James Riley

wrong thread, sorry.

So what? So, if a person is born and raised a theist and then switches, it is more likely than not that the change was thinking, not unthinking. You s...

Tim Wood tried to teach you about extrapolating from the specific to the general and back again. I mentioned it, but I think that, and logic in genera...

Sounds like an evangelical Christian wet dream. The Jewish people who are capable of parsing the people from the Israeli state know that Jews are all ...

True. I can't help but think that while the Jews are looking at their own history, Palestinians are looking at history in general, and how colonialism...

Oh, okay. "Historians and scholars" say Marx arrived at atheism without thought. Gotcha. I would never pretend to question historians and scholars.

You parse a hair too thin. He was born Jewish, the family changed to Christianity, he was baptized, and grew up in a secular environment of philosophy...

:100: Yes. Like the preeminent example of white privilege, letting former slave-owners back into real- and personal property ownership after the civil...

Actually, there is. And it exists whether you like it or not. It is an adhesion contract and you will obey or you will suffer the consequences. Full s...

I'd just like to add, some folks think the idea of ownership itself is BS. You might control it, but the sovereign can take it via condemnation in the...

I'm hard-pressed to think of any uncontested land. Maybe where one of the contestants has been completely exterminated? But so long as one sole surviv...

The law is full of stuff about estopple, laches, adverse possession, first-in-time = first-in-right, booty, statutes of limitation, etc. But what it a...

I'm sure you are right. They did. Again, it's that inclination natural and necessary to man.

I'm not angry at all. I've convinced lots of honest, thoughtful people. I don't believe you. I think you gave Marx because he's your boogey man and ea...

The reason it's not old or idiotic is because Somalia falls-four square under the definition of "failed state." Wait, what? You mean even in failed st...

You just said: Doh! I'm beginning to see where Tim Wood is coming from. If we are to tie the specific to the general, then you end up conflating the d...

I thought that was an agnostic? They are the same as theist in that regard, for they can't prove there is a god. Do you have any evidence to support y...

Cletus is exercising his right to self-determination, making widgets. A necessary by-product is hazardous waste he doesn’t want. He tosses it in the c...

Good luck with that. Merely being here takes up perfectly good space that could better be utilized by nothing. Yet we champion the right to procreatio...

You're just proving my point. Atheists are more likely to wish they were wrong than to hope they are right.

:100: Agreed. While an atheist may hope he's not wrong out of fear of finding a god on the other side, he doesn't really then go the extra step of hop...

Somalia.

I first heard that from Justice Scalia (he probably stole if from Wilson). Anyway, as I have oft opined, there is frequently the case where that which...

Fail.

I think atheists don't want god to exist in the same way that theist hope god will forgive them.

That's why we have diplomats.

I learned a long time ago that their are different elements within a "side" of an issue, and that each of them plays a role. It's a "good cop/bad cop"...

So long as I am missing out, we all have to stand here on our own two feet. You see all those evils against which they fought as the state and the mob...

I guess those who champion individualism need to pin it down. Every time anyone else tries, it's like nailing Jell-O to the wall. If it's simply "ever...

Another thought on feminism: The forces against which feminism seems to be struggling are perceived by me as individualist males who don't extend the ...

I've never read any of them so I'll have to defer to you on that. Feminism is a movement and movements, while made up of individuals, requires communa...

Me, or individualism, or both?

There you go. :up:

Well, again, I'm not so sure I understand what was being said, and I may be missing the mark, but when I was a little boy I could will my will. I reme...

We have will, but it ain't free. It's going to cost you. And it will accost you. I started to pen some thoughts on this, contesting it, but I figure I...

:grin:

Just thinking out loud here, but reading this thread, and thinking about individualism, it strikes me as, somehow, inherently masculine. When I think ...

Everyone who forgets that just needs to think about it next time they are taking a shit.

:100:

:sparkle:

I just saw a video on LinkIn of a chick picking up a snake and moving it from an urban walkway over to a water body and some reeds, while other people...

I'm no biologist, but it's my understanding the firing of a synapse involves electricity, and that the body has electrical impulses firing all the tim...

I don't think they are stupid questions at all. In fact, as I indicated earlier, we "knew better" at the time, or at least ignored, dismissed or beat ...

There has always been a disconnect between aspirational idealism, and might-makes-right. If we were to allow the track record of the latter to inform ...

:100:

Your historical analysis makes it sound like this is new. It's not. It was done then. And, when it was done, the doers were making the same excuses th...

Yeah, it's like the criminal who becomes so successful that he can go legit. The Plutocracy is chock full of them. And if you can only make it to deat...

That's "whataboutism." No one stands higher on a pile of bones and souls than does my own U.S., including all the denial and lack of contrition or rep...

Children are devils. I'd rather the devil that I know. Besides, when thinning the herd, you take out the females, so there's that.

Spark.