User Tag List

+ Reply to Thread
Page 27 of 47 FirstFirst ... 1723242526272829303137 ... LastLast
Results 261 to 270 of 463

Thread: Why is atheism so poorly represented in American politics?

  1. #261
    Points: 664,075, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 90.0%
    Achievements:
    SocialRecommendation Second ClassYour first GroupOverdrive50000 Experience PointsTagger First ClassVeteran
    Awards:
    Discussion Ender
    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    433119
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    197,306
    Points
    664,075
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    31,902
    Thanked 80,708x in 54,608 Posts
    Mentioned
    2009 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Awryly View Post
    But, tell me.Why do you think you are worth more dead than alive?
    What's that got to do with the recent rise in the price of turnips?

  2. #262
    Points: 11,631, Level: 25
    Level completed: 87%, Points required for next Level: 119
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    SocialVeteran10000 Experience Points
    Kizzume's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    1075
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Tacoma, WA
    Posts
    768
    Points
    11,631
    Level
    25
    Thanks Given
    205
    Thanked 185x in 118 Posts
    Mentioned
    5 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    What's that got to do with the recent rise in the price of turnips?
    The price of fake plastic swiss cheese blocks went up at K-Mart. No blue light special.
    Sorry--but I do not accept the idea that being intolerant of intolerance is THE SAME THING as being intolerant of anything else.

  3. #263
    Points: 664,075, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 90.0%
    Achievements:
    SocialRecommendation Second ClassYour first GroupOverdrive50000 Experience PointsTagger First ClassVeteran
    Awards:
    Discussion Ender
    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    433119
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    197,306
    Points
    664,075
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    31,902
    Thanked 80,708x in 54,608 Posts
    Mentioned
    2009 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Oh? Name a war not fought by governments. Now there's a fairy tale for ya, government. But I don't hear you ranting about government. What's up with that?
    Quote Originally Posted by Awryly View Post
    You understand what a non-sequitur is? Or don't you understand Latin?
    Yes, indeed, and your initial response to my question was exactly that, a non sequitar.

    My question drew an analogy, it was a reductio ad absurdum of your point about religion. You don't really seem to have an argument against religion, you're just being anti-religious.

  4. The Following User Says Thank You to Chris For This Useful Post:

    Mister D (11-10-2012)

  5. #264
    Points: 664,075, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 90.0%
    Achievements:
    SocialRecommendation Second ClassYour first GroupOverdrive50000 Experience PointsTagger First ClassVeteran
    Awards:
    Discussion Ender
    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    433119
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    197,306
    Points
    664,075
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    31,902
    Thanked 80,708x in 54,608 Posts
    Mentioned
    2009 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Kizzume View Post
    There is no perfect equality, and anyone who claims there is is indeed like a religious person believing in fairy tales. Fortunately virtually nobody believes that, so your point is moot.

    And progress is something that happens, to act like it doesn't is to ignore reality.
    Change happens, not progress.

  6. #265
    Points: 11,631, Level: 25
    Level completed: 87%, Points required for next Level: 119
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    SocialVeteran10000 Experience Points
    Kizzume's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    1075
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Tacoma, WA
    Posts
    768
    Points
    11,631
    Level
    25
    Thanks Given
    205
    Thanked 185x in 118 Posts
    Mentioned
    5 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Change happens, not progress.
    What, so you want to ban the word progress? Progress indeed happens. As minorities get more rights, as things change towards the benefit of the people, I would indeed call that progress.
    Sorry--but I do not accept the idea that being intolerant of intolerance is THE SAME THING as being intolerant of anything else.

  7. #266
    Points: 11,631, Level: 25
    Level completed: 87%, Points required for next Level: 119
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    SocialVeteran10000 Experience Points
    Kizzume's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    1075
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Tacoma, WA
    Posts
    768
    Points
    11,631
    Level
    25
    Thanks Given
    205
    Thanked 185x in 118 Posts
    Mentioned
    5 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    I would call freeing the slaves progress. I would call women getting voting rights progress.
    Sorry--but I do not accept the idea that being intolerant of intolerance is THE SAME THING as being intolerant of anything else.

  8. #267
    Points: 664,075, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 90.0%
    Achievements:
    SocialRecommendation Second ClassYour first GroupOverdrive50000 Experience PointsTagger First ClassVeteran
    Awards:
    Discussion Ender
    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    433119
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    197,306
    Points
    664,075
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    31,902
    Thanked 80,708x in 54,608 Posts
    Mentioned
    2009 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Oh? Name a war not fought by governments. Now there's a fairy tale for ya, government. But I don't hear you ranting about government. What's up with that?
    Quote Originally Posted by Kizzume View Post
    What, so you want to ban the word progress? Progress indeed happens. As minorities get more rights, as things change towards the benefit of the people, I would indeed call that progress.
    Not sure I see progress. When you say people get more rights, where do they get them? What do they do with them? Are they more responsible with them? They are responsibilities after all.

  9. #268
    Points: 73,823, Level: 66
    Level completed: 30%, Points required for next Level: 1,627
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    SocialYour first GroupCreated Album picturesTagger First Class50000 Experience PointsVeteran
    KC's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    20936
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Wisconsin, USA
    Posts
    8,879
    Points
    73,823
    Level
    66
    Thanks Given
    4,291
    Thanked 4,042x in 2,810 Posts
    Mentioned
    276 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Progress, in the political sense of the word, is any change that occurs towards a person's desired end. If your desired end is equality, you might see someone gaining equal rights as a progress. If your desired end is to improve society by stopping something from occurring that you see as unjust, you might see laws being passed toward that end as progress. So progress does occur, it's just very subjective and varies based on the person.

  10. #269
    Points: 664,075, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 90.0%
    Achievements:
    SocialRecommendation Second ClassYour first GroupOverdrive50000 Experience PointsTagger First ClassVeteran
    Awards:
    Discussion Ender
    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    433119
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    197,306
    Points
    664,075
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    31,902
    Thanked 80,708x in 54,608 Posts
    Mentioned
    2009 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by kathaariancode View Post
    Progress, in the political sense of the word, is any change that occurs towards a person's desired end. If your desired end is equality, you might see someone gaining equal rights as a progress. If your desired end is to improve society by stopping something from occurring that you see as unjust, you might see laws being passed toward that end as progress. So progress does occur, it's just very subjective and varies based on the person.
    I think that's true in an economic sense just not a political sense. IOW, each of us as individuals set ourselves desired ends and take steps to achieve them (it is my desired end to post something). It is subjective. But politically that becomes something abstract and ill-defined, how exactly do a few central planners know each individual desires and plan for them when the knowledge is distributed and dynamic and complex?

    Here is how Albert Jay Nock puts it in Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, speaking of Henry George, who influenced him and whom he respected:
    I did not follow George's campaign attentively, and was neither astonished nor disappointed when it came to nothing. George's philosophy was the philosophy of human freedom. Like Mr. Jefferson, Condorcet, Rousseau, and the believers in progressive evolution, he believed that all mankind are indefinitely improvable, and that the freer they are, the more they will improve. He saw also that they can never become politically or socially free until they have become economically free, but if they gained economic freedom, the other freedoms would follow automatically; and he offered his fiscal method as the most natural, simple, and effective means of securing them in economic freedom. All this appeared to me sound enough, but the attempt to realise it through political action seemed the acme of absurdity. The only result one could expect was that the philosophy would be utterly lost sight of, and the method utterly discredited; and precisely this was the result.

    Socialism and one or two other variants of collectivist Statism were making considerable political progress at the time. When I met some of their proponents, as I did now and then, I would put the one question to them that I always put to George's campaigners. Suppose by some miracle you have your system all installed, complete and perfect, it will still have to be administered,—very well, what kind of people can you get to administer it except the kind of people you've got? I never had an answer to that question. In a society of just men made perfect, George's system would be administered admirably and would work like clockwork. So would Socialism. So would any other form of collectivism. In such a society "the dictatorship of the proletariat" would be a splendid success for everybody all round. The trouble is, we have no such society,—far from it. Although I was,—and am,—a firm believer in George's philosophy and fiscal method, I decided that if progressive evolution was to make them practicable in fifty thousand years, it would have to step a great deal livelier than there was any sign of its doing.
    I guess I could have stopped at the first paragraph, but that's where the first paragraph leads.
    Last edited by Chris; 11-10-2012 at 03:54 AM.

  11. #270
    Original Ranter
    Points: 856,676, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 99.9%
    Achievements:
    SocialCreated Album picturesOverdrive50000 Experience PointsVeteran
    Awards:
    Posting Award
    Peter1469's Avatar Advisor
    Karma
    496108
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    NOVA
    Posts
    241,090
    Points
    856,676
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    152,933
    Thanked 147,118x in 94,140 Posts
    Mentioned
    2547 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Awryly View Post
    Many here think it's a load of crock.
    Hobbits don't believe in a higher power?

+ Reply to Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts