Anti-fundie virus

[Darth Wong]

No amount of teaching can force someone to be logical. That does not change the fact that there is a rational path, and fundies are taught not to travel it.

No amount of teaching can force someone to be illogical. How many members here have said that they were raised in a fundie home, and chose to reject the teaching they were brought up with in favor of aethism?

Quite a few. It undoubtedly helped that they were exposed to other points of view before becoming too old. Why do you think so many fundies insist on home-schooling their kids?

[Darth Wong]

Blowing up a nightclub in Bali and then ranting that people should "convert to Islam" if they don't want to join the deceased doesn't count? The Crusades, Inquisitions, and Manifest Destiny don't count?

I was talking about harassment, not murder. There is a difference between a Jehovah's Witness coming to you door and bothering you with their nonsense, and a Jehovah's Witness tring to convert you at gunpoint. Those bombers used religion to justify their hatred. Anyone willing to kill another human being will justify it in one way or another.

And how do you know this hatred would still be there if not for the religion? Should we consider it sheer coincidence that members of certain religions have an historically greater tendency toward violence?

[David]

How do you measure his intelligence? He is clearly not rational if he belongs to a cult.



data_link said in his opening statement that all fundies were stupid. I assume that this means intelligence. I doubt anyone that is not intelligent can do graduate work in pharmacology, like my teacher has. I agree that his belief in this cult is irrational, but he is still intelligent. So how would this virus get rid of him?[/i]

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

A brilliant scientist has created an incredibly lethal virus that only attacks religious fundamentalists. This virus is 100% reliable, so there is no risk of anyone else being harmed. If the virus is released, it will result in the immediate death of all fundies.

The question before the house is: do you release the virus?

No. Insert "Jew" or "Gypsy" or "Catholic" for every instance of "religions fundamentalist" to see why this is just plain offensive.

PROS: Destroying all fundies will rid the Erath of the single largest source of stupidity and bigotry on the planet, improving quality of life for everyone that remains.

Not necessarily true. Get rid of the vocal idiots, you still leave the 90% of the planet's population that are idiots and hold no fundamentalist religious beliefs.

Without fundies to lead the crusade against nonconventional families, sexual preferences etc., legal recognition of hman rights will increase.

Science will increase by leaps and bounds now that it no longer has to defend itself politically.

No, not necessarily. Science will still have to justify itself to people who think that the money would be better spent increasing welfare benefits and think that you're going to take away the social security benefits of old people in order to fund the science.

The average intelligence of the human gene pool will increase.

No.

CONS: Releasing the virus would be an act of genocide and therefore immoral.

Yes.

So, do you release the virus?

P.S. Fundies are not encouraged to reply, as opinions derived from self-preservation instinct are inherently biased.

No, I would not release the virus. It doesn't really solve anything, and it creates many problems.

[Darth Wong]

How do you measure his intelligence? He is clearly not rational if he belongs to a cult.

data_link said in his opening statement that all fundies were stupid. I assume that this means intelligence. I doubt anyone that is not intelligent can do graduate work in pharmacology, like my teacher has. I agree that his belief in this cult is irrational, but he is still intelligent. So how would this virus get rid of him?

It's a thought experiment; obviously, no one is suggesting that there is some realistic, plausible method of identifying fundies through an automatic means. Besides, every fundie is guaranteed to be an idiot on the subject of his religion, even if he's capable of leading a double life and using his brain for other things.

[David]

Wrong. Work done to contradict creationist lies and propaganda is leeched away from potentially productive work. All of the work necessary to support evolution theory was done more than a century ago; the work being done now is merely political circus-acts, because the creationists have taken their fight to the fickle and ignorant court of public opinion.




In the late 19th century evolutionists still believed that because men ate more than women, that they were more intelligent, and that women could not possibly rise to a man's level of intelligence.

Again, it is an accepted truth of modern science that all human
energy is derived from the food, an is an exact equivalent of the
amount of food consumed and assimilated. The amount of food
assimilated by men exceeds the amount assimilated by women
by about twenty percent . . . It follows, with mathematical certainty,
that the amount of power[mental] evolved by men must exceed
that evolved by women. (Hardaker, 579)

[data_link]

How do you measure his intelligence? He is clearly not rational if he belongs to a cult.



data_link said in his opening statement that all fundies were stupid. I assume that this means intelligence. I doubt anyone that is not intelligent can do graduate work in pharmacology, like my teacher has. I agree that his belief in this cult is irrational, but he is still intelligent. So how would this virus get rid of him?[/i]

Is this what you are referring to

Destroying all fundies will rid the Erath of the single largest source of stupidity and bigotry on the planet, improving quality of life for everyone that remains

How is calling fundies the single largest source of of stupidity and bigotry, which is self-evident on the planet equivalent to saying that fundies are nessecarily stupid? Really David, your inability to read my posts is quite astounding.

[Darth Wong]

In the late 19th century evolutionists still believed that because men ate more than women, that they were more intelligent, and that women could not possibly rise to a man's level of intelligence.

Again, it is an accepted truth of modern science that all human
energy is derived from the food, an is an exact equivalent of the
amount of food consumed and assimilated. The amount of food
assimilated by men exceeds the amount assimilated by women
by about twenty percent . . . It follows, with mathematical certainty,
that the amount of power[mental] evolved by men must exceed
that evolved by women. (Hardaker, 579)

Ah, the moronic "deny validity of evolution because one person subscribed to it and was wrong about something in the past" argument. Are you a creationist? If so, then you'll have to do better than feeble logic fallacies if you want to defend it, or pretend that it is a viable alternative to evolution theory (thus defending the fundie idiots who think it should be taught in school as something other than the ridiculous superstition that it is).

[Coyote]

Data_Link, the ultimate regime of mass murder was an officially athiest state that condemned religion, jailed priests, and sent Jews to the Gulag. It was the Soviet Union, which killed upwards of 94 million people in the world in their attempt to bring their own wierd "statist religion" to the world. Their "religion" was Leninism/Stalinism-- but it was definitely not the "Invisble Man in the sky"

Extreme liberals don't want to kill me or put me in camps, but they do have their extremist sect that sees me-- a straight white male-- as personally responsible for every single thing that has gone wrong in the whole of human history. I am labaled an "oppressor" and a "sexist" simply because I exist, and there are radical women's groups that really do see all men as little more than walking rape machines.

God forbid they find out I own guns. Then I am also 100% compliant with every single murder that takes place in this country and according to many leftists, I wash my hands in their blood every day. How's that for libel?

Now tell me, how is this different from the Fundi who doesn't want to kill a gay, but is more than happy telling him he must not engage in sex and has to marry a woman in order to maintain societal facade?

I realize that the Fundies are probably more numerous, or more loud, or easier to find in a crowd. And yes, most Crusades and Inquisitions were done at the behest of religious intolerance. But discrimination is discrimination, and the only thing worse than right-wing tyranny is left-wing tyranny, for it successfully portrays itself as cuddly-wuddly and harmless.

[David]

For every Israeli that dies from Palestinian terrorism, 5 Palestinians die from Israeli soldiers. Your math is seriously deficient.




I'd like to know where you got that number.



A recent study by the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya provides an in-depth look at the fatalities on both sides of the current Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Based on thorough research using Palestinian and Israeli open sources, the study provides a breakdown of those killed by age, sex, and combatant status. The results lead to some surprising conclusions.

Combatants, Noncombatants, and Responsibility

Around 1600 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the “al-Aqsa Intifada”, compared to more than 600 Israelis. Numbers like these are used to create an image of lopsided slaughter, with Israel cast as the villain. But such numbers distort the true picture: They lump combatants in with noncombatants, suicide bombers with innocent civilians, and report Palestinian “collaborators” murdered by their own compatriots as if they had been killed by Israel.
More meaningful figures show that Israel is responsible for around 617 Palestinian noncombatant deaths, while Palestinians have killed more than 471 Israeli noncombatants. Over 54 percent of the Palestinians killed were actively involved in fighting – and this does not include stone-throwers or “unknowns”. And Palestinians are directly responsible for the deaths of at least 203 of their own number – one out of every eight Palestinians killed.
On the Israeli side, 80 percent of those killed have been noncombatants. While Israelis account for about 27 percent of the total “Intifada” fatalities, they represent over 43 percent of the noncombatant victims.

The statistics show that Israeli noncombatants over the last 23 months have been killed essentially at random, as Palestinian terrorists have chosen to attack whichever civilian targets were accessible. Palestinian fatalities, however, have been strongly concentrated within a particular population segment – teenaged boys and young men.

Population segments like women or older people are not military targets; thus their higher prevalence among Israeli fatalities is an indication of the degree to which Palestinian terrorists have killed Israelis simply for the “crime” of being Israeli.

In contrast, Palestinian noncombatant fatalities have been overwhelmingly young (but over the age of 11) and male. This pattern of Palestinian deaths completely contradicts accusations that Israel has “indiscriminately targeted women and children.” It is clear that the vast majority of the Palestinians killed did not die as the result of random Israeli attacks on inhabited areas, or on mixed-sex crowds at roadblocks and the like. There appears to be only one reasonable explanation of this pattern: that Palestinian men and boys engaged in behavior that brought them into conflict with Israeli armed forces. Certainly, at least after the first few days of the conflict, these Palestinian men and boys (or, in the case of the younger ones, their parents and teachers) have to have been aware that they were placing themselves in harm’s way.

In fact, the highly specific pattern of Palestinian noncombatant fatalities suggests that many of these deaths have resulted from an active Palestinian indoctrination campaign glorifying “martyrdom” – effectively encouraging boys and young men to confront Israeli forces and risk death even when there was no real likelihood of causing material harm to Israelis.

[Darth Wong]

For every Israeli that dies from Palestinian terrorism, 5 Palestinians die from Israeli soldiers. Your math is seriously deficient.
I'd like to know where you got that number.

OK, I pulled it from memory. Your source says 3 to 1 instead of 5 to 1; the point remains. And its attempt to blame the victim (even when it is a stone-throwing youth against a tank) is simply laughable. Perhaps you missed the UN report on human-rights violations in the occupied territories? Routine use of "summary justice?" The point remains that your attempt to claim Israeli moral superiority is a waste of time; I do not claim that the Palestinians are morally perfect; just that the American media's attempt to portray this as good vs evil is idiotic.

[data_link]

No. Insert "Jew" or "Gypsy" or "Catholic" for every instance of "religions fundamentalist" to see why this is just plain offensive.

So you are saying ALL Jews, Gypsys and Catholics are Fundies?

PROS: Destroying all fundies will rid the Erath of the single largest source of stupidity and bigotry on the planet, improving quality of life for everyone that remains.

Not necessarily true. Get rid of the vocal idiots, you still leave the 90% of the planet's population that are idiots and hold no fundamentalist religious beliefs.

If I wanted to get rid of all the idiots, I'd just nuke the whole planet. You still haven't shown that Fundies are not the largest refuge of stupidity on the planet, and you have admitted that they are the most likely to infect others.

Without fundies to lead the crusade against nonconventional families, sexual preferences etc., legal recognition of hman rights will increase.

Science will increase by leaps and bounds now that it no longer has to defend itself politically.

No, not necessarily. Science will still have to justify itself to people who think that the money would be better spent increasing welfare benefits and think that you're going to take away the social security benefits of old people in order to fund the science.

Science will not have to justify its existence, nor such things as the scientific method, nor the self-evident fact that logic and observation should overrule anything derived from some idiotic 2000 y.o. BOOK. And in any case, you use a strawman being purported by fundies to show that fundies are not attacking science politically? Please.

The average intelligence of the human gene pool will increase.

No.

So you are arguing that an overwhelming selection pressure against the single largest concentration of an undesirable trait (stupidity) will not increase the avearge intelligence of those who remain? Perhaps you would also like to argue that there are no beneficial mutations, or that animals will only produce according to their kinds.

CONS: Releasing the virus would be an act of genocide and therefore immoral.

Yes.

So, do you release the virus?

P.S. Fundies are not encouraged to reply, as opinions derived from self-preservation instinct are inherently biased.

No, I would not release the virus. It doesn't really solve anything, and it creates many problems.

Read my post:

P.S. Fundies are not encouraged to reply, as opinions derived from self-preservation instinct are inherently biased.

Edit: typo fixed.

[Coyote]

... I think what Israel has done since they have existed in modern times is far more restrained than what their opponents have tried to do to them. They could have killed every Muslim in the Middle East if they wanted to. Not only have they shown that they are willing to co-exist with other non-Israelis, they have tollerated other, large nations bulling them into giving up their land and allowing terrorist attacks to go unpunished.

For every Israeli that dies from Palestinian terrorism, 5 Palestinians die from Israeli soldiers. Your math is seriously deficient.

I ask, did you contemplte the morality of a terrorist who shoots at people, then runs into a crowded school or nursery when it is time ot face punishment for his actions? Should terrorists of any stripe be allowed to run rampant, unpunished, throughout the world?

The Arab nations have said, repeatedly, that they intend to "push the Jews into the sea"-- to commit genocide. Sheikh Amin Nasrullah, after the Sbarro Pizzaeria bombing in Jerusalem, told his followers on TV not to mourn the victims, for "only pigs and monkeys have been killed". Those "pigs and monkeys" were elderly pensioners and teenageers as well as soldiers on leave. The Arabs have made it clear that Israel can win many wars, but the Arabs only have to win one time.

Is it moral for a person to use innocent lives as human shields? And to blame others for their deaths, when retribution comes? Or should Jews just lay down and wait patiently for the butchers to come slit their throats as soon as it is convenient?

Throughout all this war, death, and shit, I still know many individual Arabs and Israelis who want peace, and maintain friendships with "the others". They don't get interviewed because their stories are dull. Peace doesn't bleed, so it doesn't lead.

Remember people: the Media is not the benign giver of informationto the eager masses. They are a business, and their objective is to make money-- so they will show you all the blood, death and garbage it takes to pad their pockets and get a Pulitzer. Peace isn't titillating compred to blood in the streets.

[Frank Hipper]

When a person behaves in an extreme fashion in defense of their beliefs, that person exhibits "fundamentalist" behavior. If a person kills a trader in fur coats or a heathen from another relgion, the behavior is just as reprehensible, no matter the background. It`s the true believer that is the danger.

[David]

Your appeal to ridicule is not a rational argument. He is correct; more than a half-dozen states have outlawed anal sex.



It is illegal for them to marry in most states, and to have sex in many states. I'd call that criminalization. In some cases, jail terms of up to 15 years are mandated for their "crimes".



And yet how many times in recent years have you seen a homosexual drug before court and sentenced for his/her sexual preference? Or someone for having anal sex? There are thousands of ridiculous laws that have been put into effect over the years that are law only on paper. They have no force in our everyday life. Everytime there is any decision made about someone who is a homosexual it is plastered across the networks. The only laws right now that truely effect gays are laws that limit their ability to adopt and marry. if the majority of Americans felt this was okay then it would be legal.


Actually, if you look throughout history, fundies have historically opposed all of these things. And they would do so again if they gained enough power, since their Bible preaches against all of them. That's the whole point.

This all gets to the Democracy issue. Of course fundimentalists have opposed homosexuality and other issues like that. I hardly see how fundies oppose Democracy when they use it to do all that you say they have. People seem to think there is some type of huge fundie conspiracy running the whole show behind their backs. If that is so, why are gays even able to walk around without being picked up by government agents and killed? Why is anyone opposed to their beliefs able to survive? Fundies did control the government at one point, so why are we not the image of Farwell's vision of America? Because people decided they didn't want that. They decided to elect officials that would represent their ideas.


That's the whole point? My point is that I am not some brainwashed idiot that does whatever he is told and believes whatever he is taught, and neither are the other 300 million Americans in this country. Once upon a time every citizen of the United States was a Christian or at least claimed to be for appearence's sake, and this country was run accordingly. America's government, run by some supposed elite group of fundies, does dictate what the people of this country chooses to teach in its school, the people of this country do. The only way the the fundies would take control of this country is if the people want them to. This won't happen because the people don't want it to.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

OK, I pulled it from memory. Your source says 3 to 1 instead of 5 to 1; the point remains. And its attempt to blame the victim (even when it is a stone-throwing youth against a tank) is simply laughable. Perhaps you missed the UN report on human-rights violations in the occupied territories? Routine use of "summary justice?" The point remains that your attempt to claim Israeli moral superiority is a waste of time; I do not claim that the Palestinians are morally perfect; just that the American media's attempt to portray this as good vs evil is idiotic.

Just as a question, Mike.. This is the same UN which has Syria on the Security Council, and such countries as the Sudan in human rights councils, etc? I would not possibly call their reports unbiased in the least. Of course, I have to admit that it's entirely possible that no unbiased reporting on the Intifada exists.

(As a particular nit-pick, I cannot think of a particular instance where a tank engaged only stone-throwers with lethal ammunition. The usual situation is that interspersed among the stone throwers are guys with AKs or even older Enfields. Occasionally grenade launchers. They're usually dealt with by APCs and sometimes tanks; the Palestinians have even taken out a few Merkavas with mines in such situations, and have damaged APCs and inflicted casualties. It's hardly an entirely one-sided affair even against the refugee-camp mobs.)

I think David's particular point, though, was that the Israelis had the capability to use their nuclear weapons to devastate the Middle East (For example, a single nuclear device could breach the Aswan High Dam, which would kill on the order of 90% of Egypt's population in a single afternoon and literally wipe that nation off the map, and Israel has around 200. Another 5, along with 20-30 conventional strikes, could depopulate Saudi Arabia - It's all about water) and haven't tried to do so. OTOH, the Arab States have repeatedly attacked Israel with the stated goal of wiping the nation off the map. They've failed miserably, but it was a case of intent.

IMO, the situation is simply that you have a working parliamentary democracy in Israel - but one that is divided between many different views on Jewish society. There are Jews who are fully secular, they're simply Israelis. There are conservatives; and there are fanatical, hard-liners, including the settlers, as bad as their enemies in HAMAS and Hezbollah. And there are also the Druze, and the Bedouin Arabs, both of whom are treated essentially as equals, because they were willing to adapt to the Israeli State.

The Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, didn't, and the Muslim segment developed these radical groups in the extreme to press home the Palestinian agenda - Which is fundamentally flawed. The State of Jordan is 70% Palestinian, and should legitimately be the only Palestinian State (The plan to carve up the cis-Jordan was never fully effected; the second Palestinian State was subsumed into the Jordan, and they are one State. Really, the PLO could be considered a group of Jordanians fighting for liberation against an occupying force - Who have then gone on to claim that the part of the country occupied by Israel is an entirely new country). We don't need a second Palestine. The effort to create it is purely the effort to destroy Israel, and fund a corrupt system of extortion, terror, and murder on the part of the PLO, HAMAS, and Hezbollah.

Now, I think if this was an equitable settlement between nations, Jordan and Israel could carve up the West Bank to their satisfaction, and the Gaza Strip, perhaps could go to Egypt, or become independent in some fashion. But there are factors at work on both sides to prevent this, and in the center are this terrorists and criminals who must be wiped out before any solution can be effected, two State or three State.

[Darth Wong]

And yet how many times in recent years have you seen a homosexual drug before court and sentenced for his/her sexual preference? Or someone for having anal sex? There are thousands of ridiculous laws that have been put into effect over the years that are law only on paper. They have no force in our everyday life. Everytime there is any decision made about someone who is a homosexual it is plastered across the networks. The only laws right now that truely effect gays are laws that limit their ability to adopt and marry. if the majority of Americans felt this was okay then it would be legal.

Which means that the majority of Americans are bigots. Nothing to be proud of.

That's the whole point? My point is that I am not some brainwashed idiot that does whatever he is told and believes whatever he is taught, and neither are the other 300 million Americans in this country.

No, only 44% of them are (if we assume the Gallup poll on a 10,000-year-old Earth is representative of the national population). That's more than 100 million people, and I call that a problem.

Once upon a time every citizen of the United States was a Christian or at least claimed to be for appearence's sake, and this country was run accordingly.

Thomas Paine and quite a few others did not maintain such appearances, and behind the scenes, a great many others did not believe in such beliefs. The US is what it is because of people like Lincoln and Paine and Jefferson.

America's government, run by some supposed elite group of fundies, does dictate what the people of this country chooses to teach in its school, the people of this country do. The only way the the fundies would take control of this country is if the people want them to. This won't happen because the people don't want it to.

And you assume that this situation is not going to worsen, even if we shut up and quietly allow the fundies to do all the talking? No thanks; I would prefer to keep smacking them down.

[data_link]

And so you use the fact that they haven't succeeded in reestablishing their power bloc to justify their continuous attempts to establish a fundie power bloc? David, are you even listening to yourself?

Fundies want a democracy all right - a democracy where the only names on the ballot are Jerry Falwell and Kent Hovind.

BTW, I have not, in recent years, actually seen someone drug before court on rape charges either. Am I to conclude that rape laws have no effect on our everyday lives?

On the other hand, I have personally been present at a gay wedding, where the marriage was not legally recognised because the law doesn't allow gay marriage. I have personally witnessed people being beat up solely for being gay. I have personally met people who have been rejected by their families simply for believing in evolution - and I hear you, trying to tell me that "fundies aren't immoral, because they have had no EFFECT!!!"

David, do you realize that to get a law passed which is a blatant violation of the 14th amendment, that you have to infect the minds of the vast majority of the people in that state? For every law passed outlawing one of the things I have listed, thousands of minds have been infected with the garbage that allows them to perpetuate and act on their own bigotry. You can try to educate them, and most of them are still salvageable, but every good doctor knows that you don't just treat the symptoms when you can cure the disease. This isn't a disease that can be cured through logic or education - unlike most irrational beliefs, which can be changed with time and patience, fundamentalism carries with it an inherent fear of change - thus it is impossible to cure a fundie because he will never want to be cured. Yet, they are the strongest carriers of this disease called stupidity, and the disease can only be cured once the source is removed. This hypothetical virus is a means of doing that. The ONLY question is, does their right as people to live supercede humanity's right to be free of an intellectual plauge that it has suffered since the beginning of civillization?

[HemlockGrey]

While I may vehemently disagree with fundies, I would never seriously condone or execute a plan resulting in their deaths.

[Darth Wong]

(As a particular nit-pick, I cannot think of a particular instance where a tank engaged only stone-throwers with lethal ammunition.

The time a tank crew fired with their coax machine gun with no warning whatsoever into a crowd of shoppers doesn't count? Oh yeah, they didn't even have rocks; just bags of groceries. I guess you win.

The usual situation is that interspersed among the stone throwers are guys with AKs or even older Enfields. Occasionally grenade launchers. They're usually dealt with by APCs and sometimes tanks; the Palestinians have even taken out a few Merkavas with mines in such situations, and have damaged APCs and inflicted casualties. It's hardly an entirely one-sided affair even against the refugee-camp mobs.)

What part of my criticism of the simplistic "good vs evil" scenario did you not recognize? Whenever someone like me tries to point out that it is ridiculous to portray Israel = perfect and Palestine = pure evil, someone tends to assume that I must believe Palestine = perfect and Israel = pure evil. This black/white fallacy is tiresome.

I think David's particular point, though, was that the Israelis had the capability to use their nuclear weapons to devastate the Middle East (For example, a single nuclear device could breach the Aswan High Dam, which would kill on the order of 90% of Egypt's population in a single afternoon and literally wipe that nation off the map, and Israel has around 200. Another 5, along with 20-30 conventional strikes, could depopulate Saudi Arabia - It's all about water) and haven't tried to do so. OTOH, the Arab States have repeatedly attacked Israel with the stated goal of wiping the nation off the map. They've failed miserably, but it was a case of intent.

So? Israel has that capability on paper, but not in any realistic sense, because there would be severe penalties associated with such actions. Even the most reflexive Israeli-apologists would have trouble justifying genocide (well, they tried to justify it in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, but they would have a hard time with it on this scale).

IMO, the situation is simply that you have a working parliamentary democracy in Israel - but one that is divided between many different views on Jewish society. There are Jews who are fully secular, they're simply Israelis. There are conservatives; and there are fanatical, hard-liners, including the settlers, as bad as their enemies in HAMAS and Hezbollah. And there are also the Druze, and the Bedouin Arabs, both of whom are treated essentially as equals, because they were willing to adapt to the Israeli State.

Unless they're Arabs in the occupied territories, in which case they have no rights and they must watch as ethnic Jews in those same occupied territories do have rights. Minor (cough cough apartheid cough) exception to your rule?

We don't need a second Palestine. The effort to create it is purely the effort to destroy Israel, and fund a corrupt system of extortion, terror, and murder on the part of the PLO, HAMAS, and Hezbollah.

Israel wants to destroy Palestine or maintain it as a slave-state (we tell you when to move, where you can go, and even how much water you can drink). Palestine wants to destroy or enslave Israel. This is a dirty war in which the United States has taken one side and declared it "good" for some incomprehensible reason. I don't see anything you've presented which contradicts this.

Now, I think if this was an equitable settlement between nations, Jordan and Israel could carve up the West Bank to their satisfaction, and the Gaza Strip, perhaps could go to Egypt, or become independent in some fashion. But there are factors at work on both sides to prevent this, and in the center are this terrorists and criminals who must be wiped out before any solution can be effected, two State or three State.

Tell me, what kind of peace can you foresee in Israel? Let's suppose every terrorist is magically wiped out by an act of the voracious Divine Fuzzy. Now what? Do the Palestinians get everything they want? Of course not. They still can't get full access to the water in their own territory (the Israelis consider this their property and not subject to negotiation). They still won't have full freedom of movement in their own land (even under the most generous Israeli offer ever, they would control Palestinians' movements by slicing up Palestinian territory into pieces and setting up checkpoints). They still won't have control over their own borders (the Israelis won't cede that either). They won't have control over their own airspace (yet another immovable Israeli stipulation). They will be a slave-state, with no sovereignty.

In short, Israel's best offer is perpetual domination with no hope of real sovereignty. How can they demand the total elimination of all Palestinian terrorists as a pre-condition to grant this wondrous offer, when the offer is shit anyway?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And you assume that this situation is not going to worsen, even if we shut up and quietly allow the fundies to do all the talking? No thanks; I would prefer to keep smacking them down.

I think that societal mores are changing as we adapt to the sort of civilization which has evolved with the growth of industry, and they still are; indeed, they're changing with sufficient speed that a fair number of people are getting left behind, and that's a lot of the problem we're seeing now.

The USA had a higher concentration of fundamentalist belief, and industrialized somewhat behind Europe - it started off as a group of colonies after all - And the combination is what we see today, along with other factors which determine how the change evolves.

I don't think the situation could worsen, though, short of a Iranian style government coming to power. And that truly seems ludicrous, even in the USA. People may believe in Young Earth Creationism, but I doubt most of them consider the implications of that. Of course, that's a rather serious problem in and of it's self.

[Coyote]

To all of you who would wipe out the Fundamentalists:

In your argument to wipe out the Fundies, you claim the moral high ground. You state that the Fundies are responsible for intolerance, bigotry, Inquisitions and oppression. You state that as a Liberal non-Believer, you adhere to a system that has never partaken of such actions or condoned same. You claim that you have a right or duty to dislodge this Fundamentalist beast from within our society, so that others may have a better life, free of the moral challenges these (admittedly) bombastic assholes present us.

So in other words--

You have the right to hate and destroy, for your hate is perfect and therefore, sinless.

Is this the moral high ground? Have we heard this argument before?

Don't become the thing you refute most. If you use the Moral High Ground as a justification to hate and destroy, then you can truly take your place at the right hand of God and enjoy the fruits of wrath.

If we are not able to extend justice to everyone, then our principles mean nothing. They are written on air, and we are clones of CreationistAllTheWay.

[data_link]

To all of you who would wipe out the Fundamentalists:

In your argument to wipe out the Fundies, you claim the moral high ground. You state that the Fundies are responsible for intolerance, bigotry, Inquisitions and oppression. You state that as a Liberal non-Believer, you adhere to a system that has never partaken of such actions or condoned same. You claim that you have a right or duty to dislodge this Fundamentalist beast from within our society, so that others may have a better life, free of the moral challenges these (admittedly) bombastic assholes present us.

So in other words--

You have the right to hate and destroy, for your hate is perfect and therefore, sinless.

Is this the moral high ground? Have we heard this argument before?

Don't become the thing you refute most. If you use the Moral High Ground as a justification to hate and destroy, then you can truly take your place at the right hand of God and enjoy the fruits of wrath.

If we are not able to extend justice to everyone, then our principles mean nothing. They are written on air, and we are clones of CreationistAllTheWay.

Oh I love this, the way he twists my words back upon themselves until they resemble a pretzel. Well played Coyote.

However...
NOWHERE ARE WE CLAIMING THE MORAL HIGH GROUND! I even stated it in my opening post: Releasing the virus would be genocide and therefore immoral. The question is not is this moral, because we already know it is the single most immoral thing that man could possibly concieve of. The question is: knowing that it will help the surviving prtion of humanity, do we do it anyway?

[Darth Wong]

To all of you who would wipe out the Fundamentalists:

I think there's only a very small number of people who are saying that. I'm certainly not saying that.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The time a tank crew fired with their coax machine gun with no warning whatsoever into a crowd of shoppers doesn't count? Oh yeah, they didn't even have rocks; just bags of groceries. I guess you win.

A particular reference to the incident, if you'd be so kind?

What part of my criticism of the simplistic "good vs evil" scenario did you not recognize? Whenever someone like me tries to point out that it is ridiculous to portray Israel = perfect and Palestine = pure evil, someone tends to assume that I must believe Palestine = perfect and Israel = pure evil. This black/white fallacy is tiresome.

Nothing on earth is perfect, Mike. But at least Israel has a functional parliamentary democracy, and that makes them considerably better than their enemies. Not perfect, but considerably better. I know that you think the same way of the Palestinians as the Israelis. I'm just saying that, though neither of those peoples is ideal, the Israelis are by far the better.

Are all sins suddenly equal? That seems a very biblical concept, to be blunt. Yes, the Israelis can and do commit wrong, but the Palestinians regularly do worse in their homicide bombings, which are supported by their theoretically legitimate government, and to condemn both states equally for actions which are far different in severity is ludicrous.

So? Israel has that capability on paper, but not in any realistic sense, because there would be severe penalties associated with such actions. Even the most reflexive Israeli-apologists would have trouble justifying genocide (well, they tried to justify it in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, but they would have a hard time with it on this scale).

Well, I wasn't defending his argument, just interpeting it. You're right, they could never do that, not unless Israel was going down and they weren't going to exist the next day to suffer the consequences.

(Sabra and Shatila, for the record, were not genocide. They consisted of a few hundred murders carried out by Lebanese irregulars as part of a military operation in a Beirut suburb that was heavily fortified by PLO holdouts. The Israeli Left then seized on the event as a political propaganda tool to try and regain power - And the rest of the world followed suit and it got even more twisted.)

Unless they're Arabs in the occupied territories, in which case they have no rights and they must watch as ethnic Jews in those same occupied territories do have rights. Minor (cough cough apartheid cough) exception to your rule?

Well, King Hussein rejected the Allon Plan, so why don't they blame him, and his son for that matter? That would have placed the West Bank and Gaza under Jordanian control. Granted, notable portions of the West Bank would have become Israeli, but the main population centers would remain Palestinian - And they would have been attached to a State already 70% Palestinian, and with a military capable of backing up a defence of their rights, at least to some degree.

But King Hussein refused to accept it, despite the gain for his country involved. The Israelis wanted to get rid of the major Palestinian population centers; the Arabs refused to accept them. Why? Because then there'd have been no outlet for dissidents from the Arab world to go off and fight against The Jew rather than their own regimes. There's a third party here, just as guilty as HAMAS and Hezbollah IMO.

Israel wants to destroy Palestine or maintain it as a slave-state (we tell you when to move, where you can go, and even how much water you can drink). Palestine wants to destroy or enslave Israel. This is a dirty war in which the United States has taken one side and declared it "good" for some incomprehensible reason. I don't see anything you've presented which contradicts this.

Palestine already exists. It is called Jordan, or, if you wanted to get technical, Trans-Jordan Palestine. So what if it is ruled by a Hashemite King? Britain is ruled by a German Queen.

The Israelis don't want to destroy that Palestine, and in fact they wanted to give it back the major palestinian population centers of the cis-Jordan. King Hussein refused, because that would mean the end of the Arab Safety Valve. Now the Israelis are stuck with a problem: They need at least part of the West Bank and Gaza for security, and the rest is filled with people who hate them.

If they keep the part they need for security, the rest is not a viable State. However, no viable State will annex those regions - And the world has become obsessed with a two-State solution which is effectively ludicrous when a Palestine already exists.

Tell me, what kind of peace can you foresee in Israel? Let's suppose every terrorist is magically wiped out by an act of the voracious Divine Fuzzy. Now what? Do the Palestinians get everything they want? Of course not. They still can't get full access to the water in their own territory (the Israelis consider this their property and not subject to negotiation). They still won't have full freedom of movement in their own land (even under the most generous Israeli offer ever, they would control Palestinians' movements by slicing up Palestinian territory into pieces and setting up checkpoints). They still won't have control over their own borders (the Israelis won't cede that either). They won't have control over their own airspace (yet another immovable Israeli stipulation). They will be a slave-state, with no sovereignty.

In short, Israel's best offer is perpetual domination with no hope of real sovereignty. How can they demand the total elimination of all Palestinian terrorists as a pre-condition to grant this wondrous offer, when the offer is shit anyway?

It is, bluntly, the fault of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to begin with. By perpetuating the idea of the Two-State solution, and moving away from the renewed possibility of something similiar to the Allon Plan, which could have met the needs of most of the Palestinian populace, in addition to Israeli security needs, they were trying to further their own try agenda: The destruction of Israel.

They will never accomplish it; instead they have just enslaved their own people, you're right. Not just to the Israelis, but to themselves.

Perhaps, however, they will bring down such a wrath upon their own heads that the subsuming of "Palestine" into Trans-Jordan Palestine and Egypt will be possible, and thus a genuine and equitable solution for the region. But that will require major revisions in the local governments, and how the conflict is currently viewed. For the moment the status quo will surely prevail.