JordanLand
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Posts posted by JordanLand
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That's not true. According to most cult experts, a cult is a species of religion characterized by deceptive recruitment methods, brainwashing, forceful interference in the lives of its members, and (in some cases) complete separation from society.
As far as I know (and I've researched Scientology a lot), Scientology fits the bill on all four counts, so Moose was right on target.
Does that apply to Christianity in countries where it is a tiny minority? How about converted Muslims in the US?
I have a hard time conceptualizing where the line between a cult and a non-cult religion is. Both are based on lies. And fundy Christians are often quite pressuring, like any cult. I'm not sure.
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Dukies survive. UConn, GW, Washington, Tenn all ch-ch-choke...
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I took a very different sense. The main character chooses to believe something false. He intentionally and consciously decides to commit himself to a falsehood. That's what's ominous. I take this as a warning of the power of what we choose to believe.
And I got the exact OPPOSITE message. Here's a guy with little memory, and in one totally lucid moment, with only a short time to make a concrete action, he chooses the best course for his own self-interest, in the only way he can. Even without full faculties, he can and does retake control of his life from a controlling other, through force if necessary.
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I see a problem in that it's being done in Southern California. How much overt racism is really there? Why aren't they doing the show in Mississippi or Alabama, I'd bet you get a different result there.
Other than that, it *is* entertaining, especially the talkative intellectual/liberal white girl.
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Um, only peripheral knowledge, I had a friend who booked celebrities in Vegas. It involved a lot of schmoozing with their agents/handlers, then eventualyl the celebs themselves. You have to sell the idea to them. She got to talk to quite a few celebs, although she never met them, she just did booking.
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My body is face down, head turned to one side. Sometimes I ditch the pillow and just lay on the sheets.
But it has to be face down at night. Oddly enough, if I nap, it's face up.
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Here's a news-story that's relveant to this thread.
Summary: Falun Gong is a Chinese religious group that is restricted by the Chinese government. Some Falun Gong adherents live in the U.S.; some are U.S. citizens. One of these, a tech guy living in Geogia, was trying to develop a way to circumvent Chinese internet filtering. A group of asian-looking thugs entered his house, beat him up, and took away two laptops.
That's seriously disturbing, on US soil...
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Stewart had an economic conservative on last night, I forget the guy's name, he was slamming Bush for basically being a big government Republican.
I was waiting for someone to take Bush to task on that one! Like he said, you can sort of understand big gov't under Reagan (a Dem congress), or even smaller gov't under Clinton (a GOP congress), but who can explain the ballooning of govt under Bush with a GOP congress?
I hate it when people use the phrase "conservative" and *only* mean cultural conservative and totally discount the fiscal aspect.
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Just using an illustration, that's all. I use it against those who argue communism, to show that scale is their ultimate downfall. It's my way of analyzing relationships, you don't have to agree with it.
And of course I lovem the kidlings!
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And once again, a serious topic devolves into Monty Python!
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A family works because its members value each other as individuals. It is not a collectivist institution. Communism demands you to live for the collective--for your "brothers"--regardless whether you value them or not.
It's not a question of size, it's a question of voluntarily chosen values vs. commanded sacrifice.
Meh, I disagree a little. Families and friendships are *often* lopsided relationships. How many of us have a troubling or draining relative who contributes much less than they take? Do we dump them on the side of the road? Usually not, unless they go way overboard. What about kids, one is good and self-sufficient, the other has learning disabilities and behavior problems? We stick with them, and put MORE effort into them. It's classic communism.
That's not a bad thing, though, on the samll scale of the family. If you want to make it more self-serving, you could say we place an extremely high internal value on having a family, and on having members with their basic needs met, above the value we place on our own needs. It's due to biology, our need to support our own family, of course.
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That's ridiculous. I certainly hope we get a public outcry about this invasion of privacy.
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I always thought that having an angel called Moroni was really a big hint and wink and nod to the non-Mormons about how silly the while thing is.
I mean, think if Joseph Smith (was that the guy's name) was just a big huckster, wanted to bang like 5 women at once and take people's money, so he made up a religion, and to poke fun at the shills he called the angel Moroni, and holy crap they followed him to Utah!
Once you're started with such a story, and you've got a bunch of wives and kids, you can't give it up, can you? So he kept a-spinnin his yarns, and they got more and more outlandish, and the followers all believed every word, and soon their knickers were blessed. LOL!
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Spelling in an online forum? Serious discourse, sure. If you're using a long post to expound on theories, okay. But a quick reply? Picking on everythign is counterproductive.
That said, I *am* a grammar- and spelling-Nazi, and it does color my opinion somewhat. But who are we to discount the thoughts of someone who may be slightly dyslexic? Dyslexia has little or no effect on overall intelligence.
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Here's an interesting take on it, maybe you will like it:
Communism exists, and is useful today.
(Wait, stop screaming at me, and hear me out for a second!)
Communism exists and is useful in REALLY SMALL GROUPS. Like a family. Your spouse has an itch, you scratch it. Your kid is sick, you take care of them, no questions asked.
As groups get larger, communism is less and less effective. About the largest effective communist group is the kibbutz-thing in Israel, a collective farm with maybe 50 or 100 people, and even then it often has problems. All the 1960s hippy communes fell apart over individualism and incentive.
Anyway, what does this have to do with Papa Smurf? He's the leader of a giant family, I guess. He's maxed out on his communism. If there's a community of Green Smurfs in the next valley, they must necessarily compete with each other. It can be friendly competition, but it must be competition, because it is too large for communism.
Like it? Whenever I debate communism, I use this argument, it takes away their thunder because I *agree* with them, for small cases. I just show it is utterly inapplicable for larger cases.
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Face donw on a cool pillow.
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I went to school under Communism in Hungary, and no teacher ever made me share anything. They didn't even recommend that we share anything; the idea apparently never entered their minds.
I guess living under a collectivist government is a pretty good antidote to collectivism!
I have a coworker who grew up behind the Iron curtain, the stories he has are scary...
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This would be a great development. No way in hell that it will happen though.
Maybe eventaully, but I don't think yet.
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Yeah, it does seem to be a little bit strange, promoting altruism then linking to here. And why don't they link to www.AynRand.org ? If they're showing the other site, they should show this one, too.
But I did like the Arguments section, it slams sheep-religion arguments pretty well, and the Resources section has some good separation of church and state links.
Let us know if you get a reply on that one, if they're going to do anything to fix it.
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Aren't there anti-KKK laws?Could you provide some examples of laws in the U.S. similar to the Austrian law under discussion? Certainly there are rules on campuses against "hate speech," but that is in the context of a tax-supported institution. There is no state or federal law that I know of that allows for the imprisonment of an individual for making certain historical claims.I think it's more of an "incitement to hatred" thing. Say there's a big Mexican neighborhood right next door to a big Chinese neighborhood. And say you start printing up flyers that say three Mexican men have been seen around the Chinese neighborhood, and four women were gang raped by them.
And at the same time, you put up flyers in the Mexican neighborhood saying the Chinese have bought up several apartment buildings and are skimping on the services, and one building had a gas leak and 2 children died and a third is in critical condition.
You keep printing flyers and fanning the flames, and pretty soon you have a Mexican gang and a Chinese gang shooting and stabbing each other on the streets. Are you guilty of anything?
After all, you merely "revised history" and misstated the truth in order to incite people not intelligent enough to see through your facade into killing each other.
THAT'S what Irving is doing.
Communist regimes are responsible for the deaths of many millions more than Hitler killed. Would you then favor banning the sale of books by Marx, Lenin and Trotsky?Hmm, I guess it depends on the incitement level. If it's a communist book that says "kill all the capitalists", sure, that's tantamount to a direct threat, and threatening murder is illegal. If it says "reform the government through peaceful means", that is not threatening any person nor inciting violence towards those people.
Since the protective laws you defend are put in place by elected leaders, isn't there a danger in giving the "below-average intelligence" "sheep" you speak of the right to vote?MOST people are not stupid enough to believe idiots like Irving, so the vote is a non-issue. What is an issue is when someone can recruit a cadre of sheep that will commit violent crimes such as murder. That is the goal of Holocaust-deniers and the like, to incite hatred by the uneducated against a group they dislike. It's incitement to violence.
Should we require an intelligence test for the vote, require some minimum level? If most people could still vote, I don't see why not, but politically such a thing is impossible.
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I'm on a few other boards, and there I found a link to a book (it's a pdf you can download) which primarily covers the topic of Atheism. Now, I know, most books like that are ultra-liberal and all, but this one was a lot more neutral. Still a little left for my tastes, but they didn't take sides as much as some of the other ones I read.
Anyway, there's a section at the back called the "Book of Resources" (once you check out the TOC, you'll see why it's called that) that lists a whole bunch of websites, and it does include Objectivism Online!
There's also a "Book of Books", it's good too, but it doesn't cover Rand, which I see as a shortcoming. But it does cover both our forum and another major Objectivism site, plus some good info on anti-religion arguments, so I'll look over it for now.
Here's the link, I'm interested to see what you all think of it:
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You're speaking different languages here. No way around it.
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Thankfully the states' are enacting legislation to counter this.
I don't agree with eminent domain, but I'm practical about it. We won't win completely. I wish we could at least push for something to slow it down. Like, instead of paying 100% of what the property is worth, I think the government should have to pay 150% of what it is worth on the market, plus reasonable moving costs.
That way, the government would have to think long and hard before they decide to pursue an eminent domain project. They could still do it, but there's a hurdle. And I don't think we'd feel quite as bad for the old guy in a $100,000 house if he just picked up a $50,000 windfall.
The Multiplication Tables
in Miscellaneous Topics
Posted · Edited by JordanLand
If it has anything to do with Michelle Trachtenberg, I'm in!
mptv1.bmp
(safe for work)