homosexuality is not a primary genetic trait, otherwise it would disappear within a few generations. It is likely recessive, triggered with some sort of environmental factor or other random variable.

But let's put the science aside for a second and talk logic. Did you ever "decide" to be attracted to somebody? No, you simply are, or are not, or find them somewhat attractive, or grow more attracted over time, or see them differently when you are buzzed. There is no decision factor there. I could not decide to be attracted to a man. In fact, if I find out I'm looking at a gorgeous woman who used to be a man, my attraction to her disappears instantly. It is not a choice, it is a subconscious reaction and I have no control over it.

So why do you think this is different for gays? Did you, bcglorf, decide to be straight? That means you could have decided to be gay. That was not a choice I was ever given.

>> ^bcglorf:

As Aniatario pointed out, the definition of marriage was changed very recently (in 1967) to allow interracial marriage, so there certainly isn't anything inherently untouchable about it.
From Webster's unabridged dictionary in 1900, the definition of marriage:
1.The act of marrying, or the state of being married; legal union of a man and a woman for life, as husband and wife; wedlock; matrimony.


From merriam-webster.com:

1a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>

Looks like Webster's has changed their definition.

>> ^bcglorf:

I'm not seeing anything in the 1900 definition that demanded or banned interracial couples from marriage. In fact, it would certainly appear that long, long before your arbitrary 1967 date, marriage was already defined as the union of a man and a woman, without regard for race or any other considerations.


The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 criminalized all marriage between white and non-white:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924
The Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia ruled the Racial Integrity Act unconstitutional in 1967:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

I can't help but notice you ignored my question. When did you choose to be heterosexual?

Your argument is faulty by your own standard of morality and voting

1.
Capitalism is neither moral or immoral.
It's a self interested venture with the sole intent of maximizing profit. full stop.
It's amoral.

b : lacking moral sensibility

2.
Voting doesn't mean shit.
In 2000, Al Gore won the popular for President.

Why was Al Gore never president, bobknight?
That's who the people voted for in 2000, but that's not the government we got.

Explain these things Bobknight please. No response? Cognitive dissonance much?

I know it's tough to admit your beliefs are illusions at first.
It gets easier once you know there are people who are here to support you. =]

[ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amoral ]
[ http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0876793.html ]

p.s. - C. Wright. Power Elite. look it up. learn things bobknight
>> ^bobknight33:

How could anyone listen to this and not puke?
Capitalism is a good thing. Capitalism with out morals is a bad thing.
We have the government that we have now because that's what the people voted for.