@NetRunner

I'm not sure.

@rougy

A civil war by different groups vying for control because of the power vacuum the US leaving will create.

They will say it is better for the US to leave because they would be comparing now to back when the Taliban was indisputably in power, and when despite enforcing an Islamic theocracy, at least the country was considerably more stable. Obviously if the US were to leave right now, that is not what the country would immediately return to.

If once they were to leave, a civil war did ensue that was far more bloody than it is now and there was an outcry for the US to return, or at least blame of the US for causing the worsening violence, would you support sending troops back in? I'm guessing not, and unfortunately you can't have it both ways.

@GeeSussFreeK
Well, I think you're narrowing the term morality somewhat. Morality is based on reason as well, just as laws should be. I base my personal "beliefs" and morality on reason and that's what I mean by morality - values. Values change when new impressions are made.

Laws and morality are intermixed. It's not like religion vs. science. Our laws are based on the prevalent morality, values, judgment and reason of the judges and politicians who enact them.

Morals are not only beliefs, it's a judgment based on many factors.

Theocracy has nothing to do with this, theocracy is a government form.

Morality should never drive laws. Ever. That is what we call theocracy. There is no reason that people in the south could then force atheists to pray or some such non-sense. I repeat, laws and morality should never meat, ever. You can form laws based chiefly on reason, a language that a person of any morality can speak. People of differing moralities trying to establish a legal framework around their personal beliefs means that it comes at the direct cost of freedom of the other man. One mans God is the other mans devil, one mans life lone dream is the others weakness. In reality, the system has turned into what you have said, and that is the main problem with it.

I, for one, want the continuing evolution of human morality to be an issue for culture to decide, not men with guns. If we can agree that we don't know if we are "necessarily work[ing] towards a "better" morality", and further that we might not be operating in a good morality, then does it make since to make criminals out of people for operating on their own morality? That is what we are doing here. We are making people criminals for what they believe. What they believe is ugly. But you have now made it the responsibility of the state to punish those who's morality becomes objectionable, and that one can come and bite you in the ass in the worst kind of way. Is it horrible to be so close minded and bigoted as to not want to hire/do business with someone because of color? Yes. Should we send him to jail? No. If he beats up a person because they are of color? Duh.

>> ^gwiz665:

Laws are things we make. Morals are things we have. Our laws are based on the morality at the time it was made. The prevalent morality changes over time (hopefully for the better), thus laws change over time (hopefully for the better). This is the nature of morality - relative, ever-changing, evolving.
It does not necessarily work towards a "better" morality, just like evolution doesn't necessarily make "better" animals, only animals better at reproducing themselves. Which factors affect morality, I don't know, but I would guess that it relies much on factors like upbringing, teachings, personal growth and maturity etc etc. Lots and lots of factors.
As we as a species become more and more advanced, different issues come up and our morals on that issue starts developing. For now, most people are against human cloning, for instance. That will likely change over the next period of time, when we can easily clone bodyparts from our own cells, or even make ourselves a twin brother or sister.
The evolution of morality is a good thing, it shows that we're striving to get better, which in my mind, at least, is the ultimate goal of our race. Be all we can be. Hoohaah.

It also happens to run the faulty notion of absolute morality into the ground, which I'm not averse to either.

>> ^Stormsinger:

I couldn't have said it better myself, gwiz665. I see this as a perfect case for applying the statement we all grew up hearing, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/berticus" title="member since April 18th, 2007" class="profilelink">berticus, I don't think Jung was nearly as bad as Freud. Freud was a flat-out obsessive nut. While Jung at least can retreat into the meaningless shadows of philosophy and pose as a playful game of "what if".


bingo!
finally got some commentary going.
usually it is only qwiz coming out to play.
let me preface this a bit so my words wont be misconstrued based on prejudices.
1.i am not a "god of gaps" person (lookin at you qwiz),i do not hide behind unknowns and claim that this is proof positive of a creators existence.
2.i find it intellectually dishonest to dismiss a persons entire lifes work based on either personal opinion or other arbitrary factors i.e:he was a paranoid coke-addled obsessive.so?he also was able to define,correctly i might add,a large part of our collective consciousness.carl jung believed in the divine,the spirit, does this belief negate ALL of his work and observations based on a single belief he had?one that you may disagree with?
think about that..i have talked to every one of you who has commented on this post and "stupid" is not a word i would use to define any of you.
3.give rougy a bit of slack.while i do not wish to speak for him..i am going to anyways.
while his statement "If you don't get it, there's no use explaining.

It's...wasted breath." may seem a bit like a slight or derogatory..it is not..it just comes across that way.
at its heart he is correct.if you dont understand or see things this way, any attempt to convey or explain will only lead to confusion or worse.
a good example is having a woman explain childbirth to a man.while the man may make a noble attempt to understand the intricacies of childbirth he will ultimately always fall short.
why?..he does not have a uterus.

and this leads me to why i respect jung and also my perplexion at why others here do not.jung questioned the unquantifiable.he searched and poked and prodded into a part of us he strongly suspected existed yet there is no actual evidence.what he found was strong coincidental evidence which shaped his thoughts and ideas concerning the divine/spirit/soul.let us add to this mans struggle the fact that he was dealing with a public which was still heavily influenced by theocracy and his ideas were actually pointing in a direction which would make theocracy not only definatively wrong but irrelevent.

this of course leads me to ask something that i am curious about.i understand you all may disagree with jung and that is your right.i also fully understand your dismissal of the spirit/divine/soul.here is what i do not understand:carl jung asked the hard questions and spent his life trying to not only to find the answers but understand the question better.
where are YOUR questions?
because i always see the dismissal.
i see the disagreement and many (thanks qwiz) actually post the reasons.
but WHERE ARE YOUR QUESTIONS?
at least jung had the balls to ask them.disagree with his conclusions all you wish but even he understood that at the end of the day...he could be wrong.
this is why i admire him so much,because while i may believe and feel my paradigm is correct i HAVE to leave room that not only may i be incorrect on some points,i may be totally wrong.i have to accept the fact that there may come a day when all that i think i know,believe, may have to be flushed down the toilet.

i do not see anyone here asking the questions.i see many residing safely in their preconceived ideologies that were propagated by others.(i am speaking in general,not directly at you guys).it is real easy to sit in such a safe corner and feel that your understanding of things is embedded in stone.a solid ground paved by others where everybody is all sitting in their armchairs looking down at those who question the established norms.this is not only intellectually dishonest but intellectually lazy.

i love discussing with qwiz.
why?he is an atheist..a rabid atheist.
i do the same with dag.
why?well if you ask both of them and others i have conversed with you would know that i have never attempted to convert,co-opt or coerce him into feeling believing anything other than who they are.
jung pushed the envelope.he pushed against barriers and asked the QUESTIONS.
r.d. lang did also but even i found lang a bit...out there.but i respected lang for pushing barriers and ignoring precedent.

i am rambling here so i will end this on this note:
disagree with jung all you wish but respect the fact that this man pushed the envelope.asked the questions that have no solid or easy answers and attempted to define consciousness.
where is YOUR contribution to this?
where are YOUR questions?
and would you have the courage to put your ideas out into the public arena?
or will you stay in the relative safety of your own certitude?

ask yourself.
WHO are YOU?
WHY are YOU here?
i do not care the answer because it is the question that reveals so much more.
and that my friends,is where poetry resides.

>> ^smooman:

dawkins made his point. but i'd like to hear his answer to the response question: "what's the relevance of what happens in an islamic nation and great britain?"
if you look anywhere outside of islamic theocracies you will find that there are no legal ramifications for apostasy. Here in america (fuck yeah) if a muslim becomes a christian or an atheist or whatever he/she is not held under lawful punishment. I'm sure the same in britain, any free nation for that matter.


Sure, thats because those countries have secular laws that are specifically designed NOT to cater to any particular religion, but is based upon human rights that has been agreed upon during the enlightenment up to today.

But islam is the same shit everywhere. I have no doubt that many muslims are as disgusted and disturbed by these laws as I am, but if they are, it isnt because of Islam, its because of everything but Islam .

Think about it: Islamic theocracies were not designed by some outside evildoers who did their best to pick out the worst aspects of Islam that they could find, and then used superpowers to force them on the population. These societies evolved out of attempts to follow Islam as faithfully and true as possible. The reason women are treated like obedient cattle in these states and people are executed for leaving Islam is because thats what Islam preaches.

Theres little doubt that the man in this video would wish for Dawkins to find religion like he has , and convert to Islam along with the rest of the studio audience, and all of Britain for that matter. If that happened, what would happen to secular law in britain? do you think we'd have more and better rights for women? a better judicial system?, more tolerance?, more freedom to choose religion freely?

dawkins made his point. but i'd like to hear his answer to the response question: "what's the relevance of what happens in an islamic nation and great britain?"

if you look anywhere outside of islamic theocracies you will find that there are no legal ramifications for apostasy. Here in america (fuck yeah) if a muslim becomes a christian or an atheist or whatever he/she is not held under lawful punishment. I'm sure the same in britain, any free nation for that matter.

So what is the relevance of the question? to point out that fundamentalist, islamic theocracies are a dangerous, intolerant, and insufferable lot? to point the finger and laugh at the muslims and their mean ways? knowing the overt disposition of dawkins on religion i'd bet my bottom dollar on the latter. He was quite pointedly bashing religion, in this case islam, and being smug about it. "That's all i wish to hear"? fuck off dawkins.

look if you want to hold a conversation about the conflicts of theocracy fine. I think theocracy is shit and a bit oxymoronic in terms of its goal. but again, we have dawkins brow beating the religious and their neanderthal ways in lieu of actual dialogue.

i like dawkins ok. he's a brilliant scientist and widely influential. but this is the dawkins i cant stand. atheists like dawkins are no different than the religious who think he's an immoral, dirty, baby eating sinner that he talks down to.

what's really off putting about dawkins is that he thinks he's smarter, more evolved, and better looking than me because i'm NOT an antheist all while "preaching" how intolerant the religious are. How is that any different than if i were to think that i am more righteous, just, and compassionate than dawkins because he's NOT a christian?(ps: i dont think that)

it isnt.

i just hate interviews and videos like this i guess. where's the dialogue? wheres the discourse? theyve been substituted for a pissing contest

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Bring this version back. "One Nation Under God" turns us into a theocracy.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^Crosswords:
>> ^BoneyD:
Who was the Republican? Ron Paul?

Ron Paul would never vote for government run/backed anything.

Not exactly true, but he would never of voted for this. Let us not forget he is Dr. Paul and not Esq. Paul, as a tried and true doctor, his words should carry a bit more weight than his lawyer and lobbyist counterparts.

If Ron Paul's opposition to vaccines is not enough to convince you that he is a quack, then nothing will.


Interesting, his position seems pretty clear here. Vaccines good, force bad. Welcome to the new theocracy. Long live the violence of majority factions.

From videos like this outsiders might think Utah is a Mormon theocracy (or Morocracy). And that's certainly what the church would like, but Salt Lake City is actually surprisingly liberal, and has a strong gay community. This was a big news story here, and sparked protests. Including kiss-ins, where hundreds of people, both gay and straight, protested by holding hands and kissing on temple grounds. Of course they weren't arrested or thrown out - by this time the church was eager to avoid further embarrassment and bad publicity. The charges against the couple were also dropped.

http://www.sltrib.com/lds/ci_12872004

Any government that has a policy of solving social problems by using government funds or employment is operating on a Keynesian principle. Lets be fair though, John Maynard Keynes was a brilliant mathematician and economist. Notions of GDP and other such macroeconomics ideals are all his creation. However flawed and unrealistic they are, there is no doubt of its brilliants for what it was. Same could be said of Communism, however, practical realities and the evils they create to obtain those things rule them out if one wants to be free..that is for both Communism and Keynesian principles. Friedrich Engels and John Maynard Keynes were not idiots, just people trying to solve problems, however history shows they had the wrong answers.

Obama and pretty much every western government has been largely Keynesian for a good long time. Though, the term Keynesian need not be rigorously applied...this is just a forum conversation. The truth is that you can either have government making choices with yours and other peoples money making moral decisions (theocracy for all intents and purposes). Or you can have a system of liberties where we are free to make our own moral choices. The terrible things that come about because of freedoms are blatant and unhidden, in a way, that makes them better. Problems that are more insidious, like stagflation, inflation, corruption, cronyism , nepotism, the list goes on; (o hell, lets not forget high powered lobbyists) are all the results of highly powerful centrally planed governments.

Sigh, long live theocracy.

I would imagine if you made cars illegal, car related deaths would go down. That isn't the point though. You would be punishing people that haven't done something on the off chance that they might. It is even worse than the whole pre-crime stuff of Minority Report, it is punishing people of no crime. Might it be more safe to ban weapons completely, perhaps, but at a great cost of liberty... and like someone (O wait me!) mentioned before, there is no logical ending point to keeping you safe. Like the great movie, "Thank You for Smoking", jested at; should we outlaw New England Cheddar because of people dying from high cholesterol? While this seems ridiculous, it isn't a stretch of the imagination, and moreover, there is no logical distinction between the two. What you have is a system that is made up of preventative safety measures based on arbitrary personal values, a realm that both Ben Francklin and Plato/Socrates warned against. The tyranny of the majority masked in the public good (in this case, safety). The battle cry of the "majority good" flies in face of the ideas the social contract and civil liberties (classical liberalism).

To rephrase what someone said before, there is no perfect system. Horrible things are going to happen. The real question is in what manor will this happen. Will we be free to make our own mistakes and suffer the consequences of poor judgment and/or bad luck. Or will we subject ourselves to tyrannical (in the sense of a moral majority overruling a minority, even if that minority is 48% of people) safety control ebbing away at our every freedom. More over, things could (as they did in Greece) switch from legal and noble to illegal and punishable by death very swiftly. This was in the ancient world, just imagine what shifts in life could be made via modern communications?!

I do truly fear centralized power of any kind; be it government or commercial. My fears are realized all to often in the long history of the human race. Domination and might makes right all to often are the prevailing models of society, I see moving away from the social contract and to a system of moral governance as a return to what is basically a theocracy of dogooders trying to get their moral agendas on top of the "new laws here" list.

>> ^NetRunner:
How about dropping our puritanical discomfort with our own bodies, and one of the more important and wonderful parts of human relationships?
I think our prudish behavior about sex leads to a large variety of our society's sex-related issues, be it unwanted pregnancies, the transmission of STDs, and possibly even some subset of sexual harassment or sexual assault.

I think this is spot on. America is really the only non-Islamic theocracy where someone pushing for the end to porn would be taken seriously, and I think NetRunner and QM are spot on in that it stems from a puritanical religious streak. Further, I have no proof but I'd bet my last pair of pants that this is also the reason why porn is such a huge business in America.

The sickening hate for the human body evidenced by so many religious people is, I guarantee you, more psycologically damaging than porn.

>> ^thepinky:
Alcohol, cigarettes, and fatty foods are very, very different from porn. Cigarettes aren't as addictive as porn. 8-year-old don't often access alcohol from their computer chairs and become addicted for the remainder of their lives. Fatty food manufacturers aren't emotionally scarred and degraded. The only comparable example that you gave is drugs, and the illegal drug industry is almost as bad as porn. It is destructive to both creator and consumer.
Nothing good comes from fatty foods? I LOVE fatty foods! I can eat fatty foods without becoming addicted. My pizza consumption doesn't hurt anyone but me. The same cannot be said of porn.

There's so much wrong with this post. First, alcohol and nicotine develop physical dependency. Alcohol withdrawal, unlike many drug withdrawals, can actually kill you. A person can be psycologically addicted to porn but it is exactly that, psychological. Don't even compare those.

Next, a good parent is aware of what their child is looking at on the internet. An 8 year-old getting porn is a sign of bad parenting. That said, I'd much rather an 8 year old saw the completely natural sight of a naked body, even in the act of sex, than see half of the violence in the average movie/video game.

Third, your pizza consumption (or at least some people's) does hurt people besides you... America is dying at continually younger ages of early onset heart disease, diabetes, etc., largely thanks to unhealthy diets. I guarantee you that fatty foods are not only physically responsible for more deaths in America than porn but also lead to more psychological problems in the people who develop negative body image thanks to that bad nutrition.

Good stuff from all sides here.

I voted "Pretty good." He's not McCain, and I don't see how he would have handled the economic crisis we're in any better. Granted, that's not saying a lot. But I have a feeling that Obama is treating this better than McCain treated the 8 planes he crashed over his military career. Things are hard, and we've been saying "the end has to be in sight, the bottom has to hit, and then it's only back up from there" for a while now. But I'm still optimistic that things can get fixed soon.

In other important, direction-changing news, Al Franken was finally confirmed his senate seat today. The Democrats finally control both houses with a 2/3rds majority. Unless a democrat decides to turn coat, the threat of filibuster that has prevented the president from taking quicker action is no longer a viable tactic. One can hope that the coalition will finally (and quickly) right the damage inflicted by 30 years of Fiscal Conservative Policy, but I have my reservations. The GOP is all but resigning themselves to the loony bin, and it sure is fun watching that elephant writhe in introspective agony. Even Cantor was saying that he misses Obama reaching out to him like he did earlier in the presidency (even though they gave him nothing for his efforts... priceless)

I don't see the GOP gaining many (if any) seats in either house in 2012. Ensign should resign now if he wants to help his party at all, but he won't because he's a hypocrite and a coward, just like Sanford, and that pride will cost the party his seat (and maybe more collateral damage) when the time comes for him to have to prove to Nevada that he isn't a total fuck-up. Here in California, the only serious contender I'm hearing to challenge Boxer is Carly Fiorina (the fuck-up former CEO of California-based Hewlett-Packard. I went to a school with a lot of HP employees, not one had any kind words for her.)

So we'll have a few years at the very least to see what Obama can do for the country without the GOP being as much of an obstacle, for better or for worse. I'm pretty positive that he can do a lot of good, and that things will happen a little more quickly now that the playing field has change so drastically recently. There's still a lot for him to do for me to want to vote "awesome" in a future poll, but I'm very happy with how he's handling the crisis in Iran (hands-off is the only way to handle the hot-potato. The Iranian people have to make change on their own, but the damage done to the legitimacy of their theocracy is already permanent).

>> ^imstellar28:
Why is there nothing about Iran in the top 15?!?

Good question. I killed my other clip, I'm glad to see at least one making it in.

Personally I believe it's because people would rather focus on what's 'here' to them rather than what is 'there' to them. Things like this don't effect them, they don't care. Most people don't understand politics, so they don't care. Really, most people don't understand anything beyond their own personal bubbles.

Since they don't get involved, when something happens they do the only thing that comes naturally. They lash out and pretend that they do care. Different story when you're in a theocracy or a dictatorship, but democracies? How are these 30-50% electoral voting pools doing these days?