response 45 of 78:

Jul 11 17:31 UTC 2003

(Psst: it isn't supported either.)

Re #41: I have considered the vastness of the universe and the complexity of
life and - so what? There is not an iota of evidence of gods in any of it,
not even as "creators", much less as participants. And for almost the entire
existence of this vast and complex universe the existence of gods was not
even contemplated...until a life form evolved that could imagine such
things. But imagination does not make reality, and the reality is indifferent
to our imagining. 

The argument from vastness and complexity is the argument based essentially
in ignorance. Fortunately, the boundaries of ignorance have been push far back
toward the limits of space and time - and nowhere is there a hint of "gods".

response 47 of 78:

Jul 11 17:45 UTC 2003

Comme perhaps, bastard no: i know who my father is and he was married to my
mother at the time.

Plato was not a believer in democracy, but in the virtues of a monarchical,
aristrocratic, military-semi dictatorship.

Liberals do not lack moral standards (even if their response to persons
without moral standards is sometimes less harsh than it really should be.

Liberals are not baby-killers. They simply believe that the rights of womens,
and specifically mothers in relation to abortion, are equal to (a) men and
(b) those of the child. Conservatives, on the other hand, refuse to take into
account the moral dilemma of a woman who has been raped, or is in danger of
dying if a baby is born, preferring to take their "moral" standards from a
book and teachings written/deriving from 2000 years ago.

Liberals morals concern giving everyone as fair a deal as is possible, rather
than "whatever suits me at the time" - which is a rather conservative outlook.

Again, blacks have as much right to live as whites. Indeed, if, as seems
likely, Africans were the first humans, humans were *originally* black,
evolving white skin _only_ when necessary to deal with a different climate
- much as an Afro-American will, even now, look slightly different to a native
African.

Even if the US is taken as the most right-wing democracy, then the fact that
the US provides income support to the jobless AND provided a minimum wage
*before* the UK proves that it tolerates wastage; even if these were to be
abolished, those who were strong enough to survive by leeching would find a
way of doing so (witness criminals, who exist in spite of laws banning their
actions).

Those who re-write history (denial of the Holocaust, the Irish Potato
Famine/Great Hunger, etc.) are frequently (fi not always) exposed as
*conservatives*, with an agenda.

*Time* has destroyed "the original intent" of the Founding Fathers. Neither
the US nor the UK is the same as they were in 1787. The UK has changed for
the better, I'll leave Americans to decide whether this applies to the US.

Wars are frequently waged for religious reasons - are wars not carnage?

Removing prayer from schools (a) moves it to the province of people's private
lives, where no-one has a right to interfere unless one is doing something
illegal/morally reprehensible (b) removes bias in school prayers, as modern
multicultural societies include Buddhists, Muslims, and other religions;
providing prayer services for all these religions in cross-denominational
schools is prohibitively expensive and impractical.

I do not deny that i detest conservatism, and would like to see a world free
of it; however, any attempt on my part to suppress it would be met by an equal
and oposite reaction, in the end, which i surely wouldn't like; therefore,
it is impractical to attempt to suppress it. It is also unfair to those who
vehemently disagree with me, which is undemocratic.

"The SCUM that burns [your] flag" do it because of conservatives' burning
desire to do whatever the hell suits them, as long as people who disagree with
them don't get a piece of the action. Install democracies in the Middle East
_with the prior consent of the people_, if you want to stop that.

"A godly life"? You admit that liberals are virtuous? Or just recognise that
anyone has the right to live as godly a life as they are able to procure for
themselves, *without* imposing the _in_ability to do the same on anyone else?
Most liberals would agree with that, i think.

History (and GREX) will decide who is in the right.

response 49 of 78:

Jul 11 18:00 UTC 2003

        Yes, a large golden troll.

response 51 of 78:

Jul 11 18:59 UTC 2003

RE:#47
<sabre claps> whew that's mouthful. It challenages my adult ADD.
I will respond as best as possible however.
I never said Plato was an advocate of democracy. He was a critic of it.
As for Platos argument for the inherent weakness of democracy in The Republic,
I have to clarify what is meant by democracy in this context. By democracy
Plato is not referring to modern democracy, which he would have perceived as
alien. Nor is he referring to the democracy of Athens in this argument. In
this argument, Plato characterises democracy as being the extreme of popular
liberty, where slaves - male and female - have the same liberty as their
owners and where there is complete equality and liberty in the relations
between the sexes. The one point I was referring to is the liberal's desire
to legislate funds for it's electorate. He said one the electorate figures
this can be done democracy is FINISHED. That's what you commie..er poeple(
the ones that know thier fathers anyway) are trying to do.  By appropiating
funds to the electorate to please them your are creating a social state.
That is what I was referring to.

My quote about liberals "living a godly life" was misunderstood..perhaps due
to my grammer and syntax. the statement should have read "The liberals
persecute those with religious beliefs and who try to live a godly life"

That is all my ADD will let me deal with now. Cool post though you spent a
lot of time...er do you like football? <grin>

response 53 of 78:

Jul 11 19:35 UTC 2003

Please stop feeding the troll.

response 55 of 78:

Jul 11 20:54 UTC 2003

An example, please, of liberals "persecuting" those with religious
beliefs? Liberals *created* freedom of religions for the religious, and
defend it for them too.

response 57 of 78:

Jul 11 21:13 UTC 2003

resp:47 paragraph 4:  silly Christian.  The Bible's much older than 2000
years.  [http://www.beingjewish.com/mesorah/ageoftorah.html] has a proof
that the Torah is at least 3,313 years old.  (While the New Testament is not as
old, as the above site says, "The Christians have been using their confused
mistranslations of the Tanach at least since the second century C. E., and even
trying to prove their mistaken beliefs from the Torah.")

response 59 of 78:

Jul 11 23:37 UTC 2003

Oh yeah, i almost forgot. My arse *is* ignorant! Fortunately, unlike some
people round here ("who shall remain nameless"), I think with my *brain*.

response 61 of 78:

Jul 12 05:21 UTC 2003

Man, one post by a *known* troll full of complete, unbelievable malarky, and
there are a good 40 solid bites before anyone mentions that someone's chain
is being yanked.  I'm disappointed.

On several levels, not the least of which is how suppressed even powerful
intellects become when they allow themselves to fall into the trap of
stereotyping "the enemy."

response 63 of 78:

Jul 12 06:27 UTC 2003

Re #42:  Feeding the troll is wasting your time.  Once you're done
venting and otherwise having fun, remember to twit-filter him.

response 65 of 78:

Jul 12 13:46 UTC 2003

No, if you're deliberately posting to get a rise out of people -- which you
are -- you're a troll.

In your case, an effective one.

response 67 of 78:

Jul 12 17:07 UTC 2003

I've backed everything that I have said with fact.
Give me an example of where this didn't happen and it will be corrected.
and for the record that's all your posts are "decorum"

response 69 of 78:

Jul 13 04:13 UTC 2003

I don't even buy into the concept of "troll".  Is sabre posting things "just
to get a response?"  Partly, but that's about 75% of why I post to Grex too.
I'm always rather disappointed when something I post doesn't get a response.
Are the opinions he puts forward different than what he actually believes?
I have no way of telling that about anyone, but I'd bet good money that he
really is pro-life, and basically believes nearly every opinion he has stated
here, though sometimes in a slightly less extreme form.  We all are sometimes
deliberately provocative.  We'd be danged dull conversationalists if we
didn't.

I don't believe there is a class of people who should not be responded to.

I do believe in trying to keep my responses fresh, even if responding to
something that is far from fresh.  Sabre's statements are mostly pretty
darn stale, but that doesn't mean all responses to them have to be.