JOhnWaters

Jesus, what's a god damn veterinarian from Afghanistan doing in Arizona?

please. muslim culture is 95% religion, being generous. That is a culture completely centered on religion, which is the problem. So yes, the problem is muslim culture, but that culture is dominated by religion. To try to separate the two is ridiculous. the problem is that people are too multiculturalist and racist to be objective and say "hey, this culture, dominated by their religion, is evil and harmful, and needs to be spoken out against."this is not an isolated incident.and for what its worth christian culture needs to go as well, though they havent been as bad lets be honest.

some people would say that... like stalin, mao, hitler

this is the most on point and valuable thing anyone will read on this forum

all of you should start spamming flag.whitehouse.gov. send them videos and shit, huge documents and files attached to the email that are related to health care so it cant be considered spam.

first of all i wasnt trying to argue determinism, i was trying to preempt a determinism response, but that might have made it unclear. nope. here is your problem, it is a linguistical, conceptual one: you are applying the word self to any organism, and then self interest. to have a self you must be self aware, by the definition of self. you still dont get this. i mean, what the hell definition of self are you going on? from wikipedia: The self is the individual person, from his or her own perspectivealso: ...referring to the cognitive representation of one's identitythat seems pretty good to

double post

we have a word for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics even if the world is deterministic, and everything in my brain is physical cause and effect as recent and future neuroscience evidence may suggest, the 'illusion' of free will is one we cannot escape. it is still our existing consciousness and outside of physics. thus if he exercises (even illusionary) free will to be conscious, think, act, and post here he proves what i said. a 'self' is outside of physics, even if illusionary. to say there is no essential difference between us and the rest of the physical world is wrong, to sa

put that aside for a second. about self interest:if i have a car motor, is it acting in self interest when running the car? by working properly, and running, it is prolonging its existence and not being scrapped in a junk yard. so is it acting in self interest? or is it just acting in how it was intended?are you going to apply the word self and interest to machines like you have to simple biological machines? both 'self' and 'interest' presuppose consciousness, if you dont get that i dont know what to say.you cannot be interested in that which you are not conscious of. you cannot be interested

by replying here you just did

youre right but i guess i just have an issue with people applying the word self to things which do not have selfs. if something does not have a self it cannot act in self interest, even if that is what it seems to be doing automatically. my point is more than semantics though:we are more than complicated biomachines, and we do have something outside of the boundaries of physics, though its not a soul in the religious sense. i would call it a "self"

religious morals are not objective at all, they are intrinsic. aristotles morals are logically deduced from reality. and i still dont think you understand that morals are something which people have to choose to follow or not follow. there is no invisible force of morality controlling us, as you seem to be implying, thats mysticism. morals are a code of conduct if you will. you seem to be talking more about some kind of biological hardwiring.

genes and cells do NOT express self interest. their actions actions are automatic. thats like saying that a machine expresses self interest. things which do not have selfs, because they are not conscious of a self, cannot have self interest. you are perverting the concept of self; it does not just apply to any physical existence, it applies to consciousness. a dead person has no self.i dont know what you mean by organisms because it could mean any living thing on earth including us. some of them can have self interest, some of them cant. yes, communities can have interest, but by definition it

it is in humans self interest to be social, to a degree. but you misunderstand what ethics and morality are. they are the study of how things should be, not how they are.

of course not. just saying that its immoral to do so. your actions are not automatic, thus they are not automatically right. you can perform wrong actions. ethics arnt a deterministic code that all people are bound too, they dont explain how things are, they explain how things should be. (aristotle said all that. i agree though. his ethics that i outlined above are basically indisputable).