Colbert is trying to convert Bill Maher to his religion, but religion cannot save you. A religion is mans attempt to reach God by his own merits, but there is nothing we can do to reach God on our own. The reason Jesus Christ died on the cross is because man is utterly unable to merit his own salvation. A lifetime of good works, added up together, cannot wipe out a single sin.

Our sins are wiped out only by the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross, when He paid for the sin of the world. His payment for our sins is accounted to us when we put our trust and faith in Him as Lord and Savior. We will all pay for our sins either on our own merit, or on the merit of Jesus Christ, who was accepted as a sacrifice for sins by God because He had never sinned and met Gods righteous requirement of moral perfection.

Colbert isn't alone; we are all bad at this. We cannot live up to Gods requirements, but God sent His Son Jesus Christ to do what we can never do and pay the price we cannot pay so we can be reconciled to God and obtain eternal life.

A guy I went to school with was one of the survivors of the Cave Creek tragedy in the 90's (also in NZ) which had 14 deaths. It apparently was an issue of a poorly constructed platform, and the students shaking the platform.

Four people survived the fall of about 30m, I heard one of them was able to use their partner as a 'taboggan' pretty much, which cushioned their descent, allowing them to survive. The ultimate sacrifice. Pretty horrifying stuff, you wouldn't be the same person after.

Nice to see a lack of verbal abuse in a discussion like this. I appreciate it as I know I'm probably treading on thin ice in a lot of minds.

I disagree that texts are devoid of meaning until we give them some. The text itself if a collection of ideas and some of those ideas are horrendous. It generally is not an individual's qualities that determine the violence of the religion as much as the history of that religion's practice in the area they were raised. A peaceful and loving Aztec that was faithful would still have supported sacrificing slaves for all the same reasons, because they would have believed the underlying superstitions that made it a rational act given the premises.

I'm not sure Maher & co. view is as a strictly religious phenomenon. You really have to do a case by case analysis. Some make no sense but for religion, while other are very easy for my to sympathize with, even as an atheist. I have to admit I'm more familiar with Harris' views than Maher's, mind you, as I find Maher's presentation of his ideas can at times be half baked.

The reason why they specifically strap bombs to their chests is largely religious. Everyone else prefers living to kill another day. There's a religious reason why they are willing to sacrifice their children in this way. The reason that they behead people instead of other forms of killing them is because that form of murder is enshrined in their texts. All of these religious justifications lower the barrier for action. They make it that much easier for someone to accept that it's a reasonable course of action. And that's because of specific words in specific books.

I agree that is smells like apologist BS when Harris talks about western intervention having good intentions. I don't think the west has good intentions most of the time. However you have to acknowledge that there is something less reprehensible about trying to kill even a likely dangerous person (with the likelihood of innocent collateral damage) as compared with deliberately targeting exclusively innocent people. Yes the wedding party massacre was horrible. That was the worst case possible from our point of view, and some efforts will be made to avoid it happening again. If think that is morally significant. If you don't think intentions are relevant to morality, we will simply disagree.

@newtboy
@Lawdeedaw

you two are adorable.like an old couple that should have divorced decades ago but were unwilling to share the pet dog.

the arguments i see playing out here are one of distinctions,but what are we basing those distinction on?
well,Lawdeedaw has addressed that point and i happen to agree with him.

if you find an abuse of power cop video,where someone is shot or beaten to death acceptable.then you must also find this video acceptable,because they are both using the exact same metric.

that being said,i feel newtboy brings up a good point:context,meaning and ultimately the REASON for posting a video where someone dies.

i think i understand lawdeedaws intent on posting.to reveal the cultural hypocrisy we have in regards to homeless people.how they are invisible,disregarded and disenfranchised.that even though we cringe at having to see homeless people,nevermind interact with them.they are still human and can have just as much courage and moral integrity as any one of us,even though they are discarded and invisible.even though there is much hand-wringing and empty-worded rhetoric,disguised as compassion,making us have the feel-goods while we do nothing.

they are human and this mans humanity and sacrifice can be beautiful to behold.

but where is the context?
take away lawdeedaws poetic understanding...what is happening here,besides a man getting shot and the gunman riddled with bullets?

so newtboy brings up a good point.
so allow me to add some much needed context:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/homeless-man-saving-hostage-victim_55f06cdbe4b093be51bd1940

You really are being aggressive aren't you? Okay, so "I don't consider this snuff" leads you to what conclusion? Are you really A-surprised that the content is of a deep nature with human sacrifice? B-Unable to read it? Or C-Just mad?

I concede the NSFW, so there is that.

In the coming war between us and the bugs, this man is prepared to sacrifice everything for victory. We will look to him for guidance when the time comes.

The next election is going to be interesting. I wish Labour had realised that fighting over the center was only a sound strategy when there was no risk of encirclement earlier, because now the left is split. How complacent to assume support from leftist Scotland when they've neglected their base for so long.

People talk of how Corbyn is at the wheel of a sinking ship, but it was not he who steered it into such treacherous waters. I heard a Labour supporter on the radio today saying that principles are nothing without power, as if to slight Corbyn. I understand that she probably meant that you need both, but I think the frustrations with a lot of politicians is that they seem all too willing to sacrifice principles for the sake of power. Learn the lessons of the Lib Dem fiasco well Labour, do not repeat their errors.

Check out Tengger Cavalry if you like metal.

I'm obviously talking Swahili here... What part of "do not have a choice" don't you understand? I don't get to set the tariffs or when the sun comes up, and batteries enough to load shift significantly in Aus are still in the 20-30 grand area. You are fortunate you live in a place where the energy company still allows you a reasonable price for the energy you produce. The acceptance you talk about is the same acceptance a hostage gives it's kidnapper when they have a gun held to their head... Perhaps you're even lucky enough to have multiple energy providers competing for your custom. In Aus, it's almost entirely single provider in the realm of electricity supply.

However, that's neither fucking here nor there when it comes to energy returns... Energy returned on energy does not once mention the word "dollars" or "money"...

A simple analogy would be using a thousand 200 dollar bicycles to pull a load or 1 200 thousand dollar prime mover. The bikes are cleaner, certainly, but once you pay the wages of 1000 people to ride them/feed them, give them accomodation etc (vs 1 guy in the truck), and then work out just how long those people can continuously ride, the cost of the fuel in the truck etc, the truck becomes the obvious answer. That's why we use trucks instead of team pulled wagons, they are just better suited to the task. The same counts for energy generation, we need a clean prime mover, and we're going to have to suck up the cost to do it. If we're going to save the world, we're going to have to make sacrifices in the form of paying more until someone invents clean abundant energy generation that is also cheap.

Your "double the return on coal" is completely unsubstantiated.

Of course solar PV is cleaner than coal, but you need to expend far more energy to generate 1 KW/h of PV energy than you do to generate 1 KW/h of coal energy... It's part of the reason why coal is cheaper than solar and why so much of the world still relies on it. Because people cannot see past their wallet to the bigger picture.

I would love if PV on roofs were the answer, just like it would be awesome if everyone could farm their own vegetables in their backyard. But we moved beyond subsistence living to mass production a long time ago because people realised it was a huge effort that paid relatively small returns. Residential solar PV is a convenient foil to keep people thinking that it's making a difference when we could be investing public dollars in to wind (more viable), nuke (more viable), solar thermal (more viable), wave (more viable), hydro etc. And a lot of those techs are probably going to be more expensive than solar PV. What did that Native American fellow say? 'When it's all gone to shit, will you eat money?'

Money being the only concern is what got us to where we are at the moment ffs... =)

Not true. Homosexuals are to be put to death, as are witches and people who work on the lord's day or let others (including animals) work for them, people who practise divination or "seek omens", people who curse their father or mother and people who have sex with their father or their daughter-in-law or their neighbour's wife or who give their children away as sacrifices to Molek.

Ever done one of these? I mean worked on the lord's day or had anyone work for you? (Not given away you children as sacrifices to Molek.)

I believe mole rat jesus died on the 31st year, raised on the 33rd year, so it's more of a tradition of mole rat self sacrifice. Like seppuku or Harry Carry -- someone correct me on the written versus spoken forms of this Japanese tradition (in need of revival).

But you may wonder, "Aren't there any mole rats that don't believe in the tradition of self sacrifice?" And I would tell you, Yes. Yes, there are plenty that don't follow these traditions.

And you'd think in reply, "Well, that's odd. If these," let's called them "'alternative' mole rats broke away from the traditions of self sacrifice, why aren't there more older mole rats today?"

Well, it's a sad but simple truth, Timmy, but usually the jesus worshipping mole rats kill the nontraditional, alternative mole rats (who have the ability to live forever) -- and, really, any type of worshipper of something can fulfill this role of antagonizer: mole rats who worship pagan mole gods, power, money, the God of molterial possessions, AIDS. And these mole rats murder the alternative mole rats. Or drive them into suicide, fulfilling their ritualistic traditions of self sacrifice for their sun mole god. Or some type of mole rat god. There are many others...

One day the mole rat society will have a scientific term for the process by which a restrictive institution innately develops out of a fearful mass of moles, becoming normative mole rat behavior. One day we will understand how these fearful, normative moles inadvertently MURDER their fellow mole simply through their ignorance and their evil, sinful desires for power and dominance over their world, their fellow mole rat. (Is it a form of subconscious sociopathy? With hidden sociopaths leading the charge?)

They turn love into hate, declaring their moral mole rat codes as ethical, in order to profit and/or maintain their sense of safety, their illogical, SELFISH mole rat world order, to save their own asses and the asses of their mole rat children from mole rat hell. Sell. Fish. Mote. Eee. Vations.

It's a simple process of societal entropy within the mole rat community. An 'us versus them' mentality that just sits hidden between the conscious and subconscious mole rat mind. It's fucking not going to be "THEM" because those mole rats don't practice the ritual of self sacrifice to maintain the mole rat average life expectancy.

TL;DR: MOLE RATS DIE KNOWINGLY AND UNKNOWINGLY IN THE NAMES OF THE SUN GODS. Mole rat God bless mole rat America.

Under a video about an innocent child being killed due to our gradual march towards a police state, you are justifying the need for a police state because people "mouth off" at the cops.

This kid was a satisfactory sacrifice because some people say mean things to the police. We should tolerate people being innocently killed, having their houses partially destroyed, being mistreated and actively hunted because of skin colour, police brutality and everything it encompases. Because sometimes, guys. Sometimes... people say nasty things to the police. It nearly makes me cry that people can be so mean to police officers. I hope this kid learns a lesson from this. I don't know what lesson - maybe "don't let other people be mean to the police"? Might be useful in the afterlife.

Early heart attack detection, just sacrifice your father... has been added as a related post - related requested by blackfox42.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Early-heart-attack-detection-just-sacrifice-your-father

My forefathers fought and many of them gave their lives to secure my (and your, and his) right to not answer questions or to be forced to make statements designed to incriminate myself.
It's incredibly MORE disrespectful and discourteous to ignore their total sacrifice by waiving those hard won rights than it is to not answer questions...especially when you DO calmly and clearly explain why you don't talk to officers.

The officers, on the other hand, are legally REQUIRED to answer your questions about 'are you detaining me', 'do you have reason to believe I'm committing a crime', and 'what crime are you charging me with'. They may not remain silent.

Yes, many 'situations' might be avoided if you capitulate and waive all your rights, but that behavior is 100% un-American, unpatriotic, disrespectful, and degrades the freedom of every citizen every time it's done. Sometimes having a legal right to 'act like a douche' DOES mean you should 'act like a douche' (if, as you seem to think, not participating in the investigation of your possible criminal acts is 'acting like a douche', that is).