the village idiot

Yes!!!

Hi Ti, Did this purpose have anything to do with the notion that the victims were not worshipping Him, the one true God? I have tried to point out in several previous posts that I don't believe all religions to be equally harmful. We need to be particularly concerned about fundamentalist Islam as unlike the other mainstream religions (and moderate muslims) it has not reformed itself, or it has gone backwards in choosing to take the teachings of the texts absolutely literally. Where I do 'lump all religions together' is in the notion that structuring your life and your actions around the teachings of books written 1000's of years ago in a time of almost complete scientific ignorance is not a reasonable basis for creating a stable, civilsed global human society. There are much wiser ways to proceed. I will stop talking about religion now though. I think I have made the point more than enough times to get my view across. Repeating it ad-nauseum doesn't seem to be moving the debate on. I see it as the 'umbrella' issue that makes all this horror tick, but this debate is more centered around protecting us from attack in the here and now, and what to do with the perpetrators, which is totally understandable.

OK? Not quite sure why you showed me that, or if it makes the same points as Stumpy's article. It is not related to my argument. I am in no way apologising for Europe's past discretions and I am fully aware that Muslims have been barbaric for a very long time. My point is that this violence is religiously motivated (surely there is no room for doubt on this). They want to conquer our lands and our minds for God. To have any hope to stop it happening we have to do something about (ie. diminish the influence of) religion. All religion. Surely there is no room for doubt on this either?

I have to subscibe to Christianity Today to read the article Mike, can you give us a summary?

I completely get that we need to take all measures to combat these attacks in the UK, but looking at it long term and globally, is there any way we can stop these things happening other than by teaching them that their holy books (their motivation) are bad ideas. Finding and killing/incarcerating the perpetrators each time, closing our borders, is only solving a very small part of the problem. The issue here is global bad ideas. In my mind the only sustainable remedy is to replace them with good ideas. The teachings of Allah, specifically the concepts of Jihad and Martyrdom, need to be consigned to history along with the teachings of the 1000's of other Gods that humanity has invented and subsequently ditched over the millenia. All the holy books contain good ideas and bad ideas. It is important to point out that it is our human brains and our capacity to reason that we use to pick the wheat from the chaff in these texts. Most Christians have had the good sense to defy much of the brutal commands of Yahweh. If religious thinking is to stay with humanity (as looks likely), we at the very least need to get fundamental muslims to reconsider (think reasonably) about some of their beliefs. The only people who have any chance better than minus one of achieving this are other muslims who have already been through this process. Their chances are admittedly probably not much greater than zero, but what other options have we got? We need to big these people up, and no doubt provide them with serious security! What I can say for sure is that American presidents proudly proclaiming 'God Bless America' as they bomb the c**p out of the Middle East won't help our intellectual cause one bit. It's not the bombing I object to per se, but the implicit suggestion of divine authority. You can no doubt see the problem here.

Forget trident everyone, Richard's just started World War Three!

Very comprehensive and informative, cheers Kevin

Apparently it costs us £6.6 million A DAY!! That's more than Stumpy Grinder takes home. One hopes they have considered all the options.

I understand the need for a nuclear deterrent but the cost of these subs is completely mind blowing. Excuse my ignorance, but is there no other way that these nuclear missiles can potentially be dispatched? Are all other countries' nuclear dererrents in submarine form?

Perhaps, instead of trying to get them to stop, we should be encouraging him to launch more, from his own patio preferably.

Fit's my experience to a t Beau! I think a small, cheap, manufactured retort for the hobbyist/small producer is a great idea though.

That's OK, we all prefered the roundabout anyway!

Well done Steve, brilliant response:thumbup::thumbup:

With respect David, the thread you have closed has everything to do with "life stuff", and the importance of continuing to discuss these issues can not be overstated. I greatly appreciate you sharing your reasons with us, but I definitely think you have taken the wrong action. If any of us break the rules, ban us, otherwise the trouble makers will only pop up on other threads-increasing the workload of the mods. Closing down debate gets all of us nowhere, and is in danger of creating an environment that I for one would be reluctant to spend time in. Obviously, no great loss to the forum in my case:biggrin:, but I hope you can see the danger.

David, for the sake of this excellent forum's credibility you need to give us an explanation of why you took this action. Banning trouble makers is fine, closing down invited debate with no explanation is not.

We are arguing at cross purposes here. My argument is simply that if we have the ability to reduce atmospheric carbon levels and thereby slow or stop increasing global temperatures then we must try to do it. I don't understand the argument that there's no point trying to control something that is going to cause suffering to humans just because humans aren't going to be around in the future.

Splendid!

This is true but we still should be concerned with reducing the suffering of concious creatures as much as possible before we self destruct. The fact that we are all going to die is no justification for knowingly harming others (and future others) whilst we are alive.

I don't think anyone is saying that we are to blame for all of it, but we are the only entities that are able to do anything about rising global temperatures. Even if we were to suppose that global warming was almost entirely due to natural-non human factors we still have a moral duty to try and bring atmospheric carbon levels down.

You're not thinking straight Dan. When scientists worked out that CFC's were depleting ozone in the atmosphere the world took action and banned the use of CFC's in new appliances, aerosols etc. The ozone layer then stopped depleting and began to recover. Do you and hairychest really believe that the worldwide community of highly professional and respected scientists are all just mercenaries making stuff up for the highest bidders? To hold that view suggests to me a need to be sectioned. It's totally bonkers.

Yes, surprising that the US rates 12th per capita but also fairly irrelevant. The US is home to a lot of capitas, and is the country who has contributed most greenhouse gas emmisions over time. As a country, they have the most to answer for, and it is pretty disgraceful that they don't see their obligation to help the rest of the world try to find a solution. It is worth pointing out that there are 183 countries with less emmissions per capita than the US who are not sticking up their middle fingers to the world.

Yes, I agree. That is the root of a lot of the world's ill's. I think the finger also needs to point at nationalism here. We in the UK are embarrasingly rich compared to most of the rest of the world's population. To relentlessly push for ever more growth and prosperity when the inevitable consequence is increased suffering in other populations is pretty gross.

I'm sorry, but that comment proves that you are a pillock with your head stuck up your own ever angry backside. Science is all we have to reliably determine what is going on with our planet, and despite whatever random memes you will no doubt pull from the internet, the scientific community is overwhelmingly agreed that we are in the process of making the Earth a worse place to live for our children. If you don't care sufficiently about this then you are a monster. Taking a selfish punt that the climate scientists are wrong on this issue is a morally indefensible position.

Trump pulls America out of the Paris agreement, suggesting that it is not in his countries interest to tackle climate change. Only 3 contries in the world have not signed up to the agreement-Syria (slightly distracted at present), Nicaragua (stating that the agreement doesn't go far enough) and the USA (the biggest Carbon polluter in history). Would be interested in your thoughts on the fallout from this, ideologically, politically and environmentally.

:lol: brilliant!