Post your most controversial opinions here!

Lockstep

Pighead wrote: »

CONTROVERSIAL OVERLOAD! Pighead can't believe you just said that! You just done it for effect didn't you kickoutthejams. No fcuking way you really think that.

On topic, this smiley should be giving the old heave ho.:D Only spanners use it.
Now thats controversial.:cool:

Sorry Pighead. I just felt that with all these crypto-nazis around I needed to post something REALLY controversial.

Nah seriously, living in Europe made me realize how the Irish need a good public transport system. Ireland has it's good points but the transport system needs a reworking.

aidan24326 wrote: »

If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect i.e omnibenevolent
(according to what followers of the Abrahamic religions believe at least, those religions being the most relevant to the vast majority here)

If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
(by definition of omnipotent)
If God is omniscient, then God knows when and where evil exists.
(again by definition)
If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
(or so you'd expect)
Evil exists.
(no denying that one)
If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when/where evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.
Therefore, God (this type of god at least) doesn't exist.

Standard answer most Christians would give you:
God gave humans free will. THey have the choice to act in good or evil ways. Although admittedly giving humans free will is like giving a baby a shotgun.

aidan24326 wrote: »

Prayer is another issue. People pray and pray and wish for this and wish for that and nothing happens. Nothing. Ever. Nothing beyond statistical chance at least. Tests of prayer on sick patients have shown no positive effect at all. You pray for your sick uncle and he dies anyway. You pray that your kid's cancer treatment is successful and guess what? The tumour gets even bigger.

Maybe. Just maybe, God shouldn't work in theatrics and explosions. People die. It happens. If everyone got what they prayed for, then the world would be a very strange place. If God granted every request people would grow dependant on him. One thing I was taught as a wee young catholic was "God helps those who help themselves". Did you ever hear that story of the man praying for salvation from a flood? Two helicoptors and a boat offered him help but he said "Nah, God'll save me". He drowned and went to heaven.
"God? Why didn't you save me?"
"I sent two helicoptors and a boat and you ignored them"

Someone who sits around and prays for God to save their kid from cancer isn't doing anything. Someone who brings the kid to the hospital and then prays has actually done something. Sure the kid could die, but it's life. Death happens. Do you honestly want to live forever? I certainly wouldn't. Ennui would kill me.

You can sit around and pray to God for help, or ask him to give you strength and get on with things yourself. I certainly wouldn't want a God who granted my every request, in the same way I wouldn't have wanted my parents to do everything for me. It teaches you self-reliance. You can ask your parents for guidance and then act on it, or else hold your breath and go red in the face until they give you whatever you want.

aidan24326 wrote: »

In fact the most recent and probably most comprehensive test on hospital patients (I'll find a link if you like) actually showed a slightly negative effect.
We don't need these tests anyway as it should be obvious to anyone who's ever prayed that lo and behold, 99% of the time nothing happens. Yet people pray away to some invisible god who, should he exist, is clearly and very obviously not listening, or certainly not prepared to intervene anyway. Ergo prayer is a complete waste of time, unless to massage god's ego (and one would hope god to be a bit above all that). Is praying thus stupid? Undeniably.

If God did everything for us, we'd become dependant. If he did nothing we'd lost faith. I think that when God does something, he does it so we can never tell if he did or not.
Really my own thought on the matter is that God would be far smarter than to allow every kid to survive. Oh yes, I've dealt with death in my life but whining to God for taking people away from me doesn't work. I can either accept death as part of the sheer joy of life, or else whine and complain about something that is inevitable.

aidan24326 wrote: »

Like I said I don't rule out the possibility of a more sophisticated type of god, a creator of some sort. I can't and nor can anyone else. But the type of personal god that alot of religious people believe in is patently absurd, and is a complete refusal to look objectively at how things actually are, rather than how they/I might like them to be.

Why is it absurd? Because he allows bad things to happen? Humans are responsible for most of the good and evil in this world. Which a theist would say is given to them by a God who feels we need free will.
A parent can either keep their kid sheltered for their entire life or else help them realize that the world has good and bad points.

Lockstep

Terry wrote: »

God helps those who help themselves.




Needs more Viagra.

DAMMIT TERRY.

beat me to it again.

Lockstep

Wacker wrote: »

No it isn't. Ever read any Thomas Aquinas?

It is not impossible to prove the existence of things at all. It is actually rather easy most of the time. Disproving the existence of things is where it gets tricky.

Hmm I disagree

Aquinas makes some good points in his cosmological arguments but they seem a bit odd to me. The first mover/centre etc doesn't necessarily need to be the Christian God as he portrays it.

Wacker

One Cold Hand wrote: »

Haven't read Thomas Aquinas. Are you on about god revealing himself throught nature?

Believe me, you're better off. Aquinas had his 'five proofs'. It's been a while since I did my philosophy degree (and I never all of them anyway) but the ones I knew were all variations of what is called the 'Cosmological Arguement.' I actually find the cosmological arguement completely inconclusive and totally inadequete, but that isn't the point. My point is that God's existence absolutely could be proven. It just hasn't been, is all.

One Cold Hand wrote: »

Of course it's possible to prove the existance of 'things.' God isn't a 'thing'.

Would you prefer it if I called God 'stuff' then? Or a 'yoke?' Or a 'thingymajig?' Or does conventional thinking label him a 'whatjamacallit?'

I guess you and I have different interpretations of what is meant by the word 'thing.' I can't think of anything (there it is again!) that can't be classed as a 'thing'.

But what do I know? I'm a hell-bound non-believing heathen.

One Cold Hand

Wacker wrote: »

My point is that God's existence absolutely could be proven. It just hasn't been, is all.

Fair enough, maybe it could be. But until it is, I too am a hell-bound non-believing heathen.

aidan24326

kickoutthejams wrote:

God helps those who help themselves

Terry wrote:

God helps those who help themselves

Great answer lads. Vague and meaningless. Those who help themselves are helping themselves imo, simple enough I'd have thought. Why does there have to be santa claus in the sky helping out?

And what I said about prayer holds true. If humans have free will, and god doesn't intervene, why pray to him? Does he/it like the attention? And if god really does 'help those who help themselves' then that's free will out the window. Does god just intervene on an application by application basis?

kickoutthejams wrote:

Standard copout answer most Christians would give you:
God gave humans free will.

Then why pray to him that your neighbour/wife/kid will get better, if it's already been decided that our destiny is of our own making? You can't have it both ways. Either god can make you better or he can't/won't. If it's the latter then people are wasting millions of man-hours of time on a fruitless pursuit.

EDIT:

Wacker wrote:

My point is that God's existence absolutely could be proven. It just hasn't been, is all.

Yes it presumably could be proven. But hard to know how short of the big man himself appearing in the sky and settling the issue. (I often wonder why god, were he to exist, doesn't do just that, and shut the likes of me up once and for all)

Cannot be disproven though, and therein lies the problem.

stovelid

Secretly,we all dislike Germans and - despite the EU - they will attempt to inaugurate another Reich in the next 50 years.

Pigman II

I like the Germans.

I don't however like the amount of fags who are getting their faces on prime-time tv these days.

phasers

I like Britney Spears still and hope she gets better and restarts her music career

slipss

I like the Germans, granted i've never been to Germany, so i've only met about 20 in total and they were all under 30 (if that makes a difference?) but overall I found them to be a good laugh and generally very a happy go lucky fun loving bunch, very stereotypically eccessively efficient and overly serious in a work situation, but in a social setting, in general, I've found them to be pretty cool.

Agamemnon

stovelid wrote: »

Secretly,we all dislike Germans and - despite the EU - they will attempt to inaugurate another Reich in the next 50 years.

I like the Germans and I can't wait for the new Reich to get going. Your post will be remembered, stovelid, and you will be one of the first to be rounded up and put on a train.

AckwelFoley

I hate nackers.

50% because they smell

50% because they robbed my bike and gang raped my dog brutus.

pirelli

kaimera wrote: »

Jews.

and little people.

:rolleyes:

Thats clinically racist to little people and insulting to little jewish people.
Kaimera i dont like gay penal offenders but have nothing against little people minors or otherwise.

pirelli

snyper wrote: »

I hate nackers.

50% because they smell

50% because they robbed my bike and gang raped my dog brutus.

Who the **** do you like.!

AckwelFoley

pirelli wrote: »

Thats clinically racist to little people and insulting to little jewish people.
Kaimera i dont like gay penal offenders but have nothing against little people minors or otherwise.

What if a gay midget Jew raped ur da?

How would u feel then?

Ya just dont know what Kameira Has been through.

Terry

snyper wrote: »

I hate nackers.

50% because they smell

50% because they robbed my bike and gang raped my dog brutus.

And you bitched about one of my posts last night, because you felt it crossed a line?

Disgusting, or disgraceful, or whatever word you used.

AckwelFoley

Thats because you offended a person.

Likely pays tax too.

an addition to society if you will

Dudess

Pigman II wrote: »

I like the Germans.

I don't however like the amount of fags who are getting their faces on prime-time tv these days.

Pigman, you're seriously pushing it...

Snyper, you stated your opinion as this thread instructs, but don't let this descend into a frenzy of traveller bashing.

Terry's comment last night was a joke which was lost on everyone.

PeadarofAodh

I think the West should come out and say 'hardline Muslims' rather than terrorists...apart from ETA what other significant terrorist threats are there?? (ETA aren't even that serious anymore!)

Beggars should be removed from the streets

BMW drivers are complete *****

mike o

i believe that pushing someone to suicide via bullying should be punishable

and that pat kenny should be fired,out of a cannon,into vinegar coated barbed wire and hornets nests

Terry

mike o wrote: »

i believe that pushing someone to suicide via bullying should be punishable

and that pat kenny should be fired,out of a cannon,into vinegar coated barbed wire and hornets nests

Stop picking on Pat Kenny.

AckwelFoley

i believe that pushing someone to suicide via bullying should be punishable

Thats not contraversial.

There are laws against bullying.

Lockstep

aidan24326 wrote: »

Great answer lads. Vague and meaningless. Those who help themselves are helping themselves imo, simple enough I'd have thought. Why does there have to be santa claus in the sky helping out?

If you reread my previous post, I did write more on "God helps those who help themselves". Despite doing so, the phrase is very simple. I learned it as a kid. It's not that hard to understand what it means, even if you don't agree with it.

aidan24326 wrote: »

And what I said about prayer holds true. If humans have free will, and god doesn't intervene, why pray to him? Does he/it like the attention? And if god really does 'help those who help themselves' then that's free will out the window. Does god just intervene on an application by application basis?

You don't pray to God asking for a new car or to get the job. He's not Santa.
You pray to him for guidance and helping you see what you must do, or to give you the strength to acheive it.

aidan24326 wrote: »

Then why pray to him that your neighbour/wife/kid will get better, if it's already been decided that our destiny is of our own making? You can't have it both ways. Either god can make you better or he can't/won't. If it's the latter then people are wasting millions of man-hours of time on a fruitless pursuit.

See above.

dsmythy

All money geared towards helping people with drug problems should be removed and instead used on drugs prevention for children and teens.

Lockstep

I think that 13 year old girls in short skirts are asking for it.

Most European counties live up to their stereotypes.


I also feel that *this was removed on legal advice*

L1011

dsmythy wrote: »

All money geared towards helping people with drug problems should be removed and instead used on drugs prevention for children and teens.

On a similar one - all the money spent on road safety, anti drink driving and anti speeding campaigns should go in to recambering sharp corners and putting up proper signage, these kill far more people at this stage, and nobody gives a toss about the ads and campaigns anyway.

Cokehead Mother

I have no problem with drink drivers

Pigman II

Drunk drivers who kill as a of result of their actions should be summarily executed.

Davidius

Wii Sports is crap.

Toots

Pigman II wrote: »

Drunk drivers who kill as a of result of their actions should be summarily executed.

+1 and to add to that, anyone who is caught drink driving should have their car impounded and they should have to buy it back at auction.