>> ^westy:

TYPICAL THING FOR A FAGGOT TO DO BRAIN WASH THERE CHILDREN WITH THE FAGOT AGENDA IF THEY LET JUSES INTO THERE HARTS THEY WOULD BE FREE OF THE EVIL GAY SPIRIT THAT POSSESS THEM.
PS..THE EARTH IS 6000 YEARS OLD


That actually made me laugh pretty good.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

From years of interacting with Westy - I can tell you that this is definitely sarcastic parody - though he does live at the fringe of Poe's Law and without using the sarcasm box - it's hard to tell. It's also a troll. Sigh.>> ^bareboards2:

To new or casual visitors to the Sift --
This is not typical of the Sift. I don't know if this comment was meant to be a "joke" or not. There is a mechanism for marking a comment as "sarcasm" -- it wasn't utilized for this comment. So I don't know if this sifter Westy is "joking" or not.
The Sift has guidelines against egregiously offensive speech; it can lead to being banned from the site.
The Sift also is fiercely proud of Americans' right to free speech.
It puts folks like me in a quandary. I hate this comment, whether it is a "joke" or not. I believe in free speech.
I am posting my comment so that if you are new or a casual visitor, you will know that at least one person on the sift is appalled by this comment and doesn't know what to do. @dag.
What is weird is that this seems out of character for Westy. He's crusty and opinionated, not foul mouthed and ugly. It's almost as if someone has hacked into his account.

>> ^westy:
TYPICAL THING FOR A FAGGOT TO DO BRAIN WASH THERE CHILDREN WITH THE FAGOT AGENDA IF THEY LET JUSES INTO THERE HARTS THEY WOULD BE FREE OF THE EVIL GAY SPIRIT THAT POSSESS THEM.
PS..THE EARTH IS 6000 YEARS OLD

To new or casual visitors to the Sift --

This is not typical of the Sift. I don't know if this comment was meant to be a "joke" or not. There is a mechanism for marking a comment as "sarcasm" -- it wasn't utilized for this comment. So I don't know if this sifter Westy is "joking" or not.

The Sift has guidelines against egregiously offensive speech; it can lead to being banned from the site.

The Sift also is fiercely proud of Americans' everyone's right to free speech. (Thanks, Boise-lib)

It puts folks like me in a quandary. I hate this comment, whether it is a "joke" or not. I believe in free speech.

I am posting my comment so that if you are new or a casual visitor, you will know that at least one person on the sift is appalled by this comment and doesn't know what to do. @dag.

What is weird is that this seems out of character for Westy. He's crusty and opinionated, not foul mouthed and ugly. It's almost as if someone has hacked into his account.


>> ^westy:

TYPICAL THING FOR A FAGGOT TO DO BRAIN WASH THERE CHILDREN WITH THE FAGOT AGENDA IF THEY LET JUSES INTO THERE HARTS THEY WOULD BE FREE OF THE EVIL GAY SPIRIT THAT POSSESS THEM.
PS..THE EARTH IS 6000 YEARS OLD

TYPICAL THING FOR A FAGGOT TO DO BRAIN WASH THERE CHILDREN WITH THE FAGOT AGENDA IF THEY LET JUSES INTO THERE HARTS THEY WOULD BE FREE OF THE EVIL GAY SPIRIT THAT POSSESS THEM.

PS..THE EARTH IS 6000 YEARS OLD

Outreach to the unsaved community by hosting popular secular events.
The arrogance of their supposed good works in the hopes of brain washing more to their side.
I don't know whether to laugh or throw up.

Oh, and Pat Robertson can lick sloth taints.

Just another example of how religion manages to spoil everything. Don't they realise that people get addicted to things that are fun? They believe your children would be better off addicted to distracting, brain washing, mythical fun, like religion.

Deposit thes nut jobs on an island somewhere, so that they can keep their ignorance to themselves before they succeed in plunging us back into the dark ages, and the apocalypse they cannot wait for. Oh, and any child under 16 will not be allowed to go with them to avoid the production of more brain washed cranks.

>> ^Yogi:

This is sort of an argument from ignorance here. He doesn't understand running...he doesn't understand running with people. He also doesn't understand that if they weren't running for charity they would just be running, because that's what we do we're a running people.
Humans are meant to run for long long distances, it's in our genetics and our history. So while I love David Mitchell, it's just the sort of thing that if he put a little more thought into this video or maybe asked someone, it would've made a lot more sense.


In what way is it an argument from ignorance ?

All of what he said could have been said by sum-one that fully understands running , running with people , running for charity ,running for fitness , running as a socail activity.

He is not saying running is bad , or running with other people is bad he is just calling out the arbitrary nature of marathons.


I agree you can make the argument that some people would only run in the first place or chose to run in order to train for a marathon and so it serves that function of popular support and brain washing to make sure you train and have obvouse goal to train for.
and it also gets people involved with raising money for charity when they might not have otherwise however he is not arguing for or against those things.

Pritty much all of David mitchels arguments are pedantic and i'm sure you can de construct many of them in a negative way but there is still an element of truth to them and they call out some aspects of human nature that are arbitrary or often taken for granted as serous endevers when in reality they are just as absurd as anything else.

>> ^A10anis:

You only have to look at his followers to see the type of desperate person who needs this nonsense. Regarding the children? ALL cults, and i include all faiths, who brain wash kids are guilty of child abuse. As an adult believe what you want, but keep the children separate and free from your warped, crazy, dangerous delusions until they are old enough to make up their OWN minds.


brain washing kids is fine , you just have to make sure you are brain washing them with critical thinking and an understanding of science.

You only have to look at his followers to see the type of desperate person who needs this nonsense. Regarding the children? ALL cults, and i include all faiths, who brain wash kids are guilty of child abuse. As an adult believe what you want, but keep the children separate and free from your warped, crazy, dangerous delusions until they are old enough to make up their OWN minds.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

As always - the Warmies love to muddle terminilogy in order to misdirect.
There is a vast world of difference between what a typical Warmie is talking about when they say, "climate change" and what a scientist is talking about. However, in the news media and popular culture, the Warmies routinely equate both of them together in order to lend themselves false credibility.
"Climate change" as a generic term simply means the climate is changing. This is scientifically provable - however it is so patently obvious (and has been for millenium) that it does not require the rigor of the scientific method to verify. No one is arguing against the reality that Earth's climate has cycles, changes, alters, or otherwise permutates over long periods of time (or even short periods locally).
However, when Warmies talk about "Climate change" they do not mean this. They pack so many other things into two words that it becomes almost impossible to pin it down. But generally speaking when a Warmie says climate change they mean something along these lines...
"Human C02 emissions are the primary agent of all climate changes in the past 200 years, and all scientists in all fields are in 100% agreement that only human C02 is responsible and these scientists are also in 100% agreement that the only solution is to enact massive government taxation schemes in order to reduce C02 emissions to 1820 levels, or the Earth will experience such catastrophic world-wide destruction that all humanity will be wiped out."
That's quite a difference in meaning. It is perfectly reasonable to say that scientists, economists, and regular folks everywhere can rationally debate the veracity and truth of the latter definition, while accepting the former.
And yet the Warmies cannot allow a rational line of discussion and debate, and so they instead turn to their time-practiced tactic of poisoning the well, insults, ad hominems, and other obfuscations of the truth in order to desperately lend their terminally unsupportable position enough credence to allow the desperate and brain-washed to continue to cling to it in the face of real evidence.
Day after day we hear repeated news of the facts behind the so-called 'proof' that the Warmies have falsified for years. East anglia, the polar bear liar, the hockey stick chart, the IPCC panels - they have all been discredited and proven to have buried evidence, censored opposing research, cooked their data, falsified evidence, and otherwise destroyed the entire credibility of the whole Warmie position. Their 'science' (all oriented around C02 being the primary agent of climate change) is bunk.
I've got an entire folder in my Hotmail with article after article after article proving that the claim that "human C02 = climate change" is politically motivated bologna. Here are some from just this WEEK...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/
100102296/sun-causes-climate-change-shock/
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/mental-illness-ri
se-linked-to-climate-20110828-1jger.html
http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.4462
It is 100% hogwash. The climate change INDUSTRY (and it is an over 200 billion dollar industry) is panicing because people no longer buy the "Human C02 = poison" bullcrap. They are losing the debate. Governments are abandoning the green movement. And the Warmies are panicking. So they are putting out articles so insane, so ridiculous that even a child can tell they are stupid morons. Aliens are going to blow up earth over C02 emissions? Climate change is causing mental illness? What utter stupidity.
The evidence - the REAL evidence - is that human C02 is such a minor factor that it does not warrent serious attention. Do we all want to clean up messes? Sure - but the real mess-makers are not in the US or Europe. They're in South America, China, and Africa. That's where the focus should be. But the Warmie movement is nakedly political, so their primary goals have nothing to do with actual pollution. Instead they obsess over making C02 something they can 'regulate', and therefore tax and earn revenues from. It's pathetic, and yet so many people accept it because of faulty, flawed, sloppy so-called 'research', and the fact that they really WANT to believe it for some reason. Morons.


annnnnd ignore

As always - the Warmies love to muddle terminilogy in order to misdirect.

There is a vast world of difference between what a typical Warmie is talking about when they say, "climate change" and what a scientist is talking about. However, in the news media and popular culture, the Warmies routinely equate both of them together in order to lend themselves false credibility.

"Climate change" as a generic term simply means the climate is changing. This is scientifically provable - however it is so patently obvious (and has been for millenium) that it does not require the rigor of the scientific method to verify. No one is arguing against the reality that Earth's climate has cycles, changes, alters, or otherwise permutates over long periods of time (or even short periods locally).

However, when Warmies talk about "Climate change" they do not mean this. They pack so many other things into two words that it becomes almost impossible to pin it down. But generally speaking when a Warmie says climate change they mean something along these lines...

"Human C02 emissions are the primary agent of all climate changes in the past 200 years, and all scientists in all fields are in 100% agreement that only human C02 is responsible and these scientists are also in 100% agreement that the only solution is to enact massive government taxation schemes in order to reduce C02 emissions to 1820 levels, or the Earth will experience such catastrophic world-wide destruction that all humanity will be wiped out."

That's quite a difference in meaning. It is perfectly reasonable to say that scientists, economists, and regular folks everywhere can rationally debate the veracity and truth of the latter definition, while accepting the former.

And yet the Warmies cannot allow a rational line of discussion and debate, and so they instead turn to their time-practiced tactic of poisoning the well, insults, ad hominems, and other obfuscations of the truth in order to desperately lend their terminally unsupportable position enough credence to allow the desperate and brain-washed to continue to cling to it in the face of real evidence.

Day after day we hear repeated news of the facts behind the so-called 'proof' that the Warmies have falsified for years. East anglia, the polar bear liar, the hockey stick chart, the IPCC panels - they have all been discredited and proven to have buried evidence, censored opposing research, cooked their data, falsified evidence, and otherwise destroyed the entire credibility of the whole Warmie position. Their 'science' (all oriented around C02 being the primary agent of climate change) is bunk.

I've got an entire folder in my Hotmail with article after article after article proving that the claim that "human C02 = climate change" is politically motivated bologna. Here are some from just this WEEK...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100102296/sun-causes-climate-change-shock/

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/mental-illness-rise-linked-to-climate-20110828-1jger.html

http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.4462

It is 100% hogwash. The climate change INDUSTRY (and it is an over 200 billion dollar industry) is panicing because people no longer buy the "Human C02 = poison" bullcrap. They are losing the debate. Governments are abandoning the green movement. And the Warmies are panicking. So they are putting out articles so insane, so ridiculous that even a child can tell they are stupid morons. Aliens are going to blow up earth over C02 emissions? Climate change is causing mental illness? What utter stupidity.

The evidence - the REAL evidence - is that human C02 is such a minor factor that it does not warrent serious attention. Do we all want to clean up messes? Sure - but the real mess-makers are not in the US or Europe. They're in South America, China, and Africa. That's where the focus should be. But the Warmie movement is nakedly political, so their primary goals have nothing to do with actual pollution. Instead they obsess over making C02 something they can 'regulate', and therefore tax and earn revenues from. It's pathetic, and yet so many people accept it because of faulty, flawed, sloppy so-called 'research', and the fact that they really WANT to believe it for some reason. Morons.

It's amusing that you're trying to dismiss me like I was bothering you, when in fact you are the one who started this conversation. So you're an ex-christian, huh? Surely you know this verse:

2 Peter 2:22

If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."

You're much worse than any backslider. You're saying you left Christianity because you observed hypocrisy amongst Christians? What a joke that is. You left Christianity because you love the things of the world more than you love God.

You should fear God, and only a fool wouldn't, but I don't think you're a fool. You know He is real, but you suppress the truth because you don't want to stop living the way you do. You have been brainwashed, by the enemy, to think little of God and much of yourself. Jesus Christ ransomed you with His blood, paid the price for your sins with His life..but sold yourself back into slavery for empty pleasures. Now you mock God, when you're the one at fault, when you're the real hypocrite.

Galatians 6:7

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
Save your breath pal. I don't need or want to hear any sermons from you. Been there done that, chose to stop when I wised up and figured out that brain washing, mind control, and fanatical cults are not for me. Believe me, I don't fear you nor do I fear your imaginary god. If I did, then I'd be just like you wouldn't I?

Oh, and by the way I don't need any clues. Your brethren have clued me in on what kind of hypocrites they are time and time again. Every "Christian" I know, or have ever known is a back sliding hypocrite. They judge others while secretly behind closed doors they do the same things they just got through condemning others for in the public eye. Now please go pester someone else. This conversation is over.

@Sagemind

Being a slave to another person is a wretched life.
Being a slave to a concept is unfathomable.
Religion is a concept of man.
Religion is a concept designed to subjugate and control a population.

Religion is a man made system that has been used for good and evil. We know God through faith alone.

There was a time when education was unheard of and only a relative few were exposed to it. Rulers kept everyone else dumb so they could be controlled. Religion was and always will be designed as a tool to control. In the beginning there were many sects and religions. As the religions caught hold, they slowly choked out as many other religions as they could to exercise their brand of control. Christianity happened to be one of the few that was more ruthless at destroying the others. (Many are documented in the bible - Genocide in the name of religion included.) The smaller religions only needed to be discredited and be called cults - as they continue to do today.

The early church was heavily persecuted by many different dictators. Believers were frequently martyred because they reufsed to worship other Gods. The expansion of the early church under these circumstances is one of the positive evidences for Gods existence as it is unlikely it could have happened in that climate of persecution. There was nothing to gain from being a Christian in those days except being an outcast.

Genocide is committed in the name of many things, and today the masses are no less controlled by secular Governments than they have been under religious ones. Bad behavior is not an exclusive to religion, it is the nature of man himself, who could corrupt anything beneficial. That people have acted badly in the name of Christianity isn't proof of anything except mans inherent corruption.

Now, many, many lifetimes later, man has become educated and has thrown the shackles of religion (a form of slavery) and science has emerged as we seek for fact instead of fiction. There are many who are still bound to religion and can't function without the masters hand to lead them. They have lost, it seems, the ability to reason, with cognitive thinking, on their own.

Many need the presence of a deity to explain the un-explainable. It's a neat fully-packaged explanation that never needs unwrapping. It is easy. It's man's nature to pick the easy route. To many it just makes more sense. To others, those more cerebral, they want to see what is underneath. They refuse to accept what is fed to them and dig a little deeper. What they find is a world of control and dominance but also a world of wonder where education can lead one on many journeys.

The question of whether the Universe is random or deliberately created is not only credible, but utterly necessary and fundemental to understanding who man is and how he relates to the Universe. Perhaps you should try Contrary to popular belief, intelligent design is a scientific theory which seeks to explain the Universe just as evolution does. The question of God is central to philosophy and our most noted philosophers have debated this question of Gods existence throughout recorded history. The complexity of life is inadequately explained by materialistic processes, and many of these theories, such as evolution, are metaphysical to begin with.

There is a percentage of the population that operates on the right side of the brain where zeros and one are absolutes and in-fact they are. They work on a puzzle where the pieces are scattered everywhere in a dark room. The pieces don't always fit perfectly so someone else pulls them apart and the big picture is corrected. Every once in a while a strobe light goes on and larger mistake is noticed and we go back to restructuring out truths.

Religion want's to turn out the lights forever, kick everyone out of the room and continue to control those free thinkers. Individuals with original thoughts scares religion. The control will crumble and individuality will rein. Their fear is that without the control, chaos will ensue. What they don't see is that to stifle education is to bring about that which they fear most.

The most basic and fundemental questions of life have not been advanced one iota. There is a higher truth operating here: Man advances theories of life which convenience his own personal hypocripsy and enable him to do evil without consequence. This is a basic truth:

John 3:20

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

1 Corinthians 2:14

“The natural (unredeemed) man receiveth not the things of the (holy) Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”.

1 Corinthians 3:19

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

I still am not sure which they fear most. Is it the chaos itself, because look around, it exists with or without religion and often because of religion. Or is it the fear of loosing out on the promise of a Utopian forever. A mythical heaven where every single person has a different definition of. A place of fantasy.

Religion works on some of you. You remain a cow in this life so that you can experience a better life later. Well, heads up people, This is the life and you've been duped. Religion has brain washed you to do it's bidding. You fight the good fight for what you've been told is true by a hierarchy of rulers who seek the top roles in dominance. This isn't just true in Christianity, it goes for all religions. You are the pawns, the people on the front lines, leading the way, taking the brunt of accusation while the leaders at the top live the good live. You send your money (tithes) to them while you scrape to live a decent life.

I neither came to Christianity out of fear, or because I desired another life over this one. Nor was I indoctrinated or persuaded. Rather I was instructed in the spirit, and received personal revelation of the truth. I came to it independently and my convinctions rest solely on that. Your belief about an interdepedence due to a weakness of mind or character is wholly invalid.

I for one will not erase myself to the "Greater Good" of a hierarchy that cares more about it's well being/proliferation than it cares for the individual thought of a free thinking individual. It is my nature to put my thoughts and opinions before those of a mindless juggernaut that is religion. I will not allow my free thought to be controlled, twisted or stifled by anyone or anything.

Anyone with self respect should feel the same. Giving up on reality and calling it faith is really just saying, "Wow, that's just to much to take in and comprehend, I'm just going to shut down now. I will never have to concern myself with trying to keep all the balls in the air anymore. I will let a God sit in the driver's seat and ride out the rest of my life as a passenger." On top of that you spend all your days yelling out the window that you've got it so easy, you don't have to drive, you'll get to enjoy things when you get to your destination. What you fail to see is the person in the driver's seat doesn't have a license to drive, or a body or anything, they are plain fiction and the end of the road is a brick wall. When will you look up and see that you should have taken the wheel and honored the privilege of the ride before it was too late.

This imagined heirarchy of yours is a convenient strawman for your arguments about personal freedom, but it doesn't bear out. There is no conspiracy here. The body of Christ is so fractured at this time that a belief there is a heirarchy of control is simply ludicrous. Belief in God is about personal conviction and personal responsibility. Convinction because we are all sinners who have transgressed Gods laws. Responsibility because God is the moral authority who judicates our lives. You seem to think you're free, but anyone who sins is a slave to sin. You seem to think you're without a god, but you have something you worship. Whether its something in the world, or in the case of many secular humanists, yourself, there is something out there that you bow down and kiss every day of your life. Your freedom is just another box that you feel comfortable in. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

1 Corinthians 13:11-13

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Being a slave to another person is a wretched life.
Being a slave to a concept is unfathomable.
Religion is a concept of man.
Religion is a concept designed to subjugate and control a population.

There was a time when education was unheard of and only a relative few were exposed to it. Rulers kept everyone else dumb so they could be controlled. Religion was and always will be designed as a tool to control. In the beginning there were many sects and religions. As the religions caught hold, they slowly choked out as many other religions as they could to exercise their brand of control. Christianity happened to be one of the few that was more ruthless at destroying the others. (Many are documented in the bible - Genocide in the name of religion included.) The smaller religions only needed to be discredited and be called cults - as they continue to do today.

Now, many, many lifetimes later, man has become educated and has thrown the shackles of religion (a form of slavery) and science has emerged as we seek for fact instead of fiction. There are many who are still bound to religion and can't function without the masters hand to lead them. They have lost, it seems, the ability to reason, with cognitive thinking, on their own.

Many need the presence of a deity to explain the un-explainable. It's a neat fully-packaged explanation that never needs unwrapping. It is easy. It's man's nature to pick the easy route. To many it just makes more sense. To others, those more cerebral, they want to see what is underneath. They refuse to accept what is fed to them and dig a little deeper. What they find is a world of control and dominance but also a world of wonder where education can lead one on many journeys.

There is a percentage of the population that operates on the right side of the brain where zeros and one are absolutes and in-fact they are. They work on a puzzle where the pieces are scattered everywhere in a dark room. The pieces don't always fit perfectly so someone else pulls them apart and the big picture is corrected. Every once in a while a strobe light goes on and larger mistake is noticed and we go back to restructuring out truths.

Religion want's to turn out the lights forever, kick everyone out of the room and continue to control those free thinkers. Individuals with original thoughts scares religion. The control will crumble and individuality will rein. Their fear is that without the control, chaos will ensue. What they don't see is that to stifle education is to bring about that which they fear most.

I still am not sure which they fear most. Is it the chaos itself, because look around, it exists with or without religion and often because of religion. Or is it the fear of loosing out on the promise of a Utopian forever. A mythical heaven where every single person has a different definition of. A place of fantasy.

Religion works on some of you. You remain a cow in this life so that you can experience a better life later. Well, heads up people, This is the life and you've been duped. Religion has brain washed you to do it's bidding. You fight the good fight for what you've been told is true by a hierarchy of rulers who seek the top roles in dominance. This isn't just true in Christianity, it goes for all religions. You are the pawns, the people on the front lines, leading the way, taking the brunt of accusation while the leaders at the top live the good live. You send your money (tithes) to them while you scrape to live a decent life.

I for one will not erase myself to the "Greater Good" of a hierarchy that cares more about it's well being/proliferation than it cares for the individual thought of a free thinking individual. It is my nature to put my thoughts and opinions before those of a mindless juggernaut that is religion. I will not allow my free thought to be controlled, twisted or stifled by anyone or anything.

Anyone with self respect should feel the same. Giving up on reality and calling it faith is really just saying, "Wow, that's just to much to take in and comprehend, I'm just going to shut down now. I will never have to concern myself with trying to keep all the balls in the air anymore. I will let a God sit in the driver's seat and ride out the rest of my life as a passenger." On top of that you spend all your days yelling out the window that you've got it so easy, you don't have to drive, you'll get to enjoy things when you get to your destination. What you fail to see is the person in the driver's seat doesn't have a license to drive, or a body or anything, they are plain fiction and the end of the road is a brick wall. When will you look up and see that you should have taken the wheel and honored the privilege of the ride before it was too late.