Toronto named best place to live.

[OftenWrong]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Four months ago ?  Ok.

I guess you weren't going to church that morning.

[Michael Hardner]

2 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

I guess you weren't going to church that morning.

At 1 AM ? My church schedules services during daylight... I'm a Christian not a Vampire.

(btw Watch 'Midnight Mass' great scary horror series...)

[impartialobserver]

In the world of internet forum posters.. there are few constants but there is one.. Conservatives view anyplace with a population of greater than 100,000 as $hitholes. Supposedly every city/town above 100,000 has no normal or nice parts. Nope.. every house is decrepit, every street is filled with criminals, littered with drug needles and feces, and the crime rate somehow is on the rise perpetually. No one is safe. Yet, have been in every city west of Denver, Colorado except Albuquerque, NM and yet... with the exception of a few neighborhoods they are remarkably boring. Was just in LA and SD this past week and there was nothing near the level of what certain Conservatives would have you believe. 

[RedDog]

Honest to Christ.

[TreeBeard]

On 10/6/2023 at 5:24 AM, OftenWrong said:

Early morning robbery in Parkdale sends man to hospital with stab wounds

There was a stabbing in Parkdale just recently.

I remember, I have a memory.

Homicide rate in Toronto has been virtually the same for 40 years, with some minor variation.  
 

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510007101&pickMembers[0]=2.2&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1981&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=19810101%2C20220101

Edited October 24, 2023 by TreeBeard

[OftenWrong]

2 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Homicide rate in Toronto has been virtually the same for 40 years, with some minor variation.  
 

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510007101&pickMembers[0]=2.2&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1981&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=19810101%2C20220101

Now do violent crime.

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

Now do violent crime.

Follow the red line.  See how it goes down?

 

[OftenWrong]

6 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Follow the red line.  See how it goes down?

 

Does it go past 2018?

[CdnFox]

15 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Homicide rate in Toronto has been virtually the same for 40 years, with some minor variation.  
 

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510007101&pickMembers[0]=2.2&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1981&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=19810101%2C20220101

Your own figures show you're completely wrong.

There is almost a 100 percent variance in range, and even when you look at 5 year averages there's quite a difference.

If you think a full percent point is 'Nothing" when it comes to the murder rate you're patently insane.

[Nationalist]

On 10/10/2023 at 1:26 PM, impartialobserver said:

In the world of internet forum posters.. there are few constants but there is one.. Conservatives view anyplace with a population of greater than 100,000 as $hitholes. Supposedly every city/town above 100,000 has no normal or nice parts. Nope.. every house is decrepit, every street is filled with criminals, littered with drug needles and feces, and the crime rate somehow is on the rise perpetually. No one is safe. Yet, have been in every city west of Denver, Colorado except Albuquerque, NM and yet... with the exception of a few neighborhoods they are remarkably boring. Was just in LA and SD this past week and there was nothing near the level of what certain Conservatives would have you believe. 

Now there's a statement that's just pure bullshit.

Toronto is a shithole.!

We have twit who is not above cheating welfare, as mayor. She's trying to raise property taxes by more than 10%. Why?

Because Libbie doctrine filled Toronto with refugees and The Rona gave them license to shut down the city...except for big box stores...of course...

Fools and their money.

Edited January 15 by Nationalist

[Michael Hardner]

On 10/24/2023 at 1:20 AM, TreeBeard said:

Follow the red line.  See how it goes down?

 

Find some graphs that track to pre-1960s for even more steepness.  Could it be that the advent of birth control reduced drastically the number of unwanted babies and thus provided a significant social improvement in the upbringing of young people across the board ?

No, no... of course not.... 🤔  Or ?

[TreeBeard]

53 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Find some graphs that track to pre-1960s for even more steepness.  Could it be that the advent of birth control reduced drastically the number of unwanted babies and thus provided a significant social improvement in the upbringing of young people across the board ?

No, no... of course not.... 🤔  Or ?

Birth control?  Didn't organized religion oppose birth control?   I thought you agreed with someone in another thread that the decline of religion was causing moral decay in the West. 
 

Yet, without the rise of secular values, we wouldn’t have birth control as an option. You seem to have a very utopian view of what religion actually does in society.  

[CdnFox]

34 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Didn't organized religion oppose birth control?  

No.  out fo all the religions the catholics did but that was it. The vast vast majority were fine with it.

[Michael Hardner]

47 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

1. Birth control?  Didn't organized religion oppose birth control?  
2. I thought you agreed with someone in another thread that the decline of religion was causing moral decay in the West. 
3. Yet, without the rise of secular values, we wouldn’t have birth control as an option.
4. You seem to have a very utopian view of what religion actually does in society.  

1. Yes and they still do.
2. I think it's likely a major effect, although I'm not sure if you could isolate it as "the" or even "a" cause.
3. Of course we wouldn't.
4. And you seem to want to divide social change into columns marked "good" and "bad".  Social change on a wide scale is difficult to apply calculus to.  Certainly there is some "good" to religion and some "good" to secularism, wouldn't you agree ?

[CdnFox]

14 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Yes and they still do.
 

No, they don't. Show any evidence of that.

 

[Michael Hardner]

7 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

No, they don't. Show any evidence of that.

 

You're asking me for evidence that organized religion is against birth control ?  I think that's what you said.

Well, ok... 

Quote

The three main monotheistic religions, Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam, all limit the right of women to decide about their pregnancies. But within each there are schisms and different interpretations and levels of acceptance.

https://medicamentalia.org/contraceptives/religion/

[CdnFox]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

You're asking me for evidence that organized religion is against birth control ?  I think that's what you said.

Well, ok... 

 

They're talking about abortion in that quote.  Abortion is not 'birth control'.

And for the most part your article only mentions the catholic church as being formally against birth control

So lets try something a little more side by side

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_birth_control

The vast majority of religions do allow contraception, and virtually all do in one form or another although it may be limited.

The majority don't like sex outside of marriage, but that's a sex issue not a contraception issue. Most want their people to be 'fruitful and multiply' but still allow for contraception as well.

Abortion is a completely different issue and i don't think i need to explain that too much.

So no - most of the major religions are NOT against birth control. They want sex in general to be confined to specific circumstances and they want their people to have kids at some point but most don't forbid it or 'organize against it'.

[Michael Hardner]

2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

1. They're talking about abortion in that quote.  Abortion is not 'birth control'.

And for the most part your article only mentions the catholic church as being formally against birth control

So lets try something a little more side by side

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_birth_control

The vast majority of religions do allow contraception, and virtually all do in one form or another although it may be limited.

The majority don't like sex outside of marriage, but that's a sex issue not a contraception issue. Most want their people to be 'fruitful and multiply' but still allow for contraception as well.

Abortion is a completely different issue and i don't think i need to explain that too much.

2. So no - most of the major religions are NOT against birth control. They want sex in general to be confined to specific circumstances and they want their people to have kids at some point but most don't forbid it or 'organize against it'.

1. Ok.  I can accept that the statement I agreed to "organized religion opposes birth control" ws indeed too broad.  You are right.
2. I stand corrected.

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

I think it's likely a major effect, although I'm not sure if you could isolate it as "the" or even "a" cause.

What’s a moral action that is only available to a religious person that an atheist can’t do?

 

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

And you seem to want to divide social change into columns marked "good" and "bad".  Social change on a wide scale is difficult to apply calculus to.  Certainly there is some "good" to religion and some "good" to secularism, wouldn't you agree ?

Of course there are good and bad social change!  Why do you think we can’t judge the changes?

There’s nothing good in religion that can’t be done by secular people.  

[Michael Hardner]

9 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

1. What’s a moral action that is only available to a religious person that an atheist can’t do?

2. Of course there are good and bad social change!  Why do you think we can’t judge the changes?

3. There’s nothing good in religion that can’t be done by secular people.  

1. You're narrowing the question.  The question is about the effect of religious culture on the culture as a whole.  If you broaden it to an organizing force then maybe you'll be satisfied ?   Early civilizations had laws tied to satisfying devine gods etc.  Was it effective ?  I would say it had a positive effect at some level.  To say if we'd be better off with/without it would be impossible.

2. You can make a personal judgment but it's pretty hard to quantify objectively the impacts of theism, jazz, technolgy etc.

3. Right but as a social force... you must at least admit the impact is huge and pervasive...

[TreeBeard]

1 minute ago, Michael Hardner said:

I would say it had a positive effect at some level.  To say if we'd be better off with/without it would be impossible.

Except you can’t actually point out the positive effect.  Of course some laws (using your example) based on religion are positive.  Some have severely set society back.  But the good ones that were done for religious reasons could also have been done for secular reasons.  And a lot of the bad ones would have had no justification from a secular standpoint. 
 

3 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

You can make a personal judgment but it's pretty hard to quantify objectively the impacts of theism, jazz, technolgy etc

I can objectively judge the effect of a specific religious doctrine.   Jazz doesn’t tell gay people that they can’t love each other.  Jazz didn’t create laws that society needed to follow on fear of torture and death. 
 

Equating religion and jazz is a massive stretch. 

[Michael Hardner]

29 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

1. Except you can’t actually point out the positive effect.  
2. Of course some laws (using your example) based on religion are positive.  Some have severely set society back.
3. But the good ones that were done for religious reasons could also have been done for secular reasons.  And a lot of the bad ones would have had no justification from a secular standpoint. 
4. I can objectively judge ....
5. ... Jazz doesn’t tell gay people that they can’t love each other.  Jazz didn’t create laws that society needed to follow on fear of torture and death. 
6. Equating religion and jazz is a massive stretch. 

1.  Please understand I'm not defending religion any more than I would "defend" jazz or technology.  I basically refuse to enter the arena of assessing such a huge and pervasive force.

Positive effects ?  Well, they introduced and enforced laws as codified rules for co-existence.  They provided solace for people who bought into the metaphysical mythology for two... Those two effects alone are not assessable in terms of scale over the last 5000 years.

2. Ok, with that assertion we're at the point of saying "religion isn't all bad"... anything beyond that is opinion and both unprovable and unfalsifiable imo."

3. Yes they could have been.  If I were trying to prove the world is not better with religion I would cite that.

4. Isn't any judgement made by you SUBJECTIVE, though, by definition ?

5. I wouldn't argue against Jazz, far from it... but you could come up with arguments pro/con Jazz... and the effect is a qualitative discussion/assessment.

6. Only in that they are mass cultural movements with effects...

[TreeBeard]

12 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Isn't any judgement made by you SUBJECTIVE, though, by definition ?

No.  If I judge an action based on how it affects the wellbeing of someone, there are objective good and bad outcomes of that action.  That’s not subjective at all. 

[Michael Hardner]

3 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

No.  If I judge an action based on how it affects the wellbeing of someone, there are objective good and bad outcomes of that action.  That’s not subjective at all. 

If you base your judgement solely on objective measures.  Otherwise, it's not a judgement really.  Do you "judge" how much a hen weighs after you put it on a scale and look at the result ?

As ever, we are basically rational people so we're drifting in to questions of etymology/philosophy etc.  

Again, I don't defend religion and I have explicitly agreed with most of your statements here on religion.

[TreeBeard]

2 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Do you "judge" how much a hen weighs after you put it on a scale and look at the result ?

 If we’re talking about judging moral actions, why does the weight of chickens need to be brought up?