dutchroll

You clearly haven't seen my sister, or even worse, my mother-in-law, using Windows......... When you've converted your whole house to MacOS and still have to spend time searching the web for and installing drivers because your relative can't get the friggin Windows laptop working with a reasonably commonplace printer, and she asks "how come you just switch on your computer and it all just works?", you know Microsoft has made a mess of it.

It's probably fair to say that MacOS and Linux are "cousins". If you go to the command line interface MacOS quacks and acts pretty much like Unix. Windows however, is a bastard-child created by a clever and somewhat ruthless marketing man. I know he was aiming (quite successfully as it turned out) to conquer the PC market by making Windows "able to be made compatible with everything" but when the consequence of this is incessant fiddling and tweaking to get stuff to work correctly with it over a period of many years, I was bound to tire of it eventually!

Do what I did after 20 years of DOS/Windows tinkering and building my own PCs. Finally get fed up and buy a Mac.

Well he's certainly not talking about the NSW Central Coast.......

I agree, and I wish many more moderate Christians would speak out strongly against them, but alas, it tends not to flow that way (we clearly see this in Muslim culture too). There are a few too many who take the hands-off strategy, theorising that "yeah.....bit extreme.....but I guess he's still supporting my faith so I best not say anything".

This is a question brought up with monotonous regularity by Christian apologetics. If you don't follow the Bible, where do you get your morals from? I always answer this argument the same way: 1. Moral behaviour stems from the concept of "empathy", which is innate in most humans and we even observe it in some animals (especially the other primates). 2. It is strongly reinforced by your early upbringing as a child when you are learning behaviours towards others (e.g., stop teasing your brother, say please and thank you, etc etc). 3. If you can't behave morally as an adult without being re-instructed on how to do it every week, I'm very concerned for your future.

I don't think it's so much for not attending church. More for "unbelievers" in general. There's a long list of written and spoken words which condemn unbelievers to a horrible experience in hell after their death. Which is kind of weird when they don't believe hell exists anyway, so it's unclear to me why anyone would use this as leverage to force others to "discover God".

That's religious discussions for you! ;) Attempts to have humorous discussions about religion usually don't end well. Unless you were Dave Allen (comedian). He had the uncanny ability to always do it!

I arrived at it by myself after a strict Christian upbringing too. What first set me on that road was the incessant Sunday sermons which said the same thing over and over again, particularly continuously telling me how bad I was and that I couldn't possibly determine right from wrong without reference to the Bible. I thought "wow Reverend, you actually truly believe by virtue of the fact I'm here, that I'm a completely clueless twit who needs your divinely inspired guidance on literally everything, don't you? Ok, well that's easily fixed." So in my mid to late teens I released myself from the shackles and became free to muse about what we've discovered in the mysteries of life, the universe and everything, without needing to roll, pound and squish those musings into a shape which conformed to a book written by humans mostly in the First Century AD.

Seriously? Because someone doesn't believe there is a supreme deity casting their judgemental eye over everyone and condemning anyone at all who doesn't "follow" their word to a horrible death and eternal torture, they therefore don't believe in anything at all? Is that how the logic goes?

Yeah the statement of #3 alleging arrogance, coupled with the assertion in #1 that no prominent atheists (because that's effectively who he is calling "atheist leaders") have made scientific discoveries or fought for social change made me spit yet another mouthful of coffee all over my keyboard. Christopher Hitchens - a vocal advocate for the empowerment of women. Dawkins - introduced into evolutionary biology several ground-breaking concepts such as the role of phenotypes, etc. Stephen Hawking - not even worth commenting on lumping him in there. then among other prominent/famous atheists are: Alan Turing - famous for contributions to mathematics and computer science. Linus Pauling - the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and then the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting against atmospheric nuclear testing. Subrahmanyan Chandresehkar - Nobel Prize for Physics, space based orbiting X-ray observatory named after him. Richard Feynman - Nobel Prize for Physics, developed quantum electrodynamics. Carl Sagan - major contributions to the early robotic space exploration missions such as Pioneer and Voyager, designed experiments carried to the moon on the Apollo missions. Major contribution to humanist ideals. So the list goes on but to list them all would require listing the majority of the Nobel Laureates throughout history. And screw this guy. I'm refusing to omit Dave Gilmour, lead guitarist for Pink Floyd who is legendary for his philanthropy towards charities like Oxfam, various homeless charities and so on, and is a legendary musician!

1. It's not the theory of "Darwinian" evolution. It's simply the theory of evolution. 2. The demonstrable fact that bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics without any divine intervention is absolutely unshakeable evidence that evolution happens. Of course there is no reason to think it can't happen on larger scales too (albeit the larger the living organism, the longer time scale it requires to evolve). There is abundant evidence of this from multiple scientific disciplines right up to and including Genetics, where DNA analysis shows clear evidence of evolution occurring. 1. Which governmental atheism are you talking about exactly? Stalin is the main one who springs to mind, but he didn't kill people simply because he was an atheist. He killed because he was a ruthless dictator hungry to retain absolute power and it didn't matter what you believed in when it came to Stalin. He murdered a great many atheists and fellow communist party members as well as the religious. Simply put he got rid of anyone who threatened his power. Thus you can see this trait is independent of religious views. And just for interest, how many people do you think Stalin is estimated to have killed in the purges between 1933 and 1945? "Many tens of millions"? Is that your historical contention? Because it would be wrong by a pretty large factor. 2. "The most intolerant of all faiths". Yes, because ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria - haven't shown any substantial level of religious intolerance at all, have they? Well......aside from cutting off your head or shooting you if you don't conform to their religious manifesto. I think I'd rather spend 10 years in a Gulag than be decapitated.

The guy does not even make "arguments" so how can you make a "counter-argument"? He just makes a series of loose statements and accusations he asserts to be true. They don't even really follow on from each other. Very clever tactic though - write a loosely concocted essay of gibberish then pump your fists in the air proclaiming how no-one will counter your arguments. Maybe if you condense one or two of what you feel are his "stronger" arguments into a few logical and concise points, I might give it a shot. Other than that, simply reading it made my eye sockets hurt from the continuous eye-rolling. I, for one, am not upset about you bringing it up. Mildly amused, yes. Upset, no. ".....object to critical scrutiny of their faith". Lol. I wouldn't agree for a start that atheism is a "faith". Faith is a belief (generally without supporting evidence). The absence of a belief, which is essentially what atheism is, cannot therefore also be called "faith". Calling atheism a "faith" seems to have originated in religious circles in an attempt to show it as a belief without evidence, and thus a position of equal weakness to the religious one. That's not a point of view which makes much sense. However go ahead and critically scrutinise, but make the argument clear and concise. Don't just quote bible verses.

#5 - Who? #4 - What? #3 - Why? #2 - How? #1 - Where?

The problem is that you're thinking rationally about relative risks. People who are seduced by the lure of big money, or who are desperate for one reason or another, do not think rationally when it comes to risk-taking. We see this time and time again.

Under the Extradition Act, the Attorney General can only authorise extradition to another country if the accused will not face a "real risk" of being subject to the death penalty. In other words, if you're already in Australia, you won't face the death penalty. If you're arrested in another country though, all bets are off.

That interpretation of FH's post is one of the most enormous leaps of logic I have ever seen on this forum.

The U.S. State Department had a problem with it and called the case "astonishing". The White House Homeland Security advisor called the case "reprehensible". The Canadian Government described the case as "barbaric". She was sentenced to the lashes originally because she was in the presence of a man who wasn't her relative (he was trying to blackmail her and she was trying to negotiate with him), just prior to being gang-raped by 7 men during an organised kidnapping. Her sentence was increased to 200 lashes and she was deprived of further legal representation because her lawyer appealed the original sentence. The judge explained that by appealing, she was attempting to "aggravate and influence the judiciary" and was irritated that the woman's and lawyer's comments were reported in the media. The rapists themselves were only convicted of kidnapping, because the judge decided to ignore the mobile phone video they took of the actual gang rape. You really don't have a problem with the Saudi Government's attitude (which was that everything is perfectly fine) to any of this?

The account of the Saudi woman being flogged after being raped is absolutely correct and back in 2007 was widely reported around the world, even eliciting critical comments from the U.S. State Department. The "UnNews" version is a satirical take on the factual case. I'm not sure what your point is.

Yes I agree with that Turbo. Their laws are their laws and we cannot change the laws of a sovereign country. For example in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen, being gay is punishable by death. But I think more people (that's not a reference to anyone here - I'm talking generally) should grow the balls to severely criticise them on simple, basic principles of humanity rather than "washing their hands" of it.

You could agree that the Indonesian view reeks of extreme hypocrisy. For example, how many people are aware that the Indonesians have spent millions (literally) to get their own citizens off death row in other countries? Those examples have even been in the news, and you can look them up too, yet so many don't notice while expressing their support for how the Indonesians are applying the death penalty, particularly to foreigners. Sorry for being so blunt on this thread, but I'm surprised at how much judgement people will pass in favour of the death penalty while knowing little about the appallingly inconsistent manner in which these countries apply it, the horrific way in which these executions often take place, and even the costs associated with it. Does anyone know that in the USA for example, seeking the death penalty imposes an extra financial cost on the justice system ranging from around 50% more to 300% more? In California, the cost of imprisonment since 1974 is about $1 billion. The cost of death penalty cases was $4 billion. A study by a Judge and a University Professor found that the State could save $5 billion over 20 years by commuting death sentences to life imprisonment! Don't misunderstand me though - I'm not some do gooder type who wants a day of mourning or some ridiculous memorial for the Bali 9 duo. Setting up scholarships or the likes in their name is just stupidity. However if we're talking about executions and the death penalty, my vehement general opposition will be expressed. There are just so many things wrong about it.

I'm asking for a coherent argument to be presented and expressing my frustration at the complete absence of one. "Kill the b*stards", which essentially paraphrases several points of view here, is not a coherent argument for the death penalty. Let's just say it's not very sophisticated.

War is no different from the death penalty? You can't be serious. The only common thing they have is that people die. Other than that they are completely different. War is usually fought in defence (for one side at least). The death penalty is imposed as a punishment after a trial (or something only vaguely resembling a trial in most death penalty countries). That people support the death penalty when it is plainly obvious that most death sentences are imposed by corrupt judicial systems (if a trial is given at all) and are skewed towards particular demographics, beggars belief, if you ask me. "What's that? Your system of law is inherently corrupted and biased, but you want to execute people anyway? Oh sure......I can't see any problem there. Sounds good to me!" Have people actually gone barking mad, or are they just ignorant?

You admit that it seems wrong, but still you appear to support it? How does that work?

So......a 23 year old married girl of Iranian descent is in an abusive relationship and is in Iran visiting relatives. She briefly falls for a guy there. She gets sprung kissing him privately. That's adultery in Iran. The sentence for a woman committing adultery in Iran is death. The 23 year old woman is duly buried in dirt up to her neck, and a crowd is formed to pelt rocks at her head until her bloodied, smashed in head stops moving and she is dead. Stiff sh*t? Are you so devoid of empathy for human beings that you don't give a cr*p about such situations that can occur in these countries? Right, so it's risky and therefore a few executed people who didn't actually commit any crime and/or were convicted by corrupt justice systems is fine? I don't like the way it's done in the USA, so I should avoid ever going there to visit my sister and her disabled son? If you guys are going to make these grossly over-simplified arguments in favour of execution, at least attempt to make them reasonable and sensible (if that is indeed possible).