People without good critical thinking skills can be misled to do stupid and harmful things (like voting for prop . Faith is synonymous with lack of critical thinking. Faith is a problem no matter how benign some of its practitioners currently are because they can more easily be misled by clergy, politicians, and hucksters.

Christian theology is bullshit because the problem of evil is insurmountable.
Malaria was not created by free will. If there were a benevolent all-powerful creator, he would not have allowed Malaria to exist. Sin fucked up the world? Well, the creator would have had to create the magic that would cause the world to become fucked up when sin occurred. Malaria is necessary for the greater good? That makes your supposed creator about as 'benevolent' as Hitler who thought gassing Jews was necessary for the greater good. The god of the old testament is a genocidal megalomaniac, exactly like Hitler.

It is pretty fucked up to believe in / worship this bloodthirsty megalomaniac without any evidence that he even exists.

Yes, church gives you a sense of community. That's fine. I still even go to a church event once in a blue moon to catch up with some old friends from 10 years of attending the same small Sunday school classes. But for fuck's sake, there are other ways to meet people and serve your community than through glorifying a fictional genocidal tyrant who wouldn't even deserve it if the bible were true.

>> ^messenger:

I empathise with the passenger.
As we all say with every authority-vs-public video, we don't know what happened before. Maybe the passenger was just unjustly harassed by a police officer and was distraught and venting to her friend about it, then this other (in her eyes) megalomaniacal bitch comes along and tells her she's not speaking properly, and to use more "educated" language.
That would neatly explain the passenger's mood, shock and outrage.


But... You just made that up.

"Excuse me, do you know how well educated I am?" is not something you can say. Ever. Ever. Not unless you're a sociopath or a hardcore solipsist, where everyone else is probably a figment of your imagination anyway.

She just seems self-absorbed, narcissistic to the extreme. Doesn't seem like there's much here to defend.

Edited.

I empathise with the passenger.

As we all say with every authority-vs-public video, we don't know what happened before. Maybe the passenger was just unjustly harassed by a police officer and was distraught and venting to her friend about it, then this other (in her eyes) megalomaniacal bitch comes along and tells her she's not speaking properly, and to use more "educated" language.

That would neatly explain the passenger's mood, shock and outrage.

creepy..

kamyar enshayan is a megalomaniac.

God told them not to partake of the fruit or they would die. They knew it was wrong to disobey God and they knew the consequence would be death. They chose instead to believe satan over God, because they lusted after His power instead of trusting Him. They deserved their punishment.

Everyone knows right from wrong because everyone has a God given conscience that knows right from wrong. Murder isn't arbitrarily bad, it's absolutely bad, and everyone knows that. It's the same with stealing or any other sin.

>> ^SDGundamX:
There are two problems with that particular part of your quote. The first is that the God of the Bible seems to deal out unbelievably harsh punishments for the supposed sins that are committed. Oh, you ate a forbidden apple? Well now I'm going to cast you out into a world where you'll have to suffer the pains of hunger, death and childbirth! Nevermind that a snake talked Eve into taking the apple or that Eve tricked Adam into eating it. Nevermind that I never explained what was so bad about eating the fruit. All sins (and let's be clear, by "sin" we are really saying not doing what I told you to do) must be punished! Mercilessly! Regardless of the circumstances!
That isn't love--that's megalomaniac and tyrannic authoritarianism.
The second problem I have with that statement is that it's just such an archaic worldview--that people won't do bad things because they fear the impassive, unyielding punishment they will receive if they are caught. Maybe 4000 years ago, in a world where the strongest grabbed power and arbitrarily made the rules for all the others, that kind of worldview made sense but not anymore. Most people living in a modern society like the U.S. or Japan don't steal. That's not because the law or some deity says we can't--it's because we have enough reasoning abilities to work out how it would feel if someone stole from us, what kind of effect it would have on society if everyone stole from everyone else, and so forth.
Those people who don't figure these things out for themselves and decide to steal do need to learn there are consequences for their actions (by being arrested and sent to jail) but the punishment often has very little effect on changing their future behavior. Why? Because punishment alone is not very effective at changing people's behavior. Instead of learning to not engage in that behavior, people learn how to get better at not getting caught in the first place.
Reasoning with people(something the God of the Bible very rarely seems to do) and rewarding positive behaviors, in addition to holding people accountable for their actions, has been shown to be a great way to get people to change. One of the tragedies of our modern world is that the criminal justice system, much like the Biblical God apparently, is much more concerned with meting out punishment than in actually trying to reform people.
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not that God wants to punish you, it's that no sin will go unpunished.

There are two problems with that particular part of your quote. The first is that the God of the Bible seems to deal out unbelievably harsh punishments for the supposed sins that are committed. Oh, you ate a forbidden apple? Well now I'm going to cast you out into a world where you'll have to suffer the pains of hunger, death and childbirth! Nevermind that a snake talked Eve into taking the apple or that Eve tricked Adam into eating it. Nevermind that I never explained what was so bad about eating the fruit. All sins (and let's be clear, by "sin" we are really saying not doing what I told you to do) must be punished! Mercilessly! Regardless of the circumstances!

That isn't love--that's megalomaniac and tyrannic authoritarianism.

The second problem I have with that statement is that it's just such an archaic worldview--that people won't do bad things because they fear the impassive, unyielding punishment they will receive if they are caught. Maybe 4000 years ago, in a world where the strongest grabbed power and arbitrarily made the rules for all the others, that kind of worldview made sense but not anymore. Most people living in a modern society like the U.S. or Japan don't steal. That's not because the law or some deity says we can't--it's because we have enough reasoning abilities to work out how it would feel if someone stole from us, what kind of effect it would have on society if everyone stole from everyone else, and so forth.

Those people who don't figure these things out for themselves and decide to steal do need to learn there are consequences for their actions (by being arrested and sent to jail) but the punishment often has very little effect on changing their future behavior. Why? Because punishment alone is not very effective at changing people's behavior. Instead of learning to not engage in that behavior, people learn how to get better at not getting caught in the first place.

Reasoning with people(something the God of the Bible very rarely seems to do) and rewarding positive behaviors, in addition to holding people accountable for their actions, has been shown to be a great way to get people to change. One of the tragedies of our modern world is that the criminal justice system, much like the Biblical God apparently, is much more concerned with meting out punishment than in actually trying to reform people.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's not that God wants to punish you, it's that no sin will go unpunished.

>> ^dgandhi:
When was the last time a piece of paper did anything? Some system of human involvement is always required, even "strict constructionists" differ on the meaning of any document. Attempting to run a society on ground rules without any interpretive framework is not even wrong, it just doesn't make sense.
Democracy is, of course, not perfect, but it is a functioning manner in which to resolve the conflicts in society while only rarely resorting to violence in the streets. While pure democracy would be terrible, it does not follow, either theoretically, or in practice that constitutional democracies make worse decisions than beneficent tyrants.
I understand that you think that the government being "honest" about who is in charge would be preferable to a shadow oligarchy, but I submit, that "democracy" results in more transparent oligarchy than explicit oligarchy. Pragmatically we are better off having some oversight in a "dishonest" system, than no oversight in an "honest" one.


Where constitutional democracies make better decisions than would pure democracies they do so because they're bound by rules laid down by wise men. Wouldn't you say theocracies have a kind of constitution? It seems to me the only difference is their constitution was written by stupid people. Stupid constitution, bad results. Wise constitution, good results. Is it the constitution or the wisdom doing the good?

You say democracy is not perfect, I say it's immoral and disastrous. Do you think all the freedom we lose and all the damage that's done to our society is a fair price to pay for a conflict resolution mechanism? Shackles are a great peacemaker. The absence of violence is an illusion. So beaten down are we by enforcers of the artificial consensus that we daren't provoke the most obvious displays of their aggression, but the truth is they bring violence to the streets every day.

>> ^NetRunner:
I would agree that if I'm going to entrust someone with authority, I'd rather they be smart (and wise and kind) rather than stupid (or megalomaniacal or cruel).
But I think you have yet to state a coherent alternative you believe would be superior. If I thought it were possible to set up a reliable mechanism where only people of "golden souls" got to hold the reigns of power, I might actually prefer it to conventional forms of democracy. I just don't believe such a mechanism has been discovered, and I doubt that such a mechanism is possible.


That's all I want from you, actually. I don't have a fully formed, coherent alternative to offer. It's the principle I'm endorsing, and the necessity of aiming our thinking toward its realisation. If you remember this discussion started with the proposition of limiting voting to people who could demonstrate they knew what they were voting for. It's simple little baby steps like that we should be considering, and if the only objection is, 'but that's undemocratic,' pfff.

>> ^gorillaman:

A constitutional democracy is a system in denial. If democracy's such a good idea what do you want a constitution for, and if the constitution's so wonderful why bother with democracy?
It's also unstable. Very nice for wise and benevolent founders to write down a list of rules for the mob to observe, until they decide not to observe them any more. Gradually or suddenly, every constitution is subverted. An effective model wouldn't be vulnerable to these periodic collapses.

Let me one up you in pessimism and cynicism. Humans are never going to create a society that everyone finds just. At least, not as long as humans remain human, and the physical laws continue to work as we presently understand them.

Also, physical laws and human behavior being what they are, no society is ever going to be static. Further, no society is going to dynamically adjust to change without someone somewhere feeling an injustice has been done to them. No paradigm of government is guaranteed to last forever.

So now that we agree everything is hopeless, and justice and freedom will never permanently eradicate tyranny and suffering, let's move on to actually talking about the best options for what we can do in this life with the tools we have at our disposal today.

>> ^gorillaman:
Would anyone here really dare to deny that smart people make better decisions than stupid people? Then we have an agreed foundation for building a superior government model and can put all this populism and consensus foolishness behind us.


I would agree that if I'm going to entrust someone with authority, I'd rather they be smart (and wise and kind) rather than stupid (or megalomaniacal or cruel).

But I think you have yet to state a coherent alternative you believe would be superior. If I thought it were possible to set up a reliable mechanism where only people of "golden souls" got to hold the reigns of power, I might actually prefer it to conventional forms of democracy. I just don't believe such a mechanism has been discovered, and I doubt that such a mechanism is possible.

Sarah, like George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan before her, is a perfect corporate vessel. She has that right combination of vanity, self importance, folksy charisma and complete ignorance. If elected, we will focus all our outrage on her as she mindlessly carries out the will of big business. She will gladly take credit for all of the things she has been instructed to do, and at the end of her term, will be completely destroyed by the public and the media. Luckily for her anonymous patrons, there is a limitless supply of megalomaniacs in the USA. Rinse, Repeat...

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

One thing to keep in mind with all of this is that Joe Barton isn't "off the reservation" with regard to GOP talking points here. The only thing he went off-script about was the apology -- the other stuff about this being some sort of "shakedown" and that it was some sort of megalomaniacal attempt to take over another private corporation is total party line stuff.

Here's Hannity and Gingrich saying the same thing.

>> ^alizarin:
He makes allot of assuming that using all possible resources is the basis of everything. Our population is going to top out - our technologically advanced cultures already have negative population growth when you subtract immigration. And maybe we'll choose not to create a megalomaniacal AI. What else are we going to need the energy from a Dyson sphere for?


>> ^alizarin:
He makes allot of assuming that using all possible resources is the basis of everything. Our population is going to top out - our technologically advanced cultures already have negative population growth when you subtract immigration. And maybe we'll choose not to create a megalomaniacal AI. What else are we going to need the energy from a Dyson sphere for?


There's really not a lot of assuming here. Our current society practically worships the complete use of a resource as wastefully as possible. The conversion from crude oil to refined is only around 90% efficient. And yes, you are correct, most industrialized nations see a negative population growth. However, we are about 5 billion people over populated for our planet so that's not really a bad thing.

What will we need energy for? Who knows. Then again, 200 years ago did people think we'd need energy for tv's, electric cars, laptop computers, mobile phones, etc? Who knows what's next! We could need energy for bio-mechanical suits or propulsion of space ships. Maybe the power we need to create stable wormholes is the equivalent of all the energy we produce on earth today. Hell, the replicators you see on Star Trek TNG would require tremendous amounts of power without a storeroom of atoms to build from. With enough energy, we can just build our own atoms. Teleportation would require tremendous amounts of energy if possible.

Basically, we don't know what we'll need energy for, all we know is we'll need more of it. All we can say is following current trends that in 100 or 200 or more years we'll need a LOT more power than we need today.

He makes allot of assuming that using all possible resources is the basis of everything. Our population is going to top out - our technologically advanced cultures already have negative population growth when you subtract immigration. And maybe we'll choose not to create a megalomaniacal AI. What else are we going to need the energy from a Dyson sphere for?

>> ^Issykitty:
I hear what you're saying... but he's still a DOUCHE.

No that's not a douche, that's exceeding the level of douche and moving into the realm of douchebaggery.

Showing the world how much of a complete asshole you can be, that you have no humanity, no care, no respect for someone else. That all moments of publicity exist for either them, or people just under them in their very small world view.

Without actually paying attention more I'd be happy to slap on the megalomaniac label.

>> ^imstellar28:
Selfishness is much more complex than you may or may not realize

No, it really isn't.

Selfishness is the likes of Madoff, Abramoff, and credit card swindlers who jack up APRs for no other reason than to squeeze what they can out of a person.

Selfishness is KBR, Haliburton, and Xe.

Selfishness is what screwed this country and threatens the world.

Your paean to selfishness is not very well thought out, and not very funny, either.

The opposite of selfishness isn't megalomaniacal philanthropy, it's simple fairness.