You are saying I ignored the subtext, but that would infer that what you interpret is in fact what is being written between the lines. Perhaps someone should ask Stewart what his position is on polygamists marrying prior to attacking him based on a subjective interpretation of what he said?

I have no cards in the game so to speak, I'm straight and "conventionally" married (for whatever that is worth), but I 100% support the right to marriage equality for people able to legally consent. I'm not a Stewart fanboy and I don't believe he is infallible, but I just do not see your interpretation in what was said (and what wasn't). We obviously have a difference of opinion, and think each other incorrect, but that's cool as well, we aren't required to agree. But saying 'it's completely obvious and if you don't see it my way, don't bother replying' is a cop out... Never mind adding Nazi's and an inferred cocksucking insult. You going for a world record of logical fallacies in one post? \= )

Irt marriage in general, my point wasn't that the institution itself was perfect, it's that every couple should be allowed to define their relationship on their own terms without anyone else stepping in to define it for them. Yes, it's a contract, but like any contract we choose to enter in to, we have to be satisfied by the terms of it. That it can be toxic is stating the obvious, but that's neither here nor there irt the topic at hand.

As to whether monogamy is a natural state, that's kinda irrelevant to the topic at hand.

And my naughtiness? \= )

"but monogamy is inconvenient for damn near everyone who practices it."

How is this not defining other people's relationships? That statement is pretty unequivocal. Not really much to be inferred there. ; )

It's blatantly racist, incorporating the straw-man logical fallacy to effect propaganda . From the second the Caucasian called his wife a "B*tch" it message was "Chinese people are better at loving one another." Frankly, I was surprised the western wife didn't end up a women's shelter with a black eye, or worse.

I came back when I saw @speechless's comment. She is exactly right. Ignore does not work. It is a poor substitute for moderation.

Ignoring only works if everyone does it...and possibly not even then. It only takes one person to take the bait to make a troll thrive. If everyone actually did ignore, then it's no different from booting the troublemaker so quit beating around the bush and just boot the troublemaker. One method shifts the burden on the community members who many have given up after seeing how ineffectual ignore is and left, the other method shifts the burden where it should be, on those who run the site.

This site has been going downhill for a long while now because problem members have not been kicked out. It has been noted that the #1 video now only requires 40-ish upvotes where in years past it needed over double that.

I think I even recall @lucky760 voicing his concerns about the continued existence of this site in Sift Talk a while back.

All it takes is a short glance at comment histories to see who is here to contribute to the community and who is here only to incite and rile up and do not contribute to civilized discourse. Most people who read this will know who I am referring to. Dissenting opinions are still required to back their points up. Simply dissent by itself doesn't make the viewpoint valid or else you've just lowered yourself to the level of youtube comments, at a minimum, ad hom attacks and the bigger more well known logical fallacies should not be tolerated.

A good community requires moderation. All the strong forum communities out there depend on moderation to lay down the law on a regular basis...not just when one feels like showing up on the site once every month or so.

That is as factual as any of it. If people enter hell because they don't worship the correct god in the correct way, but have no way to tell which way/god is correct, or if any is, that is no fault of their own. If your proclaimed system was fair, god needs to come to each person and make them KNOW his truth, then offer them the choice to reject it. That's not what happens, no matter how many rainbows and sunsets you see.

I won't go to hell then, and neither will any real atheist. I've never seen/heard/read anything convincing about any religion...ever. I don't 'know there's a god' or right way to worship, it seems far more likely there isn't. I say this with all honesty and not because it's somehow convenient or I'm 'angry at god'. I did not 'reject' him, I don't think he exists to reject.

Mathew 7:14 seems to repeat what I said, it's incredibly hard to find the way into heaven and most people won't find the way...according to your brand of religion. It's not that they reject the way, they can't find it, even though many looked with vigor.

No, it's like some guy telling you in the courtroom hallway that the judge will say that, but no one has ever seen it happen, or even seen the judge or what happens after your case is heard, there are no ex cons at all anywhere. This is the same guy that's telling you what the law is, but make no mistake, he's not a lawyer and he's telling you things that make no sense at all (like the judge will let you off for murder if you just SAY you won't do it again).
I don't think even the most hard core murderers and rapist have NO remorse, only the true psychopaths and they're rare.

When I die and god and Jesus are there asking me questions and telling me what the rules really were, I'll believe in them and say so clearly, and admit I was wrong. Not a nano second before they prove themselves though.

Ahhh, but did we have a flat EKG and brain scan on Jesus to prove he even died? ;-)
Also, yes, 3 days later! If you eat poorly prepared blowfish you can go into a total paralysis that looks like death, and come out of it 3 days later +-! It's how Voodoo practitioners probably made 'zombies'. That doesn't happen every day, but often enough that you can't bury people in Japan right away if they eat sushi.

Still sounds like a logical fallacy to me, with some people shoving their heads in the sand to avoid seeing it. I say you can't have it both ways, the punishment is eternity in hell and Jesus should have stayed no matter how special he and his pops are, and since he left (after less than 3 days? pussy!), he didn't even take the punishment he expects humans to, forget taking that amount of punishment for each person. Saying he's 'special' so he didn't have to is ridiculous and shows the mind bending mental acrobatics you must do to make sense of this. It reminds me of the 'I'm too rich to have to go to prison' defense.

Oh, I see, I misunderstood what you were saying about the soul.

If I can spot a logical fallacy in their arguments, it must be huge.

"There is no scientific evidence for the existence of this multiverse, it cannot be detected, observed, measured or proved and the Universe Generator itself would require an enormous amount of fine tuning"

also means

"There is no scientific evidence for the design and Designer of this universe, it cannot be detected, observed, measured or proved and the Designer itself would require an enormous amount of fine tuning and would require a Designer itself that would require an enormous amount of fine tuning and would require a Designer itself that ... -> infinite regression"

And generally:

The weak anthropic principle only states that for us being able to observe this universe and wonder about why it seems to be so fine tuned to allow our existence it must have been tuned so fine to allow for our existence. It does not state how this came about and it most certainly does not call for a multiverse.

Chance cannot be ruled out. If something has happened, no matter how unlikely we think it might have been, it was just likely enough to have happened.

For it to become likely enough, there can be any number of reasons, two of them being universes existing in parallel (ie. a multiverse), as well as universes existing in series.

The problem that the maker of this video cannot see is that the theory of a designer only adds to the number of additional unproved assumptions on your effort to prove a number of unproved assumptions.

Hey robbersdog49, thanks for the level headed reply. I'll address your comments in a few pieces here:

The origin of life and Darwinian evolution are two entirely different things. Regardless of how you believe the first life came about we do know from the fossil record and evidence about the way the environment and climate changed on earth in those early millennia that the first life was simple single cell organisms.

In my study of the evidence from the fossil record, I found more evidence that contradicted the assertions of Darwinian evolution than confirmed it. The Cambrian explosion for example, where basically every type of animal body plan comes into existence at around the same time, contradicts the idea that these things happened gradually over long periods of time. In fact, a new theory was invented called "punctuated equilibrium" which says that the reason we aren't finding the transitional fossils is that the changes happen too quickly to be found in the fossil record. Instead of a theory based on the evidence, we have a theory to explain away the lack of evidence.

Evolution is the process which turned these very simple life forms into the complex forms you see all around you today. It's an ongoing process and the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

The evidence for micro evolution is overwhelming. The reason we have hundreds of different breeds of dogs is because of micro evolution. Darwin discovered this and all the credit should go to him, but where the leap of faith took place was when he supposed that because we see changes within species, that therefore all life evolved from a common ancestor. This claim is not substantiated scientifically. You cannot see macro evolution taking place anywhere in the world, and you cannot find the transitional fossils to say it ever took place. You cannot test it in a laboratory, it is a historical claim based on weak circumstantial evidence.

Science doesn't know exactly how life first came about. It doesn't claim to. We know that it did because we're here, but how? Not sure. But that's not a problem, science doesn't claim to know everything. Science is a process we use to find out about the world around us. It's not a book with all the answers.

Science is all about what we don't know. It's a process of discovery, and you can't discover something you already know. Religious people like to show any gap in the knowledge of scientists as showing they are frauds, or know nothing and that this means their own views must be true. That's just a stupid logical fallacy. Just because no one else has the answer doesn't mean you can just claim your version must be correct.

Science not being able to tell us how life started has no effect on the validity of the statement 'God did it'.

The God of the gaps fallacy is simply a red herring in these conversations. I don't purport to say that because science can't explain something, that means God did it. Science is all about the principle of parsimony; what theory has the best explanatory power. I purport to say that the idea of a Creator has better explanatory power for what we see than the current scientific theories for origins, not because of what science cannot explain, but for what science has explained. I think the evidence we do understand, in physics, biology, cosmology and information theory overwhelmingly points to design for many good reasons that have nothing to do with the God of the gaps fallacy.

There is also it seems a point of pride for those who think the best position is to say "I don't know", and accusing anyone who thinks they do know as being wrong headed, arrogant, or whatever. It's a very curious position to take because there are plenty of things we can know. No one is going to take the position that if you say the answer to 2 + 2 is 4 and you deny that any other answer is valid, you are arrogant or using fallacious reasoning. Yet, it is arrogrant and fallacious to those who think that science is the sole arbitor of truth when someone who believes in God points to a Creator as the best explanation. They think that because they believe no one else could know the answer except through scientific discovery. You have to realize that is a faith based claim and not an evidence based claim. You think that way when you place your faith in science as what is going to give you the correct answers about how and why you are here. I like these quotes for Robert Jastrow, who was an Astronomer and physicist:

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie within the boundaries of natural law."

As for the age of the earth, there's a huge amount of evidence which says it's about 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. That's plenty of time for evolution to take us from simple single cell life to the complex animals we've become today.

Have you ever studied the scientific proofs for both sides? There are some "clocks" which point that way, and there are other clocks that point the other way. The clocks that point to the old Earth have many flaws, and there are simply more evidences that point to a young Earth. That video I provided shows the evidences I am talking about.

The origin of life and Darwinian evolution are two entirely different things. Regardless of how you believe the first life came about we do know from the fossil record and evidence about the way the environment and climate changed on earth in those early millennia that the first life was simple single cell organisms.

Evolution is the process which turned these very simple life forms into the complex forms you see all around you today. It's an ongoing process and the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

Science doesn't know exactly how life first came about. It doesn't claim to. We know that it did because we're here, but how? Not sure. But that's not a problem, science doesn't claim to know everything. Science is a process we use to find out about the world around us. It's not a book with all the answers.

Science is all about what we don't know. It's a process of discovery, and you can't discover something you already know. Religious people like to show any gap in the knowledge of scientists as showing they are frauds, or know nothing and that this means their own views must be true. That's just a stupid logical fallacy. Just because no one else has the answer doesn't mean you can just claim your version must be correct.

Science not being able to tell us how life started has no effect on the validity of the statement 'God did it'.

As for the age of the earth, there's a huge amount of evidence which says it's about 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. That's plenty of time for evolution to take us from simple single cell life to the complex animals we've become today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

There are serious problems with Sommers video. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, watch it here.

Basically, her argument is "I looked at some literature (I'm not going to tell you what though) and I concluded there is no misogyny in gaming. You can trust me because I call myself a Feminist."

That's called "appeal to authority" and it's a logical fallacy.

The hugely ironic thing is that anti-Sarkeesian people are constantly going on about Sarkeesian is not qualified to critique games because she only played some of the games she talks about in the videos and watched YouTube game footage of the rest. Yet Sommers admits in the start of this video that she hasn't played video games since Pac Man in the 80s! By anti-Sarkeesian standards, she's even less qualified to talk about games than Sarkeesian is.

But that doesn't stop people who don't like Sarkeesian from trotting out this video as some supposedly magical proof that Sarkeesian's arguments have been debunked.

@blankfist

"Also, you and Voodoo should spend some time making substantive points instead of emotional arguments. "

I'm not the one who just posted a video about a guy who was unable to demonstrate his point rationally and had more than a couple meltdowns where he attacked the other guy with an ever raising voice and emotionally charged insults. Which is funny because he's responding to another video. It's not like the guy was there, yet he got so unhinged.

so you're nitpicking that I didn't detail each specific logical fallacy? the summary wasn't enough? If you honestly want to know, say so and I'll review the video again and point them out. But I don't think you really care. Once again, you're criticizing the existing system when you SHOULD be demonstrating how a non-statist system (or lack of a system as it were) would be better...but you arent...so it just leads me to believe that you latched on my lack of details on the fallacies as a distraction mechanism. so really who's being emotional here hrm?

but wait, you criticize my lack of detail, but when asked to demonstrate an anarchist worldview in action and how it's better than a statist one...suddenly you can't provide details...interesting the hypocrisy there

try again though.

@VoodooV: "Every one of these youtube crusaders are comfortably enjoying the perks of a system they despise."

What perks? Like roads and firemen? You know, it's not like we couldn't have those things without government. And those kinds of services are only a small portion of the federal budget. In fact, from all the excise taxes collected on gasoline, tobacco and alcohol, they'd cover the roads completely, which costs around $60 billion annually. In fact, things like the EPA, Dept. of Trans, NASA, Dept. of Edu, all cost less than the revenue the federal government categorizes as "other." Look it up: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

So what about all the wars and militarism? Is that, too, a perk? And the prison industrial complex that locks up 1% of our population? What are these perks you speak of?

Even Ayn Rand took gov't assistance.

I love it when statists bring this up. I personally am not an Objectivist, and find lots of flaws with their ideology, but this is a cheap blow. Obviously it shows the economic illiteracy of most statists. For one, she's forced to pay into social security, so therefore why shouldn't she receive some of it back? And second, if you spend more than a couple seconds reading about U.S. monetary policy, you'd know that the purchasing power of the dollar is reduced over time due to inflation, and hence savings are always impacted. This should alarm you instead of excite you.

The whole thing is infested with logical fallacies: false equivalencies, ad homs, strawmen, and even a no true scotsman thrown in for shits and giggles.

By all means don't take any time to point out which things he said were these things. No, that'd be helpful, and we wouldn't want to cloudy any appeals to emotion with pesky things like fact and well thought out rebuttals.

they spend all this time criticizing the problems of gov't and NEVER ONCE demonstrate how it would work without these systems.

I think there are plenty who do. It's just that statists don't accept those answers, or any answers that don't emulate the current status quo systems they're accustomed to. I'm not interested in replacing public schools with another bureaucracy.

Wow. I actually did make it through the whole thing The whole thing is infested with logical fallacies: false equivalencies, ad homs, strawmen, and even a no true scotsman thrown in for shits and giggles.

And that ignoring the standard problem with the Libertarian\Anarchist viewpoint where they spend all this time criticizing the problems of gov't and NEVER ONCE demonstrate how it would work without these systems.

And this idiot's answer to the education system is to just point everyone to Google?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

Next on the logical fallacy parade, Lantern will dismiss it away as a liberal conspiracy.

he's predictable too. Bobknight will later come in and make some noises with poor grammar and spelling.

It has happened before, and will happen again.

Personally, I'm done putting up with the trolls...all two of them now. I see not the slightest reason to listen to either one anymore, as I've never once seen them add anything of value to a conversation. Insults, logical fallacies, and racial slurs...but nothing of value.

I'll be treating them just like I do Fox News, and Sarah Palin. Let them starve for attention.

To be fair to lantern, he said "smash his face in" in reference to me in the lounge when I wasn't there. So it wasn't like it was a direct threat, so I apologize for embellishing a bit. but yeah. Lantern obviously forgot that the Lounge is recorded for everyone to see for many days. He also seems to forget that everyone can see his comment history and all the other retarded and racist things he has said over the years.

So while it MAY NOT have been a "threat" per se. It shows a propensity for violence when mere words are exchanged.

Standard Internet Tough Guy syndrome.

It doesn't even matter if he is a cop or not. Either way it makes him look bad. Either he's lying about being a cop. Or he is a cop and he's just a desk jockey talking tough. Or he is actually on the streets and we've seen first hand how quick to anger and racist he is (not to mention insecure). No scenario paints him in a good light.

And this is why you don't make appeals to authority. It's a logical fallacy in the first place and when you try to bring RL into an internet debate without using the disclaimer that it's all anecdotal anyway (there's that word again Lantern, maybe you really should look it up), it usually means your arguments don't have their own merits and it just devolves into "my dad can beat up your dad" mentality which pretty much means you've lost.

I love it...you claim to believe the evidence of your own eyes, and then offer nothing but unsupported opinion and logical fallacy.

Must be nice to just "know" that you have moral superiority over those useless fat slobs, rather than do any actual study or research into causes.