Political Science

[Raz]

Re: Political Science

I would like to jump in:
Raz, you use these forums to preach. Many of us do not like it. There are many times I wanted to tell you to go f' yourself. If you want to bring up your religion all the damn time, then please pick the rant and rave forum. Every damn time you contribute to a thread with your personal nonsensical beliefs, they should, per itulip, be sent to the abyss. I have held back many times because of this. You are always derailing threads. It is uncool.

I find your preaching and personal fantasies to be extremely offensive as well. Stop the proselytizing. They have other forums for that.

Aaron, I'd like to jump back in, specifically to your assertion that I "highjacked" this thread. Please take this hyperlink back to the original post; read it; denote the topic; then tell me just precisely how I took the thread completely off topic. http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...44002#poststop

You have every right to disagree with my views. You do not have the right to curse me, insult me and LIE about me.

"Stop the proselytizing". Why don't you stop the lying? I did not tell you or anyone else that "you need Jesus". I did not try to convince you or your friends to become Orthodox Christians. "Stop the proselytizing" to people like you apparently means that I have no right to my opinions on archaelogy, evolution, human embriology, abortion or anything other than the price of gold because you disagree with them or find them offensive. Well I find some of the opinions on this forum to be grossly, sickeningly offensive, but I don't demand that they be removed or insult and curse those who hold them.

Try the ignore setting if you don't want to read my posts. You're NOT the iTulip censor.

[Raz]

Re: Political Science

Read this again today and immediately thought of you, Raz. I must say, I admit to sometimes being put off by your POV too, but I've never been more put off than I was by how you were treated. It seems like a decidedly uncharacteristic moment here behind the iTulip paywall and I didn't like it at all. I don't recall seeing any rule or warning that the theistic viewpoint is not welcome here. FWIW, I think there's room enough here for theistic, atheistic, and pantheistic viewpoints informing our conversations. The way I see it, iTulip is "about" earning and keeping wealth and how to navigate the uncertain times ahead and it would be a poorer place if we have to tiptoe around some of the more contentious areas of debate. But I'm just a newbie 99%er, so what do I know?

Still, it makes me wonder when I will set off the tripwire and go BOOM. Me, I'm a wobbly agnostic that leans more towards the "perennial theology" so I doubt it will be god-talk that gets me tossed. But it's never been clearer to me that every community has its orthodoxy and woe to us who run afoul of it. And damn if I don't always do.

Between Heaven & Hell

Thank you, Woodsman. If I've ever offended you it wasn't my intention. And it isn't a requirement for my friendship that you or anyone else agree with me.
I have great respect for almost everyone on iTulip and have learned more from the members here - some of them agnostic/atheist - than I've ever been able to contribute.

My wife once told me that she didn't take too seriously the opinions of anyone under the age of thirty. I'm now in complete agreement with her.
It was for a very good reason that the Founders insisted that no one could be a Senator before attaining the age of thirty years - and thirty-five for the President.

[Prazak]

Re: Political Science

Thank you, Woodsman. If I've ever offended you it wasn't my intention. And it isn't a requirement for my friendship that you or anyone else agree with me.
I have great respect for almost everyone on iTulip and have learned more from the members here - some of them agnostic/atheist - than I've ever been able to contribute.

My wife once told me that she didn't take too seriously the opinions of anyone under the age of thirty. I'm now in complete agreement with her.
It was for a very good reason that the Founders insisted that no one could be a Senator before attaining the age of thirty years - and thirty-five for the President.

Right your wife is, Mr. Raz.

And echoing Woodman here. I may view the cosmos differently than you and come out in a different place on various human struggles. But I respect your point of view, and always take the time to read what you write. And I appreciate the charts you post here -- which is the heart of what this site about.

One of the best things about iTulip is that it provides a kind of DMZ where people of many different opinions can exchange viewpoints on subjects from soup to nuts. How many such places exist in this polarized culture, where we wall ourselves off into self-ratifying communities of opinion and values (and increasingly, facts)? Let's not let it devolve into yet another forum of intolerant people banging past each other at their respective dogma, or to become another bubble in which only one point of view is recognized as legitimate.

[DSpencer]

Re: Political Science

That a zygote is somehow objectively better than any of the other millions of cells I shed every day is the height of human conceit.

I agree with most of your comments in this thread, but this is a pretty nihilistic viewpoint. Surely if you value human life in general then there is a higher value in the cells that naturally turn into humans as opposed to those that fall onto the ground and turn to dust? Is there ever a point where the cells making up a living human are objectively better than those sloughed onto the ground?

Do you value you all the cells in your body equally? Would you be indifferent to losing the 2.5 million red blood cells in a half pint of blood vs 2.5 million cells in your optic nerves (which is roughly all of them)?

[reggie]

Re: Political Science

High level, but I think this is worth a view given the discussion in this thread....

[Raz]

Re: Political Science

Possible genetic link found for homosexuality:

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...genes-its-them

================

A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1887219

Science. 1991 Aug 30;253(5023):1034-7.
A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men.
LeVay S.
Source

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, CA 92186.
Abstract

The anterior hypothalamus of the brain participates in the regulation of male-typical sexual behavior. The volumes of four cell groups in this region [interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH) 1, 2, 3, and 4] were measured in postmortem tissue from three subject groups: women, men who were presumed to be heterosexual, and homosexual men. No differences were found between the groups in the volumes of INAH 1, 2, or 4. As has been reported previously, INAH 3 was more than twice as large in the heterosexual men as in the women. It was also, however, more than twice as large in the heterosexual men as in the homosexual men. This finding indicates that INAH is dimorphic with sexual orientation, at least in men, and suggests that sexual orientation has a biological substrate.

I wouldn't believe anything Dr. LeVay "discovered" about biological evidence for Homosexuality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_LeVay

ALSO: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/bulleti...r_rosario.html