The Dedicated Argument Thread

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

So, I guess the question is: Which do you think God values more: That you serve him, or that you're a nice person? And if you think he values obedience over kindness, why is he deserving of either?

The bible addresses that issue too, and as a matter of fact - he doesn't. Do you remember Abraham's trial ? "And said God take your Son, your only Son that you love, take Isac and go to the land of Moria [Has nothing to do with LoTR ] and sacrifice him on the mountain Ill show you ... and he went to the place that God told him". That is exactly that conflict of morals and obedience, as a matter of fact - it's a choice, but we will be back to it in a minute. And so Abraham takes Isac to the land of Moria, to a very specific mount actually, the mount of Moria, where the first and second temples were built and today Mazgat Al-Aqsa resides.

And so Abraham prepared Isaac for the sacrifice, he drew the sacrificial dagger and prepared to strike, but than an angel appeared and stopped him with the words "Don't send your hand at the boy and don't do him a thing. Now I know that afraid of god you are [that term uses to describe people who follow god's words and not necessarily be afraid of him] and you didn’t hide your son, your only son ."

At first sight it seems to the reader that Abraham did the right thing, at least judging by the bible ... Before we continue you must know one more thing about the bible - it rarely contains descriptions of feelings and doesn't contain opinion at all. To transfer these feelings and thoughts the bible uses literary tools, that also helps to shorten the text and make it specific. For example although I cut it out here in the beginning there was a description of the things Abraham did, he prepared the moles than he called the servants, than he took Isaac, than he cut the wood, noticed something ? First he turns on the car than put the passengers in it than he suddenly forgot the wood and goes out to bring it ... and not a single thought. That is used to show us the pressure under which Abraham is, he does a lot, he tries not to thing about what he is about to do, you can see his feelings here.



Now as for the opinion yes there is an opinion in the text. Notice that combination of words "Your son, your only son that you loved, Isac" this exact combination appears in the end of the story, with only one word missing "Loved" , that combination will appear again after this text and again the word "loved" will be the only missing one, that is a criticism. Also notice that I wrote "God said" not "God commanded" , and that Abraham did "What god told him" and not "What god commanded him" , we actually rarely see that god commands human beings, again because he cannot decide for us and he actually rarely wants to. In this case it is important to note that both god and Abraham talked here, God said him to do it, he was not obliged to do it, that is what some Interpreters believe was the real final trial of Abraham where he had to choose betwen obedience and morals, do notice that it is indeed his final, as one Interpreter noticed "Both the beginning and the end of Abraham's trials begin in the same way "Leh leha" which in English just mean go but here it is a rare way to say it, it continued with the same ledged formation from the easy to the hard:  "Go from your country, from your city, from your motherland and from your father's house to the country Ill show you " "Take your son, your only son that you loved, take Isaac and go to the mountain Ill show you".



Why did this specific one was his last trial ? Maybe god wanted him to choose a different answer ... For that question we will probably not get an answer, but in this case human life is valued more than blind obedience.

Laibach wrote:

Ok, different/parallel topic, does anyone else think that Hyperspace is retarded? Taking a 'shortcut' through another dimension just seems like it would make the trip longer, for it to work at all you have to assume the universe is shaped like some sort of 4D doughnut. Even if it is, you don't know whether there's anything even remotely interesting on the other side, and it seems like there would still be massive distances involved. I haven't really taken any cosmology or anything, I'm just drawing analogies from the relationship between 2D and 3D space.

Ehhh. Think about a four-dimensional representation of color, with red, green, blue, and transparency each having one axis. If you want to get from full red to full green, that's a long way if you can only move in three dimensions, but they're right next to each other in the fourth dimension because they're both fully opaque. That's how it works.

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Ok, different/parallel topic, does anyone else think that Hyperspace is retarded? Taking a 'shortcut' through another dimension just seems like it would make the trip longer, for it to work at all you have to assume the universe is shaped like some sort of 4D doughnut. Even if it is, you don't know whether there's anything even remotely interesting on the other side, and it seems like there would still be massive distances involved. I haven't really taken any cosmology or anything, I'm just drawing analogies from the relationship between 2D and 3D space.

Ehhh. Think about a four-dimensional representation of color, with red, green, blue, and transparency each having one axis. If you want to get from full red to full green, that's a long way if you can only move in three dimensions, but they're right next to each other in the fourth dimension because they're both fully opaque. That's how it works.

I don't understand you, the axes are still all mutually perpendicular. (3, 3, 3) is the same distance from (7, 7, 7,) as (3, 3, 3, 0) is from (7, 7, 7, 0), and any value for the 4D coordinate >0 makes the distance from A to B greater. What do you mean?

Edit: My reasoning is based on a few calculations I made with the distance formula (distance between (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) = sqrt((x1 - x2)^2 + (y1-y2)^2)) I may have used it incorrectly, or remembered it wrong or something.

I spent about fifteen minutes struggling to put it into words and realized I have no bloody idea what I'm talking about. I understand how mobility in a fourth dimension lets you step into a locked room, but not how you get from there to the inside of the room and the outside of the room being closer to each other.

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

I spent about fifteen minutes struggling to put it into words and realized I have no bloody idea what I'm talking about. I understand how mobility in a fourth dimension lets you step into a locked room, but not how you get from there to the inside of the room and the outside of the room being closer to each other.

I don't think it can make them any closer, the only case I've ever encountered where it does is if the universe bends back on itself in some way, and that still doesn't really work. Fr0st(assuming you read this), do you have any wisdom to impart?

Laibach wrote:

Also, religious people have more kids, liberalism/the white race is actually dying out.

Congratulations for fueling overpopulation!

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Also, religious people have more kids, liberalism/the white race is actually dying out.

Congratulations for fueling overpopulation!

I'm pretty sure world growth is declining, IMO we've hit peak population, more or less. Let me go check wikipedia.
Edit:
"The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine and the Black Death in 1350, when it stood at around 370 million.[6] The highest rates of growth – global population increases above 1.8% per year – were seen briefly during the 1950s, and for a longer period during the 1960s and 1970s. The growth rate peaked at 2.2% in 1963, then declined to below 1.1% by 2012.[7] Total annual births were highest in the late 1980s at about 138 million,[8] and are now expected to remain essentially constant at their 2011 level of 134 million, while deaths number 56 million per year, and are expected to increase to 80 million per year by 2040.[9]"

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?
I thought it higher...

Desdenova wrote:

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?

I thought it higher...

It probably will be, here's the UN projections for world population:

Spoiler:

Laibach wrote:

Desdenova wrote:

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?

I thought it higher...

It probably will be, here's the UN projections for world population:

Spoiler:

What do the different colours mesn?
Like,
blue=past
red=most population growth realistic
orange=population change most likely
green=lowest population growth realistic

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Desdenova wrote:

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?

I thought it higher...

It probably will be, here's the UN projections for world population:

Spoiler:

What do the different colours mesn?
Like,
blue=past
red=most population growth realistic
orange=population change most likely
green=lowest population growth realistic

Whoops, the background is screwed up, open it in a new tab and you can see the key and stuff. Red = highest estimate, orange = medium, and green = lowest, I'm not sure which is more likely.

Dude...



We need more worlds.

Desdenova wrote:

Dude...



We need more worlds.

HURR BUT MUH VIETNAM WAR AND MUH GENDER STUDIES NEED ALL TEH MONIEZ.

Fuck, I hate the government. We need a God emprah of mankind.

Laibach wrote:

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Desdenova wrote:

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?

I thought it higher...

It probably will be, here's the UN projections for world population:

Spoiler:

What do the different colours mesn?
Like,
blue=past
red=most population growth realistic
orange=population change most likely
green=lowest population growth realistic

Whoops, the background is screwed up, open it in a new tab and you can see the key and stuff. Red = highest estimate, orange = medium, and green = lowest, I'm not sure which is more likely.

I guess it depends.
Red applies if '1st world' stays stable and developing countries keep having large population growth.
Orange applies if 1st world stays stabe and developing countries follow Demographic transition.
Green applies if 1st world population drops and developing countries Follow Demographic transition.

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Desdenova wrote:

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?

I thought it higher...

It probably will be, here's the UN projections for world population:

Spoiler:

What do the different colours mesn?
Like,
blue=past
red=most population growth realistic
orange=population change most likely
green=lowest population growth realistic

Whoops, the background is screwed up, open it in a new tab and you can see the key and stuff. Red = highest estimate, orange = medium, and green = lowest, I'm not sure which is more likely.

I guess it depends.
Red applies if '1st world' stays stable and developing countries keep having large population growth.
Orange applies if 1st world stays stabe and developing countries follow Demographic transition.
Green applies if 1st world population drops and developing countries Follow Demographic transition.

1st world population is definitely going to drop, so it'll probably be orange or green.

Laibach wrote:

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Ivan2006 wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Desdenova wrote:

...They expect the current death rates to increase by their 30% in by thirty years?

I thought it higher...

It probably will be, here's the UN projections for world population:

Spoiler:

What do the different colours mesn?
Like,
blue=past
red=most population growth realistic
orange=population change most likely
green=lowest population growth realistic

Whoops, the background is screwed up, open it in a new tab and you can see the key and stuff. Red = highest estimate, orange = medium, and green = lowest, I'm not sure which is more likely.

I guess it depends.
Red applies if '1st world' stays stable and developing countries keep having large population growth.
Orange applies if 1st world stays stabe and developing countries follow Demographic transition.
Green applies if 1st world population drops and developing countries Follow Demographic transition.

1st world population is definitely going to drop, so it'll probably be orange or green.

Only time can tell.
Tough it is true that First World population has problems keeping their reproduction rate in-line with their death rate...

Short of global catastrophe on the scale of the Black Death or widespread orbital bombardment, I doubt that the world population is going to decline significantly for a very long time. No matter how crowded the Earth gets, as soon as total population starts to drop people will freak the hell out because humanity is going extinct and the birth rate will skyrocket.

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

As soon as total population starts to drop people will freak the hell out because humanity is going extinct and the birth rate will skyrocket.

That's not going to happen, the total population of Japan is already declining(or at least it was, I'll find a source It is, see here), but people still don't have children. Ethnic (Western) Europeans are becoming a minority in their own countries, but people either don't care or become nationalists. The problem is that people are selfish, and having kids is not something a selfish person does.

Laibach wrote:

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

As soon as total population starts to drop people will freak the hell out because humanity is going extinct and the birth rate will skyrocket.

That's not going to happen, the total population of Japan is already declining(or at least it was, I'll find a source It is, see here), but people still don't have children. Ethnic (Western) Europeans are becoming a minority in their own countries, but people either don't care or become nationalists. The problem is that people are selfish, and having kids is not something a selfish person does.

We all need to make like south americanos and have 6 kids even though our incomes probably can't support them adequately.

Or take a cue from Ender's Game, minus the cliched 'Russia vs MURIKA' conflict.

Tiel+ wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

As soon as total population starts to drop people will freak the hell out because humanity is going extinct and the birth rate will skyrocket.

That's not going to happen, the total population of Japan is already declining(or at least it was, I'll find a source It is, see here), but people still don't have children. Ethnic (Western) Europeans are becoming a minority in their own countries, but people either don't care or become nationalists. The problem is that people are selfish, and having kids is not something a selfish person does.

We all need to make like south americanos and have 6 kids even though our incomes probably can't support them adequately.

Or take a cue from Ender's Game, minus the cliched 'Russia vs MURIKA' conflict.

What happens in Ender's Game? I haven't really read it. And that's because of the remnants of Catholicism left. I know one guy who's mainly scandinavian with 7 kids, and he's still in his 30s. It's not uncommon in my community.

Laibach wrote:

Tiel+ wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

As soon as total population starts to drop people will freak the hell out because humanity is going extinct and the birth rate will skyrocket.

That's not going to happen, the total population of Japan is already declining(or at least it was, I'll find a source It is, see here), but people still don't have children. Ethnic (Western) Europeans are becoming a minority in their own countries, but people either don't care or become nationalists. The problem is that people are selfish, and having kids is not something a selfish person does.

We all need to make like south americanos and have 6 kids even though our incomes probably can't support them adequately.

Or take a cue from Ender's Game, minus the cliched 'Russia vs MURIKA' conflict.

What happens in Ender's Game? I haven't really read it. And that's because of the remnants of Catholicism left. I know one guy who's mainly scandinavian with  7 kids, and he's still in his 30s. It's not uncommon in my community.

Selfish is having kids because you couldn't keep your lust in check and condemning them to a life of poverty. If you're saying that's one of the tenets of Catholicism, well, shucks. I know up until recently the Pope maintained that any sort of protection was ungodly or something like that.

In Ender's game they restricted public education to the first two children - the third and so forth would have to be taught on the parent's penny. It's pretty cool - you keep a steady population by restricting it to two, but those who want more can certainly do so as long as they can afford it.

Tiel+ wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Tiel+ wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

As soon as total population starts to drop people will freak the hell out because humanity is going extinct and the birth rate will skyrocket.

That's not going to happen, the total population of Japan is already declining(or at least it was, I'll find a source It is, see here), but people still don't have children. Ethnic (Western) Europeans are becoming a minority in their own countries, but people either don't care or become nationalists. The problem is that people are selfish, and having kids is not something a selfish person does.

We all need to make like south americanos and have 6 kids even though our incomes probably can't support them adequately.

Or take a cue from Ender's Game, minus the cliched 'Russia vs MURIKA' conflict.

What happens in Ender's Game? I haven't really read it. And that's because of the remnants of Catholicism left. I know one guy who's mainly scandinavian with  7 kids, and he's still in his 30s. It's not uncommon in my community.

Selfish is having kids because you couldn't keep your lust in check and condemning them to a life of poverty. If you're saying that's one of the tenets of Catholicism, well, shucks. I know up until recently the Pope maintained that any sort of protection was ungodly or something like that.

In Ender's game they restricted public education to the first two children - the third and so forth would have to be taught on the parent's penny. It's pretty cool - you keep a steady population by restricting it to two, but those who want more can certainly do so as long as they can afford it.

The 'life of poverty' is mainly because they're Mexicans, it's not as hard as you'd think.I know you probably think of Sh'aniq'au getting her food stamps when you hear 'large family,' but most people aren't welfare queens. And what the pope said was basically 'if you're going to assfuck, you might as well avoid catching AIDS.' Not that any sort of 'protection' is moral; it isn't.


Edit: That's why there are marriages, you can't 'accidentally' have a kid when you're married, it's part of the agreement. If you can't afford kids you shouldn't get married, it's simple.

Laibach wrote:

Not that any sort of 'protection' is moral; it isn't.

How far does that go? You think abortion is murder, yes; I don't agree with that personally, but I understand how you get to that argument. But why is preventing pregnancy immoral? Is it also immoral not to have sex with everyone I see, because I'm preventing the babies that would potentially be born if I did that from ever existing? That's more or less the same thing. Not having sex is the most effective form of birth control around, so why isn't it a sin?

EDIT: I've always preferred Known Space's Birthright Lottery to Ender's Game's laws. It's less realistic, to be sure, but I found it more amusing. Especially the part where you can fight for the right to have more children. That's so much more entertaining than dreary bureaucracy.

Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:

Laibach wrote:

Not that any sort of 'protection' is moral; it isn't.

How far does that go? You think abortion is murder, yes; I don't agree with that personally, but I understand how you get to that argument. But why is preventing pregnancy immoral? Is it also immoral not to have sex with everyone I see, because I'm preventing the babies that would potentially be born if I did that from ever existing? That's more or less the same thing. Not having sex is the most effective form of birth control around, so why isn't it a sin?

It's not because you aren't having children, it's because you aren't having children in a marriage. Obviously, that's sort of pointless unless you're married, but extramarital sex is a bigger sin(I think, don't quote me on this), so... well, I don't know if contraceptives would still be a sin in that case, I'd assume so, but I don't know.