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The point is that by buffering individuals and institutions from the consequences of irresponsible behaviour we both normalise and incentivise such behaviour. Financially buffering behaviour patterns that are as a result incentivised rapidly becomes ruinously expensive as all semi socialised...

Your point assumes that education to be effective must be public. Not so. Public education may well work but it is not the only way. There is of course a sense in which less political interference is a good thing. Indeed the whole nationalisation of the banks issue would not have arisen if...

Personally I would welcome such a decision from the Chinese. Asking our children grandchildren and great grandchildren to pick up the tab for our fecklessness and "gimme now" lifestyle is morally wrong. we ought to be attempting to live within our means - which are ample though not infinite -...

Your analysis does not really suit the Greek situation. A variety of interlocking pathologies have given rise to this: Widespread culturally accepted tax avoidance and evasion. Huge Black economy - which is a variant of problem one. Rampant public sectorism using public money by the sate to...

So my Greek friends do you A. Want pay your debts or B. Want to welsh on them. Amazingly the Greeks said they would rather welsh. Wonders will never cease to occur. Why on earth the peoples of Europe allowed their Governments lend them billions when there was no hope of them ever repaying is...

People like gambling. Gambling is a fact of life in every society. If clubs can benefit good for them. If they are not benefitting then someone else will because people will gamble anyway. Simple as that. I wouldn't mind Richmond making millions from pokies.....most pokie fans are Maggie...

I don't know why academics bother with this kind of thing. Irrespective of the proof or otherwise of their findings they must realise that post modern social taboo demands that "nice people" are offended or more likely pretend to be offended leading to a lot of heat and no light in a discussion...

Your probably a lapsed prod with a culturally lingering acceptance of the Black legend so your bigotry is probably comprehensible. however your point inadvertently touches on a truth. Desire. We all believe what we want to.

If you atheists think murder/rape/ etc are wrong why do you think them so? Why would the passing ephemeral hurt caused to a set of atoms independent of your set be of any interest to you? If you have a moral code ( most of you will be liberal humanists) why do you accept it or do you simply...

This is an interesting point. For mainstream post/Nominal Christian society Christianity is essentially a curiousity with illiberal notions about sex and little more. those notions are regarded as rightist and consequently the Church is regarded as "of the right" In fact on huge areas...

This question is easily dealt with in Christian theology. God always forgives but we don't always ask for or accept forgiveness. hell is distance from God caused by rebellion against Him. If you are seriously interested in a Christian answer to your question read timothy Keller. In other...

To be fair to you otaku you do have the sense to qualify your opinions as "humble" which is of course exactly what they are....the humble notions of one who doesnt know whether a god exists and if he does what his mind is. Why the need to fill tha gaps with god? Quite simply because of...

The fact that the religious are both more likely to give to charitable organisations and more likely to actively engage with charity will no doubt behind the smoke of indignation.

those who are productive of wealth are by now so used to carrying all manner of vedted interest groups on their backs by means of the expropriated product of our labour that a few million more makes no difference except marginally to our slavelike state.

An interesting paradox to be sure.

Correct though of course what created or caused the big bang if it occured hangs over the theory making whether or not it actually happened irrelevant to the God debate. I do agree we are totally ignorant. The religious to be fair to them accept that their views are based on faith rather than...

What evidence? You are actually genuinely confused and I don't blame you given the puerility and partiality of debate on this. No scripture claims to be "evidence" for God. Indeed why would a God if he existed feel the need to provide evidence for us? He may do. He may not. I don't know...

There is no inconsistency in my 2 points. None at all so why should i make up my mind. I assert that in common with all humanity atheists know nothing of metaphysics and I also assert that they accept on faith and on faith alone that the prime cause of life "must" be natural. Totally...

People will believe anything. I have colleagues who tell me they believe that at some undetermined time in the past there was what I take to be a magic atom and this atom one day for no apparent reason exploded in a thing they call The big bang and again for no reason at all this magic bang...

The atheist isn't sure of anything dear boy. No one is. Failing to believe in a god is perfectly reasonable enough. Let's call it passive atheism. Asserting there is no god is an act of faith since in truth no one knows anything about the question. Let's call it active or creed based...

I'm interested in reading the evidence against God. This'll be good !! I promise to keep my sarcasm at whatever half baked pretensions to metaphysical insight you produce to a minimum.

He bore Christian witness to the truth that Communism is vile and inhumane and in so doing helped in his way to preserve the morale ( in every sense) of his people An artist engaged with the life of his kind..

You are of course correct Gangsta. However, such is the superstitious latterday belief in the power of physics to answer ALL questions - even those it doesn't and can't address - we will continue to have people deeply impressed by its ability to answer what it cannot engage with. Anyone with...

Complete, though predictable, inability to deal with the issue put to you. I note this inability and won't press you further on it in order to save us both time.

Tim Keller makes the point that engagement between the religious and atheist is made impossible by failure on both sides to show humility. My brief visits to these threads are efforts to promote such humility. The point is Pat that no one can prove or disprove whether there is a purpose...

I take it you don't intend to back up your implied assertion that your thought is more 'independent" than mine or indeed anyone elses. By your own lights you are a step in an evolutionary chain and you think what evolution allows you to think. I suspect you actually agree with this suggestion...

2 quotes from your recent post pat...'I believe"...."I would like to think" Respectively: Don't we all in what we choose to and wouldn't we all?

Your thought by implication is independent is it? You are probably completely ignorant of the immense philosophical presumption implicit in that position otherwise you would not allow such a thought be posted.

this is not in fact an argument at all. One could equally argue that pedophilia/rape/genital mutilation of girls etc will always happen so why not control them, tax them and bring them into the ambit of the law where we can then tell ourselves we are responsible? You will argue that...

We are not one iota closer to answering the metaphysical questions posed by Prime cause and ultimate purpose than we were 100 or 1,000 years ago. Indeed quantum, the little we know of it, shows us that what we fondly believed we "knew" a generation ago was in fact inaccurate and partial. A...