in the shell

I know that this year one of my study groups is internet based and even though it is real time, with audio and video. Something is missing from those sessions. Yes I get imput from people I wouldn't normally come into contact with. ( that is a good thing ) Still there is a difference in that type o...

I don't know what you're whining about here. Increasing automation and the ability to communicate, do business, or get an education more easily over great distances can only be an improvement. Think of the time, money, and trouble saved with the examples you have provided. Think of all the people th...

Ah, there's a fine line for me. There is the kind of "weird and disturbing" that is just obnoxious to me- gross-out sorts of things, like storylines about demonic pregnancies, or all the projectile snot and vomit in The Exorcist; gross-out slathering, "butt-ugly" monsters wearin...

Your preferences are for most part irrelevent. Morality is not a matter of individuals, but whole societies and cultures. But morality certainly exists on the individual level as well. How else could there be debate or disagreement, and people who do things against the morals set by the people in s...

If you have been trying to convince me of a faith-based belief, then this whole debate has been pointless. If you believe in a higher, "ideal" level of things, which is impossible to sense or measure, or even imagine, then you are in the same boat with Bible-pushers. It's your opinion aga...

Explain to me this then: How is your morality any different from moral relativism, or the idea that morality is whatever a given culture or group makes of it? That if some radical cleric with a barbaric medieval mindset says it's not only acceptable, but our sacred moral duty to Allah to kill people...

I think that where douyang is going* is to the platonic belief that objective "things" exists independently of ourselves. Basically, it is not exactly religious, but still a belief. This is where I disagree with him. But since it is a belief, it would be pointless to try to prove/disprove...

Of course I decide that my own values are the right ones that everyone should follow, and that disregard for them or actively trying to undermine or harm them is wrong. And what would be arrogant about that? Well, for one thing, the people you use as examples of bad and evil believed exactly the sa...

One objective value would be the individual's right to speak their mind, regardless of whether his opinion is popular or not, without fear of violence or retaliation. Another would be the value of recognizing and protecting the rights and fredoms of women and minorities, by giving them the same righ...

Hardly so - at least I wouldn't interpret it as such. We all follow our own values, yourself included. You're just assuming that your own values should be universal and everybody acting against them is in the wrong. That, I think, is a somewhat arrogant point of view. I would point out that our val...

I can't even bring myself to finish Silent Hill 3, wuss that I am. I stopped right after the bathtub scene at Hilltop Center...I've seen videos of Silent Hill 2 and 1 though.

I have a real problem with Animae saying that the death penalty can be justified and virtuous simply because it is cheaper than keeping someone is prison or rehabilitating them. I understand why he would take such a position... as well as the logical consequences of his type of thinking, the conclus...

Then we're all f****d, aren't we?

It would explain a lot.

They exist because Catholic families want their children to go to Catholic schools. The children are typically already Catholic. Mum or dad sang "Away in a manger" as a lullaby to send them off to sleep when they were babies, and they were taught to say bedtime prayers for grandma, grandp...

Well I must say that I think that learning about religion -any religion, although the more kinds the better- is very important. It should be taught in school just like anything else that greatly affects the world and humans in general. It only affects loads of events in history... Nothing major or ...