Yep. The past thirty years are pretty dang cool, in a lot of ways. Racism, sexism, silent abuse -- all being actively fought.

It wasn't that long ago it was considered okay to hang a child for stealing bread in England. We don't do that anymore.

So yeah. We are smarter. Thank God.

>> ^bobknight33:

Loving someone enough to tell them that what they are doing is wrong is a good thing. Turning your head and letting wrong behavior continue doesn't help anyone.
Sadly the younger generation has been fed such a pack a moral lies that they don't know the difference between right and wrong.
For the most part what is morally right today was morally wrong 30 years ago. Has man obtained such wisdom in this short period of time to discount the wisdom of the past thousand years?
>> ^bareboards2:
What I find is that some Christians are quick to call it "evil" when more truly loving folk call it "compassion" and "acceptance of diversity."

Loving someone enough to tell them that what they are doing is wrong is a good thing. Turning your head and letting wrong behavior continue doesn't help anyone.

Sadly the younger generation has been fed such a pack a moral lies that they don't know the difference between right and wrong.

For the most part what is morally right today was morally wrong 30 years ago. Has man obtained such wisdom in this short period of time to discount the wisdom of the past thousand years?

>> ^bareboards2:

What I find is that some Christians are quick to call it "evil" when more truly loving folk call it "compassion" and "acceptance of diversity."

>> ^sirex:

i'd love someone to try and defend theirselves with one of these. -- "if you have one of these by your front door"..... if you have one of these by your front door, the attacker is already close enough to make a mess out of you with a kitchen knife. There's no sense in standing under a shower of plaster raining down looking like a muppet as you crane this ugly, huge, clumsy, and cumbersome thing into your living room ceiling.


What about when your attacker is in full plate armour? Or in the midst of a pike formation? What then smartarse?

i'd love someone to try and defend theirselves with one of these. -- "if you have one of these by your front door"..... if you have one of these by your front door, the attacker is already close enough to make a mess out of you with a kitchen knife. There's no sense in standing under a shower of plaster raining down looking like a muppet as you crane this ugly, huge, clumsy, and cumbersome thing into your living room ceiling.

>> ^Lodurr:
Part of loving someone is playing a role sometimes, and changing between roles, and objectifying yourself for your loved one. I don't know if it's a cultural problem as much as a personal maturity problem that some people don't understand that.


Does your "cultural problem" category include lack of or deliberately misleading sex education?

My mom taught high school health and english. She was very strictly limited on what she could say for the human reproduction portion of the health classes. She told me how students where surprised to learn that they could get sexually-transmitted diseases by oral sex. The sheer lack of knowledge is astounding.

But of course despite my mother's career obligations, I wasn't taught about sex from my parents. The solitary lesson from them taught to me was when I was getting some vick's vapor rub (I had a cold) to put on my chest out of the medicine drawer. There is vaseline right next to it and my mom told me to make sure I don't use that with condoms because it is petroleum-based and will eat away the condom. That was the only sentence uttered. When I reached college, I took a psychology class that was essentially a human sex education class. The teacher was brutally blunt and exactly what that class needed. Looking back on it now, I think something like that should be mandatory for all children before someone gets pregnant or an std.

Part of loving someone is playing a role sometimes, and changing between roles, and objectifying yourself for your loved one. I don't know if it's a cultural problem as much as a personal maturity problem that some people don't understand that.

The jew is making an argument from ignorance. never a good argument.
.......................................................................................................


"Do you love someone? Could you prove it? Guess you dont love that someone then "

Love exists as an subjective exsperance Within the next 50 years through science we will be able to understand the roots of that subjective exsperance in the mind. that's fine

Religion Exists as a subjective exsperance and no doubt we will be able to prove the roots of that fealing as will in due course.

The important thing to note is just Because you have a sertain fealing because you belive in a concept dose not then make something else exsist in reality , Because i feal a sertain way when i think about the concept of religoin dose not then Prove that A God Exsists ore that what is written in a religious txt is true. In the same whay that just because i love sumone or feal love dose not then mean that Choculet tasts nice or that there is a factory that produces love in tin cans.

In my mind religion is a false explanation ( not based on any fact) that was developed to describe feelings of wonderment that you can get in varouse situations or the feelings you get when you meditate.

You use science to help check that the explication you give for a certain observable thing is true , Religion,s r normally unfalsifiable and this is why they are like a cancer (literally a thought cancer) thay r simply useless to the development of human understanding.

This totally reminds me of:
The eel that loved someone.

You have to love someone like Wil Wheaton who has embraced his nerdiness and has therefore become much loved by the fans who either liked or loathed his character on Star Trek. There are plenty of actors who could indeed take a leaf from his book and stop trying to fit an image they think they should be portraying and just be themselves.

Either that or a lot of actors are just dicks


Which may be more likely.

I tried posting it but it was a dupe unfortunately

I'm just going to get this part out of the way before I respond to the rest of your message. I watched the video in the link you sent me and I'm going to respond to it directly because my strong reaction to it requires more than would be fair to ask you to read in this message. It opens up the conversation into an entirely different direction thus I feel it should be separate.

Ok...

In your original claim about futility in the argument, you didn't mention "faith" as a prerequisite. I'm sure that you just left it out by accident. Either way, I still don't agree.

I don't agree because one can argue with oneself regarding faith and come to a new conclusion about the claims presented by the faith thus changing or removing the faith. This is why it is not futile to argue about faith. I've done it, many people have done it, and I'm sure more people will do it in the future. And if you still think it's an act of futility for two people to argue over matters of faith, what is the difference between arguing with yourself about these matters and arguing with someone else who could present the same points.

So let me as you this, why do you believe what you have faith in?


Tomorrow, I'm going to work on dissecting your video for you. I'll explain why I am tomorrow as well. I wanted to write more regarding some things that you said but it will be covered tomorrow too. That said, I'll leave on these thoughts.

I do indeed know what it feels like to love someone so intensely that it feels like you're melting into that person. I know the feeling of being woven together with that person spiritually. I know the feeling of having an ethereal link to that person that felt so strong that words couldn't describe the trampling euphoria experienced in her embrace. Yes, time seemed to stop.

Though to answer, no, I would not be insulted by any statement "It's just chemicals".

Does understanding how a rainbow works in any way take away from or cheapen the beauty of a rainbow?

In the same way, how can understanding how an emotion works chemically take away from or cheapen the beauty of an emotion.

As far as being able to replicate the emotions in a lab, we can. One chemical substance: Methylenedioxymethamphetamine: MDMA. Look it up.

^Maybe I'm speaking for myself, and my experience is atypical of the median, but the concept of first love, true love, pure love, essence of love, etc. that is presented in hallmark cards, fairytales, and teenage dramas really doesn't have much basis in reality.

Love isn't some starry eyed 16 year old on a first date. The love you are describing is the love that is presented to children as a sort of trick, to keep things moving along. Children need dreams and ambition, and a lot of that is presented to them at a young age.

True love, as I would define it, is taking responsibility for another person's life. There are many reasons one might be inclined to do this - some may be genetically biased, but everything else that is typically associated with love - caring, lust, affection, generosity, passion, adventure - the things that make it into the stories of "pure love" - you can have any of those things with a stranger off the street.

Loving someone is making a choice to share the consequences of their actions - no matter how poor, or unfortunate they may be. Love is enduring the frustrations of a long stint of serious illness, working 50 hours a week to provide for your family, or coping with the hardship of losing everything you own due to poor investments. There's really nothing glamorous or "magical" about it.

Infinite kindness ala Gandhi is not love. It doesn't take much to perform a single act of kindness. You can walk up to any beggar on the street and tuck $1,000 in his pocket; but would you take up begging right next to him, for the next ten years, if that's what it took to get you both safely out of homelessness?

Maybe I'm a sociopath, but it seems easy enough to explain without a divine spirit

As far as humanity goes, humanity is a concept. While it is not impossible to love a concept, why would you spend the single life you have trying to love the concept of humanity, when you could love an actual human?

Or do you mean you wish to love every human alive? If that is the case, what kind of meaning would your love really have?

>> ^BansheeX:
>> ^rougy:
"Libertarian Logic" - two words I've rarely seen used together, and for good reason.

Oh?

I guess it escaped your purview that tax codes are not even on the list of why NOM wants to discriminate against homosexuals, or why any social conservative chooses to for that matter.
I guess "Libertarian Logic" is a euphemism for "missing the point."

Swing and a miss. The tax code is not the goal, it's the means by which the goal is accomplished. The religious want to push their concept of "marriage" and marriage itself by giving tax benefits to that particular union for which licensure is required.
>> ^jwray:
You're forgetting about child support, alimony and property that can be disputed before a divorce settlement can be reached. These are some of the protections gays are denied.
No, I'm not. There are people who have children and never got licenses. There are people who live with each other and share property and never got licenses. And their disputes/divides are settled in our court system regardless, or should be. It's mostly the IRS that requires licensure, gays can't get child or marriage credits without it.
Sorry your tax code logic is pretty flawed. If you're a childless couple it's really not much of a difference, if anything the married couple is more likely to get screwed come tax season.
How so? What's the point of seeking government permission to get married then if the tax benefit is negligible? Have a ceremony, swear oaths, profess love, print up your own certificate, you don't need permission from bigots to love someone or live with someone. Licensure is meaningless if not for the fact that it creates inequity by granting superior tax status to one legal choice over another.
If you do have children the system is set up to reward who ever has custody.
If you're referring to child support, that's restitution rather than a tax. Fact is, both parents will then lose their IRS marriage credits, but why would we want to reward/penalize based on marriage status?
As for children, the more dependents you have, the more government services you use, yet the less taxes you pay. We don't want to incentivize people to have children they can't afford by using money taken from other legal behaviors, like being single, being gay, or being childless. Subsidizing one legal choice with another makes no sense and creates tremendous distractions and infighting in this country.
If you're an abused spouse and can prove it,you'll have a better shot and getting custody of any children and recieving child support.

Child support is restitution ordered by the court, it's merely a transfer payment as part of an inferred contract when the child was born. Why are you even adding a child to my scenario? Stop trying to confound the clear example I am giving you. If a marriage is loveless, abusive, dishonest, or some other breakdown, the tax code says "stay in that marriage or we'll penalize you by revoking the subsidy we gave you for being heterosexually married." This is a carrot/stick system from a religious viewpoint that goes back a long ways when divorce for any reason was frowned upon and never seen as the best solution. And this is the system you still support, even when including gays as applicable for licensure. You're not going to worm your way out of this by adding a child and child support to confound the argument.


It's flawed because it is an attempt to reduce marriage to solely a tax issue. There are more rights involved.

I can understand why you feel the tax status is unfair. As I said before it's really a minor change in status, and since I didn't make myself clear earlier, I wouldn't shed a tear if everyone held the same status.

It's not just about divorce protections. Consider hospital visitation, being able to make medical decisions on behalf of an incapacitated spouse, and the ability to inherit valuables in the event death. In the case of an unmarried couple the sick or injured partner's family can step in and essentially screw the healthy one over.

Still, choice is really at the heart of the issue.

>> ^rougy:
"Libertarian Logic" - two words I've rarely seen used together, and for good reason.


Oh?


I guess it escaped your purview that tax codes are not even on the list of why NOM wants to discriminate against homosexuals, or why any social conservative chooses to for that matter.
I guess "Libertarian Logic" is a euphemism for "missing the point."


Swing and a miss. The tax code is not the goal, it's the means by which the goal is accomplished. The religious want to push their concept of "marriage" and marriage itself by giving tax benefits to that particular union for which licensure is required.

>> ^jwray:
You're forgetting about child support, alimony and property that can be disputed before a divorce settlement can be reached. These are some of the protections gays are denied.

No, I'm not. There are people who have children and never got licenses. There are people who live with each other and share property and never got licenses. And their disputes/divides are settled in our court system regardless, or should be. It's mostly the IRS that requires licensure, gays can't get child or marriage credits without it.

Sorry your tax code logic is pretty flawed. If you're a childless couple it's really not much of a difference, if anything the married couple is more likely to get screwed come tax season.

How so? What's the point of seeking government permission to get married then if the tax benefit is negligible? Have a ceremony, swear oaths, profess love, print up your own certificate, you don't need permission from bigots to love someone or live with someone. Licensure is meaningless if not for the fact that it creates inequity by granting superior tax status to one legal choice over another.

If you do have children the system is set up to reward who ever has custody.

If you're referring to child support, that's restitution rather than a tax. Fact is, both parents will then lose their IRS marriage credits, but why would we want to reward/penalize based on marriage status?

As for children, the more dependents you have, the more government services you use, yet the less taxes you pay. We don't want to incentivize people to have children they can't afford by using money taken from other legal behaviors, like being single, being gay, or being childless. Subsidizing one legal choice with another makes no sense and creates tremendous distractions and infighting in this country.

If you're an abused spouse and can prove it,you'll have a better shot and getting custody of any children and recieving child support.


Child support is restitution ordered by the court, it's merely a transfer payment as part of an inferred contract when the child was born. Why are you even adding a child to my scenario? Stop trying to confound the clear example I am giving you. If a marriage is loveless, abusive, dishonest, or some other breakdown, the tax code says "stay in that marriage or we'll penalize you by revoking the subsidy we gave you for being heterosexually married." This is a carrot/stick system from a religious viewpoint that goes back a long ways when divorce for any reason was frowned upon and never seen as the best solution. And this is the system you still support, even when including gays as applicable for licensure. You're not going to worm your way out of this by adding a child and child support to confound the argument.

really? do you love someone? could you prove it to me?

>> ^smooman:
Do you love someone? Could you prove it? Guess you dont love that someone then =(


"Proving" is something you can do in math, and only math. For everything else we ask: Is there enough evidence? And it is easy enough collecting evidence of love, simply measure peoples pulse and body heat when they are touched by a loved one, or even see their picture, next to pictures of other random people.

So does love exist? Yes, the evidence clearly suggests it does.

Does sincere religiosity exist? Definitely, the evidence suggests it does.

Can you love Jesus or other imaginary gods with all your heart? Quite probably yes,my guess is that a similar pulse/picture test could measure that too.

Does God exist? Probably not, we have no evidence that suggests he does.