ScottSA

Good point. A rational person doesn't generally resort to violence. What a ridiculous thing to say. Think about it.

Couldnta said it better myself. Bravo. Unlike you, I grew up in India, a multicultural society that suffered riots, burnings, and killings as a matter of course between ethnicities and religions, and they didn't even have the issue of color to deal with. We have so far been able to maintain a facade of nicety about the "mosaic" of "vibrant" "diversity" and all the associated marketing tripe that's always appended to those cute pictures of kids, carefully posed to make sure there's a representative from each hue and color, and that they're all basking in the glow of each other's smiles. But where are they in reality? Somewhere along the line they forgot to learn each other's language, forgot to live in each other's neighbourhoods, and forgot to show any interest whatsoever in knowing each other. So far, because of the afterglow of European culture and social hegemony and its associated wealth, we've managed to grimace at each other in a semblance of acceptance, if not friendship, but what's going to happen at the first serious economic downturn, when folks start looking around at who to blame? Islam is just the tip of the iceberg. Argus is right...it's the floodgates that have caused this, along with a blind faith in the new humanist religion of multiculturalism; a faith that somehow all will be well if only we hope hard enough, and in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. And Argus is right about something else...there is absolutely no difference between what I said and what Mikedavid said...just because someone throws in a few big fancy words and avoids others doesn't somehow make the sentiment more valid. I don't know if Phd's drive taxis, but that's not really the point. TO wouldn't be what it is without immigrants as someone said? What does that mean? That there wouldn't be all those "colourful street festivals" and lovely "cuisine?" Because something else there wouldn't be is flying lead, Asian street gangs and ghettos full of folks just waiting till they get enough critical mass to start weilding political power. I shudder for the future of the west in its lemminglike race to the cliff.

I'm sure you are looking for anything and everything that you can to discredit those nations for being dominated by Muslim people. I don't see these nations being at war with the west. Some of them are quite prosperous and have quite a lot of secular freedoms that you'd expect elsewhere. You are obviously an expert in all of these countries. I'm sure you could wow us with your massive knowledge on how they these countries are terrorists threats because of the Muslim religion. Perhaps you will enlighten us on how you would convert them to Christianity ala Anne Coulter and her philosophy. I'm sure Argus can speak quite adequately for himself, but it doesn't take an "expert" in those countries to know that Islam foments rebellion everywhere it plants its seeds. Why would it not? How could it not?

1 False question based on false information. It was warmer, both regionally and arguably globally, a mere 600 years ago. The earth has had climate change for millenia upon millenia. Nothing has happened in the last 100 years that hasn't happened dozens of times before. 2 Question based on a questionable premise. You might as well ask "if bananas are causing the increase, but we can't be sure of the effect, should we ignore it until we can?"

At what cost to Canadians? At what benefit to Canadians?

It can't be rejected outright, but there are far simpler, more sensible, and more likely explanations.

The near death experience concept relies on the body having a spirit. If you want to know if this is true, visit a hospital and observe a patient who's oxogen level is being slowly deprived. You'll observe the personality of the patient changes, drastically, to the point the 'spirit' of the person you knew, no longer exists. Utter nonsense. You're simply making up a false premise and jamming a conclusion into it. The spirit, by definition, has nothing to do with the brain.

Of course I can't explain it. What if, by some odd chance, we aren't as smart as some of us seem to think we are, and it's incomprehensible to us? Just think about it for a moment...if you, as most people do, whether atheist or religious...believe that there are life forms beyond this world, is it a huge leap to imagine a race or species more intelligent than us? What about a lot more intelligent than us? Is it inconceivable that they might understand things we can't even begin to fathom? If you admit that this is possible, you must also concede that if God exists, He is well beyond our ken. The arrogant and slavish insistence by some that because our minds and present state of science can't comprehend something it must therefore not exist is so incredible dumb...'dumb' is the only word I can find...that it's almost funny. I don't, unlike some people, claim that this or that God is the "TRVE" God. How the hell do I know? God may very well be something completely apart from our silly attempts to conceive of Him. Mocking an old man in a nightgown really only underscores our inability to understand what God is...you're really only mocking humanity by doing so, not God. There are reams of evidence of life after death, and the presence of meaning in the universe. This goes a bit deeper than the sophomoric atheistic notion that God is a product of thin air and some need to believe in something, or paperback books about near death experiences. Anyone who trots out that pig and paints lipstick on it is showing off their own lack of depth rather than making any sort of viable point. The fact that a brain has certain behaviours under certain circumstances has nothing whatsoever to do with the spirit, it has to do with the hardwiring of the spirit's vehicle. Anyway, I wish that the atheists hereabouts would do a bit more research and think just a tad deeper before flippantly displaying their glaring idiocy.

Devoid of all the trappings of the modern state, the war waged by individuals would more have resembled a classic Hobbesian war of all against all, and would have no means of ending itself short of the total genocide of one side or another. Devoid of all that, war waged by individuals would resemble a riot. World Riot II just doesn't have that heroic ring to it...sounds more like saturday night WWF or something.

Only a white person would right this. In terms of culture I agree with you 100%. This is Canada, people need to accept our values. What does the 'racial makeup' matter? Are you suggesting that we award points based on race? Of course your not that stupid! So what is your point or suggestion? Yeah the Northern European people are going to go extinct. Thats a real legit fear you got there. I really fear for all white people. If you want to make an arguement about why Canada should let in less immigrants go ahead. But we are still going to be letting in more people from Asia than Europe. Oh and do yourself a favour, go look at the number of immigrants. Then look at break downs of where they come from and how many are coming for jobs and how many are comming as families. Also look at what you have to do to bring your family over. If you really want to tighten the system after that, that is fine. Right now your just uninformed and spouting rhetoric 'right' is spelled "write." I may be spouting rhetoric, but you're spouting virtually incomprehensible...something. I don't even know what your point is. You seem to both agree and disagree in every paragraph.

Unreasoning happens not only on tantruming kids, but also on some tantruming adults. Sometimes unreasoning is the plead not the cause. Perhaps frustration of lack reason is the cause of spanking. So, our adults must stop tantruming first, then we may reason our kids soon. I take it this is some lame ESL attempt at a slag? Perhaps a pinyin translation would help?

No problem. Just knock one or two percentage points off Canada's annual GDP growth - every year. I might remind you that would put Canada in a recession - pretty much non-stop for the last couple of decades and endless future of recessions. You like recessions? The only thing keeping Canada out of them is our high immigration level. Glad you don't run our government. Do you have any facts to back up this ridiculous assertion? How is making sure that immigrants don't take scarce jobs from Canadians supposed to put us in recession, much less an "endless future" of them?

I realize that, but the argument about pharmacists refusing to sell morning after pills came up in another thread (the taxi driver thread) and is related to this discussion. Betsy seems to think that everyone should be boycotting taxis who refuse to carry alcohol, but when it comes to the issue of refusing to sell morning after pills, she avoids the question. A clear double standard. Oh, I don't think so. If a doctor believes that life begins at conception, and that killing or interfering with a fetus puts him in violation of the Hypocratic oath, that is qualitatively different from a Taxi driver refusing to take passengers. As far as I know, there's no taxi-driver's oath forbidding alcohol, is there?

I don't fear any unfriendly saying and welcome saying honestly and frankly. I was talking about how Hiter achieved his dishonest business. Jews were the minority in Germany. Just like other races, not every Jew are good guy. Perhaps there were a few of them committing dishonest, criminal or racism, etc. Hitler dishonestly magnified the fault of a few Jews to the whole of race of Jews and advocated racism in the majority in German to serve his political ambition and exclusive Teutonism dream. Being a Canadian is a good thing, I agree. But acting the way as Hitler is a bad thing, even people commited it unintentionally. Oh, don't speak so absolutely. I have some friends in Canada, they have gotten "white-collar jobs" for many years and they said their white skin employers or colleagues were both honest and friendly. Of course, I also know some Chinese do low paying job or come back to China just as you said. Look, not every Chinese are the same, not every white skin Canadian are the same. This is the fact. Sounds terribly. If this is the fact, It seams you and your friends has no reason to get headache. lol. If these were the true, being Canadian would likely be not a good thing..... I don't know exactly how many chinese in Canada. According some post above, it seems only 1%-2% percent of votes from Chinese Canadian voter. I can hardly think that Canadian politicians would need to cater those immigrant voters to violate "Canadian peoples will". Don't "Canadian peoples" vote? Where is "my" community in Canada? Where does it locate? That's easy. I can say it really honestly. The first reason: Our country seems to be overpopulated. Beijing is as big as Toronto, but the population here is as many as the half of Canada. Economy develops rapidly, but contamination also accumulates rapidly...ect. The second reason: I know that not every Canadian thinks about immigration as you and your friends' way.... One wonders what you might think if busloads of roundeyes showed up on the doorstep of Beijing and started dictating how the indigenous folk ought to behave. Oh, wait, we already know. Did you like it? If China suffers from overpopulation, the way to deal with it is not to come here, it's to fix it there.

It's all very well to leap on the get-the-troglodyte pile in glee, but he's got a point. It's extremely questionable that we "need" 3rd world immigration, but it's certain we don't need busloads of economically useless 'family re-unification' immigrants. It's also certain that if we have fallen below replacement birthrate, that's a significant problem that ought to addressed at its source, not by using it as justification to look elsewhere. Someone else mentioned that it's not "fair" to give immigrants points for their education and then not allow them to use it, and there are two solutions to that...the PC one, which is of course to credit them with false equivalence, and the most obvious and least PC one, which is not to award points for useless degrees. And another point...I'm sick unto death of the loudly proclaimed truism that one ought not to look at the changing racial and cultural makeup of this country and of the west in general. It's a herd of elephants sitting on the dining room table, and sooner or later they're going to get up and bring themselves sharply to our attention whether we like it or not. The idiotic piosity of studiously ignoring the subject lest one be considered a "racist" or a "bigot" is head-in-the-sandism of the highest order. The hear-nothing, see-nothing, say-nothing misconstruction of a Gandhiesque platitude seems to have taken over the collective brain of the west, and it's time reality intruded again. I think the thread on a new Chinese immigrant's party spoke volumes, with the usually suspects falling all over themselves to excuse what amounts to a racialist party. The ridiculous leaps of logic and conceptual gymnastics displayed in that thread may well, in the not too distant future, serve the twofold purpose of a cause for extinction and an elegy for the Northern European peoples.

A nation's birthrate falls below replacement and you think the answer is to bring in new people? A birthrate like that is a national catastrophe and bespeaks a social sickness. The cure lies within, not without. This is nonsense. Wealth is not a pocket full of cash one simply brings and dumps into the economy where it stays evermore; wealth is surplus created. Experience? What experience? Why do we need more "culture?"

I'll wager a dollar he doesn't die an atheist, and if he does he's in for a big surprise.

Well I think it's safe to suggest that the organization of those individual soldiers had some bearing on who won. Beyond that, the organization of war production, the national economies, national politics, and a host of macro factors went into deciding who won. Devoid of all the trappings of the modern state, the war waged by individuals would more have resembled a classic Hobbesian war of all against all, and would have no means of ending itself short of the total genocide of one side or another.

Those 10% are probably the same 10% who are the most anti-homosexual... This sort of idiotic streetcorner psychology cheapens any argument you might be trying to make. Grow up.

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/06/...-jerusalem.htmlThe truth of this is all too evident among the leftists hereabouts...

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Can you focus on a point, make it, and then move on to the next one? Ramming them all into the mouth of the cannon and then firing them scattershot doesn't make for good debate.

And how would you feel about a party that was formed on a religious basis to benefit one religion over all others? Well, its a category apart, but i don't think it would be particularly helpful. If you're going to leap up with a loud "aha!" and announce that the Conservative government is somehow a theocracy, skip it... For me personally, I'd treat a party formed on a religious basis differently depending on which religion it was.

One of the issues so many people seem to have with global warming science, is that they simply can't handle the uncertainty. They want absolute proof, not models, not trends, but absolute cause and effect science. The problem is, once we get to that point, significant damage may have already been done, and changes may have occured that are not easily reversable. We do know that carbon in the atmosphere has gone up 50% over the last 100 years. There does not appear to be any other cause other than human to explain this increase. What other natural activities have occured in the last 100 years that did not occur in the last 600 000 that would have produced this sudden increase in carbon concentrations? Luckily the dynamic nature of both capitalism and politics is already beginning to make a difference. Can you believe the conservative government has a "green" platform? Consumer choice is also making a difference. While some endlessly argue and wait for absolution, others with more vision can see the dangers and are taking action. I have no problem with "taking action" in cleaning up the environment to the extent that we can without suffering for it. What I do have a problem with is fabricating a sky-is-falling scenario and then dumping billions of dollars into it when we're not even sure a problem exists, and even less sure that we can do anything about it if it does. I especially object to throwing billions away on a treaty designed to redistribute wealth rather than attend to the environment. Of course, you can couch this all in the language of progress if you want, and built in certainty where none exists, and even cobble together an argument based on faulty facts (CO2 going up 50% over 100 years), or assign causality to GW arbitrarly, but none of that justifies doing the things we are apparently prepared to do in aid of this nonsense.

no need to get angry because you were wrong. I don't think it's excluding any races to say that they work hard for Chinese Canadians, just as I don't think it's excluding any races to say that they work hard for white Canadians. If they had said the ONLY work hard for Chinese Canadians then they would be excluding based on race. I think the purpose of this party is to try to look out for the needs of new Canadians. Since I am not a new Canadian it's hard for me to be more specific about what those needs are. See above. Obviously this party was formed on a racial basis to benefit one race over all others. But I suppose that if you want to play games of semantics, this discussion is silly. I'm certainly not "mad," I'm just wondering why you are continuing this sophist game.

Your question is flawed. One doesn't need a rational reason for anything, much less religious faith. Human beings have a long history of irrational passions. This is human nature. And since you asked, the vast majority of religious people inherited their religion from their parents/family upbringing. They are religious for the same reason they have manners and speak the language they do. That explanation - religion or faith is inherited- is more than a bit facile. I've noticed many people return to their faith or discover faith later in life. They are not inbred hillbillies either, but thinking caring and intelligent people. There are a couple of explanations for this. The most likely is that as people get older, they tend to move beyond the questions of where the next party might be found. Right. And quite remarkably, those older people tend to move to precisely the religion that they were brought up in - or atleast, in over 90% of cases where this phenomena is known to occur. If your theory was even remotely credible, then these 'older people' might be expected to adopt a variety of different religous views. They generally don't. You are correct in one respect though. People as they age often do 'come back' to the religion that they 'drifted' away from in their younger days. Picking or choosing amongst a hundred various sects amongst the Christian religion is of course equally simple. Indeed, in well over 90% of cases, they will magically choose the one that they were brought up with. Remarkable coincidence that. If you are going to assert that religion isn't inherited from your parents (as is the statistical case of over 90% of Americans who claim to be religious), then you have to offer a more convincing argument. P.S. Your assertion that my argument here is "facile" is troll bait. I replied politely. I don't always reply to troll bait with such politeness. Nor are you own troll baits very polite, although the beatings you've suffered ought to eventually tone you down. Is it possible that people return later in life to the religion of their upbringing because that is the type of spirituality they are familiar with rather than because of some learned response during youth? Isn't it possible that the object is not a return to a specific religion as much as a quest for spirituality? Is it more reasonable for an elderly European or North American grandma who was raised a Presbyterian to seek out spirituality in an ashram or in a church? The immediate problem you are having is in the facile assumption that religion is the equivalent of spiritualism...one is a method and the other an object. But your larger problem is that facile undergrad philosophy majors learn in a sort of linear modelling that precludes thinking outside the box. Couple that with the arrogance of atheism and all that ever emerges is strawmen. People returning to the religion of their youth is quite natural, and in no way discredits their quest for faith and spirituality. It is quite likely that some who do beome religious do return to the religion of their family. I guess it is familiar. But - they rejected it once, so they are equally likely to accept whatever seems right at the time their spiritual quest occurs, which is much more likely to be independent at age 28 than at age 8. It may be natural to return to the religion of childhood, but it is far from preordained. Indeed, whacko outfits like Scientology and many others count on it. And I am not talking at all about deathbed conversions, I'm referring to young adults that seek answers in organized religions - and find them. It does not matter so much that the answers may be rote dogma, it matters that they exist and are consistent. People seek simplicity and stability and fellowship and a sense of belonging. Organized religion provides much of that, it is not hard to see why people seek it. I'm merely pointing out to Mikey that there's more than one reason people tend to return to the faith of their youth rather than to other religions...as a rule. I agree that many people church-shop, but many don't, finding the spirituality they are seeking in more familiar settings. Neither group is evidence of the facile hypothesis that spirituality is a mere customary inheritance...all it's evidence of is that people tend to like tradition.