Shiny, as a corporeal representative for God's so-called everlasting/universal love, you seem to really relish the idea of people who, y'know, don't fall in line with your incomprehensible and unjustified self-enslavement and stuff BURNING IN HELL FOREVER.

But please, defer the blame for your petty (calling it childish would be an insult to actual well-adjusted children), crass behavior right on back to your evidence-less imaginary friend so you don't have to ever engage anyone in good faith, ever; we're all sinners and you're God's special child/saved and that's that. Actually, considering that, it might be a better idea if you just fuck right off. Go drop a turd in someone else's punch-bowl.

I'm well for being sick since night...happier than I have the right to be though.

Synchronicity was coined by CG Jung in 1923 while penning the Foreward of a book. It basically means meaningful coincidence. Acausal based reality stuff....

I miss the Sift as well. I pop through to vote for as much as I can and find the odd deviation(s). Your mention of the Police may have sparked free association in that I, while reading your reply, considered myself more of a traffic cop here these days.

I do relish the comparison to your venerable self. I must admit, however, variance with your comparison as being simultaneously too flattering of me and certainly too self deprecating of you.

I am glad to hear life is treating you well and, therefore, you life. And that your flare for imagery is still strong.
In reply to this comment by Kevlar:
Hey there! I've heard the term synchronicity before (even outside of The Police's Greatest Hits) but I figured I should check the Wikipedia entry just to do something seemingly enlightened today. I then managed only to read as far as a distracting graph that read 'indestructible energy' at the top, so yes, I am synchronously indestructible and I thank you for the compliment.

I'm good! Busy as heck and missing the sift, but loving life. Old man moment: You remind me of myself, commenting about 'walking out of here' as though the Sift is a physical place, with you its custodian and Keeper of Awesome, clocking out nightly when the weariness overtakes the desire for dupes and bans. I then looked at your Super Duper rank - 82 - and for me to say 'you remind me of myself' is probably akin to a worm complimenting the eagle who is busy squeezing it between its talons.

Anyway, how are you?

@blankfist Ahh, but see, you're going the other extreme and suggesting that not letting them wear heels (based on it damaging their legs, over sexualizing them at an early age etc.) leads to no form of self expression.

If they really want something that we don't agree with it'd be up to them to explain to us why. And if it's purely 'because everyone else is doing it' then we're going to say no.

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with imposing your beliefs on your children anyway. It's not like you can avoid it, of course you do, every parent does. In fact, it's your job to imbue them with a sense of right and wrong and give them the tools to get through life.

That's not to say you should raise a child who dare not disagree with you, in fact I relish a good constructive argument, but the point is that I'd rather them at least have our morals and life outlook as a starting point rather than leaving them be a blank canvas to absorb commercialized culture without any critical thinking.

@chilaxe, what sub-culture are you referring to? Why are you assuming that the only factor in hiring political appointees to cabinet-level positions would be cognitive ability? Seems to me management skills, loyalty, and ideological compatibility would matter a lot more, even to politicians I like, than cognitive ability.

In any case, I think you're fundamentally asking the wrong question. Someone working for Kasich must have mentioned that this would be an issue, politically. If it was a matter of Kasich wanting to appoint someone, but wasn't able to find even one qualified non-white conservative to give a position to, then I sorta sympathize with him. He's just a victim of the larger conservative movement's hostility to anyone who isn't Caucasian.

Thing is, he seems to be relishing the fight. Going so far as to respond to a black Democrat who offered to help him with building a more diverse cabinet, he said "I don't need your people." He later released a clarifying statement that by "your people" he meant Democrats, but the damage was already done.

You see, my theory isn't that Kasich himself is necessarily racist. My theory is that he, and the Republican party in general, seek the support of racists. Better still, they seek to portray white people as being somehow persecuted by minorities and their liberal allies.

That's why he pushed back when people questioned him about it. He's not excluding black people, he's just hiring the most qualified people, and obviously that means blacks won't make the cut. If he thought he could've gotten away with it, he'd have made the same bell-curve argument you were hinting at, but that would've been too overt. The dog whistle is only meant to be heard by the people who know what they're listening for, not by normal people who find racism abhorrent.

Now he gets the best of both worlds. The racists can think that he only let a black man in his cabinet because he got pressured by the black community (persecution!), and the rest of the conservatives can go "see, he's not racist, I don't know why those pesky Democrats made such a fuss about it."

It's the state of the art in racial politics. You undermine legitimate claims by painting them as partisan politics, while at the same time you push veiled racist arguments into the mainstream (I'm not hiring a token black guy...because that's all they could possibly be, a token).

It's genius. Evil, but genius none the less.

>> ^lantern53:

My God is pretty awesome, which totally makes sense to me. I don't believe He was ever jealous. Anyway, not believing in God, I think, would be very depressing. To think there is no spirit world goes beyond what is totally believable...in other words, a spirit world makes far more sense to me than a physical world.


I am an Atheist and have been since the early 80's. Being Atheist has made my life so much more meaningful. Everyday is spent enjoying my wife and kids, my home and neighborhood and my life, because I only have a limited number of days. I can teach my kids to be good people because that is inherently human nature, not out of fear of displeasing a hidden master, but out of the goodness of being a human being. I get to teach my kids to help less fortunate people by volunteering at retirement homes or feeding the hungry or donating old toys to the women's shelter not because if they don't the devil will snatch their souls, but because they have a pretty good life and many people don't have what they have and need help.

How is a life spent living in fear and servitude to a vengeful, jealous, wrathful thing with an empty promise that you may get to live in a magical happy place forever a good life? It isn't.

Assuming the average male live to be 75 years old, that's only 27,300 some odd days to enjoy. I treat each one like it is my last and relished in the everydayness of life.

@Hive13
What exactly is your evidence that she seemed to enjoy it and relish the power as you say? What part of the video specifically (time)??

I'm an atheist also and as much as I despise religious ideas I don't see them overtly rearing their heads here either. Did you see something in the video that I missed? Can you be very specific about which parts of the video she seemed to relish the punishment in? Which parts were obviously influenced by religious ideas? Or are you flat our wrong and making shit up?

This woman almost seemed to enjoy it and relish in the power. I am an atheist, average person. Maybe I can see things more clearly without the need to save them from the devil or whatever shit is driving this woman.

@JiggaJonson

I was horribly abused as a kid. Typical discipline in my house was extremely violent from my mother. I had stitches a few times from dinner plates to the face for hiding my vegetables in a napkin to throw them away without eating them to having a broomstick broken over my head for being 10 minutes late. Basically, whatever my mom had in her hand at the time was what was used upside my head. If she had done half the shit to me now that she did back then, she'd have been thrown in jail and I would have been assigned a new mother.

This woman is just as fucked up and out of line as my own mother was. Just because I ate a bar of soap and this kid has to drink hot sauce doesn't make it less abusive. There are a thousand better ways to discipline kids than abusing them and mentally destroying them like this crazy bitch.

Do you know why that little boy lied to her? He was scared shitless of the woman. He would have gotten the same or worse treatment from her if he had told her in the first place. He was hedging his bets in the hopes of not getting caught. He is terrified of her.

Kids lie about shit. All of them do. You just have to be smarter than a five year old and pay attention to your kids and you'll see right through their crap. It isn't difficult.

You also mentioned that this isn't clearly spelled out as abuse in the child welfare guidelines, but this was 2 minutes of this kid's life. Imagine what the other 23 hours and 58 minutes are like. Imagine how much worse it is going to get down the road for this kid.

I am guessing you don't have kids, and if you do, I hope that you don't think anything even remotely close to what this woman is saying and doing are anywhere even close to normal. Defending her and dismissing it as "I got worse" or "it isn't all that bad" is, frankly, sickening.

As a father of three with a forth on the way, I can honestly say that if I ever did anything like this to my kids, I could never live with myself. This woman almost seemed to enjoy it and relish in the power.

I am an atheist, average person. Maybe I can see things more clearly without the need to save them from the devil or whatever shit is driving this woman.

@srd I think there are a lot of factors keeping us from getting additional parties here. For one, both parties have lost Presidential runs due to 3rd party candidates splitting their base in the last 20 years (Clinton in '92, Bush in '00), which really raises a lot of concern about "splitters".

Some form of runoff voting or European-style proportional representation would go a long way for the viability of 3rd parties. I think if we had either one of those, I personally would be all about promoting a new party that's a handful of ticks to the left of today's Democratic party.

As it is though, I poo-poo the idea of voting for the Green party because all they do is split the Democratic vote and make it easier for Republicans to win elections.

It's also why I really relish the idea of a separate and distinct Tea Party, since it will cannibalize Republican votes and make it easier for Democrats to win (and that's why Republicans everywhere are making sure the Tea Party doesn't actually get a candidate opposing a Republican in general elections).

If I knew that voting for a Green or Progressive party wouldn't have the net effect of helping Republicans win more elections, I probably would do so. I think a lot of progressives would join me in that (same with Republicans and a Libertarian party).

I'm much more in favor of people putting together a bipartisan bi-ideological campaign to implement some electoral reforms like instant runoff voting and proportional representation than I am in favor of people leaving the Democratic and Republican parties and trying to create viable 3rd and 4th parties under our existing electoral system.

She says Nuclear the same way Bush does... Incorrectly.

I don't understand why some people love her. Yes she's pretty, but she's also pretty dumb. I suppose some people just relish the thought of fiasco politics, as if they get off on a comedy of blundering errors in positions of power. Didn't she condone book burning a few years back? Could you imagine if someone like this were to come into office? Just think of the executive orders that would pass through her desk. It'd be worse than Bush's I'll bet.

On that note, what's with Obama signing executive orders? Wasn't he supposed to dismantle some of Bushs and promised not to abuse it as well? Sigh, this is what we get for going along with the old two party system. It's sad because even any 3rd party that emerges gets hijacked by one of these two parties as well. I guess we're stuck with whatever we're told are "supercandidates". It's really sad... really sad indeed.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
A firearm is a tool used by trained individuals to stop a situation getting worse. It is not a tool meant to be used for personal power or material gain. Nothing is gained in the slaughter of anyone, even if they are a criminal. Regardless of what people say the idea is to save lives, even the criminal's.
I've upvoted your comment, and I'd like to agree with this sentiment, but I can't.


In any conflict (and I'm talking on the large scale here), the objective is to eliminate your opponent's ability or will to fight. It is arguably more advantageous for all parties involved to do this through diplomatic or psychological means, or the use of non-lethal force. However, it's also possible to eliminate your opponent's ability to fight by killing him, and unfortunately history has taught us this method is more efficient, or at least simpler (though not necessarily easier) to pursue. The irony is that history also continues to teach us the folly of this approach.

On the small scale, a defensive firearm is designed to save the life of the carrier (and those he chooses to defend) by killing an aggressor. While it's possible to use a firearm for deterrence, I believe it's a dangerous proposition. If someone has threatened you to the point where you feel the use of lethal force is warranted, pulling a firearm to threaten (or discharging it with the intent to wound rather than kill) may only incite them to more desperate acts - as their life is now in direct peril. The use of a defensive firearm is an absolute last resort, when all other practical avenues of resolution (escape, barricade, etc) have been exhausted and there is no remaining option.

Usually, I'd respond to "Guns are for killing people" with "but what about target shooting," but we all know that's more of a technicality. Cars are for transporting people and goods, and the fact that they can also be used (and some specifically designed) for racing doesn't change the core intent of the device.
Guns, by their nature, are simply an evolution of thrown stones. They are designed to maim or kill, regardless of the fact that the vast majority will never be used for that purpose.

That said, and this is an important distinction, an appreciation for firearms does not necessarily celebrate that aspect. I am a firearms enthusiast and target shooter. I'm not a hunter, and I do not harbor fantasies of vigilantism, but I enjoy the act of shooting. I enjoy the processes of firearm maintenance and modification.
I enjoy shooting and maintaining the defensive pistol at by bedside, but I do not relish the thought of having to use it on a person, and chances are I will thankfully never have to make that decision.

>> ^quantumushroom:
A troll types to hear his keyboard clatter and relishes the attention nonsense brings. My contributions are often unpopular and thus a minority opinion at VS, but troll-poop they are not.
If your ideas have merit, they'll bear the weight of inquiry. 99 out of 100 new ideas will fail, that is the way of things. Unfortunately, the safeguarding processes by which society challenged new ideas have broken down.
The word "extremist" no longer has meaning. 50 years ago a man gets in his huge, heavy car with his family and drives to a restaurant. He might buckle up, he might not. His kids in the back do not sit in car seats. At dinner he eats a huge steak and then smokes a cigar. His kids eat pie with ice cream. Once upon a time, that was a free man. By today's warped eco-nanny-health state standards he'd be considered a mass murderer.
One of the charges against the religious is they stay in their own bubble and reinforce one another's beliefs. Do you really think liberals or any other "enlightened" group don't so the same?


Obviously missed the point. You may not post to troll, but your beliefs, however sincerely held, are certainly far from mainstream. I'd go with extremist, racist, reactionary, childish, intellectually unsophisticated and dishonest, and rude. If that's mainstream, well I don't wanna be part of it.

[edit]: I'm always in favor of a little hard-hitting intellectual debate between political philosophies, but the hit-and-run tactics, smearing, racism, lies, half-truths, and all-round inflammatory bullshit that you've used in the past and continue to use have got to go.

A troll types to hear his keyboard clatter and relishes the attention nonsense brings. My contributions are often unpopular and thus a minority opinion at VS, but troll-poop they are not.

If your ideas have merit, they'll bear the weight of inquiry. 99 out of 100 new ideas will fail, that is the way of things. Unfortunately, the safeguarding processes by which society challenged new ideas have broken down.

The word "extremist" no longer has meaning. 50 years ago a man gets in his huge, heavy car with his family and drives to a restaurant. He might buckle up, he might not. His kids in the back do not sit in car seats. At dinner he eats a huge steak and then smokes a cigar. His kids eat pie with ice cream. Once upon a time, that was a free man. By today's warped eco-nanny-health state standards he'd be considered a mass murderer.

One of the charges against the religious is they stay in their own bubble and reinforce one another's beliefs. Do you really think liberals or any other "enlightened" group don't so the same?

and why are they relishing in the fact that they made their kid cry on Christmas? reminds me of my family

100 pts for sweet,delicious irony.
i relish the taste of your tears

He asked for the definition of life, and I gave it all else is fluff. I do completely agree that things like consciousness are extremely interesting subjects, that should be studied scientifically. But they are not tantamount to life. Bacteria are alive too, but they have no consciousness.

I used the words wicked and evil, because they are ingrained me by my upbringing. My meaning is that religion does more bad than good from my point of view and is therefore a bad(wicked, evil etc.) thing.

>> ^Lodurr:
>> ^gwiz665:
Life is simply the animation of cells. Each cell reproduces based on DNA, multiple cells make out complex forms of life. That's it.

If you think "that's it" then you're being very unscientific. Science should relish the question of what consciousness is, where it comes from, and where it goes, rather than bat it away (some scientists do work on that question, but most seem to dismiss it). In a solipsistic sense, consciousness is the one knowable truth of our lives, and all the empirical truths we know are a house of cards extending outward from it. That's why I don't like the "simply the animation of cells" cop-out; the honest response is, "We can't scientifically determine that yet."
I haven't been involved in religion whatsoever for 15 years, but I've seen it do some good in people's lives, so I see opposing religion as a fruitless endeavor, potentially even with negative effects. There are things religion does that atheism and science cannot do, for some people.
Also, I'm baffled that so many atheists use the word "evil." If you're serious about excising religion from your life, there's no reason to use that word anymore.