The Terrible Sweal

Given the numerous examples of utter moral failure attributable to various religions (e.g. curates sexually abusing children), do these institutions have any justification in making preachy public exhortations about what is 'right' or 'wrong'? In my opinion, they should clean up their own act before they come blathering to the rest of us about these things.

If this is a joke, or some way to make a point out of maplesyrup's suspension, then you're playing with fire. This type of post is an obvious troll and I will not allow it to disrupt the flow of discussion in this thread. Keep the discussion respectful and intelligent ... Greg Admin I enjoy participating here, unfortunately, I am unable to discern what makes this comment an "obvious troll", and so, your directive leaves me unable to reliably comply with your request going forward. Please clarify what constitutes and "obvious troll" so that we can all censor ourselves to suit your preferences. Thanks. P.S. "respectful" of who/what?

And once the Bush cabal is out, how about indicting those 5 crooked supreme court traitors!

Well, the Bush deficit clearly plays perfectly into the hands of a political agenda that would seek to cripple the capability of federal public institutions in the US to address citizens' needs.

Who says they were? If I say Paul Martin is a jerk that's a political campaign? Churches have a right to inform their membership about the morality of life choices. The only people who worry about such things are those who are opposed to freedom of speech, expression and religion - which in Canada is most of the left. I gather from your post that you feel tax-charities should be allowed to participate in political activity. Right? In my opinion, the church heirarchy needs to focus on doing its job, like properly supervising the sick priests that have been sexually abusing little boys.

How many have been captured or killed? Good question. What focus? There are still over 15k American troops in Afghanistan........ ... and about ten times that in Iraq. What's your point?

Polling this morning suggests Kerry leads in Ohio now. Line-ups at Florida polling stations suggest that Floridians are making serious efforts to see that their state is not stolen yet again. Accordingly, I am now guardedly optimistic that Kerry will take it.

I don't understand why you would say that. What legitimate interest held by conservatives is being harmed, and in what way? Nope. Murder is killing a human being. Fetuses aren't human beings yet. That sounds like something between Mr. John and his wife. Why should the state concern itself with (potential) private breaches of faith between two people? Prove that. Two things: First, clearly you don't believe in freedom of expression. Second, where is pornography in kids faces? Who is the victim? Victim of what? Mrs. John has her legal remedies already. Prohibiting prostitution is not a remedy for Mrs. John for two reasons: it has not stopped prostitution and it doesn't fix her problem after the fact.

Legal personhood is neither fallacious nor impossible, but it is merely an artifact, like 'liability' (and for that matter, property or any other right).

A publicly traded 'corporation' such as Inco or Microsoft is essentially a social construct for managing a pool of proto-capital, capital, and potential capital invested in particular ways. Though corporations are often criticized as either rapacious or bureacratic, the success of the corporate form of organization is clear from its persistence and frequency, and arguable on the basis of wealth creation. Now my question is this ... what if we someday attain 'enough' wealth and further creation of it is superfluous?

He should be higher on the list. He should be whipped through the streets!

There were a number of truly depressing choices. Mercer, Lavigne, Suzuki, Gzouwsky, Chretien, Cherry (voting was conducted by CBC while the Cherry-gag crisis was playing out). Also several no-hopers: Maxwell, Curry, LeMieux, MacKenzie ... And several ("noble") failures: Riel, Dallaire, ... Anyway, I voted for Fleming. His idea has had a huge and impact on the world. Imagine if the meridian had been located in Canada: "Timmins Mean Time 00:00:00".

So?

News media playing the video of a beheading would not be false, presumably. Furthermore, it's not clear to me that playing it inflicts harm on any individuals. As for inciting hate crimes, let us assume it is intented to cause harm to individuals. We would still need to look to what is actually being said. Is it false?

Beat them, I suppose?

I once took a course in which the students were trained in under 3 hours to be capable of telling (three times out of three) if other students were thinking of either a white rose or a red rose. I have no doubt that with modification and practice this technique could be transfered to improving one's statistical chances of lie detection.

Except that abuse is usually far, far worse in the "unorganized" religions - the cults. The only difference between a 'religion' and a 'cult' is their respective social status. In Rome, Christianity was once a 'cult', while the worship of Jupiter (god of the sky) and Apollo (god of life) represented 'religion'. Fashion has changed and now the reverse holds true.

Censorship is bullshit. The only kind of communication which should be prohibited is "false information capable of causing harm to an individual, uttered intentionally or recklessly". This captures both defamation and the proverbial case of shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre.

Prove that. And if you can, I'll be very surprised. For one thing, it is impossible (due to inherent fallibility) for anyone to be 'rooted in the absolutes' of anything, since the best anyone can do is act on what they perceive or believe the absolutes to be. Furthermore, within all faith traditions there is disagreement about the meaning of the faith. The absence of such agreement demonstrates that religious faith is not a useful method of practical interpersonal or collective decision-making.

One photo makes him look like an ax-murderer and you draw weird conclusions. On the contrary, I read his book "Slouching Toward Gomorrah". Stark raving fruitcake.

Bork is a raving looney!

If I have understood them, which appears to be a problem in our attempts at communication, I'd say the last two are fairly obvious. I have problems with the first because it makes an unsupported assumption that there is no God who can give us some certainty. If we go by my actual version rather than your summarized version, I don't think that's necessarily true. The way I put it, God may exist, but human imperfection leaves us always (to some extent) falling short of s/he/its perfect understanding. You're mistaken. I have already explained the extrapolation of these things at length. Just because you may not understand or agree does not mean they have not been explained. Re-read. I already explained that. I don't agree. Yes, I have. I answered that in a reply to you, I believe. You are mistaken. I have done so. If you have failed to understand them, please seek clarification. How would we know? No. Your fallacious, strawman summary of my statement may suffer from that problem, but my actual statement does not. If each individual is sovereign, then the murderer is sovereign and can do what he pleases. Why should he care about another's preferences. Because he wants to avoid conflict injurious to his own preferences. I believe that I have said exactly what should compel him to do so.

You say that as though government was God, or some other supreme arbiter quite apart from the affairs of men. ?!?! Nonsense. His description applies perfectly well to the modern 'consensual' state. In a democracy, because they are chosen by 'you and me' for the purpose. By treating the threads as individual, ... Same again. You won't police yourself, of course, but others will be interested in policing you, and you them. Apply the original point once more. If men cannot police men, why do you say that some men can police men? Hmmm. It sounds to me like you just admitted the necessity of policing. *Ergo, you admit the impossiblity of anarchy.* What crime? Man Y discovered a new cherry tree. Lo and behold, lying beneath it was a trespasser, Man X. If Man Y kills Man X, in this situation, why would it be a crime? ======= Hugo, it boils down to this ... the choices available are limited: isolation, domination, or society.

Why can't the right speak a straight word? Fox has not been 'banned'. It was denied a start up license, like numerous other applicant channels are every year. Have you read the CRTC decision? Have you read the relevant legislation? Or are you venturing merely haphazard opinions here?