Done and Done!

Isn't it MARVER-LOUS???!!!


In reply to this comment by hpqp:
Excellent! You should put it up in a Sift talk or something, more people need to read that!
In reply to this comment by bareboards2:

http://deadspin.com/5941348/they-wont-magically-turn-you-into-a-lustful-cockmonster-chris-kluwe-explains-gay-marriage-to-the-politician-who-is
-offende
d-by-an-nfl-player-supporting-it


Bad bad BAD language, but I suspect you might enjoy the English slang lesson. As would @hpqp.

Everyone seems to have their favorite. I loved that it was directed at a "man of the cloth."

Delicious!

In reply to this comment by radx:
"(...) the mental gymnastics your brain has to tortuously contort itself through to make such a preposterous statement are surely worthy of an Olympic gold medal (the Russian judge gives you a 10 for "beautiful oppressionism")."

That line alone was more than worth it.
In reply to this comment by bareboards2:

http://deadspin.com/5941348/they-wont-magically-turn-you-into-a-lustful-cockmonster-chris-kluwe-explains-gay-marriage-to-the-politician-who-is
-offende
d-by-an-nfl-player-supporting-it


Bad bad BAD language, but I suspect you might enjoy the English slang lesson. As would @hpqp.

http://deadspin.com/5941348/they-wont-magically-turn-you-into-a-lustful-cockmonster-chris-kluwe-explains-gay-marriage-to-the-politician-who-is-offende
d-by-an-nfl-player-supporting-it


Bad bad BAD language, but I suspect you might enjoy the English slang lesson. As would @hpqp.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
*promote

I think this song is so cool and catchy, what's wrong with people? Thanks as always darlin!

@shinyblurry

Overall, this is how I summarize your arguments: (A) Life without God is meaningless, and (B) a meaningless life would sometimes be difficult to tolerate, therefore (C) God exists. We pretty much agree on A, and we do agree on B, but C does not follow from A and B. You can correctly conclude that (C) life without God would be difficult to tolerate at times. So? That still doesn’t mean that God exists. I believe that God doesn’t exist, so I conclude from A and B that life is difficult to tolerate at times. Which is true.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who weren't believers who died happily in ignorance of the truth, but the question is, did they understand that their life was meaningless? I doubt it. It is not something that many people are able to face, and even if they could, they certainly don't live that way. In some way or another, they are deluding themselves and living as if their life does have meaning.

Fair point. They may not have ever had the philosophical conversation with themselves about whether their lives have meaning, so it never occurred to them to be upset about it. I agree that it could be a very difficult thing to face, and I think that’s why the human species developed a proclivity for religion. Elsewhere here I’ve suggested we developed metaphysical faith because we’re intelligent and inquisitive, and it freed our minds from the obvious nagging questions of our existence with a one-stop catch-all answer: “Because God”. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense. If believing you have a purpose in the grand scheme of things makes you feel better and gives a higher community bond, then it conveys higher survivability to you and your genes. It may be (or once have been) helpful for us to believe that a god exists (any god/gods, mind you, or even a non-deity-based faith system like Buddhism), but this still is not an indication that any god exists.

Hope is what keeps people going … They are not mentally ill, they are simply facing the cold, stark reality of their situation.

I’m going to be blunt here: you don’t have a clue what depression is. You’re starting with your conclusion, and applying it to whatever pop psychology you’ve picked up. You’re like a North Korean telling me what democracy is, and concluding that Kim Jong Un therefore is the greatest person on Earth. I know what depression is for me, for my family members and my friends who have suffered from it, and I have done private research on it beyond that. Reducing depression to the factor of “hope” is incorrect, and presuming to know something because you’ve got Yahweh on your side is arrogant. You don’t know us, you don’t understand our condition, so please don’t assume to speak for us. You can guess, and you can ask me, and I’ll tell you what I feel, what I have experienced, and what I have learned. Then if it fits your argument, you can let me know.

The point being, that if there is no God then no one is in the drivers seat here on planet Earth. I would be surprised if the extreme fragility of our civilization escaped you. If you look at history, and you contrast it to what is going on today, you will find that the new is simply the old in different packaging. We're watching the exact same game show, simply on a grander and more dangerous scale. Humanity has never been closer to utterly destroying itself anytime in its history than it is today. I'm sure, like everything else in creation, you will attribute that to dumb luck. However, if you think everything is a numbers game, then sooner or later the odds say that cooler heads will not prevail and there will be a civilization annihilating calamity. The truth is, it is only the sovereign hand of God that is restraining this from happening.

Your first sentences are close enough I’ll just agree. The last one is your own fantasy straight out of nowhere. That aside, so what? We’re close to killing ourselves. I don’t know if humanity will survive another 100 years. I hope it does, but I can’t know. It’s hard to face, and very frustrating to watch our so-called leaders (who all leverage claimed faith in God, mind you) pissing it all away for money and power. No other age has had to face the possibility of the destruction of civilization. It’s hard. You said your point was that there’s nobody in the driver’s seat. I agree. What’s your point? How do you figure Yahweh’s “in the driver’s seat”?

My original point, however, still stands. You say you can't imagine someone finding bliss in hurting people. Well, have you ever heard of psychopaths? They do indeed find their bliss in acquiring power and control and making other people miserable, and they feel absolutely no remorse for doing so.

This is my fault. As I mentioned in my last comment, I had intended to write further down about people who do find bliss in hurting others, and I had it fleshed out in the drafting process, but I guess I accidentally deleted it before posting. Anyway, here it is. First, there’s psychopaths. You don’t understand what a psychopath is. It’s not a blood-crazed killer from a Hollywood movie. In real life, a psychopath is someone who fails to feel empathy or sympathy, someone who has no sense of altruism. They do whatever serves their own interests best – however they define that. This is in sharp contrast with how the rest of us think about other people, which is mostly with compassion. I’ve been close to a few psychopaths, and they enjoy things like music or sports or writing or whatever like anyone else, and they mostly understand that others think hurting people is bad, so they avoid it. They don’t get any special thrill from hurting others – it just doesn’t hurt their conscience if they do. I’m guessing they don’t really ever feel the bliss I’m talking about.

Separate from those people, let’s imagine there’s a group of people who feel they’re experiencing the same bliss you feel in your numinous experiences, but they feel it only when they hurt or kill people. Now, I’m asserting that these people probably don’t exist, but if they did, people behaving according to the principles of what’s “good” (which I’ll get to later) would have to restrain them from hurting other people, and with a heavy heart, would probably imprison them. And while they were in prison, compassionate people on the outside might be researching ways to help the inmates self-realize – within the limits of their confinement, like they do in the Swedish penal system.

Yes, it feels good to feel good, but this doesn't tell us why we *ought* to do anything.

The reason we’re having this conversation, or at least the reason I am, is because we both already have a sense that some things are right and other things are wrong. That is primary. We both agree that we have this sense, and that for us it feels important to follow it. So for me, the fact that I have this feeling that some actions are good and others aren’t is all the “ought” I need. I don’t need anybody’s permission or orders. I ought to do things that I feel are good things to do. So, whether my conscience comes from human DNA (my position) or from an external entity (your position) doesn’t matter because we have both already decided to follow it, and so has just about every human on Earth.

In a meaningless Universe there is no actual right and wrong, so why shouldn't you just do whatever you want? Why waste your time trying to navigate some moral landscape that you don't even believe really exists? Why not just take what you can, when you can, before you lose the opportunity?

There’s nobody who’s going to judge my soul when I’m dead, so in that sense, once I’m dead, it won’t matter to me in the least what I do now once I’m dead because I’ll be dead. What I want to do at any given time is what feels good to me, and that’s the same with almost everyone, in spite of what religions teach people about their wicked “fallen” souls and how not to trust themselves (except when they paradoxically teach us to trust ourselves). Like, I might like to eat your cookie, but it would feel worse to steal it from you than it would feel good to eat it. Instead, I think about how I can have the cookie without feeling bad about it. I would probably ask you for some of your cookie, and then I’d not only have some cookie, but I’d also share a friendly interaction with another person in my community, someone who will probably enjoy sharing their cookie with me and be glad I asked them. Win-win. So to recap, “taking what I can” to me and most people, involves having the greatest amount of personally rewarding experiences I can, and those involve not doing bad things, and often involve doing good things.

I don’t feel I’m wasting any time navigating any landscape. I hardly think about morality at all, since to me, it’s quite easy. Jesus knew it; he just claimed that his father had made it up. I think it’s human nature. It gives me immense joy to see people in love getting married. That extends identically to same-sex people too. See? It’s not complex. Taking what I can when I can in the malevolent sense feels awful, and I don’t want to do that.

People do evil because they get carried away by their lusts and become enticed. You view this as some sort of ignorance, or automatic function. Not so. When a person is doing wrong, they are almost always entirely aware of this, but simply override their moral restraints with their desire to fulfill their lusts. People are responsible for the evil that they do, not society, environmental factors, their parents, or anything else.

I agree completely (except where you said I think it’s out of ignorance or automatic function, which I didn’t say). You say it’s about people getting carried away or being enticed. What I was explaining is when that happens and why. It’s not relevant anyway. People are the only ones who can be held responsible for their own actions, and they should be, but not because they are bad people who need to be punished, but because their behaviour hurt someone and as a member of society, they need to understand this, make amends, and hopefully change their behaviour moving forward.

I've already agreed with you that we all have a God given conscience that tells us right from wrong. Therefore, we don't need to read the bible to know that it is wrong to murder or steal. However, what God has commanded is that we all repent and believe in the gospel. This is something you aren't going to intuitively understand without being told.

But I would have had to already accept Yahweh to think that’s true. And I don’t, so it’s not. Nothing in me tells me that the bible is a holy book or that following it has anything to do with what is good, so I don’t need to follow any religious dogma.

what is the ground for associating moral evil with misery and moral good with "moving people away from misery". Where do you get moral duties in a meaningless Universe?

It involves accepting one assertion: Harris’ definition of “bad”. If you accept that, and you accept that “good” is its opposite, then moving away from something bad must be good. I think your problem with my argument is that there’s no argument for a metaphysical morality. That’s because I don’t believe in one. As I said above, this whole conversation, for me, is based on our shared feeling that there are right and wrong things. That’s it. If I kick someone’s dog, no matter who they are or what their religion, they’re going to know without consulting any authority that I did a horrible thing. I don’t really know why, and I don’t care. I do know that humans share this sense, and I’m keen to live with respect to it.

The morality that God gives can be summed up in two commandments: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind and all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself…That's a very simple system. When you love God and other people everything else follows naturally.

Yahweh’s morality is nowhere near as simple as a secular morality. Where in those two commandments of Jesus does it say that using condoms or allowing same-sex couples to marry is wrong? In fact, saving lives, preventing unwanted pregnancies and allowing all loving couples to get married are ways to love your neighbour, and they’re exactly what I would want my neighbour to do or advocate for on my behalf.

On the contrary, it's all arbitrary, because "what makes things better for people" or what "makes the world worse" is something determined by consensus. If everyone in the world agreed that torturing babies for fun made things better for people, it would be good in your view. If your moral system allows for this possibility, I think that's a sign its time to throw it away.

First, you’re talking in circles. If Harris’ model of morality is arbitrary, then so is Jesus’ model of “do unto others…” because they amount to pretty much the same thing, and what one person wants his neighbours to do may not be the same as someone else’s, etc. At some level, we’re going to have to determine for ourselves what’s right and what’s not.

Second, you can’t possibly make the argument that “better for people” and “makes the world worse” are arbitrary concepts. They’re not perfectly defined, but that doesn’t mean arbitrary. As for the torturing babies example, according to Harris’ morality, it’s bad because babies are people, and torture causes misery. Where’s the ambiguity?

Third, do you picture a world where everyone suddenly agrees that torturing babies is OK? Do you really believe that without religion people have absolutely no internal direction whatsoever, and will accept torturing of babies as acceptable? I don’t. So, no, Harris’ moral system does not allow for the possibility of torturing babies.

But yours does. Whatever else you address, please answer this: I believe –and forgive me if I’m putting words into your mouth– somewhere on the Sift you agreed that if God commanded you to do something people think is horrible (like torture an infant/rape your own son/etc.), that you would do it. Is that true to say? If so, then by your own witness and a test you came up with, it’s your system that allows for the possibility of absolutely any vile act, and it’s time for it to go.

If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

If this were true, there would be no need for courts, judges, prisons, or police officers. There are also laws which may make some people miserable but are necessary for the greater good.

True. Your point?

It doesn't suffice, though. Yes, we can both agree there is a universal morality among human beings. How is that fact supposed to serve as grounds to invent an arbitrary system of good and evil based on people following their bliss and avoiding misery? I could just easily reverse the two and say the existence of universal morality justifies that too. I could say that the existence of a universal morality justifies that we should all love eggplants and hate rutabagas. There is no logical connection here between the system you've created and universal morality.

It’s not arbitrarily invented. Religion is. I must be misunderstanding you. By my reading, your argument is that the connection between reducing people’s misery and doing good is arbitrary. Is that right? You don’t think that wanting to help people who are suffering is normal and good? If you agree that there is a connection between the two, that’s all you need. If you don’t agree, then your morality system really sucks, and I don’t know who I’m talking to.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/29/half-german-teens-dont-know-hitler-dictator_n_1636593.html

I take it you didn’t read the article yourself. There’s no mention of Americans, anyone of college age, nor anyone who can’t identify Hitler. It’s about German high school students who didn’t know that Hitler was a dictator, etc. Please take better care with your arguments. It’s disrespectful and a waste of my time.

As a marriage and family therapist, though his hypothesis is interesting, I couldn't disagree more.

We don't emote with the knowledge of our biology. The knowledge of what we have evolved from does not enter in to our minds when we are lusting over someone. Our biological understanding of our species doesn't sit in the forefront of our minds when we are choosing to commit to a person.

We react to infidelity as an emotional thing as a hit to our feelings of stability. Stability is a crucial part of our evolution. It helps stabilize the home front, ensuring that our offspring will have a better chance at survival and will learn the things we want them to learn. Sexual bonds with others is a symbolic way that we emotionally process as a threat to that very need of stability.

He is greatly underestimating the emotional bond that is created (I believe biologically) when we have sex with each other. Saying that "sex isn't a big deal" is his flawed assumption.

If you feel trapped in a relationship, I suggest that perhaps marriage isn't the thing for you.

I found these to be presumptuous. They do happen to some people, maybe even most people, but they don’t happen to all. Many people of no religion, and despite immense tragedies, live happy and fulfilling lives, and feel happy and fulfilled on their death beds. I’d further argue that people with religious faith also get depressed. I suspect you’d counter that anyone who is depressed has insincere faith. That seems tautological to me, but either way, it’s moot, for now.

Well, the central argument of the video is that life without God is meaningless. You've already agreed with that point, so the argument now seems to be is whether someone can be happy and fulfilled with a meaningless life. I'm sure there are plenty of people who weren't believers who died happily in ignorance of the truth, but the question is, did they understand that their life was meaningless? I doubt it. It is not something that many people are able to face, and even if they could, they certainly don't live that way. In some way or another, they are deluding themselves and living as if their life does have meaning.

Some people do, at least in part. It’s a lot more complex than just a lack of hope though. For some people it’s due to a tragedy, or overwhelming cognitive dissonance, or it’s simply chemical, and has no correlation with anything in their lives at all. Maybe I’m nitpicking. I just want to make clear that depression is a mental disorder and is not a synonym for, "lack of hope because I don’t have God in my life."

Hope is what keeps people going. Without hope, you are just going through the motions. When you have hope and lose it, it is emotionally devastating. A person without any hope is a person most likely clinically depressed.

You can call depression a kind of mental disorder, and some people may be born without the right chemical receptors for instance, but most people are depressed because of a lack of hope. A person, for instance, who worked their whole life and lost their retirement in an afternoon, or a mom whose kids abandoned her to live in a nursing home. They are not mentally ill, they are simply facing the cold, stark reality of their situation.

Here you slipped into metaphysical talk that means nothing to me, full of judgemental words ("sick and depraved") and terms that I had just told you I don’t accept as objective concepts ("evil"). You also know that I don’t think there’s any hope in your Yahweh God since he’s a mythological character, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.

The point being, that if there is no God then no one is in the drivers seat here on planet Earth. I would be surprised if the extreme fragility of our civilization escaped you. If you look at history, and you contrast it to what is going on today, you will find that the new is simply the old in different packaging. We're watching the exact same game show, simply on a grander and more dangerous scale. Humanity has never been closer to utterly destroying itself anytime in its history than it is today. I'm sure, like everything else in creation, you will attribute that to dumb luck. However, if you think everything is a numbers game, then sooner or later the odds say that cooler heads will not prevail and there will be a civilization annihilating calamity. The truth is, it is only the sovereign hand of God that is restraining this from happening.

The reason I made that comment about God is because of your comment about your depression. The reason you have that feeling that if you believed in God you wouldn't be depressed is because you know there is hope in God.

(Also, not that it’s critical to the discussion, but I’d like a reference for your poll about young people not knowing who Hitler was.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/29/half-german-teens-dont-know-hitler-dictator_n_163659 3.html

Now, about "bliss". I didn’t define what I meant by that, so you didn’t understand it. I’ll make up for that now. By “bliss”, I don’t mean immediate pleasure, or instant gratification, or fulfillment of a goal, or basically anything you mentioned. I do mean a great powerful feeling of being centred, being in tune, achieving self-fulfillment, overflowing joy, love, inner peace, elation, connection, lightness, "harmony", "rapture" or a feeling that many describe as "doing what I was born to do/meant to be doing" or "transcendent". It’s the kind of happy that boosts your immune system and makes people around you feel good about themselves as well. (The words in quotes aren’t words I tend to use myself—I’m employing them to help clarify the concept I’m talking about.)

If you understand now what I mean by "bliss" (as opposed to instant gratification, etc.), you’ll understand that people don’t follow their bliss and rape people, nor find inner peace by beating their wives, and so there’s no need to append any rules about not hurting. I can’t imagine how anybody’s bliss could ever include causing harm to other people, but I’ll even address that hypothetical, towards the end of this comment.

Thanks for the elaboration. I am familiar with the philosophy of Sam Harris, and I figured you were borrowing from him, but it is good to know where you stand. My original point, however, still stands. You say you can't imagine someone finding bliss in hurting people. Well, have you ever heard of psychopaths? They do indeed find their bliss in acquiring power and control and making other people miserable, and they feel absolutely no remorse for doing so.

You also say that you feel the best state of a human being is to be blissfully happy. I'm sure everyone will agree with you that feeling blissfully happy is good. However, why should we believe this is actually what good is?. Yes, it feels good to feel good, but this doesn't tell us why we *ought* to do anything. Maybe this is just incredibly selfish and the opposite of good, or somewhere in the middle is true, or maybe none of it. You give no actual reason (beyond arbitrary statements like that which makes the world better or worse) to equate feeling good with moral goodness. In a meaningless Universe, neither is there any basis for thinking that you have any moral duties. This leads me to some questions that you didn't actually address in the last post. Let me ask them again because they are central to this discussion:

In a meaningless Universe there is no actual right and wrong, so why shouldn't you just do whatever you want? Why waste your time trying to navigate some moral landscape that you don't even believe really exists? Why not just take what you can, when you can, before you lose the opportunity?

I'll also address some of your comments:

In all cases, whatever they did, it was because they were feeling bad about something, weren’t centred, and reacted from "lizard brain" instincts of individual survival rather than from human compassion

People do evil because they get carried away by their lusts and become enticed. You view this as some sort of ignorance, or automatic function. Not so. When a person is doing wrong, they are almost always entirely aware of this, but simply override their moral restraints with their desire to fulfill their lusts. People are responsible for the evil that they do, not society, environmental factors, their parents, or anything else.

Divine morality isn’t necessary. Having any collective understanding of what is good and what is bad is enough. For most of humanity’s existence, even up to now, there hasn’t been a clear standard. In patches of geography where there was one, it only applied well to that time and culture. Just as ordinary people supplanted kings and emperors as absolute leaders without society collapsing, and just as ordinary people supplanted religions are sole arbiters of the law without society collapsing, ordinary people can supplant religion as arbiter of what is good and what is bad as well, and society will continue not to collapse.

I've already agreed with you that we all have a God given conscience that tells us right from wrong. Therefore, we don't need to read the bible to know that it is wrong to murder or steal. However, what God has commanded is that we all repent and believe in the gospel. This is something you aren't going to intuitively understand without being told.

And better than a list of what’s good and what’s bad is a system that determines for us what’s good and what’s bad. I’ve seen one model that I like, delivered by Sam Harris. The most salient bit starts at about 10:00 and runs to around 27:30. If you don’t want to watch it now, I’ll summarise the most important ideas: For a moral code to have meaning, it has to apply to some form of consciousness – it cannot apply to rocks and dust. Then there’s the central point which requires you to imagine "the worst possible misery for everyone", and assume that this situation is "bad". "Good" is then defined in terms of moving people away from this "worst possible misery for everyone". That’s it. I recommend hearing it from Harris himself.

I am familiar with his system, to which I reiterate the point; what is the ground for associating moral evil with misery and moral good with "moving people away from misery". Where do you get moral duties in a meaningless Universe?

The three advantages that occur to me of this system over Yahweh’s morality are that it’s a simple system rather than a long intricate list, so it’s quick to teach, easy to absorb, understand and reference, hard to corrupt, and all-inclusive; there’s absolutely nothing random about it, so odd details like not being allowed to wear garments made from two different thread types won’t make it in and there’s nothing objectionable about it from the standpoint of people who just want to do the right thing; and it’s truly universal in that it applies equally well now as it would have in 4000 BC China, in 30 AD Mesopotamia, or will in 12 000 AD Mars, so it’s broadly acceptable too.

The morality that God gives can be summed up in two commandments: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind and all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself. As Jesus told us:

Matthew 22:40

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments

That's a very simple system. When you love God and other people everything else follows naturally.

Every act that is good makes things better for people. If an act makes the world worse, then it’s bad. Simple. Lots of generalities can be derived from it, like killing people is bad, respecting other people’s property is good, and there’d be no arbitrary crap about touching pig skin being bad or extra-marital sex being bad.

On the contrary, it's all arbitrary, because "what makes things better for people" or what "makes the world worse" is something determined by consensus. If everyone in the world agreed that torturing babies for fun made things better for people, it would be good in your view. If your moral system allows for this possibility, I think that's a sign its time to throw it away.

Even more generally, we clearly don’t require any god to tell us what’s good and what isn’t. We already have a conscience inside us that tells us what’s good and what isn’t regardless of laws. I know you believe that Yahweh made our conscience for us. Even if that were so, it doesn’t change the fact that if properly relied upon, a conscience precludes the need for an external set of laws. Any law that echoes what everyone naturally feels already is superfluous. Any law that contributes to human misery is morally wrong and deserves to be disregarded.

If this were true, there would be no need for courts, judges, prisons, or police officers. There are also laws which may make some people miserable but are necessary for the greater good.

You state that without a divine moral standard that exists outside our consciousness, there is no objective justice. This is true by definition. Without a true objective moral code, you further argue that nobody can condemn any action as bad without being hypocritical, so in effect, everything is permissible. This is not the case, however. Although the moral code I advocate isn’t "objective" in the sense that it exists beyond our consciousness, it is universal among humans. And if we’re only attempting to determine moral behaviour for humans, then a universally accepted standard among humans suffices, regardless of where we think it came from.

It doesn't suffice, though. Yes, we can both agree there is a universal morality among human beings. How is that fact supposed to serve as grounds to invent an arbitrary system of good and evil based on people following their bliss and avoiding misery? I could just easily reverse the two and say the existence of universal morality justifies that too. I could say that the existence of a universal morality justifies that we should all love eggplants and hate rutabagas. There is no logical connection here between the system you've created and universal morality.

If there is no objective morality, then nothing is really wrong. Any system you create in the end is a human invention, based on human interpretation, and agreed upon by human consensus. You still cannot get an ought from an is. Good could be defined as a world of people who love each other, or a world of people who love to eat children. What is wrong then is simply based on your personal preferences.

The arguments I make here don’t describe a perfect system. That’s wasn’t my intention. I believe they do, however, answer your concerns about non-objective morality being insufficient to guide humans.

I understand that this wasn't meant to be perfect. It has, however, raised more concerns than it answered.

>> ^messenger

>> ^littlewoodenboy:

I think I spent almost as much time lusting after the camera gear as I did the women.
Can you imagine if cameras had boobs?

I think I spent almost as much time lusting after the camera gear as I did the women.

I would quote back to you the bit where you mention Rosa Parks, but i sense it would be pointless.

The point is, should someone be allowed to get away with rape because bringing them to justice 'would push them too far'? Should any criminal be forgiven their crime because they threaten others with more crime? That would be a charter for scum like Assange to get away with murder.


>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^thumpa28:
Seriously, I cant believe youre comparing Rosa Parks to a scumbag like Assange. Rosa Parks took a stand at the risk of her liberty and even her life. She represented freedom against tyranny and fought for what she believed in.
Assange believes in nothing else but self promotion and when that landed him in deep water, self preservation at the cost of everyone who sheltered him and even paid for his freedom. Assange has never taken a stand in his life, if he had been on that bus he would not have supported Rosa Parks, he would have fled at the first sign of trouble or got coerced into the lynch mob. How many chinese dissident informants, fighting much the same fight for freedom against overwhelming odds, are now in jail or worse because Assange released the unredacted cables out of nothing but another attempt to keep himself in the limelight?
Assange should face the sexual assault charges, we in the UK have a long and lengthy tradition of separation of the judiciary and the organs of state, which includes our intelligence services. As much as it pains me to say so, Assange would receive a fair extradition hearing (whose decision he fled) and a fair trial in Sweden. Hes done the damage now, whilst I wouldnt complain if he had a sudden CIA inspired cardiac arrest, thats the realm of Bond and Bourne.
Dont confuse Assange with Wikileaks. Wikileaks was started up with a reason in mind, Assange took it over as his one man puppet show.
>> ^dannym3141:
There is such a thing as taking a stand. Sometimes, when humans are pushed beyond what they think is acceptable, they are willing to risk terrible consequences.
Rosa Parks did it with racism. How many poor 'negros' got slaughtered, beaten ...god knows what the trickle down effect would be... in the aftermath of ANY bold defiance by their brethren at the time? So then should we prefer the status quo? Should Rosa Parks also take a dum dum to the nuts because of she didn't tow the government line?
I think Assange is/was doing the world a great service, though we may not know it yet and we may never if we don't come out of this dark age. At some point, someone had to make a stand against this all-pervading government corruption. If he is a rapist, then he should be brought to justice - but how can you trust law/court justice when the law/court is effectively an involved party?>> ^thumpa28:
Assange is a self obsessed rapist (believe it or not that what they call people who have sex where the other party refuses or withdraws consent) whose lust for publicity has led to lots of death. The 1300 in Kenya by his own admission and the Taleban thanking wikileaks for helping them identify those who cooperated with the americans and what about an Iranian spy to name but a few we know about. Chinese dissidents, middle eastern journalists, people fighting for democracy in dangerous places have suffered because of this self serving turd.
How many people have suffered and died so Assange could lap up the publicity, shouting about the freedom of speech whilst gagging his own staff and of course planning to stiff the morons who looked after him whilst he was fighting extradition and especially those who posted bail. Everything out of his mouth is designed to keep Assange safe, by playing on the Great Satan angle and finding those fools idiotic enough to lap it up and throw money at the cause, especially those who posted bail for him, then left looking like right twats when he did a runner to the Ecuadorians. What a bunch of muppets.
Quite frankly, after all this nonsense the US wont bother to try and extradite him. I just hope the UK grabs him when he steps outside the one place the fucker can hide, preferably using a dum dum round to the nuts, before dragging his pathetic self off and slamming him into jail where he will face trial for being self obsessed, even during sex.
>> ^Hybrid:
You think this isn't about getting him extradited to the US via Sweden? That's one thing I and nearly everyone else in this thread do agree on. Be in no doubt, if Assange ends up on Swedish soil, he will end up on US soil soon after.>> ^Babymech:
Hybrid, don't be ridiculous. It would be illegal for Sweden to extradite him to the US. It would be political suicide for any Swedish politician or authority to be anywhere near involved an extradition to a country that practices the death penalty. Barbarians.





Before i even read your comment, in what dimension did i compare Rosa Parks to julian assange? I read it a few times before posting to make sure i wasn't. Please read it again and adjust your comment accordingly, this must be a misunderstanding?
Furthermore (though this is beside the point), if this were 1955 and i used the same argument to support Rosa Parks, you would probably be outraged that i dare compare a scumbag like Rosa Parks to ....I dunno, the blokes who said "I'm Spartacus"? Choose any you like pre-1955.
Regardless, the two parties are irrelevant. The underlying point is that when people are pushed to what they consider their limits (and our limits are all different) then they are prepared to risk hurting themselves and others in the interests of those who come after us.

>> ^thumpa28:

Seriously, I cant believe youre comparing Rosa Parks to a scumbag like Assange. Rosa Parks took a stand at the risk of her liberty and even her life. She represented freedom against tyranny and fought for what she believed in.
Assange believes in nothing else but self promotion and when that landed him in deep water, self preservation at the cost of everyone who sheltered him and even paid for his freedom. Assange has never taken a stand in his life, if he had been on that bus he would not have supported Rosa Parks, he would have fled at the first sign of trouble or got coerced into the lynch mob. How many chinese dissident informants, fighting much the same fight for freedom against overwhelming odds, are now in jail or worse because Assange released the unredacted cables out of nothing but another attempt to keep himself in the limelight?
Assange should face the sexual assault charges, we in the UK have a long and lengthy tradition of separation of the judiciary and the organs of state, which includes our intelligence services. As much as it pains me to say so, Assange would receive a fair extradition hearing (whose decision he fled) and a fair trial in Sweden. Hes done the damage now, whilst I wouldnt complain if he had a sudden CIA inspired cardiac arrest, thats the realm of Bond and Bourne.
Dont confuse Assange with Wikileaks. Wikileaks was started up with a reason in mind, Assange took it over as his one man puppet show.
>> ^dannym3141:
There is such a thing as taking a stand. Sometimes, when humans are pushed beyond what they think is acceptable, they are willing to risk terrible consequences.
Rosa Parks did it with racism. How many poor 'negros' got slaughtered, beaten ...god knows what the trickle down effect would be... in the aftermath of ANY bold defiance by their brethren at the time? So then should we prefer the status quo? Should Rosa Parks also take a dum dum to the nuts because of she didn't tow the government line?
I think Assange is/was doing the world a great service, though we may not know it yet and we may never if we don't come out of this dark age. At some point, someone had to make a stand against this all-pervading government corruption. If he is a rapist, then he should be brought to justice - but how can you trust law/court justice when the law/court is effectively an involved party?>> ^thumpa28:
Assange is a self obsessed rapist (believe it or not that what they call people who have sex where the other party refuses or withdraws consent) whose lust for publicity has led to lots of death. The 1300 in Kenya by his own admission and the Taleban thanking wikileaks for helping them identify those who cooperated with the americans and what about an Iranian spy to name but a few we know about. Chinese dissidents, middle eastern journalists, people fighting for democracy in dangerous places have suffered because of this self serving turd.
How many people have suffered and died so Assange could lap up the publicity, shouting about the freedom of speech whilst gagging his own staff and of course planning to stiff the morons who looked after him whilst he was fighting extradition and especially those who posted bail. Everything out of his mouth is designed to keep Assange safe, by playing on the Great Satan angle and finding those fools idiotic enough to lap it up and throw money at the cause, especially those who posted bail for him, then left looking like right twats when he did a runner to the Ecuadorians. What a bunch of muppets.
Quite frankly, after all this nonsense the US wont bother to try and extradite him. I just hope the UK grabs him when he steps outside the one place the fucker can hide, preferably using a dum dum round to the nuts, before dragging his pathetic self off and slamming him into jail where he will face trial for being self obsessed, even during sex.
>> ^Hybrid:
You think this isn't about getting him extradited to the US via Sweden? That's one thing I and nearly everyone else in this thread do agree on. Be in no doubt, if Assange ends up on Swedish soil, he will end up on US soil soon after.>> ^Babymech:
Hybrid, don't be ridiculous. It would be illegal for Sweden to extradite him to the US. It would be political suicide for any Swedish politician or authority to be anywhere near involved an extradition to a country that practices the death penalty. Barbarians.






Before i even read your comment, in what dimension did i compare Rosa Parks to julian assange? I read it a few times before posting to make sure i wasn't. Please read it again and adjust your comment accordingly, this must be a misunderstanding?

Furthermore (though this is beside the point), if this were 1955 and i used the same argument to support Rosa Parks, you would probably be outraged that i dare compare a scumbag like Rosa Parks to ....I dunno, the blokes who said "I'm Spartacus"? Choose any you like pre-1955.

Regardless, the two parties i use as examples are irrelevant. The underlying point is that when people are pushed to what they consider their limits (and our limits are all different) then they are prepared to risk hurting themselves and others in the interests of those who come after us, and the point you missed was that it is impossible to tell whether this is "a valiant stand" or not.

I should mention that i'm also british, and i'd insist that it's a bit naive to think that britain is immune to corruption, especially in the wake of the last few years. Our government is surely at least as corrupt as the US's. As a british man, i'm appalled to think that anyone (not necessarily you) is in favour of disrespecting another nation by marching into their embassy, compounded by the fact that THIS DOESN'T CONCERN US. Hell, if you're that much behind justice, why aren't you arguing in favour of britain granting him asylum and doing everything in our power to make sure he faces correct charges and doesn't disappear off the face of the earth? Are you after justice or baying for blood!?

Whatever. Disagree on what assange is or isn't; it's clear that you have strong feelings about assange and as i said before, this just shows how difficult an impartial trial would be for him. Please don't disagree that britain needs to concentrate on BRITAIN for a while, though.

What a load of bollocks.

What next? Average out hair colour/style to find the ideal? Sounds legit.

I mean, all this clip seems to prove is that guys have fairly diverse taste. Then there is that girl you dont find physically attractive at all until you fall completely for everything else about her and then suddenly short girls with red hair is the hottest thing you can imagine. I hope I'm not in the minority when I say that the most attractive physique is the one on the girl you are inexplicably crushing on supes hard for reasons you can't exactly pinpoint.

As for what guys lust over for quick sexual gratification? The internet has plenty of porn you might find quite eye opening....

Seriously, I cant believe youre comparing Rosa Parks to a scumbag like Assange. Rosa Parks took a stand at the risk of her liberty and even her life. She represented freedom against tyranny and fought for what she believed in.

Assange believes in nothing else but self promotion and when that landed him in deep water, self preservation at the cost of everyone who sheltered him and even paid for his freedom. Assange has never taken a stand in his life, if he had been on that bus he would not have supported Rosa Parks, he would have fled at the first sign of trouble or got coerced into the lynch mob. How many chinese dissident informants, fighting much the same fight for freedom against overwhelming odds, are now in jail or worse because Assange released the unredacted cables out of nothing but another attempt to keep himself in the limelight?

Assange should face the sexual assault charges, we in the UK have a long and lengthy tradition of separation of the judiciary and the organs of state, which includes our intelligence services. As much as it pains me to say so, Assange would receive a fair extradition hearing (whose decision he fled) and a fair trial in Sweden. Hes done the damage now, whilst I wouldnt complain if he had a sudden CIA inspired cardiac arrest, thats the realm of Bond and Bourne.

Dont confuse Assange with Wikileaks. Wikileaks was started up with a reason in mind, Assange took it over as his one man puppet show.

>> ^dannym3141:

There is such a thing as taking a stand. Sometimes, when humans are pushed beyond what they think is acceptable, they are willing to risk terrible consequences.
Rosa Parks did it with racism. How many poor 'negros' got slaughtered, beaten ...god knows what the trickle down effect would be... in the aftermath of ANY bold defiance by their brethren at the time? So then should we prefer the status quo? Should Rosa Parks also take a dum dum to the nuts because of she didn't tow the government line?
I think Assange is/was doing the world a great service, though we may not know it yet and we may never if we don't come out of this dark age. At some point, someone had to make a stand against this all-pervading government corruption. If he is a rapist, then he should be brought to justice - but how can you trust law/court justice when the law/court is effectively an involved party?>> ^thumpa28:
Assange is a self obsessed rapist (believe it or not that what they call people who have sex where the other party refuses or withdraws consent) whose lust for publicity has led to lots of death. The 1300 in Kenya by his own admission and the Taleban thanking wikileaks for helping them identify those who cooperated with the americans and what about an Iranian spy to name but a few we know about. Chinese dissidents, middle eastern journalists, people fighting for democracy in dangerous places have suffered because of this self serving turd.
How many people have suffered and died so Assange could lap up the publicity, shouting about the freedom of speech whilst gagging his own staff and of course planning to stiff the morons who looked after him whilst he was fighting extradition and especially those who posted bail. Everything out of his mouth is designed to keep Assange safe, by playing on the Great Satan angle and finding those fools idiotic enough to lap it up and throw money at the cause, especially those who posted bail for him, then left looking like right twats when he did a runner to the Ecuadorians. What a bunch of muppets.
Quite frankly, after all this nonsense the US wont bother to try and extradite him. I just hope the UK grabs him when he steps outside the one place the fucker can hide, preferably using a dum dum round to the nuts, before dragging his pathetic self off and slamming him into jail where he will face trial for being self obsessed, even during sex.
>> ^Hybrid:
You think this isn't about getting him extradited to the US via Sweden? That's one thing I and nearly everyone else in this thread do agree on. Be in no doubt, if Assange ends up on Swedish soil, he will end up on US soil soon after.>> ^Babymech:
Hybrid, don't be ridiculous. It would be illegal for Sweden to extradite him to the US. It would be political suicide for any Swedish politician or authority to be anywhere near involved an extradition to a country that practices the death penalty. Barbarians.

Yeah, one of our strange quirks causes us to frown on sex offenders and want to see them behind bars. It dates back to the Roman conquests probably, mad I know.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

>> ^thumpa28:
Assange is a self obsessed rapist (believe it or not that what they call people who have sex where the other party refuses or withdraws consent) whose lust for publicity has led to lots of death. The 1300 in Kenya by his own admission and the Taleban thanking wikileaks for helping them identify those who cooperated with the americans and what about an Iranian spy to name but a few we know about. Chinese dissidents, middle eastern journalists, people fighting for democracy in dangerous places have suffered because of this self serving turd.
How many people have suffered and died so Assange could lap up the publicity, shouting about the freedom of speech whilst gagging his own staff and of course planning to stiff the morons who looked after him whilst he was fighting extradition and especially those who posted bail. Everything out of his mouth is designed to keep Assange safe, by playing on the Great Satan angle and finding those fools idiotic enough to lap it up and throw money at the cause, especially those who posted bail for him, then left looking like right twats when he did a runner to the Ecuadorians. What a bunch of muppets.
Quite frankly, after all this nonsense the US wont bother to try and extradite him. I just hope the UK grabs him when he steps outside the one place the fucker can hide, preferably using a dum dum round to the nuts, before dragging his pathetic self off and slamming him into jail where he will face trial for being self obsessed, even during sex.
>> ^Hybrid:
You think this isn't about getting him extradited to the US via Sweden? That's one thing I and nearly everyone else in this thread do agree on. Be in no doubt, if Assange ends up on Swedish soil, he will end up on US soil soon after.>> ^Babymech:
Hybrid, don't be ridiculous. It would be illegal for Sweden to extradite him to the US. It would be political suicide for any Swedish politician or authority to be anywhere near involved an extradition to a country that practices the death penalty. Barbarians.



You sound like the Putin suporters in moscow who want those 'Pussy Riot Whores' hung for daring to challenge the Man..
In most of the world state power does what it likes; murder, torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial.
England is supposed to be one of the few places that shit don't fly.

>> ^thumpa28:

Assange is a self obsessed rapist (believe it or not that what they call people who have sex where the other party refuses or withdraws consent) whose lust for publicity has led to lots of death. The 1300 in Kenya by his own admission and the Taleban thanking wikileaks for helping them identify those who cooperated with the americans and what about an Iranian spy to name but a few we know about. Chinese dissidents, middle eastern journalists, people fighting for democracy in dangerous places have suffered because of this self serving turd.
How many people have suffered and died so Assange could lap up the publicity, shouting about the freedom of speech whilst gagging his own staff and of course planning to stiff the morons who looked after him whilst he was fighting extradition and especially those who posted bail. Everything out of his mouth is designed to keep Assange safe, by playing on the Great Satan angle and finding those fools idiotic enough to lap it up and throw money at the cause, especially those who posted bail for him, then left looking like right twats when he did a runner to the Ecuadorians. What a bunch of muppets.
Quite frankly, after all this nonsense the US wont bother to try and extradite him. I just hope the UK grabs him when he steps outside the one place the fucker can hide, preferably using a dum dum round to the nuts, before dragging his pathetic self off and slamming him into jail where he will face trial for being self obsessed, even during sex.
>> ^Hybrid:
You think this isn't about getting him extradited to the US via Sweden? That's one thing I and nearly everyone else in this thread do agree on. Be in no doubt, if Assange ends up on Swedish soil, he will end up on US soil soon after.>> ^Babymech:
Hybrid, don't be ridiculous. It would be illegal for Sweden to extradite him to the US. It would be political suicide for any Swedish politician or authority to be anywhere near involved an extradition to a country that practices the death penalty. Barbarians.




You sound like the Putin suporters in moscow who want those 'Pussy Riot Whores' hung for daring to challenge the Man..

In most of the world state power does what it likes; murder, torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial.
England is supposed to be one of the few places that shit don't fly.