Get Rid of All Religion?

[quote]kamui wrote:

About a fucking tidal wave.

If i made a “past judgment”, it was to innocent, not to accuse.
[/quote]

True. I corrected you earlier on the tidal wave which is much more about life expectancy than about child mortality. Though of course that helps.

We created the tidal wave and it was one of the most moral things humans have ever done. We extended life and quality of life and it has been amazing to see that. What a wonder modern medicine has been for us. I think humans should regret nothing about these attempts.

I wish we had (or would push more) pushed contraceptive use more, but it is not too late to do that and drastically limit the amount of unwanted children by making sex safer.

They were probably broken, yes. But we shouldn’t throw the components away. Some of them could still be useful.

[quote]
we are flying with different ones well at least we are trying something that may work![/quote]

Some of us are trying to invent new ones. Other are trying to convince everyone that we don’t need any instrument.
In any cases, we have to invent them on the fly. And we have a lot of work to do.

In some cases, it IS better. But not for moral reasons.

[quote]
Although we created the tidal wave. And it was because of modern medicine. And that tidal wave is one of the most moral things humans have ever attempted to do.[/quote]

Pasteur’s work was one of the most moral things human have ever attempted to do.
The subsequent tidal wave is a (mostly) natural phenomenon, and as such, it’s mainly amoral (regardless of its good and bad consequences).

I agree.

[quote]kamui wrote:

They were probably broken, yes. But we shouldn’t throw the components away. Some of them could still be useful.

[quote]
we are flying with different ones well at least we are trying something that may work![/quote]

Some of us are trying to invent new ones. Other are trying to convince everyone that we don’t need any instrument.
In any cases, we have to invent them on the fly. And we have a lot of work to do.

In some cases, it IS better. But not for moral reasons.

Personally I think we do currently have instruments. And that is part of the reason we have seen less bloodshed in the past 25 years than we did in the previous century. We have less dire poverty now than we used to. Things are getting better. We have more people experiencing democracy than we used to. Things are getting better. We have opened up opportunities to more people in more places. Things are getting better.

I think the internet has helped big time in this regard. We are fighting global challenges in ways we simply couldn’t fight them before. We are standing up more than we used to do in terms of human rights, abuse, worker mistreatment, disease, etc. I would never attempt to argue things are perfect or we don’t have huge issues. Yet they never have been perfect and we always have.

Maybe this isn’t your definition of morality nor the metrics you would use to measure it, but I’m going to go ahead and say these are some pretty awesome times we are living in and we are doing some pretty awesome things. I think standing back is immoral. I think not working to make changes is immoral. I’ve already done more in this year than I did in the previous year to make positive changes in my community which needs a lot of work.

What I think is most immoral is how many people will visit T-Nation, some political website, some comments section and talk about how horrible everything is in the world and do nothing but cry, piss, and moan. Kudos to you K for working on them. With people like you we have a chance to beat anything. With those pussies who write comments and do nothing we are indeed fucked. Anyone can acknowledge a problem, only good people work on solving them. And I think we have a shit ton of good people out there and we far outnumber the dickheads.

Indeed, it’s not. And this is the root of many of our mutual misunderstandings on this topic.

[quote]
I think standing back is immoral. I think not working to make changes is immoral. I’ve already done more in this year than I did in the previous year to make positive changes in my community which needs a lot of work.[/quote]

I tend to be quite suspicious about activism.
Because life taught me that the best is sometimes the ennemy of the good. And that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But you seem to focus on making “positive changes in your community”.
And in my book, this is way better (and a lot less suspect) than trying to change the world. Or your morally inferior neighbors.

[quote]
What I think is most immoral is how many people will visit T-Nation, some political website, some comments section and talk about how horrible everything is in the world and do nothing but cry, piss, and moan.[/quote]

a few things :
-If this was really the most immoral thing in existence, we would live in a marvelous paradise.
-the expression of public opinion is often quite ugly, especially on the internet, but this is a key component of an healthy democracy.

Is this irony ?

Because if it isn’t i have to ask :
Where in this thread did you get i was doing anything to solve anything ?

When you asked “what do YOU do ?”, i posted the platform of a fringe movement and said “i mostly agree with this”.
That’s not what i would call “doing something”.

I’m not saying that i don’t do anything (explaining what i do and how i do it is a matter for another thread and another time), but i’v said nothing in this topic to deserve your kudos.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Random alert!.

Took a walk. More awesome and splendid than man’s handiwork. All of Atlanta didn’t move me as much as simple walk through this. Conserve it for generations to follow.

“Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.”

[/quote]

I’ll counter that photo with one of my own that I just took of how I spent part of my afternoon – running my dogs behind my snowcat.[/quote]

Man, that is just awesome…
Not going to see anything like that here in SW Florida, heh.

There was another thread where I posted a few photos from Corkscrew Swamp sanctuary. I’ll just post two of my favorites here.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Hey Sloth, this was my hike two weeks ago:

[photo]39824[/photo]
[photo]39823[/photo]
[photo]39825[/photo]
[photo]39826[/photo]
[photo]39827[/photo]
[photo]39828[/photo]
[photo]39829[/photo][/quote]

See, I need to find time to travel.

Edit: The scale within those scenes is just magnificent.

Last one from Corkscrew, then I’ll refrain. Met this fella on my walk.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
H, you’ve had your ass handed to you.

You’re gallant in efforts, however, you have arrived at your Gallipoli.[/quote]

Some people are trying to have a conversation and if you could troll elsewhere that would be great.

Now if you have something of substance that’s a good time to post, but right now adults are trying to have a discussion and we don’t need the random little kid jumping in attempting to play judge when we don’t really care what the immature kid says (K or myself). I get that you don’t like me, but is that really a reason to follow me around and attempt to ruin discussions with people? I don’t like to have to put people on ignore, but I have no time for pure trolls so it would be great if you’d stop.

Move along and troll elsewhere so you don’t clog this thing up. [/quote]

Stop it, Harold. Makes you look foolish.

Look, you type a lot in your responses to Kamui. But you’re not getting the job done in the battle of ideas. You’re clearly outclassed.

But I did give you a compliment in saying that you were gallant, so take what you can get when it comes to compliments from me and don’t even remotely offer conclusions based in vanity like “Big bad trollish Push follows me around.” I have traipsed all over PWI since you were still wondering if you’d ever grow any pubic hair so trust me, my appearance on this thread has nothing to do with torturing you.

Mind you, I don’t concur with everything Kamui says.
[/quote]

You don’t torture me you annoy the shit out of me and everyone else trying to have a discussion. I asked you to kindly knock off your nonsense trolling as it is getting in the way of everyone else and literally has added not a damn thing to a conversation you weren’t even a part of.

Again, you REALLY need to grow up, but that’s advice you routinely ignore. It’s advice that was doled out to you by almost the entire forum on your thread and you’d be much better off if you listened to it and attempted to change. Instead you’ll throw out your usual juvenile responses because I think you believe you have a reputation for that behavior and must continue it.

I could care less if you concur with what I say or Kamui says, I just wish you wouldn’t be so childish and attempt to interject yourself into everything without having anything of substance to add.

The only one making themselves look repeatedly foolish is you. No amount of you jumping in and pretending you look like an intellectual judge is going to change that fact so you’d be best to stop.

Push you could be a lot better contributor if you weren’t so juvenile and had to resort to all your personal attacks, Harold, this that and whatever. I’ve only got one person on ignore and that is because I didn’t think that person EVER created valuable discussion. You can when you want to. It’s just most of the time you’d rather troll. It’s a shame someone who has lived long and has some wisdom chooses to ignore those aspects of himself and be immature.

I’m just tired of telling you this and so is most of the rest of the forum. I just don’t want to have to add someone else to ignore, because unlike C-dog I do think you can provide value when you aren’t so wrapped up in trying to show everyone how cool you think you are. We already have one older troll on this board, we really don’t need to add to that number.

I don’t really expect you to take this advice because you haven’t yet and you didn’t take it when everyone called you out in your other thread. I guess I will hope to be proved wrong and if not I will hopefully have added my last person onto ignore.

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]
I think standing back is immoral. I think not working to make changes is immoral. I’ve already done more in this year than I did in the previous year to make positive changes in my community which needs a lot of work.[/quote]

I tend to be quite suspicious about activism.
Because life taught me that the best is sometimes the ennemy of the good. And that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But you seem to focus on making “positive changes in your community”.
And in my book, this is way better (and a lot less suspect) than trying to change the world. Or your morally inferior neighbors.

Activism on anything is much better than non activism. Good intentions and trying to do something good is infinitely better than the callous sitting around pointing the finger that most of society currently does. How many people do you honestly think on this forum or any other WORK to do anything about the stuff they bitch about? Probably a very small amount.

Good intentions can often go bad (see many laws with unintended consequences), but sitting around hoping problems will solve themselves is stupid and not useful.

I apologize for thinking you were doing something you did say something about trying to change people in a certain way. If you’re not doing something and you think these problems are so big why not? Isn’t some type of action much better than typing out the problems you think we have on an internet forum?

I do wholeheartedly think it is immoral (worthless may be a better word than immoral) to talk about problems 24/7 and just talk about them. How is it moral to acknowledge problems and do nothing about them? Admittedly one person cannot do it all, but I’ve always viewed doing SOMETHING as better than doing nothing. We’ve had tons of issues in the past solved by humans. This was the result of human action, not of waiting around for someone else to solve something.

[quote]
Good intentions can often go bad (see many laws with unintended consequences), but sitting around hoping problems will solve themselves is stupid and not useful.[/quote]

(almost) no one is only “sitting around hoping problems will solve themselves”.
We all have busy life. We work, we produce, we consume, we communicate, we exchange, we socialize. We could start by “doing it right”, before trying to try to “solve” global problems.

[quote]
I apologize for thinking you were doing something you did say something about trying to change people in a certain way. If you’re not doing something and you think these problems are so big why not? Isn’t some type of action much better than typing out the problems you think we have on an internet forum?[/quote]

Well, typing out the problems i think we have on an internet forum is already some type of action.

Thinking, speaking and acting are not opposed. They work together. Or not at all.

[quote]kamui wrote:

I disagree. I think much of our population is doing just that. Or at least merely talking about them instead of trying to do anything about them.

In fact, this is where I’d say we might be losing the moral battle. We may be so comfortable on the whole, that one day we stop caring about those less fortunate. We haven’t done that yet though. And we weren’t better in the past either.

You mentioned watching the Kardashians. Do you honestly think posting on T-Nation is more helpful than watching that show? Because I don’t. Not when it comes to solving things. I post on here because I enjoy it. I do stuff in the real world because I think it will help. No amount of bitching about Obama, or Christie, or Democrats or Republicans is helping out the environment that you care about or the people in slums. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I don’t view posting on here as being more active than the mom who comes home and watches reality TV for 3 hours.

In fact…it’s doing the exact opposite of helping what you say matters to you. Which is ok, clearly I’m not doing shit right now about it either. I’m not going to sit around though and act like posting in PWI is contributing a valuable thing for our present and future. It is not in the least bit.

In fact, the only way I could see one arguing that it is valuable is if someone’s post convinces someone ELSE to do something about a problem. And honestly I’ve posted on a lot of message boards in my life and I don’t think it happens that much at all. Though I have been a part of some that have.

I helped a guy organize a fund raiser on an online strength and conditioning forum where we got this guy a bunch of protein and money for the school he taught at that was poor and needed help for their athletics program. This was something positive. Most of what we do on here? Pretty much a time filler, no better or worse than keeping up with those fucking Kardashians :slight_smile:

Man you guys are moving this thread along at whiplash speeds…

Controversial thread title posted, op vanishes?

[quote]
I disagree. I think much of our population is doing just that. Or at least merely talking about them instead of trying to do anything about them.

In fact, this is where I’d say we might be losing the moral battle. We may be so comfortable on the whole, that one day we stop caring about those less fortunate. We haven’t done that yet though. And we weren’t better in the past either.[/quote]

“caring about those less fortunate” is included in what i call “doing it right”.

[quote]
You mentioned watching the Kardashians. Do you honestly think posting on T-Nation is more helpful than watching that show? Because I don’t.[/quote]

Well, it depends.
I’m sure you can make you brain explode in both cases.
But i’m sure you can gain some interesting anthropological insight in both case, too.

I don’t know. I never bitched about Obama, or Christie, or Democrats or Republicans.
Actually, i’m afraid i never bitch about their french equivalents either.

[quote]
I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I don’t view posting on here as being more active than the mom who comes home and watches reality TV for 3 hours.[/quote]

Posting on here, you may read or express a few interesting ideas.
Maybe you’ll learn something. maybe you’ll teach something.
That’s not much. That’s not guaranteed. But that’s not nothing.

The mom who comes home and watches reality TV for 3 hours will produce some fat and some CO2, and nothing else. Which is a part of the “big problems” we were speaking about.