Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Iuz the Evil]

Utterly offensive and poorly constructed argument as well. 

[Guest Usagi]

5 minutes ago, Ranxerox said:

See page 1, post 1, rule 3.  

See, this is the entire problem.  I'm not attacking him.  I'm accusing him of wrongdoing.  If someone is murdering people, is it a personal attack to call them a murderer?  Is it insulting to point out that murdering people is bad, and that if you murder people you're a bad person?    Because that's exactly the position you are taking, that everyone takes.  What Lord Diadem is doing, the argument he is making, is evil.  He should not be making it.  He should be shamed for making it, and we should not tolerate people who make these kinds of arguments.  But we can't call Lord Diadem a bad person for doing a bad thing, no matter how guilty he is, because for this particular immoral, irrational and irresponsible act of evil, to point it out is "a personal attack."

 

And this is why our civilization is doomed.

[Iuz the Evil]

Telling another person you subscribe to a different belief system than they, and find their beliefs antithetical to your own is wrong?

 

[Old Man]

I agree that faith is only compatible with reason up to a point, but I'm not getting the cognitive leap to "evil".  Faith is certainly used as an excuse by many to justify some unreasonable moral positions, but that's not universal, and it's irrelevant to the question of whether faith and reason can coexist.

[Lord Liaden]

Wow. I've been called many things over my lifetime, but "evil" is a new one.

 

I had composed a response to Usagi, but I get the impression nothing I could write would be well received at this point.

[Badger]

12 hours ago, Usagi said:

Is it because the Christian Right is the domain of hateful bigots who have perverted and twisted Christianity into a religion of hate and intolerance by hiding their racism, bigotry and sexism behind a veil of "religious freedom" and "personal truth?"

 

Or it could just mean that they see a total incompatibility with the Democrat party, rightly or wrongly.  Contrary to the way current politics has been trending, disagreement doesn't equal evil.   Just saying the Bill of Rights for one seems to suggest that.  

 

Religion does get hijacked by hypocrites and other undesirables. But, then so has politics, science, history-telling, and nearly every other human endeavor.

[Guest Usagi]

50 minutes ago, Iuz the Evil said:

Telling another person you subscribe to a different belief system than they, and find their beliefs antithetical to your own is wrong?

No, deciding that reason can be casually tossed aside when it prevents you from believing what you want to be true, and that you don't have to defend or justify that choice, is wrong.  Making a pseudo-rational argument that can then immediately be used to justify anything from murder to genocide is wrong, it's irresponsible, and it shouldn't be something that people politely agree to disagree on.

 

34 minutes ago, Old Man said:

I agree that faith is only compatible with reason up to a point, but I'm not getting the cognitive leap to "evil".

Lord Liaden presented an argument that absolves any person who uses it of any need to rationally justify their actions.  He is crafting an rationalization for irrationality that can be used to defend literally any action at all, no matter how foul, cruel, vicious or antithetical to life.  When he says "But I don't consider it necessary to change your mind," what he is actually saying is "I don't consider it necessary to rationally justify my beliefs to others."  But that is necessary, because beliefs compel actions, and actions affect others, and thus your beliefs have an impact on others.  Running around defending the practice of clinging to self-justifying irrational ideas is quite literally defending the primary cause of almost all evil in the world.

 

Here's a true statement hardly anyone wants to admit:  The one thing that unifies all of the current political movements for oppression, exploitation, and self-destruction is religion.  Some people argue that capitalism and corporations are the most dangerous forces in society, but the sole reason the wealthy elites have disproportionate power is because they have weaponized Christianity and turned into a pseudo-fascism political movement, which finally got away from them and voted in an economically illiterate, morally repugnant criminal moron into power and now worships as the second coming of Jesus.  Maybe, just maybe, the corporations wouldn't have so much power and be able to control the political process so much if there weren't this giant mass of braindead morons raised from birth on this vile idea that faith justifies believing in stupid, ridiculous garbage that anyone using the slightest bit of common sense knows isn't true.

 

But we can't assert the obvious truth that believing in things you know you can't justify rationally is the definition of being unreasonable, because Lord Liaden and his ilk don't consider it necessary to rationally justify his beliefs to others, and it's a rude personal attack to point out that they're actively promoting irrationality that is proven to lead to violence, mayhem and bloodshed, and that is a sad derogation of one's moral duty to reason.

 

And if you want to argue with me about having a moral duty to use reason, then you've already lost the argument by not punching me in the face and declaring yourself right. 

[Badger]

Speaking of reason, (or "reason" if one prefers)  it is another big one in those human endeavors that seem to get hijacked.

[Guest Usagi]

6 minutes ago, Badger said:

Or it could just mean that they see a total incompatibility with the Democrat party, rightly or wrongly. 

It seems to me that the Christian Right finds the Democratic Party incompatible primarily because the Democrats won't tolerate their bigoted and hateful beliefs.  So really, six of one, half dozen of the other.

 

What I find most obnoxious about the Christian Right is that the right rejects basically every single tenet of Christianity that one might point to as a defense of Christianity as a cultural institution in favor of every tenet of Christianity that is repellent, repugnant and hateful.  The Christian Right  claims America is a Christian nation based on Christian principles with a Christian government, which is of the people, for the people, and by the people, and yet when asked should we the people help the poor, the answer is no. Should we treat the sick?  Should we welcome the foreigner as one of our own?  No.  How should we demonstrate our Christian character as a Christian nation of Christian people?  Underwear checks in public bathrooms!  Legal discrimination against gay people!  The state should make reproductive choices for women! 

[Doc Democracy]

Usage, I began to respond to you in a detailed way but there is too much.  If you cannot see that calling Lord Liaden evil is an ad hominem attack, that introducing downvotes to a highly policed topic then I can see you very quickly getting yourself a ban.

 

I do not know what is motivating your ire but you need to contain it, your belief (because that is what it is) that human discourse would be immeasurably improved by abandoning belief in higher beings and religion may be correct, it may not.  It is only slightly easier to prove than most of the religious beliefs out there.

 

Your 'fact' that Christianity is the root of all corporate evil demonstrated a very privileged, Western perspective. 

 

My advice is to back off, find other places to chat.  I don't think you have the restraint necessary to converse here.  Illustrated most pointedly by attacking one of the nicest board members we have as evil. 😞

 

Doc

[Lord Liaden]

Fellas, I appreciate your support, but I suggest you let it go. It's not worth getting worked up over, and I'm sure you realize it will be settled when Dan Simon gets up this morning.

[Simon]

Usagi will no longer be joining us on these forums.

[Old Man]

It's silly now, but I wanted to point out that the original purpose of religion was to impose some sort of ethical framework on its believers.  I get that it's easily subverted for evil ends, and that it can be antithetical to reason, but I don't see faith in and of itself as being "evil". 

 

Conversely, reason itself has been twisted and used to further evil ends.  Greed, extreme capitalism and communism, and certain intense examples of antisemitism were all justified by purely "reasoned" arguments with no appeal to faith whatsoever.

 

Lastly, LL, you're not evil.  Chaotic maybe, but not evil.

[Lord Liaden]

[Starlord]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

*must...resist...urge to permanently refer to you...as...Lord Diadem!*

[Hermit]

2 hours ago, Starlord said:

 

*must...resist...urge to permanently refer to you...as...Lord Diadem!*

 

I KNOW, rite? 

 

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Fellas, I appreciate your support, but I suggest you let it go. It's not worth getting worked up over, and I'm sure you realize it will be settled when Dan Simon gets up this morning.

 

Well, you called  that.

 

Respect, LL... as usual, you were your calm, polite, nice, and dare I say 'reasonable' self when I think others might have growled a bit. I know I would have been tempted to. 

 

 

[Lee]

9 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

"For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

-- Stuart Chase

 

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

-- Christopher Hitchens

[Ternaugh]

11 minutes ago, Lee said:

 

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

-- Christopher Hitchens

 

"It's only a model."

--Patsy

[Lee]

9 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

"It's only a model."

--Patsy

 

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

-- Groucho Marx

 

[Simon]

Lee will no longer be joining us on these forums*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*kidding

 

 

 

[Lee]

1 minute ago, Simon said:

Lee will no longer be joining us on these forums*

 

*kidding

 

[Pariah]

56 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

"It's only a model."

--Patsy

 

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

~George E. P. Box

[Pariah]

56 minutes ago, Lee said:

 

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

-- Groucho Marx

 

 

I thought it was Mark Twain who said that. In fairness, though, I can certainly see Groucho saying it too.

[Joe Walsh]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

I thought it was Mark Twain who said that. In fairness, though, I can certainly see Groucho saying it too.

 

Wait...so, they were two different people?

[Lee]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

I thought it was Mark Twain who said that. In fairness, though, I can certainly see Groucho saying it too.

 

Likewise, I could see Mark Twain saying it, too. But, a quick search seems to favor Groucho. Maybe he was quoting Twain when he said it?