The Euthyphro dilemma

[Bullypulpit]

Moral have no meaning and value without consequence. Our culture/society's morals are based on Judeo-Christian ethic, just as your sense of right and wrong is. You are a perfect example of my initial post in this thread. You believe in the right and wrong becuase it is right and wrong relative to what you have taught from Day One. Yet you choose to toss the reason behind the right and wrong out.

There is no universal right and wrong, and never has been; therefore, no set in stone human and humane value systems.

Using what some extremists have done in the name of Christianity while CLEARLY not adhering to Christian values in carrying out their nefarious deeds isn't exactly cricket.

Indeed, you are correct with regard to consequences. But do those consequences bear fruit in this life or some mythical, metaphysical after-life? Unless these consequences come to fruition in this life, in this world, they are of no use.

 

[Bullypulpit]

It is not a flaw of the deductive reasoning, it is a flaw of the premise. The deductive reasoning is the process by which we reach the conclusion from the premise, and it is perfectly valid. This criticism is of the premises, the soundness of the argument, not the validity. Therefore this criticism is equally applicable to all forms of reasoning.

The process may indeed be logically consistent and valid, yet if the premise is flawed, so too will be the conclusion, despite the argument being logically valid. The conclusion may be true or false, and thus of little use.

Right, I'm quite familiar with your enquiry concerning Humean understanding (hehe, couldn't resist). Yes there is not certainty either way. Neither an argument for morality from religion nor humanity is logically valid or certain. In the eyes of a logical system, both arguments are equal. You can't disparage a morality based in religion on logic unless you can provide a logically sound argument that contradicts it.

Were religion born of logic, there might be something to what you say. But it is born of ignorance of the uncertainty of both human perception and conception. It is born of the ignorance of of relationships between events over time. It is born of the desire for absolute certainty in an world where uncertainties abound. Religions make use of logic to define themselves and their values, but if the premises are flawed, so to are their conclusions.

You're presupposing the existence of an actual public space. It is only through my private sense data that I have a perception of a public space, or other people. God could have given me morality and for all I know I am applying it to but a dream.

So who dreams the dreamer? Or do we come back to Platonic and Kantian essences? Your "private sense data" are the product of the interaction of your sense organs with an extant sense object. This is not a subjective process. Subjectivity comes into play when that interaction of sense organ and sense object is filtered through the mesh of consciousness, where those subjective elements of memory, emotion, judgment, pre-conception, and much more, which color that perception. We must be aware of this subjective element, else we will be its victim.

And that is, I think, the ultimate genesis of religious belief...The failure to recognize, understand and accept that subjective element of perception AND conception which we all bring to the table.

But I may be wrong.

 

[Care4all]

Indeed, you are correct with regard to consequences. But do those consequences bear fruit in this life or some mythical, metaphysical after-life? Unless these consequences come to fruition in this life, in this world, they are of no use.

i believe these consequences of ones actions come in this life, for the most part... of ones spiritualness, comes in the next life...

you cheat on your husband, and then get caught, it could change your once cushy life 4-ever...

there are consequences of sin... they are not ''willed'' upon you from a vindictive God... they are warnings from a parent, like don't cross the street without looking both ways for an oncoming car, OR YOU can get hit by a car and get killed.... type thingy....

and if not religious, one can substitute ''sin'' with ''immorality'' or whatever secular synonym one wants...

there are some cliche's that fit like:

you reap, what you sow...

and

what goes around, comes around

or even

you sleep in the bed you make

or

when you do bad things they will come back and bite you on the butt

you may have the freak oj thing, where it appears they are not reaping what they sowed, but for the most part one does...on earth.


care

 

[Hamiltonian]

Were religion born of logic, there might be something to what you say. But it is born of ignorance of the uncertainty of both human perception and conception.

I'm not saying that religion is a superior argument. I'm not saying that religion must be the source of morals. Just that the argument that religion is the source of our morals is just as valid as the argument that we develop our morals through common sense, or perceptions. Religion is not born of logic, but neither is your argument is all that I'm pointing out.

So who dreams the dreamer? Or do we come back to Platonic and Kantian essences? Your "private sense data" are the product of the interaction of your sense organs with an extant sense object. This is not a subjective process. Subjectivity comes into play when that interaction of sense organ and sense object is filtered through the mesh of consciousness, where those subjective elements of memory, emotion, judgment, pre-conception, and much more, which color that perception. We must be aware of this subjective element, else we will be its victim.

And that is, I think, the ultimate genesis of religious belief...The failure to recognize, understand and accept that subjective element of perception AND conception which we all bring to the table.

But I may be wrong.

I can be real, but I can be dreaming at the same time. My perception of "real" world events does not even have to have a real source in the public space. I dream and, as far as I know, my sense data is only a reflection of mental events rather than public events. My dream does not have a source in the "real" world, but its source is my mind. If I shoot somebody in my dream, that does not correspond to me shooting somebody in the "real" world. When in a dream, we cannot distinguish the the source of our private sense data. I might be dreaming right now, so the "real" world might not be so real as it seems, and only a product of our imagination.

Of course, I might be wrong too. I am wise because I know that I don't know much . It seems so ironic that Socrates, one of the first philosophers, uttered those words, yet as philosophy has progressed we have decided that we know less and less.

 

[Bullypulpit]

I'm not saying that religion is a superior argument. I'm not saying that religion must be the source of morals. Just that the argument that religion is the source of our morals is just as valid as the argument that we develop our morals through common sense, or perceptions. Religion is not born of logic, but neither is your argument is all that I'm pointing out.

At least not by any system of logic you're familiar with.

I can be real, but I can be dreaming at the same time. My perception of "real" world events does not even have to have a real source in the public space. I dream and, as far as I know, my sense data is only a reflection of mental events rather than public events. My dream does not have a source in the "real" world, but its source is my mind. If I shoot somebody in my dream, that does not correspond to me shooting somebody in the "real" world. When in a dream, we cannot distinguish the the source of our private sense data. I might be dreaming right now, so the "real" world might not be so real as it seems, and only a product of our imagination.

As for dreaming, lucid dreaming is a well known phenomena, where one CAN and DOES distinguish the source of the private sense data as being internal rather than the result of the interaction between the senses, sense objects and consciousness. The assertion that the world is only a product of our imagination is rather reminiscent of some lines of thought in Theravada Buddhism

Of course, I might be wrong too. I am wise because I know that I don't know much . It seems so ironic that Socrates, one of the first philosophers, uttered those words, yet as philosophy has progressed we have decided that we know less and less.

While we both may be wrong, the debate is enjoyable. Thank you.

 

[Gunny]

Indeed, you are correct with regard to consequences. But do those consequences bear fruit in this life or some mythical, metaphysical after-life? Unless these consequences come to fruition in this life, in this world, they are of no use.

The consequences in this life are rarely moral in nature; rather, only those morals incorporated into law are punished by law in this life.

If there is no hope for redemption in the afterlife, then once someone screws up in this life it's over, and hopeless. Insofar as Man's eternal optimism is concerned, the promise of redemption in the afterlife is key to Man's continuing to strive to be good and abide a moral code after screwing up in this life.

 

[Chips Rafferty]

I don't know if you've read William James' "<i>The Varieties of Religious Experience: a Study in Human Nature</i>", but he makes the point that claims for the general garment of a given religion being a proper fit for all are motivated by little more than the ego and hubris of those making such claims.

As for the followers of such charlatans, they need some means of giving meaning to their lives as they find little on their own. As such, they will easily fall sway to the first charismatic snake-oil salesman that comes along. Others need need such inspiration to a greater or lesser degree, and some none at all.

As for getting a stick, not needed. Just pour salt on it.

I don't know if you've read William James' "<i>The Varieties of Religious Experience: a Study in Human Nature</i>"

I have actually. It is de rigueur for recovering drunks with pretensions of searching for "God." Bill Wilson, A.A's co-founder, was very big on it.

My take on the current thread is if you can imagine "God" - the vilest criminal the human mind could ever conceive of - as the epitome of morality, you have to be inherently "evil" and deserving of having a lead counterweight installed behind one ear, not respect.

I can't think of a command he has given man that he hasn't blithely broken himself. The genocidal old \!/ makes Saddam Hussein look like Shirley Temple!

However, as you too have no doubt been repeatedly told, I can't interpret Stricture correctly because Satan and/or De Lawd has blinded me to "the truth."

This makes me wonder. How many, if any, among the 33,000 Christian sects of these self-appointed saints, do the boards "Christians" consider aren’t entitled to interpret God’s Word to suit their control freak authoritarian prejudices?

Surely my insight into spite-filled stricture must be equal to ONE of these friutcake cults!!

 

[Bullypulpit]

I have actually. It is de rigueur for recovering drunks with pretensions of searching for "God." Bill Wilson, A.A's co-founder, was very big on it.

My take on the current thread is if you can imagine "God" - the vilest criminal the human mind could ever conceive of - as the epitome of morality, you have to be inherently "evil" and deserving of having a lead counterweight installed behind one ear, not respect.

I can't think of a command he has given man that he hasn't blithely broken himself. The genocidal old \!/ makes Saddam Hussein look like Shirley Temple!

However, as you too have no doubt been repeatedly told, I can't interpret Stricture correctly because Satan and/or De Lawd has blinded me to "the truth."

This makes me wonder. How many, if any, among the 33,000 Christian sects of these self-appointed saints, do the boards "Christians" consider aren’t entitled to interpret God’s Word to suit their control freak authoritarian prejudices?

Surely my insight into spite-filled stricture must be equal to ONE of these friutcake cults!!

The lead counter-weight should be installed at the base of the skull at the superior aspect of C-1 and pointed slightly upwards.

 

[Chips Rafferty]

The lead counter-weight should be installed at the base of the skull at the superior aspect of C-1 and pointed slightly upwards.

Lemme see. What is the IMPACT of this board's moral majority Christian morals on the world? What fruit does their holier-than-thou tree produce?

It is a fact that America is the most &#8220;Christian&#8221; (excluding the heretical filthy Cafflik countries, of course!) on earth.

Most Americans proudly profess that they are, by far, The Prince of Peace&#8217;s exclusive moral majority, who are on a unique &#8220;mission from Guard&#8221; to civilize, Christianize, and save the entire &#8220;evil&#8221; &#8220;anti-American&#8221; world from itself.

You only have to read the general tenor of the threads on this and other U.S. cyber boards to see this narcissistic mass self-delusion is a fact.

Yet in its short history the U.S. has proven to be the most invasionest, send-in-the-Marinesiest, warmongering swarm of misery-gutted WASP wowsers that Satan every breathed breath into.

Why is this so, Anderson?

How do self-appointed &#8220;decent&#8221; folk, on both sides of the American political aisle, (....and how in fuck do us Bolshie foreigners distinguish between the two ) justify this supremely conceited self-absorption ?

Could it be that hundreds of millions of American &#8220;Christians&#8221; &#8211; which, thanks to the global domination of the American infotainment, are the global gold standard for decency - are purposely misinterpreting The Goosespiel to suit their own greedy ends?

Why does American Christianity (and foaming-at-the-mouth militant American patriotism) more resemble a Nazi Nuremberg book-burning rally, rather than the Sermon on the Mount form of Christinsanity favoured by lesser non-American mortals?

How can it be that the most Christian nation&#8217;s global morals are so diametrically opposed to the Prince of Peace&#8217;s superficially peaceful preaching?

Why do Americans talk New Testament but walk the Old?

I can assure all the answer to these questions will resolve American&#8217;s purblind, self-pitying, head-in-the-sand lament, &#8220;Why do they (the long-suffering world) hate us so?!!&#8221;

 

[Gunny]

Lemme see. What is the IMPACT of this board's moral majority Christian morals on the world? What fruit does their holier-than-thou tree produce?

It is a fact that America is the most “Christian” (excluding the heretical filthy Cafflik countries, of course!) on earth.

Most Americans proudly profess that they are, by far, The Prince of Peace’s exclusive moral majority, who are on a unique “mission from Guard” to civilize, Christianize, and save the entire “evil” “anti-American” world from itself.

You only have to read the general tenor of the threads on this and other U.S. cyber boards to see this narcissistic mass self-delusion is a fact.

Yet in its short history the U.S. has proven to be the most invasionest, send-in-the-Marinesiest, warmongering swarm of misery-gutted WASP wowsers that Satan every breathed breath into.

Why is this so, Anderson?

How do self-appointed “decent” folk, on both sides of the American political aisle, (....and how in fuck do us Bolshie foreigners distinguish between the two ) justify this supremely conceited self-absorption ?

Could it be that hundreds of millions of American “Christians” – which, thanks to the global domination of the American infotainment, are the global gold standard for decency - are purposely misinterpreting The Goosespiel to suit their own greedy ends?

Why does American Christianity (and foaming-at-the-mouth militant American patriotism) more resemble a Nazi Nuremberg book-burning rally, rather than the Sermon on the Mount form of Christinsanity favoured by lesser non-American mortals?

How can it be that the most Christian nation’s global morals are so diametrically opposed to the Prince of Peace’s superficially peaceful preaching?

Why do Americans talk New Testament but walk the Old?

I can assure all the answer to these questions will resolve American’s purblind, self-pitying, head-in-the-sand lament, “Why do they (the long-suffering world) hate us so?!!”

Nah. Most Normal-thinking Americans don't give a rat's ass why any of y'all hate us. If I was allowed only one reason and one word, I'd say "envy."

I also hate to point this out to you, but it is political idealism and protecting self-interest that has us involved with the rest of the world. Not Christianity. Once again, you attempt to blame the religion for the works of others.

I got y'all's cure though. I'm ALL FOR rolling up the sidewalks and telling the rest of the worls to take care of its sorry self. But then what happens when we do? Inevitably, someone comes whining for our help.

And y'all don't mind our handouts one bit. So long as we're giving away things for free and not asking for anything in return, we're cool, huh?

What's wrong with THAT picture?

 

[Bullypulpit]

Lemme see. What is the IMPACT of this board's moral majority Christian morals on the world? What fruit does their holier-than-thou tree produce?

It is a fact that America is the most “Christian” (excluding the heretical filthy Cafflik countries, of course!) on earth.

Most Americans proudly profess that they are, by far, The Prince of Peace’s exclusive moral majority, who are on a unique “mission from Guard” to civilize, Christianize, and save the entire “evil” “anti-American” world from itself.

You only have to read the general tenor of the threads on this and other U.S. cyber boards to see this narcissistic mass self-delusion is a fact.

Yet in its short history the U.S. has proven to be the most invasionest, send-in-the-Marinesiest, warmongering swarm of misery-gutted WASP wowsers that Satan every breathed breath into.

Why is this so, Anderson?

How do self-appointed “decent” folk, on both sides of the American political aisle, (....and how in fuck do us Bolshie foreigners distinguish between the two ) justify this supremely conceited self-absorption ?

Could it be that hundreds of millions of American “Christians” – which, thanks to the global domination of the American infotainment, are the global gold standard for decency - are purposely misinterpreting The Goosespiel to suit their own greedy ends?

Why does American Christianity (and foaming-at-the-mouth militant American patriotism) more resemble a Nazi Nuremberg book-burning rally, rather than the Sermon on the Mount form of Christinsanity favoured by lesser non-American mortals?

How can it be that the most Christian nation’s global morals are so diametrically opposed to the Prince of Peace’s superficially peaceful preaching?

Why do Americans talk New Testament but walk the Old?

I can assure all the answer to these questions will resolve American’s purblind, self-pitying, head-in-the-sand lament, “Why do they (the long-suffering world) hate us so?!!”

It should be pointed out, as history has show us, that those populations that have been the most aggressive and overt in their expressions of religiosity have been among the most decadent and depraved.

Do we really need to look any further than the private perversions of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, et al?

 

[Diuretic]

It should be pointed out, as history has show us, that those populations that have been the most aggressive and overt in their expressions of religiosity have been among the most decadent and depraved.

Do we really need to look any further than the private perversions of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, et al?

You can chuck a couple of Popes in there as well

 

[Chips Rafferty]

Nah. Most Normal-thinking Americans don't give a rat's ass why any of y'all hate us. If I was allowed only one reason and one word, I'd say "envy."

I also hate to point this out to you, but it is political idealism and protecting self-interest that has us involved with the rest of the world. Not Christianity. Once again, you attempt to blame the religion for the works of others.

I got y'all's cure though. I'm ALL FOR rolling up the sidewalks and telling the rest of the worls to take care of its sorry self. But then what happens when we do? Inevitably, someone comes whining for our help.

And y'all don't mind our handouts one bit. So long as we're giving away things for free and not asking for anything in return, we're cool, huh?

What's wrong with THAT picture?

You:

Most Normal-thinking don't give a rat's ass why any of y'all hate us. If I was allowed only one reason and one word, I'd say "envy."

Me:

Most (i.e not ALL) Americans proudly profess that they are, by far, The Prince of Peace’s exclusive moral majority, who are on a unique “mission from Guard” to civilize, Christianize, and save the entire “evil” “anti-American” world from itself.

See, we are on essentially the same page, Gunny. We both used the qualifier “most.”

And I totally agree that MOST of the world envies America.

This is hardly surprising seeing MOST of the world lives at subsistence level or is so impoverished - MOSTLY because of a paucity of resources, not because they are work ethic-less (insert Americas Christ-denyin’ t-u-u-rust du jour here) - that the average third world family would live on a small “Frahs” (as in, “Would you lark Frahs with that, S-u-u-r?”) a day.

A little light relief

Ya see, MOST countries don’t have an infinitesimal fraction of America’s super abundant natural resources. Nor have they consistently carpet-bagged other's treasure/murdered millions of heathen Injuns to criminally acquire their resource rich continent-sized country. Size does count, you know!

Your murdering Purinazis were really something!

Even our aborigine culling Calvinazi colonisers didn’t come close to your proto-Nazi Puritans body count. (Funny how the supposedly "reforming" Proddies get off on genocide just as much as the fascistic Caffliks, isn’t it?) IMO, it’s because their despicable personality was tempered by an immoral majority of laissez-faire convicts.

I can't imagine what Oz would be like without its convicts. Well maybe I can.

The same Satan fixated core of racially supremacist Pommie Proddie \!/’s still runs both our countries and contaminate our childrens, and their adult-children parents mind’s, with the most virulent strain of the Christo-capitalist bacillus since Emperor Constantine made Christianity compulsory fare for everyone in the Empire. “All the better to exploit you with my dear!”

Of course the average starveling in Ethiopia or somewhere similar, or some cactus eatin' Mexican peon, doesn't know all this. Is it any wonder then that these Starvin’ Marvins want to live in America?

These poor bastards believe that the fool’s gold, that they are fed on the flickering silver screen by the Hollywood Dream Factory, is actually how most Americans live! They would never believe that watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” is also as close as most Americans will ever come to living “The American Dream.”

So it comes as a surprise to me that you came back at me, almost as sarcastic as me, when I was desperately trying to give Americans an alibi for four hundred years of altruistically kicking every Adam Smith and Christ-denyin’ delinquent nation on earths arse.

Sheez! I just can’t understand why Americans get so touchy when the jackboot is on somebody else’s foot.

Okay, I admit it. Australia is a socialist hell hole of subsidised health care and outragiously generous social security payments where food stamps are unknown. For instance, in this Commie lovin' North Koreanish country it costs an old \!/ like me $US20.00 for a box of Lipitor, not the $300.00 odd that it is in your workers paradise.

Hell, I even have to pay $US1000 per annum health insurance to be completely covered for a private room and the medical specialist of my choice in hospital!

So naturally I have a public "Fox and The Sour Grapes" attitude to Ameica.

But we both know that secretly I want a green card so I can go live up in the affluent bucolic “coves” of North Carolina or the chic Chicagoan projects.

But tell me truthfully, Guns. What is your take on why Americans are s-o-o bellige …er, lovingly concerned with everyone else’s business, that they have invaded, intruded in, bought down the legitimate governments of, blockaded, or bombed MOST countries on earth?

Where does the Seppo’s overweening sense of self-righteousness come from that they are more than willing to judge others at the drop of a Stetson?

Are you saying that MOST American’s self-denying devotion to others wealth, I mean, welfare comes from your laudable Little Golden Book’s version of Christinsanity?

Indeed, are you saying that MOST Americans look at the world through LGB glasses, not the “Guard tole me to invade..” oil-coloured glasses of George W Gump and MOST of the mad dog Christo-conservatives on this board?

Why don’t the modest, imperturbable, stay-at-home Muslims of Eye-ran invade a country a year like Murika?

 

[Hamiltonian]

You:

This is hardly surprising seeing MOST of the world lives at subsistence level or is so impoverished - MOSTLY because of a paucity of resources, not because they are work ethic-less (insert Americas Christ-denyin’ t-u-u-rust du jour here) - that the average third world family would live on a small “Frahs” (as in, “Would you lark Frahs with that, S-u-u-r?”) a day.

This is a bit misleading. There are many countries which are well endowed with oil as a natural resource, but still live in poverty. Countries are poor because the have many market failures, namely in the credit market. Adverse selection and moral hazard are major contributing factors to why the markets are indeed failing. So worker behavior is a large part of why these countries are stuck in poverty traps. Now it depends on whether you want to blame the workers for the behavior, or blame the economic systems because they encourage the behavior. Either way, it is only the vices of human nature that every person and culture is subject to which cause this problem.

 

[Diuretic]

This is a bit misleading. There are many countries which are well endowed with oil as a natural resource, but still live in poverty. Countries are poor because the have many market failures, namely in the credit market. Adverse selection and moral hazard are major contributing factors to why the markets are indeed failing. So worker behavior is a large part of why these countries are stuck in poverty traps. Now it depends on whether you want to blame the workers for the behavior, or blame the economic systems because they encourage the behavior. Either way, it is only the vices of human nature that every person and culture is subject to which cause this problem.

Nigeria - heaps of oil, totally corrupt society, heaps of poverty.

 

[Chips Rafferty]

This is a bit misleading. There are many countries which are well endowed with oil as a natural resource, but still live in poverty. Countries are poor because the have many market failures, namely in the credit market. Adverse selection and moral hazard are major contributing factors to why the markets are indeed failing. So worker behavior is a large part of why these countries are stuck in poverty traps. Now it depends on whether you want to blame the workers for the behavior, or blame the economic systems because they encourage the behavior. Either way, it is only the vices of human nature that every person and culture is subject to which cause this problem.

There are many countries which are well endowed with oil as a natural resource, but still live in poverty.

Would this be because their rulers, and in MOST cases the American people and military that backs them, purposely keep the populace at a subsistence level?

It is perfectly clear to the entire non-American world that the few countries that aren’t (run by American backed Saddams) are targeted to be taken over and have American Emirs/Sheiks/strongmen installed to subjugate and swindle the resources natural owners.

 

[Gunny]

You:


Me:

See, we are on essentially the same page, Gunny. We both used the qualifier “most.”

And I totally agree that MOST of the world envies America.

This is hardly surprising seeing MOST of the world lives at subsistence level or is so impoverished - MOSTLY because of a paucity of resources, not because they are work ethic-less (insert Americas Christ-denyin’ t-u-u-rust du jour here) - that the average third world family would live on a small “Frahs” (as in, “Would you lark Frahs with that, S-u-u-r?”) a day.

Hardly a revelation. Anyone who bothers to research the topic is pretty-much aware of this fact. Others, who just believe all the propoganda they hear about other countries (ahem), think whatever.

A little light relief

Ya see, MOST countries don’t have an infinitesimal fraction of America’s super abundant natural resources. Nor have they consistently carpet-bagged other's treasure/murdered millions of heathen Injuns to criminally acquire their resource rich continent-sized country. Size does count, you know!

Your murdering Purinazis were really something!

Revisionist, extremely-one-sided version of history. Every inch of soil on the face of this Earth that is inhabited has been taken by conquest by one group or another. We aren't the worst just because we are the most recent.

Since acquiring territory by conquest and/or colonizing territory was commonplace and considered a legitimate way in which to acquire land/resources at the time it was done, it is hardly the criminal act you attempt to make it out to be, judging what happened centuries ago by TODAY's standard.

Even our aborigine culling Calvinazi colonisers didn’t come close to your proto-Nazi Puritans body count. (Funny how the supposedly "reforming" Proddies get off on genocide just as much as the fascistic Caffliks, isn’t it?) IMO, it’s because their despicable personality was tempered by an immoral majority of laissez-faire convicts.

That's because there is a VAST amount of uninhabitable and/or crappy land y'all could just shove them off on that you have no interest in. Why would aboriginies want to associate with convicts anyway? They were probably worried about having their shrunken head collections swiped.

I can't imagine what Oz would be like without its convicts. Well maybe I can.

The same Satan fixated core of racially supremacist Pommie Proddie \!/’s still runs both our countries and contaminate our childrens, and their adult-children parents mind’s, with the most virulent strain of the Christo-capitalist bacillus since Emperor Constantine made Christianity compulsory fare for everyone in the Empire. “All the better to exploit you with my dear!”

And there are the same racial supremacists on the minority side in both counties that will squeal "racism" at the drop of a hat, blaming all their personal failings on the majority because apologists allow them to get away with it.

Of course the average starveling in Ethiopia or somewhere similar, or some cactus eatin' Mexican peon, doesn't know all this. Is it any wonder then that these Starvin’ Marvins want to live in America?

These poor bastards believe that the fool’s gold, that they are fed on the flickering silver screen by the Hollywood Dream Factory, is actually how most Americans live! They would never believe that watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” is also as close as most Americans will ever come to living “The American Dream.”

People STILL go just as far as they are willing to push themselves. Environment IS a factor, but CAN overcome that if one wants to.

Some do it by busting their asses. Others do it by exploiting their minority status.

So it comes as a surprise to me that you came back at me, almost as sarcastic as me, when I was desperately trying to give Americans an alibi for four hundred years of altruistically kicking every Adam Smith and Christ-denyin’ delinquent nation on earths arse.

Sheez! I just can’t understand why Americans get so touchy when the jackboot is on somebody else’s foot.

who's being touchy? I merely responded to your anti-American opinion with MY opinion.

You attempt to blame US "world policing" and/or exploitation on Christianity, when Christianity may be the symptom, but it is not the disease, nor is the disease solely the US's fault.

WHO has made us the "World police?" The very second something goes wrong, what's the first whine heard round the world? "Where's the US and what're they doing?" The aftermath of the tsunami that nailed Bali/Indonesia a couple of years back comes immediately to mind. WHO did the Kuwaiti's run to FIRST when Saddam invaded Kuwait?

You want us to provide our resources -- manpower and money -- to clean up your messes, but then turn around and villify us for doing ANYTHING in our own national self-interest.

You and other nations can afford the luxury to sit back and criticize our every move BECAUSE we are out there where the rubber meets the road, DOING SOMETHING, instead of sitting in our easy chairs offering critical commentry and little else.

Again, I'm ALL for rolling up the sidewalk and locking the doors and letting y'all suck hind tit. But the fact is, even if we tried to do that, YOU wouldn't let us.

Okay, I admit it. Australia is a socialist hell hole of subsidised health care and outragiously generous social security payments where food stamps are unknown. For instance, in this Commie lovin' North Koreanish country it costs an old \!/ like me $US20.00 for a box of Lipitor, not the $300.00 odd that it is in your workers paradise.

Hell, I even have to pay $US1000 per annum health insurance to be completely covered for a private room and the medical specialist of my choice in hospital!

Seems you left out the government's IV attached to your wallet in taxes while bragging about wonderful you have it. I at least can purchase better than mediocre, socialist care if I choose to do so.

So naturally I have a public "Fox and The Sour Grapes" attitude to Ameica.

But we both know that secretly I want a green card so I can go live up in the affluent bucolic “coves” of North Carolina or the chic Chicagoan projects.

As opposed to staring daily at endless miles of outback? Or living on the waterfront in Darwin? Why leave "all that"?

But tell me truthfully, Guns. What is your take on why Americans are s-o-o bellige …er, lovingly concerned with everyone else’s business, that they have invaded, intruded in, bought down the legitimate governments of, blockaded, or bombed MOST countries on earth?

I addressed it above.

Where does the Seppo’s overweening sense of self-righteousness come from that they are more than willing to judge others at the drop of a Stetson?

With success comes arrogance. And when the rest of the world puts you in the position by proxy of shouldering all the World's ills, it's fairly easy to get that way.

Are you saying that MOST American’s self-denying devotion to others wealth, I mean, welfare comes from your laudable Little Golden Book’s version of Christinsanity?

Most Americans are not socialists, and socialism does not originate in the Bible.

Indeed, are you saying that MOST Americans look at the world through LGB glasses, not the “Guard tole me to invade..” oil-coloured glasses of George W Gump and MOST of the mad dog Christo-conservatives on this board?

Which mad-dog Christians on this board? There are very few, IMO. Just because a few choose to defend Christianity against your continual assault on it doesn't make US the extremists in anyone's eyes but yours.

Why don’t the modest, imperturbable, stay-at-home Muslims of Eye-ran invade a country a year like Murika?

And you don't think Iran is covertly staking its claim in Iraq via the Shia militants? Tsk tsk .... This IS the same Iran that has been rattling its saber since 1979, right? Calling for the destruction of Israel, claiming the Holocaust never happened, taking other nation's people hostage?

THAT Iran? They simply haven't had the means. But we're sitting back in the name of noninvolvement and playing ostrich while they acquire those very means.

 

[Hamiltonian]

Would this be because their rulers, and in MOST cases the American people and military that backs them, purposely keep the populace at a subsistence level?

It is perfectly clear to the entire non-American world that the few countries that aren’t (run by American backed Saddams) are targeted to be taken over and have American Emirs/Sheiks/strongmen installed to subjugate and swindle the resources natural owners.

No, that wouldn't be the case. First of all, most of the third world doesn't live in countries with a decent supply of oil. Second, why would America want to keep the population at a subsistence level, just because it's evil? No, America just supports government which are friendly to America, plain and simple. You're trying to criticize America from both sides. If America does nothing, it is implicit support of the regime. If America goes in to try to overthrow the government and create a Democratic country you say America is belligerent and talk about imperialism and false western cultural superiority.

 

[Chips Rafferty]

And you don't think Iran is covertly staking its claim in Iraq via the Shia militants? Tsk tsk .... This IS the same Iran that has been rattling its saber since 1979, right? Calling for the destruction of Israel, claiming the Holocaust never happened, taking other nation's people hostage?

THAT Iran? They simply haven't had the means. But we're sitting back in the name of noninvolvement and playing ostrich while they acquire those very means.

Now come on Guns. Are you asking me to believe the same bullshit that is programmed into every American kid&#8217;s head about America being exclusively a force for good?

I know you don&#8217;t seriously believe the U.S. built its stupendous military machine to play self-sacrificing global fireman, rather than to intimidate and plunder easy-beat nations. No sane or sincere person does.

Name one country the U.S has attacked that it did so defending its borders. Alternatively, name one that it has protected out of the pseudo generosity of spirit you speak of.

Kuwait? Even Lochie knows it was merely a convenient casus belli to get at Iraq&#8217;s oil. Vietnam? Korea? Cambodia? Laos? No more than shabby excuses to stop any self-determination on the part of the dirty communistic &#8220;Yellow Hordes.&#8221;

Even the Grateingest Generation&#8217;s deliberately delayed, eleventh hour crusade against Germany, and its totally transparent suckering-in and subsequent annihilation of Japan, were pre-planned premeditated wars fought for world domination.

The nauseously decent &#8220;Allies&#8221; in world war&#8217;s 1&2 were simply ridding themselves of Johann-come-lately rivals to their capitalistic world dominion.

But surprise, surprise! When the WW2 dust settled, the European colonial powers were devastated, insolvent, starving, and could not sustain themselves, let alone sustain their empires. Plus they had not only sold the family farm, they were in hock to America for fifty years. How serendipituous for the Seppos!

So for a comparatively paltry outlay in treasure and lives lost, &#8220;the arsenal of democracy&#8221; used the Chinese and Russian Red Armies to defeat Hitler and Hirohito and at last had free access to the European&#8217;s once closed colonial markets.

In practice, America took over the empires of a half-a-dozen European powers, made the Pacific an American lake, and profited obscenely from the war and the ensuing peace.

Except for your War of Independence, every war the U.S has involved itself in has been, sooner rather than later, imperialistic in nature. You have become the Redcoats you so despised.

And just like the Imperial Pommies, every year or so the U.S brutalises some yellow, brown, or black-skinned sub-humans, in some backward backwater of a country, to show its colonials that they had all better behave.

As with all empires though, their greed is eventually their undoing.

Take Iraq at this very moment. What was supposed to be a cakewalk and a showcase for America&#8217;s awesome power - a leisurely Sunday drive and Peasant shoot up to Baghdad with Sousa marches blaring - has turned to shit. So has America's plans to do the same in the whole Middle East.

Having gone in with its mighty mouth blazing, the U.S can&#8217;t afford now to let some raggedy-arsed Arabs see them off, lest the nig-nogs in other imperial outposts get uppity.

America&#8217;s predicament in the counterfeit War on T-u-ur is like the thieving monkey with its hand trapped in the hole in a coconut shell. Having put its hand in to grab the bait, it now can&#8217;t get its hand back through the hole. It is so greedy though, it won&#8217;t let go of its ill-gotten gains, even though its life depends on it.

And this is just the beginning of America's imperial blunders. &#8220;Next year in Moscow and Peking!&#8221; is the covert battle cry that rings around the strategic planning rooms of the mighty Bubbalon on the Potomac. The problem is America isn't half a good as the Krauts when the shit hits the fan. Not many are! Your Stalingrad willl come fighting much against lesser lights than the Russians.

But don&#8217;t take my word for any of this. What I spout is official U.S. foreign policy (that I posted previously) eagerly supported by BOTH of your political parties. Far from being the benign Irish cop on the block, Imperial America is the worst threat to universal peace that the world has ever had to contend with.

Having said all this; let me hasten to add that empire-building is not only an American vice, it is a nasty but natural human endeavour.

My own sickeningly sycophantic country, that derisorily plays Chester B. Goode to your Dimwit Dillon, is currently getting into the same caper as America&#8217;s Mini Me/deputy Sheriff in the Pacific.

Ya see, the only differences you and I have Guns stem simply from the fact that I freely admit my country would take the eyes out of anyone&#8217;s head and shit in the eye sockets, whereas you are still in the denial that I was once in - until they did it to me personally.

Not that I blame you. American have been cunningly and conveniently convinced, by their capitalistic media and churches- on behalf of their war-mongering masters - that they are a morally upright mob of fucking philanthropic martyrs.

Hence the average American rides around the world in his trusty Humvee slaying demonic dragons who, in MOST cases, really like(ed) Americans. But when the dragons reasonably retaliate, everyone on earth has to suffer to assuage America's massive ego.

People don&#8217;t naturally come to the conclusion that they have a God-given right to right the &#8220;evil&#8221; world&#8217;s wrongs. Someone or something has to take men&#8217;s normal unassuming manner and pervert into such supercilious feelings of superiority that they will go goose-stepping round the globe slaying MIC demonised &#8220;anti-American&#8221; dragons but squealing like stuck pigs when the dragons strike back.

Enter the Bible.

 

[Chips Rafferty]

No, that wouldn't be the case. First of all, most of the third world doesn't live in countries with a decent supply of oil. Second, why would America want to keep the population at a subsistence level, just because it's evil? No, America just supports government which are friendly to America, plain and simple. You're trying to criticize America from both sides. If America does nothing, it is implicit support of the regime. If America goes in to try to overthrow the government and create a Democratic country you say America is belligerent and talk about imperialism and false western cultural superiority.

Yes, you're right, of course. I promise to stop reading pulp fiction like this piece of patently anti-UmeriKKKan crap