Political discussion thread

rushfan4 wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: ^Regardless of the veracity of the Christian faith, it's inaccurate to describe God as being "invented by medieval dickweeds."  From history, we can say that our first record of the Christian God appears in the ancient Jewish Torah.  Christianity, which claims to be the fulfillment of Judaism, appeared in the first century AD.  The Christians followed Jesus Christ, saying that he was the Son of God, who had come to inaugurate his kingdom in the world, died and rose for our sins, and would return in judgement.  He's not an imaginary friend, He was a real person.  The leaders of the early church were not "medieval" and they were not "dickweeds;" they were leaders of a fringe group who must have really believed what they said they did, because in the first few centuries AD, being a Christian was a really good way to get yourself killed. The "medieval dickweed" is a Bill and Ted reference that I added for humorous effect, albeit ill-advised since it has been taken literally as a reason to try and negate my comment.  As I noted in my comment "during Caesar's time".  Religion is first and foremost a tool that was invented by man (not God) to attempt to explain why we are here, and it is a tool that has been exploited since its beginnings to control the behavior of the people that the leaders rule.  In my opinion, God is nothing more than Santa Claus for adults.  An imaginary person/character created to control the behavior of citizens of a nation, etc...  You had better be good or you will go to hell.  You had better be good or you'll get no presents.  If you are good you will go to heaven.  If you are good you will get presents.    At any rate, this is all totally irrelevant and that is what you religious bigots do not get.  I fully respect your right to believe in what I consider to be an imaginary being but you have no right to make me believe in said imaginary being and no right to make me behave as you are taught within these scriptures.  And that is my whole point.  That is why I believe so fervently in the separation of church and state.

I understand what you're trying to say now that you clarify the "medieval dickweed" part (sorry, I've never seen Bill and Ted, so I didn't get the reference).  Understand that I was not trying to negate your comment, but to clear the history up, because I fully respect everyone's right to criticize my religion, but not to make up their own historical facts.  You weren't, and I thought you were, so I apologize for that.

Anyway, I don't deny that Christianity has been used for manipulative purposes many times.  The medieval church, for example, was full of corruption and power-hungriness.  But if you consider the origins of Christianity, it seems unlikely that it was used as a power grab.  As I pointed out in my previous post, Christianity was a fringe group in it's early days, filled with many impoverished people and leaders who abstained from seeking public office more than they tried to gain power.  Most of Jesus' original followers were painfully executed for their beliefs, and for the first few centuries of the church's existence, being a Christian was an entirely unprofitable experience.  You had persecutions continuing on and off for centuries, and a general dislike of the Roman people for Christians, whom they termed "haters of mankind" for their shunning of sinful, worldly pleasures.  Power struggles and power grabs simply do not happen under these conditions.  Christianity doesn't teach that "good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell," either.  According to Scripture, we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.  Christians are called to do good works, also, but these works flow out of thanksgiving for our redemption and love for others.

I don't know where you got the idea that either I or Alex was a "bigot."  I'm not, and from what I've heard from him, he's not either.  I never said anything about your comment on the church imposing their beliefs on people because I agree with it, for the most part.  I disagree with you on abortion because I believe that an unborn baby is a human life and thus deserves equal protection under the law as much as any other human being.  However, in general, I think that what people do in private is their own business.

And that is why friends should never talk religion or politics.

rushfan4 wrote: And that is why friends should never talk religion or politics.

Why not?  Haven't you learned something?  I have.

rushfan4 wrote: And that is why friends should never talk religion or politics.

I would argue that this is possibly one of the reasons we have become so polarized - we've stopped talking to each other for fear of having our opinions challenged.  The intellect, as any other muscle, is strengthened when it meets resistance, and so I believe we need to start having more conversations about subjects like politics and religion, and we need to learn how to do so peacefully, respecting each other, loving each other.

Keep in mind this is from rolling stone..not exactly a "crazy right wing" or "fox kissing" publication:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104


I sincerely supported the ideology behind the bailouts, and I have no doubt it was well intentioned by many in power (after all the economy is tanking and a lot of very smart people are telling you pass this or a domino will crash the world economy) but this further proves why government action tends to be a failure.
Even if its well intentioned, most government action is corrupt/a failure/to line the pockets of wealthy.

And whenever something is passed in haste, under fear and threats of disaster, and with bi partisan support it tends to be the worst!

Indeed. Though we know a few bills have passed literally for the sake of it, usually under stressful times, so I wonder how many politicians really knew. I'd imagine many thought like we did "sh*t, things are bad, these banks are in bad shape, it may be sucky but let's bail em out and save the country" and the smart people were telling them what would happen if they didn't. Hell maybe some those close too the bailouts themselves didn't know, they were just going by the bullet points. It's really quite scary.

What boggles my mind is: it seems like the bailouts only "helped" the economy by restoring faith in the system, fake faith. That it was all bullsh*t, but just the fact it was being done let them accept it. Basically supporting a system of smoke and mirrors by clouds...like nothing about this should exist, but it continues by forced blindness. It's insane.

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: JJLehto wrote: What boggles my mind is: it seems like the bailouts only "helped" the economy by restoring faith in the system, fake faith. That it was all bullsh*t, but just the fact it was being done let them accept it. Basically supporting a system of smoke and mirrors by clouds...like nothing about this should exist, but it continues by forced blindness. It's insane. Welcome to economics. How do you think the stock market works?

Well, I knew, but had no idea the totality of it.
Problem is the stock market is the stock market, I used to think of economy as ya know...us. Consumers, and producers, and that relationship. How silly of me!

Now I see that the real economy is pretty much a shadow, and the fake one drives this country. Which is even scarier that this economy is all lies and willing stupidity

JJLehto wrote: Now I see that the real economy is pretty much a shadow, and the fake one drives this country. Which is even scarier that this economy is all lies and willing stupidity

All economy is lies and willing stupidity. That lies in its very nature. Economics is a social science, and as such it involves people. People are fundamentally stupid, especially when they're uninformed and come together in large groups. Whenever we subject ourselves to herd mentality (and we do it all the time), we lose our ability to think rationally as if it never existed and become gullible, selfish idiots. This is why economics is full of make-believe and self-fulfilling prophecies.

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: JJLehto wrote: I say tend because often, like bailouts, massive outcry still won't do anything..but yeah! The outcry wasn't massive enough. That's the main flaw of democracy: Status quo is god. To actually change something via the grassroots method, you need to have a very sizable portion of the population to be willing to go to extreme measures to fight for their positions. The easier way is of course bribery or, as it is called in the US, campaign donations.