Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.

[xealix]

Originally Posted by Vendetta21

I can't really pose a counter-argument to isolating yourself from reality because you can't create a great deal of impact. The point really is just trying to increase awareness of your place in existence for it's own sake so you aren't pretending that you're living in a world you are not. All intellectual endeavors are mostly hubris by themselves.

It takes awareness even to believe you can't make a difference. I don't think he believes that it is impossible to make a difference in all things, because that would just be a foolish thing to say, but abolishing something that has been around since the start of man is a dream that seems damn near impossible to me. Maybe we can get close, and who knows what will happen. I just cannot see a future where war does not exist. This is all a personal opinion of course.

[stargroup100]

Originally Posted by Emo_Saur_

Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening.

This is true, but that doesn't mean this discussion doesn't matter. What happens in the war and what information is sent to us as citizens affect our interpretation of our country, our military, and other countries. While what we discuss and do probably don't matter in the long run, it is necessarily to have an understanding of what is going on around us so that we have the right idea about what is going on around the world.

The problem with this is that most people are very deluded about these topics, with very little possibility of encountering a reliable source of information they trust.

Originally Posted by Emo_Saur_

Stopping war is impossible, you can't create a utopia. If we tried to create one massive world utopia, we'd have to go back to the beginning on mankind which is not humanly possible. Opinion is what keeps this world spinning, if we didn't have people disagreeing then what would there be to do? Sit there, do nothing for hours on end..

Stopping war is not impossible. Creating a utopia is impossible by definition.

Opinions are what bring out the diversity in people, but that doesn't necessarily lead to aggressive fights. There are plenty of ways of taking advantage of disagreements in positive manners.

Originally Posted by rushyrulz

Reason 1 why I don't believe in God: religion = war ; war = death ; death = bad, therefore religion = bad. (amongst other reasons, but I realize this is a topic to be discussed at a later time.) 2 cents.

This post is such a joke that I shouldn't even be replying to this.

"religion = war"
Fallacious. Religion is a set of principles and beliefs. War is simply a means of aggressive disagreement between extremists of each side. These extremists are not usually not accurate representations of the religion itself. 82% of Americans are Christian. Does this imply that these 82% of people are always at war?

"war = death"
War may cause death, but that doesn't mean they are equivalent.

"death = bad"
While death is generally considered to be a negative impact on humanity, it is part of the life cycle. Death cannot be so black and white to be immediately classified as "bad," as all things in the universe are to some degree beneficial and detrimental. You merely assume that in the specific case that war is usually bad and causes pointless destruction, that you separate the two cases and then combine them by transitive property, which is fallacious.

"religion = bad"
So you basically just combined relative concepts that weren't even necessarily true with equal signs, and then mathematically declared them to be the exact same thing, and hence assuming that the transitive property was a legal application here.

Despite common sense knowledge about the benefits of religion, moderation in every day life, balance and clear separation between principles of faith and reason, and the eccentricity of special extreme cases, you decide to connect nonsensical arguments and ideas in order to arrive at the final conclusion that you are against religions. Next time, you should look at things from as many perspectives as possible before you judge, and actually apply arguments that make sense. As a person that is against religion, isn't it ironic that you don't actually apply any logic or reasoning to back up your faith-based environmentally-impacted observed opinions?

[RobertsonaIsBack]

stargroup got trolled

[Ichiro_Suzuki_desu]

Free will lead to war. War very costly, lead to death. Death very bad. Therefore free will very very bad.

[Cavernio]

"Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening."

So wrong, unless your definition of a civilian by necessity makes someone a non-civilian if they take up arms or the fact that they become active and a leader of people makes them not a civilian.
Individuals found companies, found religions, take down governments...change happens from individuals! Its all about how driven you are, how resourceful you are, and how intelligent you are. Most people who share you view of the world are not driven enough to make a difference, IMO, and are cowed by the very thought of the enormity of the effort and planning involved it takes to make a big difference. Or rather, they won't even get into the planning stages of what might be involved, because its just so damned huge of an effort to put out. Which almost equates to what you said, but is in fact quite different, because by saying that you have no power, you will also never try, and therefore never succeed, regardless of how easy or hard it would be do. You're also passing on the message to others that it is impossible, and if they believe you, they too will do nothing.

"Free will lead to war. War very costly, lead to death. Death very bad. Therefore free will very very bad."

Freedom doesn't lead to war. Also, no country is ever really free by fact of being a country in the first place. I would say freedom specifically makes 'war' much less of a likelihood, because war implies something largescale and organized. In an anarchy, you might have more fighting, but to get something organized enough for a war while still remaining free seems unlikely.
Regardless though, my free country doesn't force me to join the military, and allows me to vote.

[MrRubix]

stargroup your reasoning is terrible

[Zageron]

Stargroup.

Take logic and reasoning. You'll find that 100% of mathematicians agree with rushy.

[Emo_Saur_]

Organized religion is a scheme all in itself. Also, Rushy religion is usually not the basis of war. So, you can't use that so broadly as a analogy to describe war as a whole.

[MrRubix]

War a grander form of "We can't come to any other mutual agreement but we both can't allow this situation to go on any further, so we're going to start causing you harm if you don't comply."

Religion can indeed fuel many wars because in most cases it's an ego displacement. "I ignorantly hate race X" gets displaced to "God hates race X and I must follow God's word." Religion can be a pretty dangerous tool because of, largely, these two things:

1. We can justify anything by saying it's God's word, because we can't disprove such a thing.
2. It's considered disrespectful to step on the toes of the religious -- religion almost demands a sort of unwarranted respect.

It's certainly more complicated than this but this is the stroke of it.

[Emo_Saur_]

Originally Posted by MrRubix

religion almost demands a sort of unwarranted respect.

If they didn't have disrespect, the bible pushers would have no one to shove the bible down people's throats. I have no problem against religion what so ever. I do not think it plays a major part in OUR war. That's not what we're fighting for.

[MrRubix]

It demands unwarranted respect because you can basically argue any ideology you want, no matter how self-serving or socially-grating it may be, and basically tell people "Oh no, you can't question my beliefs -- they're holy. Don't disrespect my religion."

We're seemingly free to criticize politicians and economists but it's considered poor form to tell someone that their religion is batshit.

[Emo_Saur_]

Well, even blabbering about a political stuff can get you into a load of arguing.

[MrRubix]

Right but at least we can debate politics with evidence and proof. I might argue one side of an issue, cite statistics, mention alternative plans that might maximize utility, etc, and you might take another side because you interpret things differently (hopefully also with proof).

Religion doesn't fall into that category. There's no way to disprove or prove anything anyone says, and so it comes down to "Well I will cause harm because I said so," in its most basic form, where war/oppression is concerned. Having no justification is pretty dangerous.

[Emo_Saur_]

Rubix, are you agnostic by any chance?

[MrRubix]

I am an agnostic atheist.

Specifically defined: I do not believe in anything theistic, but I also think that I have to be fair, as a scientist, to say that the concept of God is by definition an unknowable construct (we can't ever disprove God) -- I do not believe the probability split between God possibly existing and not existing is 50%/50%.

[ledwix]

Originally Posted by Zageron

Stargroup.

Take logic and reasoning. You'll find that 100% of mathematicians agree with rushy.

I find that dubious. Rushy did not even make an argument, or if he did, it was non-sequitir. God's existence has no dependence on the corruptness of established earthly religions.

Religion is not bad in general, though anytime one preaches something other than love and understanding, it is. In a way, we are all religious, and we are all philosophers, although the former has a negative connotation among most intellectuals, and so they might take offense to that label.

[MrRubix]

Originally Posted by ledwix

I find that dubious. Rushy did not even make an argument, or if he did, it was non-sequitir. God's existence has no dependence on the corruptness of established earthly religions.

Religion is not bad in general, though anytime one preaches something other than love and understanding, it is. In a way, we are all religious, and we are all philosophers, although the former has a negative connotation among most intellectuals, and so they might take offense to that label.

Considering that religious refers to a state of religion, which refers to God/Gods and arbitrary beliefs, I'd say it's not only offensive, but flat-out incorrect.

[ledwix]

Originally Posted by MrRubix

Considering that religious refers to a state of religion, which refers to God/Gods and arbitrary beliefs, I'd say it's not only offensive, but flat-out incorrect.

Religion also includes "a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe," although you seem to have either bunched this into the set "arbitrary beliefs" or overlooked it. Do you therefore not hold any beliefs about the purpose of the universe, since all those beliefs would be arbitrary? If you do not hold any belief about it, then your actions are arbitrary. If you do hold a belief, your beliefs are arbitrary. Which is the case?

[MrRubix]

Originally Posted by ledwix

Religion also includes "a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe," although you seem to have either bunched this into the set "arbitrary beliefs" or overlooked it. Do you therefore not hold any beliefs about the purpose of the universe, since all those beliefs would be arbitrary? If you do not hold any belief about it, then your actions are arbitrary. If you do hold a belief, your beliefs are arbitrary. Which is the case?

Yeah except I have no arbitrary beliefs about the origin of the universe.

Get your terminology right and try again next time.

[ledwix]

Originally Posted by MrRubix

Yeah except I have no arbitrary beliefs about the origin of the universe.

Get your terminology right and try again next time.

OR the purpose of the universe? If you do not have arbitrary beliefs about the purpose of the universe, you either have objective beliefs or none at all. Again, which is the case?