A vent on arguments.

Here's some stuff to vent.

In general, if you're arguing against someone, you have to actually know what you're actually on about, otherwise you're effectively trolling.

If you're arguing against someone of a different worldview, you have to understand the other worldview. Remember that the assumptions are different. Even I do this. However, also remember that truth is objective, and that there's a possibility that you may both be wrong, let alone yourself.

Speaking of objective truth, if you see something contradictory to your experience, that's a good time to say "no, that's not the case."

You are not necessarily arguing on your grounds. Nor are you necessarily arguing on the opponent's grounds. You are arguing on the grounds of logic. Logic is a good thing, but as we're all human it's essentially guaranteed that you'll botch up your logic every once in a while; hence why the argument is not on your own grounds, as you can't change logic (it's a discovered thing, not an invented thing, but I guess some may have had it wrong in the process - this is purely a (calculated) guess, though).

Context is your friend unless you're a Youtube atheist. Why do I put it this way? Because Youtube is a "brilliant" place to whinge about anything and everything, and the average whinger, if religion is important, is probably an atheist. They're probably a "liberal", too, mostly because it just sounds good. This is an assumption, so if you're going to prove me wrong, I'd like some statistics. And the real thing, not just the inverse function analysis.

This is not an attack on all atheists on Youtube. Mostly just those who leave rather lame comments which have no citations whatsoever (and are in a similar key to this very sentence). A teacher told me in high school that "empty vessels make the most noise".

As Mark Twain allegedly said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Well, someone said it before me, because I read it somewhere!

Remind yourself of this phrase, as is:

Your opponent may make some rather strong claims [citation needed].

Seriously, if your opponent makes a "rather strong claim", ask where the evidence is. However, if you know what is talked about, and you know the evidence is contrary to what is spoken, you can point this out with the "no, that's not the case" manouver.

If you have to point out how rational you are, your motive for arguing is probably irrational.

Avoid "textbook liberal". Maybe you're right but it makes you sound like a bigot. This is what I would call "textbook liberal" (this is just an example, don't shoot me down for it):

Atheists are very arrogant. Anyone can see that they are in the wrong. You can't say that they play a necessary part in our society. There is absolutely no reason to listen to them.

I'm trying to remember this letter written in the paper by someone who I think is someone I know and it was embarrasingly "textbook liberal". Hint: the keywords are "anyone", "absolutely", and "you can't". (The letter was about that MP who was caught for spending a lot of taxpayer money on porn & stuff semi-recently in New Zealand, I forget his name but I believe he was a Labour MP.)

You might have quite a strong opinion. It's a good sign of your ability to stand for something, but it can also be quite dangerous. I look at Peter Hitchens' blog, and it's clear that there are opinions, although sometimes I shudder at some of the things which are said.

To look at his blog I've had to open up Lynx as for some weird reason the text doesn't appear to show up in Firefox (I've tried disabling adblockplus and I've got noscript in place, but to no avail). This is lynx, by the way (I accidentally took a screenshot without the window decorations, and no, this isn't on Linux, it's on FreeBSD):



This is probably a wording issue, but this is an example (and the only one I can see ATM):

The average squirrel could see that if you treat criminals of any kind with sympathy and kindness, you'll get more criminals.

I think I understand the thinking behind it, but that it was worded badly. A more appropriate way to put it would be that if you encourage people in their crime instead of trying to get them out, then you'll end up with more criminals, but this isn't what's written so I don't explicitly know what's meant.

However, I think that treating criminals with "tough love", I guess, would help cut down crime, contrary to what is explicitly written.

I suggest you read the blog overall, though, as yes, occasionally journalists get things wrong.

There seems to be an issue with people you don't really know and/or understand, the issue being that you don't know and/or understand them. I knocked homosexuals until I met at least one (well, bisexual anyway) on the internet. I was somewhat afraid of Muslims until I joined in a discussion with one about faith. It's at that point that you realise that there are wonderful people out there who are lost.

Having said that, I don't want to wait until tomorrow to go to bed, so good night and may God always be in reach.

$4 only gets you to Porirua if you're a kid

I'm posting this here as Facebrick is broken at the moment with respect to writing notes (read: they don't work... at all).

I've had it with drunkenness. As far as being on the receiving end of a drunk person, I haven't really had any issues. But twice I've encountered people from Porirua, at Wellington Station, needing a train ride home after getting smashed and losing their wallets. The last straw was walking home and seeing a girl crying her head off on the footpath, moving along and hearing a party at a house nearby.

It doesn't help that I go onto Facebrick and get an invite to some "Mardi Gras" in Oakune (I think there's supposed to be an "h" in there): "A night and morning of intense amounts of alcohol. Be there or be square." Pity Facebrick doesn't have a "No flippin' way" option. Or the most recent likes, like "Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a alcohol, LOL .. JK your just a slut. :)", "Being Too Honest When Your Drunk", and the not entirely related "Hey baby, wanna come over to myspace and twitter my yahoo til' i google all over your facebook? ;)".

Some time last year I was waiting at a bus stop and someone kinda begged me to use the money he was giving me to go to the bottle store over the road to buy some alcohol. I didn't, and I think the only way my butt was saved was that the boy was hungry and I had a bag, knowing it had an apple, and not knowing it had a couple of cookies in it, too.

There are several (IRL) groups called "Students Against Driving Drunk". I'd be keen to take it one further. We have this culture which says it's not OK to drink-drive, but perfectly fine if you get smashed in and you have someone who can take a hit for the team. That's kinda like walking on the handrail on a cliff: it may seem like you're OK, but if you slip wrong, you fall, and there's only two ways you can fall: back on, or way off.

Some of you may be saying that this is really only the extreme side of drinking. Y'know what? The line is drunk. Hit that line, and game over, you've lost control. Y'know what the extreme is? Dead. Not many hit that, but we can safely say that you'll only hit that once. People try to rationalise it, but the concept of getting drunk is stupid, and not even you can excuse yourself from this rule.

Some of you may be saying that it's all in fun. So's lighting your teacher on fire. But it's not fun anymore when you find that your teacher is dead, and neither is it fun when you've got a headache. (There is a bit of assumption there, but I've heard a bit about what it's like the morning after, and I do know how unfun a headache is.)

It's only a matter of time before I encounter a rape victim.

Right now, all I can say is lay off the booze and keep control of yourself. One drink shouldn't hurt but I can have fun without it.

Love.

I haven't touched this blog in several months despite having some stuff to say. Dunno why, really, other than preoccupation.

"I love you" is a powerful statement. It's also used very exclusively in our society. A man saying "I love you" to another man is most likely mistaken as homosexuality... or at least that's what it looks like - I haven't actually done any research into this, but there's an amazing amount of stuff which you think is going to sound different than how it actually turns out when you do it. It's amazing how we believe the lies crammed into our minds. Nevertheless, this is at least one of those fears.

What is love, anyway?

• Love is not the same thing as sexual intercourse. "Making love" is not necessarily done out of love.
• Love has many types. Only one type is exclusive to a single partner.
  
• Love is not "Baby don't hurt me".
  

I have a rule I go by: You're my friend, therefore I love you. This is provided that you're my friend. The thing is, you can become my friend very, very quickly, as despite being diagnosed with Asperger's, I like socialising.

BibleGateway.com released a list of the most frequently searched passages on their site, with 1 Corinthians 13 being the top of the list. This is one of my favourite passages (Hebrews 11 is another favourite of mine, and so is 1 John 5 - I tend to like entire chapters). I prefer the GNB translation of this passage to the NLT translation (I have a full GNB and recently obtained a New Testament NLT at Easter Camp this year), so I may stick with that.

The first three verses of this beautiful passage are essentially "I can X, but if I have no love, then it's all worthless". The next 4 verses are a list of characteristics of love. The next 3 are about how love is eternal and quite a bit based around it. Another verse is about growing up, and the verse after that is about how what we see will be completed. It finished with verse 13 (GNB): "Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love".

Seriously, pick up a bible and read this passage. (The KJV refers to it as charity.) What are you afraid of, anyway: finding that it may be the truth? Or experiencing God's love?

There's a lot of "out with the old, in with the new" stuff. People start revolutions. The problem is, if there's no love, if people undervalue the fundamental love that should come with friendship, everyone starts feeling like crap and then society degrades because basically everyone in society gets depressed. Some people think that the solution boils down to "legalise it". The thing is, subjective morality kicks in when you're trying to be weened off what feels like the only thing you've got.

However, there are deeper issues that need to be solved. I will raise two points for two different reasons.

One is pornography. Porn is incredibly nasty. It just sucks you in. I came out of the other end and I want to see this thing banned. However, outright banning it isn't going to fix the issue. People who are addicted need help, and there's nothing stopping them from making their own porn for personal use or at least playing porn through their mind. They need the fundamental love that comes (or at least should come) with friendship. And, quite frankly, I say they'd need Jesus' love, too.

The other is homosexuality. I am bringing this up because I want to see fellow "Christians" deal with this issue properly, rather than simply say that it should be banned and it's immoral and stuff like that, because that's not fixing the problem. I've heard something along the lines of "love the sinner, but hate the sin" somewhere before. There's a difference between tolerance and acceptance. My approach would be to accept the person, but tolerate their sexuality w/o actual acceptance in the hope that one day there will be a change of heart and they will realise that love itself is much more important than sex.

Seriously, having sex without love completely misses the point of sex. Same goes for heterosexuals, too.

Some people seem to insist that homosexuals were "born that way". This is most certainly due to the point I raised earlier: when people feel like someone's trying to ween them off the one thing they've got, their subjective morality kicks in. Of course, another thing I could raise is that we're a fallen creation and pretty much born sinners, so the argument of "born that way" does not make for an excuse to continue.

Now that I am pretty much in rant mode and really quite tired, I think I'll end this post here. I just had to express some stuff.