Who's the bigger offender: Conservatives or Liberals?

I don't know where you get that. No, I don't trust human nature.Your problem is that you trust the right wing propaganda, and you are unable to tell when they are lying to you.

Yeah, those Dems, they're the ones against abortion choice and against equal rights for lgbt people, poor people, black people, and brown people. Gun control, you got us there.Your bullshit is getting really disgusting.

Tanypteryx replied to this message saying, "Your bullshit is getting really disgusting." I understand this reaction, particularly the bullshit part, but I'm less disgusted than stunned at your confused and contradictory thinking and at your right wing bias.--Percy

One of my favorite lines from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is when they come under attack (two nuclear missiles fired at them) and Eddie the Shipboard Computer is off-line trying to solve a higher-priority problem (why the ape (Arthur Dent, Homo sapiens sapiens) would ever want to drink dry leaves boiled in water, AKA tea). They have to take control of their starship and fly it manually, but a quick poll reveals that nobody knows how (Arthur Dent adds, "I don't know either." "We already knew that!"). So, nobody having a clue how to do it, the conclusion is: "Right! We do it together!"But why do you think that it must be a matter of any one person or small group being in control? This is supposed to be a representative government in which everybody works together for the common good. Who's in control should not even be the question, since the system is supposed to be that everybody is in control.IOW, "We do it together!" Because that is the American Way!The Democrats want to be able to work with Republicans in a bi-partisan manner in running the country for the benefit of all citizens. But the Republicans have devolved into autocrats who want to seize control at any cost and who would rather destroy everything than to work with Democrats on anything, just so long as they win.Not only has the modern GOP (and now the GQP) repeatedly vowed to block all Democratic legislature and obstruct the ability of the government under a Democratic president to get anything accomplished (just as they did with Obama and just as McConnell vowed to do with Biden before negative public reaction caused him to go through the motions of back-pedaling), but they have also sabotaged all efforts by the Democrats to work with them in any bi-partisan manner.For example, one of their criticisms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it is not a single-payer system like Medicare. Well, the Democrats tried to make it a single-payer system but met too much opposition to that provision (mainly from Republicans, as I seem to recall), so they had to go another way.That means that the Republicans had sabotaged the ACA so that they could later complain about it. Kind of like how they have worked so hard to sabotage our vaccination efforts just to oppose Biden's efforts to save lives (they are the proverbial scorpions on the frogs' backs; it's in their nature to sting even if it kills them too). So now they have their "gotcha" moment of Biden missing his vaccination goal by a few percentage point even though he was not the cause of missing that goal, but rather they were. Just as they are now fueling a resurgence of the virus just so they can complain about the public health measures that must be imposed even though they are the ones responsible for the situation. Scorpions.Another tactic is that they will go through the motions of bi-partisan negotiations, but then vote against the bill anyway. Not only were they able to slow down legislature, but they were able to "compromise" the Democrats down on what the bill would do, thus giving themselves something to use in complaining about Democrats' failures.One cited example was Obama's efforts at economic recovery in the wake of the 2008 housing market crash. If we had thrown much more money at the problem, we would have recovered in much less time, but Republicans had "negotiated" that amount down to a bare minimum required and then voted against it anyway! Scorpions.Basically, Democrats are sick and tired of that Republican tactic. We know what needs to be done. If Republicans also want that to be done, then fine and good. But if they insist on reverting to their scorpion nature, then forget them!So now today we have an infrastructure bill that Republicans have worked to "negotiate" that down (there is a quasi-racial epithet that applies and which I refuse to use). Wanna bet that the Republicans end up voting against it? That would after all be within their scorpion nature. 

Wow! Your wrong-wing handlers have you completely turned around!The Repugnants are the ones who are the "morality cops and control police" who want to completely control our lives. Again according to DARF, they Attack the opposition by projecting their own evil ways and deeds upon their opponents. (ironically, "darf" is the first and third person singular present indicative conjugation of the German modal verb, dürfen, "to be allowed to" as in „Mutti, darf ich?" ("Mother, may I?"))Despite Republicans' traditional cries for smaller government, they have always, even long before this aberrant GQP strain, strived to expand government in order to exert their control over the intimate details of everybody's life.For example, anti-abortion measures that force a victim of rape or incest to carry to term her rapist's fetus. All while at the same time they promote "my body, my choice" as a "reason" for refusing to be vaccinated. Yet another example of wrong-wing hypocrisy (most "true Christians" I've encountered have no clue what Jesus' opinion of hypocrites was according to the Gospels; do you?). Democrats say that it's her choice, whereas Republicans want to prosecute her for murder if she has a miscarriage (which is rather common).Gay marriage and marital rights. Republicans oppose that while the only problem that Democrats see is depriving a gay partner of his/her rights. So who's the "morality cop" here? There is so very much to be covered here (I am definitely straight and have no functioning gay-dar since none of that could ever have any bearing on my daily life, but rather a conscientious objector due to my very bitter divorce a couple decades ago). Would you care to go a round or two on this one? I am very pro-family while the Republicans are most decidedly not.Religion in the public school classroom. Republicans want to impose their own religion on all public school students regardless of their own individual religious beliefs or backgrounds. Democrats say, "No! That is not right!"On that last (sorry, Navy-speak), while it was a Unitarian who in the early 1800's started public education, the Protestant Christians very quickly took over the system and turned to using Protestant Christianity as a source of instruction. But then in the second half of the 19th Century we saw a large number of Catholic immigrants, mainly Irish, bringing their children into that Protestant-tinged/contaminated public education system. Since Catholic children were being instructed in the Protestant Bible (different from the Catholic Bible ... albeit differing in mostly minor ways, but much smaller minor differences have in the past had led to mass exterminations), that was clearly the government mandating a particular religion over all others, including the students' own religions. At one point, a bishop or archbishop of Philadelphia asked for public schools to simply allow Catholic students to recite Catholic prayers instead of the government-mandated Protestant prayers. The result was a weekend of virulent anti-Catholic rioting in the streets which resulted in several deaths.A result of that was the necessary formation of the parochial school system. A system of schools for Catholics free from the Protestant indoctrination of the public school system. On other fronts Protestants pushed for laws and court decisions to prevent those parochial schools from drawing from public funding as the Protestant-driven public school system could. Ironically, it was those very same anti-Catholic laws and court decisions that recently block private "Christian" schools from those very same resources. Hoisted on their own petard. 
So, the Democrats are on the side of individual freedoms. The Republicans are on the side of their dictating everything you can and cannot do in your private life.Please remind me of which side is on the side of freedom.

It's official. The darkies are taking over.

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For the first time, the portion of White people dipped below 60 percent, slipping from 63.7 percent in 2010 to 57.8 percent in 2020. And the under-18 population is now majority people of color, at 52.7 percent.

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We are about to become a nation of minorities. Next year's election will be fun watching the scaremongers whip the Republicans into an immigration (racist) frenzy as the nazis alt-Reich crowd march into ethnic neighborhoods. Census data shows the number of White people in the U.S. fell.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Phat, you are simply a fool; an utter fool by choice and will.What was done with the fish at the beach?What was done with the leftovers?What was done with the bread?What was done with the leftovers?Who said that the proper course what to put aside surpluses to give to those who suffer during hard times?Who said that we need to build the storage facilities and to harvest and to store the surplus and to distribute it where needed?Who said that gleaning must be allowed?Read what is said consistently throughout the Bible.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin simple ---> simply

Don’t mention the Jubilee. Or what the Bible says about usury. It might make Phat’s head explode!

Phat is just a classic example of the Christian Cult of Ignorance, particularly when it comes to the subject of Christianity. Frankly he is both the prototypical Ugly American and Christianity at its worst.

From their last exchange in the topic, Discussion With An Adventist Pastor: Raphael and Phat Only (for now), I got the impression that Phat (and also Raphael to a lesser extent) values the Bible only as "proof" that Jesus existed and not for what it actually says. Nor even for what it claims that Jesus himself had said and taught. So then, basically, it's just yet another personality cult for Phat. Like the Death Cult of Trump wherein the followers adorn the image of Trump while ignoring what Trump actually says (and rightfully so).If the Bible is supposed to be such a great book filled with timeless wisdom and all that, then shouldn't its contents be at least as valuable and its purported authorship, or even more so. And supposedly being such a great book, why are "true Christians" (ie, biblical literalist and believers in its inerrancy) so primed are eagerly ready to throw it in the trash should its lack of divine authorship ever become apparent? (eg, "If even a single error can be found in the Bible then it's completely worthless and you should throw it in the dust bin!", which have personally been told by such Christians).This question has been around for centuries. As Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason:

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... I will show wherein the Bible differs from all other ancient writings with respect to the nature of the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity; and this is the more proper to be done, because the advocates of the Bible, in their answers to the former part of the Age of Reason, undertake to say, and they put some stress thereon, that the authenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of any other ancient book; as if our belief of the one could become any rule for our belief of the other.

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I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively challenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's Elements of Geometry;* and the reason is, because it is a book of self-evident demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and of everything relating to time, place, and circumstance. The matters contained in that book would have the same authority they now have, had they been written by any other person, or had the work been anonymous, or had the author never been known; for the identical certainty of who was the author, makes no part of our belief of the matters contained in the book. But it is quite otherwise with respect to the books ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, etc.; those are books of testimony, and they testify of things naturally incredible; and therefore, the whole of our belief as to the authenticity of those books rests, in the first place, upon the certainty that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; secondly upon the credit we give to their testimony. We may believe the first, that is, we may believe the certainty of the authorship, and yet not the testimony; in the same manner that we may believe that a certain person gave evidence upon a case and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. But if it should be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the authority and authenticity of those books is gone at once; for there can be no such thing as forged or invented testimony; neither can there be anonymous testimony, more especially as to things naturally incredible, such as that of talking with God face to face, or that of the sun and moon standing still at the command of a man. The greatest part of the other ancient books are works of genius; of which kind are those ascribed to Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Demosthenes, to Cicero, etc. Here, again, the author is not essential in the credit we give to any of those works, for, as works of genius, they would have the same merit they have now, were they anonymous. Nobody believes the Trojan story, as related by Homer, to be true- for it is the poet only that is admired, and the merit of the poet will remain, though the story be fabulous. But if we disbelieve the matters related by the Bible authors, (Moses for instance), as we disbelieve the things related by Homer, there remains nothing of Moses in our estimation, but an impostor. As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no farther; for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man and a blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. We must also believe the miracle cited by Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do not believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to establish our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief to natural and probable things; and therefore the advocates for the Bible have no claim to our belief of the Bible, because that we believe things stated in other ancient writings; since we believe the things stated in these writings no further than they are probable and credible, or because they are self-evident, like Euclid; or admire them because they are elegant, like Homer; or approve of them because they are sedate, like Plato or judicious, like Aristotle.

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*Euclid, according to chronological history, lived three hundred years before Christ, and about one hundred before Archimedes; he was of the city of Alexandria, in Egypt.

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If a book has something of value to say, then its contents must be able to stand on their own, as with Euclid's Elements, even if it turns out to have been written by somebody else. The alternative is a book whose contents have no value outside of who was supposed to have written it.The former can truly be a great book (eg, Euclid), but not the latter (eg, the Bible). No wonder Phat does not value the Bible's contents, but rather values it for the wrong reason.

This encapsulates the whole Source versus Content argument that jar and ringo keep trying to get me to accept. Atheists and secular humanists by and large believe that there is no source apart from humanity itself and that anything we write, adopt, and follow comes from within us. I disagree with this conclusion.I wouldnt go so far as to say that the Bible is worthless were Jesus no more than a myth but quite frankly I believe that if Jesus never existed, nothing would exist and no life would even be. The bottom line is that humans need God. They need a source of love, wisdom, and truth higher than what we collectively conceive and believe internally.When I rant and go off on issues of selfishness, entitlement, and possessiveness, I am simply showing my base human nature. Perhaps it is not the best witness.You can make academic cases for humanism being the default reality, but I don't believe it. I won't (and cant) argue otherwise nor defend my defense of Source over Content.

Each of us have plenty of external sources of love, wisdom, the highest known truth and so much more. We have each other. No gods required.

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This encapsulates the whole Source versus Content argument that jar and ringo keep trying to get me to accept. Atheists and secular humanists by and large believe that there is no source apart from humanity itself and that anything we write, adopt, and follow comes from within us. I disagree with this conclusion.

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I don’t think that is at all true. To me the main point is that you think that God is an idiot who says nothing worth listening to.
Jar and Ringo are just trying to get you to listen to the message.

Yep. And that's a good thing if saner minds prevail in leadership. The grand melting pot. Bring it. Sadly this will likely happen. If only they realized that they will not be treated as badly as they treated the ones soon to be in power. That's why the whole topic of reparations won't ever work. Vilifying "white" people is not the right approach. For one thing, it's impossible to calculate who owes who what....both locally and globally. I welcome sane and semi-conservative leadership. This whole BLM and "woke" nonsense is a liberal's wet dream...not anything sane or productive. . Exactly. All Matter. All have the same value. There should never be a scapegoat group of outliers anymore.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

How is it "vilifying" to ask people to pay their bills? Why don't we try to figure it out before we decide it's "impossible"? As far as the US is concerned, that's an oxymoron. Don't be an idiot.