ScottSA

What can I say? You're an idiot. ScottSA doesn't "assume" that "other races have some inherant genetic quality that makes them want to destroy the other races," ScottSA has just read a little history and knows that races are not known for getting along real well; to wit: killing each other off every chance they get, everywhere and always without exception. For a while under Tito, Yugoslavia was starting to look like a first, but oops...

...and with a swish of his tail and an airy toss of his head, Peter establishes his credentials as a myopic utopic!

That of course is the other side of the coin. It is clear to me that the melting pot is not happening, neither here nor in the US, and certainly not in Europe. Nor is the balkanization entirely cultural, although it is in some places ethno-cultural. But that balkanization is occuring is without question. As long as there is a hegemonic ethno-culture, the trouble can be minimized and the trouble-makers catered to...but what happens when the numbers begin to average out. This notion of a caramel coloured race of happy folks with vibrant street festivals ain't happening, so what is going to happen?

Good. You distilled your opinion. Now stop jamming the thread and let "the rest of us"," many of whom don't share your opinion, speak. Ok?

Yes, thank you so much for the stirling psychological analysis, but unfortunately your credibility pooled around your ankles long ago, apparently taking your commas and language skills with it. "Sowed by your ilk?" Why are you so afraid of the topic?

And the physical difference is as irrelevant as it gets. Putting aside the real cultural differences between a scots clansman and a bantu tribesman, over the internet they are indistinguishable. To the point, there are real physical differences between the 6 foot plus swede and the 5 foot 5" Sicilian, and one will not be mistaken for the other......but who gives a flying whatsitcalled? If all you have going for you is that other "races" appear different, I suggest you take St Paul's sage advice. Unfortunately the internet doesn't comprise the totality of most our our existences, so that's totally irrelevant. If all you have going for you is the above, then why don't you distil it into "I don't care" and leave it at that?

People do things for a reason. Prayer is something that people do, so they have a reason for doing it. Not being religious myself, I am curious as to what that reason is. Is there genuine hope that the prayer will be answered? That is, is there belief that through the act of praying, the probability of the desired outcome will be increased? Is it done for emotional comfort, knowing that there isn't any actual effect? Is it done simply because it is a reaction and ritual that is ingrained in people that are religious by institutions, with no particular thought on the part of the individual as to its effect? As an atheist, you'll never get it. The good news is that atheists often have epiphanies and turn into the loudest most obnoxious theists around, so there's a good possiblity that you'll get it someday.

I'm trying to avoid getting into this nit-picking nonsense over genetics. I know you hold near and dear all the PC paraphenalia dumped on us to minimize the issue, and long ago grabbed onto the the idea that race is a construct and that there is little genetic difference between races and so on, but the fact that phenotypes exist and that they manifest differently is without question. It is a fact that a Bantu tribeman cannot be mistaken for a Scotsman, and the difference is not confined to dress and customs. Twist as you will, this is a fact. So let's leave that line of questioning out of this. To paraphrase an American lawmaker, race is like porn...defining it may be imprecise, but we all know it exists.

You mean you don't like being flat-out wrong and having your bullshit dispelled. No, that's not what I mean.

I reproduce continuously. Just the other day I made new blood cells. Don't jam this please.

Well, a number of interesting responses, ranging from Hollus' cloying sentimentalism, to sweal's hyper-academic nitpicking, to the usual assertion that race doesn't exist, to the obligatory howls of 'racism' and curbstomping of white society. The only people who seem to have 'got' the question are kimmy, argus, and wd, although I might have missed someone else, and if so I apologize. It's funny, because in all our cinemagraphic renditions of the future, usually set in white society, Caucasians are still very much alive and well as a race, but this seems not to be a faithful rendition of the actuality. As a caucasian, I don't think that's a good thing. I don't want my lily white sheep shagging ancestors to disappear into a genetic melting pot. On a more immediate level I don't want my kids or their kids or their kids to be faced with the potential of violence or even genocide with no place to retreat to. Once caucasians (thanks Argus, I know about the Caucasus lol) become a minority in Caucasia (the west), that potential exists, and strongly exists, given history. I think it entirely possible that in the not too distant future, Caucasians may become the Jews of the 22nd century, but with no Israel to retreat to.

Andrew gets to be the first one on my ignore list. I simply cannot abide the unadulterated pap and hogwash he seems to have picked up in some first year university class in aboriginal studies or some other fairy tale class...

I can only speak for myself. Anyone who has been reared a Christian is taught right off the bat not to pray for worldly possessions, so I don't know why that sophomoric question is in play, nor why the self-congratulatory moron who made that video with his "expose" based on a logic 101 class bothered. I'm not a Christian now, although I send my daughter to a Catholic School because it's leap years ahead of the public system in morals and education, and the last time I was in a church was a year ago. But I do pray. I don't yowl at the heavens, or speak gibberish and call it "tongues", or use elaborate choreographs involving incense and ringing bells, or even clasp my hands together in a church pew. I pray silently, and my only purpose is to talk to my maker. Like, I suspect, most deists do. Sure there are all sorts of small Christian sects out there, some quite well financed, who believe prayer gets us cash, but they are few and fairly far between even if they do have loud followings. Prayer isn't about "getting thiongs." If it were, it would have died out as quickly as praying to milk jugs. How silly.

I agree. I edit almost every post for spelling etc after the fact. All the edit alert does is open the door to silly accusations.

It's a small node found in the cortex of post adolescent inebriates with comicbook name fantasies. Under the right conditions, it explodes, sending shards of bong resin out through the eyeballs. Stay away from heat lamps.

"But–and I cannot stress this enough–we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future.” Richard Lindzen, MIT meteorology professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences, contributer to Chapter 4 of the “IPCC Second Assessment”, “Climate Change 1995″. He's not interested in hearing facts. He sees things as either being in favor of curb stomping mother earth or shutting down all forms of energy except solar and wind, in the idiotic belief that it will somehow pick up more than a fraction of a fraction of the slack. Oh, and he'll probably dig up some hack website alleging that Lindzen is a lackey of "big oil".

You must be Inuit.

After this, your post drifts back into culture, and that is simply not the angle I'm talking about. I understand the genetics of the thing, and addressed it in my first post so as to avoid drifting into culture, which is a very different topic. I'm talking about the race aspect. The existence of caucasians. In many way's it's disingenuous to pretend that race doesn't exist. It doesn't matter whether there are two tidbits of genetic difference between a chimp and a human, or a Bantu tribesman and a Scot, because everyone knows there IS a difference, no matter how much obfuscatory fluff is thrown about. Look, I'm not running screaming from the room because the guy next to me isn't white, but I AM opening up a topic that we have been indoctrinated to ignore and avoid at all costs. And we shouldn't ignore it. At all costs we shouldn't ignore it.

Who knows what atheists think. They're as different as every culture on the planet.I can tell you what theists believe, though. Theists believe that praying to God gets results. Why else would they pray for the sick, pray for the hungry, pray for the non-believers, pray for whatever it is that they pray for? If you're not a theist, how would you know what theists pray about? I see what your problem is though...you have an incredibly shallow understanding of what prayer is all about. Do you actually think prayers for the poor are to send them cash, or that prayers for the unbelievers are to give them epiphanies and turn them into believers? That video is, I suppose, meant to be clever, in spite of its ridiculous condescension, but all it really did was underline the shallowness of at least one film-making atheist's understanding of theism. You didn't really think it was clever, did you?

Right...so this thread has really nothing to do with pryer, because only a galloping ignoramus would believe that people pray to get stuff, so it's merely to give you a strawman platform from which to launch more attacks at religion. The funny thing is that you're one of the folks who will someday have a religious experience, turn it into a major epiphany, and then set about plaguing innocent atheists with attacks on their beliefs instead.

As long as some of them open great restaurants, I can't complain. What are you afraid of happening? I'm personally afraid of the same thing happening here as has happened in every other multicultural society everywhere and always in history. But hey, that's just me.

I'm sure they probably are. Personally, I don't need any further evidence not to believe in religion at this point, as I already am not a believer. The remark of "assuming for a moment" was more aimed at other people, who are religious, to see how they would reply. I'm guessing that the most reflexive response would be to question the validity of those studies, and wanted to see what the next response would be. I can't believe this level of discussion is even being taken seriously. Do atheists actually believe that prayer is intended to, or is promoted as, a way of "getting stuff?" Is that what atheists think?

Let me make an observation here. That will certainly happen in the west. But it shows no signs whatsoever of happening anywhere else. That's the problem. If we were all happily traipsing about the planet migrating in equal waves back and forth, it would be fine. The trouble is that is is ONLY in Caucasia (I just made that term up, but it applies) that it is happening. Bonam is quite right that we should look ahead. It is our children who will have to face the music in the end. What will the end be? The myth of white superiority is alive and well all over the earth...in fact the only place it's largely absent is in caucasian society. Across Asia families strive to "whiten" the family line...in certain places like the Caribbean it has become a virtual cult. Even in China, known for its own cult of Han superiority, sees Han as better because of the lighter Han skin. But the problem is that these things tend to call down fury on themselves from time to time, and as caucasians become less numerous, more atomized, and lose the social cohesion that has until now been a function of racial existence, what will happen? The Han, Blacks of all tribes, Asians...all of them have homelands. But what about Caucasians, 100, 1000, 10,000 years down the road? What about the transition period? What about 50 years down the road?

What's with this incessant attack on Christianity? If you don't think prayer is good, then don't pray. What a facile ignorant video...geeeez...does this moron seriously think he's talking to adults?

Why are you jamming this thread? You said your piece, now go. Please.