Remiel

If you look at the birth rate in Iran, I think you will find it to be rather low, despite their being a theocracy. They also tend to be more well off and educated than many other Arab neighbours. I think though that birth rates are influenced by a larger and more complicated confluence of factors than just religion, education, wealth, and health, however. National character probably also plays a part.

That is not nearly as logical an argument as you thimk. You cannot substitute your own notion of what justice is into an argument that is supposed to show an internal contradiction in a religious doctrine. For instance, it does not make sense to say " I think X is just; the Y says God likes not-X; therefore God is not just, " and " the Y says God calls not-X just; but if God likes not-X, I do not think he can be just; therefore God is not real because he is not just. " It is because there is a missing premise that " If God and I disagree on the just, my opinion prevails. " So what happens is that you substitute your idea of justice for for the doctrine says is just when making the argument that God does not exist because Y says he is just (his idea) but he is not (your idea). Hopefully that came out complete in the right order. Which is not to say that there are not logical and rational arguments against the existence of a given God, but the particularly one that you brought up is severely flawed.

Since when were the Taliban Ba'Athists? Since when are they Arabs? The only Ba'Athist regimes were not even theocracies!

Dude, worldwide theocracy has been done before. Humanity survived, and human life was not thought of as " worthless " .

This is extremely nitpicky, but I would not call it " the Truth " so much as rational analysis of available facts that should lead one to believe that that other stuff (the religious stuff) is extremely improbable. It is a somewhat minor (but important) distinction that being a philosopher and a deist compels me to make.

If nothing else, in a situation where we believed that defending your life including defending your property to the extent that is necessary for your life (and I do not mean " lifestyle " here), anyone who things to kill a vandal should be wary of the fact that they will have to prove in court that their life was endangered in some substantial way by the vandalism. That is a test, I believe, most would end up failing.

The more often you repeat this the quicker you will lose any credibility you may have had with most of the people on these boards.

Two things: Secularism is not directly connected to goodness. You can easily have a completely secular " evil " society without any religious at all. It does not preserve all that is good in humanity. At best, it helps promote practices have a better chance of leading to goodness. Speaking of logical, this is actually self contradictory. A human right can lead to another human right being violated. That does not make the more important right " unadultered evil " . Not by a long shot. You really need to tone down on the hyperbole.

I would be careful about throwing around the idea that theocracies are all evils that need to be destroyed. I have read quite a few people, most of them Israeli Jews, who describe Israel as being rather theocratic, despite also having democratic underpinnings. Also, I think you are underestimating how terrible war can be. Theocrats are bad enough, but through war they are placed back in the " state of nature " , which can be much worse. Thomas Hobbes, who lived during a time of civil war in Britain, believed it to be an evil so great that pretty much any authority would be preferable to it. Wiping out theocracies with war may produce non-theocracies (and that is debateable), but it can very much be trying to cleanse evil with greater evil. At the end of the day, maybe trying to remove the Taliban was the right decision, but whether it was so should not be judged merely by how self-righteous their religious authorities make us feel. Not even close.

The U.S. is involved in Pakistani affairs. The U.S. may be blamed for reasons you do not find to be very convincing, but it does not take a doctorate in sociology to understand why people think they are connected.

The conclusion I drew from what you said was not illogical. You could have said, " I vote and maintain correspondance in order to stay involved, " but you did not. It would have been a larger assumption for me to think you did more than what you said. Why do you bother writing to your elected representatives if you think they are whores? Why do you write to your editors? Newspapers are media whores. If supporting a political party as a member makes one a whore, wouldn't everyone who votes for them also be their whores? Or maybe just johns. Because, you know, being a john is such a big step up from being a whore.

If you really think if you are sufficiently " involved " in the political process merely by voting, then you should not be lecturing anyone on naivety. The system is going to hell precisely because of people sitting on their ass in between elections and doing nothing to show some initiative.

I was including politicians as well, but either way, I think the evidence clearly suggests that the authorities do not effectively deal with political misdemeanours and crimes.

What exactly do you think I think an appropriate response is? The tone of your comments seems to suggest that you think I am pre-emptively beboaming the police going too hard on insurgents.

I think you are incredibly jaded and pessimistic. Of course it will always be that way if you do not have the balls to try and change it.

Though it may be a massacre, which is not really terribly different. Nice try at a deflection. Rarely, if ever, do combats end with one side killed to a man unless one of the sides was intentionally planning it that way.

Pessimism towards the governments understanding of what constitutes an appropriate response?

That is not the answer to the question I asked. You said you would not cry if all of the Blac Bloc was basically executed. When I asked, " What would you do? " I was referring to what you would do instead of crying.

What would you do?

Wonderful... http://www.thestar.com/news/quebec/article/831182--group-claims-responsibility-for-quebec-canadian-forces-office-blast This, I take, to be much more serious that the firebombing of that bank branch a bit back. Those folks were incompetent enough that they attacked a target that barely had symbolic relevance. I wonder what the response will be. Probablt incompetence of some sort, unfortunately.

I seem to recall having heard that if you are a trained fighter, you can actually be charged with use of a weapon if you use your skills to attack or injure someone. I thought that the distinction was nuts, but whoever I was speaking with seemed to be adamant that this was the case.

I certainly do not think it would be easy. But to give up without having tried, well, see my previous comment on " defeatism " . There is nothing particularly special about the leadership of a party. They are just people, like everyone else. They can be persuaded to change their ways. It is merely a steep uphill battle.

I do not really have ninety minutes I want to spend of that, but I do have a question that perhaps you can answer because you have watched it: the thesis is that because fructose is bad for you, it is a poison? I am not sure that jives. Poison, while we use it quite often, has a specific meaning when you get down to it. It is not just, " bad for you. " It is more like, " Causes you to cease functioning entirely. " If all it does is suppress LDL, I do not see how even an unlimited amount would be able to actually directly kill you, which poisons do.

This may sound as fanciful as I just accused you of being, but I am a subscriber, sort of, to Bruce Lee's philosophy of fighting: do whatever uses the least energy and works. He was not a big fan of " forms " and kata. Everyone knows him for being a TV and movie star, but fame found him because he was a fighter; and he was a practical fighter.

Same as here in Ontario, more or less. It has never particularly bothered me.