mooeypoo

When I get angry, my heart-rate quickens, it's not something I control. What I do control is my reaction outside. Do I lash out or do I stay calm. Do I curse or do I force myself to be polite.. etc. That's the difference between a child and and adult. The ability to control your reactions. It's how society mostly defines being "mature". You usually can't control the instinctive physiological reaction. You can control the external manifestation. In other words, and I have to say I'm a bit worried to ask, how do you propose we control these physiological functions? Do you propose we drug people?

I think it's time you properly explained what you mean with "Physiologically-expressing-the-psychological-state" and "physiological-responses-to-psychological-states". If I'm happy (psychological) and I smile (physiological) is this a 'physiological response to psychological state' ? So, if I'm angry (psychological) and I rant, grunt, complain and argue, is this too a 'physiological response to psychological state' ? What is this 'physiological-responses-to-psychological-states' and how do you propose it be 'regulated'?

It makes it more personal and brings about a rather horrible picture, instead of pushing away the image for the sake of remaining "impartial" and "cold". There's a difference saying that people are dying for a reason and then seeing a 5-year old baby dies in horrible pain from malaria and hunger and saying that the child died for a reason. To be quite honest, I wanted to make sure you realise the implications of what you're saying. Also, children, unlike adults, are innocent. What did a 5-year old child ever do to deserve this punishment? God *can* change this if he is omnipotent. Yet he doesn't. You seem to claim that God doesn't change this so that the world will learn some lesson, but this does NOT make things any better morally. Here's a question for you: If I had two children, and I would be starving one of them to death, over a prolonged period of time, so they suffer greatly, just so that the other one watches his brother die horrifically and learn to obey me -- would I be moral? More so, if I would have done that but didn't tell the other kid that I do it for him to learn to obey, or would not have given the other child the message I want to deliver -- would he even learn anything? Are you seriously claiming this behavior is moral? immortal, look, this is simple. God has the power to stop this action, and he doesn't. What does it make him, if not evil? At the very least, it makes him not-all-that-good. If you were telling me that the sufferers were people who did crimes against God, I would still call it immoral, but at least I'd "understand", in some level, why this is considered "necessary" to some people. But we're talking about children who did nothing wrong, whose parents have no *knowledge* of God. He's not even being fair enough to give them te *chance* to accept him. He just lets them suffer. How is this moral? If I walk in the street and I see a bully kicking a kid and I do nothing about it -- am I being moral? wouldn't you tell me that the moral thing would be to interfere? and yet this case is even worse, because God has both the power to interfere and the authority to interfere, unlike me in the street. So in this case it would be more similar to having a cop walking down the street, seeing a bully beat a little kid, and do nothing. Is this moral? If it is, immortal, I'd rather not be that type of moral. I understand your fundamental premise. What I'm saying is that it doesn't follow the scriptures and what's going on in reality. You have to give something up here -- eitehr you give up the definition of morality and admit that it's different for God (eh), or you admit God is immoral, or you admit God is not all-powerful, or you admit god is all powerful but not all good. If these are not immoral acts in god's terms, then I have to say, immortal, I don't care if God exists or not, I'd rather *not* follow an evil god. We're not talking about going to bed and not waking up here, we're talking about the equivalent of torture for several months until death comes. If this is God's idea of morality, I want to have nothing to do with it. I consider *that* moral. Something's gotta give. He cannot be all of the above judging from the text in the scripture and the terrible suffering of little innocent children that happens around the globe. ~mooey

You are repeatedly ignoring the point about the children suffering and dying. Your answers revert to "general" suffering. If you don't mind, I want you to answer the SPECIFIC topic of the children who are dying in much pain and suffering just because they were not born to a place that "knows" of this awesomely-moral God. We're talking about children here, and babies. Address this specifically and stop evading the point by talking generalities. It's all good and well to say "there's suffering" and "god is good regardless" while evading teh fact that 5 year old children are suffering and dying under his nose. Second, I have put forth a list of events, rules and regulations taken out of the BIBLE that describe god. Either you claim that these are not, in fact, immoral, in which case we have an argument about what morality IS, or you claim that these are not true, in which case the bible is infallible, or you claim that --- what, really? I don't want to fall into false dichotomy, but you have to stop evading the point. Explain those two points, please.

Mental health professionals are obligated to keep doctor-patient confidentiality unless there is a risk to the patient or to society. Expressing thoughts by themselves is not enough to be considered as harm (usually). It is the psychiatrist/psychologist's job to judge whether or not those thoughts are at an *immediate* risk to be manifested into actions. If they are, the thinking is to (a) prevent harm to the person and to society and (b) to treat the problem. As you, yourself, admitted in the other thread, acting upon those thoughts is a problem. So if a psychologist or psychiatrist suspects immediate harm, they will treat the problem. Psychiatrists can only help if you are honest with them. If you don't have an intention to act on these thoughts, and you want to share these thoughts for the goal of dealing with them productively (hence, not harm others) then telling them to a professional is actually a good idea. This is the best venue to expose these type of thoughts without being misunderstood and "getting in trouble". Obviously, the one most important thing in treatment is to have a good relationship to your therapist. You need to have trust, both ways. If you have that, you need to trust your doctor that they are professional enough to know the difference between thoughts that you want to deal with and actual immediate intent to harm someone. It doesn't sound like you want to immediately harm someone, but I am no professional. You really should not hold back from a professional therapist.

I really don't get it. You advocate to ignore differences (in your gender thread) and treat kids equally regardless of their gender differences. And now you say we need to treat people according to their differences. .... Which is it, again?

That's rather condescending, which I guess it makes this: a success. Define fairness. You seem to define it as your personal view of fairness, and in this case you should, at the very least, consider there are competing definitions that are no worse than yours, and no better. Isn't that fair? Are we talking about literal angels? That doesn't excuse stubbornly ignoring other people's opinions, claims, evidence and counter-points. Quite to the contrary. Aspergers syndrome is a social interaction disorder. We really shouldn't "go easy on you" when your claims go against evidence just because you have a disorder. If anything, you knowing you have this condition should make you want to be a bit less stubborn in learning new things. You're trying to eat the cake and leave it whole. We are either giving you preferential treatment (which isn't "fair" and "equal") or we're treating you as the equal man that you ARE (as many people with aspergers want, by the way, and justly so) and you get off the request to treat you differently. Consistency. ~mooey

There are believers out there in the famine-filled areas that are suffering. So it's not just about being out of bondage, is it? You can't talk about the "truth of god" being the bible, and blame them for not following the rules that are in the bible with people who don't know about the bible. Let me get this straight: Young innocent children are dying horribly from hunger, famine, and disease, and that's "a destruction of old things which makes way for new entities" ? And you expect me to consider this moral? You expect me to consider this a GOOD thing? You expect me to consider this god that not only allows for this, but *can* stop it and *doesn't* a moral being? Under which definition of "Moral" would this be close to being moral? How not? They're dying because there's not enough food. They're dying from disease that is directly related to the area they live in. It's related to *nature*. "Oh horrific science" is what tries to save them with medicine, God has nothing to do with the cure. God could have turned the ground fertile. God could have prevented malaria-type mosquitos from permeating those areas and exposing children to horrible disease that kills them. I don't expect God to prevent the dying explicitly (though he *can* so we could argue why not, but let's move on) -- I expect God to at least make the lives of these INNOCENT children who don't KNOW about his "message" just a little bit less horrible. He can. There's no reason why he shouldn't. Well, no reson other than (a) he can't or (b) he doesn't want to. First option means he's not omnipotent. Second means he's not benevolent. Which is it? Either option means, to me, that I have no reason to follow him, let alone worship him. I don't know what you mean here, it doesn't make much sense. I might be misunderstanding your meaning. As to the last part though, you should read my list of quotes from the bible again and tell me God is good. Those aren't quotes from Hitchens (noes!) those are quotes directly from the written text of the bible, promoting abuse of raped women, killing children and others. You want to go over the text in the bible? Go over it all. Don't pick and choose. Along side the "give the other cheek", there's "kill an insubordinate child" and "kill a raped woman if no one heard her". I really don't know what definition of morality you're using, but these don't seem to fit any of the ones western society uses. I see, so the children who die in horrific deaths are really atheists in previous lives. Ahha. Sorry, this makes no sense to me. How can I give up something I never had? Hell, forget ME. The children in Africa. They never HEARD of Jesus, or the Bible, or God, or Israelites, or the ten commandments. They gave up nothing. They never had it. They suffer regardless. I didn't say he doesn't exist, I said his conduct, if he *does* exist, is immoral. There's no proof god exists, but if we go by the bible, then the god the bible describes is not a good or moral being by any stretch of the word. Don't confuse claims. I answered the "god is moral" claim by showing the text that shows god as being anything but. Whether that god exists or not is a separate issue. ~mooey

Wow that's a leap. How 'bout "If he doesn't exist, let's concentrate on learning from the past while improving the future" ? The idea that the words might not be 100% accurate, correct and deserve our worship doesn't mean it's completely useless. We can learn about the cultural environment of the time. Is literature worth "burning" just because you do't want to worship the writer? Also, we should create health camps in Africa regardless, don't you think? The children who are dying don't know about the judeochristian god at all, so how can they worship something they don't know about? And if this is about *me* not worshipping god, then I don't find it particularly moral to have a god punish helpless innocent children because of someone else's mistake. Either way, God doesn't strike me as a very moral being. ~mooey

Wait... if you're not my sock puppet, what the heck is my hand in?

Here's a fuller list (still missing a few key things I remember from my studies, but works well enough) http://freethoughtna...-depravity.html First, that is not what was claimed in the post I quoted. Second, if God(s) is no more special than humans, then why worship or obey him/her/them? If it's just because they're more powerful, then the claim could be raised about obeying a bully in general (isn't that what 'more powerful but no less fallible' means? or judging from what the biblical God sends his/her people to do, they are pretty much the definition of a bully) Third, I don't quite get how you go from god being good ("all actions are good and necessary") to the ignorance of God. If all god's actions are good and necessary, then famine and hunger is either good and necessary as well, or it is something God chooses not to stop. Do you really want to tell me that the children who die of hunger and malnutrition in Africa die so because they are ignorant of god? And if that's the case, can you really call god "good" ? Those are children who are *ignorant* of God. Those aren't oh-so-evil atheist snobs who *reject* god, they don't even know of him or his "teachings" at all most often. So if that's the case, this God lets innocent children die a horrific death just because they were born to a place that never heard of his teachings. You know what? If that's the case, I'd rather *not* follow this god, whether or not he or she exists. I find that deplorable for any entity, let alone one that supposedly has the power to change it in a flick of a finger. If God doesn't have that power, then why worship him, and if he does, by all means, why the hell worship him at all if eh chooses not to stop the suffering. Either way, this is a big problem. That said, what I replied to was the claim taht even if God doesn't exist, the bible itself is a good moral book. The list above shows commandments and actions made *IN* this book that are so beyond immoral, we could probably use them as a base definition of it. It shows that the original claim in the post I answered to is ridiculous, which was the point. Go over the rest of the list, especially the part about rape and God's (mis)treatment of it. Fascinating reading. No matter how powerful god is, if he is immoral, then the moral thing is not to follow the teaching. Isn't it more moral to *not* follow immoral rules? And people say seculars are immoral just because they don't follow the book? Really, now. ~mooey

So you are not going to answer the points we raise but instead bring up more points. All hail intellectual integrity. ~mooey

Not sure what you mean here, but the list above isn't just human actions, those are God's laws in the bible, and God commanding humans to do certain tasks. It seems quite evident which side God leans to in relation to what we deem "Moral" nowadays.

Oh yes, especially when god Kills innocent children Orders that any child that curses a parent will be put to death Orders that anyone who works during Sabbath be killed (wouldn't that include all Christians? Sunday ain't Sabbath, but let's not be picky) Buries a whole tribe alive, including women, children and elderly Orders the death of any priest daughter who fornicates (but hey, maybe that's moral) Orders the death of homosexuals Orders the death of adulterers, including by rape (if the woman *let* herself get raped while married, surely she deserves death) Orders Moses to kill women and children Midianites (after the war is over, to make it extra-flavor moral) Orders the immediate death by stoning of a woman who is found to be not a virgin when married Orders the death of a raped woman if no one heard her scream (notice, the order is not about "if she didn't scream", it's about whether or not anyone has heard her. you know, just to make things fair and moral) Forces a raped woman (if she's a virgin) to be married to her rapist (be bought for 50 shekels, actually. You know, in case the first part wasn't moral enough) Kills every man, woman, child and (for extra-super-duper moral standard) every pet. The pets probably worked on the Sabbath. In accordance with God's law, Jephtah burns his innocent daughter alive God sends 2 bears to kill the kids that made Elisha's head bald (good, properly balanced punishment, I say) Of course, how can we forget dear Job, whose children have died, among other things. There's quite a lot more, if you want a full list. I just thouht I'd share this tiny snippet for whatever it's worth. You know, for good strong moral background compacted in one big fluffy book that everyone's fighting over. This list really does make it sound like an incredibly sound and good moral book, a book to live by. Grab your rocks, people, prepare for the next stoning, only don't do that on the Sabbath, and guard your pets. But hey.. atheists are much worse. They're *blasphemous*! ~mooey

Of course you will go against any and all research on the matter of gender at a young age without even bothering to read it. When a person insists that gravity doesn't exit, you start by explaining it, and then you continue by asking how they don't fall off the earth, but when they keep insisting gravity is bunk despite clear evidence, you mark them as irrelevant, and stop arguing. You're getting to that stage, Green Xenon. Well done. You ignore all actual proper evidence that girls aren't being treated better than boys, so your insistence that they're being cuddled and treated preferentially should come from personal experience, clearly. The funny thing is that many women's rights groups who actively work for equality do not make this stupid claim that there's no "innate difference" of genders. They promote equality, especially in a young age. Which, btw, can be argued that the treatment of the genders is unequal *the other way around* (against girls), as I've shown with (NOES!) evidence. Yeah, that thing that separates myth from reality. So either you don't care about evidence, or you purposefully ignore me because I have a vagina instead of a penis, which apparently makes me a sadistic anti-boy bitch until I'm 18. Can't blame ya'. Arguing there's no innate gender is not just ridiculous, it's psychologically and medically bunk. There is clear evidence that show that while gender identity is not always simply defined (like in the case of transgendered), it absolutely is innate, affects the brain (hormones, ever heard of those? they're actually affecting things in the body other than boobs, who'da figured) the body and the mind. The fact there's an innate difference doesn't mean there shouldn't be equality -- but if you want equality, you can't go around claiming idiotic unsupported claims you take out of your rear orifice. You either want to fix things in reality, or you want to whine about your own perception of it regardless of evidence. You can't have both. Read the literature before you make stupid claims. You know, the one that actual scientists and professionals have spent years researching, peer-reviewing, observing, and making distinctions and predictions and conclusions upon. Are you even reading yourself at all anymore, or are you so off your rocker you just post blindly? ~mooey Studies in gender identity: http://scienceaid.co...biological.html And you should order this paper, if you actually care: http://psycnet.apa.o.../2004-16374-000 Meta Analysis of psychology of gender research (it's a bit old, and it's a META analysis, but it's a decent overview of the research done at least a couple of decades ago) http://www.jstor.org...sid=56011288343 http://onlinelibrary...CO;2-O/abstract And lastly, if you actually care to read what proper evidence shows about gender, here's another very interesting study: http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0033-295X.106.4.676 But I am going to start taking bets on the odds of you actually reading any of those, or any of the evidence and points I made a couple of posts ago. Might make me rich. ~mooey

You clearly don't care what anyone else thinks, Green Xenon, and worse, you clearly don't care about evidence. All you do is stomp your feet in the ground to insist you're right regardless of evidence. Did you even read the papers we posted? when you give a generalized answer about society and how it operates, do you have evidence to back your comments or is it just out of your rear orifice? When you claim that X does lasting damage, you need to back it up. You were asked to do this not once, not twice, and not three times. Guess what? You saying X does not make X true no matter how much you want to believe it, especially when *counter* evidence are shown. Ignoring counter-evidence will not make them disappear. You ignoring it does not go unnoticed; it's clear you either have no evidence, or you don't give a rat's tail about whether or not what you claim is real or not. You still answer without evidence, and you still skip questions and points that you can't deal with. That's not a good recipe for convincing anyone, it's not debating scientifically (which is what we're here for) and it's against the etiquette and rules. ~mooey

The fact that there are rapes in prison is not the same as to say that a rapist's punishment in society is to be raped back. If you don't understand the distinction, we have a much bigger problem here than just difference of opinion. But that's also besides the point. It was a small point that was made, on the outskirts of the scope of the argument. You are once again going besides the point, ignoring the points I and others have made to you. You're either here to debate, or you are here to stomp your feet in the ground. The latter won't last much. I've analyzed the "evidence" you presented and showed you how you either didn't read them well, or they're not sufficient to support your claims. This is the time for you to bring actual research evidence to the table rather than once again ranting about your own personal beliefs. We don't do guesses here -- especially when your latest guesses were shown to be absolutely utterly moot. Stop guessing, then. Please. We're a science forum, you make a claim you insist is true, you need to show it's supported by evidence. Stop preaching, start participating in the discussion. ~mooey

I couldn't edit it, when I tried I got the same error about the quote tags. We'll have to raise this to Capn's attention, it's probably some minor bug he can fix.

Hmmmm interesting. When I try double-indent I get the same error too. Might have something to do with that, too. We'll have to wait for the forum expert (Capn) to pop by and shed some light on this, and see if it has a fix.

testing

I'm not sure about that. Wouldn't that be the same as saying that "Infinite" implies length? But it's a concept more than an actual length, so it doesn't "require" actual length. Same goes to "Always", no?

If you use very very generalized analogies to try and make sense in the above post, I'm sure you can. The bottom line is that it's not an explanation for the mainstream question asked. WRONG. Jesus, where to start. For one, protons and neutrons are comprised of quarks and gluons, they're not in the same level of the list. WRONG. Fermion is any particle that obey Fermi-Dirac Statistics. An electron is a fermion, but it's not the only fermion. Protons are fermions too. Which makes the entire section below simply utterly wrong: I don't even know how to start explaining it, honestly. It's pure garbage. What? The pauli exclusion principle states that: And since "quantum states" are NOT what was said in this mumbo jumbo post, the explanation is moot. In fact, if you want to give an example of what the pauli exclusion principle is in "laymens terms", then here it is, as can be explained to kids. By using physics. Actual physics, not the made-up physics. Holy canoly. What does it have to do with anything? Seriously. Read about how stars become supernovae, it has nothing to do with this example. Not only does it not, you should not do this again. If you don't know, don't post an answer. Posting an answer to a mainstream science question using mumbojumbo made up physics is AGAINST our rules. Read 'em again. ~mooey

! Moderator Note Moved to speculation, and that's a stretch.

! Moderator Note Fake Steven Hawkins, this is the last time we will warn you against posting your own misunderstanding of physics as an explanation to mainstream physics. If you continue disregarding our rules, you will not stay here. Please don't make us erase misleading posts. Everyone else, please IGNORE that post, since it's not what mainstream physics actually explains or says on the matter, to say the least (and be polite) Do not respond to this modnote.

I don't know what society you live in, but the western society definitely doesn't. The punishment for rape is not to be raped back, it's to be locked up and have treatment. The fact the system is imperfect doesn't mean the intent is what you propose. Reread what you wrote. It sure sounded like it. Awesome. Did you read my references at all? The ones from the NSF, peer reviewed? Even the ones I posted that were from the "popular" magazines, were popularized versions of peer reviewed articles. You have answered none of my questions. That said, let's go over your references: First Article http://articles.lati...rld/fg-defile14 LA Times Article titled: "Going All the Way -- to Jail" A statute in Uganda aims at men who prey on girls and makes such activity a capital crime. But it is teenage boys who are being ensnared. So you're giving a (non scientific) case-study from a single country that was recently known in the media for advocating for the capital punishment of homosexuals, about a misuse of a bad law. If you read the entire article, by the way, you can encounter this quote: (emphasis mine) Gee wizz. Equality? No! We asked you to provide references about how what YOU called the "preferential treatment of girls" (not pushing them as hard into science, not pushing them as hard into sports, being kinder to them, presumably, etc) is HAPPENING (which you haven't showed) and Producing a long-term psychological harm to young boys You have shown none of the above. Second Article Let's go to your second article. I will try to ignore the fact that the only links in the article are to "tripod.com". http://ageofconsent.com/india.htm This is a rather jumbled page that discusses a communication about the problems of age of consent in INDIA. India, as much as I love the culture, food and people, is not (to say the least) like the USA. So again you're bringing forth an article that discusses a single country's misuse of what, it seems, the rest of us deems as *unethical*. This does nothing to prove your point that boys are treated worse than girls in general, which is what you claim. It means boys are treated worse than girls in this particular case in India. That said, you really should start reading your own references. Just above the one you posted about the abuse of boys, there's one about abuse of girls too: So it seems it's not a problem of boys being abused, but a problem of children being abused. Gee wizz. Equality? No! This is an exercise in futility. You are so closed minded to the idea that the world is not what exists in your own mind, that it doesn't seem to matter what anyone else says. You are making very very strong and infuriating points, Green Xenon. It's time you come out of your own perception and support them properly, or accept that you might have the wrong perception after all. Also, your tendency to skip claims that are uncomfortable for you to answer did not escape me (and I assume others). Intellectual honesty is a two-way street. ~mooey