This cowardly act only serves to make them martyrs, and reinforce the siege mentality of the religious right.

Yeah, well, when you start stoking the crazies by labeling your ideological opponents as “haters”, these things are bound to happen, aren’t they?

Were I you, I’d get down on my knees and thank God that security guard prevented a blood bath that could be blamed — in very good part — on you all.

BTW, nice outreach to not even acknowledge the victim, LibTards

So will you accuse the shooter of a hate crime?

SPLC counts as a hate group by its own criteria. GLAAD is a hate group yet not listed on the site as such. Brady campaign counts as one as well.

Think about that for a second.

SPLC is an Ideological front group that is not actually honestly concerned with hate groups. Its pure agenda and politics.

SPLC is a Hate group itself.

I think we’ll leave the “getting down on the knees” part to you, Paul. Since you and your TeaTard friends seem to just love using religion as an excuse for all sorts of violence, this ought to be right up your street.

Was the shooter a donor to the SPLC or a reader of your website? Will the SPLC apologize for promoting hatred against the FRC?

jumping to conclusions really is by far the most popular exercise in the United States today.

“So will you accuse the shooter of a hate crime?”

Well, I guess if it was motivated by hate then yes it is a hate crime.
What’s your point?

@PaulNYCUS

Gay people are subjected to violence near weekly, perpetrated by people who probably have at least as good connection to the FRC as this guy does the SPLC. This whole thing is very unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean you can’t call a hate group a hate group. The FRC is dedicated demonizing and dehumanizing a whole group of Americans. They want them all imprisoned, oppose any basic rights, constantly enable and then belittle mistreatment and even violence against them (even lobbied for it abroad), etc. If the FRC is not a hate group, I question how the category could exist.

PS: If this was a guard connected to a gay-friendly group that was shot … do you honestly think the FRC would denounce it? They’d probably call it an inside job or ignore it like always. And if the guard was gay do you think they’d wish him or any family (which they claim gay people are incapable of having) well? Please.

PPS: A gay business local to where I live was shot at just this month. If it was a anti-gay group that was shot I’m sure it would be all over national news like this incident is, but no. It was ‘just’ gays getting shot at. Don’t think much more fuss was made than a comment in the local newspaper.

It is obvious that our politics have gotten too extreme in this nation. And it’s also obvious that it’s hard to know who to believe. Which side is right? If we are to be fair, most any group sowing division is probably complicit in these shootings. That includes the FRC and the SPLC. They are just opposite sides of the same political coin and both sides make targets of people on the other.

I hate it when people hate hate groups.

“There are unconfirmed reports that the shooting was ideologically motivated.”

Oooh – can you help me out here?

My gut says “right-wing extremist.”

This is a mess. Blame is going in so many directions. FRC has a history of anti-Gay propoganda, inaccurate claims about homosexuals, and so forth. However, IF any of that was the shooter’s motive, it does not excuse his actions. Nothing does. Placing blame on anyone but him only creates more division. It is a vicious cycle, and where does it end??

Yes Paul, I’m sure “a handgun and several extra rounds of ammunition” could have caused quite a bloodbath. Or were you thinking there would be lots of paper cuts from the Chick-fil-A promotional materials? Go ahead with your crocodile tears for the “victim” who did an excellent job disarming the suspect without fatal injury to himself or anyone else. Maybe you can use some of the tears you didn’t shed when a nazi attacked Sikhs in Wisconsin.

Del, I disagree with you. The FRC has, as a charter, the OK’ing of marginalizing and demonizing of certain groups of people. Places like the SPLC that spring up in order to counteract hatred, that advocate a determined resistance to hate, are not therefore also “haters”.

@Del…I’m sorry…who shot who? and what other shootings are you talking about?

D.C. Code Ann. § 22-4001 states:

“(1) ‘Bias-related crime’ means a designated act that demonstrates an accused’s prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, family responsibility, physical handicap, matriculation, or political affiliation of a victim of the subject designated act.

“(2) ‘Designated act’ means a criminal act, including arson, assault, burglary, injury to property, kidnapping, manslaughter, murder, rape, robbery, theft, or unlawful entry, and attempting, aiding, abetting, advising, inciting, conniving, or conspiring to commit arson, assault, burglary, injury to property, kidnapping, manslaughter, murder, rape, robbery, theft, or unlawful entry.”

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I am not sure if the Code defines “religion” or “political affiliation.” If the shooter did target the FRC because they were conservative Christians, it may be a hate crime.

If people are going to throw the word “hate crime” around, we should remember that there are specific legal definitions of that phrase. It’s not a rhetorical tool you can just throw around; it means something.

It may possible be a civil right violation. I can’t confirm this in my two minutes of lazy Google searching, but I remember a kid who was murdered, allegedly because he flew the Confederate battle flag from his truck. I believe his killer was charged with violating one of the Civil Rights Acts, because he shot him for expressing a political opinion. The FRC shooter may similarly be charged, even though he (as far as I know) is a private citizen.

Brad,

Speaking of definitions, the definition of “hate group” is not “an organization you personally disagree with.”

Many of the comment above are astonishing in their lack of comprehension and reasoning.

The SPLC is openly committed to pacifism, non-violence, and gun control. These are areas in which I do not fully agree with the SPLC, but they are clear and consistent.

It is not possible to accuse the SPLC of being responsible for any violent act because it is not possible for anyone to be motivated to violence by examples of clear non-violent advocacy.

That is can even be an issue is humiliating to me as an American.

We who support the SPLC do not wish violence or misfortune of the FRC. We just wish they’d stop hating others.

I hope the gentleman who was shot recovers. I hope the shooter goes to jail for a long time. And I hope the FRC stops dogging out homosexuals.

I think the SPLC knew they would get heat by even posting this story and that speaks volumes for their type of reporting.

Right wingers just can’t wait until “they’re” attacked so they can “prove” that they’re victims of hate too.

You could say the chickens have come home to roost. But I think the scorecard tells it’s own tale.

Well, as usual, the Hammerheads are out with their DARVO, and Rott Mimney has shed more tears over this one flesh wound than he did over the two massacres combined.

No, SPLC is not a hate group, but specious, smirky lies of that kind are enough to make me, personally, have some pretty bloody-minded fantasies (and I assure you, that is all they will ever be).

My first reaction was horror and heartfelt sympathies with the victim(s) of violence without regard for their political views. This position is faith-based, as well as informed by secular humanistic principles of no harm.

I remain in solidarity with the FRC in so far as it was attacked violently on the basis of their conscientious beliefs and Constitutionally protected expression. Though I consider those beliefs to be abhorant in many regards, it is never acceptable to resort to violence over a conflict of opinions. My shock and outrage would be no greater were this act committed upon a group with which I have greater political sympathy.

But I am also distressed at opportunistic commentators who attempt to assign blame to the SPLC, which is a non-partisan organization with a long tradition of condemning violence and hate in its various forms.

While I do not necessarily believe these comments are from supporters or members of the FRC, the introduction of such statements into the public sphere cheapens the very serious nature of this attack, and serves only to futher polarize discussion around an issue of mutal interest, which is the reduction of ideologically motivated violence in America.

It is understandable that in an moment such as this, some individuals who identify with the FRC would lash out against any and all groups or individuals they perceive as opposing their views. It is my hope that this episode will focus attention on the increasingly volatile political discussion in this country and bring us all closer together around the need to reject violence, regardless of our religious or political beliefs.

“Brad,

Speaking of definitions, the definition of “hate group” is not “an organization you personally disagree with.”

THAT IS MY POINT IAN. The SPLC is the one labeling people as HATE groups under this very standard.

The SPLC is an untrustworthy organization pursing a partisan political agenda with many of those it labels. Not justice.

Last I checked they were not a federal agency, yet people run with what they say as if it was fact and somehow supported by the state.

They are a hate mongering group as much as those they label hate groups.

Why does the SPLC not list itself as a “hate group”? It meets its definition.

@Ian it is notable in this context that the FRC has a number of statements on their website expressing a view that hate crime legislation (they call this “thought crime” legislation) is a needless and dangerous instrument of the justice system. We’ll see if today’s events have any influence on their view. My hope is that we never again see such acts of violence, and that one day there will be no need for hate crime legislation at all.

That was fast.

^[1]

Until we know more about this person’s motivations, let’s just say that anyone discharging a weapon in a populated area, much less an office building, is a threat to us all. I’m glad he was disarmed and that no one was killed, either by this man’s intentional act or because some innocent by-stander was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Gun violence and attempted gun violence imperils us all and we need to get a handle on it. In my opinion, “getting a handle on it” includes reducing the number of guns and ammo out there and readily available to anyone with a grudge or jelly-fingers (those who misfire their weapons out of ineptitude or accident, for those who need “jelly-fingers” defined).

I don’t care for FRC’s positions or its pronouncements, but any attempted shooting is a bad thing, and it wounds all of our attempts at a civil public discourse.

And no, SPLC is not a hate group.

We don’t know yet what the motive was. For all we know, it could have been a disgruntled ex-employee who came back to take revenge. For those of you trying to lay the blame at the feet of SPLC, I’d remind you that SPLC condemns violence, and I’d also point out that there is nothing underhanded or nasty about calling out groups who spread lies and hate. If this had happened at a KKK headquarters, would you be trying to blame SPLC for calling *them* a hate group??

Has anybody considered the likelihood of such actually being some class of an “inside job” which the so-called “Family Research Council” can spin for prolefeed purposes as a “false flag” attack to discredit President Obama’s reelection campaign and his supporters?

You drew the crosshairs on the FRC and some of the blame is yours.

When anyone calls another a “hater”, that opens the door for violence as we have seen today. By calling another a “hater”, even though the beliefs of the “hater” may indeed be what many may consider heinous, can lead to hatred of the “hater”. Even though I agree with many if not most of the choices on your list as groups whose ideology I abhor, I do believe violence is certain from the implied vitriol spewed from this site. Today’s shooting obviously was because of a difference in ideology concerning LGTB issues. I wonder if your site someday may include churches. To be consistent, many churches and leaders including the Pope and the Dali Lama should already be on your site just on this one issue. Think about it.

I promise to give $10,000 to the first person who can logically explain to me how the FRC is a hate group.

“We condemn all acts of violence and are following the story closely.” per SPLC

No, SPLC, has not been seen condemning ALL acts of violence. Nor has the SPLC been seen showing keen interests in the hate activities of the New Black Panthers. Nor the proposed violence of haters towards Sarah Palin, Michele Malkin, Anne Coulter, etc..

How utterly creepy. SPLC spends a bunch of effort tarring groups who dare disagree with their party lines as “hate groups”.

Even if you don’t want to admit culpability, you could at least express sympathy for those who were attacked. Or at least praise the security guard that prevented the attack from spreading.

Show some humanity, SPLC.

BASIC humanity.

God bless the SPLC!

The FRCs actions speak for themselves, hateful and evil.

Today only highlights the effect that years of psychological abuse has a human mind.

This is what happens when hate groups like the SPLC demonize their legitimate political opposition. Shameful. They have far more responsibility for this anti-Christian hate crime than Sarah Palin ever did for the actions of the guy who stalked Rep. Giffords for years and finally shot her.

Jake said:
“The FRC is dedicated demonizing and dehumanizing a whole group of Americans. They want them all imprisoned, oppose any basic rights, constantly enable and then belittle mistreatment and even violence against them (even lobbied for it abroad), etc.”

This repeated lie is getting old. The FRC is doing none of the above and I challenge you to provide any shred of evidence that they are.

Michele said:
“The FRC has, as a charter, the OK’ing of marginalizing and demonizing of certain groups of people. Places like the SPLC that spring up in order to counteract hatred, that advocate a determined resistance to hate, are not therefore also “haters”.”

Please post a link to said charter. Otherwise stop repeating the same lies as the SPLC does. Calling a group a hate group because they don’t agree with your views is asinine.

I can’t imagine anybody thinking this would help the cause of gay acceptance. The guard is a hero. Are you ready to admit that gun bans and stickers are completely useless?

The SPLC is the real hate group because they are anti-Christian.

SPLC defined hate groups are almost all ones they catagorize as white-dominated . They don’t call the likes of NAACP, CAIR or La Raza “hate groups” even though they speak unkindly about white folks. And what about Rev Jeremiah Wright? He had very angry anti-white words.
So this business of loosely labeling people or groups as hateful is wrong–especially when there’s little hard evidence given to prove it.

LOL. let’s see what extensive report the SPLC will have on this violent hate crime against this christian group.

Prayers for the victim’s recovery. Violence is never the answer.

I really think it is despicable to label groups like FRC as a hate group. They have never even come close to advocating violence. They simply advocate for policies that are supported by the Bible and, I might add, by a large number of your fellow Americans. To lump them in with White Supremecists is crazy and has led to this awful crime. Shame.

HAH, What a bunch of hypocrites. If the shoe was put on the LEFTY Shooter’s “Right” foot, a huge story, massive exaggerations and grandiose condemnations of the ideological values coming from such a heinous act would be all over the place.. You Southern Morally Bankrupt Lawless Far Left of Center Losers are paid beyond your worth to keep hateful racism alive and actively well while you propagate hate towards the Right. You aid and abet Society’s Ills of Today. GUILTY, Gutless, and riddled with BAD KARMA. And Karma always comes around — the longer it takes, the harder she hits.. Good Luck Racist Hypocrites. Your Life’s work is of insignificant greed and a huge disservice to the Greater Good.

“To be consistent, many churches and leaders including the Pope and the Dalai Lama should already be on your site just on this one issue.”

I am a practicing buddhist and our religion has no problem with homosexuality. The Dalai Lama gave an interview with Out magazine where he explained that if both partners are ok with the activity, then he saw nothing wrong with it.

There is a Wikipedia article about the topic, but it fails to mention that generally only monks are expected to follow precepts against sexual activity, and in any case such behavior is not “condemned” but viewed within a context you apparently don’t understand. As long as sexual behavior is between consenting adults and in a loving context I doubt there are many buddhists who would give a hoot what people do. Unlike Christians, we don’t adhere to ANY form of dogma.

I hope this helps clarify some misperceptions you might have about buddhism.

You have proven that the most influential hate group in the country is the SPLC.

And now for our sequel: “The Return of the Hammerheads”. I see my weekend should be busy, but not too interesting. They all say the same old thing.

Number 1: This man is not dead.

Number 2: The SPLC is not a hate group. They are not afraid of hate groups, i.e., KKK; Skinheads; Anti-Immigrants who HATE immigrants; Patriot Groups who HATE the Government; Sovereign Citizens who HATE the Government and OPENLY FIRE on law enforcement officials; Black Hate Groups such as the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panter Party who put bounties of white men; Christian Identity who hate people who are not White Christians (using their definition); and the list goes on.

They let people like me know where I can and where I don’t need to take my children.

They let people like me know the places I need to avoid in order to not get into a confrontation when I’m out with my wife.

They let people like me know what these groups call themselves and where they are.

And for anyone to label that hate is stupid. It is knowledge, and awareness, that we still live in a society where people do not like other people for reasons they can’t even justifiable explain with rational arguments and fact based inuendo.

You people want to “raise the flag” because the homophobic FRC was fired upon?

I got news for you. People of different colors, creeds, nationalities, religions, and cultures have been getting fired upon in this counry since Nathan Bedford Forest decided to poke holes in his wife’s good linens.

YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH IT. You can only poke the bear so long before they start poking back.

I’ve tell telling people on this thread for months. It’s just a matter of time before people get tired of being trampled on. You can’t bully people with your religious moral ideas for ever. They are not you. Deal with it.

I hate to say this, because it’s sad, and it makes me sad. But the religious right wing extremists aren’t the only people in this god forsaken country with guns.

You need to be careful and start treating people better, or you just may end up being the bully with the busted nose.

Not everybody on the left is non-confrontational.

“They don’t call the likes of NAACP, CAIR or La Raza “hate groups” even though they speak unkindly about white folks.”

Can you provide examples? The NAACP was founded by white folks and La Raza supports Latino culture, which is technically speaking white per the categories used by the United States for race and ethnicity.

It’s not clear what happened yet, but if this shooting was committed by a gay person, or an adovocate for gay people, it is comparable to a situation where an African American, after enduring years of racist lies and abuse and their consequences, breaks under the pressure and attacks an office of the KKK or a similar group. Regrettable and wrong, but not hard to understand.

Calling the SPLC a hate group is beyond risible. It’s one of those come-backs kindergardeners use when they can’t think of anything better to say in response to an playground insult. “What? You’re calling ME a racist? Well, YOU’RE a racist! So there!” It’s a cute strategy when used by children, but when adults use it, it’s embarrassing.

If a similar shooting had occurred at the office of an anti-racist organization, or at an organization promoting LGBT rights, extremists on the right would (after scuttling like roaches for cover at the first onset of the news) work together to confabulate a nonsensical story like the shooting was in fact committed by someone on the left to make it look like it was committed by someone on the right. It’s telling that the violence and the deranged conspiracy mongering are almost always perpetrated by right-wingers and almost never by left-wingers.

There is no excuse for this or any other shootings. To those who would lay blame for this particular heinous act on the SPLC, would you also lay blame for the many assaults and murders of LBGT citizens on the FRC? Your faulty logic doesn’t seem to apply both ways which demonstrates a massive hypicrisy in your arguments.
That said, this attack is just as unexcusable and unacceptable as any other.

*sigh* trying to urge people to wait before jumping to conclusions is apparently a waste of time.

But since some of the hammerheads brought it up, the SPLC never put crosshairs over anyone nor has ever used violent rhetoric against anyone.

Sarah Palin did in fact put a crosshair over Gabrielle Giffords. Rush Limbaugh also specifically attacked the Batman movie as well. You can pretend those things didn’t happen, but then you look silly because the evidence has been preserved.

How interesting. When hundreds of shooters with obvious ties to right wing ideology are arrested and reported, folks like these commentators are nowhere to be found(unless they’re whining about the SPLC demonizing the poor, innocent right). Now we have a shooting where we don’t even know the suspect’s name, and his motive hasn’t even been confirmed, yet suddenly the conservative whackjobs burst out of the woodwork with righteous indignation.

“You aid and abet Society’s Ills of Today. GUILTY, Gutless, and riddled with BAD KARMA. And Karma always comes around — the longer it takes, the harder she hits.. Good Luck Racist Hypocrites. Your Life’s work is of insignificant greed and a huge disservice to the Greater Good.”

‘When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”
–Carl Jung

The FRC is a great organization that is on the fore-front of helping the homosexual population the most in this country. There are people that want to deny homosexuals the freedom to change if they desire; there are people that want to redefine marriage harming all society (including homosexuals). And the SPLC considers what the FRC does as hate? With what evidence and with what twisted standard?

Occupy is not considered a “hate group” by SPLC?!?

Ruslan, it is called DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender, and it acquired that acronym because abusers and oppressors (and their hybristophile jackals) use it so predictably.

beancrisp — since I know that you are a sincere and honest person, who would not back out on a bet, I will tell you why SPLC has labeled FRC a hate group. FRC is labled a hate group because they willingly and willfully spread false information about gay people regarding their practices, health, and the like to convince Christians and the general public of their danger to society and overall depravity.

FRC and other groups that willfully spread misinformation about gay people that has been shown, through scientific study (by real scientists) to be untrue are listed as “hate groups” because their barrage of propaganda is intentionally aimed at demonizing LGBT persons. Although they may not themselves physically harm LGBT persons, their propaganda helps create antipathy that can lead to physical violence, discrimination, and a hostile environment.

Note that SPLC hasn’t designated FRC a hate group for their beliefs — people can believe whatever they want and voice whatever opinions they want. If FRC doesn’t accept LGBT persons because they believe, according to their interpretation of the Bible, that they are sinful, that’s their decision, and SPLC would not designate them as a hate group. FRC is designated a hate group BECAUSE they choose to willfully disseminate falsehoods about LGBT people. Do you see the difference? If not, then please research the propaganda regarding the Jews that was spread in Nazi Germany before WWII and see how the same types of falsehoods were used to demonize Jews and help pave the way for the acts of violence against them, culminating in the Holocaust.

If you care to look in this website’s “Intelligence files,” you will find information on the specifics of FRC’s intentional lying.

Please demonstrate that you are a man/woman of your word and forward a check for $10,000 to SPLC. You should make it payable to the Southern Povery Law Center. I will be splitting the money that you promised, in writing, here, to anyone who could explain how FRC earn its “hate group” designation with them (SPLC — you have my email, so you can contact me when the check arrives — I don’t want to give out my address here).

I am serious about this. You put it out there — you pay.

To SPLC staff — let me know when the check comes in from beancrisp, who, I am sure, will certainly honor his/her bet!

Anar said:

“There are people that want to deny homosexuals the freedom to change if they desire.”

So does that mean the FRC is going to offer the same kind of help to transgender individuals who want to change if they so desire?

Reynardine –

Are you keeping track of all of these folks? I think we may need to come up with a new award — The Cluey — to honor the extreme cluelessness of some of these commenters, who can’t be bothered to learn anything about SPLC, how it determines a group’s actions spill over into active “hate,” and which groups are even on the list (that they do include some groups populated by people of color).

So I think a whole host of Lead Cluey awards are going to need to be distributed.

It is sad that people who rush to judgment tend to be so resistant to, you know, reading. But then, if they were willing to do a little research, they would be less likely to rush to judgement. It’s a vicious circle of circular reasoning. (Oh, my! I just had a thought — maybe we don’t want to call this award the Lead Cluey — maybe we want to call it “The Circle Jerk.”)

I’ll leave that choice up to you and other regular commenters to weigh in on my suggestion.

“Occupy is not considered a “hate group” by SPLC?!?”

Please explain why Occupy, which isn’t even a group, should be considered a hate group.

aadila, I’m gay and Christian but greatly admire the Buddhist teachings I’m aware of. A lot of my thinking follows right along their path, and I agree a lot with the peaceful monks that are also well armed for defense. I would differ about Hispanics being a race however. Our “colorblind” government always lists Hispanic as one of their pigeonholes for people, anyway. From these comments it looks like SPLC could trim their files of Hate Groups to still include violent Nazis and such but develop a new category or two for Voodoo Bible Thumpers and people that they just don’t agree with.

Anar,

The whole “helping homosexuals change” campaign has been shown to be a complete fraud. The entire concept is based on the notion that for some reason homosexuals _should_ change. The only reason anybody might contemplate that is because people like you are out there making their lives miserable. So it is pretty clear that you are creating a problem, and not solving it.

Anal, exactly who is OWS supposed to hate? Taking a political or economic position which opposes that of another political or economic group is not “hate”. If it were so, the current Republican party could be designated a thousand times over as a “hate group”.

I bet a bucket of baked beans that you’re another persona of “Annie”.

@Marie said,
“To be consistent, many churches and leaders including the Pope and the Dali Lama should already be on your site just on this one issue. Think about it.”

I did. Neither the Pope nor the Catholic Church are listed as being anti-gay by the SPLC for two very good reasons.

First, the Church teaches that “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2358)

Second, the SPLC lists groups as anti-gay “based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.” (SPLC Intelligence Report, Winter 2010, Issue #140).

If people who continue to demonize our brothers and sisters in the LGBT community don’t like being labeled as a hate group, then maybe they should stop demonizing our LGBT brothers and sisters.

Just sayin’….

Immigrant on public assistance demands to live in million dollar home. Scroll down to see picture of the son giving the finger to photographer.

See the link here:

^[2]

Yet Liberals portray all immigrants and asylum seekers are ‘victims’.

I believe that we as white people have a right to our own countries and owe nothing to the other races.

I love liberals here, now in light of confirmation that it was ideologically motivated, are clamoring to justify this as something the FRC brought on!
BTW, I’m still waiting for you to call this a hate crime, SPLC!

To be a liberal is to be a hypocrite!

Anyone who buys 15 Chik-Fil-A sandwiches to go on an attempted mass shooting for gay rights sounds like a likely future resident of St Elizabeths.

Reynardine — As I said, many of these folks are “Lead Heads” who cannot think through any concept deeper than, “I wanna Big Mac.”

That so many of them clearly cannot understand the difference between holding and expressing an opinion–or objecting verbally or in writing to the opinions of others–from willfully spreading lies and misinformation to get people riled up over LGBT folks, Muslims, “illegal” immigrants, etc. indicates that they are either stupid, or willfully ignorant.

Folks — a group isn’t considered a “hate group” because it espouses ideas that you don’t like. If you don’t like SPLC because you believe that it is an organization of busy-body do-gooders, that’s entirely up to you. But if you think that the exercise of free speech and assembly (as in the case of Occupy Wall Street) is “hate speech” simply because you don’t like it or it makes you feel uncomfortable, maybe you want to re-think the whole living in America thing.

I must say, some of us were alarmed at how Tea Partiers showed up a political rallies with GUNS, but nobody here said they shouldn’t be allowed to attend political rallies or even to shout and carry on at Town Hall Meetings (although this makes it hard to have a productive dialogue). It was the gun thing. If, especially after the rootin’, tootin’, shootin’ that has been going on lately (you know — the shooting of theater goers, Sikhs engaging in their own religious activities), you don’t understand why the idea of guns at a political rally was worrisome to some of us, then you are indeed as dumb as a sack of hair.

Sam,

I’ve worshipped with Christians and found this to be extremely inspiring. I have friends who are gay and these friendships are also extremely inspiring.

I’m not sure the term religion really applies to buddhists since we are athiests, don’t have dogma, and don’t even have one unifying practice except for meditation which anyone can practice without being a buddhist, and you don’t have to meditate to be a buddhist.

I like the notion of calling kindness my religion, which is pretty much the essence of what Jesus preached. So my sincerest advice is to stick with Christianity if that inspires you, since buddhism promises nothing (and delivers!).

Can I ask you though, since you believe in being armed, does what you defend with weapons have any lasting permanence?

I was already literally made sick by the Sikh temple massacre, coming as it did on the heels of so many other deadly and senseless attacks. Now, here’s another one – not deadly, thank God, but just as disturbing. I’m no fan of the FRC, but this kind of thing is always just wrong, bad, indefensible.

No matter what the question may be, murder is not the answer. So could we please do something to stop the violence first, and then work on settling the detailed sociopolitical disputes after that? Hopefully, with mutual goodwill instead of the malice that seems so prevalent now.

Annie — you DO realize that this story is about a situation in the UK? The UK (that’s United Kingdom — you know, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, etc., but not the United States, because we split from them sometime around 1776, in case you hadn’t heard) has very different laws and issues surrounding immigration than we do here in the U.S.

Also, I am frequently struck by the literalness and the singularity of your posts — the way you seize on a single issue and/or interpretation to the exclusion of all else. While this is often one of the traits of Alspergers Syndrome, a form of high-functioning Austism (or perhaps not — I believe that the American Psychiatrict Association may have redefined in), it can also be a symptom of other mental problems (or physical problems that are causing them), such as depression.

I am not saying this to be mean. But you might want to look into this. Depression, which is a physical illness, can be triggered by other medical conditions. Please take care of yourself.

Annie, who is we? And what do you mean by your own countries? You’re not European. And just so you know, there are Eastern European immigrants and asylum seekers in the UK using public assistance.

Annie, calling the United States of America a “white country” is stupid.

“I believe that we as white people have a right to our own countries and owe nothing to the other races.”

You’re stupid. Plain and simple. You owe nothing to the races that you forced to plant your fields, pick your cotton, pick your fruit, raise your kids, cleaned your homes, and sexually satisfied your men when YOU could not. You owe them nothing?

And I supposed the your white people were here before the native americans? Right? It’s YOUR country? Right?

Your nutz. If this ever was your country I got news for you. IT’S NOT ANYMORE.

^[3]

It’s from last year, but as you can see, these folks aren’t Arabs or Somalis.

Well Annie, we all know your views on the ‘Brown People.’

But perhaps you’d like to make a comment germane to the issue at hand?

No, Coral Sea, they are dumb as a sack of stale Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.

A.D.M.: “We” means Annie has a white mouse in her pocket.

SPLC does an excellent job of keeping track of individuals and groups that espouse hate and commit hate crimes. Why in the world would a legitimate conservative organization take offense unless they want to defend hate and violence?

I oppose ALL violence. I oppose ALL killing. I oppose ALL hate….regardless of who or what groups engage in these despicable behaviours.

Stop it all now before more innocent people are harmed or killed.
In the name of God, stop!

*Sigh* I knew this would be the result of this shooting… the haters coming out of the woodwork to blame this on SPLC. All SPLC has done is call on FRC and other groups to straighten up and quit telling lies. Calling for honesty and integrity is *not* hate. I don’t know how many more times it has to be said.

Well, Annie’s goal was simply to derail the dialogue and grind her particular personal penknife, by bringing up an irrelevant subject (immigrants in Britain on public assistance) to a discussion on a horrific shooting in the United States. I don’t see how these issues are connected, except in the minds of people who are blinded by hatred and ideology.

A Hammerhead award for Annie, I say. Her definition that the US is a “white country” is pretty hilarious…who, precisely, Annie, is a “white person?” Does that include Jews, Irishmen, Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and New Zealanders?

Returning to the shooting in Washington…this is horrific, and frightening. I disagree with the Family Research Council, and I have, as a member of the US Navy, defended with my life, their right to say what they say. Their opinions should be debated, disputed, and decided in the forums of public opinion, by reasoned dialogue, not gunplay. My message to people who are so angry on this or any issue, is “Do not become what you behold.”

As for the wave of e-mails blaming the SPLC for this…you make it sound as if the SPLC called for armed attacks on its opponents. Read the documents of SPLC — some of which are on this page — and you will find they have no history of urging their supporters to undertake violence.

However, we have seen their opponents, in many cases, advocate violence and assassination as a means to defeat their enemies. Such incidents of that are also to be found on this web page.

There is no place for violence in political debate in this country. I am greatly concerned by the acidic and acrid tone of public debate in this nation. It reminds me of the climate before the American Civil War. Very disturbing.

Hatewatch Staff

In-spite of your condemnation, The Family Research Council is blaming your organization for this shooting. Talk about Chutzpah! If these people didn’t endorse bigotry, we wouldn’t call them a hate group and since when has the SPLC called for violence against those it disagrees with or breaking the law?

Family Research Council: SPLC Created Environment That Led To Shooting
^[4]

I am opposed to ALL killing. I am opposed to ALL violence. I am opposed to ALL hate….regardless of who or what group engages in these horrible behaviours.

In the name of God, PLEASE end the violence and killing and hatred!

The head of the FRC offered to debate you. But of course you did not respond because you have no rational basis for your beliefs. You call yourselves INclusive but you are the most EXclusive kind in our society. You should be labeling Yourselves as the hate filled organization, You deal in violence because violence is your only recourse. Your ideas are vacuous. You are better off not debating. In the market place of ideas you would be Embarrassed. Stick to your violence and name calling. It suits you. How do you sleep at night?

Thinkaminute, I think a minute is all the longer you are able to think.

Why does the SPLC attack the FRC for its family friendly policies? Doesn’t an organization which poses as an anti-poverty organization understand that one of the leading causes of childhood poverty and juvenile delinquency is a fatherless home? The FRC recognizes that a low conflict home, headed by a married mother and father (regardless of the sexual identities of either), offers kids the best odds chances of success in life. Instead of condemning FRC, the SPLC should be teaming up with them. I know…when pigs fly. But of the two organizations, the family friendly values of FRC are best calculated to actually keep parents and kids out of poverty. A healthy family is more likely to be a provident family, less in need of government assistance and intervention.

Wasn’t Daughter of Eve the name of some kiind of douche powder?

Daughter of Eve is merely regurgitating stuff going around the religious right ahead of some report on marriage and poverty by the Heritage Foundation later this month. It will be typical Dr. Laura-style finger wagging at single parents and divorce with a dose of moral superiority, I am sure.

D of E, the SPLC doesn’t “attack the FRC for its family-friendly policies.” It exposes the FRC’s propagation of known falsehoods about LGBT people, vilifying claims that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities and that contribute to a climate of hate against gay people in our society. This is the truth of the matter. But the truth is not what you want to hear, is it? What you want to hear is anything that will support your prejudices, so you ignore everything else, including the facts before your eyes. There’s a clinical word for this.

“The poor aspire to healthy marriage but lack the norms, understanding, and skills to achieve it.”
–Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation (author of upcoming report on marriage and poverty)

Sounds like pissing on the poor to me. How very Republican…

Sadly, most liberals lack the ability to understand the words “disagree” and “hate” are not synonymous. Perhaps, when the majority of Democrats obtain a GED, this will change. Until then……

Daughter of Eve –

I think you might want to delve a little deeper into FRC’s positions. Their idea of “family” is pretty narrow–and I’m not talking simply about being Christian. I’m talking about the way they willfully spread misinformation about LGBT people in terms of their behavior, health, and their impact on society.

I am not LGB or T, but I have many friends who are as well as several friends who have kids who are. FRC can believe if they wish that sexual orientation/gender identify is a choice — I don’t agree, based on everything I know from reputable, peer-reviewed scientific studies and the experiences of my LGBT friends (yes — I know four transexuals — and they are perfectly well adjusted). They can say what they wish about it being a choice — but they shouldn’t be spewing inflammatory misinformation that has been thoroughly debunked.

And no — they may have “family” in their name, but they certainly aren’t “friendly” to those who are LGBT — which is a significant percentage of the population. They are willing to demonize children who are LGBT and, along with other “family friendly” organizations, oppose anti-bullying programs specifically because these programs include bullying against gay kids. Their rationale is that telling other kids not to pick on the gay and lesbian kids is “against our religion.” Again, they can tell Christian kids that they think homosexuality is wrong, but to hide behind “religious freedom” and tacitly allow bullying — and block anti-bullying efforts — is just plain sick.

Signed — Daughter of Lillith and proud as hell

Reynardine –

That was “Summer’s Eve.” Also — I didn’t use the expression “dumb as a bag of stale Chik-Fil-A sandwiches” because I do have limits as to the grotesque — and Chik-Fil-A is grotesque!

Other folks bashing SPLC –

Please read up on organizations before you make clueless posts. I know that few, if any, of you would qualify for Mensa (that’s an organization for them thar smart people), but ignorance, even among the stupid, is just plain unattractive.

For the SPLC, the chickens have now come home to roost. I can remember how Mark Potok went on the Keith Olbermann show to blame the Tea Party and people that they don’t agree with for the Tucson Arizona shooting.

I also notice how quiet Bloomberg and all the gun grabbers and haters of free speech are right about now.

Your hypocrisy is glaringly obvous. Good luck in your future fundraising efforts.

If you want to find haters in the U.S. political system, the first place to look is at people who accuse others of “hate” simply on the basis of different political beliefs.

That’s the SPLC, it’s the people who call the Tea Party “racist,” and it’s the people who call people “homophobes” for opposing gay marriage.

Such people live in such a narrow little world that they can’t imagine that any legitimate differences of opinion should exist.

What a way to squander your heritage SPLC.

After perusing your website I find that you have become the hater and bullies you project on those you disagree with.

Pathetic and criminal…. you are responsible for your rhetoric which fans the flames of divisiveness and hate.

Get rid of the “powder” in that sentence and you just described Daughter of Eve perfectly.

I wonder how an organization that encourages hatred and violence like the Southern Poverty Law Center will handle a taste of their own medicine. We’ll soon find out.

“The head of the FRC offered to debate you. But of course you did not respond because you have no rational basis for your beliefs.”

Yeah, because the FRC has a VERY rational basis for their beliefs…The book of folk legends featuring talking snakes and a God who was his own son and sacrifices himself to himself so as to save us from himself.

Re: Dan

Dan Zabetakis said,

“It is not possible to accuse the SPLC of being responsible for any violent act because it is not possible for anyone to be motivated to violence by examples of clear non-violent advocacy.”

The SPLC isn’t responsible because the shooter had a choice, and made the wrong one; however, his beliefs are based on the hate group SPLC.

That is can even be an issue is humiliating to me as an American.

We who support the SPLC do not wish violence or misfortune of the FRC. We just wish they’d stop hating others.

I don’t hate LGBT people. I just don’t agree with their lifestyle, and in fact think it’s abnormal and perverted. Is my opinion worth less than someone who is gay who thinks I’m wrong? No it’s not. So call me a hater if it really makes you feel better about yourself.

Reynardine, Really was that attack on Daughter of Eve necessary? You show the worst side of the supporters of LGBT.

I notice that the SPLC doesn’t have a sub-category, count or “hate” listing for those organizations that hate religious groups… except acts against Muslims of course. I guess, in the SPLC’s view, that it is perfectly ok to hate and attack Christian groups – correct? What hypocracy! What a disgrace the SPLC is by being the model of intolerance while falsely espousing so called “diversity & tolerance”

The SPLC richly deserves the blasting that it is getting on this blog and you folks should add yourselves to the list of haters ASAP. Your nothing but a bunch of ultra-liberal extreamists.

WOW, there is a nice write-up about the SPLC already on Wikipedia that accurately describes the FRC situation and the overreach of the SPLC who are themselves an ultra-liberal promoter of hate:

In the wake of an August 2012 shooting at the headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC), which had been listed by the SPLC as an anti-gay hate group, FRC president Tony Perkins accused SPLC of “sparking hatred that led accused gunman Floyd Lee Corkins II to shoot a security guard at the conservative Christian lobbying group’s headquarters. The Southern Poverty Law Center spokesman Mark Potok called Perkins’ statement “outrageous”. A spokesman for a similar organization, the American Family Association also condemned the SPLC, saying “They have repeatedly and without cause demonized FRC, and have spent years stirring up anger in the homosexual community and directing that anger toward an organization whose only crime is to promote and defend the classic American values of faith, family and freedom. In relation to the allegation, William A. Jacobson, a professor at Cornell Law School, wrote on his blog “In seeking to justify its hefty salaries, budget and fundraising, SPLC made a very dangerous leap to treating political opponents as “hate groups” and speech it didn’t like as “hate speech.”

Steve, now, now, quit cherrypicking. You know that you have merely quoted one of their quotes. That is not the article.

No, Atticus. For the FRC, the Chick-fil-A sandwiches have come home to roost.

“I wonder how an organization that encourages hatred and violence like the Southern Poverty Law Center will handle a taste of their own medicine. We’ll soon find out.”

Do be a dear and show us how the SPLC encourages hatred and violence.

“I don’t hate LGBT people. I just don’t agree with their lifestyle, and in fact think it’s abnormal and perverted. Is my opinion worth less than someone who is gay who thinks I’m wrong? No it’s not. So call me a hater if it really makes you feel better about yourself.”

I won’t call you a hater, just a dumbass. That being said, you can disagree with their “lifestyle” all you want. It doesn’t give you a right to deny their civil rights.

I’m certainly against this shooting, but I also know that throughout history, members of oppressed groups sometimes overstepped the lines of reasonable discourse to commit acts of violence and terrorism. This does not negate the moral superiority of that particular side. In the struggle for Civil Rights in America, segregation and white supremacy occasionally drove some black men to commit unspeakable crimes(e.g. Mark Essex). This does not mean that the Civil Rights movement was morally wrong, and it certainly doesn’t give the movement’s opponents the moral high ground.

The funny thing is that the SPLC has for years labeled all manner of Neo-Nazi groups as hate groups, yet for some strange reason, our conservative visitors never seemed to be so concerned that someone might attack members of such groups as a result. Could it be because that’s not so politically convenient?

Steve, the SPLC lists Chick Publications as a hate group due to it being virtuantly anti-Catholic. Last time I checked Catholics are Christians.

And trust me, you can find a law professor willing to spout just about any fool notion possible. Some of us even aspire to be able to join them :)

And apprently conservatives just do not know the difference between disagreeing with someone and saying their views are based upon hatred and directly drawing a crosshairs over a picture of someone. Keep denying that Sarah Palin did in fact draw a crosshairs over Gabrielle Giffords and then tell people to “not retreat but to reload.” That is actual violent rhetoric. Or see some of Ted Nugent’s comments regarding just about any Democrat. Telling someone to suck on your machine gun is actual violent rhetoric (either that or extremely disturbing “sexual” innuendo). Or for a classic when G. Gordon Liddy gave insructions to his listeners on how to shoot federal agents.

Whether that violent rhetoric inspires actual violence is an issue which people have debated. I really do not believe it does – due to the fact that any time people have blamed violent behavior on media the evidence reveals that the person tends to have had other issues. Hence, I do not believe that listening to “Cat Scratch Fever” will cause someone to try to shoot the President. I do not believe that listening to violent gangsta rap will cause someone to do a drive by. I do not believe that listening to heavy metal will cause a kid to shoot up their school. I do not believe that watching pornography causes men to want to rape women. Etc. However, in a mind which is already disturbed, such violent material is definitely not very likely to help and may in fact be harmful.

However, you right wingers can’t even tell the difference between non-violent rhetoric – such as accurately pointing out that groups that deliberately spread lies and call for people to be treated as second class citizens based upon those lies are hate groups – and actual violent rhetoric.

Ruslan, very good question.

I think it is because they don’t really care about hate crimes or hate groups at all, they just want to find a convenient reason to keep hating.

Deborah, I love lettuce, bacon, tomato and gruyere sandwiches, and the only lifestyle I support thereby is one that isn’t exactly vegan. Meanwhile, I take back nothing. Summer’s Eve is a douche, and so are you.

Steve, before you make snotty comments about our education level, I would point out that it’s your side that wants to eliminate public education and higher education for the youpeople, because too much education creates liberals. Individually, I suspect most of us could put your Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated alleged brain in the change pocket of our five-pocket jeans.

Note to all: see succeeding thread for explanation of the Special Hydra Hammerhead Award.

This statement says all anyone needs to know aobut liberals AND the SPLC

“Right wingers just can’t wait until “they’re” attacked so they can “prove” that they’re victims of hate too.”

As ignorant a statement has ever been uttered.
An ass thinks this way… what kind of person then says it out loud?

This statement says all anyone needs to know aobut liberals AND the SPLC

“Right wingers just can’t wait until “they’re” attacked so they can “prove” that they’re victims of hate too.”

As ignorant a statement has ever been uttered. But even so, this statement joins many like it in this thread, vomiting on the FRC and somehow pretending to be ‘above the fray’.

Nobody actually needs a guide to know hate speech when they hear it. But it appears the Left needs one when they say it.

Alan, you’re so unoriginal you have to repeat yourself right away.

People – don’t all of you realize that if this was a right wing attack, not only would that security guard be dead. A lot more people would be dead as well. Before said gunman in a typical right wing act of cowardice turned the gun on himself. AFTER eating all 15 of those chicken sandwiches.

Yes, this was a left wing attack. That’s why no one is dead. And there was no collateral damage. And he still excercised his right to buy chicken sandwiches.

Think about it… The left can’t kill correctly, but if it was the right, OMG, we would have funerals to go to.

Joseph,

Of all the things we leftists can’t do all that well, I would say indescriminate murder seems like the least shameful.

Very well put, my man!

On the contrary Joseph: The left is responsible for Roe v Wade, and in so doing, is indirectly responsible for the deaths of 3,700 children every day in the US. That’s 2-3 people per minute. Every hour of every day. What a terrible shame

Those are zygotes, CannotThinkEvenForAMinute.

Not a child.

Life begins at birth. Gestation begins at conception.

The Justice who wrote Roe v. Wade was actually appointed by Richard Nixon :P

In fact there were only two Justices appointed by Democratic presidents on the Supreme Court in 1973 – one of which (Bryon White) dissented.

Ronald Reagan was a supporter of abortion rights as governor of California.

There are conservative legal groups including the Goldwater (named after pro-choice conservative Republican Barry Goldwater) Institute and the Cato Institute which support abortion rights

The vast majority of the business interests and wealhy individuals financially supporting the Republican Party and the right would turn pro-choice in a second if Roe v. Wade was actually ever in threat of being overturned. Chances are the same people writing checks to the Family Research Counsel are also writing checks to pro-choice groups. Its all about politics to them and they see you as a sucker.

Erika: Your first 4 paragraphs are irrelevant to my posting. It is common knowledge that the left is currently (predominately) for preserving abortion while the right is currently (predominately) for life. If we’re going to talk, let’s be straight with each other. Your final point is based on conjecture. “would turn” and “chances are” don’t cut it in an honest discussion. Also, I noticed that you didn’t lead with the zygote defense. I assume from that, that you concede that the babies that are being slain were indeed human and were indeed “alive”.

Think A Minute – I’m actually anti-abortion. My lefty co-horts can tell you that. But that’s just one issue in a vast sea of life that is our country.

If you are going to blame the left for 3,700 deaths of unborn infants does that mean I can blame the right for the uncounted deaths of non-whites since the dawn of “white America”?

Did I mention they were killed by Christians? Do you really want to go there?

SPLC is a hate group. If they were to go into every church in the country they would call them hate groups as well. They just do not have enough bandwidth to cover everything.

As far as hate crimes……..IMHO all crimes (minus crimes of passion) are HATE crimes…….

Just noticed the tag line at the top of the page.

Hatewatch keeping an eye on the Radical Right

Who watches the Radical and most time VIOLENT left??

Thank you Erika. Though I doubt your factual, informed statement to the issue will have much effect on someone whose beliefs are shaped by a value system which by definition does not accept the supremacy of science and intellectual inquiry.

Sexual conducts or preferences should be kept within a bedroom. It should not be a polical matter. I believe any sexual recklessness, hetero and homo alike, leads to STD, HIV/AIDS, and other sexual transmitted diseases. I was an RN/AIDS specialist for several years and almost all of my patients are Homosexual who continued to be reckless with their sexual conducts and infected more people, knowing they are carrying HIV. I stand with the FRC, not because we hate homosexual INDIVIDUALS, but because their sexual CONDUCTS stand against what we believe. And forcing their “life style” into the government ruling, imposing their conducts into our school, forcing our children to learn a reckless way of life as being constructive. If we are going to teach our children the homosexual life style and it’s positive contributions to society, please also include a warning that HIV/AIDS is rampant among homosexual individual, so life style yourself responsibly!

Kim,

I myself rendered legal assistance to such organizatiions a couple of decades back. In Florida, anyone having sex with another while knowingly concealing an STD ( not just HIV, but the classic VD’s and hepatitis, as well as other bloodbornes) is guilty of a sexual battery, regardless of the gender of the participants. A lot of the perps are female prostitutes infecting male clients as a kind of revenge for the sexual violence that put them into trade in the first place. Furthermore, uncircumcised men are as likely to transmit and contract the disease heterosexually as any othet. I won’t even go into needle use or cash-for-plasma “blood banks”, let alone in utero transmission.

If you are as ignorant as you represent yourself to be, I doubt your calling. If your calling is genuine, I doubt your bona fides, and I wouldn’t put it past you to use infected needles and lancets on those whose lifestyles you find sinful. Either way, you don’t belong in this discussion. Get out.

Dear Jane:

That’s right Jane, the SPLC is a HateGroup, because they hate the KuKluxKlan; they hate the Hammerskin Nation; they hate the Sons of the Confederacy; they hate people who hate homosexuals; they hate people who hate blacks; they hate FAIR;

The SPLC does not like White Supremacists Jane, the SPLC does not like Neo-Nazis and Neo-Confederates Jane, the SPLC does not like Patriot Groups who want to take down the guv’ment because a black man is president Jane.

If this makes the SPLC a hategroup Jane, what does that make you?

THANK YOU KIM for the following quote:

“If we are going to teach our children the homosexual life style and it’s positive contributions to society, please also include a warning that HIV/AIDS is rampant among homosexual individual, so life style yourself responsibly!”

Yes, folks, accoring to Kim, HIV/AIDS is rampant among homosexual individual (sic), so life style yourself responsibly.

Thank you for Kim proving the FRC spreads HATESPEECH. That’s categorizing Kim, generalizing, and discriminating against gender and sexual orientation. That’s hate Kim. Thanks for making our point. It is also poor use of grammar and spell check.

“SPLC is a hate group. If they were to go into every church in the country they would call them hate groups as well. They just do not have enough bandwidth to cover everything.”

Hmmm..And yet they DON’T call every church in the country hate groups. So maybe there’s something special about FRC?

Jane said,

“Who watches the Radical and most time VIOLENT left??”

By all means, please find us a list of violent left wing groups and incidents. See how they stack up against right-wing groups and violent incidents.

“It is common knowledge that the left is currently (predominately) for preserving abortion while the right is currently (predominately) for life.”

Incorrect. The right cares only about controlling women and unborn fetuses. The second you’re out of the womb, screw you. And doubly so if you’re a foreigner.

Thinkaminute,

And I noticed you didn’t attempt to refute my claim. Ergo, I win.

And so does the country.

Joseph: How can you say that abortion is “just one issue.” You claim Whites killed many more Blacks. Ok. Let’s say 3700 Blacks were being killed every day – by Whites, and it was going on right now, today. And you were outraged about it and rightly so. What would you say to me if I said “You know Joseph, I’m really against all those thousands of innocent Black people being slain every day, but there are so many other issues. I really don’t like it, and it’s really too bad, but you know, I’m going to continue to support the people that think it’s ok, because they do so many other good things.” You would be right in telling me that I really DON’T CARE about those innocent people being killed each and every day. And you would be right. It’s not just one issue Joseph. It’s the main issue. It’s taking of innocent life. It’s murder Joseph. What could possibly be more crucial?

SPLC, you have posted quite a lukewarm response regarding this shooting at the FRC. But for the grace of God, this would have been another nightmare situation. The security guard is quite a hero. Not only did he prevent who knows how many deaths & injuries, he did it while wounded.

What do you want, Karen? It was as strong a statement as needed in a situation where no one was killed, no one was maimed, and there was one lightly-armed shooter. Not a tear from any of you when Congresspeople, congregations, little girls, or just plain moviegoers are gunned down, and if you’re going to get boohoo fever over this, you’ll damned well do it alone.

Thinkaminute (by vast overestimation), they can now make sperm and egg cells both out of marrow cells, regardless of the age or sex of the donors. A y-y zygote won’t live, but any other will. I suppose, therefore, if any of us has an amputation or a marrow sample taken, we must allow- nay, insist!- that all these marrow cells be incubated to term, or we’re killing babies.

No, let us be blunt. Right-wingers consder fetuses to be exemplary punishment to women for having sex. Once the woman has delivered, with the maximum pain possible, she can be further punished by being required (if it is normal, pretty, white, and preferably blue-eyed) to give it away to rich people, or to watch it either starve or become an illiterate child laborer, since you right-wingers believe in abolishing public schools and child labor laws. You are smirking hypocrites in your drooling over itty bitty fetuses. Now, buckle off to Fluffalo.

Laura Stillwell et alii: when people tell maliicious lies and level false accusations and incite violence and injustice and then smirk behind their hands as they shed crocodiile tears over their own alleged victimhood, that behavior might indeed incite violence. As we who are here are civilized, you’re not likely to be carted off to the guillotine, but a massive Fels-Naptha mouthwashing of the lot of you in the public square for your specious little lies would be both (for you) instructive and (for us) gratifying. I promise you, the liittle toilet brushes used for this purpose will be brand new.

Aron:
I didn’t respond because there was nothing there to respond to. What can one say to “those are zygotes”. The babies being slain are not just a resultant cell (zygote). But you can use that term if it helps to sedate you from the reality of what’s really happening. No, Aron, they have fingers and toes. Their hearts beat with life. At a certain legally abortable age, they recoil from the scissors. And what can I say to “life begins at birth.” On its face that makes no sense. What was the baby one hour prior to birth – if not alive? And how shall I respond to “Gestation begins at conception.” That’s obviously true. But also irrelevant. The reason is not that you won. Just by us having to have this conversation means that we both have lost – and so has our country.

Never Ever Thinks for Even a Moment: anyone intelligent knows that abortion – like alcohol or drugs – will be there whether it is illegal or not. In fact, the percentage of abortions now is much less than it was during the Comstock Era – btw, abortion was actually legal at the time of the founding of the U.S. and under English Common Law – it was only during the Comstock era in the late 19th century that abortion was made illegal in the first place. In any case, religion does not control the laws of this country – even if it did, Christianity is hardly united in favoring making abortion illegal. No one really likes abortion – contrary to what the liars for “Christ” (but really Mammon) who tell you to think claim – the difference is that people on the left actually support steps that will limit the numbers of abortions. The vast majority of pro-choice women (including myself) would never ever voluntarily have an abortion.

Don’t like abortion – support universal access to birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies, universal health care such that getting pregnant would not be a major economic burden, having middle class people being able to afford to have children, assuring that fathers have to provide support for children, and even encouraging adoption. Some free market loving nutcases even favor legalizing selling babies – but um, while they are no doubt right it would virtually eliminate abortion overnight, that is completely and totally insane. Needless to say most of teh steps to eliminate abortion would actually help women who want to have children.

But instead your side pretends to want to outlaw abortion (if you think the Republicans really want to outlaw abortion, you are completely delusional – they know it would be political suicide to push for such a position without the cover of the Supreme Court) – and opposes any step that would lead to fewer abortions. Quite simply, the anti-abortion thing is just a way to express mysogny. And the right knows that a large portion of their voter base or simply angry uneducated white men who are looking for someone to hate. Just blame femininism or Satan (and for television follow the glorious example of Rupert Murdoch and subtly show that women are creatures of Satan through showing models in sexy “she devil” Halloween coustumes)

Its the same situations with the anti gay bigotry that the right has been displaying – they know outside of the deep south they can’t openly be racist anymore. The anti-gay bigotry is just a way to bring in the bigot vote by giving someone they can hate. Of course, then they can also bring in the religious nutcases and Liars for Jesus is perfectly happy to supply the hate they need. The Republican War on Women and the Republican War on Gays are just a slightly less socially unacceptable way to let the bigots hate.

Maybe I should just let you haters hate because that is what you are going to do, but I can’t stand silent in the face of bigotry no matter what the target is. And that is only real bigotry, not the imagined “reverse bigotry” which you side tries to peddle which somehow tries to claim that rich white Christian males are somehow the most oppressed people in our society. Of course, in reality is the rich white males trying to hold onto power using the bigotry of the ever powerful brain dead idiot vote.

Think A Minute – So you’re cause is abortion? I beleive you stop a heart you take a life. With that being said. I also believe that when you remove the soul from a child, and it’s before the age of puberty, said soul is returned to the Guff and passed onto to another set of parents. It’s called cyclical energy. So the child does have a life. He/she just doesn’t have it with that particular set of parents. But that book was taken out of the bible you read, never made it past the counsel of Nicea. I don’t lie abortion, like I said, but the question is for those who believe in the afterlife who ends up in the afterlife.

You’re a Christian, so you believe in eternity. I do too. And if God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son. What makes you think he wouldn’t give you. Or your son. Or an aborted child. I tend to think that God has a bit of a different outlook on death than you do. You look at is as something to fear, when the Angel of Death, is acutally an Archangel of God. His name is Azreal, look him up.

So don’t throw death into the equation, when you don’t even understand it. The good think about a child. Is they all go to heaven.

“To say that malice is a virtue, is to say one’s soul is lost. To live and die in an iced cold frozen bed is to say one’s life is consumed by frost. To lie under an aged old oak, is to lie under a living tree. So if I were to lie beside you, would you move or lie by me. To wreak the havok of an unforgiving world, is to reap what has been sewn. To say I love you and to mean it, is to feel an emotion I was rarely shown. To wake up into a world of love and hugs to wake up in a mainger. I know not of this world, I would get lost, I’d find the only danger. To come of age, to see me grow, to realy know my world. To know that when I die my sould will cry just like my baby girl. When I see the reaper walking towards me, I’ll wish that I was seven. to go back to when I had a chance because children go to heaven.”

Like I said, to take a heartbeat is to take a like, and they will be judged, and these children will see Jesus before you and me. Only difference is, they won’t know the pain and the hate that we do. And like I said, they can pick better parents. I don’t feel sorry for them. I envy them.

Now, the adults that are killed by right wing christian hate groups. There’s not coming back for them. And if you add up the number of deaths over the courst of the last 600 years. I think you may need another cause.

So Hitler was a Socialist and killed millions, Stalin a Socialist/communist, and killed millions. Pol Pott and Mao were a Marxists and killed millions. All of these are inarguably “leftists”. The shooter at the FRC was, apparently, left leaning. Why then does this organization say, right at the top of this page that it is keeping an eye on “right wing hate groups”? Does anyone anywhere believe that hate is exclusive to the right? Seriously? If so, members of SPLC can only see “denial” as a river in Egypt.

“I was an RN/AIDS specialist for several years and almost all of my patients are Homosexual who continued to be reckless with their sexual conducts and infected more people, knowing they are carrying HIV. I stand with the FRC, not because we hate homosexual INDIVIDUALS, but because their sexual CONDUCTS stand against what we believe.”

My hope is the state board takes away your license because you are not qualified to care for patients with HIV, no matter what your technical skills. You appear to be practicing in violation of the Code of Ethics for Nurses, and should find a different profession.

“The nurse must practice with compassion and dignity, as well as relate to each patient in a manner that respects their personal integrity and character. The nurse must treat each patient equally regardless of class, creed, affiliation or health.”

Ed,

Willim Shirer, “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”
John Toland, “Adolf Hitler”.
Konrad Heiden, “Der Führer”.
Ron Rosenbaum, “Exlaining Hitler”.
Lucy Dawidowicz, “The War Against the Jews”.

Read. Learn. And quit engaging in oral defecation.

Joseph, I go out on a limb here, because my personal beliefs are personal, but we who are met here have met before and will again. Full wisdom is not won in a single lifetime, nor would even a reasonable mortal expect it.

I think we should all meditate.

“So Hitler was a Socialist and killed millions, Stalin a Socialist/communist, and killed millions. Pol Pott and Mao were a Marxists and killed millions.”

How is any of this relevant today? Also Hitler wasn’t a socialist.

Is there anybody out there who I can have a rational debate with, one based on logic and reason? I have tried and tried. And all I get is nonsensical statements. Here is an example:
Erika said “The vast majority of pro-choice women (including myself) would never ever voluntarily have an abortion.”

Did you get that? “pro-choice” (did I say pro-choice?) women would never “voluntarily” have an abortion. Let’s look at it again – slowly for the staunch liberal. Pro-Choice (those in favor of choosing) — never ever voluntarily choose (make a choice). One more time (in case it’s me): those who insist on having a choice would never ever actually choose. I’m taking a deep breath.

I’m sorry guys. If you call that logic, if that’s your idea of sound reason, there’s just no basis for a dialogue with us as conservatives. We just can’t go that deep into la-la land with you. We insist on trying to make at least some slight modicum of sense in our discussions.

Please, someone in liberaland, please offer to help. I’m serioulsy interested in understanding you better.

Think a minute, you are missing one important thing. Pro-choice means that even if one would not themselves have an abortion for personal reasons, whether they be spiritual, secular, or anything in between, they accept that other people may not share the same view or have the same circumstances.

There is absolutely nothing contradictory in what Erika said. Perhaps you are in the habit of forcing your morality on others and therefore cannot understand an approach whereby you live according to your morals and let others live according to theirs in questions of conscience.

For example, I personally feel that there are few if any circumstances whereby I would choose an abortion, because of my religious beliefs. But if my friend, who does not share these beliefs, feels differently, I will act compassionately toward her choice. This is what it means to be pro-choice.

Do you understand now what it means to be tolerant? Freedom of religious expression and practice is a sword with two sides: we may practice as we choose, but we must also allow others the liberty not to practice as we do, according to individual conscience.

Thinkaminute, we are people who love communicating mind to mind, but yours is too small a target.

Think, please take your namesake to heart.

This is not a difficult concept. If a woman says she would not voluntarily have an abortion, we can infer that to mean she would not have one unless she felt compelled to by any of several factors. In other words, if she were married with a stable career for example, she would not have an abortion if she got pregnant assuming no serious medical complications appeared down the road. Speaking more generally, many more people who are pro-choice don’t make such statements, but even if they agree with that sentiment they don’t think that the choice should be denied to other people.

In fact I have known people who don’t like the idea of abortion but think it should be legal anyway, because they don’t think that their beliefs should be legislated on society at large.

Let me break this down in an extra special way just for conservatives like Think a Minute.

Imagine my hand in a sock puppet with little plastic buttons for eyes. Listen to what he has to say.

“Hello my conservative neighbors,” he says in his high-pitched voice. “I would never buy a Land Rover. But I don’t think that other people should be denied the right to choose to buy that vehicle. Even if I flat out hate Land Rovers or SUVs for no logical reason, my tastes or beliefs shouldn’t be made into law for others. Who knows, maybe ten years from now my belief will change due to new experiences or unforeseen conditions that crop up down the road, in which case I might want to buy that Land Rover. See how easy that was?”

Now folks, I’m going to drink a glass of water while Socky sings Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the USA,’ with the special secret verse about how Greenwood avoided service in Vietnam and never served in the military.

Water, Ruslan? This calls for vino, vino, vino, and plenty of good wine!

FYI – Fair warning, this is a bit off subject, but funny.

I think I remember Ruslan stating that he was ex-military on that Oathkeeper thread I met you all on. Of course his arguments were better articulated than mine were, but I think it’s humorous in that every conservative that I know, loves to throw around, pro-life, the bible, the flag, their guns, and huh, “I know my rights”.

But only about 3% of them ever actually ever went to bootcamp, threw on a uniform, and actually served in the military. That’s really why they call themselves three percenters, don’t let them fool you with that revolutionary war statistic.

And the ones that did join the military, NOW, Oathkeepers and 3 percenters, would probably have either a heart attack or an asthma attack going for that gun if they had to. Who are they going to protect moving about as slow as molasses.

I remember going to a Texas State Guard recruitment drive and I walked out laughing. They asked me why I was leaving, I said because I don’t see any black people, and who the hell are you going to run off? You can’t run.

You ever seen most hunters? Of course you have. You know what I mean. I was having a nice discussion with an ex-Navy “sawvern” at the pawn shop. Nice ol’ feller. Can’t hear worth spit though.

We were talking about buillion and guns. He said he’s buying silver, and ammo at the gun shows. I asked him if he really thought they would go door to door and confiscate our guns. Hell, I got about 15 myself.

He said yeah, the UN is already signing a treaty with Hillary Clinton. So I asked him, “Well (he who shall not be named) what are you going to do when they come get your guns?”

He said, “Huh?”

And I’m being serious now, my buddy behind the counter was laughing his ass off.

I said, “What are you going to do when they come and get your guns?”

He said, “Well, they’re not going to get them. I’ll fight.”

I said, “Bro, you’re about what, 75, 76.”

He said, “Huh?”

I said, “Okay bro, they’re going to have to pull them from your cold dead hands right?”

He said, “They sure are.”

I said, “Well will you go ahead and will those buillion coins to me because I’m saving them to pay for my daughter’s wedding.”

He said, “What was that now?”

I said, “The coins sir, the silver that your saving for the end of the world.”

He said, “Oh.”

I said, “You can’s spend them if you’re dead. So will them to me, because I buy a few every two weeks for Trinity’s wedding. You can’t spend them if you’re dead.”

He said, “Oh no, I’m gonna need those when I go to Montana.”

I said, “With your guns?”

He said, “Of course I’m taking my guns.”

I said, “Well hell, if you’re not going to be home when they come and get your guns, whose gonna shoot you when you don’t give them you’re guns?”

He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get that.”

I said, “Isn’t a bunch of white supremacists in Montana. You mean to tell me, that after the ATF kills you, at the house you’re not going to be at, you’re gonna share that buillion with those white supremacists in Montana, instead of helping a fellow ex-Sailor marry off my beautiful black daughter?”

He said, “Joe are you gonna buy something?”

I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get that.”

True story folks. When I finally turned around his co-workers were behind the counter crying and a few of the customers were laughing too.

I gotta go to sleep now, just started a new job. Later.

Aadila, thank you so much for your dispassionate reasoned response to my question. I’m encouraged. I can work with you. Would you agree that there’s such a thing as absolute wrong? That is, if something is wrong, it’s always wrong, even if the person doing the wrong is merely practicing according to his individual conscience? Before you answer, let’s create the scenario that there’s a white supremacist who is practicing gross bigotry and discrimination according to his individual conscience. Would you say that what that person is doing is wrong, or would you say that you should be tolerant of him and just accept that you might not share the same view as him?

Please understand, I’m not endorsing the guy, I’m asking you if what he’s doing is absolutely wrong, that is, it’s always wrong and there’s no time or circumstance that could be described that would make what he’s doing right. I need a succinct answer: A) yes, what he’s doing is always wrong or B) no, what he’s doing could be right depending on his own individual point of view. A or B please.

Thinknot, I’ll save Aadila the trouble.

Unfairness is unAmerican, and that guy is flatout wrong.

Think a minute,

No, I do not believe there is an absolute right or wrong. But this should not be confused with amorality. Since I am a buddhist it would be impossible to describe my morality without explaining my religion, and I since I have no wish to convert you to my religious views I will refrain. But for buddhists morality is a question we look inward to find answers for. To know what is wrong as a buddhist it requires a deep self awareness and understanding, which is very different in philosophy from Abrahamic religions where conduct is guided according to God’s will and commandments. This is why we meditate and observe very strict precepts, not because we will be punished, but because through our own actions we end up punishing ourselves. These are really not easy concepts to understand so I am simplifying them grossly. Generally if one’s intent is wholesome, and one’s actions benefit the self and others, it is generally “good”, but this is not an “absolute right or wrong”.

In the case of your example, of a bigot, I would view his actions as coming from ignorance. When we hate someone else, we hate ourselves. When we are intolerant with others, we are intolerant with ourselves. So bigotry is not an “absolute” wrong because who is most harmed is the bigot. If his actions are motivated by harmful intent, and harm himself and others, then generally these are wrong. Certainly he may see that what he is doing is right from his point of view. He may find out otherwise when at some future moment the actions he took come back to him, either through a lawsuit, hostility from others, jail time if he harms someone, or even being born to the race or creed that he in this lifetime he has devoted himself to hating. Thus I would approach this person with compassion and attempt to point to the root cause of suffering, which is ignorance. SInce I too suffer from ignorance, how can I call his conduct wrong and mine right?

In real life, morality is most often a grey area. While many people look outward for their morality, to a commandment or absolute moral code, I personally do not find this to fit with what I have experienced, and think in many cases conduct based on a belief in such moral absolutes merely obscures other wrongs which may not be immediately visible.

By the way Think a minute, your worldview seems exceedingly narrow if you think that there are only A or B choices in your example.

Aadila: Thanks for your response. You say that I’m narrow if I think there’s only A or B. That is – either A: truth is Absolute or B: truth is Relative. Well what’s the 3rd alternative? You yourself chose B “I do not believe there is an absolute right or wrong” while Reynardine, who claimed to speak for you, chose the opposite. “I’ll save Aadila the trouble. The guy is flatout wrong.” Funny how a little logical prodding brings out the inconsistencies in your collective views.

But even your own view (let’s leave Rey out of it) is internally inconsistent. Why? Because you contradicted yourself at this point: “If his actions are motivated by harmful intent, and harm himself and others, then generally these are wrong. “ Here’s the logical fallacy you have committed: If there’s “no absolute right or wrong” then how can it be “wrong” to act with harmful intent?

Another inconsistency: You said “Unlike Christians, we don’t adhere to ANY form of dogma” and then later you said “And Karma always comes around — the longer it takes, the harder she hits” Is this not a dogmatic statement? Or how about when you said “a value system which by definition does not accept the supremacy of science” Are you issuing two clearly dogmatic statements here: “karma ALWAYS comes around” and “science is supreme” while at the same time denying that you adhere to ANY form of dogma? And are you also claiming that there’s no such thing as right or wrong while simultaneously saying that it’s “wrong” to act with harmful intent?

Think a minute before answering and answer rationally, not emotionally. I’m trying to get you to see how your logic is fatally flawed. Undoubtedly, some of your Colleagues will react with their feelings instead of their minds.

Aadila, I told you not to feed these trolls cotton candy. They then engage in disgusting amounts of oral defecation, like this.

Thinknot, you’re wrong. Your hypothetical white person is wrong. And you’re bad Americans.

“That is – either A: truth is Absolute or B: truth is Relative. Well what’s the 3rd alternative?”

Well, if truth is relative, then truth can be both absolute and relative. So there really is no either/or proposition in absolute and relative. There is absolute, or absolute and relative, meaning that truth may be absolute in some cases and may be relative in others. So really, your argument begins with a closed premise, i.e., there are only two outcomes. There are more than two.

“Funny how a little logical prodding brings out the inconsistencies in your collective views.”

False premise. You based your observation upon an incorrect statement, so your conclusion is false. This is an open forum without collective views.

“Here’s the logical fallacy you have committed: If there’s “no absolute right or wrong” then how can it be “wrong” to act with harmful intent?”

A given action can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances, without moral absolutes. There are exceptions, in other words. Thus there is no inconsistency.

“Another inconsistency: You said “Unlike Christians, we don’t adhere to ANY form of dogma” and then later you said “And Karma always comes around — the longer it takes, the harder she hits” Is this not a dogmatic statement? Or how about when you said “a value system which by definition does not accept the supremacy of science” Are you issuing two clearly dogmatic statements here.”

Hold on, you are mixing things I said with things others said. That’s not fair.

First, I never said “And Karma always comes around” because as a buddhist, I don’t look at karma this way at all. Karma means action. The fruits of action are distinct from karma. It’s what you do. It’s like confusing Mary and Jesus and I would never say that.

Second, dogma is instruction from without. Buddhism is a human centered religion that looks inward to determine right or wrong. So there really is no dogma you can point to as having any lasting grip on buddhist thought.

And yes, if science shows something I believe in is and obviously absurd creation myth or antiquated scripture that has no bearing on the present day, then yes I would be inclined to go with science. At the same time as I accept others who see it differently, it is rational and sane to rely upon science over superstition, and I tend to think most people agree.

I hope this clarifies some misperceptions you may have about buddhism.

Case in point.

Wow. I thought I was familiar with undeserved smugness, and then I met the intellectual ‘powerhouse’ that is Think a Minute.

While I’m no big fan of relativism, (I’m a Hegelian and Jamesian Pragmatist), in terms of Truth and Right, there is no absolute.

There is always a gray. Hell, with enough sophistry and philosophical gobbledy-gook, you can prove that one Adolf Shickelgruber was correct in his plot to remove the Judaic peoples from the world.

Think, you are absolutely entitled to your views that abortion is wrong. I cannot and will not deprive you of that.

But don’t for a minute think that that means you have any right to deprive anyone of their right to undergo the procedure.

(In addition, might I ask your position on human conflict? The death penalty? Artificially induced death in general? What about social justice and welfare? I know that you wish to protect a human ‘life’ before it begins in the womb, but how interested are you in protecting and improving human life once the birthing even has taken place? I eagerly await your reply.)

Aadila: You have left the realm of rationalism. Truth cannot be both absolute and relative. Right leaning philosophers claim that truth is absolute, while left leaning claim it’s relative. But no philosopher claims that it is both. If you try to google “truth both absolute and relative” you will get no results. It’s nonsense. Relative and absolute are opposing concepts. A thing cannot be both itself and its opposite at the same time. It’s like saying “I can’t speak a word of English.”

So I’m now forced to go back to the participants in this thread and ask the question again, is there anybody out there who can answer the question “is truth absolute (always true no matter what, when or who) or is it relative (depends on time, place or point of view)?” Or put another way, “is there such a thing as right and wrong?” Serious thinkers only, please.

Aaron, I will respond to your excellent questions.

Hold on Aron, Think thinks it’s possible to defend the position with logic. Let’s give Think a chance to think. The entire argument was based on false premises and mistakes before, so maybe this time we’ll have a logical presentation of views. I don’t think it’s possible but we’ll see if that truth is absolute.

Aron, vicious people want babies to be born so they can make them suffer. What do you expect? Meanwhile, for sugar that doesn’t melt in your teeth, try hard jaggery for coffee and rock candy for tea.

“You have left the realm of rationalism. Truth cannot be both absolute and relative. Right leaning philosophers claim that truth is absolute, while left leaning claim it’s relative. But no philosopher claims that it is both.”

You believe in moral absolutes, therefore as soon as you are confronted with any challenge to your pre-determined subset of facts, your first instinct is to recoil like a hyacinth smacked with a hammer.

To claim something of itself is good or evil requires an observer. Good and evil reside in your mind, as concepts you have developed to explain your world. They have no more ultimate reality than you do.

Aaron: Can we talk. There has to be some common language for us to communicate. Can we adopt the rules of logic and rational thought as our common language? As a Christian, everything I believe has to obey these rules, since God created logic and a mind for me to use.
You say I’m entitled to my view that abortion is wrong. My view about abortion is irrelevant. No one cares about my view of abortion, or welfare, or social justice,or the death penalty. In plain English “it don’t matter”. What matters is HOW did I get there. Did I just dream it up, did I just follow all those other right wingers? Or did I take a logical approach that is irrefutable? I could tell you I took the logical route but I might be full of baloney. It’s up to you to agree with my reasoning or tell me where I went wrong, using logic and reasoning. But don’t tell me your preferences, or what you feel. Because I don’t care. And you don’t care about mine.
Is that acceptable?

You are brilliant, Think a Minute.

I admire that you posited such basic questions that show the disconnect here by many of the posters. You showed no condescension, emotionality, or crudeness in the way you posited your questions.

Your questions demonstrated logic, sought specific consequential answers to specific courses of actions from specific logical questions, and provided a rationale analysis of that person’s answer.

Think a Minute said, on August 23rd, 2012 at 12:07 pm

“Aadila: You have left the realm of rationalism. Truth cannot be both absolute and relative. Right leaning philosophers claim that truth is absolute, while left leaning claim it’s relative. But no philosopher claims that it is both …. Relative and absolute are opposing concepts. A thing cannot be both itself and its opposite at the same time…”

Think a Minute said, on August 23rd, 2012 at 12:07 pm

“Aadila …. But even your own view (let’s leave Rey out of it) is internally inconsistent. Why? Because you contradicted yourself at this point: “If his actions are motivated by harmful intent, and harm himself and others, then generally these are wrong. “ Here’s the logical fallacy you have committed: If there’s “no absolute right or wrong” then how can it be “wrong” to act with harmful intent?

Exactly. Since Erika and Aadila like to discuss legalese entries, but lack any in depth knowledge of law in the U.S. and its relevance to Normative Ethics Theories because I very much doubt they have anything to do with the legal industry – with the exception of Reynardine – “intent” is defined as willful, purposeful, with the intent to cause, or knowing with substantial certainty that something will happen. If a person knows that his/her action is harmful, will cause harm, or he/she desires or intends the “harmful” result of a specific course of action, then that is an absolute wrong. There is no grey area as some of these posters suggest. Typically, a damn nihilist would support a theory of relevatism.

Relativism certaintly would not support the ideals of fairness and justice, as are SPLC goals, because these words are based on absolute concepts of right and wrong.

Very neutral. Stay classy Thing A Minute, but I cannot say that for the majority of posters on SPLC.

Anyway, I really don’t know how the heck these people manage to post on SPLC all day long at all hours of a business day (are many of you typing stuff from your office computer or are you semi-retired? Because I surely won’t be posting on this website to respond to anyone anytime soon so don’t think I’m ignoring you, I certainly am not afraid to debate).

La Americana, if Thinknot is your idea of brilliance, I have a pack of five-watt bulbs I can sell you…cheap.

*sigh* – la americana sounds like someone who majored in pre-law and is just starting her first year of law school who thinks that she just already knows everything there is to know about law because she can cite a dictionary definition even if she can’t actually understand what that dictionary definition actually means.

If that is true, and I’m sure it is because its classic arrogant 1L behavior – you’re soon learn better. In law there is no black and white. Oh sure, it may seem like there is some fine lines there – I mean, if you just look at say the opening of the First Amendment “Congress shal pass no law” and what could be clearer? Of course, if you actually do know the law regarding say “the freedom of speech” you know that Congress in fact can pass laws infringing the freedom of speech. Millions of trees have died to make Supreme Court opinions and federal reporter volumes taking what seemingly is a very simple command – no laws infringing free speech – to make it extremely complex. People have even gone to prison for pure speech activity.

But even within your dictionary definition, if you somehow think that is clear, you simply do not know anything. What you think is clear is in fact anything but clear once lawyers and judges get a hold of it. See, your defintion actually includes several concepts each of which is way more complex than you could possibly realize unless you have spent some time in actual practice working on actual cases. No, simply reading cases is not sufficient – you really have to work on something. In law school, everything sounds so simple (because most legal concepts ultimately are not that complicated in theory). Once you get out of law school, there is not a theory simple enough that judges and lawyers can’t make it incredibly complex.

And honey, if you really are a 1L good luck at finding a job. You are going to need it.

Let’s say a black racist who hated white people burst into a home of white pedophiles with the intent of beating them, simply because they were white.

But upon entering the home he saw the white pedophiles in the midst of a horrible crime. Acting heroically he stops the white people from their crime and saves the children. Thus we have a person who is acting on wrong intent — i.e. racism — stop someone else from acting on wrong intent — the pedophiles. The white pedophiles legitimately claim they were attacked by a racist, and unfairly targeted because of their race. The black assailant, who had no knowledge of the pedophiles’ activities, intended to harm the white people but ends up saving the children. Who is absolutely right and who is absolutely wrong in this example?

And I would thank you to keep your bigoted comments about nihilism to yourself. La Americana, you are obviously as ignorant of other people’s religions as Think a Minute is, and if you are going to go to all the trouble of hating on another person’s religion perhaps you could at least get your facts straight? Nihilism is a western bigoted stereotype of my religion and it is very offensive.

One could easily question the strange Christian practice of ritual cannibalism, for example. Why do you people eat the Christ anyway?

La Americana,

I usually respond from my phone or from my computer at work. When there’s nothing else to do, I like to debate with righties like you.

And Think a Minute, first of all, my name is Aron. One ‘a.’ Please use the correct spelling.

I am also willing to use logic and reason, but I also realize that no matter how much of either I use, I will never be able to convince you of my position.

I’m also still waiting for you to respond to my questions. The onus is on you, friend. Not me.

“Or did I take a logical approach that is irrefutable?”

No, not really. You did not.

Your entire argument was predicated on false supposition and mixing up who said what. You made an ignorant and offensive comment about my religion, and remain unable to sustain any of your claims.

Your appeal to unnamed “philosophers” suggests you are a third year student at Orel Roberts University who excelled among his six classmates at debating Western Philosophy. But here we usually try to pin down specifics of who we are referring to: Nietsche, Marx, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Jung, the Holy Bible or whatever reference you wish to appeal to.

You are bating the question and leading to only two outcomes. Don’t you see that by positing the existence of both relative and absolute truth, you create subjective relativism with regard to the question? Point of view is what we are discussion, not truth itself. Even the word truth is a symbolic representation of what you, subjectively, identify as “real”. Your very question points to its inherent nature as dependent on point of view. Thus truth cannot be absolute.

Aadila, bless your heart, you have learned not to feed cotton candy to the trolls.

I flat out ghetto ripped them.

a college student who fancies herself a legal expert is a possibility, but la americana has the sound and feel of someone who is just started her first year at Liberty or Regent School of Law.

Criminals are great moral absolutists. How many criminals in their heart of hearts think they are bad people? The moral absolutist can always retreat into self-satisfied silence, i.e., they had the moral _right_ to steal/perjure/defame/harm!

Aron: You’re not ready for my answers yet. Remember I said you don’t care about my opinions, at least you shouldn’t care. What you (and I) care about is Truth. Everybody has an opinion. Most are meaningless because they have no basis in Truth.

What do you think of aadila’s statement that “Thus truth cannot be absolute.” Do you agree with it? Is it absolutely true? Do you see how the statement proves itself to be false? In philosophy it’s called a self refuting claim. By claiming the statement to be true, the person actually disproves it. It’s like saying “I don’t exist.” But I had to exist in order to say I don’t exist.

Also, don’t assume that you will never be able to convince me of your position by using logic and reason. My mind is completely open and I don’t know what your position is yet. I realize I was not born knowing all truth. I learn from people like you all the time. That is if you give me compelling reasons. Not opinion.

I used to think abortion was not murder. I needed to believe it in order to maintain the lifestyle I wanted to live. Then someone asked me a series of questions that I could not answer without contradicting myself. It was embarrassing, but he was merciful. He didn’t convince me that abortion was murder. He lead me to convince myself. I had no other choice but to agree, or live with the fact that my life made no sense.
Are you still with me?

Think,

That’s called ducking the question with obfuscatory sophistry.

Either answer the questions, or don’t. But do not expect me to take you seriously if you choose the latter.

I’ll be waiting.

Ah, Thinknot! That’s your problem! Your mind is so open your brains have fallen out!

“Do you see how the statement proves itself to be false?”

Not really, no. It does not. The same truth is self evident when we discuss the term “absolute”. It is a symbolic representation that you, subjectively, identify as absolute. It is however, a relative term. One only runs into logical problems by arguing there can be any absolute moral truth, because such requires an observer; by nature observation is subjective.

It is hence a relative approximation of what we loosely define as absolute…as with absolute zero we get close, very close, but it is not possible to measure absolute zero in any empirical way. In fact, its very existence is irrational. Morals too are relative to our observational status. Though dialectically we may have both absolute and relative moral truths, the universe is not one that seems to function on absolutes.

Never thinks for even a minute, abortion is not murder and has never ever been murder. To define abortion as murder reduces a pregnant woman to a mere vessel who has no rights of her own. It also shows that your claim to be “pro-life” is a complete and total lie. It is also extremely stupid.

Quite simply, if abortion is “murder” then there can be no abortions ever – even to save the life of the mother. There are pregnancy complications which do kill and have no cure other than to end the pregnancy. If the fetus has reached the point where it is viable, then ending the pregnacy is no problem. You deliver the baby and hope for the best. Sometimes premature babies do not make it though.

If the fetus hasn’t reached the point of viability, under your asinine definition than there is no choice but to simply watch the mother die – and then guess what, the fetus dies as well. So you pro-life idiots (and there is absolutely no other way to put it) would in the name of being so pro-life would actually kill mothers and babies in the name of “saving babies.”

Of course, you pro-life idiots try to claim that those types of pregnancy complications never happen – they do. It happened to my older sister who I love very much. If you really think that to show your “pro-life” bonafides that my sister should have been buried along with my nephew (which would have prevented my niece from being born), you are not only a complete mysognistic idiot, but completely heartless as well.

You mysognistic “pro-life” idiots would investigate women who just lost their babies through miscarriages for a possible murder charge. By saying its illegal to kill a fetus, a woman going through what is already the absolute worst time of her life could go to prison if some asshole of a judge decides she didn’t eat the right foods while pregnant or something. That is how completely and totally heartless you anti-abortion jerks really are.

Now please leave me alone before I get really upset. I hate rainy weekends so I’m already not in a very good mood. But I really hate self righteous mysognstic jerks who talk pro-life when their actions say anti-woman.

Aron:
The death penalty? God gives life and only he can take it. Note this does not apply to war which is a form of self defense. If some one, or some country or some force is bent on taking human life, we stop him. For the lives they are trying to take are sacred.

Artificially induced death in general? God gives life and only he can take it. Life is sacred.

Abortion: God gives life and only he can take it. In the case of a mother at risk of dying, the mother’s life is just as sacred as the child’s. Therefore a decision has to be made to preserve the one life and let the other person die, unless they can both be saved. Where both mother and child can be saved (which is by far most abortions), both lives must be preserved. (Note: no doubt Erika will now come up with another justification for abortion, related to job or money or freedom or any number of other ways to rationalize it. But we all know that *by far* – most abortions are for convenience. People will protect their pleasures at any cost, including murder (taking a life when the mother’s life is NOT in danger).

“What about social justice and welfare? I know that you wish to protect a human ‘life’ before it begins in the womb, but how interested are you in protecting and improving human life once the birthing even has taken place?” We are commanded to care for others in need. This does not mean our love for our neighbors should be taken advantage of. Many people take advantage of the generosity of our nation. Love can also be expressed by helping the person in need raise themselves up, regain their self respect and do honorable work if they are able. Keeping entire generations of *able bodied* people dependent on assistance *as a way of life* rather than during a time of need is the worst kind of slavery. It is oppression for the sake of control (aka getting their votes in order to stay in power).

I hate mopping up spilled brains, especially when they are already emittiing decompositional gasses.

Again, don’t talk about logic and then say “God commands X.”

“Note this does not apply to war which is a form of self defense. If some one, or some country or some force is bent on taking human life, we stop him.”

War is most often not a form of self-defense. The US has engaged in dozens of wars which had nothing to do with self-defense.

“Keeping entire generations of *able bodied* people dependent on assistance *as a way of life* rather than during a time of need is the worst kind of slavery. It is oppression for the sake of control (aka getting their votes in order to stay in power).”

Oh please tell us who these unnamed people are!

Think,

So what you’re claiming is that only God can create or destroy life. If you can *conclusively* prove to me that God does, in fact, exist (which believe it or not, I truly hope He does), then I am willing to take your side.

Otherwise, you are simply stating that you believe in your own morality for your own morality’s sake. You can give me no greater evidence than ‘it is God’s job. Not yours.’

Again, you have resorted to sophistry. While I fully expected that, I can safely say that we’re done here.

Good day.

Never Thinks for Even a Minute, you are a perfect example of a bumper sticker mentality. And you also do not pay attention – the anti-abortion bills that the Republicans are proposing across the country, do not provide for exceptions to save the life of the mother. Some pro-lifers those people are (they are also pro-death penalty, pro-military, pro-gun, pro-nuclear weapon, pro-invading other countries, anti-workplace safety, anti-consumer safety, anti-aid to people with disabilities, anti-aid to poor children, pro-increasing taxes on the poor and middle class, anti-education – I could go on and on, but its pretty clear these people only care about fetuses because they sure do not care about children once they are born.)

But here is why you are a perfect example of the bumper sticker mentality – you say that abortion is murder and should be illegal except to save the life of the mother. You do not give any consideration at all to the concenquences of having those laws.

See, let’s say we have a case – the pregnant woman’s blood pressure is spiking to extremely dangerous levels where death will result if it is not put under control. She is about 4 months along, so the fetus is definitely not viable. All steps to lower the woman’s blood pressure are taken but fail, the blood pressure continues to rise. The doctors know that the only way to stop the blood pressure from rising is to deliver the baby – which will die outside of the womb having not reached the point of viability. The doctors also know that there is an extremely strong chance that the fetus is already dead. Under the laws of today, there is no problem – the doctors deliver the baby who dies but the mother should quickly recover and live.

Under your system, the laws I’ve seen would require consultations by several doctors that the woman is actually dying. That creates delay in what is an extreme emergency situation (since the human body can not survive elevated blood pressure and heart rate). The longer the delay in treatment (the only treatment is to delivery the baby ending the pregnancy). The doctors also know that if some grandstanding Bible thumper prosecutor or grandstanding Bible thumper state attorney general could decide to challenge their determination that the (effective) abortion was not medically necessary to save the life of the mother. That creates uncertainty.

Especially since prosecutors have no shortage of “experts” who will say that there has never ever in the history of the world been a medically necessary abortion to save the life of a mother [that is an obvious lie and the people who claim that are politically motivated crackpots, but that fact won't stop a grandstanding Bible thumping prosecutor - doubters see the various cases about Dr. Grigson who simply made stuff up, or the fact that right up to the point when the tobacco industry reversed course, they had experts who said that smoking was safe]. So effectively, you will see women die because a climate of fear will create inaction. Especially if the law does not specifically allow abortion to save the life of a mother – than the only defense effectively becomes necessity or defense of others.

Your bumper sticker slogan simply does not work in the real world. That is the problem with you binary black and white thinkers (see also La Americana) who do not realize that everything in the world is shades of grey. As a simple mind, you seek simple solutions – and simple solutions do not work.

And of course, that brings me to a larger point about abortion in general – laws designed to enforce morality do not work. That is the lesson of prohibition which people just have not been able to learn. See, even if abortion was illegal in the U.S., it would not stop abortion. The rich would do exactly what they did pre-Roe v. Wade – travel to another country (at that point, usually Sweeden) to get an abortion. That is why the Republicans can “safely” push the pro-life agenda to pander to the Bible-thumpers. They know that laws don’t effect you if you are rich. There would also be illegal abortions – they were extremely common before Roe v. Wade. There are supposedly ways of varing degrees of danger and effectiveness where a miscarriage can be induced (including the reason why states have passed laws against what could be called “involuntary abortions” but are instead termed fetal homicide).

So prohibiting abortions would not eliminate abortions, but they would become much more dangerous. In addition, society would in a failed attempt to eliminate abortion, engage in increasing invasive and draconian practices – including investigating mothers who had miscarriages for possible murder charges. It might even be possible that Bible thumping prosecutors and grandstanding judges would get murder or manslaughter convictions against women who have miscarriages or still births if they deemed them to “recklessly” engage in improper pre-natal care. That is the exact same thing which happened with prohibition of alcohol – it is the same thing which has happened with making drugs illegal.

Thus, your little bumper sticker world collapses – abortion will still be going on, women will be dying, good doctors who save women’s lives will be branded criminals and go to prison – then what will happen is exactly what will happen in the 1960s. Abortion went from being absolutely illegal everywhere to being legal in at about half the states in a decade (that parallels the movement to make abortion illegal during the Comstock era – again, I point out that under English common law, abortion was illegal in essentially the same framework that Roe v. Wade set up – and the founding fathers did nothing to change that – it was later in the Victorian Era that people went after abortion).

BTW, you should also hear what your Republican masters really think about abortion – hint, their only objection to abortion is based upon who gets them. If its a middle class or higher white woman they hate abortions and want to get rid of them. If its poor [or any Black or Hispanic] women – they think there are not enough abortions. Romneycare paid for abortions on demand for poor women – so, its pretty clear that Mitt Romney agrees with this line of thinking. They secretly publish studies claiming that abortion has led to less crime, fewer people receiving AFDC, less educational spending – the people who are pretending to be pro-life secretly love abortion. They also support all sorts of measures which result in killing people after they are born through unsafe conditions, unsafe products, sending people off to war with defective equipment, the death penalty, etc. They are pro-life only up to the point of birth, then their policies are more accurately described as “pro-death.” Their pro-life position is just a way to be anti-woman to appeal to angry white men in dead end jobs to vote for people who will make their lot in life even worse than it was before.

They also see you as a total sucker. You speak “pro-life” but you vote “pro-death.” But I guess it does increase your anger.

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

–Anne Lamott

Think a Minute stopped replying when I shattered the moral absolute argument.

But I have more to say:

Whether or not you feel abortion is wrong, it is statistical fact that making abortion illegal does NOT stop the practice. In fact, the abortion rate is much higher in Latin America and Africa than it is in Europe for example, where abortion is legal.

What does happen however, is unsafe abortions are performed without adequate medical care. While maternal deaths due to abortion complications are extremely rare in the United States, well under 1%, worldwide unsafe abortions (in countries where the procedure is not legal) maternal deaths reach 13%, or about 50,000 women per year.

So you see that poverty is one of the root causes of abortion. If you truly want to make a difference toward halting abortion, you should dedicate your life to social equity and raising standards of living around the world. Erase poverty, and abortion shall follow.

What I find ironic here is that I share your position on the sanctity of life. I personally would not choose an abortion under most circumstances (if any), but I also recognize that attempting to legislate morality by making abortion illegal ends up leading to thousands of deaths that could otherwise be avoided. Meanwhile, making abortion illegal does not prevent abortion from happening. So getting locked into a moralistic view doesn’t actually address the issue unless you are willing to look beyond it at what you can do to make things better.

Also I must chuckle at your view on war. Have you ever experienced war, since you seem to think its ok? War is only self defense on your side. On the other side it is killing. But on their side it is self defense and they see your side as killing. So really there is just a lot of killing in the name of self defense. So you break from your absolute morality to defend killing. You see, morals are relative. Tell the dead kids ripped to shreds in a public school in Afghanistan because of a missile from a drone that missed its target that war is ok because we need to defend ourselves from children.

Aron:

I am curious as to why liberals refuse to engage their minds in any kind of debate.

Example: Ruslan said “don’t talk about logic and then say God commands x.” He stated his a priori conclusion but never gave a reasoned argument to support that conclusion. So that’s just his opinion, right? Maybe I can help him out. Ruslan: please refute this logical argument with your own: A) Every thing that exists had to have a cause. B) the universe exists. C) therefore the universe had to have a cause. Not so hard. Give it a try (without resorting to name calling if possible).

Example: A few months ago Joy B and Whoopie G both walked off the set of The View when a conservative guest made a statement. No dialog, no mental engagement, no factual refutation, no debate. They just walked off the set. Why? Because they had nothing.

Example: Aadila, Erika and Reynardine have been tagging me with names like idiot, jerk and others, but to date have not given any coherent argument to support their beliefs or disprove mine. Their argument against a law banning most (not all) abortions is that abortions will still happen. That’s true! It’s also irrelevant. Today I saw someone run a red light. And yet the city council where I live still wants to keep the law against running red lights on the books. Can you believe it? Keeping a law to deter an activity even though that law is regularly broken! It’s shear madness! Right?

Example: Richard Dawkins will no longer debate Christian apologist William Craig. Why? Because Mr. Dawkins cannot defend his religious beliefs against those of Mr. Craig. He’s got nothin’.

Example: Now you accuse me of fallacious reasoning (sophistry) but you never give a reasoned counter argument which shows logically where I went wrong. Why? Could it be that you also have nothing?

I want to understand why liberals desparately refuse to engage in legitimate rational discourse. Are they so emotion based, that they are incapable of engaging their minds? I don’t believe that’s the reason. You guys are smart. Is there something deeper going on? Are you afraid that if you were to think rationally, you would be forced to come to the same conclusions as we have, and find that you are accountable to some One? After all, there would go your anything goes lifestyles. Can’t have that, can we.

Final Example: You never answered my question. You told me to stop ducking YOUR question. So I answered it. My question is: What do you think of aadila’s statement that “Thus truth cannot be absolute.” Do you agree with it? Is it absolutely true?” Or do you just want to walk off the set too?

Erika: “That is the problem with you binary black and white thinkers who do not realize that everything in the world is shades of grey.” I have a question for you. Obviously the above statement, being part of the world, is neither black nor white, that is: neither true nor untrue. Given that it isn’t true, how should I interpret it?

Aadila,

Looks like we’re still waiting to hear back from our favorite new Open-Minded Person :)

@Aron,

Curious how someone who repeatedly slaps “liberals” from walking away from a debate won’t stand up and continue debating.

@Think a Minute

“Aadila, Erika and Reynardine have been tagging me with names like idiot, jerk and others, but to date have not given any coherent argument to support their beliefs or disprove mine.”

I most certaintly did NOT call you names, you mendacious little sinner.

Think a Microsecond, your arguments make absolutely no sense at all because you fail to look beyond a slogan to understand the implication of a thought. That is a classic bumper sticker mentality.

In an ideal world there would be no abortions ever – every child would be born to parents who love them, have good health insurance to assure prenatal care, and have good jobs and health insurance so they can provide for them. We don’t live in such a world – and the loudest “pro-life” voices are the people working their hardest to prevent such a world from taking place.

Not only that, the same people funding those pro-life voices are actually funding think tanks which release studies claiming that legal abortion has reduced the crime rate, has led to fewer children on welfare, and others – many of these stories smack of eugenics (which turns out to have been funded in the 1920s by many of the same corporate names around today). That is how the right actually feels about abortions. Their objection isn’t to abortion – its to giving the choice to women.

Outlawing abortion will cause many more problems – and fail to eliminate abortion. The way to eliminate – or at least reduce abortion – is to provide effective birth control, good health insurance to everyone, and develop good jobs so that people can afford to have children

Actions also speak louder than words – the “pro-life politicians” give lip service to being pro-life, but its merely pandering for votes for gullible fools. Their actions say that their real issue is opposition to women’s rights.

See, adults understand these things. Adults look for solutions to those issues and understand that the solution to the abortion issue is through economic development, birth control, and health insurance.

And that is why adults also understand that everything is in shades of grey – there are no simple solutions to complex problems. Honey, people who promise simple solutions to complex problems are lying to you. Its that simple – most people learn that when they are children. Like when I realized that my dream of getting a pony was impossible because you just can’t get a pony – you need a place fro the pony to stay, you need to feed the pony, vet bills, grooming, etc. Its a lot of money and a lot of work. Apparently you never learned that lesson – which is generally termed “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

Your arguments are not winning – they barely even count as arguments. If you had any sense, sweetie, you would have declared victory and retreated to cry to your mommy about how those mean girls were picking on you a long time ago. You don’t have any sense at all – and I care enough to keep trying to educate you so perhaps some sort of reason can slip through. But I doubt it, becaues you are just a sucker.

Of course, maybe if I could say this while wearing a low cut blouse, a micro miniskirt and high heels on Fox News Think a Microsecond would listen.

Erika,

If you would be willing to wear that outfit, I think I’d be able to listen to you pontificate on the benefits of black zip ties versus white zip ties in regards to SCUBA equipment for hours on end…

(And for anybody here who isn’t a diver, that’s BIG debate. And I can assure you my cave-diving friends HAVE spent hours debating the benefits of either color. And there are VERY FEW of them who I would like to see dressed up as a FOX News tart.)

(Also, I hope I didn’t offend you, Erika. I would listen to you no matter how you dressed :)

Aron, since I know absolutely nothing about that subject and would have to read whatever was in front of me on the cue card no matter how inaccurate or riduculous, some say my impression of a Fox News tart would turn out to be way too accurate :)

Right, Erika.

I think at the root of roots we need to look at the economic reality vis-a-vis the high cost of raising a child, and also noting the least expensive form of pleasure available in poor areas is sex. But that might be too racy for some people who feel abstinence education is anything but an oxymoron.

Aron, that sounds like some heavy rebreathing.

Hee hee! Aadila and Erika make me laugh :)

Ahem…. hate to interrupt this little luv fest, but can we get back on track,

Still waiting for answers from Aron, Erika and the new guy, Ruslan.

Sorry to be a fuddy duddy.

Objection, asked and answered.

Oh.

The new guy?

Uh oh.

To aadila:

That’s the absolute Truth. I am a sinner. But for the spilled blood of my savior, I would spend eternity separated from him.

Chief among sinners.

aadilla: I messed up, he’s not so new. I went back and Ruslan is all over this thread. I just hadn’t interacted with him recently.

Erika: I guess I didn’t see your response to my question. Can you repeat it, or should I repeat my question to you, to keep you from having to search?

Aron: likewise , I didn’t see your answer to my question. Shall I restate it?

Look, Think, I am happy for your faith, but that doesn’t give you the right to lie about me. You put words in my mouth, attributed comments to me that someone else made, and claimed that I called you names, which I did not. So stop lying to me and to yourself and you might find that there is greater complexity to this question than you apparently perceive. Your entire argument is based on falsehoods and metaphysical arguments which by definition cannot be tested by logic. How can you claim “absolute Truth”?

Think A Minute said,

on August 27th, 2012 at 6:58 pm

Erika: “That is the problem with you binary black and white thinkers who do not realize that everything in the world is shades of grey.” I have a question for you. Obviously the above statement, being part of the world, is neither black nor white, that is: neither true nor untrue. Given that it isn’t true, how should I interpret it?
—

With an open mind.

I think the problem here, Think, is that you were indoctrinated with very limited belief systems, which has been reinforced by very strong faith. This is not “wrong” but it does limit your understanding of dialectical concepts, such as subjective truth.

When you speak of “right” and “wrong” as things which exist as entities (and personified by religion into gods and devils) you are forgetting that these are concepts by which you interpret your experience.

In turn your experience is 100% dependent upon your various senses and the physical structure of your body, including your brain. What you see and perceive as real would look very different if you were looking through the eight eyes of a spider, or the strange polygonal eyes of the dragonfly. However, we tend to operate on the assumption that what we see is what is. And in fact, we are not even seeing what is, but relying upon a lens which captures reflections of light, and this information is interpreted and recognized by the brain.

In other words you may go to your grave insisting that grass is green because you see it this way. But if you saw without the ability to differentiate the color spectrum, or were born without eyes, you would have no concept of what “green” really is. No matter how much you tried, you would never fully understand the truth that grass is green. And in fact, grass is NOT green.

We perceive the grass to be green through very limited and self-referential means. It becomes quite apparent that all of our assumptions and moral ideas rely upon even more subtle mechanics of thought and experience. You yourself admit you make mistakes on this thread, and yet you put so much credence in your ability to define what is true and what is real.

The best you can hope for is to define what truth seems to be for you. And this is the essence of subjectivity. Even the very word “truth” has absolutely no meaning apart from what you ascribe to it, because you have to be there to perceive it.

By the way Think, I am not encouraging you to abandon your noble moral principles. I just point to their nature as not being tantamount to truth.

Think,

You gave me a priori arguments in response to my questions. I asked for legitimate proof. And I’m still waiting.

Since you asked nicely, Think I will get on my Fox News tart outfit and explain it to you respectfully.

See, it is like this – consider a concept which on the surface appears to be a black and white type of statement. To avoid any controversy the concept I will use as an example is “Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is yummy.” Easy statement right?

Wrong, its actually a statement of opinion – thus, someone who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies dough ice cream would not say its yummy. Thus, whether chocolate chip cookies dough ice cream is yummy or not will depend upon the individual (as aadilla already explained to you). Thus, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is yummy will always be a true statement – but not everyone can agree, The simple (black and white) part is that the statement is true – I do find chocolate chip dough ice cream to be yummy. The complex (shades of grey) part is that not everyone finds chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream to be yummy.

And the truth is actually more complex than just a matter of opinion – some people are gluten or lactose intolerant, some people are diabetic – thus, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream not only is not yummy, it will actually make them sick. And even if chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is yummy, it is not just a simple matter that everyone should eat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream – it after all could make you gain weight or even develop diabetes or other medical conditions. That really has nothing to do with the inherient yumminess of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream – its just the decision on whether to eat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is more complex than just “is it yummy?”

Now, many things which appear to be black and white statements are statements of opinion which are simply teh view of the individual. Those statements are always going to be true for you, but could be wrong for everyone else.

Let’s look at situations and events now:

Here is a seeming black and white situation: Everyone agrees that murder is wrong. Its universally illegal and its prohibited by all values system. Thus, that people are opposed to murder

Here is where the greyness comes in – what is murder?

Yes, you can look at the definition of murder – but like many things, it adds more questions than answers. That is because nothing is that simple.

More greyness comes in when you actually look at the specific stiuation that might be murder.

Let’s see – seeming black and white situation – A robs the Blackacre Convenience Store and steals money and kills clerk B.

Where does the greyness come in – lots of places.

First, what if C looks similar to A and witness W identifies (scientific research shows that eyewtiness testimony is extremely unreliable) C as the killer. What if C is a person with intellectual disability who gives a false confession (the science on false confessions is pretty interesting as well)? C then gets convicted for a crime that A committed.

I would hope that everyone would agree that is also a black and white “wrong” there to have an innocent person convicted and sent to prison (or worse).

But say A was caught and goes to trial – well, greyness already has shown from the C hypothetical – what about the evidence? Then assuming A who is in fact guilty is convicted – what to do with him?

That is a pure grey situation in which there is only an answer that is opinion. As mentioned above, opinions as a personal statement are always “true” statements – yet, they are also always “false” because they are opinions. That is a pure shade of grey.

Thus, you are only looking at the surface – on the surface things might appear black and white but that is only because you are looking at the surface. Below the surface, things are incredibly complex. Humans are likely the most complex creature in existance. The human brain is extraordinary powerful. Human society is extraordinarily complex.

That complexity – in something as seemingly simple as deciding whether you will eat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream – is where the grey comes from – and that is why everything is grey.

Your opinions are always black and white for you – but they are always shades of grey for everyone else – even in something as seemingly uncontroversial as “chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is yummy” can lead to potentially violent disagreements from fans of rocky road.

What to do about your opinions are always grey.

Human events are always colored in shades of grey.

Public policy is always shades of grey.

Thus, in a way you are right that there is a paradox in that it is true there can be no black and white and everything is shades of grey. However, that ignores where differences of opinion comes in and the human decision making process. By saying that everything is shades of grey, that means that everything is complex and nothing is as simple as your opinions say they are.

Aron: I didn’t give you an “a priori” argument. I didn’t give you ANY argument. I only gave you conclusions because you demanded them. I wasn’t ready to give you said conclusions because I knew you would take them as my opinion. And that’s exactly what you did, and rightly so, when you said “you are simply stating that you believe in your own morality for your own morality’s sake. You can give me no greater evidence than ‘it is God’s job”. I CAN give you greater evidence, if you’ll let me. But without leading you through the process of premise-argument-conclusion, anything I (or anybody else) claim is mere conjecture. Speculation. Opinion. Why would you care about my opinion? Aren’t you interested in TRUTH?

In other words: If I can’t convince you that there’s Absolute Truth, then why should you believe me? Why would you even ask for something called p-r-o-o-f ? What is p-r-o-o-f ? That word has no meaning in a world where absolute truth doesn’t exist. If I can’t get you to even answer the question I’ve posed three times now, how can I PROVE anything? If I say 2+2=4. It always equals 4. It always has, always will, no matter what mood you’re in, no matter if you look through spider’s eyes or human eyes, no matter “what the essence of my subjectivity” is, then how am I going to prove ANYTHING to you much less the existence of God. I wouldn’t even be able to prove YOU exist. YOU might be the figment of a spider’s kaleidoscopic imagination!

When you go to the pharmacy to pick up your meds, does it matter whose meds you get? Why? Why would it matter? If you get short changed on your next paycheck are you going to go to the book keeper and say “I think you shorted me this week”? What if she says “no, it’s really all there. Just put yourself in a parallel frame of mind. You’ll see. Really. It’s just that you’ve been indoctrinated by a limited belief system.” Are you going to say “wow, cool man, you expanded my universe, far out”? No. You’re going tell her to fork over the money. Right? Of course. So what’s the difference?

In order for me to prove ANYTHING, you must accept the universal laws of logic, which so far you have not accepted. But you have USED those same laws of logic in your responses, without actually acknowledging that they even exist: Example: On Aug 17th you said ”Gestation begins at conception”. That is an example of an absolute truth. It does not depend on the color of your mood ring when you say it. But on Aug 23rd you said “in terms of Truth and Right, there is no absolute.” You contradicted your absolute truth statement about gestation by stating there’s no such thing as absolute truth. You refuted your own position.

Again I ask: What do you think of the statement : “Thus truth cannot be absolute.” Do you agree with it? Is it absolutely true?” Yes it’s absolutely true or no it is not absolutely true. Can you please answer? Pretty please even?

Erika: You said: “That is the problem with you binary black and white thinkers who do not realize that everything in the world is shades of grey.”

Still waiting for your answer to this question. Obviously the above statement, being part of the world, is neither black nor white, that is: neither true nor untrue. Given that it isn’t true, how should I interpret it?

Think, my dear, your equation of 2+2=4 may be factually correct, but it says nothing about the nature of truth.

An equation is nothing more than a tautology. Tautologies are useful, but they do not contain any information about fact itself. This is because truths of pure reason are valid precisely because they lack any factual content. Equations, formula, and analytical methods are useful in the examples you provide, but they do not describe the nature of truth.

You say that 2+2 = 4. And I agree. However, 4 can also be arrived at by 16/4. Or we can go to imaginary numbers if you wish, and propose -8 + 12 = 4. We could do the same in binary, or use grains of rice, or count on your fingers, or use any symbol you wish. None contain any factual statement about the nature of truth. Although the equation may be true, it is not, nor does it define, “truth”.

If you were to read a bit of David Hume, you would find a division of genuine propositions into two classes: those which concern relationships between ideas, and those which concern matters of fact, which comprise a priori propositions of logic and pure mathematics. These propositions are necessary and certain, but they do not make any assertion about the empirical world.

Empirical propositions on the other hand may rely upon logic for probable outcomes, but never with total certainty. For an empirical hypothesis to be verified, we rely upon experience and the senses. It cannot be logically proven for example that there are moral absolutes, that God exists, or that there is such a thing as an immortal soul.

Even if you wish to claim that truth is absolute, what is the premise upon which your proposition was deduced? Did you or did you not begin with your senses?

No statement about “truth” transcending the limits of senses and experience can have any literal significance whatsoever. And for that, I refer you to Kant. Your very statement that truth is absolute requires symbols which are devised by the human mind and it would be absurd to claim it has literal significance outside of subjective experience.

As Wittgenstein once said, the only reason we suppose the world could not defy the rules of logic is that we have no means to describe how such a world would look.

And yes, my son, I did study logic.

The only truth is that all other statements are false. Go beyond, Think. Go truly beyond.

I didn’t come here for philosophical discussions. And certainly not with sophists like Think.

He is producing logic so perfectly circular that one might surmise it was produced with a compass.

We’re done here. You can feel free to go back to your study Bible. It obviously has All The Answers.

Aron: I’m sorry you chose to disengage. My whole effort was to lead you methodically to a new way of thinking. Step by step, so that you would know at every step that it wasn’t MY truth, it wasn’t My opinion, because my opinion is of no consequence. As aadila pointed out, I’m fallible and so are my opinions. I was trying to lead you to the Truth with a capital T. Trying to get you to acknowledge that it existed. Then I was going to help you see where it comes from. Not from within. Because as we said, we’re all fallible. Humans are fallible. Everyone has an opinion, they’re a dime a dozen. But I was going to help you come to the undisputable conclusion that Truth comes from outside of ourselves. You use the word “sophist” easily, but I wonder if that’s not just a smokescreen, especially because you don’t put any justification behind the charge.

In this thread, some have thrown up this and that conservative position that they think I believe, or “your republican masters” or whatever. They’re missing the point. They might be shocked to know that I don’t defend any of those positions. That’s why I didn’t respond. She assumed that I agree with them. I do not. Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Romney (I use as a metaphor for conservatism) are as ignorant of Truth as Obama, Combs, Olbermann. They all get their “truth” from the wrong place, inside themselves. Most Republicans have no idea what the Truth is because they’re too busy following their ideology to “think”, just like liberals do. Tonight they’re having Clint Eastwood in an attempt to woo the hip wing of the conservative party, like the last time they used Arnold Schwarzenegger. Neither of these men have any idea where Truth comes from, yet there they are, in the “conservative” spotlight.

Our minds, yours and mine, need to advance far beyond man made ideologies. There are only two groups that matter: those who know from whence Truth comes and those who make up their own. I hope one day you understand that Truth does not come from the suitcase full of life experiences that you draw from, or the pitiful grab bag of personal life experiences that I call my mind. Truth is way bigger than both of us. It wouldn’t care if we both ceased breathing right now. It would not change by one infinitely small idea. It does not depend on you or me or Billy Graham or Mother Theresa or Adolph Hitler. It is the Truth and it can never change. Ever.

“The only truth is that all other statements are false. Go beyond, Think. Go truly beyond.”

Indeed aadila. Indeed. But let’s really go beyond. Let’s imagine that if that statement can be true, there just might be at least one more…

Shall we?

Erika: Nice job. You nailed a couple things that told me I’ve not communicated well. (not the first time). You see, I’m not positing that there’s no such thing as “preference”. That’s as extreme and unrealistic as positing that there’s NO absolute Truth. Of course there’s preference. In fact that’s the whole crux of my argument. Talk about cookie dough! Almost everything we say is preference. Scroll to the top again and skim down. All you’re going to see is cookie dough. “they’re a hate group, it’s your fault for labeling… we’re tolerant … they’re bigots … we’re inclusive … they’re lying, blah blah blah”.

I’m trying to get buy in from you on this: There is personal preference BUT there is also a thing called absolute Truth. Absolute Truth does not depend on someone’s taste, or temperament, or physical constitution or political affiliation or worldview. Yummie is a relative term. Like “big”. Who killed the clerk is an absolute. The person who killed the clerk we’re going to call person X. Even if the jury, or the judge or the prosecutor doesn’t know who X is. Even if X who did the killing is insane or high and doesn’t know himself that he did the killing. He still did the killing. That’s my entire point! The fact that no human knows who X is, does not change the absolute truth that Person X killed the clerk. Whether X is A or B or C or none of the above does not change the absolute truth that X is the killer. No one in “this” world may know who X is (including X himself) but person X is known. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Person X is known.

Please mediate on this: “Everything is shades of Grey” is itself a Black and White Statement. Let’s call it Black. And like black it has an opposite which is White. White says “Everything is NOT shades of Grey” That’s the White version (if you will). And there is also (are you ready for this?) a Grey version: Grey says: “Everything Might Be shades of grey”. So if you want to be intellectually honest (and not contradict yourself) you have to say “Everything MIGHT BE shades of grey”. But be carefull!!!!! As soon as you say that, I’m going to jump all over you. Why am I going to jump all over you? What is my next post going to be if you claim that “everything Might Be shades of grey” ?

aadila: Your post was escellent! I can’t wait to talk about Hume and Kant. I just taught a class last Sunday at church about Hume, Kant, Keirkagaard and the post modern movement. I’m no expert and probaly don’t know as much as you do about them, but when I get a chance to write again I’m going to share with you something Hume (the greatest skeptic) said that will blow your mind.

Think,

If you enjoy Hume, I also suggest Alfred Jules Ayer, who proposed some useful methods to evaluate statements of ideas such as yours.

I would like to point to science in reference to your idea that Truth exists without.

Your view is dualistic, i.e., we exist separately from the Truth. As a monist, I feel that we are Truth, and that there is no distinction between our existence as humans and the dyamics of the universe as a whole. This monistic view is supported by quantum physics and the evidence that matter is comprised of subatomic wave forms, which suggests that there is no objective thing in the universe but instead a complete and dynamic unity.

In eastern mysticism this very recent scientific understanding for thousands of years has already been understood, accepted, and referred to, in Sanskrit, as prat?tyasamutp?da (“dependent origination”).

Therefore, the observation in the Heart Sutra, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” is scientifically accurate as well as spiritually meaningful, and shows the ability of the meditative mind to perceive the mysteries of the universe in their effulgent nature of oneness.

Such a realization is nothing short of mind-blowing.

“The task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what no body yet has thought about that which everyone sees.”

–Arthur Schopenhauer

Think, the best way to understand this might be for me to list two statements about abortion which I believe to be true:

1) Abortion other to save the life of the mother is immoral.

2) Its immoral to force a rape victim to have the baby of her rapist.

See the problem? Statement 1 and 2 are contradictory. Yet, I believe them both to be true. That is the problem with absolute truths – because an absolute truth does not take into account individual circustances, it can conflict with other “absolute truths.”

Take the “murder is wrong” example – leaving aside the definitional question of “what is murder” for which millions of trees have died to print cases which argue that very point – a classic hypothetical question is “if you could travel back in time to kill Hitler would you?” Of course, that would be murder – even though Hitler was responsible for murdering millions of other people, its still murder to kill him. So, if hypothetically murdering Hitler to prevent millions of deaths is moral, then aren’t people in fact that murder is not always immoral? See also the death penalty.

Thus, what happens is that what you think is an absolute truth may not turn out to be such an absolute truth afterall once you start looking at individual fact patterns. Every individual has millions of things which they believe to be true – some of them turn out to contradict each other. That is why everything is shades of grey. You simply cannot exist if you just look at everything as an absolute truth because eventually two of your absolute truths will conflict. It is from that conflict between “absolute truths” that the fact that everything is different shades of grey.

Erika:
You’re still relying on your opinion. For example – in the last post you said “which I BELIEVE to be true”. What you and I believe is irrelevant to absolute truth. If what you believe is YOUR truth and what Hitler believed about killing Jews for expediency is HIS truth, what makes your truth any better than his. Absolute Truth comes from God alone. It’s His truth that we are called to live by. He says in his Word that killing is wrong. Therefore it’s wrong. No debating. That means that Hitler is as wrong as the pregnant woman who kills her baby for any reason short of the baby killing HER of course. I’m afraid that includes rape and incest. God did not place qualifiers. And yes that would mean capital punishment. That might be MY pet cause as a conservative just like abortion might be yours. But God is neither conservative nor liberal. He’s God and he gets to make the rules. I may not LIKE them. You may not like them – but that’s irrelevant . And yes killing Hitler (as much as I would have loved being the one to pull the trigger) WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG ACCORDING TO God’s law.

About God’s absolute law, I’m not expecting you to believe me based on MY opinion. That’s what I was trying to tell Aron. No one cares about my opinion, least of all you. But I am expecting you to believe your own sense of logic. Two opposites cannot both be true at the same time and in the same relationship. There’s no example in this life, or in nature, or in the cosmos, or in the human experience where you can show that two opposites are both true at the same time and in the same relationship. You can draw scenarios where people are deceived, or don’t have all the information, or are lying. But that does not change the Truth. Your abortion and murder examples above do NOT contradict each other. Only your OPINION contradicts someone else’s OPINION. You said murder is wrong. Correct. But then you said “so if killing Hitler is moral… “. Incorrect. “Killing Hitler is moral” is YOUR opinion. “Murder is wrong” is God’s opinion. Therefore Killing Hitler is IMMORAL, because God says it is. So the correct answer is not “everything is shades of grey” That statement contradicts itself because IF everything is shades of grey, then THAT statement would ALSO be shades of grey, and if THAT statement is also shades of grey, then NOT everything is shades of grey. The correct statement is “SOME things are shades of grey and OTHER things are Black and White. The flavor of ice cream that is the best tasting is Shades of Grey, it’s relative. When your pharmacist dispenses drugs she works in black and white world. When you check your bank balance you work in a Black and White world. The computer screen you’re reading right now was designed in a black and white world. When NASA launches a satellite NASA works in a black and white world. Now are there Grey areas in all of those endeavors? Of course! But there are also very very very Black and White rules involved having to do with electricity, gravity, mathematics, physics, biology. To say that EVERYTHING is shades of grey is rationally self defeating AND practically impossible since such a world does not exist.

Think,

There is no good and evil except that which you, as observer, ascribe to a given action or intent. The good and evil reside in your own mind, not in the action you observe.

Even the very words you use for “good” and “evil” are entirely misleading symbolic constructs born of ignorance. They have no ultimate meaning and entirely subjective upon your experience of being raised and/or indoctrinated in a given faith to the exclusion of all other views, ideas, and understanding.

Whether or not you wish to believe in such utter poppycock is your own business. I prefer to base my understanding of the universe on the advances of science, and testable experience.

Particularly, I would like to point to quantum physics and the interconnectedness of all things, which are completely indivisible into paltry mental constructs such as good or evil. These ideas may be comforting in a universe whose order is difficult to grasp, and where suffering exists, but they have no more meaning than you give to them. Of themselves they are just ideas, and like all ideas they arise from consciousness and return to consciousness like a wave.

They have no ultimate reality.

“If man thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole.”

–David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980

Aadila said: “good” and evil are entirely misleading symbolic constructs born of ignorance. They have no ultimate meaning and entirely subjective upon your experience…. I base my understanding of the universe on the advances of SCIENCE, and TESTABLE experience”

3 Questions?
1) Can you describe the SCIENTIFIC TEST you ran which proved that good has no meaning?

2) Consider this quote from a poster: “I think it is because they don’t really care about hate crimes or hate groups at all, they just want to find a convenient reason to keep hating” Question: Does the kind of hate expressed in the above quote have any meaning?

3) If ‘hate’ can have meaning, then why can’t “good” have meaning, since neither ‘hate’ nor ‘good’ are scientifically verifiable.

Think: “Absolute Truth comes from God alone”

me: That is what you believe. Its also what Osama Bin Ladin, Fred Phelps, the Taliban, the Imans who run Iran, the Ku Klux Klan (especially the 1920s KKK which was explicitly a right wing Christian organization), and all of the other religious nutcases throughout history and the present believe.

So that pretty much shows the “flaw” in your reasoning.

If “absolute truth comes from God” who determines what “God’s absolute truth” is?

Perhaps you should spend less time reading the Old Testament to pick and choose which of laws of the Torah you want to selectively enforce – while ignoring the inconvient ones – and spend more time reading the Gospels where Jesus had some pretty strong opinions regarding the people (the Scribes and Pharisees) who claimed to decide what “God’s Law” met.

And you still have even more problems than just the fact that humans have been interpeting what God’s Law is pretty much since the Torah was first written (good luck btw, determining when that was). And likely even before then, the Scribes and the Pharisees were so important in the Judism of Jesus’s time in part because the Torah was not written down so that regular Jews could read it.

Thus, even if the Torah originated with God – and any reasonable mainstream historian would note the fact that the supposed God’s Law – including some of the most beloved passages among the right wingers – borrows a lot from Hamarabi’s Code [which is not surprising when you note that much of the Torah is the ancient Hebrew civil law code and Hamarabi's Code was the most influential civil law code in the ancient world]. In fact one might wonder why there was such conflict between the Hebrews and the Babylonians in the Old Testament – given that the Hebrews obviously borrowed legal concepts from the Baylonians. You have to impose several thousand years of man interpreting what it means. And disagreeing and arguing about what the Torah – and later passages of the Bible means.

To use the example of “killing” – here is where your black and white world collaspes upon itself. Why?

because everyone knows that if abortion is outlawed, illegal abortions will occur and it will result in the death of women. Even you admitted that earlier. Yet, you have no problem with that – apparently because those women are “murderers” according to you so apparently they deserve to die. Or maybe the lives of women just do not matter for you.

Add in the fact that the people who claim to be inspired by God and God’s law have no problem voting for people who promote a whole lot of killing. Just consider, the Republican Party supports tort reform, eliminating consumer safety laws, and eliminating workplace protection. Those policies will all result in people dying. Everybody knows that. One of the classic instances of tort law involves the Ford Pinto – Ford deliberately to save a tiny amount of money on each car sold a car they knew would explode and kill people. General Motors did the same thing in some of their vehicles (and then burned the evidence). The tobacco industry for years denied that smoking kills people – and were aided and abetted by Congress.

Not to mention the fact that the invasion of Iraq doesn’t exactly meet Saint Thomas Aquinas’ definition of a Just War does it?

Basically, honey, the people who are telling you to oppose abortion and to vote to eliminate abortion have a whole of blood on their hands. They knowingly promote policies which they know will kill people. You blindly follow the bouncing ball because you support a policy which they pretend to support – again admitting that you know it will result in women dying.

Basically you may speak out against killing, but you are actually saying that God isn’t always opposed to killing after all. So God might be against murder, but he’s perfectly fine with a large corporation eliminating workplace safety protections so that people will be killed and maimed (and no worker’s comp either). Of course, perhaps you should read some more of the Torah – and not just the out of context bits which people like the Family Research Council (in some ways, a modern version of the Scribes and Pharisees, in other ways, just a right wing front group funded by people who are also funding pro-abortion studies and pro-abortion groups) ignore because they aren’t exactly pro-right wing. And also read the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles – Jesus is definitely not down with laws that have the known effect of killing people and place a very low value on human life and he doesn’t think very much of rich people who don’t want to pay taxes.

Basically, what you claim is “God’s absolute law” is really whatever Think a Minute believes – or more likely whatever people with a financial interest in cutting taxes for the rich and abolishing workplace and consumer protection laws (as well as destroying tort law) tell you to believe.

You are nothing but a sucker. You claim “absolute truth” for the portions of the Bible you want to use to impose your will upon others – you ignore the portions of the Bible about faith, love and charity. I’m also guessing that you are not engaging in all of the animal sacrificial rites which the Torah lists. You then ignore that even within the religions who worship the God of Abraham (that would be Jews, Christians, and Moslems) there are hundreds if not thousands of different beliefs within those religions. See, honey, I’m a Christian too (but also qualify as a nice Jewish girl) and its pretty obvious that what they are preaching in my church is much different from what they are preaching in your church.

Most people understand that there is a difference between what comes from God and what comes from man. Jesus of Nazareth was pretty clear that there is a difference between laws and man and laws of God. Jesus and the early church also specifically went away from many of the Jewish laws. Especailly since many of the Jewish laws were in fact actually the civil law code of the ancient Hebrews (and um borrowed from the Bablyonian Code) which means that they were laws of man (and as historians of noted, many were extremely practical given the circumstances).

I guess you do have the Ten Commandments – something tells me you don’t actually follow them though. OF course, neither did Jesus of Nazareth – and neither did the ancient Hebrews since judging by the number of people killed in the Old Testament (odd that conservatives are calling for a book filled with so much sex and violence to be mandatory reading for school children – not that they really want people to read the Bible for themselves because if people actually do that, they will see how much the conservatives distort it – probably why so many conservatives support the King James Only belief – or if they are Catholic only support the Latin Mass and the Latin Bible – they know that people are not going to understand the arachaic languages therein).

Meanwhile the sun has finally come out and its a holiday so I have better things to do than to try to educate someone whose mind is welded shut. You pretty much remind me of a bumper sticker on a car on one of my neighbors that i saw growing up “God Said It, I believe it, That Settles It” – even as a little girl who went to Sunday school every week i could tell what the problem with that closed minded attitude it – it sets you up for control from people who will claim to speak the word of God, but have their own agendas.

When not even people within the same denomination of Christianity (let alone when you add in Jews and Moslems) agree on many things, how do you know it was really God talking? When its at least 5000 years removed from the oldest books of the Bible and approximated 1900 from the newest, and the Bible has been repeatedly translated over time – how can you be sure what is really God’s – and what is man’s interpretation of God? You claim God’s law – but it really is Think a Minute’s law – or more likely whatever modern equivilent of the scribes and pharisees snake oil salesman who convinced you to think that God supports whatever will line his pockets the most.

*sigh* even trying to wrap things up and end this so i can enjoy my day off from work – and the fact that it is no longer pouring down rain and the sun is finally out, i just can’t help myself. I don’t even know why i bother, since Think a Minute obviously has his mind welded shut (and he likely agrees with Saint Paul that women should just keep their mouths shut about religion anyway so it could well violate God’s law for him to even listen to me talk about religion. Or maybe he decided to ignore those portions of the Bible). *sigh* why do i bother?

Three answers:

1) I never said what you imply by clipping out my words. When I said I base my understanding on science instead of poppycock, it was specifically in reference to ontology and blind religious fervor. If the Bible says the earth is 10,000 years old, and science says millions, I’ll go with science thanks. Clear now? Of course “good” has meaning as a concept, but it is subjective meaning and depends upon symbolism. Words and ideas reside in the mind, and have no absolute meaning except that which you ascribe to it. Stop trying to twist my words because the two comments were never phrased the way you present them, and it’s obvious to anyone of limited intelligence what I meant. Of course we experience things we enjoy, find wholesome, and define as good. But these things are not moral absolutes.

2) Hate has meaning in so far as it is an expression of ignorance. Whether or not you consider the statement you quote as hateful depends on your own mind. Apparently you do, and I don’t. Thus my point is proved. Notions of love and hate reside in the consciousness, not in the object, person, statement, or idea being loved or hated. You must feel these things to understand them. As such, they are entirely subjective.

3) You question twists my words. All words can and do have meaning in terms of experience, but they do not have absolute reality separate from the mind. Notions of good and evil are experienced in the mind and as the mind is dependent upon senses, I refer you to my previous statements for clarification on their ultimate reality. Good and evil are never moral absolutes because they cannot exist without individual interpretations. I think my point was quite clear from the beginning, without tedious word games that do not advance your argument about the existence of gods or moral absolutes. I consider these things to be superstitions, you consider them as truth. If you have a soul to be rewarded or damned by some unseen “God” for reasons unknown, can you show it to me?

Erika:

90% of what you think I believe, I don’t believe. You’re all over the place. Focus on one thing and ask (don’t tell) me what I believe about it.

Aadila: Your words and your actions contradict each other. you said: “Good and evil are never moral absolutes because they cannot exist without individual interpretations”. Yet your actions tell me you believe quite differently. Your actions tell me what’s in your heart. You keep coming back, trying to convince me that your way of thinking is the way one should think. Yet at the same time you say there is no absolute right way to think, no absolute truth. It’s all subjective. It’s all in the mind. Then what is wrong with the way I think? What is wrong with the FLC? Let’s say they’re a terrible hate filled organization that molests homosexuals. What’s wrong with that? In a world where right and wrong, good and evil depend on personal experience and have no absolute reality outside the mind, what is “wrong” with it. Indeed in such a world, what is wrong with exterminating 6 million Jews? So the Nazi’s had a different set of personal experiences than yours. What gives you the moral superiority to make any claim of wrong doing by the Nazi’s? You say: “Words and ideas reside in the mind, and have no absolute meaning except that which you ascribe to it.´ So the Nazi’s ascribe good wholesome feelings to mass murder. Does that make it okay? How is it that YOU are right and THEY are wrong. The classic postmodern response is “well I’m not hurting anyone.” But that doesn’t solve the dilemma. It’s a non-answer. Because my next question is “Well what’s wrong with hurting someone?” Where did you come up with that as the place where you draw the line? That’s YOUR line. The Nazis might have a different line.

These are not word games. This is the crux of the whole matter. Without absolute truth, right and wrong, good and evil, you have no moral superiority over anyone else. It’s all just your opinion, which is what I was trying to show Aron. Why are you trying to change my opinion to match yours if it’s all subjective? Why is the SPLC labeling certain groups Hate Groups if it’s all subjective? What’s wrong with Hate Groups? It appears to me that the SPLC absolutely believes there’s absolutley something wrong with Hate Groups. Would not you agree? Why was Hitler “wrong” if it’s all in our individual interpretations, his interpretations, your interpretations, my interpretations? We all have different individual interpretations, so how is it that YOUR interpretation ends up being the right one?

There is a word to describe people like Think:

Obtuse. He is being willfully obtuse.

Everything is Right. Everything is Wrong.

Everything is True. Everything is False.

Everything is Beautiful. Everything is Ugly.

And this Post has become Painfully Boring.

Think,

I have no desire to change your opinion. That is a view common to people who feel they must force their morality on others. Obviously you see yourself in some kind of war over morality, or seized upon some idea somewhere that one must either see things are morally absolute or morally relative and decided to carry that battle flag forward instead of looking for ways to reduce the harm in the world.

Go spout platitudes to the woman in Latin America or Africa who gets kicked in the stomach until she aborts because there is no safe alternative. Or to the infant who starves to death. Or the child born with HIV. Or the one sold into sexual slavery. Or the one who is left to its own without love of any kind until finally shot by some policeman paid by a merchant who is tired of street kids stealing his goods. It’s easy for you to do so because you are not in their shoes.

You know something, Think, I don’t have a problem with Christ or his teachings. I’ll even accept Christ as my personal savior if it makes you feel better, because Christ’s teachings on love and kindness are clearly the product of an enlightened being.

But I do have a problem with people like you who think being Christian gives them the right to tell others what is right or wrong when in the name of God, people have tortured, raped, and enslaved other people for virtually the entire history of your religion. Your moral absolutes are an insult to my spirituality.

Aadila:
How are you and I and Aron the same: We all hold to certain moral absolutes.
Thnk’s Moral absolute: abortion is wrong.
Aadila’s Moral absolute: killing 6 million Jews is wrong.
Aron’s Moral absolute: “think does not have any right to deprive anyone of their right to undergo the procedure” (and I could find many more if you give me 30 more seconds)

Now: How are you and I and Aron different?
Think holds to certain moral absolutes and ADMITS it.
Aadila holds to certain moral absolutes and DENIES it.
Aron holds to certain moral absolutes and refuses to answer my main question that I asked him four separate times so he doesn’t have to deal with it.

We all hold to moral absolutes but some of us admit it and the rest of us will do ANYTHING to deny it.

Think, your arrogance to think you know what others believe or feel in their hearts is in shockingly bad taste to say the least.

I realize it is difficult for someone indoctrinated by your set of values to begin to see beyond your limitations. Others here in this very forum who are Christians have my total reverence because they are aware of the moral trap of the absolute. You however, do not see the trap of your own absolute morality. You have no awareness of the trap of self righteousness.

There is nothing in my statements or my mind that indicates my morality requires absolutes. You have again taken your moral outrage over the holocaust and attributed these feelings to me. You apparently have a very hard time understanding what you think and feel has zero applicability to anyone else.

You seem to imply that without moral absolutes, humanity would be lost in moral perdition. We cannot be trusted to guide ourselves through the vagaries of human life and therefore must submit to the will of some unseen and unprovable God, handed down through the most precarious of translations and redactions and outright scrub jobs on separately written scriptures that cannot even be accurately identified as to their specific origins, much less being attributable to “God”.

I am not asking you to abandon your morality. I am not asking to to take on my own morality for yourself. How am I insisting on moral absolutes?

Morality is best determined by the results of our actions and intents. As such every action, every thought, every word, each second of our lives, involves a complex set of dependent relationships and interactions. I urge you to look into this before you respond: dependent origination. This is a vital concept to understand before you will understand my morality.

Nazism was the fruit of moral absolutes. Absolute nationalism, absolute duty, absolute loyalty, absolute ethnocentricity. This was a rigid and highly dogmatic moral code based on supreme belief that what the Nazis were doing was right. Where your argument fails is that even if I believe the Nazis were “wrong”, they believed, at least some, that what they were doing was “right” or at the very least necessary to avoid being killed by those who did feel what they were doing was right. They held compassion as a weakness, a moral failure. They were, just like you, moral absolutists. And they were, like it or not, in their own minds, doing the right thing. This is not an apology for Nazi atrocities. This is recognition of what makes human nature tick.

And who are you to judge anyone? Can you truly state with any certainty that if you were in the same situation that you would have done anything differently? I don’t believe you can. I think you may lie to yourself or get smug in your dogma, but you are closer to being a Nazi than you may care to admit.

Here is an experiment for you. Try going without food for three days and see where you morality goes. Try it. I don’t mean think about it, I mean actually try it. Hunger HURTS. It makes you do things you might even contemplate otherwise. See what happens to your thoughts during a brief experiment with starvation. You might even kill if you got hungry enough. And don’t say you wouldn’t unless you have been there. If you doubt me, try it. If you don’t have the courage to see for yourself where your morals go, then shut up about it because you are a fool.

Aadila and Aron:
A few years ago a creationist asked Richard Dawkins a question, on camera, about evolution. It was a well designed question. Its purpose was to reveal to Mr Dawkins and anyone with access to the internet that the claims of evolutionists are vacuous and indefensible. As expected, this educated messenger of evolutionism could not answer the question. He looked at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity and gurgled.

I have always been taught to ask questions because the inability of your opponent to answer is a sign of the fallacy of their arguments. So far I have asked each of you the same simple question multiple times. Each time you have chosen to confuse & confound, to demagogue, to run and hide, to disengage and to filibuster. But in all that, you have never answered the question.

Last week, Aron demanded that I answer his questions. What did I do? I answered them. While it is true that he did not LIKE my answers, it is equally true that he could not LOGICALLY REFUTE my answers and didn’t even try.

Like Mr. Dawkins, I can only assume that the reason you refuse to answer my questions is because you CANNOT without revealing the futility of your own arguments. It seems that any conscientious thinker would be so bothered by their inability to answer a simple question that they would want to open their minds to find out what it is they believe that is so fatally indefensible. I know I would. If there was even ONE question that you could ask me that I could not answer simply and succinctly in a way that you could not logically refute, I would begin to sincerely doubt the veracity of what I have committed my life and eternal security to. Not so with you. Your insistence on living in ignorance is astonishing.

Note Yet Again: It is NOT MY OPINION that I am prepared to prove to you. It is absolute, irrefutable Truth that did not come from me. That is because (again) my opinion, like yours, is irrelevant. I am prepared to prove to you that not only is Truth absolute, but that it came from the only place it could… the Creator of the universe. The way I am prepared to prove it is not by TELLING you (that would open me up to accusations that I am trying to force my opinion on you), but by asking you questions that you cannot answer without acknowledging the Truth, and therefore I have no doubt that you WILL NOT answer them.

Think, the fact that you’ve admitted that you know that if abortion is made illegal there would still be abortions (including by rich women who can afford to fly to other countries for the procedure) and that some of these illegal abortions will be unsafe resulting in women dying from them shows that you are a very callous and cruel person.

You also support people who demonize homosexuals and that results in people getting hurt.

Rather than supporting people who favor policies such as universal health care, universal access to effective birth control, and living wages for working families which will actually reduce abortion, you support people who oppose policies that will actually reduce abortion because they give the right slogan. Those same people also support policies that will result in millions of people being killed and maimed.

You claim to be against hurting people yet you would force rape victims to carry their rapist’s child to term which is unspeakably cruel.

That shows that your claimed moral absolute that hurting others is wrong is not so absolute after all.

It also shows that you simply are not an honest person because you do not admit that there will always be moral ambiguous situations because people are not angels and are not perfect.

And that is the problem with your bumper sticker black and white mentality. You claim moral absolutes but act moral ambiguty because you are a human and humans are not perfect. And in order to truly live by moral absolutes people would have to be perfect. If humans were perfect, God would not have had to send Jesus Christ and enabled forgiveness. Have you even ever actually read The Bible or gone to church? For such a self righteous Christian you seem to know very little about Christian beliefs.

Think,

Are you good or evil? Answer the question. Black or white. One or the other. Which is it?

Answer the question.

That’s easy. I am absolutely evil. My heart is desperately wicked all the time. Inspite of Erika’s accusation that I am SELF righteous, I am just the opposite. She once again, misunderstands me. The answer is Evil.

If you are evil how do you explain the comment:

“Life is sacred”?

Think,

Also please answer this question:

“How many virtues are in a pineapple?”

If you can’t answer it will clearly show that your argument is a fallacy. Go on now, answer it.

You know something, Think, you are a self righteous hypocrite and a Pharisee. You had the opportunity to save a soul, but you have driven me from Christ by your example.

How many virtues are in a pineapple, Think?

Human Life is sacred because God made man in his image, and HE is sacred.

A pineapple has no virutes as defined by the dictionary (moral excellence; goodness; righteousness) because it is not man. What game are you playing here?

Question for you: how many questions of yours must I answer before you answer one of mine? Or are you hiding again. I understand if you are. You’d have something in common with Richard Dawkins.

Ladies, Think has at this point far surpassed the requirements for a troll. As such, I would simply recommend that you, like me, ignore him.

He isn’t worth your time or mental energy.

Just stop feeding him, and he’ll take his bloviation elsewhere.

And that’s the last you’ll hear from me on this thread.

No virtues, eh? I wonder if you try the three day experiment with starvation … hmmm. Your dictionary definition may not apply then. What does the dictionary tell you about pineapple? Does it tell you how it tastes? Honestly think, no matter what your dictionary says about the matter, I think you must agree there is really much goodness in a pineapple. It is nourishing, sweet, and fragrant. It has a pleasant aspect, and a curious shape. Do you not see these virtues?

I see in your heart you do.

So, come, now. Let’s not be coy. Try again: How much goodness does the pineapple have?

While you are chewing on the pineapple question, I would like to press a bit futher about your other comment: that life is sacred because God made humans in his image and HE is sacred.

If God made you in his image, and you are evil, then God must be evil. Is this not so?

Aadila: Regarding your “virtuous pineapple” analogy. I’m not a postmodern so I’m not at liberty to engage in nonsense. But if you’re interested in a serious discussion about such things as Truth, life, judgment, love, and sin, I’m willing to and even anxious to spend time with you.

Your question: “If God made you in his image, and you are evil, then God must be evil. Is this not so?” is a very good one and cuts right to the core of the sin problem that man has. Contrary to what you and Erika stated, I am not SELF righteous. My righteousness does not come from myself. That’s why I said I am evil. If one is evil, how can they be righteous?

Now to your great question: God originally made man according to His image. That is with the ability to love, think, create and most importantly with a free will. Without a free will, man (mankind) would be unable to truly love God (not merely have an affection for a person – like your black lab) but real love. Now God also made man without sin. But man on his own free will CHOSE to sin. That act of disobedience broke his perfect relationship with the Creator and consequently lost his righteousness. That’s how man can be evil and still have been created by God.

There’s much more that I’d like to share with you if you’ll allow me.

Since fresh pineapple is one of the yummiest things there is, it seems that Think has revealed his main issue which is opposition to pleasure (especially sex – hence the opposition to abortion and birth control so as to punish women for daring to engage in sex). The fact that he thinks he is evil reveals a particularly masochistic mindset – likely he’s some sort of fire and brimstone Baptist who opposes anything that people might find pleasurable.

But think, you aren’t evil – you’re human :)

Gee Think, you really flopped there.

I asked you a very simple question and you were unable to answer it. Do you really need to consult your holy books about pineapple? How dole, or should I say, droll…you pointed your eyes heavenward and gurgled. According to your own rules of logic that means you were completely perplexed.

Oddly enough, I asked a little boy who just turned three the same question, and he had no problem answering spontaneously and authentically, without resorting to scripture.

“I don’t know. I like pineapple!”

If a little boy knows more about the universe than you do, and you have to actually consult a dictionary to answer a question which can only be answered through experience, it is because you cannot think. You are so paralyzed by Biblical indoctrination that your mind cannot cope with a simple question. So, you are not qualified to discuss good and evil or any of the ontological questions you raise. If you have to resort to some obscure reference to “postmodernism” when we are talking about a piece of fruit, it’s obvious that you are so lost in theory that you will never be able to put any of it into practice. If God created you, he created pineapple. You should be able to answer the question.

But instead you point your head upward like a turkey and gurgle gurgle gurgle…

If you have to resort to dogma every time there is any ontological doubt and the cracks in your scriptures appear, then either you are failing your religion or your religion is failing you. You have utterly failed to demonstrate any truth, except perhaps, that you are absolutely deluded about the nature of the universe. Your faith fell to a fruity bromeliad.

I urge you to think about what this means about the nature of your beliefs and how truly blind you have become to simple human existence. If you ponder the pineapple enough, you may one day come to a realization about the nature of truth. Remember, child, the original sin was eating the fruit of knowledge.

In the Aristotelian sense, the virtues of a pineapple are its sweetness, its fruitiness, its vitamins, its ability to digest and tenderize animal proteins, and, of course, its prickliness. But the latter two qualities gave rise to a Brazilian expression signifying to have sexual intercourse with one, which compares a situation to that of a male who has done so, and faces excruciating pain if he pulls out and enzymatic amputation if he doesn’t (e.g., Uncle Sam in Iraq). Any man who has ever been in such a situation would naturally regard pineapples as evil, whereas if he had confined himself to the proper use of them, they would have appeared to him in a light wholly virtuous and good.

Rey your opinings are edifying but the question isn’t really how many virtues did Aristotle ponder when he was cutting a hole in a pineapple and found himself punished by the gods.

You are using your logical mind, and yes that is one answer. But it is not a definitive answer. What of its other virtues? Are you certain you have counted them all?

To solve a question of this nature you need insight, not logic. It is a koan of sorts. There is the superficial answer, which is a perfectly reasonable attempt to list the immediate virtues. But what of the other virtues…does it not reproduce prodigiously? Does it not compliment its ecosystem? Does it not provide a form of economic activity for growers?

And yet those answers miss the point too. And by missing the point you are missing out on understanding your own virtues. When we realize that our first answer is not truly correct, we answer it again (well, some will….Think will look in his holy books and dictionaries for answers and they say little about pineapple which is useful for answering the question. Frustrated he will give up, and never be able to solve it).

But it CAN be solved.

Go on thinking about it. Stop all other thinking and concentrate your whole consciousness on this simple question: how many virtues are in a pineapple. Go on thinking of all the possibilities, all the alternatives, all the arguments for and against. Go on thinking about it; make it a deep meditation. Then suddenly one day thinking will stop, because you cannot find any alternative through thinking. And when thinking stops, it is not going to be that you will get the answer. Because the purpose of the question is not to have an answer.

The purpose is to understand the nature of virtues, the nature of pineapple, the nature of self. There are no final answers, only more and more questions, more and more doubt. And by exhausting all these questions, realizing (through trying, not by giving up) that they cannot ever be answered, we go beyond the original question and arrive at perfect understanding.

The same understanding as a three year old:

“I don’t know. I like pineapple.”

Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.

To be on the safe side, I just checked again with the 3-year-old guru and the instantaneous, direct answer is just as enlightened as the first one:

“How many virtues are in a pineapple?”
“Yes!”

Try saying “Yes!” to all your doubts. The Mondo is finished. Now let us meditate.

Erika: You said: “his main issue which is opposition to sex – hence the opposition to abortion”
Abortion is not a pre-requisite for sex. People have been known to engage in sex without killing one single little girl. I believe you know that.

Next: “so as to punish women for daring to engage in sex”. I don’t want to punish women for daring to engage in sex, but I would liket to stop people from punishing little girls for daring to exist. I would like for the final gasps of all 1700 hundred little girls who found out today that they will never enjoy that gift of sex, to ring in your ears the next time you do.

Oh hush, Think.

And stay out my watermelon patch with your pen knife and furtive smile.

You little sinner!