Marinus
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Everything posted by Marinus
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Yeah, well, the mind over matter techniques don't work that well (or to be more precise, don't work at all) on things like cancer. In of serious afflictions instead of the cheap tricks, I would advise the better tricks science offers. Usually the things that can be solved by mind over matter techniques, aren't really worth to sacrifice your rationality over, so get them religion-free if you can.
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Bring yourself into a susceptible state, implant a suggestion, choose to believe the suggestion. The term self-hypnosis probably covers most of it.
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You're avoiding pirana's questions that followed your claim that marriage is a religious thing, so, if according to you marriage is by definition religious in nature,
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Religion has a couple of cheap but still useful tricks up it's sleeve, that I still utilize, that's all. The object of my "faith" is in most cases some variation of the placebo-effect. Research shows that it works, and I use it all the time on things like head-aches.
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I think it was a movie with a great premise but a horrible execution. The end product was acceptable but it could have been great. But then again, I'll like almost anything with giant nukes in it....
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I can think I can top that by death by "falling into the sun in a giant nuke to safe the earth" A more peaceful way to go than it sounds like apparently..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBzVPXr8SNY
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http://thenewjimcrow.com/
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Any instantaneous death that I wouldn't see coming, would do it for me. I'm not afraid of life, nor am I afraid of death, it's the transition between the two I'm chicken about.
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That's a very good question. We already established it's usually not because they want to go back. Maybe it's because something is horribly wrong with the US prison system, which is among other things visible from the huge number of prisoners that are in it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
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It's hard to define what marriage is, because it exists and existed in so many different cultures. One thing we can say about it that it doesn't have to be a religious practice. If I'm not mistaken, millions of atheistic Americans are married without anyone complaining their marriages aren't religious (and there fore shouldn't be called marriage). Also there's explicit secular forms of marriage. For example in many European countries marriage is called civil marriage and is separate from the (optional) religious marriage. I think this situation comes close to the "civil unions for everyone & marriage for the religious to define as they see fit" a lot of posters here propose.
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I don't like to be talked down to, especially by someone who thinks he knows everything because of one anecdote. The great majority of people in prison don't want to be there [period]. Western European prisons are generally better places to be than American prisons, but the multitudes of people lined up to get in there (only) you would expect, aren't there. In fact prison populations are generally small, especially if compared to the US prison population. For most people (let's say 99,9+%) the idea of loosing their freedom is absolutely horrible.
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Many prison systems, among which at least part of the American prison system, often create the right circumstances to promote things like murder. inmates are more or less forced to participate in violent gangs to save their asses. Often quite literally so. If anything being in prison should sometimes maybe even be viewed as a mitigating circumstance. Besides: execution isn't the only option to protect the other inmates from recidivist murderer. So I don't agree.
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Since souls don't exist you can't really walk through them to get wet feet to begin with. Besides, religion usually isn't very deep. It's often induced by fear of dying combined with good old greed, which leads to fantasies about eternal life in lala-land. It's even more selfish and shallow than wishing you'd win the lottery. Of course, someone with slightly more imagination inevitable come to the conclusion that eternity up in haven, unlike winning the lottery, is a truly horrible fate for sentient mortal beings like us. Lastly, one really doesn't need to adapt the nonsense of religion to utilize the parts of it that are beneficial, in other words, the good and fuzzy feelings. The funny thing with placebo's is that they still work if you know it's a placebo and choose to believe in the placebo-effect. So I experience all the benefits of spirituality without the need to shut my brain down.
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I believe execution is OK when it's the only way to keep society safe from certain criminals, but for that to happen society has to crumble to the point it can't sustain a prison system. A rather hypothetical exception to the rule I would say, but I'm not 100% against CP.
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The USA is the only Western nation that still executes people. It also has the worst murder rate of any Western nation. To me, that's a lot more convincing than some anecdotal anomaly.
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I must have been doing something wrong, because I was replying to that quote. My reaction to it is now posted. I believe we pretty much agree here, btw.
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I don't think it's very hard to understand. Hatred is a feeling most experience, and irrational hatred for groups also seems to be very common. I heavily suspect that loads of people have irrational feelings of hatred/dislike for groups, but recognize these feelings as "wrong" and thus don't act on it, or even deny the existence of those feelings altogether. I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between the different brands of hate. Actually hurting someone you hate is simply the next thing to do after you rationalize the hate and start to dehumanize your target.
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You make the classic mistake of thinking that non-believers never ever have taken the time to study religion. The fact that we reject it, doesn't mean we are ignorant about it or don't understand it.
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Fair enough, but I wouldn't want to share my society with screw-ups that have access to guns. If people can't handle guns, they shouldn't have access to them. I refer you to my earlier statements that you can't prevent everything. But in the end you're much less likely to be killed by a bullet in Norway than you are in the US. So it's possible to prevent a lot.
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True, that, but that's not the point of what I said.
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I don't even have to look at the statistics to know how that's working out for you guys. I know how hard guns are, but despite the facts that it's all pretty fucking obvious, it takes some time to learn to handle them safely anyway. Especially the part were you always are aware where the business part is pointing, takes a bit of time to get used to. And there's some routines you want to get right every time. And there's even some stuff that's not so pretty fucking obvious. You can give me a gun and you can be 100% sure that I'll not accidentally shoot you. I'm not sure about you though. "Screwups are screwups" You don't screw up [period] It's a barrier, yes, and I think there should be one. Mind you that I don't really care how the US regulates guns, but don't expect "Why, oh god ,why?" from me every time fire-arm related happens in the US.
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I could say that I'm pretty anal around guns too, but that would probably lead to people getting all kinds of very wrong ideas about me. But it's not about people like you and me, but the people who think fire-arms are a toy.
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That's true. And you never will be able to prevent everything, to begin with, but you'll be able to prevent a lot, I think. I especially don't really understand the resistance of many to the education part. It seems only natural to me that if you want an armed population, you want one that knows how to handle weapons. For example, someone who sells a gun, and somehow manages to shoot the daughter of the buyer in the process, should never have been in possession a gun in the first place because he should have failed his exam for the gun-licence.
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IIRC people who have proven that they can't be trusted with guns loose the right to bear arms.
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Yes, because many people are accidentally voted to death, and drunk voting is a threat to safety everywhere. Apples/Oranges. When handling guns and driving cars, competence is at least as big an issue as honesty.