>> ^shinyblurry:

And your participation has been? You've offered no evidence for anything. If you aren't going to offer anything except "ur dum bcuz u dnt believe wut i do!!!", then please stay in the peanut gallery.
>> ^IronDwarf:
>> ^shinyblurry:
What scientific information? I asked for transitional forms, and I got distant cousins..there simply aren't any in the fossil record. You also may not have noticed that I am having a few conversations at once here. I'm happy to discuss transitional forms all day long because it shows how flawed evolution as a theory really is. Darwin stated they should be everywhere..yet in 120 years of excauvation, none have been uncovered. Zero. Pretty damning evidence in my opinion.
>> ^IronDwarf:
How did you manage to switch the argument into the formation of life? I thought the discussion was about the evolution of life.
When people provide you with actual scientific information, you just find a way to push the conversation in a different direction or move the goalposts, so you won't have to claim you are wrong.
You claim to know about science and understand it, but if you really understood science, you would know that these scientific theories wouldn't stand up at all on just faith or a vague scientific conspiracy. Science simply doesn't work that way.


You have been given lots of scientific information throughout this and other discussions. That you continue to choose to ignore it or purposefully misunderstand it tells me you are just a troll. If by some chance you aren't a troll, then you seem like the type of person who will always cling to your religious beliefs and no amount of evidence will convince you. You seem comfortable in your ignorance, so enjoy it. You are a brick wall.



I've been following the discussion from the beginning. I can go back and quote all those who have already provided you with actual evidence, but that doesn't seem to be doing you any good. You don't want to hear it. It is a waste of time.

I'm sorry I got involved in the first place. Just reading this discussion is tiring; trying to argue with you is even more so.

And your participation has been? You've offered no evidence for anything. If you aren't going to offer anything except "ur dum bcuz u dnt believe wut i do!!!", then please stay in the peanut gallery.

>> ^IronDwarf:
>> ^shinyblurry:
What scientific information? I asked for transitional forms, and I got distant cousins..there simply aren't any in the fossil record. You also may not have noticed that I am having a few conversations at once here. I'm happy to discuss transitional forms all day long because it shows how flawed evolution as a theory really is. Darwin stated they should be everywhere..yet in 120 years of excauvation, none have been uncovered. Zero. Pretty damning evidence in my opinion.
>> ^IronDwarf:
How did you manage to switch the argument into the formation of life? I thought the discussion was about the evolution of life.
When people provide you with actual scientific information, you just find a way to push the conversation in a different direction or move the goalposts, so you won't have to claim you are wrong.
You claim to know about science and understand it, but if you really understood science, you would know that these scientific theories wouldn't stand up at all on just faith or a vague scientific conspiracy. Science simply doesn't work that way.


You have been given lots of scientific information throughout this and other discussions. That you continue to choose to ignore it or purposefully misunderstand it tells me you are just a troll. If by some chance you aren't a troll, then you seem like the type of person who will always cling to your religious beliefs and no amount of evidence will convince you. You seem comfortable in your ignorance, so enjoy it. You are a brick wall.

>> ^shinyblurry:

What scientific information? I asked for transitional forms, and I got distant cousins..there simply aren't any in the fossil record. You also may not have noticed that I am having a few conversations at once here. I'm happy to discuss transitional forms all day long because it shows how flawed evolution as a theory really is. Darwin stated they should be everywhere..yet in 120 years of excauvation, none have been uncovered. Zero. Pretty damning evidence in my opinion.
>> ^IronDwarf:
How did you manage to switch the argument into the formation of life? I thought the discussion was about the evolution of life.
When people provide you with actual scientific information, you just find a way to push the conversation in a different direction or move the goalposts, so you won't have to claim you are wrong.
You claim to know about science and understand it, but if you really understood science, you would know that these scientific theories wouldn't stand up at all on just faith or a vague scientific conspiracy. Science simply doesn't work that way.



You have been given lots of scientific information throughout this and other discussions. That you continue to choose to ignore it or purposefully misunderstand it tells me you are just a troll. If by some chance you aren't a troll, then you seem like the type of person who will always cling to your religious beliefs and no amount of evidence will convince you. You seem comfortable in your ignorance, so enjoy it. You are a brick wall.

What scientific information? I asked for transitional forms, and I got distant cousins..there simply aren't any in the fossil record. You also may not have noticed that I am having a few conversations at once here. I'm happy to discuss transitional forms all day long because it shows how flawed evolution as a theory really is. Darwin stated they should be everywhere..yet in 120 years of excauvation, none have been uncovered. Zero. Pretty damning evidence in my opinion.

>> ^IronDwarf:
How did you manage to switch the argument into the formation of life? I thought the discussion was about the evolution of life.
When people provide you with actual scientific information, you just find a way to push the conversation in a different direction or move the goalposts, so you won't have to claim you are wrong.
You claim to know about science and understand it, but if you really understood science, you would know that these scientific theories wouldn't stand up at all on just faith or a vague scientific conspiracy. Science simply doesn't work that way.

How did you manage to switch the argument into the formation of life? I thought the discussion was about the evolution of life.

When people provide you with actual scientific information, you just find a way to push the conversation in a different direction or move the goalposts, so you won't have to claim you are wrong.

You claim to know about science and understand it, but if you really understood science, you would know that these scientific theories wouldn't stand up at all on just faith or a vague scientific conspiracy. Science simply doesn't work that way.

@shinyblurry

First you affirm that an atheist is someone who believes there is no god, and now it's about whether the universe was deliberately created? Shifting the goalposts much? Btw, you're wrong, answering yes to that question can mean you are a deist, if you believe the creator has no hand in matters since the moment it designed said universe.

As for gnosticism, you refer to the historical sense of the word (of which I am well aware), right after saying that this is a "philosophical" (i.e. atemporal) question. The historical Gnostics were just "heretical" Christians, a diverging sect much like the Mormons are today, and you'd be hard pressed to find any today, since the "true Christians" thoroughly wiped them out.

Finally, the otherwise sound advice of "don't believe everything you read" is hilariously ironic coming from a conservapedia-quoting, I-believe-in-sky-Daddy-talking-snakes-and-incestuous-origins-of-humankind-cuz-my-Book-says-so Christian.

Speaking of book-quoting, why is it that when you (or any other Christian) quotes the "infallible Word of God" it is "supporting evidence", but when an atheist does it it is "ignorant cherry-picking"?

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by IAmTheBlurr:
I'm so glad that I read the comments before actually watching the video, sounds like a total waste of time.

yeah.
you most assuredly would not have liked it.
and i dont recommend you try..
your head might explode lol.
i just liked the fact it was not dripping with dogma and the man spoke genuinely.
but you would find his arguments infuriating.

Thanks mang

It's just that I find these arguments sooooo tiring. They're old and it seems like they're being made just so people can feel like they're not loosing a part of their identity.

Yesterday, I got in to an argument with my boss about natural selection. Everything he said is tied to the fact that he identifies with his Jewish heritage and with his view that the bible is literally true. He wears the star of david around his neck and inscribes it into his tools so people know who they belong to. For his beliefs to be false, a huge portion of who he identifies himself to be would be lost.

Regardless of whether or not his beliefs are true, he wont question them because he's making a commitment error. He's already invested a lot of energy into his beliefs, and just like anyone else who makes a huge commitment, he's going to make all of the justifications in the world to continue the commitment rather than cutting his losses and correcting the error in rationality.

I did watch a few 1 minute clips randomly to get a feel for what he's saying and again, it's the same old tired argument for faith but I have a problem with faith. I requires that you believe something with zero evidence. Why is that EVER a good thing. Why should anyone be taught that anyone should believe something with zero evidence? Why (or how) does that idea persist? Shouldn't people be taught that it's always better to disbelieve until there is enough evidence and then set the standard for what constitutes as evidence?

I think this whole discussion stems from, again, the top-down outlook on how things work verses a bottom-up outlook. Humans are used to a top-down outlook. We have parents who are above us, set the rules, protect us, we have ideas first and then we construct physical items based on those ideas, we have government who sets societal rules that we generally obey. Our entire lives as humans is entirely approached in a top-down manor and since that's the only thing that we really know, we tend to project our outlook to the rest of the world. We assume that the universe would have been designed from the top-down, we assume that the universal physical laws must have been set from some other place greater than ourselves, we assume that there must be deities or a deity that is/are our cosmic parent.

In the end, after all of the little clips that I did watch, you're right, I found it totally infuriating but not primarily for the reasons mentioned above. I found infuriating because he's claiming to have a lot of answers but they're primarily based on misconceptions or incomplete information.

It's like the argument I had with my boss yesterday. I explained exactly what the textbook definition of biological evolution through natural selection. When I was done, his response was "That's not natural selection, that's something else". The speaker is doing just that, he's taking thoughts and ideas and redefining them to meet his own criteria for what he thinks they mean and saying "this is the correct way of thinking about it". It's not just moving the goalpost, it's changing the entire way that scores are made. It's beyond frustration.

But I digress, Either there is a god(s), or there aren't. The only way to say that there are with any degree of certainty, is through the accumulation of reproducible and tangible evidence, not through speculation, not through how it makes you or I feel, not through gut feelings, and not through anecdotal evidence. Until the standards are met, belief if irrational. Even if it's true that there is a god(s), belief in any of them is currently irrational.

In response to this, as per usual, the goalposts are already being shifted.

Not really. Incitement to violence is illegal. Hell, even libel and slander are still technically illegal.

I said "criticize". Moving the goalpost to incitement to violence, libel, and slander is the application of a completely different subject. I said in the US you can criticize anyone you want about anything you want. Switching targets to inciting violence, libel, and slander makes a discussion on criticism implausible, as the terms have clear legal definitions - none of which are applicable to a discussion about generic 'criticism'. If that's what you wanted to talk about, then that's what you should have said in the first place, and I am not responsible that inaccuracy.

You're saying Glenn beck talking about needing to shoot people in the head before they shoot us in the head is non-violent, while blood libel, which is just a made-up story about Jews using the blood of Christian children in religious rituals, is violent.

No - I described what Glenn Beck said, which was necessary because of the inaccurate, incomplete citation and the subsequent misinterpretations of others. I made no statement about it being 'violent, or non-violent'. If we are to talk of making assertions, I will kindly request that you cease making inaccurate assertions about what I say.

What's the moral difference between this, and "the liberal Jews are stealing the blood of Christian babies for their rituals, and they're such total zealots for their religion that the only way you, Nancy Pelosi, can stop them from doing this is to put a bullet in their head. And you better do that before they put a knife in your children"?

I said what the difference was quite clearly above. One is a falsehood about a genetic race inspired by a government pogrom. The other is an opinion in a public forum by a private individual. The blood libel issue was a falsehood meant to be taken as a literal description of Jewish religious practice. Bombastic political rhetoric in a free society does NOT in any way equate to blood libel. If it did, then you'd have to shut down every political rally, every newspaper, every news broadcast, every radio station, or personal discussion in the nation. That includes the Videosift - including this very thread. I ask you... What is the moral difference between blood libel and the mischaracterization of what Beck's statement as a call for actual violence? Is not your attempt to falsely equate Beck's comment with actual violence against others just another form of blood libel or 'propoganda'?

Lies that dehumanize people, and make them sound like a direct threat to your safety are at best laying groundwork for justifying violence, and at worst are an explicit incitement to violent acts.

Does that mean you are comfortable with censoring speech and thought in the name of the greater good? Does that apply to the political left and thier "contextually violent" rhetoric as well? And who gets to make the decisions about what is or isn't crossing the line?

Nope - I reject the soft totalitariansim of censorship in the name of subjective, whimsical, biased political correctness. Freedom of speech trumps other concerns. The only time freedom of speech becomes dangerous is when it is limited by government, or self-appointed arbiters.

Where did I or anyone else in this post imply that religion was responsible for all mankind's woes? You're certifiable, dude. Logical to a tee, HAH! Someone thinks highly of themselves while simultaneously revealing the opposite at every chance.

You want to refute my argument? Show how what you said wasn't a blatant false equivalence which was basically all I claimed. That would be a refutation. Not all this other bizarre off-topic nonsense that just muddles whatever point you were attempting to make. Keep shifting them goalposts.

@bmacs27, I've got a few concerns about this lump sum idea. One is that you'd replace medicare with it, which seems like a bad idea right off the bat. Second, you push the problems with predictability of cost from government and insurance companies which must only worry about large pools of people and statistical averages, onto individuals who have literally no way of predicting their individual lifetime health costs. Third, any potential savings people make by limiting their spending benefits the US Treasury not themselves. Fourth, you're still leaving people without a safety net, both in the case of severe illness, or simple poor planning.

Those seem like huge issues to me, and the bit about savings benefiting the Treasury seems like a political poison pill to boot.

As for Barasso calling for HSA's, he wasn't actually presenting a policy prescription. He just said he liked HSA+Catastrophic insurance because it makes patients control their own costs. Obama was right to call that a rich man's solution, because you need to have enough disposable income to be able to save enough to cover out-of-pocket medical costs, and currently those are still largely driven by the bad incentive structure of our existing insurance system (in other words, they're ridiculously high).

You said, "If Obama would allow himself some humility here, and pitch a new proposal partially drafted by Republicans, I think he'd win the support he needs." I think this is a deeply misguided statement. The assumption here is that Obama's plan is some radical, left-wing proposal that's antithetical to Republicans, when in truth, Obama basically took previous Republican reform bills as his inspiration.

Since Obama pre-compromised in this way, Republicans just moved the goalposts, and said that Obama's plan is Stalinist health care, and if he wants to be reasonable, he has to drop the public option. So they dropped the public option. Republicans said instead of the House's surtax, they wanted to the tax exemption on employer benefits reduced or eliminated. So the Democrats did that too. The Republicans said they didn't want an employer mandate, so Democrats dropped that too. The Republicans said that they didn't want health insurance subsidies to pay for insurance that covers abortion, so the Democrats added language that did that too. Republicans said that they didn't want insurance companies to be required to cover end of life counseling (DEATH PANELS!!!), so Democrats dropped that too. Republicans said that they didn't want illegal immigrants covered, so Democrats put in strong language forbidding it, and setting up a system for enforcing it.

I could go on like that for quite a while longer. Republicans have been involved in this process from the beginning, and have extracted a ton of concessions from Democrats, in return for absolutely zero votes. The whole time, their rhetoric hasn't softened one iota -- it's still Stalinist, Nazi-ist, Socialist, Fascist Health care that's going to bankrupt our government, bankrupt our citizens, and get everyone killed, grandmas first.

That kind of thing makes it politically impossible for Republicans to turn around and say "well, now it's not so bad".

Obama started with a very moderate, bipartisan bill, especially considering the sizable majorities he still enjoys in both chambers of Congress. The idea that he needs to compromise more with Republicans is ludicrous.

Defense spending is nearly half of all discretionary spending.

:eyeroll: People who have screwed up often try to move the rhetorical goalpost and hope that everyone just gives them a pass. That doesn't fly with Winstonfield Q. Pennypacker. And so it is with the attempt to arbitrarily dump defense into a wholly rhetorical 'discretionary' category. Defense is the only spending the constitution specifically mandates to the federal government. Putting it into 'discretionary' and putting social programs into 'mandatory' is a leftist political trick that only fools the stupid. Federal Budget: social spending outstrips defense spending 4 to 1. Facts For The Win.

I don't think that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are included in the budget:

They are. "War on terror" = Iraq, Afghanistan, et al.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment - these are the things you would do away with in order to improve the world?

Yes. That money would instead stay with people and businesses. The people would use the money to generate wealth, create jobs, and increase prosperity. A free population donates to the poor, gives to charity, and sponsors volunteerism independant of government involvement. Social issues are solved at the individual level by moral people who creatively use their own wealth. Social isues are perpetuated by the entitlement mentality generated by subsistence checks from budget obsessed bureaucracies. The only government involvement in social issues should be confined to municipal and state programs that are voted on by local communities. This is the philosophical divide between conservatives and progressives. Conservatives trust in freedom. Progressives fear it.

It would put a few more dollars in your pocket, that's all, and it would make life drastically worse for millions of people, including yourself, in a very short period of time.

I reject your progressive opinion. I trust that freedom is the answer - not government oppression. More dollars in everyone's pocket will make life better for millions of people - including yourself - in a very short time.

Raise taxes on the rich, cut military spending - it's a winning combination.

Lower taxes on everybody - including the rich - and cut government spending across the board. It's a winning combination. Works every time it is tried.

Gah wish I had my bronze star back to downvote this. Stupid moving goalposts.

You mean I finally get to do my first *quality? Woohoo! Drinks are on me.


Ok, so this was years ago, and I was at a friend's birthday party. I had lost a significant amount of weight because I would bicycle everywhere, and I hadn't been out drinking. So I decide, damnit man, ahm Scah-ish, and I'm goun ta drink meh ancestor's drink! So I get a fifth of Cutty Sark and start doing shots. Now, not having ever tried Scotch but once prior to that night, I have to tell ya. It's liquid peat moss. Or maybe just Cutty Sark is. I don't know. But as with any liquor, once you get the first few shots down, you don't even taste or care anymore. So I proceed to drink about more than 1/2 the bottle, as well as a few beers...

So let me lay the scene for you here. We've got a small 1 bedroom apartment crowded with about 30 people. The stereo is up high, and after about 3 hours, I've made it to a chair at the dining room table. I start to get dizzy, so I put my elbows on the table, interlock my fingers and rest my chin in my hands, as I'm looking out into the room. And EVERYTHING is going up and down, in and out, and swirly. You know, like a merry-go-round? I can also hear every word at each of the conversations which were taking place around the room, as well as in whatever song was playing at the time. I don't even remember who eventually was around me but people were saying stuff like "Oh man, look how white he is!" "Dude, you need to go to the bathroom..." And I'm going "No, it's ok. I'm not gonna puke...I'm not gonna"

The last thing I saw was vomit shooting through my interlaced fingers.

So what do you do? Just put yourself there for a minute. Your that fucked up and you just start throwing up. Yup, I cupped my hands together to lean forward and make a bowl with my hands.

Now, physics was the LAST thing on my mind at this point. I forgot a critical variable: volume. Needless to say, I got. it. everywhere. All over the cake, in the ashtrays, people's cigarettes, in people's drinks, on people. Someone told me later I looked like a fire hydrant with an obstruction in the way. Luckily almost everyone there was a friend, so I survived a potential beating. (But at the cost of the ribbing I still take to this day )

So they throw me in the bathroom. Now, I'm conscious enough to know that I don't want someone pissing next to my face as I bow before the Porcelain God, so I lock the door. And promptly pass out. Eventually I finally wake up enough to open the door, and am promptly hauled out passed the line that formed, and am unceremoniously dumped on the bed. The only recollection I have of the rest of the night, is waking up several times lying face down, my hands and arms in the "goalpost" formation, and my head to pointing to the left. Have you ever gotten tired of lying in one position? I lifted my head, just to turn it to the right and got the whole Ferris Wheel action from before. So I kept passing out unable to turn my head.

Next morning, incredibly, I had no hangover. However, that is the only night in my life where I have no recollection of events. You could say I blew the dog and I'd have to take your word on it.

Ah well...it's good for a laugh.

I used to quite indignant at how they justified going into Iraq too, then moving the goalposts as new info came to light.

Then I remember what a fucking genocidal psychopath Saddam Hussein was, and decide the ends justify the means (in this case).

Of course, the American people have a right to be pissed at how it turned out in relation to expense and fatalities. The world is still a better place without Saddam in Iraq.