SeVeR

You're insinuating that gun-control laws are causing the high murder rates in blue states. What you fail to realise is those states had high murder rates before the gun-control laws were put in place. In fact, that's why the laws were put in place. They already were murder fests, and for all we know the gun-control laws have lowered the rates of murder from what they were. Yes, i used nationmaster "Guns don't cause murders, people do" I am so sick of hearing this statement. It's reductio ad absurdum. You are trying to reduce my argument to an absurdity by implying that i'm saying guns can kill people without a person to pull the trigger. Fact is: People without guns have a harder time killing people than people with guns, that's the point being made.

Dav mentioned the stealing of Pagan festivals. I'd like to add that "the Christmas celebration was created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations" (wiki). Christmas was originally a celebration for the Pagan God Mithras who was born on the 25th of December to a virgin mother.

Sure, anti-violence may be as relevent today as it was back then. If you want to believe that's down to God and not people then so be it. However, the argument here is about the Bible's statements that say the man should "rule over" the woman. This is clearly an out-dated cultural thing. Do you think God is sexist? I agree, it doesn't make any present actions acceptable. It does make Christianity as blameful as Islam though. Only now, when Christianity has been pushed out of power, have we seen the flourishing of ideals like equality, the banning of slavery and human rights; there are no more crusaders or conquistadors, and no more executions for herecy and witch-craft. On the African continent we are seeing all these things beginning in the same way they did in Europe, with Africans divided between Islam and Christianity, and both sides torturing their own as unbelievers and witches. If Christianity was still as prevalent in the West as Islam is in the Middle East, then history is our teacher for what the result would be. Yes Islam is slightly worse, and the differences are doubled by our liberal culture and their conservative one (relatively speaking).

I wasn't talking about suicides, i was talking about firearm homicide rate...

I don't know. I was refuting the notion that gun-control can be seen to work or not work based on enforcement within a single state, which may be surrounded by gun-legal states on all sides. It obviously requires stricter border security. It remains to be seen whether a national ban will work. In the UK i'm happy to say that i've never seen a gun in my life. If there weren't so many guns in the USA then maybe there wouldn't be a firearm homicide rate that is 27 times higher than that in the UK, just a thought. -EDIT- And just incase you don't understand, this accounts for population size as it is per 100,000 people. In other words you're 27 times more likely to be shot to death in America.

TJ: Thankyou, you've made my point for me. The differences in the way we follow these "old laws" are purely cultural. These old laws are present in both books, just one culture takes them more literally due to a less developed (but still highly original and fascinating) culture. The new testament would still be original to the same extent it is today. However, i would mention that the "words of God" are only as consistent as the society we live in. The fact that you mention pieces of the Bible that are not as relevent or literal today as they were 2000 years ago shows that the Bible was written by men who were not advised by God. They were instead influenced by their culture. The Old Testament doesn't need to be removed for me to point this out, you've already told me how much of the Old Testament isn't relevent or literal. Well no, it doesn't apply to Islam because their culture is still at least 200 years behind ours. A larger majority of males will interpret the sexist statements in the Qu'ran more literally because the culture they live in accepts those statements more readily. The Christian culture accepted the Bible more literally centuries ago too. You're right, the Qu'ran goes a bit further than the Bible. Nevertheless, the point is how many Muslims use the Qu'ran to justify beating their wives, compared to how many Christians use the Bible to justify treating their wives like slaves. The cultural differences are obviously the determinant factor in how liberally and literally the Muslims or Christians follow their holy book.

1. You're insinuating that gun-control laws are causing those high murder rates. What you fail to realise is those major industrialised areas had high murder rates before the gun-control laws were put in place. In fact, that's why the laws were put in place. They already were murder fests, and for all we know the gun-control laws have lowered the rates of murder from what they were. With your stats, we'll never know, but i'm guessing that possibility skipped your mind. I imagine the website you read it from didn't want you to know either. 2. Gun-control laws don't work in individual states, all you do is take guns out of the hands of people who may have used the gun to defend themselves. You can drive through a state-border without going through a metal detector; You can't go through an airport in the same way. A country wide-ban is needed to see if gun-control really works in the USA.

I've read reports that say Turkey has been pursuing the PKK into northern Iraq for months. I'm not sure if this latest incident is anything new.

They do? Wow, i must have read it wrong. You see, i thought it said to only beat women if they are rebellious and give you reason to fear them. Thus: Is a load of crap, as the man has to interpret the Quran's definition of rebellious as applying to his wife in order to beat her. A site that applies the scientific method to Biblical theories would never receive my condemnation. A site that uses scientific language to fool the reader into believing his pre-conceived ideas of Christianity are true in a scientific context, will always receive my full condemnation. That is what Answers In Genesis is. It's outright deceit, where people too stupid to understand science beyond high-school level can become convinced that science supports their Christian ideas. I guess we all have hope, and my hope is for an educated world. Christian websites tend to destroy that hope. You're right, the Bible quotes don't say to beat rebellious women. Did i say they do? The Bible quotes merely allow any man to believe women are inferior and need to be "ruled over" - this is basically slavery. If you want to go a step further, one might theorise that with slavery comes the beating of slaves to enforce obedience. How else do you enforce your "rule" over your inferiors. The reason Christians aren't beating their wives is because of the culture we live in. Thus the Christian tendency is to interpret those passages with the most liberal of at!@#$%^&*udes. Islamic countries are a few hundred years behind us, we need to give them time. You know those rape stories where the victim is punished too? Well i just heard that the Saudi King has pardoned the victim of a recent case; things are already changing. passing off the Old Testament as "Jewish" is a little desperate. It's in the Bible, it's in the Christian holy book. If you don't want it !@#$%^&*ociated with your religion then have it removed. While it remains in the Bible, it is still a source of great influence over all Christians; and that's hard to deny.

Of course not all Christian websites are choc-full of deceptive, presumptious, bigotted, hate-mongering filth.... just all the ones i've visitted are. One god-awful example (pardon ther pun) is Answer's In Genesis, which even goes so far as to use scientific language to fool the reader into believing the Bible is backed up by evidence, and evolution is impossible. I've already described how Christianity is a great temptation, now we can get onto the deceit and lies. The bearer of light would be so proud - (there's a Christian conundrum for which you'll need a Bible and a translation). Anyway. Disobedience is decided upon differently by every man. Thus if the Qu'ran says: "As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them." ... Then some will use any excuse to call their wives disobedient in order to beat them, while others will not. In the same way, if the Bible says: "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body." ... Then some Christians may use this as an excuse to treat their wives like slaves. Or this: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array" ... As being equivalent to the Islamic system of dress for women. Or this: "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." ... As being an excuse to keep women from having any kind of successful career (because that would involve authority). Or this: "And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart snares and nets, her hands bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her." ... As reason to think all women are deceitful, evil, tempters of men. Or this: "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God" ... and this "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." ... as even more reason to enslave the woman to the man. It comes down to interpretation in every case. We know that our culture once interpreted the Bible in much the same way Islam interprets the Quran now. The standards of intepretation are entirely cultural, and if our cultures had swapped holy books 2000 years ago, the results would probably be the same.

The Qu'ran refers to good women as not deserving beatings. It refers to disloyal, rebellious, disobedient women as deserving of a beating. Thus it comes down (as always) to the interpretation of the Qu'ran, and like the Bible, the door is left open for people to interpret God's word in the worst ways imaginable (by thinking their wife is disobedient). As already explained earlier, the Bible has the same sexist sentiment, but probably to a lesser degree. Nevertheless, disobedient women were stoned in the Bible. I don't trust anything on Christian websites. Issues like abortion, homosexuality, and islamic wife-beating are discussions that cause considerable divide. If these topics are discussed on a Christian site then you already know what their conclusions will be. Thus there is no point in paying them a visit, as they have undoubtedly started with a conclusion and undertaken a selective sampling of the evidence to fit that conclusion.

What Bak said.

Yet there is plenty of evidence to suggest humans seek attention as a means to acquire friends and lovers. Too much attention seeking can be seen as a threat to other members of our society. People do not like it when you "steal their thunder", as there is only so much attention to go around. Why would be bring ourselves this hostility from our peers? Thus, we don't walk around with megaphones. Social conformity is also a factor that reduces extravagance. We fit in with our friends for obvious survival reasons. They are our tribe, our brothers, and our bonds with them are increased by re-inforcing their appearance with our own. These influences therefore act contrary to attention seeking, but all that i've mentioned in this post so far is down to evolutionary psychology, and the genetics favoured by natural selection. A scientist acknowledges that his theory is uncertain, a creationist believes his theory is fact.

Well i don't know if God exists or not, and would therefore be an agnostic. Non-theist would include agnostic (aswell as atheist and ignostic). I also stray into the ignostic camp, as the concept of God is so ultimately far-fetched as to render the search for any evidence completely meaningless. How can you disprove the existence of a being that is immaterial (existing anywhere and everywhere in space and time), omnipotent and omniscient? The definition of God epitomises the unknown. It's the "God of the gaps" as Dawkins would say, although he is naive enough to believe there is evidence against the existence of God. I am an agnostic with an ignostic compulsion to be completely 50/50 on the matter. This might be why i'm so irreligious, because i'm a hard-line advocate of uncertainty where uncertainty is due. Whether or not the photo was taken is an absolute truth. Yet this truth is not known to us. It could be a forgery, an edit (as you say), or our entire concept of reality could be wrong (dream-state or a false reality). However unlikely (and irrelevent in real world situations) the probability that this photo is real and depicts an actual event that took place is NOT 100%. It's significantly less than the probability that you and I will die at some point in our lives. We may find a way to stop the aging process, or to place our minds into machines, or to freeze someone in stasis indefinately. You may never die for as long as the universe exists. The probability that you will die at some point is however even closer to 100% than the photo, but still not 100%. There are even more far-fetched scenarios such as are you sitting at your computer reading this post, or does 1+1=2. Even if the reason to doubt the truth is so incredibly unlikely, it is worth acknowledging that nothing is 100% certain, and we can never "know" a truth. There are no known truths, and although we may stumble upon a truth, we would not know we had done so. I think this statement is the closest i've come to "stumbling upon a truth". The interpretations of what was happening in the photo (did the man deserve to die?) are determined by the evidence available, as you seem to realise. The ac!@#$%^&*ulation of evidence makes the prospect of knowing a truth more likely (but never certain). Thus an analysis of the photo would go a long way to !@#$%^&*uring us that the photo is a true representation of actual events. And the statements from witnesses would help determine the reasons for the murder.

Russky: That's a good point and something i've considered before. The bonds between twins/brothers and the tendency to mimic eachother's behaviour increases with increasing similarity. Thus it might make sense for twins to show higher levels of homosexuality than for non-twin brothers. Given a particular family environment, the homosexual twins may be the only twins who had mimicked behaviour enough to both end up homosexual. Unless the twins were separated at birth, it's impossible to say how much these family influences contribute. TJ: I'm pretty sure our species would be extinct, or in great difficulty now without war. It's a benefit. Choosing younger mates, and the dominant nature of males in our species are also benefits (or at least were), thus pedophilia is the result of genetic benefits, although certain environmental causes are needed to bring those genetics into play.

Well there is a need in all of us to seek attention. I'm not going to try and explain it, but us humans seek attention in order to rise to positions of respect and power, and to attract mates. I would say that is in our genes. Without knowing the cause of the suicides, i would guess that alot of depressed and lonely people saw the attention given to this person after committing suicide, and wanted it for themselves. Thus the underlying cause is genetic, but the environmental causes that are the depression and the suicide note allowed those `attention seeking' genes to contribute to the other suicides. It's the same with war. We are ingrained with the aggression and hatred that is needed to fight our enemies because we've needed that aggression in the past to survive; but the trigger is always something in our environment. Maybe i wasn't clear on that before.

They are the same, or at least can be. Having sex with someone doesn't mean they'll become your mate. Acquiring multiple mates also doesn't put a limit on the number of mates either. I'm saying pedophilia is not limited to penetrative sex. The whale pelvis is a vestigial organ, meaning it once served a use, but doesn't anymore. Evolution can't just switch off a vestigial organ over-night, it takes time. The fact that we know the whale's once had a use for their pelvis, is all that is needed to justify them having a genetic purpose for it. Some crabs use their tails as rudders in the sand to avoid being swept away by the sea. What specific crab are you referring to? Human beings have ear muscles in order to maintain the shape of the ear for optimum acceptance of sound waves. I am absolutely not saying that. Maybe you are picking up on what i said earlier about religion being genetic. What i mean is: human beings are prone to creating religion in order to explain phenomena, but lets be clear that the specifics of that religion are not genetic, and are environmental instead.

Bak: I think you'll find that males are far more inclined to acquire multiple mates than females are, and that this is supported both theoretically and experimentally in alot of psychology papers. So no, it's not really an !@#$%^&*umption. Saying it's "simply not true" is an !@#$%^&*umption, although you can try to prove it if you like. Everything, the good and the bad, are due to our genetically ingrained principles for survival and reproduction. War, rape, murder, pedophilia, pain, fear, hate, even religion. I have no problem with making genetics look bad, because our ideas of good and bad are in fact shaped by our genetics aswell. We view all things that threaten our personal survival as bad, yet we have no problem doing it to others if we fear the response less than we perceive the benefits of the act. On the side of good, we developed empathy to make others feel we care for their well-being, establishing a sign of trust, and mutually enhancing our survival prospects. I guess you don't understand what pedophilia is then. Whale backbones allow for the swimming motion. A backbone provides the necessary support for muscles down the entire length of the whale, allowing it to co-ordinate it's swimming motion in the easiest possible way. If the muscles were not supported by a back-bone the contraction of the whale's muscles would only shorten its length rather than bend its body in order to swim.

Of course war, murder and pedophilia can be attributed to genetics. Murder and war: A product of our fight for dominance over our enemies and the neighboring tribes. Without murder and war we would have died out as a species by now. Pedophilia: Is partly due to genetics. Our genetics teach us to look for youth in our mates as they are more fertile, and this argument applies when the victim is sexually able. Additionally, male humans are programmed to be the dominant sex, and where the search for a mate is unproductive, the male would be prone to dominating those who don't have a choice in the matter. It's why you don't see pedophilia in females, at least when the male-child is below the age of being able to have sex. Genetically, males are programmed to have sex with as many individuals as possible (to spread the seed), and thus when the search for a mate is unproductive, the domination or subversion of children younger than the norm can occur. Whale Backbones... do i even need to say?

Lets clear this up. I am not an atheist because to deny the existence of God would be to have faith in something. This is the centre of my entire philosophy. There is no emotional reason, at least none that matters beyond what i have just said. It's not the crux of the matter, you were wrong, and i am more than a little offended that you would say imply i'm such a shallow individual as to be agnostic due to a "fear of being called a hypocrite". I've been defending my views, right up until the last post when i had to defend myself, something that shouldn't be on a political forum. When you say subjective truths, do you mean things that people believe to be true? I wouldn't call those truths at all, rather beliefs. I see things in terms of absolute truths and known truths. Absolute truths are necessary for existence, and as you say, are "at the core of everything". Known truths are the absolute truths that we as observant beings have stumbled upon by chance. We can never know if any human being has ever possessed a known truth, but one can certainly believe it's likely. No human being can ever claim to know a truth, but for practical purposes it's not usual to separate extreme likelihood from truth: e.g. It's true that the sun will rise tomorrow - even if the probability is only 99.99999999% or something close to 100%.

I think its a given that there will be a lack of education. And given that given... is it worth allowing guns to be legal? One might argue that guns can be used in self-defense. The alternate argument would be that legal guns find their ways into the hands of criminals pretty easily. The murder rate being three times higher in the US as compared with most developed countries (with firearm homicide rate being almost 30x) might lead one to theorise that self-defense is significantly outweighed by the aforementioned disadvantages. Stats: www.nationmaster.com

NBV: I could agree with that. Thus a strong belief in something you strongly believe to be true, where the evidence does not warrant such a belief, is something i'd call `stupid'.

I'd hoped you'd get the drift that i simply don't want to debate with you. In my opinion you are not here to defend your views, and i'm not sure you even have any views yet. You seem more concerned with starting petty arguments. Nevertheless, you're not very good at what you're here to do. !@#$%^&* for tat. You'd originally said "you'd rather be called an agnostic because you fear to be called a hypocrite". Apparently you have nothing to back this accusation up, that's also called libel. I guess i have plenty to "back up" calling you a hypocrite. On this "point" i had said something, you had replied with a question, which i answered, then your reply was "Most, ahh, interesting". How the !@#$%^&* am i supposed to gather that you wanted me to expand on my original point? Ya know, in a debate, if you want me to expand on my point, then give a reason why; present some contrary evidence or a different point of view. Don't just say three word answers that mean nothing other than mild curiousity with a hint of sarcasm and then act as if the impetus was on me to expand on something from three posts ago. Nothing about your reply implies that! Glad we agree. I'm glad we had this discussion. It seems you are very concerned with how you appear to others on this forum. With comments like: "Are we playing the hypocrites game here? Each accusing the other of our own crimes? I imagine it is quite a spectacle for the others." you really do tell me too much. You: "I understand exactly what you are saying, and you are wrong." Me: "Nice of you to say. How?" Believe it or not, the impetus is on you to explain why you think i'm wrong now. I've gone back and read the previous posts, and you haven't explained why i'm wrong. How about you go back and rejoin the discussion where we left off? Who cares? As i said earlier, your only input in this discussion is to start irrelevant arguments. More true than you know; and impeccable timing. And i have already told you, and am now having to tell you again, that i was not making any reference to a paradox, and that omnipotence was a completely arbitrary example of how doubt is prevalent in Christian !@#$%^&*umption. This is what i originally said: There is no amount of evidence that can produce absolute faith. However, there are near-certainties that we accept without too much quibbling. If God were to appear to me at my death and assign me to an after-life then i would accept him. However, he may just be an advanced being with limited power, who has managed to harness the passage of the (as of yet) undiscovered human soul. Christianity may be true in every !@#$%^&*umption apart from God being omnipotent; indeed if "God" told the Bible-writers such lies, what reason would they have not to trust him. So, as i said earlier, there is ALWAYS a reason to doubt. Isn't it obvious that omnipotence was just an example of how it is possible to doubt anything? So once again, you've ignored the line of discussion and gone off on a tangent to create a completely irrelevant argument. Well done? If you can't figure it out, then you must have a very short... Memory

A post that long, with no debateable points whatsoever, is really not worth my time. Seriously, read over your last post, you're not contributing to this discussion at all.