Gun ownership is a privelidge not a right in exactly the same way that owning a motor vehicle is a privelidge. It may be protected in the US constitution but that, in no way, makes it a human right. Most countries recognise it as something which requires considerable controls.
The argument that weapons ownership could ever be classed as a basic right is seriously flawed otherwise the argument for private ownership of weapons of mass destruction could be made. An individual's rights end at the next person's freedoms.
Firstly we will need to reduce the Earth's mass. Clearly these visiting giants have evolved in a planetary environment which suffers a lower gravitational coefficient than ours and will not be wanting to come to some place for their holidays which drags you down.
Mass creates gravity so we will have to start scouring out the heavy metals at the Earth's core to make it easier for these guys to stand up and walk around.
Also it is highly likely that we will need to reduce the density of our atmosphere. Their system with lower gravity would maintain a lower density (and possibly, entirely differently comprised) gas cloud surrounding the lithosphere.
Anyone who fancies breathing in a slight increase in the Earth's levels of atmospheric methane, raise your right hand....
I am historically a linear (logical) thinker as it is mostly required in my job though I was lucky to recognise this after reading Edward De Bono's book "I am right, you are wrong". Beyond that point I was more aware about developing my lateral (divergent) thought processes and capability and now am pretty good at both approaches depending on the requirements of the situation.
There are not many books on the market about styles of thought and critical thinking but it is worth reading some if you can find them.
I believe men are more romantic on average and the reason is this.
Like many things, romance is a learned skill. Men who wish to make the best impression on their choice of women feel a need to practice romance as a mechanism for winning their affection.
In most cultures it is deemed to be the man who is required to 'chase' the woman and as such they become more practiced in the art of romance. Most women seldom feel a requirement to romance a man into her bed... she normally only need ask.
The up-side for men is more nebulous but no less real.
As a by-product of becoming practiced at romance, men become a little more inrospective with respect to their own emotional connectivity and perhaps come to understand the structures of attraction and the nature of romantic bonding often without even realising it.
And before you know it - you are addicted to falling in love.
How about temporary marriage? I think there is a lot of scope for that in modern society. Say a 7 year or 10 year fixed term. At the end of the term the parties can, as far as possible without obligation, decide if they would like a second term.
I think some people would be more likely to go the marriage route if it were not necessarily 'till death us do part'.
Apparently, this had been catered for in the past under Islam in certain circumstances during times of war.
However, analysis of the lyrics indicates that they were singing about a guy who was trying to convince himself of a new paradigm.
History repeats all too regularly. Take a look at what is happening in Europe right now and tell me there are not parallels with the socaio-political scene of the 1930's.
Or on a more personal level...
I failed to get lucky last weekend and history is set to repeat itself again this weekend.
Yeah mostly the 90's was a wasteland after the extraordinary quality of songwriting unearthed in the first half of the eighties but if I must choose...my vote also goes to Pearl Jam.
Eddie Vedder was a genius both vocally and as a songwriter. And 'Jeremy' is still one of the few songs that I know all the lyrics for and could happily sing a capella, anytime, anywhere despite its very dark undercurrent.
The God central to four of the five of the world's major monotheistc religions is an improvable human construct. Debating His existence is as futile as the proverbial 'fighting for peace' because for those who already believe in His existence, He is real. For those who do not believe in His existence or are uncertain, His existence cannot be proven imperically and therfore illogical.
People are confused about the fact that religions are belief systems (as opposed to facts). By nature they are factless, improvable and frequently irrational and require faith for the followers to believe. This is fundamental for any relgion to gain traction. If any part of the pretext can be supported or disproved by evidence the it will cease to become part of a religion and become part of science/history.
A rather compelling logic which precludes the existence of an all-powerful deity is that mankind has frequently been beset by disasters. Plagues, pestilence, wars and various natural disasters which we often ascribe as 'acts of God' have had very desctructive affects on large sections of global human populations. If God were all-powefrul and benevolent then he would be both capable and inclined to prevent such catastrophes from wreaking havoc on his 'favourite' species.
Consider the hundreds of thousands of young children who die from starvation or malnutrition in the least affluent parts of the planet every decade. One can very easily assert the few of these innocents deserved to die. If He existed and were a kindly God he would prevent such atrocity.
He doesn't therfore we can only conclude that if He exists, He is either unable or unwilling to help those most in need and thus is either impotent or evil.
Yes. I have had relationships with girls less than half my age and for the most part they are great if you don't carry too much expectation into it. On the other hand some younger women do have aspirations for a longer-term connection and if they are psychologically mature I see no issues with making it work if both parties have a will to make it so.
Many younger women like the confidence, maturity and experience that an older man can bring into a relationship. It really pays to stay fit though....
It is my understanding that once caught up with, Good old Imelda had upward of 2 million pairs of shoes... Ferdy was capable of a very large load of old cobblers!
To answer the OPs original question:
No! My doctor should not look healthy. When I am so sick as to need to go to see a quack, what I need, almost more than treatment, is... EMPATHY!
I'm afraid I have to agree with Miss JK. Suggesting that people are 'made' lazy by welfare sytems is analogous with suggesting that gay people can be 'cured'. Probably something you subscribe to also I suspect, Galrads.
People may perhaps be born lazier than average but there is no imperical evidence to suggest that people become more or less lazy throughout their lives due to external factors.
To believe in such is emotive and irrational nonsense.
I agree with Jac. Stillofthenight has always sounded a voice of reason often when others were losing their heads around them and, dare I say it, consistently posted sanity with dollops of EQ when few others were seemingly able to. I had no idea he was afflicted this way (presumably there was no way I could have known) but it just goes to show that you cannot assume anything about people and should never try.
That would depend on how old you consider the commandments to be. The bible itself does not place them very many generations old and there are plenty of other social codes of conduct which were in force at the same time or earlier than this theoretically.
Social legislation was introduced by the anchient Egyptians, the Sumarians, the Babylonians, the Athenians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Romans...the list goes on.
One valid measure of a society (though not the only one) is how it treats its most vulnerable members. Is it inclusive and nurturing for those less fortunate or exclusive and uncaring?
I see how the issue of 'welfare' is treated very differntly by peoples of different nations around the world. Some places it works well, others less so. Of course for many third-world and developing nations welfare as a concept is a seemingly unachievable objective.
I think this thread has highlighted a trans-Atlantic divide with respect to this topic.
In its history the US has seldom required a high-level or particularly functioning welfare system as other nations have as it has, since its conception, been a well-resourced society where the majority of its constituents felt as if they could achieve 'the dream of prosperity' even if it was actually beyond them in reality. It certainly has, for the vast part of the last hundred years, been a wealthy nation and the last three-odd generations of Americans (even the poor ones) have benefitted from that compared with peoples from many other places.
There is a school of thought that the tangible prosperity generated over that period has engendered a notion of entitlement among the latest generation of Americans which is both undeserved and unsustainable in the new global economic reality.
I think many nations feels this about their young people to some degree but it is possibly most notable in the most affluent territories like the US. However, things are changing fast and pretty soon, as the American currency falters and the internal economy continues to slide a change in outlook will be required if resonable standards of living are to be maintained for the average Amercian citizen.
To answer the posters original question: Welfare does not promote laziness; attitudes do.
You are, of course, correct ladies. I'm most certainly not local. I am broadly Western in origin and hopefully my English language ability is, if nothing else, something of a giveaway.
Religiously, I waver between Athesism and Pantheism though to descibe myself as mercurial on this point is something of an understatement. I have ongoing deep debates with my boss and my technical manager (both are Muslim, though neither local) regarding the validity of Islam and religion in general.
It gets more complex. My boss's daughter is also staunchly Muslim and despite being London born and an honours student appears to be not bright enough not to actively descriminate against me based on my beliefs (or lack thereof). I know she likes me (she writes my love notes and tells me I'm hot!) yet at the same time convinces herself she needs to find a Muslim boy. Her father says that I need to convince the family that I'm a good Christian as Muslims are allowed to marry Christians because they are 'Of the book' and he wants to lend me an English version of the Quran. I'd like to read it out of a interest in theology but suspect I'm likely to become more atheistic rather than less after devouring the propogander.
The big problem is....she is super smart and super hot. A lethal combination, I think you'll agree. Shame she feels she needs a 1500 year old text to tell her how to live and worse, expects me to also.
Did I mention how much I love bacon?
With respect to the locals, I can tell you that Sharia law here is the law. There is nothing else and the locals would have it no other way. To them, the religion and the law are the same thing and being staunch followers of their faith they have a high rate of adherence and hence, a low crime rate.
Of course, this is not a democracy. It is a constitutional monarchy ruled absolutely by a herditary monarch (Emir) as an emirate. There seems to be little apetite for democracy here. While the native population have considerable income derived from the vast wealth that the oil and gas industry generates there will be few drivers for change. The locals don't need to work and the imported labour (whose number I count among) are subject to varying levels of discrimination and subjugation.
Alas, me and success seldom seem to coexist in the same sentence these days but she does seem very nice doesn't she?
It is a shame that, as usual, the good ones are so far away. The miniscule number ladies listed in my location never write back.
Note to others: If you are single and want to find a partner, don't come to Qatar. Freemixing (dating) is technically illegal here but the general air of sociatal pressure for women not to associate with men means that women here are very shy to even engage a man in conversation.
All religions are simply organised superstition. They are belief systems not facts thus arguing about things which are impossible to prove is about as logical as the famous 'fighting for peace'.
Science is the enemy of religion which is why in the Westernised, secular cultures of Scandinavia and Australasia the rates of belief in, and adherence to, organised religious doctrine are much lower than in many other parts of the world. Over the next century, as we see more of the Westernisation and education of the previously unchanged, traditional societies of Asia, Africa and even the Middle-East there will be a similarly increasing trend towards atheism.
I can observe evidence for the begginings of this outside my door right now even in this, a previously hard-core location.
I'm pleased to have finally found some common ground with Conrad.
I'm amazed that thinking people cannot see the flaws in the logic of the Christian argument for the existence of God.
1. What kind of free will does this God offer when, if you don't follow His doctrine, eternal damnation is the result? Answer - no freedom at all.
2. What kind of bloody awful God rules through fear and guilt? Answer - not one I want to associate with.
3. What kind of God fails to protect the innocent and vulnerable who die in their thousands daily or wallow in endless misery? Answer - either one who is helpless or unwilling to assist in which case he is either impotent or ambivalent and evil.
4. What kind of God labels my new born daughters as sinners? Answer - One which does not exist. For they are not.
Was there what! You should have been there Abagail. I know you're a music freak - you would have been totally in your element. You would have worn those long dresses that were popular in the early '80s and would have been the most popular girl in town!
Rubicon76 Forum Posts (308)
RE: It`s every Americans right to bear arms. Do you think this law should be repealed or not?.
Gun ownership is a privelidge not a right in exactly the same way that owning a motor vehicle is a privelidge. It may be protected in the US constitution but that, in no way, makes it a human right. Most countries recognise it as something which requires considerable controls.The argument that weapons ownership could ever be classed as a basic right is seriously flawed otherwise the argument for private ownership of weapons of mass destruction could be made. An individual's rights end at the next person's freedoms.