motionscribe

And apparently the only thing she considered bad was my response to Ron. I was simply giving my opinion of how the democrats need to win back the midwest and eastern swing states. If you have a problem with any of that, then for fuck's sake man, spell it out.

Nope, but negative emotion is pretty much what keeps these forums alive. If it was just one big circle jerk, it probably wouldn't last very long. Probably the same way it makes you feel.

Jeez man, look at your original post and tell me that's the only thing you said in it Well that's what I was asking you to clarify. Your string of quotes didn't include anything from my original post. If you don't want to talk about it, why don't you just say so?

You're very keen on telling people what their emotions are. I was simple asking a question. If we don't care, then why do we continue to post? The sad fact is that we're addicted to the emotional high that anger brings. We just can't help ourselves when someone on the internet is wrong. It goes right along with my other post about how life is so good and we have nothing better to do than invent ways to argue about the increase of 250,000 jobs. . .

Not so much anger, more despair that humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes agin. I know, what a miserable life Eeyore. What are we ever going to do about all these stupid humans? What would you be doing with your day if you weren't so intent on telling Franco how silly he's being for responding to posts on here that don't materially affect him? You see where I'm going with that... right? I know, right, doesn't it just make you angry!? I think I'm going back to sleep.

Honestly, it's because you're not as clever as you think you are, and your insights aren't as accurate as you think they are. I'm a bit groggy this morning, what insights are you referring to? You don't know what your own point was? So you disagree that the democrats can win back the swing states that voted against them? You also disagree with my naivety in thinking that the republicans would've at least tried to unite the county? You agreed with Ron's entire post. There's a difference between simply not bashing him, and supporting him in bashing everyone else. So telling Ron that the childish rhetoric of conservatives might cost them the upcoming election means that I agree with him and that I'm bashing everyone else?

Not so much anger, more despair that humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes agin. I know, what a miserable life Eeyore. What are we ever going to do about all these stupid humans?

Honestly, it's because you're not as clever as you think you are, and your insights aren't as accurate as you think they are. I'm a bit groggy this morning, what insights are you referring to? There's no doubt people have been provoked. But just so I'm clear, can you point out exactly what was so provocative? Is it something I said, or something Ron said? Is it provocative that I dind't bash Ron like you people do on daily basis?

I know right? Doesn't that just make you mad!!!! Now if billvon didn't come in here and post that, you would've just went about you day and it would've made a fuck all difference in your life. But hey, at least you got your daily fix of anger! Feel better now?

Exactly, they don't have their priorities straight. They should've been dealing with this back in the 80s. They simply have no strategy and are lost. They will soon be begging Oprah to get them out of this mess. . .

On the whole that's true. Look how many crimes get the death penalty in Leviticus; look how many times genocide was commanded overall in the OT vs the NT. Right, but the OT is a much larger book covering a much longer period of time. You obviously haven't been following the thread. wolfriverjoe said that the killing or skeptics was enough to influence evolution within several hundred years. . .

There's this strange attitude you see here that people can only do one thing And that's not what I'm talking about. There has been no pushback or counter force against the Federalist Society as far as I can tell. Bitch and moan all you want, but at least have your priorities straight. . .

Right, much easier to just fight among each other and lose our lives over some statue rather than attack the source of the problem. At least we'll have some good footage, headlines and facebook stories to broadly damn the conservatives at the expense of the deceased. . . No wonder nobody trusts liberals/democrats to get anything done. . .

Join the federalist Society. . .

Awesome! Let's find some ways to argue about it since life is so good and have nothing better to do. . .

They used to be. (Preoccupied about blacks, too.) You could even see vestiges of that here in this forum; witness Ron's angry screeds here against the homosexuals and transsexuals. Fortunately, they have become more liberal/progressive with time, as society has. I was talking about people in the midwest and the eastern states - states that typically have voted Democrat in the past, states that are needed to win elections. Appeal to them, and you win. Then you have the power to actually do something, rather than moan online 24/7. . . A stark improvement over the days when black-rights activists "egging on" a bunch of double digit IQ redneck actual KKKers for lynching blacks. (Of course, they got the same sort of grief from the conservatives of their time.) The days of the KKK are almost behind us. Trump gave them one last gasp (with his "both sides" and "very fine people" comments) but they won't last much longer. Unfortunately, they are still around - and it is best to not ignore that. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I agree with you there, but there are plenty of liberals showing how it might be on the rise. And tho I have lots of evidence illustrating it's decline, they have some pretty convincing arguments themselves. However, my point was about fighting institutional racism at it's core, rather than having these superficial confrontations over some statue. Do you not see the importance of calling out white supremacist keynote speakers at the federalist society? Do people even know about the federalist society and how they're the single most influential conservative organization shaping the future of this country? Is there any Democrat organization that can even remotely come close to balancing this out? That's why the Republicans win. They are united. They are organized. They have been planning this for generations. The people trust them to get shit done when it needs to get done. They trust them to make the tough decisions. They trust them to put the long term power of the county before anything else.

Fair enough, but in Ron's defense, I don't think he's getting bent out of shape about any of this, and while we probably disagree on a lot, we're still united. Right, that's the reality of it all. That's pretty much why we all get along in the real world, rather than kicking the shit out of each other at work or out in public. That's what the internet is for. You can talk all day about how we're all the same, but then this forum would be dead. Think about it, how many responses do you really get when you're trying to be all thoughtful and Pollyannish? No one gives a shit. My initial point was how Democrats can win back those that have jumped ship, specifically in the midwest and eastern swing states. I was also expressing my disappointment in the republicans failure to unite the country, but you didn't address any of that, did you? See what I mean? You only want to address the provocative elements that offend you rather than digest the totality of the post. Anyway, the inability for the republicans to unite this country pretty much seals our fate. At this point, we will always remain divided, until we fall.

Well it's true. IMO, most atheists truly don't understand the science they parrot, or - unless they are actual scientists - have no practical use for such knowledge other than to troll Christians, which IMO opinion is misguided and counterproductive to the overall acceptance of science in general. Actually, I was surprised about the lack of pushback. But that was most likely due to the fact that those who actually know science understood the point that I was trying to make, unlike you, DJL and tonyhays. WTF are you talking about? Again, WTF are you talking about? Where did I try to impose my beliefs on everyone? That's one of the problems. Anytime someone tries to discuss religion on any level, skeptics like you get all uptight and start crying about how we're shoving our beliefs down your throat. Why so defensive? You must have me confused with someone else.

Given his response to some of my posts, I wouldn't credit him with much in the way of comprehension, so his opinion is of little import. I can understand that. We both know where this place is headed. I'm just trying to buy some time for the others and make it a peaceful exit as possible. When SHTF, I might be leading a small group of new converts your way. We'll be headquartered along the Toccoa. What's ours is yours. If we need assistance, I got the password.

Really, the whole "I know you are, but what am I" approach? So you blame your teachers for your ignorance? Where does it say that the Garden of Eden was perfect? You implied that in the OT he was punishing and vengeful, and then in the NT implied that he became loving and caring. Your confirmation bias has allowed you to overlook the parts in the OT where he was "loving and caring." I said that I see a punishing, vengeful, loving and caring God throughout all of scripture. If you can't see the parts of the NT where he was, is and/or will be vengeful and punishing, then you're either reading some translation that I've never heard of, or you're placing your faith in ignorant teachers again, and/or your confirmation bias has stuck yet again. . . Depending on your bias, the numbers range from 60k to 600k. I will admit that I was originally thinking of Salem when I made that comment, but relatively speaking, even 600k is handful compared to the 100+ million of religious people killed by other religious people and/or communist promoting atheism. You said that religious people killed the skeptics and that the religious lived on. Clearly many more religious people were killed as well. Your statement about how this influenced evolution in such a short period of time is just ignorant and misguided on multiple levels. Fine, but not enough time has passed for that to make a meaningful difference. Your suggestion that it has, just shows a complete lack of understanding how evolution really works. Right, and the witches, scientists and skeptics that were killed had those traits as well. Their faith just manifested in a different way based on their environment. Perhaps they believed in magic, perhaps they had faith in some hypothesis, perhaps they were superstitious. Their deaths wouldn't have made any noticeable difference as far as evolution was concerned, just as the deaths of 100+million religious people didn't. That much is obvious, not to mention your asinine assumption that the witches and skeptics didn't procreate before they were killed. . . Maybe next time you'll be more careful when trying to use your misguided and ignorant views of science to bash religion.

A handful? Never heard of something called the Inquisition, for starters? The original quote I was responding to was: "One of the reasons so many people believe is because in many cases, the skeptics were put to death (for a variety of reasons) while the believers lived on. So any genetic traits that would reinforce belief are passed on. Those that reinforce disobedience towards God or skepticism are not." While witches, scientists and other skeptics were killed during the inquisition, many more religious people, protestants, muslims, pagans, etc., were also killed. Not to mention the Roman persecution of Christianity, which by wolfriverjoe's logic should have influenced the evolutionary extinction of Christians. My post was strictly meant to show the absolute absurdity of his claims and his apparent ignorance of how evolution actually works, rather than to get into some meaningless pissing contest about which groups killed more people. We all should know by now that that title is held by various communist regimes. Regimes that "consistently advocated the control, suppression, and elimination of religious beliefs, and actively encouraged atheism." I think their death toll was somewhere in the 100+ million range, but who's counting?

That's why it's up to us to be the bigger man. . . "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways." The childish conservative rhetoric over the last couple years might just cause those "dysfunctional adolescent-minded adults" to take control. We were given great power, but what did we do with it? "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him." "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away"

If the republicans remain control, it's only because they are united regardless if they disagree with one another. Despite the shit fest, they project an image of power and the ability to get shit done. I suspect many would rather go democrat, but they just don't trust their lack of focus and ability. Personally, I felt the republicans overwhelming victory would have been enough for them to humble themselves and unite the country. How naive.

At your disposal, as ever. Lunatic fringe See, this is part of the problem. Liberals/democrats focus on the fringe, and then with one broad stroke alienate the rest of right leaning independents/conservatives, along with anyone else that would otherwise be inclined to give them the power. No, they're not hiding, and no, you didn't hear them coming. The Federalist Society has been around since the 80s. They are the most influential legal organization in the country and have been a breeding ground for conservative judges, lawyers, politicians, etc. . . It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it has been ignored and unchecked by the left for far too long. Rather than having meaningful protests and bringing attention to real racist politicians and white supremacy keynote speakers in the Federalist Society, liberals were running around acting like fools, egging on a bunch of double digit IQ redneck KKK wannabees and getting themselves killed over some stupid, god-damned fucking statue. But they're laughing at you. Liberals/Democrats need to get their shit together. Do you really think that people in the midwest and eastern states are so preoccupied with concerns about the mexicans, the border, homosexuals, etc., as if that's the first thing on their mind when they wake up in the morning? Do you really think broad-brushing them as racist, misogynistic xenophobes has any effect on them? Of course not, most are indifferent when it comes to those issues. They just care about their families, their jobs and concerns about rising costs for shittier healthcare. That's it - and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. And there's this feeling that the republicans are the only ones capable of addressing their concerns or at least care enough to acknowledge them. Most of these people have been life long democrats, it's only recently that they've jumped ship. If democrats can once again focus on their needs and whats best for the country as a whole, then they'd be more than willing to give the power back to the democrats - hell, they're practically begging for it. For the last 10 years or so, I've been putting other people's interest ahead of my own, but it's taken it's toll. And because of that, I can't help as much as I have in the past. If I end up as broken as those I'm trying to help, how long can I go on helping them? Democrats have to once again start focusing on the lives of those that can put them back in power, rather than focusing on all these emotional minority issues that will never bring them the votes needed to effect change. First things first, right? Only then will they'll actually have some power to deal with all these minority issues - that is if they really care about minorities first place, as much as they act. . .

Right. I hear it a lot about how we've held back science and progress for all these hundreds of years. But it's easy to see that many are just as ignorant about science as some of the religious folks they like to scoff at, like a bunch of bird-brained parrots pecking at the keyboard trying to stick it to the Christians, or propagate some misguided scientific "fact" to bolster their own disbelief as if that's the sole purpose of science. So often they confuse cosmology with biology, and evolution with abiogenesis as if it's all just the Theory of Everything, everything but physics. They believe the big bang was an actual explosion. Most are ignorant of people like Mendel that were instrumental in cementing Darwin's evolutionary theories. Most don't realize that the Church has funded scientific work, not to mention that many, if not most scholars were religious. There is no a priori conflict between being religious and being a scientist. The schism seems to be of a more modern phenomenon which IMO is most likely connected to the rise of secularism.