philh

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Everything posted by philh

  1. philh

    Lets Pray

    So lets agree god doesnt mind intervening with free will when it suits him. but your argument seemed to me be based upon the idea that he wouldnt save numerous people from a horrible fate because that would violate free will. Your assumption is therefore wrong by your own terms. I could just as equally say that god didnt intervene simply becuase he enjoys human suffering. Or more likely he didnt intervene becuase he doesnt exist. Your argument that Jesus's miracles didnt interfere with free will, would be equally applied to saving people from the Boxing day tsunami , of course there was no miracle there. I guess god thinks its more important to get some booze at a little wedding than it is to save hundreds of thousands of people from death and anguish. "Does man have 100% free will? No, God does intervene with miracles. " So what % free will does man have? I think you misundersttod the nature of the argument. The concept of god contradicts the concept of free will not becuase god performs miracles, that is not the point . The reason is simple; if an all powerful being can have perfect knowledge of the future then the future must be predetermined, if it is predetermined then no one can act differently than their destiny,therefore there is no free will. You can believe in free will or you can believe in a being that has a perfect knowledge of the future, but you cannot believe in both. Its a logical contradiction, but I guess thats never a problem with the religious.
  2. Thats an empeirical question, show me the evidence by an independent body that the elections in iraq were rigged by the invading army and in this case Ill agree with you, without it your just assuming stuff without evidence. just becuase the invasion was wrong (and I think there's no doubt about that ) doesnt mean everything done subsequent is. Do you agree that the elctions in the former Yugoslavia were all illegitmate as well?
  3. philh

    Lets Pray

    The contradiction is that you believe that god does nto interven becuase of free will but you believe he does inetrvene (even if it is only a few cases). So by your own definition he does interfere with free will, he just does it in a few isoltaed cases. A better explanation is that god either doesnt exist or isnt interested in our affairs. i would also back what narcimund. God ability to see the future perfectly is a complete contradiction to the notion that free will exists. you cannot have perfect knowledge of the future if free will is genuine. To Turfsurf Without religion I think there would probably still be reasons to start wars but there would be at least one less reason and that is something.
  4. The 911 comission reports concluded that Bin Laden did pursue co operation with Iraq but nothing ever came of it. There was no evidence othehrwise before the invasion and there is none now.
  5. philh

    Lets Pray

    The fact that you believe god intervenes even once (which i believe you do) contradicts your idea that god has left us to our own free will. Furthermore the idea that a mad killer should be left to implement his own free will is absurd. Sometimes one persons free will interferes too much with another. A mad mass murderer's free will is considered by most to be less important than the right of others to life. Im sure most people would not have any objections to intervining in such a process. The fact that you would intervene in the example I gave implies you are also one of those people. Quiet rightly given the power to save someone from danger you would use that power, thats what emergency services do everyday. You would save your son, you would not worry about Bind Ladens free will. This I believe contradicts your cirticism of The Amazing Randis article when you said "If God was to intervene in our lives as such and we knew it, we'd all complain that we have no freedom of choice. "
  6. "Germany started that war, which is an implied invitation. Iraq didn't declare war on the UK or US. The rationale for our invasion turned out to be fabricated. We are there illegitimately." I agree with your statment 100% but that has nothing to do with wether there was a democractic process in the aftermath. i think I have made that clear time and time again in my posts. My objective is that those of us who are against the war need to focus are criticisms where they are legitiumate ie Iraq had no connection to AQ, posed no threat and had no WMD's, not where they are illegitanme slagging off attempts at democracy otherwise we provide easy fodder for the neo cons and their allies.
  7. "How fair do you think it would be if, say, Iran set out the parameters for elections in the UK, and armed Iranian troops were standing around in the streets of London during the elections? I forgot to add that the Iranians were an uninvited invading force. " Kallend, your are cherry picking your data, or in this case , there is no actual data , just hypotheitcal scenario. The scenario you described can be equally apllied to the democractic elections in Gernmany after WWII, there foreign power were uninvited but invaded and imposed democracy instead of dictatorship. Were you opposed to that? "They only held elections after mass non-violent protest by the Iraqi people. " The US said they were going to hold elections and they did, there were certainly protest over timing, but that does not prove intent. Im not sure your analysis is therefore correct. "Well what is one measurement we can use for judging democracy and freedom? I guess you could say listening to the will of the people. " Im afraid your view of democracy is utopian. I wish democracy did work this way but it doesnt. Its a much more imperfect system. The way democracy actaully works is a government is elected by the people and it makes its own decisions. If its decisions as a whole after its term its up are considered worse than those of its alternatives it will be replaced by those alternatives. Democracy (in a practical term) does not mean the will of the poeple is always executed. For example, most people in the UK opposed the war in IRAQ(me included) but they mostly agreed the elections after the war were fair( or do you think the US forced us all to vote Labour) and they elected a government that was in favour of the war. This is of course a failure of democracy but this is the nature of the beast. It is not a perfect system. I wish it would work better, but I can admit the reality that it doesnt. Democracies work to varying degrees , none are perfect and some are worse than others. The Iraqi democracy is not working at all. The nation is in a nightmare state, the deicsion to invade was a distatorously wrong one, Iraqi democracy is not working , but none of that means there was no democracy.
  8. philh

    Lets Pray

    "I could have intervened in his life and worked against his free will and kept him from enlisting to follow the old man's footsteps. Since he was of age I guess I would have had to over power him and lock him in a room (might could have done that a few years back, but not now). BUT, is that a way to live?" i think you mistake the nature of intervention that is implied. By definition god can do anything , including miracles. Now suppose you had the power to perform miracles also and Osama Bin Laden was pointing his AK47 at your son and you had the power to stop the gun OBLS's gun from working, would you do it or would you let OBL's free will play its course?
  9. philh

    Lets Pray

    "What a ridiculous analogy. " Its very easy to say that, maybe you could give a reson why in your next post. In fact it was you who introduced the father to son analogy in the first place, when its used against you it suddenly becomes ridiclous does it? So what is your answer, if you had the power to save your son (and others) would you intervene?
  10. Yet again for all your rhetoric, you present no evidence that the elections were unfair. Nor do you suggest any alternative course of action for Afghanistan. Perhaps you would do nothing and let AQ plan their next (possibly more deadly) attack in the West, that is not an option for any responislbe leader that is why every Western nation (including those who quite rightly opposed the war in Iraq) supported the military ousting of the Taliban.
  11. philh

    Lets Pray

    if your sons were being shot at by a maniac and you had the power to intervene are you saying you wouldnt?
  12. "It isn't fraud because it isn't a real democracy. All of the candidates answer to the occupying army, its setup to be a client state. It is self evident in every action that have taken including those in every other country they have ever setup "democracy". It is "democracy" is so much as it gives the results the U.S want. " Again you present not a shred of evidence to back up your claims, simply saying it is "self evident". I would ask for an independent recognised body like the UN to say the US rigged the elections, you cant provide that, you just assume it. Thats the same silly thinking that GWB used in the first place. No evidence for WMD's, he didnt need evidence for his claims. Nor does it seem do you. Those of us who are against the war in Iraq would be better served by using higher standards of belief than those who support it. "Palestine voting in 2006 in a free election, the people don't vote the way the U.S want them to, sanction time. " The people voted for a terrorist orginasation, the US governments position is not to aid terrorists. That is also the position of the EU as well, they also cut off Aid. If you were providing aid to the Weimar regime in Germany in the early 30's, would you continue to do so after the Nazi goverment came to power? "Venezuela vote in free election, the people don’t vote the way the U.S want them to, coup time, coup fails – vilification and slander time. " I am no to going to defend this action. I am strong opponenet of GWB , this is a legitmate criticism and that is what we should focus on. Criticising the war in Iraq becuase they were not linked to AQ and had no WMD's is a legitimate criticism. Saying stuff like its all for US$ hegemenony makes us critics of GWB sound like paranoid conspiracy nutters and I will oppose that. "They were not joined at the hip. There may have been some support amongst elements of the Taliban but Afghanistan as a sovereign nation and the Taliban, brutal and oppressive as their regime may be, are not AQ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Reply To -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aq attacked the USA and they responded, thats entirley justified in my opinion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A terrorist group attack a country and it is justifiable to seek revenge on a country that had nothing to do with it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Reply To -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What do you think they should have done? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Present evidence like they were asked " ----------------- Mullah Omar was interviewed on why he would not give up OBL b4 the US invasion, did he say not enough evidence? No he did not, this is what he actually said: Voice of America interviewer: Why don't you expel Osama bin Laden? Omar: This is not an issue of Osama bin Laden. It is an issue of Islam. Islam's prestige is at stake. So is Afghanistan's tradition.. VOA: So you won't give Osama bin Laden up? Omar: No. We cannot do that. If we did, it means we are not Muslims... that Islam is finished. If we were afraid of attack, we could have surrendered him the last time we were threatened and attacked. So America can hit us again, and this time we don't even have a friend. " You can see then that presenting evidence for any kind of Afghan trial of OBl would have been a waste of time. Wasting time would have given OBl the chance to escape. Of course OBL did escape that I think was more to do with with GWB not sending the army to clsoe the borders with Pakistanm, he was holding them back for his idiotic war in Iraq. So it was the policy of the head of state of Afghanistan to support and harbour terrorists that had declared war on the USA. Note also Mullah Omar was married to OBL's daughter. The Taliban also claimed that Saddam Hussein was behind the East Africa emabssy bombings. We now know they were lying to cover OBL. Or do you believe them? THE US had warned Mullah Omar in a declassified document you can find here: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB134/index2.htm the State Department reiterates "that the U.S. reserves the right to take military action concerning bin Ladin and will hold the Taliban directly responsible for any terrorist activities bin Ladin engages in." . The Taliban were warned, they harboured and protected Aq and they were also one of the worst abusers fo human rights in the world. Human rights Watch claim the TAliban practiced ethnic cleansing killing thousands of civilians due to their Hazara origin, Taliban troops killed those that refused to protest "Death to America"before the US invasion (Source The Indepent Newspaper 11/9/01), and that is on top of a policy of bruning schools with women in it (often with them literally inside) and of course the obvious horrenodous opporession of women. Most importantly I would refer you to the discovery (and Ill show you the refernce in a well know left wing British newspaper The Guardian and its Sunday version The Observer :http://observer.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,596988,00.html): Other documents seen by Observer reporters make clear the scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions for a global jihad, including a notebook detailing plans to assassinate Western leaders. Other evidence uncovered at al-Qaeda sites indicates that major power plants in the US and Europe - some of them nuclear - were being targeted for attack. Other documents, apparently prepared by Pakistani diplomats and intelligence officers, make it absolutely clear that the Taliban, far from simply hosting bin Laden's network, was involved in every stage of the plan for global jihad against Western interests and had repeatedly ignored warnings before the 11 September attacks that it faced bombing by the US or Russia if it continued to support terrorists. The most damning documents were discovered at two sites in the former diplomatic district of Kabul, both of which were scattered with forms labelled 'al-Qaeda Ammunition Warehouse'. The presence of al-Qaeda documents in the first - a Taliban Defence Ministry building - is compelling evidence of the inseparable links between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. " Did you also forget that Al Queda called a press conference to declare war on the US in Afghanistan and Mullah Omar and the TAliban were the host of Al Queda. The US did not carry out revenge attacks in Afghanistan, it used military force to remove a government that was aiding and harbouring terrorists that had declared war on it. The US even gave the TAliban a last chance to avoid war by handing over OBL, they refused. If you are opposed to the war in Afghanistan I wonder would you also have been opposed to the US fighting Nazi germany? Whats the difference? Nazi germany did not attack thhe US, its allies did. Just as The Taliban did not attack the US, its allies did.
  13. "They don't need to "rig" the election, they setup the entire process. The outcomes were always going to be exactly what the U.S wanted; they have had a lot of practice at it. " So what you are saying is you have no evidence of election fraud. "The U.S asked the Afghans to hand over people the U.S suspected of 9/11 links, the Afghans had the audacity to ask for evidence, so the U.S sanctioned and then started bombing, almost killing millions of people " France did not toe the party line , did the US invade France? The Afghans governemnt and AQ were joined at the hip, Aq attacked the USA and they responded, thats entirley justified in my opinion. What do you think they should have done? Almost a million casualties , hhhm this from Wikipedia: According to Marc W. Herold's Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing at least 3,700 and probably closer to 5,000 civilians were killed as a result of U.S. bombing. [22] Herold's study omitted those killed indirectly, when air strikes cut off their access to hospitals, food or electricity. Also exempt were bomb victims who later died of their injuries. When there were different casualty figures from the same incident, in 90% of cases Professor Herold chose a lower figure. Some people, however, dispute Herold's estimates. Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute and Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives question Herold's heavy use of the Afghan Islamic Press (the Taliban's official mouthpiece) and claim tallies provided them were suspicious. Conetta also claims statistical errors in Herold's study[23] [24]. Conetta's study puts total civilian casualties between 1,000 and 1,300 [25]. A Los Angeles Times study put the number of collateral dead between 1,067 and 1,201. On the issue of the Euro, I think we all agreed there is not a shred of evidecen that this was a motivation at all.
  14. "SH's intent since the end of GWI was to fuck the US up." Where is your evidence for this?
  15. "Its in the public record go back and have a look. Months and months of war build up, invasion, and occupation over specifically finding the WMD's THEN once they were no where in sight they bring "democracy" to the foreground. I havn't looked at it in a while and don't have it on hand but there is actually a 6-8 week period where you can see it dramatically change " I am not disputing for one second that the emphasis for justifying the war was changed from finding WMDs to bringing democracy. I am only disputing the diea that bringing democracy was not a goal before the invasion as GWB said in his state of the Union address Jan 2003: "And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.) " The idea of liberating the Iraqi people was there before the failure to find WMD's allthoguh of course I agree it was not the primamry aim. ""Appeared Fair, Transparent" within the bounds aloud by the U.S. ..." If you have evidence that trhe US government rigged the elections please present it and if it stands up I'll be the first to agree with you. As I understand it the elections were considered fair by the UN. The U.S are there to setup a client state to retain control of the oil, so its a democracy to the extent the outcome ends up how they want it, again much like all other democracies they have bought to the people of other countries in the past. " If control of oil was their primary aim why did they invade Afghanistan which has no oil? Why not invade Saudi Arabia which has more oil and more links with Aq? they invaded becuase they were stupid not because they were greedy (although I dont doubt they are that too).
  16. "Only if you do it all at once."(on the negative effects on an expansion in the money supply) No economic data is scrutinised by financial markets and other agents in tremendous detail. I dont think you could get away with a gradual increase in the money supply without increasing inflation and at the same time reducing the demand for Treasuries and other debt securities. it would be a disaster whether gradual or not. "You lost me. And with it, my interest. Adios. " Well in case anyone else is interested I will explain it in simple language. The whole thesis assumes that US dont want the Euros to overtake fromt he dollars thus reducing the demand for US$. But there is no evidence for this infact the evidence is the opposite as they consistently refuse attmepts to support the value of the US$. In summary the war in Iraq should never have happened and it was a stupid decision. But I see no evidence it had naything to do with the Euro$ FX rate.
  17. "The U.S stated aim in Iraq was to stop the production or possession of nukes, when there were no nukes it quickly switched to this new, and just as bullshit, goal. " That was not their only stated aim, that was their rationale for the war which I agree was BS. The Operation was called Iraqi Freedom not Operation get rid of the WMDs, that implies that they at least had the idea of deomcracy at the itme and not just invented it later. "Much like the “democratic elections” the U.S install in other countries… they weren’t democratic elections. " Well thats not what the UN thought, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4471997 "Ashraf Qazi, U.N. special representative for Iraq, talks about Sunday's election in Iraq. Qazi says the Iraqi election process, despite a difficult security situation, appears to have been held in a transparent manner" "This chaos wasn’t unexpected by most people if mass global protests are anything to go by, nor was it unexpected by most intelligence agencies. " I agree with you, I merely point out that Bush adminsitration didnt expect it, not that others didnt. Again on the issue of Euro denomination , if the US was so concerned why not simply interven in the FX market?
  18. "all the US needs to do is print more dollars and the supply of dollars increases and the price drops" This would lead to massive inflation not somehting that would be in US interests. Why would they do this? BTw I read you article in the Observer it narrowly focuses on the debt financing side of a low US$ and ignores the trade deficit side. Basically if the USD falls in value yet it will be harder to finance its deficit but its more likely that its deficit will be samller so the net effect is not clear. Your analysis assume they want the dollar higher against the euro yet you ignore the facts and that is the ECb wanted the US to intervene to help them stop the decline in the dollar and the Americans refused. This is what really happened, in order to overturn this you need to present some counter eivdence so far Ive seen nothing.
  19. In fact at the time and in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq the US$ declined against the Euro. If the US government wants people to not hold Euro denominated assets it could intervene in the FX market and sell Euro's. In fact this is what was requested of it , read here in the Guardian in 2004 : http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1352886,00.html "European leaders yesterday appealed to the United States to rein in its gaping current account and budget deficits and prevent the dollar falling further against the euro - but there was little sign the US was listening." I would have thought it would be a lot easier to intervene in the FX market (especially when when other central banks were asking for co operation), than it would be to start a war, maybe this just wasnt a motivation? "
  20. "In fact, the dollar is the de facto world reserve currency which means that the US economy is artificially inflated by the demand for dollars " This is not so clear cut as you make out. That the US$ is the world currency has some advantages for the US and some disadvantages.It increases the liquidity for US$ denominated assets and therefore gives cheaper cost of funds to US borrowers. But on the other hand by definition if we have as you say "artifically inflated demand for dollars" then the price of dollars will be artifically high, this will make it harder for US firms to export their good and services and compete in global markets. Economic systems are much more complex than your simple analysis would imply. But even if Im completley wrong about the above Im still waiting for any actual evidence that any of this was a motivation. So far Ive seen none, but I will happily change my opinion if good evidence is presented. So i await it eagerly.
  21. Well I agree that there was a sense of finishing the job of Gulf War 1, but the whole Euro denomination thing I dont buy at all. Since the Euro was introduced a lot of institutions have been shifting into euros for their reserves and denomiating transactions in Euros. This is an inevitibale process of launching such a large currency. That is one of (although not the only ) reason the Euroa has appreciated against the USD since its lows shortly after the launch (when it was worth less than 1USd, now 1.356 USd). I see no evidence the Euro denomination issue played any role whatsover. There are many accounts of the road to war written by those on the inside, many of those insiders are critical of Bush's position but I dont know of one of them that mentions this as being considered. If you could poitn to some evidence I would be very inetrested to see it. I am and always have been a huge opponent of the war in Iraq but I have yet to see any strong evidence that this sort of Economics was a primary or even secondary motivation.
  22. "There is no way that is one of the reasons unless you mean "democracy" in terms of the "democracy" the U.S have always tried spreading. " Sorry Im not really sure what you mean. The US stated aim was to install a democratic government in Iraq and they did have democratic elections in Iraq, they also got the chaos that is todays situation which was something of an unitended conseuqence.
  23. philh

    Real Climate

    Well there is not a consensus on one model and the majority of climatolgists are aware that modelling is a difficult process and what the uncertainties are . That is why there are many models considered and they are all tested with real data. That is why the IPCC publishess a range of different predictions for future climate. The unfortunate thing is all the different models and all the different assumptions say the same thing, that the Earth is warming.This is based on well understood physics. What is not known are two primary inputs in particular 1) cloud feedback and 2) Co2 emmissions in the future. The lower estaimates by the IPCC assume we are going to lower Co2 emmisions. The models say the same thing to different degrees, the latest IPCC forecast is beteen 1.1 and 6.4 degree warming for the next 100 years. Now 1.1 probably wont be that serious, but 6.4 will be very serious. Yes its possible that all the models are wrong, but thats true on the upside as well as the down. We have act to act on the best information we have and that implies tackling the climate change problem not sitting on our butts.
  24. I think a simpler explanation is 1 Saddam Hussein ordered an assasination attempt on GWB father, that ticked him off 2 Right wing Neo Cons thought it would be easy to bring democracy and capitalism to Middle East and the example of Iraq would lead to it spreading. 3 The adminsitration was too stupid to see the difference between the threat of new foe: Aq and the threat of an old foe , Iraq. 4 The Adminstration does not have the core value of needing evidence to believe things; they believe what they want to believe. So the lack of evidence of WMD's did not stop them, they wanted to believe it so they did. If you read materials from those have had good access to those in the administration (both critics and supporters alike) you will find these were the motivations.
  25. I love the fact that hes warning Satanists that they are going to hell. That came as a suprise to me. Looks like hell is a lot more fun.