...with God, everything is permitted. Why? Because God provides a small number of very general rules. Everything else is fair game. And then you realize God didn't provide an interpretation of how and when to apply those few rules, so now everything becomes fair game!

With God, everything is doable, but there are consequences. Once again, atheists are choosing the parts of religion(s) they don't like and using them as walls to push against and build strength. You're trying to play the game with half a basketball.

Way to try and wrest your beliefs on the rest of the (sane) world.

The monsters of history were mostly atheists or believed they were God(s). That's fact. Now, once again, a disclaimer: there are good atheists and bad religionists.

Without belief in a higher power there is no "devil" to emulate. You fail at basic categorical logic since your devil is himself a higher power (an angel).

Semantics. You knew what was meant by "devil" in this context: someone who is out for themselves alone at the cost of all others.

Atheists are atheist about all gods and "higher beings", whatever you call them. They thus can't emulate them per se, but only emulate the characteristic behaviors ascribed to those entities by religious morons like you. Those behaviors are human, they are universal: they existed before religion and even before language, and they will unfortunately continue to exist for a long time.

And, per your uncreative insults, it's obvious that being an atheist lends no one automatic wisdom.

Since you have it All figured out, let me ask, since the limits of your behavior are defined only by getting caught or the fear of same, why aren't you out murdering people and taking their wallets when you need money? Why don't you kick children who are in your way? After all, since you're not a kid you can't be easily kicked back. Why don't you cut lines and jump subway turnstiles? Eat food off the shelves as you walk through the supermarket? After all, rules and laws are just made up by other people, as long as they can't or won't stop you (or don't see you) you're free!

To be an atheist is to believe that Hitler and Mother Teresa are now both equally dust and nothingness.

Let's see here... "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen 3:19) Oh, I guess you didn't read that? It's kind of near the beginning though.

That's referencing the mortal body, not the eternal soul. Genesis in this case, is not a new brand of Axe Body Spray or Phil Collins's old gig.

As for me I think Hitler, by showing us the darkest side of humanity and uniting the rest of the world against him has done a much better service to the world than the prayers of Mother Teresa or anyone else ever did. And if you really read history, you would know the Spanish Inquisition was more like Nazi Germany than anything else in recorded time.

So Hitler was just a "bad example" while Mother Teresa cannot serve as even a good example?

More people died under atheist-led regimes than in all the religious wars of history. The peaceful "philosophy" beyond-all-gods is swimming in an ocean of blood.

If people were capable of crystalline reasoning and not tricked by their own hearts, there would be no need to acknowledge a Higher Power.

This could be true if a higher, benevolent power spoke directly to us all at the same time. But as it is now, the representatives of that higher power are human and thus are bound to be "tricked by their own hearts" and incapable of crystalline reasoning.

You're building a straw man. I'm not telling anyone to believe any particular way, except to suggest that in this Age of Stupidity, one's own judgment and values may not be the wisest, and certainly not at all times. Atheism, in that way, has no room for growth. If you're a mote in a pointless universe, then what? You've narrowly defined who the representatives of God might be and also Who or What God is. You've made the God-concept in your own image so you can knock God down. I freely admit my words don't prove there's a God, but yours don't disprove either.

What they say is bound to be tainted by "humanity" even if they received a message from higher up (this is even truer if you think all lay people can be representatives of the higher power, like the protestant churches). Thus, whether or not there is really a higher being is a moot point. What matters is that some people truly believe in this illogical bullshit, for better or (mostly) for worse.

FAITH IS NOT LOGICAL. That's why it's faith. People who have only their own hearts to follow are angered when told they're tricked--constantly--by their own emotions. Religion addresses the forest of emotions. Logic addresses the acorn of reason.

What I said here is probably beyond your comprehension, but I thought it would do some good to someone (starting with me).

Since I've been an atheist, I've heard all this before. Atheism doesn't lead nowhere because there's nowhere to go, but because it can only accept Nowhere as the final destination.

This is the problem with religious freaks. They don't even know their own Bible. Hypocrites every one of them, IMHO.

Do you really believe only religion is hypocritical while atheism is "honest"?

In the words of one of my favorite movies, quantumushroom: "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting."

Well then here's your movie quote reply, "I'm not even supposed to be here today."

I prefer clarity to agreement. Good evening.

QM, WTF are you going on about this time? And WTF does the price of gas have to do with it?

Here's a few clues about what they are complaining about, not Dan himself but some of what I consider the more valid racial complaints based on what I've seen. You're more than welcome to try to "disprove" it but given that it comes from our own records that seems unlikely.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_comparative_intl.pdf

That's a bit out of date but is the record of our rate of prison growth from the mid 1920's to pretty recently. Prison population stayed fairly consistent in line with population growth for decades then explosive growth with the drug war which hasn't stopped yet.

And these are some of the results of that growth.

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

And in case you assume they really earned it, not really, or not as much as it seems. Some of the stats behind the stats then I'll try to explain how it happens.

http://www.idpi.us/resources/factsheets/mm_factsheet.htm

As that shows they are just 15% of the nations drug users which isn't far off from their portion of the population as a whole, about 14%, but they make up 37% of those arrested for drug violations, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense.

Ok, let's look at part of WHY that happens.

Take a neighborhood which didn't start off with people much different than in any other, but they lived in a crowded area. Pass safe school zones and such and the effect turned out to be that they can overlap in places... in the suburbs a kid spends little time in one so spends little time at risk unless they do something at school. In the city they might spend most of their life in one and not even know it much of the time. Where the kid in the suburbs has options such as treatment that mandatory took the options away in the city. The 100:1 disparity, yes 100:1, between the way we sentence crack and powder cocaine didn't help any either.

That type of thing starts us off, then come the politicians and such. Someone notices that we've got way too many felonies for a small area and orders a crackdown without considering what caused the spike in felonies so it's designated a high crime area. So now they are not only getting hit with the safe school zones but increased enforcement as well, everyone is a suspect and they start to get treated that way. Prison doesn't do good things for people so kids who went in with a bad habit come out criminals, often with gang ties since it's not easy to survive alone inside and not easy to leave them when you get out.

Now the neighborhood is being hit by two sides, the cops on one hand and the new prison gangs on the other, and eventually what used to be a decent area starts to look like too many of our streets do today.

If you want to get some details on it ask whatever you'd like, if you'd like to hear it from law enforcement themselves try LEAP and some other groups, they are well aware of the situation and trying to help fix it too.

One last thought here, this isn't specifically racial but goes to the conditions in our system in general due to overcrowding, under funding, and a number of other issues. It's a bit of reading but if you want an education that's a good start. http://www.prisoncommission.org/

Some prisons have become so overcrowded and so poor at care that we've had to have the feds take over aspects such as medical care, and NO it's not a partisan issue as some of the more simple minded would have us believe. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation, stated the following about this. “For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.”

What we're doing doesn't work and intentionally or not, yes, it has had some sharp and specific racial impacts which I'd hope like hell weren't intended. These are some of the ones I'm aware of, others who are more familiar with other areas have valid complaints as well. Assuming they just happened because we weren't paying attention so some programs had some unexpected results, then yes, Dan Charnas has an excellent point in that it would really help if we listened for a change instead of insisting we didn't mean anything so everything just MUST be alright. It's not alright and many of the problems we're dealing with today we helped to create ourselves through flawed policy.

when I was in Tokyo, all the subway stops were quick, automatic, and frequent. The doors automatically open for a short interval then automatically close and the train automatically starts moving. It's the same amount of time at each stop, around 20sec. There wouldn't be time for this kind of stuff. Some trains had standing room only but there was no pushing. This is definitely not typical. Sane people would have waited for the next train instead of seeing how many people can be packed into one train. Ordinary subway lines don't have that many porters around. This arrangement would really suck if someone wants to get off before the final destination.

^ that would be final destination 3.

That's too funny

In reply to this comment by Fletch:
*dead

WEll, I live just outside Vancouver B.C. If you happen to live IN Vancouver (close to downtown), public transportation make sense when you factor in $5 parking, rush hour, and the fact buses run every 15minutes to every block.

But if you live even 10km away from the core central district then public transportation fails. It runs once on the hour (and many times is late, or doesnt show) and depending on where you are going to and coming from, there could be up to a 30minute walk to the bus stop, and even 30minute walk to your final destination from the final bus stop. When it takes 1hr 15min's to get to the location that takes you -30- minutes to drive to, and $5 to take the bus each way (Welcome to Vancouver Pub. Transportation!) owning a car doesn't seem all that bad.

real life final destination 3? heh