How many people think that Bush is going to unilaterally invade Iran
I did not mean second literally, I meant their interests - be it family, business, whatever - go first, and all the rest after this. You missed my point though - we all more or less do the same at work. Me, you, everybody. Our interests first, work interests second. Politicians are not unique in this.
I don't know him personally and therefore cannot conclude on his level of intelligence.
I'm not sure I (or you or anybody on this thread for that matter) will appear smarter than him when forced to speak publicly.
His primary job is not entertaining the public, but rather ruling the country, and those jobs require different sets of skills.
His advisers are also human, and I apply to them all what I said in this thread before about rich people and politicians...
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago
0Well, you certainly won't lose me as a fan simply for having a different opinion, however I don't buy the whole thought police thing. No one gets to tell me what opinion to have. Soz.
Idunn, if you are talking to me - I can't understand your remark
I know it breaks the fun, but I need an explanation then... I did not say anything about thought police, and I did not try to convert you You are asking good questions, Idunn. I was having a hard time trying to answer them. This is the first time I'm putting my thoughts on this matter on paper, so it may be - umm - raw...
I? Judging you? I would appreciate the quote I can't remember judging anybody in this thread - but I'm definitely not free of judgment myself, at least not yet 
This pretty much boils down to the thing we agree on - responsibility for own deeds/misdeeds. Responsibility in a sense that you meet consequences of what you've done - whether in this or in any of the subsequent lives. However, me calling those people bad will be judging in my current understanding. I can say they hurt other people - and this will not be judgment. I'm not sure if this refers to judges by job, though - this is the thing I did not think through yet.
Well, with rights I'm pretty much sure they are just an illusion. Isn't draft a violation of one's right to live - universally accepted? Does that mean that right to live is conditional? That state decides whether to grant you this right or not? And if this basic right is conditional, how other, dependent on this, rights could be not?- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
LOL with Iran it's relatively easy - this will hurt them personally, too, and they are smart enough to realize this, therefore war is unlikely - all this assuming they are likely to behave rationally - which could be a false assumption.
Social darwinism looks pretty clear with your explanation, and based on it I am a social darwinist at least in my logical mind - but I have a heavy legacy of illusions in that area that I still have to overcome in my heart. This is not to say that I'm biological darwinist in the part of monkeys being my ancestors
Which brings us to my position - or rather my Weltanschauung - which I'm not sure I understand yet myself
I have a big advantage over most of the people on this forum - I was brought up at the dusk of the communist Russia. I did not have any religious preconceptions taught to me - except atheism in its most idiotic form - and I started my search for the Lord fresh from scratch. For the last dozen or so years I'm examining all what I see around and read, and trying to make sense out of it. In the last year it all started to slowly come together and form solid pieces here and there, but this process is far from at least partial completion yet.
One of the things that I buy into is that all external is secondary to internal, and in this sense all talks about human rights kind of lose their importance...
Hope this clarifies something, rather than blur...- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
Yeah, I think we are pretty close on the internal and external, too.
As for excluding religion from the conversation (or rather ignoring the creator) - I'm afraid I can't really say anything meaningful on that terms. "This is my body you eat, this is my blood you drink" - I tend to take this literally. And not only in terms of eating and drinking Parting creation from the creator will distort the picture I think.I'm old enough to understand you are not picking at me
Position on religion? I guess you didn't mean whether christians or muslims are right
Assuming you are asking for a piece of my Weltanschauung, it is still very blurry, but pretty much boils down to - the world is an attempt of the creator to cognize himself, and as such is contained within the creator. Any and every material, object, or leaving creature is a part of the creation, and , subsequently, the creator - and, as such, resides within the creator...
Well, I'm afraid I have to go now - it's almost 3 am here, and it's time for me to go to bed probably I really enjoyed talking to you, and hope we'll continue later...- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
bah, sorry it took me so long to get back.
I mean your personal beliefs right now in their state of evolvement. what do you believe might be true.
so you think there is a creator, some undefined God?
will carry on tomorrow I hope. sweet dreamz. Idunn,
Yeah, I think there is, and more likely undefinable than undefined
You know, I have a big trouble trying to put bits and pieces together in this reply. As I said yesterday, my system of beliefs is in the process of major overhaul, and I still can't put everything in a clean and non-contradictory order. So I think I will just list some bits and pieces I think are related to this thread You don't need to point out internal contradictions in my beliefs if you find them, I'm aware of them, and I'm working on clarifying them
I don't believe there is an absolute good an absolute bad, and I don't believe human mind is able to deal with relative good and bad. However, we can relatively easy tell whether something will hurt or please us, or whether something fits into some established norms or not (in most cases). This is not the same as good and bad.
At the same time I believe good and bad are tied together like day and night, summer and winter, left and right, etc. Day and might combine into a whole day, summer and winter - into a year, left and right - into a whole... I don't know yet into what good and bad combine, but I have no doubt they do - and this makes all attempts to eliminate bad absolutely useless, btw. Same reasoning goes to life and death, too... And to any pair for that matter.
I tend to believe time is relative and everything that was before and everything that will be after is known on some level. At the same time I do believe in the personal freedom of choice - go figure how to combine these beliefs
Well, this is becoming rather long post Let me know if you are interested in any specific question about my beliefs, and I will gladly answer Ok, compare and contrast, we can start here.
We have different viewpoints here. Aristotle would say there is a vast difference between pleasure and good. The old Greek "good" pre-Christianity was like well, like virtue or excellence. I don't feel like cutting and pasting. It's not hard to find. Personal pleasure might or might not be good. Some people take pleasure out of raping 4 yr old boys and cutting off their heads. That may be pleasurable for them, but it isn't good.
To me, the dividing line falls on whether your pleasure damages others. At that point, it's wrong. That is actually self-serving in the long view because if we pass laws that protect other's individual rights, we are protecting ourselves. This is how a decent society works; a society which allows for good health, low mortality, higher quality of life. By respecting others, we gain in the long run.
I'm not going to type it all in right now though I may have some of it up on old debate boards, but if you can get a book called "The Mountain People" by Colin M. Tumball, it's a good read. He is a social anthropologist who followed the decline of a tribe, the Iks, that when pushed into difficult circumstances created a situation in which everyone was so self-oriented, the whole bleeding tribe suffered way more than they would have had to cohesively and later almost died completely out.
Yes, all people have the capacity for both, we agree there. But I think the more people understand themselves and others, and the more they do what is "right", the happier they personally are. It's good psychology, good sociology, good philosophy and good theology and it's personally good re: personal happiness. Hard to beat that.
catholic dogma. moments/time exists perpetually and simultaneously. :p I agree with you about choice and oddly, that's catholic dogma too.
I'm going to guess you're a big Ayn Rand fan. Am I right?
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
actually, I remember reading three ethic principles, one was Aristotles, one was Utilitarian, and I forget the third. WIll go and scrounge around my papers a bit
(I believe it was Nietzsche)aw, don't go and do a thing like that or I'll have to start going back over my philosphy books to refresh.
You know I think I have every single one of Hesse's books. 
hehe
let's just bs with what impressed us enough the first time and we already remember. :p
Yep, and this one is my favorite, I tend to think this is one the best books written ever.
OK, going back to good and bad - and pleasure and displeasure. I did not make myself clear over there. I'm not talking about the boundaries of personal pleasure (btw I used to agree with your point of view on this, but currently I'm not sure it is correct). What I'm talking here is that we are able to tell pleasure from displeasure, and even benefit from harm - but we are not able to tell bad from good on the conscious level. That same person cutting the head of 4-year old might be doing a big good terminating the life of future bloody dictator. We don't have any means of knowing this. Does it make any sense?
The same thing with the second part on bad and good - I guess I have to be more precise What I'm trying to tell there - bad is inevitable and unavoidable. If there is day - there is night, if there is summer, there is winter. If there is good, there is bad. They are non-dividable. Are you with me?- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
Good, I'm glad we are more or less on the same page here
So, if we link this back to the place where all this started - non judging - do you see how non-judging comes from those characteristics of good and bad? There is no way to judge properly cause we can't tell good from bad, and there is no need to judge, cause both good and bad combine into something bigger... That's what I was talking aboutyes and still no. hehe. I see your points, and perhaps it will come out some way in the end that it was great for a 4 yr old to be raped and have his head get cut off, or that it's wonderful in the long run to profit off poisoning strangers in a 3rd world country, but I can't get there and I'm not sure I want to.
let's just say your point is clearer to me now and I can find places of intersection. I mostly debate for compare and contrast and you've been simply lovely in that respect. thx.I definitely see your point, too. And while I currently don't share it exactly as you stated it, I definitely did once.
However, the older I get, the more I tend to focus on my internal world and immediate external - like family and friends. And magically this small world does not include people capable of raping a child. I think there is a place for everything and everybody under the sun, but similar people tend to attract each other - contrary to magnets. And every one of us somehow manages to build his own external world that matches his internal world.
In that sense raped children and tribes on polluted lands do not bother me that much - this is their lesson to learn, not mine. I might be presented the same lesson in any one of my other reincarnations, though, and even in the current one - I will deal with it, then
Thoog, I don't remember saying that judgment is a non-factor. Frankly, I don't understand that either. I mean your phrase "judging is a non-factor"
What I was trying to say in the second part is that judging does not get you a tiny bit closer to understanding of what is going on both in some particular case and in general. Worse, it blurs the picture, and therefore should be avoided. Is it clearer that way?
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
Interesting.
I did not seem to apply any conscious effort to build my world - in terms of picking people who are around me and enforcing it - and essentially ended up where you are now. I'm pretty happy with my family and friends
Go figure if one should make an effort or not- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
I'm under the stone, you know
I don't watch TV, and don't go to news sites on the Internet much often. If I remember correctly, Chavez is the president of Venezuela, Columbia is somewhere close to Venezuela and is famous for its drugs, and I have no idea what FARC is.
If such an ignorance does not scare you, I can chime inPRO
And you contra?
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
darn that was the challenging part.
why don't we all band together and take pro. I promise you there will be plenty of people (everyone else!) to take anti which is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel you will find once you read up on them.
we are going to need all the help we can get to try to legitimize these folks for the purpose of good debate.
Misha with your previously stated philosophy on right and wrong, I suspect you will be great help to me on Pro since some of what they do offends me to the core. :p that judging thing.
*blush* We definitely can give it a try. I'm only afraid they will beat us with stones when they learn about our conspiracy
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
barranca, delighted to see you enter the discussion.
I'm in the middle of something atm, but I shall return. MIsha, on the other, I'll start it as soon as I have time and we can jump straight off this weeks news story. This will be entertaining. I'm so happy! I don't think I join tonight, cause I'm probably going to bed soon. But I'll continue tomorrow
*starts early*
it's a legitimate people's revolution with the moral right on their side <------ thesis.
prework, but I'll make a separate thread for this one. And of course you are correct the background is economic disparity, which is partially what brought it to my attention in the first place. that and the three IRA guyz that got popped for allegedly aiding FARC when all they were doing was some... ahem... eco-tourism.
do come in as contra-FARC in the spirit of courteous debate. at least you get the easy side. :p
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
best time for me too. sweet dreamz. thx for the contribution to my enjoyable day today
This is a little off the topic, but I just want to tell everyone who was involved in this thread how much I enjoyed the entire thing. You are all amazing, intelligent people, and I'm so happy to be in the same community with people such as yourselves. In a thread that could have gotten nasty very easily, dealing with issues like foreign policy/politics and eventually threading out to personal philosophies, the respect and intelligence shown here is something I've never come across on a discussion board. Thank you!
I was involved in this thread early on, but I've stayed quiet since the discussion about good vs. bad, right vs. wrong began, mostly because I'm still working out my own personal belief system.It's reassuring to see that others are still working theirs out as well. I'm guessing it's something that's never really totally figured out---just when we think we understand something, we experience something that makes us re-evaluate our beliefs. But maybe our beliefs are supposed to continue evolving. If they stay the same, we become dogmatic rather than being active in truly thinking about the important questions.
Thanks for some of the most stimulating reading I've done in quite a while- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
Sorry it took so long to get back here. I hear the same thing you do. He's gearing up to bring the same kind of "justice" and "democracy" to the rest of the Middle East that we've already brought to Iraq. Surely we'll be greeted as liberators...
Just more of the same propaganda, the same beating of the war drums that we've been seeing for months now. The difference is that the rhetoric is coming harder and faster now. It won't be much longer.
Incidentally..I was listening to NPR yesterday, and they had an author who had written a book on the Vietnam war on (sorry, I didn't hear the author/title...I was in the car and only caught the middle) But what piqued my interest was that the author was talking about the buildup to war. He said that, very similarly to what we saw with the Iranian "threat" to our war ships, right before we officially started fighting in Vietnam one of our battleships was supposedly "threatened and harassed" and fired on by Vietcong gunboats, resulting in the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which officially got us into the war. Interestingly enough, Pentagon files prove the opposite: we were never fired on or threatened. We got into the Vietnam war under false pretenses. Our war with Iran will start the same way.
I just found it ironic, especially given the discussion we've been having here. Vietnam was before my time, so if I got any of that wrong, forgive me My point is, powermongers just never seem to learn. They just find bigger and better ways to lie.indeed.
I think you're right. I hope you're not, but I think you pegged it.
informal discussion, no worries on having to source every darn thing, although if I have it handy I often do as the debate technique of "authoritative source" <---- kind of a cheat.
Vietnam was a bit before me too, I was a child during the war. I don't know if you are right or wrong, but it makes sense to me. Did you catch a picture of that little Iranian speedboat that was supposedly 'threatening' our army? It was tiny and cheerfully red. It came off looking in the pic like some partiers on Lake Travis on a holiday do.
With you on the powermongers too. Good post.
I shan't have much more time today and never worry on delays. Neat thing about message boards is that we all fill each other's gaps in time and the more the merrier.I couldn't believe it. I heard the news on the radio before I saw any of the images,and it sounded like such a big deal. Then I saw the first video footage released. Yeah, those little speedboats were terrifying...
Colleen,
Thanks for your kind words Not sure I deserved them, though I can be pretty harsh online, too
And yes, I too think we learn non-stop, our whole lives, and I'm pretty much sure this is how we meant to be by our creator
Back on topic - I still stand by my analysis, until decisively proven wrong But I keep myself prepared to move as soon as it happens, cause if it does, it will be the start of the crash of the American Empire. And I don't want to take part in this crash...- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
b, I don't have any time at all right now but just a sec to thank you for verifying C.M.'s comments. I was glad to have someone who knows chime in, since she and I weren't sure.
And no, my bet is that whoever is next President, even a Dem won't get us out of Iraq - not within a yr, maybe not within the whole 4 years. I wish they would, but I don't believe it.
Back laterz, have a good evening all~ - Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
- Adam Yorkposted 16 years ago0
- Iðunnposted 16 years ago0
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