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i personally believe too much debt is bad. but this guy below has another argument. it's over my head. i think there's some truth to what he says, but i don't know. i know there are a lot of people smarter than me here, so maybe one of ya'll can argue with what is posted below.
Is the natinoal debt and deficit bad?
Nowhere do these CRFB folks define what the National DEBT is.They don't know.Yet, they screed about it as if they do.Our national debt is comprised of Treasury securities purchased by individuals firms and governments domestic and foreign who wish to preserve the value of their dollars.Ergo, the transfer their non-interest bearing dollars from checking accounts to purchase interest-bearing Treasury securities.The dollars used to buy the T-securities go into reserve accounts at the Federal Reserve and the T-securities are kept in security accounts at the Federal Reserve.In no way can these purchases (exactly like your purchase of a CD) be construed as debt.Interest is credited to T-security accounts by debiting the aforementioned Reserve accounts. No tax dollars are ever involved in paying interest on these SAVINGS ACCOUNTS.The DEBT CLOCK on 6th Ave, NYC is pure fraud. It does, however, record all the dollars that have been spent by the Federal government since 1778 and not yet taxed. The $20 trillion-plus represents our National Savings.Government debt is a private asset. You and I do not OWE government debt, we OWN it. Indeed, the only source of net dollar-denominated financial wealth is Federal government T-securities.Here's a solution. Once the federal T-security sales reach $21.1 trillion, the Treasury would be prohibited from selling any more bonds. Treasury would continue to spend by crediting bank accounts of recipients, and reserve accounts of their banks. Banks would offer excess reserves in overnight markets, but would find no takers—hence would have to be content holding reserves and earning whatever rate the Fed wants to pay. But as Chairman Bernanke told Congress, this is no problem because the Fed spends simply by crediting bank accounts. (L. Randall Wray) https://goo.gl/m9hdQWAs for the Federal Deficit, they WRONGLY believe the Federal deficit is a bad thing.They are completely unaware of the fact that wherever there's a deficit there's a surplus ... balance sheets must balance. A sovereign government deficit is nothing to fear. It is simply the mirror image of the non-government sector's saving. As the US private sector retrenched to rebuild its balance sheet, the government's balance moved toward deficit. There is an unrecognized identity at work. Domestic Private Balance + Domestic Government Balance + Foreign Balance = 0.In the case of the Federal budget deficit, it is equal to the penny to net financial surpluses in the non-government sector.That's money in our checking accounts.When the gov spends that becomes income to individuals and firms in the private sector. It's the new money that enters the economy interest-free and is essential in its contribution to economic growth. https://goo.gl/Fq9fKD
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the church has to officially teach something for it to be considered unchangeable dogma. of course, the church teaches its teaching can and won't change, that it's never contradicted itself. what do the facts say?
you have the old catechism that says the death penalty can be used along with the consensus of theologians and at least unofficial pope teachings, but a new catechism that says otherwise. that's what the magic hat allows for cause who knows what's official.
you have the idea that noncatholics can't be saved taught in definitive language. then you have new catechisms and at least unoffical teachings that they could be saved. the magic hat allows for the possibility that the old teaching is still true. it's a stretch to pretend the new teaching is recocilable with the old stuff.
then limbo which was pretty offical but now it's not considered official, that unbaptized children go to hell.
you have teachings that popes can unbind official teaching. i dont know how offical those teachings themselves are, but the magic hat says it's possible those are flawed teachings.
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we can have universal care that is cheaper than it is now, with better quality and shorter wait times.
but if we did medicare for all, how would our tax system transition?
i'm coming at this from more of a conservative angle, and would like to debate or discuss with a medicare for all proponent.
take someone who makes 50k. they are average. one would think we would take obamacare's basic structure of taxing businesses that are large enough. but wouldn't that person making fifty k also get taxed? what if they in the current system make fifty k and get free healthcare from their boss? wouldn't the transition make that person end up getting a tax they otherwise wouldn't if things stayed the same?
i mean, if we were starting from scratch, this is a no brainer that medicare for all is best. i'm just worried about the winners and losers in trying to get to that point now. kinda makes me think some sort of public option would be better, for practical purposes, or at least political purposes
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why doesn't the debris just float around the planet everywhere? how and why does it form a ring?
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Science and Nature
would you rather be taxed on money you earn now, or money after you are dead? that's obvious. even if we had to lower income and other taxes to make up for an estate tax increase, either way we should increase taxes on estate taxes.
it should go without saying, we need to do something to keep our debt manageable and this would help, especially if we didn't offset increasing estate taxes with lowering other taxes.
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most indicators say we are slightly polygamous in our natural state anyway, so why do we discriminate against multiple partner marriages, if we are willing to allow for gay marriage? i actually support gay marriage, but id say we shouldn't limit ourselves.
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in 1974 the minimum wage was 2 bucks. if it kept up with inflation, it would be almost twelve dollars today. if you want to see with your own eyes what i say is true about inflation, check out this link and use a compound interest calculator to determine today's value.
as to the old argument about whether we should have a minimum wage. it's a fact that we live in a demand economy. the economy is mostly stimulated by increased demand. it's mostly effective with the middle class spending, because they spend on such a wide range of products and services. it's reasonable to think if the wage is not below poverty that it would stimulate the economy.
my theory is that the minimum wage is like the laffer curve. the laffer curve says government revenue increases with increasing taxes up to a point, then decreases with too much taxes. minimum wage is probably similar. the economy improves with increasing wages but at a certain point too much increase is bad.
i can't say 1974 was the magic number year. but i can say if we got rid of the minimum wage, it would hurt the economy almost surely. and, 1974 was the beginning of some of the most economically vital times in history. if it's good for our past, it's good for our future.
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this method to stimulate human evolution would work to cause speciation.
a new society is created. perhaps it's on an island or on another planet. it consists of new born to 30 year olds. only the best and the brightest 500 people from society are picked. intelligence and physical attributes. they do genetic testing on the people to ensure diseases and problems indicated by genes and family history are rooted out.
eighteen to thirty year olds are permitted to breed.
then the population of five hundred would be permitted to expand to five thousand. then by the time it got to five thousand, five hundred of the best are picked out to breed. this method of expansion and retraction would be put on repeat. i'm not expert but i'm assuming these numbers would work. i'm sure the experts can pick ideal numbers to cause this stuff to happen. when a parent shows that it later develops a disease, that can disqualify the offspring as well.
eventually, this would lead to speciation.
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Science and Nature
Nation's Atheists Standing Strong Despite Existence Of Bacon
U.S.—According to a recent report, the nation's atheists are still stubbornly refusing to admit the reality of God despite the fact that bacon clearly exists in our universe.Christians had anticipated that atheism would be eradicated as knowledge of bacon's existence continued to grow, but so far, it hasn't made a dent.
"It doesn't make any sense," said apologist William Lane Craig. "To hold that there is no God and yet acknowledge the reality that bacon exists is well beyond the realm of logic and reason---it takes a whole lot of faith to be an atheist."
"There's crispy bacon, soft bacon, peppered bacon, bacon jerky, bacon-wrapped foods, bacon burgers---the evidence is undeniable."
Craig often engages atheists in debate. Sometimes, he simply puts a picture of bacon up on the video projector and says, "I rest my case." Other apologists have adopted this method, but to little effect so far.
At publishing time, reports had indicated that atheists are well aware of the existence of fish tacos, and yet still somehow deny that God is real.
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Religion
this article says they have found ways to measure how fast black holes spin.
some of them spin at 99% the speed of light. but physics says for an object to go the speed of light, it has to have infinite mass. so how can these obviously not even close to infinite mass clusters spin at almost the speed of light? does that last percent really matter that much?
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the precedent he is setting is that for anything a president wants, all he has to do is shut the government down until he gets his way.
i support the wall but not the way he is doing it.
he had control of all three branches of government and still couldn't get the wall, plus the pro wall view is a minority position. sometimes things don't work the way you want... that's life.
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OBVIOUSLY a border wall will greatly reduce the amount of foot traffic across the border, and make those who do cross over it easier to track and catch because it will greatly slow them down. obviously the wall would need border patrol and technology too. with no wall people can and will just run right through.
Here is an unintentionally funny article from a Harvard halfwit who is doing his best to say that border walls don’t work, while describing how well they work.
the thing that is all the craze amongst liberals is simply to state that most illegal immigration comes from places other than illegal crossing, although they usually just ignore that that doesn't mean we can't greatly limit the illegal crossings too. liberals say we can use alternative methods to a wall, although they ignore none of the alternatives can do what a simple wall would do- limit people from just running across.
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is it really conditionally unconditional love? which is really conditional love.
is it just unconditional if you are a christian? how far would that go? supposedly you can't slip up if you are a christian, but then again if you started sinning seriously people would say you were never saved to begin with. so whether you look at this from catholic or protestant type thinking, there are things that can cause you to lose God's favor.
even if it was unconditional as a christian, it's still conditional on having the proper faith in Jesus.
is God's love based on whether you are good or bad?
my personal stance is God loves unconditionally, but that the bible does not truly reflect that in an ideal way. i think you can salvage the bad depiction from the bible, by saying God loves us unconditinally, but that doesn't man there aren't consequences to our actions.
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just because the bible says so, and God can do anything?
when miracles occur, i believe there is evidence for it. with the story of noah, it's not just the lack of evidence, but evidence exists that actively discredits the story.
if the story of noah occurred within recent history or thousands of years, how are there so many cultures who look like they evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, when supposedly they were all wiped out recently?
how did all the fresh water fish and life survive when all the water combined with the ocean?
how did kangaroos and island animals get to the ark?
why isn't there any fossils of the mass casualties of life on earth?
why wasn't there any imbreeding with only one of each animal?
how did they fit so many animals on one boat?
is it all just because the bible says it, and God can do anything, that we should take it as true? the new testament does talk about noah as if it was a literal story, so at least if you believe the bible is the word of God, you can't just say the story was a metaphor.
i believe when miracles occur, there is evidence for them. it's understandable when a christian doesn't think much about these things and takes the story as true. but for those who have studied or should know better, it stands as contemptable the disdain for truth that those literalist christians have.
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the main reason to build a wall is because mexicans commit twice as much crime as white people. the thing is, that statistic is the same for both legal and illegal immigration. so, isn't it necessary logically that you would limit legal immigration if you are willing to build a wall?
i dont view the job stealing and drug things as practically good factors in building the wall. if we really wanted to top illegals from stealing jobs, we would just enforce the rule against employers who hire them. drugs will find a way to get into the country around the wall or smuggled in theorugh legal ports. in fact, eighty percent of drugs come through those ports and it would only take around a hundred million to implement scanners to catch much of those drugs. a far cry from the billions necessary for a wall.
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maybe not everyone, but most people or even by far most people? there are a lot of trump supporters here, so maybe you can chime in if you think he lies a lot, or even more important, chime in if you think he doesn't lie a lot.
i remember when the election for president was going on it was at least debateable whether trump or hilary lied more, but after he won the office, his lying went into overdrive.
politifact type sites rates him as the politician with the most and highest rate of lies.
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the idea of banning bump stocks enjoys broad public support. and it makes sense that if you are against machine guns that you would support a ban. but congress must be afraid of the people who don't support that ban. it seems like an obvious thing to do, cause the amount of times someone will go on a rampage dwarfs the number of times someone would need a machinegun for self defense. so, gun nuts, why do you not support a bump stock ban? do you also think machine guns should be legal>
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take the no fly list. it's common sense that people on the no fly list shouldn't be able to have a gun. if you aren't safe enough to fly on a plane you aren't safe enough to have a gun. but the individual rights theory says you have to show, i believe, probable cause that they committed a crime or that they are dangerous. why isn't a 'reasonable suspicion' standard enough?
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he fired comey and then, sessions. he said he's doing it because of the russia thing. i didn't think it was obstruction when it was just comey as maybe comey just didn't seem competent to trump or something. but now we are getting into territory where an investigation might actually be halted or impaired because of trump's direct action. that is starting to sound like obstruction which would warrant impeachment. like they say, only in washington can you be prosecuted for a crime you didn't commit. point being i dont think trump actually did anything illegal per russia, but the crime is in the process, the cover up, that sort of thing.
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1. the mexicans coming here are criminals? actually, they commit less crime than most americans do. it'd make more sense for canada to say 'we don't want americans immigrating here because they're criminals'. would that sound right to you, as an american?
2. the wall makes sense? i mean if you can get it cheap, sure. but what is it really accomplishing? if we really wanted to stop them from stealing jobs, we'd enforce the rules about not hiring immigrants. as far as drugs go, most will just find ways to go around the wall and smuggle them in, so it won't make much of a difference. i mean, we might save money on deporting them, but that costs less than a billion dollars so you have to consider the time value of money. we'd save money on putting them in jail, but most of them being in jail for just being illegal isn't worth it. who cares if they are here if they aren't doing anything detrimental to us? i mean it does cost less than a bilion to put the criminal immigrants in jail, but this is more like people commit crime so we put them in jail. it isn't really something specific to immigrants necessarily. and again you have to consider the time value of money. so i conclude the wall is only worhtwhile if we can do it cheap enough.
3. obviously saying mexico would pay for the wall never made sense from the beginning despite his supporters eating it up. everyone's all but gave up on that pipe dream.
trump said he doesn't talk about how good the economy is during rallies as much because people get bored with it after not too long. they eat up the immigration stuff though, so he just dives right in and it explains how and why he over blows it all.
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You can tell this is a gun problem, not just a bad person problem as the gun lobby says, also by comparing non-gun homicides of similar countries as the USA, and then adding guns to the mix...
'As for Friedman’s claim that keeping a gun out of someone’s hands won’t disincline them to commit murder, Cukier said, “The evidence doesn’t support that. Look at the numbers.” She went on to analyze homicide statistics from 2016: “If you look at the rate of murders not caused by guns and you compare Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, what you see is that it’s roughly the same in all four countries, although the U.S. rate is slightly higher,” Cukier said. In other words, in a scenario without guns, the four populations exhibit roughly similar rates of homicidal behavior.
That changes when you look at the rate of murders that were caused by guns. “As soon as you add guns into the mix, you see that the U.S. has six times the rate of gun murders as Canada has. And Canada has 15 times the rate of gun murders as the U.K., and four times the rate of Australia. It’s very clear that the difference in the murder rates between those countries is a function of the availability of firearms, period.”
That changes when you look at the rate of murders that were caused by guns. “As soon as you add guns into the mix, you see that the U.S. has six times the rate of gun murders as Canada has. And Canada has 15 times the rate of gun murders as the U.K., and four times the rate of Australia. It’s very clear that the difference in the murder rates between those countries is a function of the availability of firearms, period.”
bottom line that this and loads of scientific evidence points to: murder is more likely if there is a gun involved.
i think i did this debate before and saw only crackpot replies. i'll hold ya'll's feet to the fire this time.
i know sometimes evidence can be open to interpretation but i just don't see a good alternative theory here. maybe i'm missing something.
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doesn't the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in keeping them legal?
where are the examples of where an AR15 was needed over a regular gun when it come to self defense? i dont think i've ever heard even a single instance.
all the time you hear of mass shooters going on rampages with them. killers blow holes in their victims that ensure nothing can be done with them, given how the bullets blow large holes and inflict much damage.
i've heard it both ways on whether the assault weopons ban was effective or not. i think most people say it wasn't effective but i also see that if you do the math yourself, it looks like people are more likely to use an AR15 in a murder than a regular gun. that's looking at how many deaths are caused by ar15s and looking at the total number of those guns out there.
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both of the following websites show this to be true. the first link i just found recently and lays it out pretty good. the second link shows more on that, along with general information on gun control science and policy
what we see is the father: required registry of guns, were opposed to stand your ground laws, required safe gun storage practices, were opposed to open carry, instead of encouraging guns to oppose the government made people swear an oath to the government and be not be resisting slavery, be able to keep your gun,
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did he make being armed dependent on a militia, or a militia dependent on bearing arms?
"A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a Uniform and well digested plan is requisite"
i guess he didn't say 'prerequisite', which would no doubt say people having guns is dependent on militias.
but what if there is no militia? couldn't we infer from him that there isn't necessarily a right to a gun?
here is a founding father who said the militia of the founding days can change...
" I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. "
it seems fair to say if there is no militia there is no right to a gun
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she said if all you are doing is portraying as a character someone who is black, and you have no ill will, then it isn't racist or wrong to do blackface. the main reason this is true is because there is no racist intent. in fact, it's more racist to make things that are not racist into racist problems where they don't exist.
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penal substitution says that God needed an infinite method of having his wrath placated. the only method that is possible, the theory goes, is Jesus dying. his death means you don't have to die as your sins are "covered".
the problem with this idea is that it didn't originate until a thousand years after Jesus and has little basis in the bible. during the early church, the language christians used is called "christus victor". Jesus conquered sin and death on the cross, is the essence of the idea. i like to say love conquers death. anyone belonging to the brotherhood is also saved from death. so, penal substitution isn't orthodox.
what about old testament sacrifices, were they to appease God's wrath? nope. they were a means of saying "i dedicate what i have to you, and turn myself over to you". here is a good quote that shows the true basis for old testament sacrifices and how it ties to Jesus' sacrifice.
"In all of the sacrifices, the central theme is not appeasement, but representational consecration. That is, symbolically through the offering the worshiper says “this offering represents my giving to you my life”, or as you might hear in a love song "God I belong to you, here is my heart". It is not a statement of placation (as if God needed to be bribed into loving us), but an act of devotion, entrusting oneself to God, giving your life into God's hands. In the case of the thanksgiving and first fruits offerings it means that all that we have comes from God and so with these first fruits we acknowledge that it all belongs to God. The passover offering was about the birth of the people of Israel and marked the time of the exodus of God's people out of bondage, so the passover offering was about committing and aligning oneself on God's side against oppression. Finally along with all the other sacrifices the sacrifice of atonement for sin was saying “Here is my life, I want to live it for you Lord. I die to the sinful in me and give my life to you”.
In the same way blood was sprinkled to dedicate the temple, and dedicate the law to God. This was the case with the Passover sacrifice which originated as the people marked their house door showing their allegiance with God, consecrating their house as belonging to the Lord. Thus Jesus when he connects his death with the Passover speaks of a “Covenant” being established by his blood “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk22:20). It was the sealing of a promise, like signing a contract in blood. We can see here that whether a sin offering, or a thanks offering, or a dedication that in every case there is the common theme of consecration – dedicating to God. This sense of consecration is conveyed in the Latin root of the word “sacrifice” which means “to make sacred” or "to consecrate". We give ourselves, our lives, our need, our thanks, our allegiance to God vicariously through the ritual of sacrifice.
There is here the aspect of identification with the animal – you bring a part of yourself to the altar, in many cases laying a hand on the animal's head before it is slaughtered. Specifically in the case of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement we can see also an aspect of transference as the scapegoat was sent off bearing the sin away (Lv 16:21-22). And as previously mentioned there is here a clear aspect of vicarious atonement specifically with the sin offerings - that animal that died was you. The consecration here meant that the sinner brought their broken life to the altar Yet in all of this the writers of the Old Testament are emphatic that the main object of sacrifice is not about a mechanical transaction detached from relationship, but the outward ritual effecting inner change, devotion, and repentance. As David says
“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean wash me, and I will be whiter than snow...Create in me a pure heart, O God..." (Ps 51:7,10)
David's prayer here is that the outward cleansing of the hyssop would go down and cleanse his inmost being. God, David says, is not interested in outward actions, but in the state of his heart. This is a relational exchange not a legal one.
"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps 51:16-17)."
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here is a link with working links for the stuff below
theists cant show things that look supernatural, but theists can
first cause per God is merely a philosophical problem and is the most likely scenario
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there are credible people in respectable positions of science who believe in exorcisms. there are credible people who say of things that look supernatural.
"Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman.
Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale. He knew about biblical accounts of demonic possession but thought they were an ancient culture's attempt to grapple with mental disorders like epilepsy. He proudly calls himself a "man of science."
Yet today, Gallagher has become something else: the go-to guy for a sprawling network of exorcists in the United States. He says demonic possession is real. He's seen the evidence: victims suddenly speaking perfect Latin; sacred objects flying off shelves; people displaying "hidden knowledge" or secrets about people that they could not have possibly have known."
"Gallagher agrees and has answers for skeptics like Novella.
He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics."
more doctors discussing this from a scientific perspective
here is the leading proponent doctor giving an example of a 'true' possession
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evidence of the objective nature of NDEs:
people literally die and come back to tell us of the afterlife and God. it's hard to get much more straightforward than that.
NDEs of atheists
-most atheists meet a divine being and more than half of them come back believing in God. reading the examples at nderf.org seems to make one think almost all of them do. there is some decent arguments that NDEs can be somewhat subjective sometimes, but the fact that athesists dont just see an afterlife without God is significant.
of course NDEs of agnostics and theists involve this stuff too
out of body experiences
-the AWARE studies show people who have cardiac arrest and are resusitated. they die, experience the afterlife, and come back to tell about it. the first study showed someone experiencing both visual and auditory ability while clinically dead through an out of body experience. more studies are being done.
-one peer reviewed study showed someone who died reading numbers on a page while out of body, and that would only be possible otherwise if they guessed the numbers randomly and correctly.
-"In a little over 40 percent of my surveys, NDE"rs observed things that were geographically far from their physical body, that were way outside of any possible physical central awareness. Typically, someone who has an NDE with an out-of-body experience comes back and reports what they saw and heard while floating around, it"s about 98 percent accurate in every way. For example, in one account someone who coded in the operating room had an out-of-body experience where their consciousness traveled to the hospital cafeteria where they saw and heard their family and others talking, completely unaware that they had coded. They were absolutely correct in what they saw."
-there is the testimony of thousands of credible people who have died and told others what they were doing when dead, affirmed by both the dead person and the person observed. often concerning reliable witnesses like doctors. there are books dedicated to giving examples. a common example is pam reynolds, who accurately described the surgical equipment that was used while she was dead, and was said to not have been available while she was awake and not something a normal person would know.
consistency argument
'near death experiences' are consistent globally
-the near death experience happens to everyone in very similar ways. this even happens to people who have never heard of the phenomenon and to kids. to suggest that there is a story embedded in our brain is far fetched.
seems more real than real
"we ask that as a very direct survey question: What do you currently believe about the reality of your experience? And of about 590 NDE responders, 95 percent say the experience was definitely real with the other options being probably real, probably not real, and definitely not real. So among those that have these experiences, virtually everybody knows that it was a real thing. It"s just much harder to believe for those of us who have never had one. Seeing is believing. If you don"t personally have a near-death experience, which is again a blessing"obviously these people nearly died"it"s hard to understand these unearthly experiences."
non-hallucinatory
-there is nothing that reproduces the NDE and the closest drug that can like ketamine you can draw marked differences between that and the authentic experience. mostly by noting most ketamine and drug induced experiences are random, but NDEs again are consistent.
here is a load of scientific evidence produced from NDEs:
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a key plus of that would be that the reimbursement to doctors would be less and there are less administrative costs (the main reason it's cheaper in other countries), and whether to take the option or be a doctor for those on the option... is totally optional. the existing healthcare system can remain for anyone who wants it. there will be obstacles in this process as perhaps the reimbusement should be higher, or there should be more doctors or RNs to service those on that program. or maybe there should be copays and deductibles for those who make enough to pay for it. all these kinks can be worked out as they come. the bottom line though, beyond the details, is that some sort of medicaid public option should exist in the usa.
here are some links arguing for public options of some kind.
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christus victor is a theory of atonement that says love concquers death, and that Jesus in dying defeated death and sin for mankind. this is in contrast to the penal substitution model which says that God needs an infinite sacrifice to apprease his wrath and the only sacrifice that can do that, is Jesus dying.
if you read the bible carefully, both theories are plausible. academics say penal substitution didn't even start until anslem and a thousand years after Jesus. before that, christus victor language was used and understood.
yet, when you read a lot of 'sinner's prayers' and baiscs about what must be beleived to be saved, a lot of times it has somehting to do with that sacrifice that is put in terms of Jesus taking our punishment. at least half the time noteably there isn't that jargon. no sinners praryers or ideas of what must be believed in faith to be saved, is the same.
did the early church just not understand it? are those who believe in christus victor condemned? are they at least just wrong?
what say you?
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i wanted him to be nominated. if i have to choose between roe or no roe, i say no roe. but they are mishandling the claims. consider
1 she passed a lie detector.
2 they can give him a lie detector. in both scenarios no matter the outcome no one will really know if they are accurate. but if the tests are consistent on whether he did it or not, that's pretty big.
3. she wants an investigation. all it takes is three days to conduct one, as occurred with anita hill.
these are points i didn't know until i decided to look into them more. head line news is poor at giving the low down. as is usually the case, when i'm taking the republican stance, it's because i lack education on the matter.
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would you choose to live forever or as long as possible? would you choose to die sooner than later, to experience heaven? would you drag out dying for eons and then maybe decide to die?
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i am against migrants coming to seek refuge in the usa. their culture is the main reason i am against it. but i always said we can help other countries who do decide to help them. you might even call it 'bribing' them. we see there are only so many migrants out there.
"Moreover, most of the growth in the global population of international migrants has been caused by movements toward high-income countries, which host 64 million of the 85 million migrants added since 2000. The number of international migrants includes 26 million refugees or asylum seekers, or about 10% of the total.Dec 18, 2017"
what if we paid whatever country that takes them, two dollars a day to pay the refugees who can then spend the money? that quote that i think that there are only between one and two million migrants per year. the math comes out to maybe one or two billion dollars in cost. the payments can be temporary until those economies can assimilate the migrants.
see, i think the global population will eventually level out, as many expect. just like happens in developed countries. what we have in the mean time, though, is food insecure places with people needing to find secure places to go. instead of just casting these people to lala land, we help the free market take it all in. see, i'm not against immigration, i'm just against large amounts beyond what we already do, because that could be disruptive.... it has to be gradual. eventually, the world populations will level out. i'm sure we can't all live like americans do now, but atl east people will be able to live.
i suppose if i'm willing to pay other countries to take them, it might be easier to just pay two dollars a day to people where they live to stimulate those economies. they say we only need to spend around thirty billion a year to solve hunger. that's a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend, with our GDP being over twenty trillion.
there are of course kinks that would need to be worked out. but this is all a good start, isn't it?
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ddo debate.org
at least, it's not currently being over run by bots. it lacks a lot of participation, but all it needs to become normal again is people to start using it again.
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DebateArt.com
it all depends on the definition on what to call a newborn. but if we use common definitions in use, babies are better called agnostic.
atheist means to reject god. agnostic means to be neutral about god. babies don't reject god, but can be said to be neutral.
to be sure, there are all kinds of definiitions such that atheists can be just defined as lacking belief and agnostic requires a belief, which babies don't have, and thus called atheist. but in common parlance, as said.... atheist means to reject and agnostic means to be neutral.
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science is inexact in listing what constitutes a species. if the animal meets criteria like two wings a beak two legs etc, then it is a chicken. the problem is that this is an inexact science. it is sufficient for everyday use, sure. but a line has to be drawn. how do we draw it?
the lithmus test to define chicken should be that any ancester chicken that can successfully breed with a current chicken, is a chicken.
so which came first? the egg. if you go back in time we will find the first closest relative chicken that can mate succesfully with a modern chicken. that first ancester chicken came in the form of an egg. it is impossible to know which chicken came first as we can't for a practical matter mate all ancesters with all modern chickens, but in principle we know that there is an 'earliest chicken' and that it came in the form of an egg.
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Philosophy
like DDO had. so we can all post our funny antics from time to time.
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DebateArt.com
are there different standards of the golden rule? or different standards for how to treat others, according to Jesus?
Matthew 7
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
Matthew 22
"And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
when i think of treating others as myself, i think of what is mine is theirs such as they can have everything i have. when i think of treating others as you'd have them do unto you, i think of 'well i don't expect people to give me everything of theirs so it shouldn't be expected for me to give everything'.
these seem like different standards.
of course, it's possible to read one as if it's the other, but which interpretation is best? i do know Jesus said to give away all that you own if you want to be perfect. i dont know if he was talking to just that person's calling in life, or if it's a standard for everyone, but it's usually treated like a standard for everyone. so maybe 'love as oneself' is best? people tend to not take the 'give it all away' thing too seriously, and even if it's serious, it's temperered with the practical concern of being able to support oneself.
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but according to naysayers, people will always find another way to kill if they dont have a gun.
so... here: women are five times more likely to be killed if their significant other has a gun. this is a practical point in illustration of the guns v murders correlation. same in individual lives as general trends
i have other evidence i can share later, but the above point seems pretty clear. if a wife beater has a gun, he is more likely to kill his wife than if he doesn't have a gun.
this isn't rocket science.
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australia had about one mass shooting a year before 1996. then, they did a bunch of gun control in that year, and for decades after, they hadn't had a mass shooting. that's too big of a coincidence to say it's just an anomoly. the gun control included gun buy backs, outlawing certain types of guns, controlling how to store guns, among other things
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history.com and all the academic websites say the ciivil war was about slavery. hisotyr.com says if you asked people back then what the war was about, they'd say slavery. that means the only difference between germany erecting statues of hitler and the south raising confederates, is that one fought for genocide and the other fought for slavery. that's also why it's not like the statues of washington,... he just happened to have a slave, but he's known for a lot of other good things. if the south had other decent reasons for the war then it would be like washington- it'd be like if the usa lost the revolutionary war yet kept statues of washington. but that isn't the reality we are dealing with. people engage in revisionist thinking, and anachronistically say the war was about states' rights looking back on it, but that's not what the people or the leaders said was the reason for the war.
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery " the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its articles of war
it should also be pointed out, that a plurality if not a majority of momuments were erected during jim crow and the civil rights movement. that means they were promoting suppresion of the black man with those monuments. it's not possible to say even the original intention of the monuments have good intentions.
even a confederate leader in his later years after the war denounced revisionist ideas that the war was about more than slavery.... (also in the following is an editorial about why we shouldn't honor confederate monuments)
"
""Whatever else I may forget," the ex-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass said in 1894, "I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery." Douglass (who is doing an amazing job and is being recognized more and more) deplored an emerging national consensus that the Civil War had been fought over vague philosophical disagreements about federalism and states" rights, but not over the core issue of slavery. In this retelling, neither side was right or wrong, and both Confederate and Union soldiers were to be celebrated for their battlefield valor.Douglass was right to be concerned. Southerners may have lost the Civil War, but between the 1890s and 1920s they won the first great battle over its official memory. They fought that battle in popular literature, history books and college curricula, but also on hundreds of courthouse steps and city squares, where they erected monuments to Confederate veterans and martyrs. These statues reinforced the romance of reunion.
Now, a century and a half after the Civil War, Americans are finally confronting the propriety of celebrating the lives of men who committed treason in the name of preserving slavery. That these statues even exist is unusual. When armies are defeated on their own soil"particularly when those armies fight to promote racist or genocidal policies"they usually don"t get to keep their symbols and material culture. As some commentators have noted, Germany in 1945 is a useful comparison. "Flags were torn down while defeated cities still burned, even as citizens crawling from the rubble were just realizing that the governments they represented had ended," wrote a reporter for McClatchy. Most physical relics of the Nazi regime were banished from public view. In this sense, the example of Germany"s post-war de-Nazification may offer a way forward for the United States.
Yet history tells a more complicated story. In its initial years, de-Nazification had only limited impact. It would take time, generational change and external events to make Germany what it is today"a vibrant democracy that is notably less permissive of racism, extremism and fascism than the United States. Tearing down the symbols of Nazi terror was a necessary first step"but it didn"t ensure overnight political or cultural transformation. It required a longer process of public reconciliation with history for Germans to acknowledge their shared responsibility for the legacy of Nazism.
The vast majority of Americans have long agreed that the destruction of slavery was a just outcome of the Civil War. But in continuing to honor Confederate leaders and deny their crimes, we signal that the United States has not yet fully come to terms with its collective responsibility for the dual sins of slavery and Jim Crow."
the following is a politifact article that is responding to people who claimed the war was about more than slavery as "obvious if you research it". so politfact did research it, and came to the same conclusion that it was was about slavery....
http://www.debate.org/forums/politics/topic/103590/3/#2870466
the following is a politifact article that is responding to people who claimed the war was about more than slavery as "obvious if you research it". so politfact did research it, and came to the same conclusion that it was was about slavery....
http://www.debate.org/forums/politics/topic/103590/3/#2870466
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here is the article
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for more on this....
also check out the video with the man lying prostrate in front of trump's image.
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if you answer that the entity can limit itself, then you are saying it's not truly unlimited. yet, if you answer that the entity can't limit itself, it's still not unlimited. it's a paradox.
if unlimited entities exist, how do you reconcile this paradox?
or, if you think about existence and the universe as we know it, we know it is all finite, so maybe that plus the paradox are indicators that unlimited things just don't exist?
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Can an Omnipotent God create a rock he cannot lift? it is said that If one answers yes to the question, then God is therefore not omnipotent because he cannot lift the rock, but if one answers no to the question, God is no longer omnipotent because he cannot create the rock.my position is that he can do one or the other, at different times, but he can't do both at the same time. and, that he can't do both at the same time doesn't disprove God as omnipotent.
to answer this, we need to ask another question. what happens when an immovable rock meets the unstoppable force of God?the issue-- the paradox arises because it rests on two premises- that there exist such things as immovable rocks and unstoppable forces - which cannot both be true at once. If there exists an unstoppable force, it follows logically that there cannot be any such thing as an immovable rock, and vice versa.so the key then is "at once". to ask if God can create both scenarios at once is a logical impossibility. God cannot do the logically impossible.if God creates the immovable rock, he cannot be an unstoppable force. and if God acts as the unstoppable force, he cannot create an immovable rock. he must choose which scenario exists at any given time. and, in fact, the fact that he would be able to choose the scenario, highlights the underlying omnipotence of God to begin with.to highlight the time element. if God made a rock that could not be lifted for a week, then for a week he could not lift it. when we merely say God can make the rock, but then he can lift it, we are assuming that the time has elapsed such that God is able to then 'switch gears' and lift it. when we add a time element such as "a week" it highlights that there are in fact restrictions if God makes that rock.we have to suppose that God knows what he's doing when he makes decisions like that to prevent lifting it for a week. and, this is a matter of consistency.... it is like dropping a ball or not. i can say i won't drop a ball, and if i am consistent as i would imagine God is, then i won't drop the ball. if he creates the rock, whether or not he can lift it, he probably won't lift it for as long as he says he won't. not that he couldn't.
i think at the end of the day you can say God can both make the rock and lift it, if your premise is right that God can be illogical. but that's another debate. i'm assuming God must be logical.
it's sort of like asking. "can the unlimited limit itself? if you answer yes, then it's not truly unlimited, though if you answer no it's still not unlimited". i call that the 'unlimited paradox'
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required threshhold of faith required for Christians to be saved is not clear, the requirements are either too vague, or too listy/dogmatic.
the bible says if you confess with your mouth jesus is lord, and beleive in your heart that he was raised from the dead you will be saved. it also say if you believe in the lord you will be saved. it also has all kinds of other statements.i'm sure if you do these, that is sufficient. but what about various other scenarios, like the content of 'sinner's prayers' that dont include those things?what or where exactly is the threshhold?if you believe he existed or is God is that enough? probably not cause the bible says demons do likewise.what about a list of of common beleifs? that you rely on him generally, that he is your savior, that you are a sinner, that he is lord, tha he rose from the dead, that he was incarnated, that he is God, that he is the son of God, that you believe you are saved (plenty of christians say you must believe you are saved, or you aren't saved), substitutionary atonement v 'christus victor' etc etc.ask different christians, get a different answer, almost every time. they just have 'gut feelings' but dont have firm answers. you'll note a different answer pretty much every time.some say you have to admit you're a sinner and that he is your savior. what if you believed all the other things and not these? or what if you believe you're a sinner, and that he's a savior, but not that he's God, or a various type of atonement belief. eg, chrsitaus victor v substitutionary.some say that he is God is required, some say legal substitution is mandatory.and how do you demarcate the requirements for those who are new to the faith, and those who are really knowledgeable? it might be seen a okay for a newbie to miss a thing or two, but less understandable for the expreinced etc. does this come into play?so what's the magical formula?
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he says things that are racist, but that doesn't mean he is one.
he says a mexican judge can't be neutral because he is mexican. he said obama wasn't born in the usa. the only thing basis in both cases that trump had to say anything was color of skin. it's an unjustified prejudice, even if he's not fully aware of it.
what reasons do you have to think he's racist? not a racist?
do you think he has no racist views?
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trump and hillary had low approval ratings on election day. other candidate had higher approval ratings. most people didn't like either candidate. thus, our election system is flawed.
here is my proposal for a ranked voting system. we have a primary where everyone marks who they want considered for president. you can list whoever you want, more than one person. the two persons with the most nominations get into a run off election between just the two of them, and the person with a majority vote wins.i'd also consider making the question "who all do you generally approve of?" instead of "who do you want considered", but i think framing the issue broader would lessen the fringes so much.
this is better because the current system should be called 'fringe voting'. a fringe plurality wanted trump or hilary to win, but most everyone else wanted neither of them. this gives too much power to candidates from the fringes. my system would broaden who's generally acceptable and has a broader base of support.my guess is it would have been kasich and sanders had we did my system, for whatever it's worth. trump might have did better than i'm guessing, though.
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here is a bunch of information on how medicare for all would probably be cheaper with better quality and shorter wait times, than our current system
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here is a bunch of information on how medicare for all would probably be cheaper with better quality and shorter wait times, than our current system
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Politics