The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Except he'd get tried in virtually every country on this planet. Unless of course he was a radical muslim, in which case the skewed political text exception would come into play, or if he was a Nazi during WWII, in which the political agenda would come into play.

Appealing to the majority? And I'm the one to blame for doing so?

The viewpoint of most societies is not universal; it's their subjective beliefs.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
You have claimed on MANY occasions that what Hitler did wasn't necessarily wrong until he stepped outside of Germany. By that admission, you are advocating what he did, while at the same time condemning LEGAL state executions.

Legal = moral? I think certain laws should be changed, because I do not believe that laws are created by anything more than fallible men with subjective viewpoints.

And if I claimed that, I apologize that. I think Hitler was being wrong to the Jews: and we had a responsibility to some sort of intervention, albeit hopefully not a violent one, in order to preserve their lives and desires.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Murder has always been considered wrong. For the millionth time, an excuse doesn't equate to a justification. There were MANY things humans did wrong that they tried to justify as right with some kind of agenda. Doesn't make it right.

Your definition of what is an excuse =/= law.

Every society had some definition of murder. However, that definition and how it relates to killing another human being varies from society to society.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
I can't. Because the minute I show you it doesn't work and we went to war, your excuse will be "oh that's because we didn't push it hard enough", which hardly works. Then again mr subjective, "fullest extent" means a million different things to a million different people. We have used diplomacy ever since the early 20th century in Latin America, and in Europe. To the fullest extent? Maybe. What IS known is that wars are inevitable.

Show me a single time in history where we practiced genuine diplomacy (and occasionally aggressive diplomacy) instead of immediately branding the enemy as 'irrational' and surrendered to our arrogance. Then show me how we failed and this burst into a war. Just show me a single time when that happened, and then we can debate on whether it genuinely was inevitable or if we didn't do all that we could.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Equally as easy as believing that people are "rational and good", and therefore war is absolutely unnecessary.

War is necessary in very extreme cases outside of immediate self-defense. And humans are not necessarily good, but it is always possible to find some form of common ground and desire upon which we can act.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
You assert that a human being wrote the torah. Since I don't agree with you, this assertion is moot.

The laws of debate: if you make a fantastic or extraordinary claim like 'God wrote the Torah', then you have to back it up with logical substantiation and expansion. Otherwise, the natural and more simple assumption must be assumed for the purpose of the debate; a human being, or several human beings, wrote the Torah.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
I've actually pointed out each and every one of your contradictions. If you can't accept the fact that you can't stay on point, don't blame me. It's not the way I saw, it's how you said it. You still lack any real argument seeing as how you flip flop on points, use double standards, and just generally contradict yourself. I would LOVE a debate, but only if you figure out how to stick with your points. I haven't swayed from any of mine, regardless of how "wrong" I am.

Again, thinking that your interpretation is law. You sadly overrate yourself.

I haven't 'swayed' from any of my points nor did I change them: I might have phrased them wrongly or you might have interpreted what I said differently from how I intended you to.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
You didn't show more studies. You said "go to google". I refuted the only study you have shown. And you apparently don't get it. Saying "athiests are smarter" and saying "Jews are smarter" follows in the same category of retardation, something you fail to understand because you either are a self hating Jew (logical judging by your response to that article), or you just don't understand the concept of double standards.

You still don't understand the fundamental difference between claiming that a certain group of people are genetically born smarter and claiming that smarter people (irrelevant of their ethnicity) often choose a certain road in life?

You didn't 'refute' any study. You haven't explained the obvious link between IQ and atheism. You didn't do anything outside of saying "I have studied that prove it wrong!!!".

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington

You really HAVENT though because I've given you articles which show that the upper class elite are conservative republicans, while the majority of the working middle class are liberal democrats. So yes, I squashed your argument. As I often say, you're delusional and in denial so the idea that someone stuffed your arguments would be so appalling to you, you'd just ignore reality (as usual), and carry on.

Uh, so how about the statistics proving that liberals are both the highest payed (income over 75,000 dollars) and the most educated (49% with college degree) demographic? How about the study I showed, proving the ridiculous amount of influence liberals have at higher Academics, showing that liberalism is very prominent among professors and their like?

You cannot refute it. I made these points and you ignored them; you didn't post any rebuttal. You simply pretended they didn't exist. So much for squashing my argument.

Originally posted by Master Crimzon
You must understand this: it is irrelevant if criminals are responsible for their crimes, or if Hamas is responsible for bombing Israel, or if the Nazis are responsible for committing the Holocaust. They're not going to change all by themselves. Instead, we must focus upon the way we can change and adapt to prevent these actions from coming to pass.

-Accept Jewish immigrants from Nazi Germany. This will simultaneously prevent them from launching a massacre in the internal workings of the country, and will serve to disprove their belief of the Jews being the plight of the world, instead of validating it (in their minds).

-When we have evidence of Germany's growing aggression and militarization, we exercise socio-economic sanctions to prevent them from having the finances to develop a threatening military and subsequently launching a war.

-When (if) Germany invades Poland, it will be with a drastically weakened militia. We intervene and reach an effective compromise, preventing Germany's continued spread of violence.

While it would probably be more complicated than the solution proposed above, the points remain the same. Via logical deduction, it is evidently possible to have prevented the deaths of 60 million people with diplomatic means.

There is no point in blaming the other side. Instead we, as the stronger society, must look at our ability to supply and eliminate motivations and work towards preventing the other side from acting a certain way (environmental influences).

Excuse according to your point of view, justification according to them.

Hitler didn't think "I wanna commit genocide!" and thought up a reason to do so. Instead, he came up with a philosophical point of view, repulsive and violent as it is, that led him to the conclusion that violent genocide is a positive thing. Is it? Not according to our moralistic standards or the Jews. Does it make him 'evil', according to some omniscient, all-powerful and infallible source? No.

Despite having blatantly talked about killing the Jews, Hitler rose to power because he was supported by the majority.

People do not randomly decide to commit genocide and attempt to justify it. Instead, they develop a possible interpretation or view point that ultimately leads them to it.

But you've just proved my points. Evil is not being done, period: evil is being done to them. Letting one morality crush another and preventing somebody's interests from coming into play or to be heard is all I claim is wrong.

These things are not mutually exclusive. Compassion can co-exist with justice; indeed, moral transcendence instead of petty degeneration to childish concepts, which involves 'compassion', is my form of justice.

Excuse being your viewpoint. You are not God. You are not infallible. Your opinions are not some sort of universal law.

Definitions of the three big 'evils' have varied. It would not have been considered 'murder' to kill a slave in ancient times. It would be today. These things are simply legal matters.

It is evil to the individual who was screwed. And to prevent evil from being done to certain individuals, we must create laws to protect their interests and not let them be crushed.

Calling someone 'evil' without adding the integral parts of 'according to our standards, to the person he violated, etc' is stupid. I think Hitler was an evil, evil individual. Does it mean he was evil as a result of some form of universal law? No.

Is it immoral because it's illegal or is it illegal because it's immoral. I have always stated the latter. So your assertion is wrong because it presents a point i wasn't arguing.

So during the formation of laws a long time ago (in a galaxy not so far away) people recognized that killing people is bad sometimes and that when it is bad the person who did the killing should be punished. Why was their judgment so much better than ours? How come they could see the difference between right and wrong while we seem to be unable to? Did they just go with a majority vote, the way we plan to in regards to homosexuality? Was it just one guy (the king)? What knowledge did they have that we no longer have access to?

Originally posted by Master Crimzon
Appealing to the majority? And I'm the one to blame for doing so?

The viewpoint of most societies is not universal; it's their subjective beliefs.

You cannot refute it. I made these points and you ignored them; you didn't post any rebuttal. You simply pretended they didn't exist. So much for squashing my argument.

MC, when you get a chance download that lecture and let me know what you think.

So, reading back, I made a discovery. The difference between killing and murder (aside from the fact that murder is wrong) is the intention behind the act: killing to protect a loved one (self-defense) is all right, while killing for personal gain (murder) is not. It is clear that the rationalization behind the act is very important to you. If the rationalization isn't right then you are willing to kill a murderer back.

This doesn't seem to be in keeping with your assertion that morals are objective or that the reasoning behind an action is irrelevant. In fact, it flies in the face of all your previous arguments. You see, the act of murder and the act of killing are indistinguishable. A cop that kills a perp aiming a gun at him (or her) has done nothing different from a cop that shoots a perp after they have surrendered (but are still armed). In both cases the adversary is dangerous but the cop will only be punished (quite severely, in fact) when his rationale for killing is acceptable: self defense rather than revenge for the crimes/'wrongs' the criminal committed.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
You're wrong. It is absolutely relevant. Because if we don't know who's to blame, we can't move forward with fixing we don't know what's broken.

Y'see, an integral part of an action is the motivation behind it. And a motivation is always created by some form of interpretation of societal and external factors; while an individual chooses to act upon that motivation, we, as the more powerful force, have the ability to control it and thus affect whenever an action comes into play.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
No, this is your baseless assertion. Hitler would focus on communism next, then continue to invade until he took over the world. So this fails.

Hitler never displayed the same hatred for the communists as he did for the Jews, did he? Did he burn communists in concentration camps?

Sure, they hated communists, but it wasn't the form of intense racial hatred they had to the Jews.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Great plan. How do you propose we do that?

It's called protectionism. A nation does not magically get sources of income: external sources are a highly important part of a nation's finances. By working in some form of economically protectionist manner (I'm not aware of the fine details of this this functions), we could have severely limited Germany's ability to form a threatening militia.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Assuming there is ANY kind of success with your previous idea, and that it works to perfect.

Which it probably would. And no, there isn't proof of it, but it can be logically deducted and assumed.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
No, this isn't logical deduction. This is you adding 2 and 2 and getting 15. This is you giving me your point of view and telling me it could or would have worked.

And why would it not have worked?

Weird, when Hamas attacked Israel with rockets, you were blaming Israel, so which one is it? Is there no point in blaming anyone or is there no point in blaming the actual responsible party?

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Nope. A justification is defined as logical and rational, and don't tell me it's subjective, otherwise you and I wouldn't be having this debate at all, trying to convince each other that the other is wrong.

I'm making you see my form of logic, and you're making me see you're form of logic (or at least we're attempting to do so). I may not appear logical to you; you may not appear logical to me. We work upon the idea that every human, despite radically differing ideologies, has the ability to find a form of common ground and reason (an important part of my points).

Hitler's motivations may not be logical or rational according to our standards, but that does not make him illogical, period. Who dictates what is logic? Can your version of logic be proven to be the correct one, due to some sort of higher standard?

[By the way, this works both ways. Hitler cannot be proven to be wrong, but he cannot be proven to be right, either; simply doing nothing is the equivalent of advocating the latter. However, since the Holocaust did not directly benefit his nation in some way and that it was a clear injustice and violation of the Jews, we had to exercise some form of intervention.]

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Which proves my point that the 3 things I mentioned are universally wrong and the way one can excuse himself is through political agenda or radical fundamentalism.

Uh-huh. Your idea of the political spectrum and concept of what is fundamentalism is not necessarily the right one. Similarly, a philosophical agenda (that leads to mass genocide) cannot be objectively proven to be wrong.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
So? So was Obama. Both promised to bring their respective countries back to elite status. What is your point?

That hatred of the Jews was generally endorsed by the German public.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Which is the exact same thing.

And can a philosophical point of view be proven to be wrong by the works of some form of objective, universal source? And no, the majority of societies does not count.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
No, I didn't. Evil is being done, and evil is being done to them. You're so quick to eliminate responsibility that you refuse to blame someone. So instead of Germany being evil for attempting to destroy the Jews, it was the Jews who were having evil done to them.

... do you even try?

Germany was being evil to the Jews. How did you possibly get the suggestions that it was not Germany's responsibility? They were responsible for being evil to the Jews. However, that does not declare them as evil by some sort of universal law. It makes them evil to a certain populace and according to certain moralistic standards (our's).

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Your form of justice has been (it's society's fault), and then claiming you DONT believe people are inherently good.

I've repeatedly explained how it is a mixture, but that the societal factors shape the individual and are under our control. Thus, we should focus upon the directly alter-able factor.

Losing ourselves to grudges and petty concepts is not justice.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Logical and rational things are generally universal, or again, we wouldn't be having this discussion. You can't refute HItler and Stalin being evil, so I suggest you stop trying.

There's a form of universal logic and common ground that applies to everyone, but that is very narrow. Logic, as a whole, is an individualistic, abstract, and subjective concept.

I'm sure that our form of debating and the preaching about human rights and democracy would be seen as utterly delusional and illogical within the eyes of a fascist, perhaps. Similarly, I cannot possibly understand why anyone would attempt to implement religious policies in political debates. My form of logic makes that, to me, illogical. However, you perceive it as logical. However, there is some sort of universality to the concept of logic. Some form of common ground we can work upon. While logic is, to a degree, a subjective concept, there is a universal application to it.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
prove it

The slave example.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
The evil is being by someone, and someone is getting done evil to them. I don't even see how this is refutable, except that you're unwilling to place blame.

When an individual commits murder, then the one who is murdered is the one that is being done an evil. This has nothing to do with 'placing blame' (the party that violated the other is 'to blame', although it must be judged strictly according to the situation); it's simply that an evil is not being 'universally done', but rather subjectively done.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Universal law, the rest of the world, etc.

I wonder, how exactly can you prove the existence of universal law, beyond 'most societies agree upon it'. Even the fact that most societies agree upon a certain something does not make it right, because the viewpoint of these societies is strictly subjective and philosophical in nature. In order for a certain act to be 'universally evil', something greater than fallible humans must create that standard. Moral absolutism is therefore highly dependent upon the existence of a God.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington

Which happen to be universal in regards to the 3 things I've mentioned, with the exception of political motivations and radical fundamentalism.

The legal definitions of them constantly varying, and the fact that philosophical beliefs and 'fundamentalism' is a matter of subjective beliefs and political ideologies.

When you claim an individual is a radical fundamentalist, it is according to your moralistic and political standards. It cannot be substantiated as being on God's political spectrum.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
I've showed you human nature, and the inevitability of war. You've shown me a belief that is a direct contradiction of human nature. I'm not the president, I can't tell you to what extent we tried diplomacy.

So the short answer is 'no'. How can that be so and you still claim that my ideology 'contradicts' history? Wars were always fought because people consistently focused upon the negative aspects of humanity. They always went upon your belief, that humans are irrational, evil creatures and thus they took the easy path of resorting to arrogance and consequently violence.

There is no indication my ideology will fail to work if implemented, being that we never tried actually transcending beyond these petty, animalistic beliefs. Human nature is dual, not one-sided, and we must focus upon the positive aspect and work towards a better existence as a result of it.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
No, it's not always possible to find a common ground because this would indicate that human beings are inherently rational, which human nature has shown you otherwise.

Everybody's form of logic is staggeringly different, and thus not everybody is 'rational' to each other, but there is a common ground and concept beyond rationalization among humans. It is always possible to find some form of relationship between rationalities and moralities in order to reach an effective compromise.

You and I operate on entirely different logical and philosophical points of perspective. But how can we cultivate a functioning debate? By finding the common ground and laws of logic. This is the same attitude we should take when talking to a supposedly evil fundamentalist.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington

It's the dumbest thing in the world to prove that G-d wrote the torah because it's more of a position of faith based on tangible facts. And you'll have to prove that a human wrote the torah, seeing as how according to NUMEROUS studies, it's an impossibility, in terms of its length and complexity. Then you can tell me about the big bang and how something can originate out of nothing. After that you can tell me why the only thing that exists is that what's in front of your face.

1. An unnatural and fantastic claim would be that some form of supernatural deity wrote the Torah. It is more possible that it was simply a bunch of men who, threw the span of a long time, managed to complete the Torah- a work of subjective philosophy. The laws of debate dictate that such a grandiose claim has to be logically substantiated; otherwise, Occam's razor and the more natural and ordinary assumption must be taken into play.

2. Nobody said the universe originated out of nothing, simply that it is stupid to make theories regarding its origin that are based purely on faith on not on facts. And why is the existence of an infinite God seen as logical while the existence of an infinite universe, moving in 'rotations' between big bangs and such, perceived as illogical? You'd probably say God exists 'just because', or some variation thereof, to which I will that the universe similar exists (infinitely) 'just because'.

3. Back to complex theories. I do not believe anything that does not have rational, cold facts supporting it.

The rest of your post is a meaningless banter. I don't think it will contribute to our overall argument if we continue to argue on whether liberals or conservatives make up the country's elite, so it is a pointless subject to debate.

So the comic vs. forum didn't really close. Someone should really tell blax.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
So the comic vs. forum didn't really close. Someone should really tell blax.

Well if he logged out and never came back, then he'll never realize unless if someone here manages to email him.

I don't think he can come back though. He said that he replaced his password with non-sensical gibberish, meaning that he won't be able to log-on again. Which is a real shame, the guy had class.

Lecture #2
The main argument of secularists against religion is that science put the earth at over 15 billion years, whereas the Bible puts it close to 6,000 years old. This study comes from a Rabbi and Astrophysicist that attempts to explain how those numbers are the same.
And MC, i'll get to your shtick later today.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=J3C7K380

Originally posted by Nephthys
I don't think he can come back though. He said that he replaced his password with non-sensical gibberish, meaning that he won't be able to log-on again. Which is a real shame, the guy had class.

He can always retrieve his password...

Edit: LOL @ 'biblical data'

lol@secularism. Perhaps you should try to study something outside of schools, rather than regurgitating what your philosophy teacher taught you.

"Ur stupid DS lol the only thing that exists is what we can see!!#!#$"

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
lol@secularism. Perhaps you should try to study something outside of schools, rather than regurgitating what your philosophy teacher taught you.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington

"Ur stupid DS lol the only thing that exists is what we can see!!#!#$"

He means "has nothing indicating it".

So he is making fun of me for not believing in things that have no evidence supporting them and no reason to believe in them? Ouch. I'm so insulted by his scorn. Oh wait.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
So he is making fun of me for not believing in things that have no evidence supporting them and no reason to believe in them? Ouch. I'm so insulted by his scorn. Oh wait.

No stupid. As usual you "don't get it". I'm criticizing you for getting two sides of the story, I don't care what your beliefs are.

What you are doing is placing an ancient book on par with modern scientific discovery: hence the phrase 'biblical data' juxtaposed with 'scientific data'. Why does religion deserve a side of the story? It hasn't substantiated its claims and where it contradicts science is clearly false.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
What you are doing is placing an ancient book on par with modern scientific discovery: hence the phrase 'biblical data' juxtaposed with 'scientific data'. Why does religion deserve a side of the story? It hasn't substantiated its claims and where it contradicts science is clearly false.

Except it doesn't "contradict" science, which is why I posted the lecture. As usual, you still don't "get it", nor can science prove half of their hypotheses. Furthermore, this guy who is a Rabbi happens to be a WIDELY acclaimed astrophysicist. But as secularist it's your job to pick and choose which scientific theory or author you're going to follow, right? Consistency doesn't seem to be your friend.I suggest you stop responding to my posts, because you'll just have 1 or 2 people correct you.