The NZ 'anti-correction law' - 'Why correction is needed.'

[johnyohyeah]

Renton you are a bloody joke, you are putting my rights as a child at risk.

It makes me sad that you are ok with me being hit- Why?

Please Please Please protect my rights and not listen to this right wing christian extremist who has no bloody idea and is from another planet with no respect for children.

[Tristan00]

Duddeeeee... just because your stupid monkey brain demands reason and meaning in the universe, doesnt make it neccessary. Im and athiest and have NO problem finding happiness and meaning in my life. and thats because people are social animals and so long as we have each other thats all that maters. Face it Rynso.. were both athiests, by defintiion your an athiest to every other religion on earth. I just take it one god further.

[MegaBaileydog]

Is this guy a nutter? PLEEEASE don't say hes a "Christian" nutter as well! Jesus must weep! Hey Kiwis, vote YES to keep that referendum in the bin!

[johnyohyeah]

I have a dream that one day our country will do the right thing and vote yes in the august referendum

[rynso]

headless said:

'The amendment is supported by Banardos, Unicef, Plunket, Save the Children, the NZPolice force and 113 Member of Parliament.'

So?

The referendum question was scrutinised by the appropriate authorities - as all referendum questions are - to see that it conformed to the requirements. It did.

[headlessrd]

So let's all preach Neitzsche's gospel.

He's an outdated philospher.

7 people got away with extreme child abuse because of "reasonable force."

The amendment is supported by Banardos, Unicef, Plunket, Save the Children, the NZPolice force and 113 Member of Parliament.

The 83% opposition to the amendment was a tv poll and so not accurate. The referendum question is misleading and terribly phrased because it says smacking a child is"part of good parenting."

It is not!

[alabel99]

you crack me up Rynso, keep battling man!

[rynso]

Vile, abusive, violent, scurrilous and illegal comments will be removed, and if persisted in, the poster will be blocked. Comments that are simply ignorant, false, or negative are left.

[JamesHippolite]

Well done Renton! Bravo and keep it up. Brave, concise, accurate and true. Everything I believe.

[askjo543]

I will be terse and to the point. You are wrong about everything. You are intellectually lost. You do not understand the evolutionary basis of morality, you do not understand Dawkins' worldview, and, what is worse, you do not understand the first thing about human nature or developmental psychology. For those of us who do, your biblical ramblings and philistine barbarism are nauseating beyond expression. Please read more & think harder before presuming that your opinion is important or valuable.

[rynso]

Hey...lie down on the couch...

Now tell me. When did you first discover you hated your horse?

[askjo543]

Don't condescend to me you smug Christian idiot. You're not going to win my soul. But, on the subject of hate, let me assure you that nothing tries my patience quite so much as the arrogance of certitude and tyranny of belief which are born out of religion. I know I won't convince you here and now, but I entreat you, if you are brave enough, to spend a few valuable hours listening to Christopher Hitchens on YouTube. Your belief-system will be reduced to dust and you will attain humility.

[rynso]

'...arrogance of certitude and tyranny of belief...born out of religion.'

Hmmmm...perhaps you should take a peek in a mirror. That's all I can hear...

Nothing quite so entertaining as seeing someone shoot themself in the foot. I like it! Nice one.

[rynso]

Second thoughts...

Why don't you outline for us Hitchens strongest point? It'll be good practice for you.

[askjo543]

I'm not getting invovled. I know you Christian types enjoy this attention, but I have better things to do. Why don't you take up my challenge and hear Hitchens' arguments straight from the horse's mouth. Try 'Hitchens@google' or one of the many public debates he participated in while touring his book, 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'. And for the record, doubt is humble, not arrogant. I admit there is phenomena that transcends human cognition, but I do not presume to know it!

[rynso]

Chicken...piker...and you run and hide behind the coat-tails of one of your gurus.

Four things:

1. No problem with doubt per sae. Plenty of things should be doubted - atheism and evolution for example - only you're a believer.

2. Atheism is a religion, so Hitchens' shot himself in the foot.

3. The suggestion you should look in the a mirror was made because your comment was arrogant - while decrying arrogance.

4. Maybe you don't 'know it', but perhaps some do.

[rynso]

ASKJO 543 said:

You don't possess any special knowledge that I don't. So don't make the arrogant claim that you know something about god's mind, whereas others much more erudite than yourself, lack this knowledge. That is the very definition of arrogance, not to say smugness. 'Atheism is a religion'? What meaningless tripe! It's the rejection of a belief - applied to monotheism, a rejection of bronze-age superstitions invented by illiterate and barbaric people living through political tumult.

[rynso]

Askjo: You do not reject belief. You only reject certain beliefs. You have your beliefs - about where everything came from, how it got to be like it is, what it all means, what a human is, and what humans should and should not do if they should or should not do anything. You also have an Utimate authority...thus you have a god - perhaps you even have gods.

All of these are beliefs that you hold with religious devotion and fervour...

[askjo543]

Wrong, wrong, wrong again!!!!!!! God!!!! I don't claim to know where everything came from. I accept the limits of knowledge based on evidential data. You believe in the 'revealed truth' of the scripttures which is not supported by evidence. Indeed, it is overwhelmingly falsified. Read 'God Is Not Great', watch Dawkins documentary, 'The Root of All Evil', and start entertaining the idea you MIGHT be wrong. Again, this requires humility and intellectual honesty, both of which you apparently lack.

[rynso]

I didn't say you claimed to know where everything came from. I said you had  beliefs about where everything came from. And I didn't say anything about 'God', but that you have 'a god'.

Further, it sounds to me like you have your version of 'revealed truth', revealed by your gurus Dawkins and Hitchens, your version of scriptures, your gurus books, documentaries, and youtube clips...which you appear to believe implicitly.

Dawkins shot himself in the foot. His worldview has within it no evil.

[askjo543]

Arrrrghhh!! You are trying my patience! Sharpen up!!! I do not have beliefs about where everything came from but evidence supports evolution (-do not dispute this or I may well be forced to jump off a cliff!) Also, if you do not know the difference between revelation and rational, scientific , logical argument you have little understanding of philosophy. Moreover, I arrived at a secular understanding of the world when I was an adolescent; I only mentioned Hitchens & Dawkins for your sake.

[rynso]

'Evidence supports evolution...' That is a statement of belief. No one has ever seen 'E' occur because if it occurs it happens so slowly that it is impossible for anyone in their lifetime to observe. Further, there is no known mechanism capable of making E occur. Further, if E did occur, it is a random, unguided process, and there is no reason to believe that any human thinking is rational or logical. Science developed from a Judeo-Christian worldview in which rationality/logic have sound basis.

[askjo543]

You bastard! I have to jump off a cliff now. People like you make this world unbearable for thinking, rarional beings. You're simply unteachable, beyond hope. You will continue living in your benighted state, propagating nonsense and superstition, negating all the scientific and cultural achievements of Western society. Give up on charlatans and casuists like C.S. Lewis, and try reading the intellectually honest, Friedrich Nietzsche. Good luck to you.

[rynso]

For what it's worth, from Wikipedia, that supremely trustworthy source:

'In Nietzsche's view, recent developments in modern science and the increasing secularization of European society had effectively 'killed' the Christian God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years.

Nietzsche claimed the 'death' of God would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of objective truth...

[rynso]

continued...

'...Alternatively, the death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright nihilism, the belief that nothing has any importance and that life lacks purpose. As Heidegger put the problem, "If God as the suprasensory ground and goal of all reality is dead, if the suprasensory world of the Ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself.'

[rynso]

Plenty of reason there to jump. No wonder Nietzsche went mad.

But before jumping, didn't you read what I wrote? 'Science developed from a Judeo-Christian worldview in which rationality/logic have sound basis.'

The 'scientific and cultural achievments of Western society' to which I assume you refer, largely derive from the Judeo-Christian worldview, and not at all from Darwinism/evolution with its anti-intellectualism, meaninglessness, amorality, and nihilism - and totalitarianism.

[askjo543]

Go away! I told you I've jumped off a cliff already - and you pushed me!! Don't think you impress me with your Heidegger quotes. And as for Nietzsche, his relativism - the idea that we bury certain values with the demise of Christianity - is nonsense. Morals do not derive from the supernatural - they have evolved over time to enforce group co-operation. Read Pinker's 'How The Mind Works', or Frank's 'Passions Within Reason'. The value of Nietzsche lies in his understanding and unparalleled....

[askjo543]

..articulation of the psychological effects of Judeo-Christian ideas. If you cannot see this poisonous influence all around you, the intellectual and cultural stagnation, the suppresion of all Hellenistic ideals, you simply lack the instinct to comprehend such cultural phenomena. Read 'The Anti-christ' or the third essay of 'Geneology of Morals', and please desist from posting any more comments. You are well and truly out of your depth. Good day.

[rynso]

Jump! Jump!

[askjo543]

Ah, now we see the true face of religion - the sadistic impulse to scapegoat others and revel in the thought of their eternal damnation. I know what a bang you get out of that. Base cretin!

[rynso]

'Morals do not derive from the supernatural - they have evolved over time to enforce group co-operation.'

So...nothing is actually right or wrong, just what the group decides. If it decides pushing people like you off cliffs, is right, then it's right. Alternatively if doing this it decides is wrong, it's wrong. Either way it is simply choice not morality.

But why shouldn't individuals choose what is right and wrong for themselves? Why should the choice of the group be the one that rules?

[askjo543]

Wow! What a subtle understanding you have of evolutionary psychology! Shut your trap for one second, and read the books I recommended. Learn to open your mouth when - and only when - you possess credible knowledge. What you wrote above is so embarrasing, it only draws attention to your intellectual limitations. I wouldn't normally belittle somebody for such a shortcoming, but you have placed yourself on a platform to voice an abhorrent and barbaric point of view. Now, start reading!!!

[rynso]

Pardon me for living...

'...arrogance of certitude and tyranny of belief...born out of religion.' Time for another look in the mirror.

Hmmm...before you hang-glide off another cliff...you cheat...

... why shouldn't individuals choose what is right and wrong for themselves? Why should the choice of the group be the one that rules?

You don't appear to have answered these questions.

'Evolutionary psychology': verbiage built on myths, built on speculation, built on zilch.

[Tristan00]

Because wow, people are social creatures, and as with most social creatures, we look out for ourselves by looking out for others! Hows that for revolutionary thinking! I mean.. we could arbitrarily decide to push people off cliffs, but i have a feeling society wouldn't appreciate that and would punish me. and most happy, sane people would never think to do that, despite the logic of it. and why is that? because athiests are humans, and meaning is INNATE to humanity. not any "god"

[rynso]

Charles Darwin said:

"With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

[rynso]

C S Lewis said:

"If naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. Therefore all thoughts would be equally worthless. Therefore, naturalism is worthless. If it is true, then we can know no truths. It cuts its own throat."

[rynso]

So...let me get this straight.

You've never experienced a more dishonest, dishonourable person, one who lies in such blatant ways. Yet when asked to point out the lies you can only say that  Dawkins is misrepresented. And this even though Dawkins is only quoted, without without comment, except to say that he is an an advocate of the view just outlined.

Aren't your charges are a trifle overstated, intemperate even?

Also...perhaps you can explain the supposed misrepresentation. Thanks

[cheetah100]

Apart from misrepresenting what Dawkins actually says you once more represent your position as correct based on Religious Authority. You seem to claim that the Bible gives you moral authority to 'correct' children. You also seem to believe that physical punishment is the only form of correction. I don't agree with Brian Edwards, but to be honest your approach might make me support the law.

[rynso]

Nice one Cheetah! Perhaps you could point out the lies...

[cheetah100]

Never have I experienced a more dishonest, dishonourable person such as yourself. For someone claiming to know the moral law of God it confounds be why you would lie in such blatant ways. It is frustrating that I must agree with your last sentence - but for reasons far removed from ancient sacrifice and irrational worship of mythological gods.