Your Favorite Director at it again.

**Guyver** · 11-08-13, 08:17 PM

Originally Posted by Xavsnipe

.... and circle jerking on the other.

I bet you just love that, don't you?..you sick gay bastard.

**Ranger10** · 11-08-13, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by WickedTribe

There was no magical religiously-inspired time of peace and happiness in the US, or anywhere. Secularism is correlated with a reduction in crime, which goes directly against your claim. You can say that I'm making your point for you, and I can say that cows have wings. We'll both be wrong.

That's your opinion. And, like mine, is purely based on supposition since it's impossible to quantify how one affects the other. That's why I prefaced many of my statements with "I think". That means, it's my personal opinion. You are more than welcome to disagree. But my comments were directed to Ira who asked me what should be done... in my opinion.

You can certainly debate my assessment all you want, but you don't have "facts" any more than I do. I choose to believe that a culture with a strong central theme of love, compassion and a value for human life go a long way to addressing the issues of mass murder. If you want to believe that a secular world is the way to go, then that's your opinion. But don't sit here and tell me I'm wrong for reaching the conclusions I have when you have no way of debasing them purely based on your own speculation.

That's Busch League.

**AetheLove** · 11-08-13, 11:44 PM

Originally Posted by Ranger10

That's your opinion. And, like mine, is purely based on supposition since it's impossible to quantify how one affects the other. That's why I prefaced many of my statements with "I think". That means, it's my personal opinion. You are more than welcome to disagree. But my comments were directed to Ira who asked me what should be done... in my opinion.

You can certainly debate my assessment all you want, but you don't have "facts" any more than I do. I choose to believe that a culture with a strong central theme of love, compassion and a value for human life go a long way to addressing the issues of mass murder. If you want to believe that a secular world is the way to go, then that's your opinion. But don't sit here and tell me I'm wrong for reaching the conclusions I have when you have no way of debasing them purely based on your own speculation.

That's Busch League.

I've read your contributions to this thread; it seems like there are things I agree with, and things I disagree with, and many things which help build a useful discussion. It's a pleasure to consider a thoughtful post.

But I would quibble with your last paragraph. It can be read as you saying that a "strong central theme of love, compassion, and value for human life" is mutually exclusive to a secular world - and I rather hope that you didn't intend it that way.

... because that's Coors Light League.

Cheers,

AetheLove

**Ranger10** · 11-09-13, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by AetheLove

I've read your contributions to this thread; it seems like there are things I agree with, and things I disagree with, and many things which help build a useful discussion. It's a pleasure to consider a thoughtful post.

But I would quibble with your last paragraph. It can be read as you saying that a "strong central theme of love, compassion, and value for human life" is mutually exclusive to a secular world - and I rather hope that you didn't intend it that way.

... because that's Coors Light League.

Cheers,

AetheLove

It's not that I think it's mutually exclusive. The moment I say something like, "People of faith never make mistakes," that's the second some preacher kills 30 followers and the whole point implodes. I also certainly don't think that people who don't consider themselves religious are predisposed to thoughtless acts of violence, either. Some of my best friends in RL are wholly atheist and I consider them some of the most fascinating people I know.

My point is that a single theme of how to act, and behave toward one another, puts all of us in a position to better understand the views of one another. That could be Christianity, secularism, atheism, or flying spaghetti monster-ism, and as long as its a uniformity in thinking, we can at least get closer to a harmonious set of values. The trick is, we don't have that. We used to. At least so far as to say that most Americans identified themselves as Christian 50 years ago. But we don't really have uniformity anymore. Part of our rich, and diverse culture means that we have opinions that vary wildly from one person to another. I think that can be the impetus for disagreements. And for a small portion of our population, they choose to resolve those differences through violence. Just look at how polarized our political system is with just two predominant ideological frameworks.

I personally think a nation of people unified under Christian ideals and principles has a better chance at successfully moving past violence, but I'll freely admit that to enforce that would incite the very behavior we want to avoid. History is rife with supposedly benevolent monarchs looking to force Christianity onto nations. And as we all know, it was bloody and violent. It has to be something people want to be apart of. If history has taught us one thing, forcing people to accept a set of ideals and values will always be met with force.

And... as always, its a pleasure to hear disagreement from someone who can at least see some validity in an opinion without focusing, and attacking, only those things they disagree with.

**WickedTribe** · 11-09-13, 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by Ranger10

That's your opinion. And, like mine, is purely based on supposition since it's impossible to quantify how one affects the other. That's why I prefaced many of my statements with "I think". That means, it's my personal opinion. You are more than welcome to disagree. But my comments were directed to Ira who asked me what should be done... in my opinion.

You can certainly debate my assessment all you want, but you don't have "facts" any more than I do. I choose to believe that a culture with a strong central theme of love, compassion and a value for human life go a long way to addressing the issues of mass murder. If you want to believe that a secular world is the way to go, then that's your opinion. But don't sit here and tell me I'm wrong for reaching the conclusions I have when you have no way of debasing them purely based on your own speculation.

That's Busch League.

It's not my opinion, things like church attendance, religious affiliation, murders and atrocities get recorded. You can look at the factual data just as easily as I can, and see that your statement was wrong. Some of the most religious periods in the US were also the most violent. Some of the most religious areas of the US are some of the most violent.

**-Lazarus-** · 11-09-13, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by WickedTribe

It's not my opinion, things like church attendance, religious affiliation, murders and atrocities get recorded. You can look at the factual data just as easily as I can, and see that your statement was wrong. Some of the most religious periods in the US were also the most violent. Some of the most religious areas of the US are some of the most violent.

There are no "most religious areas of the US" anymore. Though many claim to be believers in God, Less than 20% of Americans actually regularly attend church. Some studies have even put the number at less than 5%. This is significant toward this discussion.

http://www.churchleaders.com/mobile/...n-america.html

And before anyone here tries to say that belief in God is all that is needed and church is unnecessary - there does seem to be a correlation between divorce rates, murder rates, and other social problems and the lack of a churchgoing public.

This is the problem when we generalize - we don't represent every single person so someone can poke holes by pointing to the odd example. But generally speaking, a churchgoing people are a more peaceful, moral people in societal terms. And a secular world that is dominated by churchgoing people, even secular people are generally a more moral people. Why is this? My opinion is that it is a result of morals which come from an authority that is beyond man, rather than the "Do what thou will" mentality of modern day secular society, which goes unchecked, having no other significant moral viewpoint to compete with it.

Also your comment that the most religious periods in the US were the most violent is a guess at best and goes back to points I have made previously in this forum. 50 years ago or hell almost any time in our past as a nation the United States was a far less violent place than it is today.

**deathgodusmc** · 11-09-13, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by deputyfestus

Hates is a strong word more like dislike for me and as for failing I think that's the one thing he's master and commander of.

I agree. I have no reason to hate Obama. He's just not a good president. That being said he is starting to climb that list with all the lies because i do not like liars.

**iLLusioN** · 11-09-13, 10:41 AM

I think religion has a hell of a lot less to do with it than social and economic inequality and the division of families while children are growing up. If you look at the countries with the best rates for violent crime(not gun crime), they have significantly better social and economic equality.

The economic inequality in this country is absolutely ridiculous compared to anywhere else in the world. Depending on which study you read anywhere from 60-75% of the money in the country is owned by 10% of the people. 40% of the wealth is owned by 1%. That's insane.

A Giant Statistical Round-Up of the Income Inequality Crisis in 16 Charts - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic

Welfare isn't the way to fix it either. IMO welfare is a great idea and has it's place....as a stop gap to help people on hard times until they can get on their feet again. You won't fix anything until the bottom 50% is doing better than scraping by with barely enough to eat and put a roof over their heads. Investing in the bottom 70% is at an all time low. Meaning those people don't make enough to feel comfortable investing money into anything - which means they probably aren't doing as good as loans make them look. The economic inequality is obviously worse in inner cities, which is why they consistently have the worst crime rates. They also have the worst education systems....because they have no money to pay for a good one. Want to know how the big prison corporations predict how much the crime is going to grow? They do some pretty basic calculations based on the rate of illiteracy. IMO if you get money back in the middle and lower classes then you will get more money into the education system...which will lead to less crime. Of course I don't think you can get money back to the lower class without getting money(and properly using it) into the education system first. It all falls back to the money.

As for division of families, I've no idea how to fix that one. I know so many people that have gotten divorced after the first big fight, or got married to "fix" their relationship problems(cause that's the smart thing to do right?). So few are willing to stick it out and deal with the adversity of living with another human being nowadays. I think a good part of the problem has to do with how we as a society view marriage. It's no longer viewed as a permanent union...it's just one of many. My grandparents just had they 60th Anniversary....I'm not convinced that anyone will be able to claim that when I'm their age.

Just my opinion. Take it for what it's worth.

edit: typos

edit 2: forgot to address my 2nd point

**deathgodusmc** · 11-09-13, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Xavsnipe

lol suicide is illegal...that´s kinda weird isn´t it? hahah...how does that work?

Its illegal so they can throw your ass in a mental hospital to see just how sick you really are. Of course that really only works on people that weren't really all that suicidal to begin with or unlucky enough to have someone walk in. My position is its a cowards way out but its your life do what you want.

**Ranger10** · 11-09-13, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by WickedTribe

It's not my opinion, things like church attendance, religious affiliation, murders and atrocities get recorded. You can look at the factual data just as easily as I can, and see that your statement was wrong. Some of the most religious periods in the US were also the most violent. Some of the most religious areas of the US are some of the most violent.

Here's the thing. You base every argument on every post you write on these forums with what you claim to be "facts". How do you really know who is Christian? How do you really know is just using that term to describe themselves? How do you know that guns and mass murder are related to secularism, or something else? I don't. That's like saying, "I KNOW I've collected 100 apples, but I admit I have no way of knowing which ones have worms in them".

I made my comments based on my opinion. Things that I notice and what I am able to draw conclusions from. My opinion is based on observation, not census data. Yet, you're trying to argue your point as if I was skewing existing numbers to fit my hypothesis. The difference between you and I is that I purposely make my observations on opinion, but unlike you, I don't pass them off as fact.

The whole point of this forum is to debate theories and hypotheses that come from you, not see who can regurgitate the work someone else has already done so you can pass if off as the basis for your own opinion. That's lazy. It demonstrates that you have no ability to think for yourself. Most of the facts you people cite in here are already filled with fallacies and inaccurate collection methods anyway. Why can't you form an opinion of your own? Is it so hard?

I made an observation about how I think religion plays a part in gun control. And, as predicted, the atheists seem to have gotten their panties in a bunch. Funny how making observations based on opinion can lead to predictable behavior isn't it? Gee... I guess that's the point I was making all along.

Somebody write this down so I can point to it later and call it "fact".